A STUDY OF ENGLISH PROSE WRITERS A LABORATORY METHOD BY J. SCOTT CLARK AUTHOR OF "A PRACTICAL RHETORIC," ETC., AND PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY " Le Style c'est l'/iomie." BUFFON " The whole art of criticism consists in learning to know the human being who is partially revealed to us in his written and spoken words." LESLIE STEPHEN NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1898 COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK STACK ANNEX To A MAN AND A IV OMAN WHO DENIED THEMSELVES A THOUSAND LUXURIES AND MANY COMFORTS THAT THEY MIGHT GIVE THEIR CHILDREN A LIBERAL EDUCATION THIS VOLUME IS REVERENTLY INSCRIBED BY ONE OF THE CHILDREN TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE FRANCIS BACON ....... i JOHN MILTON ........ 20 JOHN BUNYAN ........ 50 JOSEPH ADDISON ..... .82 RICHARD STEELE . . . . . 117 DANIEL DEFOE ....... 143 JONATHAN SWIFT . . . . . . .168 OLIVER GOLDSMITH . . . . . . -199 SAMUEL JOHNSON ....... 236 EDMUND BURKE . . . . . . ' 282 CHARLES LAMB ....... 323 WALTER SCOTT ....... 353 THOMAS DE QUINCEV . . . . . . 391 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY .... 420 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY .... 455 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN ...... 492 MATTHEW ARNOLD . . . . . . .507 THOMAS CARLYLE . . . . . . -524 VI TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE GEORGE ELIOT . . . . . . -570 CHARLES DICKENS ....... 607 JOHN RUSKIN ...... . 648 WASHINGTON IRVING 693 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE . . . . . -725 RALPH WALDO EMERSON ...... 768 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL ...... 800 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 837 PREFACE IT is generally admitted by teachers of English that, aftei one has learned to avoid the common violations of clearness, force, precision, and the other requisites of good style, he may best improve his own use of the mother-tongue by studying the English classics. But how is one to study the English classics so as to obtain positive and appreciable results? This volume represents an attempt to answer that question. It cer- tainly has not been answered satisfactorily either by the nu- merous text-books on English Literature or by the countless editions of English classics "with notes." To memorize bi- ographical data or the mere generalities and negations of crit- icism, or to trace out obscure allusions or doubtful meanings, is certainly not to study a writer in any broad or fruitful way. While the method here offered may not be ideal, it is not merely theoretical. It has been rigidly and continuously tested in the author's class-room during the last eleven years, by means of extracts from a partially developed manuscript, printed privately for the use of his pupils. The results thus obtained seem to warrant him in presenting the method for the use, or at least for the criticism, of his fellow -teachers. In a word, the method consists in determining the partic- ular and distinctive features of a writer's style (using the term style in its wide sense), in sustaining that analysis by a very wide consensus of critical opinion, in illustrating the particular characteristics of each writer by voluminous and carefully selected extracts from his works, and in then requiring the pupil to find in the works of the writer parallel illustrations. The method has grown out of dissatisfaction with results ob- Vlll PREFACE tained under the old methods of teaching English and out of the conviction that such a revolution as has taken place in the study of all branches of natural science during the last quarter century is both possible and necessary in the study of English. Just as the pupil has come to study oxygen and electricity and protoplasm and not merely what someone has said about these, so he must learn to study the masterpieces of style them- selves and not merely what someone has said about them. Moreover, as the student of chemistry, physics, or biology, must have a hand-book or a set of tables to show him how to go to work, so the student of English classics must have a hand-book to show him how to go to work. This volume is offered as such a hand-book. It is a plausible objection to the method here presented that it is unscientific because it seems to apply the old scholastic dictum : " First learn what is to be believed," and follows a deductive rather than an inductive order. The reply is that the pupil must have some guidance, and that "everyone knows more than anyone." It is believed that the consensus of criticism here offered is sufficiently wide to annul any charge of mere individual preference. To ask an ordinary undergraduate to study an English classic without giving him some specific working directions, is as fruitless as to ask him to fly. Moreover, it will be seen that the method is really inductive and scientific ; for the pupil is urged to find in his author any other distinctive characteristic for which he can discover clear illustrations besides those named in the analysis. After a class has had sufficient experience in following the method here presented, it may be wise and feasible to ask them to do independent critical work. But born critics are as rare as born chemists. Among the results obtained from the use of the method here presented are an increase in the breadth, accuracy, and idio- matic character of the pupil's vocabulary ; the development, in the pupil's style, of such graces as chaste imagery, suspense, PREFACE IX point, smoothness, rhythm, and a greater predominance of the Anglo-Saxon element ; the development of an intelligent crit- ical habit ; and last, but perhaps most important, the creation of a real hunger for the best literature and the initiation of the pupil into the real life and spirit of the great masters of style. The central idea of the book is found in the quotation from Leslie Stephen given on the title-page : " The whole art of criticism consists in learning to know the human being who is partially revealed to us in his written and spoken words." The biographical outline prefixed to the discussion of each writer is intended simply as a means of review, that the reader may get the historical bearing, so to speak, before beginning his critical work. Those who desire more minute biographies will find them in the encyclopaedias. The biographies of most of the earlier writers are based on Leslie Stephen's inval- uable "Biographical Dictionary;" the later ones are based on a careful review of the respective writer's published corre- spondence. The bibliographies also prefixed to the several discussions are the result of some research. No subject needs the services of the professional bibliographer more than criticism, yet hitherto it has been strangely and almost entirely neglected. In the nature of the case, the best criticism is not to be found in complete volumes nor even in complete chapters or para- graphs. It is scattered sparsely throughout a vast amount of biography and general comment, and is generally found in books whose titles give no hint of critical contents. It is hoped that the bibliographies here given will be found both helpful and somewhat exhaustive. Every book listed has been conscientiously examined, besides a vast number of volumes and periodical articles whose titles seemed to promise possible criticism, but which were found to contain only biography or the generalities and negations of criticism. Only those books and articles are listed that contain positive and specific criti- cism. In general, the arrangement of books is somewhat in X PREFACE the order of their critical importance. In determining the con- sensus of opinion as to the characteristics of any writer, the attempt has been to quote the most eminent critics; but the author has not hesitated to quote from comparatively obscure commentators whenever the criticisms offered by such have been found clear and happy in expression. Both the crit- ical comments and the illustrations have been taken directly from the original sources. While this volume is not intended for use without constant reference to the works of the writers respectively treated, and while it is intended, primarily, as a text-book for advanced pupils in English, it is believed that it will be found not de- void of interest to the general reader, even if used without reference to companion volumes of general literature. In conclusion, the author desires to acknowledge his in- debtedness to the late Dr. William F. Poole, of revered mem- ory, and to his successor, Mr. John Vance Cheney, for cour- tesies extended in the Newbury Library of Chicago ; to Mr. Ernst Hild, Librarian of the Chicago Public Library, and to his assistant, Miss Elliott, for similar courtesies ; to the Rev. E. W. Mundy, Librarian of the Central Library of Syracuse, New York ; to Miss Mary B. Lindsay, Librarian of the Evan- ston, 111., Public Library; to Miss Lodilla Ambrose, Assist- ant Librarian of Northwestern University ; to the members of the English language "seminary" classes at Northwestern during the last two years, who have given material aid in veri- fying the bibliographies, and to his sister and faithful aman- uensis, Mrs. Alice Clark Greene. It can hardly be expected that the following pages are free from errors. They have been prepared during the rare mo- ments and hours snatched from years of almost slavish toil in the most exacting of professions, while subject to constant in- terruption and in the midst of unpropitious circumstances. If, in spite of possible errors, the book shall serve in any degree to arouse in other pupils the interest and the " noble hunger " PREFACE xi that have been thus aroused in his own, the author's end will be attained. If warranted by the reception given to the present volume, the author purposes to supplement it, in the near future, with two others ; one treating in a similar manner the style of twenty-five English and American poets of the first rank and the other devoted primarily to Shakespeare and secondarily to a concise treatment of many poets and prose writers of lower rank. Most of the material for these addi- tional volumes is already in hand. J. S. C. NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, Evanston, 111., June, 1898. SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS WHILE the author does not assume to teach the teachers who may use this volume as a text-book, it is hoped that a detailed statement of the method of use found most fruitful in his own classes will not appear pedantic. In order to attain the ends enumerated in the preface, it has been his custom to assign beforehand to each member of a class a specific section of some work of the particular writer to be studied at the time and to give the following directions to pupils : 1. Read carefully the section assigned to you, and observe critically every word, neither very long nor obsolete, that im- presses you as not found in the vocabularies of ordinary writers and speakers, especially such words as do not belong to your own habitual vocabulary. Select the best ten such words and write them after the figure i in your class report, which is to be left on the instructor's desk at the opening of the class session. 2. Observe carefully every case of especial accuracy or deli- cacy in the use of words, and record the best five cases oppo- site the figure 2 in your class report, giving enough of the context in every case to make the accuracy or delicacy ap- parent. 3. Observe every distinct idiom, and record, opposite the figure 3, your best five cases. 4. Observe every rhetorical figure, and index opposite the figure 4, the page and line where each of the best five figures is to be found. 5. Index, opposite the figure 5, the best three cases of sus- pense (rhetorical period) to be found in your section. 6. Index, opposite the figure 6, the best three cases of point (epigram, antithesis, balance, etc.), if such be found. 7. Index, opposite the figure 7, the best three cases of smooth connection found. Observe especially the connec- tion between paragraphs. SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS xiii 8. Index, opposite the figure 8, the best three cases of sim- plicity, if such be found. Define simplicity, for this purpose, as the use of easy conversational words and constructions. 9. Index, opposite the figure 9, the best three cases of rhythm, if such be found. Rhythm is "an element of pro- portion in language" it is always an essential element of eloquence. 10. Now determine, approximately, the percentage of An- glo-Saxon words employed by the given writer, in the follow- ing manner : Add the whole number of words on any full page, taken at random, and use the sum for the denominator of a fraction. Then add the words on that page that are not apparently derived from Latin or Greek, and use the sum as the numerator of your fraction ; now reduce the fraction to decimal terms, and the result will be the approximate one sought. Of course, the accuracy of the result thus obtained will depend on the pupil's knowledge of foreign languages, but the ordinary college student knows enough of Latin, at least, to make the exercise practical and beneficial. Now read carefully the analysis of the writer under consid- eration, to be found in this volume, until you shall have gained, from the comments and illustrations, a clear idea of each of his peculiar characteristics. Then review the section assigned you from the writer's works, find there the best illus- trations you can of each of the characteristics, and index in your class report the best illustrations found for each point, numbering according to the numbers given in the text-book. If your section does not afford illustrations of all the particu- lar characteristics, obtain these from any of the writer's other works available, so far as you have time. Finally, copy at the end of your class report at least one hundred words consisting of the finest, brightest expressions and short passages to be found in what you have read. If an average of forty i2mo pages from any writer be as- signed to every pupil, the ordinary college upper-classman will accomplish the work outlined above in about five hours of faithful work. The work may be divided and considered at two or more class sessions, or the complete reports may be considered at one time and credit be given accordingly. The recitation-hour is occupied in comparing the various pupils' reports, listening to several illustrations of each of the particular characteristics, emphasizing the best cases under the XIV SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS ten general characteristics, and in answering many questions incident to the discussion. The method in general has never failed to stimulate interest. Selections are made at every class session from the words reported under the first general head (see directions to pupils on pages xiii and xiv), and an attempt is made to fix these words in the vocabulary of every member of the class by requiring written exercises involving the accurate use of the selected words in sentences invented by the pupils. One difficulty confronts the teacher who would have his pupils study the English classics by this or any other method"; namely, the lack of proper material in duplicate. To use a scientific, that is a laboratory method, one must have mate- rial corresponding in variety and duplication to that provided at each table in a chemical laboratory ; but few school-boards are yet willing to give to the English teacher equal facilities with his chemical or biological colleague. The use of the or- dinary book of " selections " is a delusion and a snare. As well get an idea of the Atlantic from examining a pint bottle of its water. Three methods of meeting the exigency have been em- ployed by the author ; none fruitless, but of varying value. First, one may have each pupil obtain a cheap edition of some complete work of every writer to be studied during a given term, and may then assign the same in sections, duplicat- ing sections according to circumstances. The large list of very cheap editions of detached works published within recent years makes this plan feasible without unduly burdening the pupil by the expense. Many years' use of this method has proved its practicability. The only serious objection lies in the fact that, often, no single work of a writer gives a suffi- ciently broad view of his style. For example, characteristics of Goldsmith to be found plentifully in his plays and essays are not found in " The Vicar of Wakefield." Of course, the ideal and the just way would be for the school to own the works required, in sufficient duplicate, and then to charge, if necessary, a small fee, as is done in the laboratories of science, for the use and wear of the books. The second method is to have each pupil own the complete works of some one writer to be studied and then to rotate the same through the class. This method secures the broad view lacking in the first, but it is cumbrous, sometimes irritating, and it makes concentration SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS XV in the class-room impossible ; since no two pupils may be studying the same writer at the same time. The third and by far the best method yet found involves more preliminary work than may, perhaps, be expected of every teacher. A set of books large enough to accommodate his present and prob- able classes has been made by the author by taking the com- plete works of each of the twenty-six writers here treated, in sufficient duplications to make an average of about forty pages for every pupil, separating these into sections, and reminding them strongly. The result is a series of volumes, each differ- ent from the rest, numbered consecutively, and all together including the complete works of every writer to be studied. These books are owned by the teacher or by the school, and are leased to the pupil for a small fee, sufficient to keep the books in repair. Thus the class have, as a whole, the widest view of the writer's style, and the objections to the first two methods are met. The first method suggested is practicable and, on the whole, very satisfactory. The second is hardly to be recommended ; the third is almost ideal. BACON, 1561-1626 Biographical Outline. FRANCIS BACON, born at York House, London, January 22, 1561 ; father Lord Keeper of the Great Seal ; mother a fine classical scholar and a sister of the wife of William Cecil (Lord Treasurer Burghley). Bacon enters Trinity College, Cambridge, in April, 1573 (aged twelve), and leaves in March, 1575; is admitted to Gray's Inn in the same year ; becomes connected with the English embassy to France in 1576, and remains abroad till the death of his father, in 1579 ; returns to London soon afterward, finds his inheritance to be meagre, and seeks political preferment through his uncle, Burghley ; continues his legal studies, and is admitted as " utter barrister" in 1582 ; in November, 1584, is elected member of parliament for Melcombe-Regis, through Burghley's influence ; in 1584-85 Bacon writes his " Letter of Advice to Queen Elizabeth," urging moderation in the treat- ment of the Catholics ; in the parliament of 1586 sits for Taun- ton, and becomes a bencher of Gray's Inn during the same year; in 1589 sits for Liverpool, and writes "An Advertise- ment Touching the Controversies of the Church of England ' ' (not published till 1640), again advocating religious tolera- tion ; forms a close friendship with the Earl of Essex in 1591 due to the Earl's warm admiration of Bacon, and to Bacon's desire to "employ" the Earl; in 1592 writes "Certain Ob- servations," etc., a defence of the queen's government; sits for Middlesex in 1593. and leads the opposition against a proposal of the Lords demanding joint discussion of certain proposed subsidies to the queen, thus displeasing Burghley, and so angering Elizabeth that she refuses to see Bacon or to listen to his application for the attorney-generalship, 2 BACON though Essex warmly espoused his cause ; Bacon first appears in a legal case in 1594, and wins distinction and the approval of Burghley; seeks the solicitor-generalship in 1595, but de- clines to apologize to Elizabeth for his parliamentary freedom of speech, and so is refused the office ; in his quest for both these offices Bacon deliberately sacrifices his personal advancement to his conscientious convictions of right ; Essex, disappointed by Bacon's failure to secure the office, forces on him a gift of land in Twickenham Park, which Bacon afterward sold (or 1,800 ; in 1595 Bacon expresses, in a letter to Essex, a wish to retire from the practice of law and to devote himself to phi- losophy, but about that time is engaged by the queen as one of her learned counsel ; in 1596 Bacon advises Essex (then just returned from his Spanish victories) to convince the queen that he (Essex) is not a dangerous person by shunning further military enterprises and by refusing to cultivate popularity with the people; publishes his " Essays" in 1595 ; seeks to become Master of the Rolls in 1597, in order to improve his desperate financial condition ; sits for Southampton in 1597 ; attempts, unsuccessfully, to make a statesman of Essex ; is ar- rested for debt in September, 1598; Essex loses the favor of Elizabeth by his failure in the Irish campaign ; Bacon attempts to mediate between Essex and the queen, and only offends both ; at the informal trial of Essex, in 1600, Bacon makes a show of severi ty toward Essex, hoping thus to secure the favor of the queen and so, eventually, to help Essex ; Essex is for- bidden to appear at court, and proceeds to concoct a wild scheme of seizing the court and inaugurating a revolution ; in February, 1601, the project fails, Essex is imprisoned, and Bacon is appointed, with others, to investigate the revolt ; Bacon aids in securing the conviction of Essex, who is exe- cuted (Bacon's apologists attempt to justify his action on the ground of Essex's open treason and Bacon's duty to the state) ; during the parliaments of 1601 and 1602 Bacon advocates restrictions on monopolies and both political and religious BACON 3 toleration toward the Irish ; is knighted by James in 1603; during 1604 publishes his "Apology Concerning the Late Earl of Essex," and addresses to James a paper on the Union of Scotland and England and one on "The Pacification and Edification of the Church of England," the latter again urging religious toleration ; attempts conciliation between James and the Commons in the parliament of 1604 ; is ap- pointed one of the English commissioners to discuss the terms of union with Scotland, and receives, in 1604, a royal pension of 60 a year; in October, 1605, publishes his "Advance- ment of Learning; " in May, 1606, marries Alice Barnham, daughter of a former sheriff of London and step-daughter of Sir John Packington ; in June, 1606, Bacon asks the king for the solicitor-generalship; is promised that office in 1607, when the then incumbent, Doderidge, should have been removed ; in the parliament of 1606 Bacon champions the measures of the plan of union with Scotland, advocating free commercial intercourse and mutual citizenship in either country ; becomes solicitor- general June 25, 1607, at a salary of ; i, ooo (equal to ^4,000 now) ; becomes a strong supporter of James, and preaches very conservative doctrine ; in 1608 Bacon sets down his " Com- mentariiis Solutus" being private memoranda of his great projects in science and politics and of his plans for personal advancement the most complete revelation of Bacon's true character in existence; during 1608 writes also "In Felicem ^^^^noriam Elizabeths" and "A Discourse on the Plantation of Ireland," the latter addressed to James; during 1609 Bacon works on his ' ' Instauratio MagnaJ ' and addresses to friends his " Cogitata et Visa" and his " De Sapientia Veterum , " in 1612 publishes a new edition of his " Essays," adding " On Deformity," a reflection on the character of Salisbury, Bacon's long-time opponent, then recently deceased ; seeks vainly to secure Salisbury's place as Master of the Wards; addresses frequent state papers to the king, urging political and religious toleration and proposing measures that would, doubtless, have 4 BACON avoided the Revolution ; Bacon becomes attorney-general in 1613, and is so respected by the Commons that they waive their rule forbidding an attorney-general to sit in the house ; Bacon sides with James in his quarrel with Coke over the pre- rogative of the judges, appears as the chief prosecutor of Somer- set, and warmly supports Villiers (Buckingham) ; becomes a privy councillor in 1616 and Lord Keeper of the Seals in 1617 ; writes his " New Atlantis " (never completed) between 1614 and 1617 ; imperils his position, in 1617, by protesting to James against the marriage of Coke's daughter to Buckingham; becomes Lord Chancellor January 17, 1618, and is raised to the peerage July 12, 1618 ; exhibits great energy and judicial fairness in his office of Chancellor ; in 1618, 1619, and 1620 Bacon engages in the prosecution of Sir Walter Raleigh, Suf- folk, and Yelverton ; proposes, in the parliament of 1620, the withdrawal of certain obnoxious patents ; publishes his " No- vum Organum" October 12, 1620 ; on his sixtieth birth-day, January 22, 1621, receives the homage of Ben Jonson, and is made Viscount St. Albans six days later ; is attacked by Coke, Cranfield, and others in the parliament of 1621 for his support of unpopular monarchical measures, and is made a scape-goat for James, Buckingham, and their supporters; is charged in the Commons by one Aubrey and again by one Egerton with accepting bribes while Chancellor, his accusers being men against whom Bacon had decided ; the complaint is brought before the Lords, supplemented with charges made by Lady Wharton, who had paid money directly into Bacon's hands, and had received a crushing sentence soon afterward (Bacon's apologists explain his conduct on the ground that, according to the custom of the day, presents might be received from suitors ; but they admit that, by taking a gift while Lady Wharton's case was pending, Bacon was indiscreet if not crim- inally guilty) ; Bacon pleads guilty, and begs that his pun- ishment may be limited to the loss of his office ; he is fined ^40,000, is ordered imprisoned during the king's pleasure, BACON 5 is disabled from sitting in parliament, and is forbidden to come near the court ; after t\vo weeks in the Tower, Bacon is released, his fine is so adjusted as to relieve him from financial embarrassment, and, eventually, he is allowed to come to court; completes his " History of Henry VII." in October, 1621 ; in 1623 publishes the Latin translation of his " Advancement of Learning " under the title " De Augmentis Scientiarum /" applies in vain for the provostship of Eton in 1623 and for a full pardon in 1625 ; continues to work on his " Instauratio Magna," though seriously interrupted by ill-health; dies April 9, 1626, at the home of Lord Arundel, his illness being occasioned by exposure while performing a scientific experi- ment. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON BACON'S STYLE. Minto, \V., "English Prose Literature." Edinburgh, 1886, Macmillan, 244-255- Hazlitt, W., " Dramatic Literature of the Reign of Elizabeth. " London, 1882, Bell, 174-181. Church, R. W., " English Men of Letters" (Bacon). New York, 1884, Harper, 198-214. Macaulay, T. B., "Essays" (Miscellaneous Works). New York, 1880, Harper, 2 : 330-458. Hazlitt, \V., Miscellaneous Works." Philadelphia, 1869, Claxton, R. & H., 174-181. Nicoll, H. J., "Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1883, Appleton, 89-94. . Taine, H., "History of English Literature." New York, 1875, Holt, I: 244-252. Whipple, E. P., " Literature of the Age of Elizabeth." Boston, 1884, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., I: 278-340. Collier, W. F. , " History of English Literature." London, 1892, Nel- son, 155-161. Lord, J., "Beacon Lights of History." London, Blackwoods, 1886, 3: 417-458. Whipple, E. P., "Outlooks." Boston, 1888, Ticknor & Co., 300- 305- 6 BACON Saintsbury, G., "History of Elizabethan Literature." New York, 1887, Macmillan, 207-214. Disraeli, I., "Amenities of Literature." New York, 1874, W. J. Wid- dleton, 2 : 322-324. Fuller, Thomas, "Worthies." Boston, 1869, Fields, 2: 422. Morris, G. S., "British Thought." Chicago, 1880, S. C. Griggs & Co., 114-140. Stoughton, J., "Worthies of Science." London, n. d., Religious Tract Society, 45-66. Washburn, E. W., 'Studies in Early English Literature." New York, 1882, Putnams, 188-219. Wotton, M. E., " Word Portraits." London, 1887, Bentley & Son, 10-12. Spedding, J., "Francis Bacon and His Times." Boston, 1878, Hough- ton, Osgood & Co., v. index. Fischer, E. K. B., " Bacon." London, 1857, Longmans, 1-37. Dixon, W. H., " Life of Bacon." London, 1862, John Murray. Lucas, S., " Mornings of the Recess." London, 1864, Tinsley Bros., i: 179-223. Abbott, E. A., "Life and Works of Bacon." London, 1885, Macmillan, 447-457- Lovejoy, B. G., " Francis Bacon." Boston, 1883, Estes & Lauriat, v. index. Dixon, W. H., "Life of Bacon." London, 1862, John Murray. Adams, W. H. D., " Records of Noble Lives." London, 1872, Nelson, 53-100. Knight, C., "Gallery of Portraits." London, 1837, C. Knight & Co., 7: 177-184. Hunt, T. W., " Representative English Prose." New York, 1887, Arm- strong, 217-230. Hallam, H., "Introduction to the Literature of Europe." New York, 1886, Armstrong, 217-230. Philips, M. G., "A Manual of English Literature." New York, 1893, Harper, 253-285. Welsh, A. H., " Development of English Literature." Chicago, 1884, Griggs, I : 456-472- Stephen, L., " Dictionary of National Biography." New York, 1885, Macmillan, 2: 328-361. Mitford, Miss M. R., " Recollections of a Literary Life." New York, 1852, Harper, 547-548. Lodge, E., "Portraits." London, 1850, Bohn, 3: 187-194. Devey, J., "Bacon's Essays, with Introduction." London, 1890, Bell, xxviii-xxiz. BACON 7 Nichol, John, " Francis Bacon, His Life and Philosophy." Edinburgh, 1889, Blackwood, 1-249. Craik, G. L., "Bacon, His Writings and Philosophy." London, 1844. North American Review, 61 : 351-374 (Brazer) ; 68: 402 (A. P. Pea- body); 65: I77(W. B. Peabody); 74: 84 (W. S. Low); 93: 149 (H. Giles); 29: 76 (A. H. Everett); 41: 386 (Everett). Edinburgh Revieiv, 113: 159-177; 27: 180; 36: 220-267 (Mackin- tosh); 150:395; 106: 151; 168. Contemporary Revie-ii>, 27: 653-821 (J. Spedding); 28: 141 (E. A. Ab- bott) ; 28 : 169-190 and 365-562 (J. Spedding). Atlantic Monthly, 51 : 507 (R. G. White); 43: 542-543; 22: 476- 573- Quarterly Review, 99: 287-331 ; 6l : 462. Blackwood' s Magazine, 93 : 480-499 ; 3 : 657. Eclectic Review, IOO : 672-689 (J. Devey). Bentley's Miscellany, 26 : 84-95 (Cheirurgus). New Englander, 10 : 333-374 (D. A. Wasson). The Dial (Chicago), 6 : 118-120 (M. B. Anderson). PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS. I. Extreme Conciseness. It is doubtful whether any other English writer has equalled Bacon in the power of con- densation. In the words of Alexander Smith, "His sen- tences bend beneath the weight of his thought like a branch beneath the weight of its fruit." Saintsbury attributes Ba- con's "curt severity" to the influence of Montaigne. We have received from Bacon a large number of sententious phrases and apothegms, which have become common property. " His sayings," says Hazlitt, " have the effect of axioms, and are at once striking and self-evident." He has been called "stimulating beyond the recorded power of any other man except Socrates." " The severe terseness of the style of the ' Essays,' in which every sentence is packed with as much matter as it can pos- sibly hold, makes their intelligent perusal at first a task of 8 BACON some difficulty ; but fresh perusals reveal their inexhaustible wealth of matter. "Jf. J. Nicoll. " His works combine the greatest brevity with the greatest beauty of expression ; . . . each thought is so truly an addition and not an expansion of the preceding." E. P. Whipple. ' ' These short papers say what they have to say without preface and in literary undress, without a superfluous word, without the joints and bands of structure ; they say it in brief, rapid sentences, which come down, sentence after sentence, like the strokes of a great hammer. No wonder that, in their disdainful brevity, they seem rugged and abrupt. . . . He had more than once expressed his preference for the form of aphorism over the argumentative and didactive continuity of a set discourse. . . . These aphorisms are meant to strike, to awaken questions, to disturb prejudices, to let light into a nest of unsuspected intellectual confusions and self- misunderstandings, to be the mottoes and watchwords of many a laborious and difficult inquiry." R. W. Church. " Instead of explaining his idea, he transposes and trans- lates it, translates it entire, to the smallest details, enclosing all in the majesty of a grand period or in the brevity of a striking sentence. Thence springs a style of admirable rich- ness, gravity, and vigor ; now solemn and symmetrical, now concise and piercing, always elaborate and full of color. There is nothing in English prose superior to his diction. . . . Shakespeare and the seers do not contain more vig- orous or expressive condensations of thought, more resembling inspiration, and in Bacon they are to be found everywhere. On the whole, his process is that of the creators ; it is intu- ition, not reasoning. When he has laid up his store of facts, the greatest possible, on some vast subject, on some entire province of the mind, on the whole anterior philosophy, on the general condition of the sciences, on the power and limits of human reason, he casts over all this a comprehensive BACON 9 view, as it were a great net, brings up a universal idea, con- denses his idea into a maxim, and hands it to us with the words, ' Verify and profit by it.' ' Taine. "His phrases have the effect of axioms, and are at once striking and self-evident. . . . His style is equally sharp and sweet, flowing and pithy, condensed and expansive, express- ing volumes in a sentence or amplifying a single thought into pages of rich, glowing, and delightful eloquence." Hazlitt. " He had a wonderful talent for packing thought close and rendering it portable." Macaulay. " Of all the productions in the English language, Bacon's Essays contain the most matter in the fewest words." \VJiatdy. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth." Of Truth. " Revenge triumphs over death ; love slights it ; honor aspireth to it ; grief flieth to it ; fear preoccupateth it." Of Death. " Children sweeten labors, but they make misfortunes more bitter ; they increase the cares of life, but they mitigate the re- membrance of death." Of Parents and Children. " Nuptial love maketh mankind, friendly love perfecteth it, but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it." Of Love. " Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success." Of Youth and Age. " Men in great place are thrice servants servants of the sov- ereign of state, servants of fame, and servants of business ; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their ac- tions, nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and lose liberty ; or to seek power over others and to lose power over a man's self." Of Great Place. IO BACON 2. Clear Analysis and Arrangement. Bacon is careful to define the terms of his subject and to make a clear and logical arrangement of his theme. In comparing him with Jeremy Taylor, Saintsbury speaks of Bacon's superior sense of order and proportion. Hazlitt calls him "the sur- veyor, not the builder of the fabric of science." "As a rule, Bacon's paragraphs are very good ; he has a sense of method and good arrangement. . . . In perspi- cuity of arrangement he is much superior to any of the Eliza- bethan writers. . . . The divisions are so clear and proceed upon distinctions so familiar that, though the sub- divisions be carried to the eighth degree, there is not the least perplexity to any mind of ordinary education." Will- iam Minto. " The writings of Bacon are as clear as they are profound." Whately. "It is in the Essays alone that the mind of Bacon is brought into contact with the mind of ordinary readers. There he talks to plain men, in language that everybody understands, about things in which everybody is interested." Macaulay. ILLUSTRATIONS. " I take goodness in this sense, the affecting of the weal of men, which is what the Grecians call ' philanthropia '/ and the word humanity (as it is used) is a little too light to express it."- Of Goodness. " We will speak of nobility first as a portion of an estate, then as a condition of particular persons." Of Nobility. " But leaving these curiosities (though not unworthy to be thought on in fit place), we will handle what persons are apt to envy others, what persons are most subject to be envied them- selves, and what is the difference between public and private envy. . . . This envy, being in the Latin word ' invidia? goeth in the modern languages by the name of discontentment ; of which we shall speak in handling sedition." Of Envy. " So that in reason as well as in experience there fall out to be BACON II three distempers (as I may term them) of learning : the first fantastical learning ; the second contentious learning ; and the last delicate learning ; vain imaginations, vain altercations, and vain affectations ; and with the last I will begin." The Advance- ment of Learning. 3. Rich Imagery Striking Illustration. Bacon is remarkable not only for the aptness and the breadth of his illustrations but for the wonderful variety in the sources whence he draws them. All forms of human activity, all vo- cations and professions, all departments of knowledge are drawn upon in what Minto calls Bacon's " incontinent quick- ness to discover analogy." Isaac Disraeli calls him "not only the wittiest of writers in his remote allusions, but poet- ical in his fanciful conceptions." He has an especial fond- ness for homely similitudes and quaint analogies. " Through all his writings are numerous homely and pointed illustrations make his meaning abundantly luminous. Bacon's pages are very thickly strewn with similitudes. . . They are taken almost exclusively from familiar ob- jects and operations in nature and human life. In his narra- tive their number is more within bounds, and they are usually very graphic ; in the ' Essays ' they are often superfluous." William Minto. " The ' Advancement of Learning ' is one of the landmarks of what high thought and rich imagination have made of the English language ; it is a book which we can never open without coming on some felicitous and unthought of illustra- tion, yet so natural as almost to be doomed to become a com- monplace. ... An edition of Bacon with marginal references and parallel passages would show a more persistent recurrence of characteristic illustrations and sentences than perhaps any other writer." R. W. Church. " His conscience was weakened by that which gives such splendor and attractiveness to his writings his imagination. He was a philosopher, but a philosopher in whose character 12 BACON imagination was co-ordinated with reason. This imagination was not merely a quality of his intellect but an element of his nature, and through its instinctive workings he was not con- tent to send out his thoughts stoically bare of adornment, but clothed them in purple and gold, and made them move in majestic cadences. . . . His beneficent spirit and rich imagination lend sweetness and beauty to the homeliest prac- tical wisdom." E. P. Whipple. " The ' Essays,' or ' Counsels Civil and Moral,' were espe- cially enriched with the brighter blossoms of their great author's matured fancy. In this respect that his fancy was more vivid in age than in youth the mind of Bacon formed an exception to the common rule." W. F. Collier. " A great and luminous intellect, one of the finest of this poetic progeny, who, like his predecessors, was naturally dis- posed to clothe his ideas in the most splendid dress : in this age a thought did not seem complete till it had assumed form and color. But what distinguishes him from the others is, that with him an image only serves to concentrate meditation. He reflected long, stamped on his mind all the parts and rela- tions of his subject ; he is master of it, and then, instead of exposing this complete idea in a graduated chain of reasoning, he embodies it in a comparison so expressive, exact, lucid, that behind the figure we perceive all the details of the idea, like liquor in a fine crystal vase. . . . This is his mode of thought, by symbols, not by analysis." Taine. " His style is all over color and imagery ; so much so, in- deed, that this sort of enrichment may be said frequently to enter into its substance and to constitute his thoughts rather than to clothe and decorate them." G. L. Craik. " This philosophy is constantly enveloped in the most splen- did imagery, which hangs around it like the drapery round the limbs of an ancient statue, only giving higher ideas of the strength and symmetry of the form, which it partially con- ceals. ' ' Hallam . BACON 13 ILLUSTRATIONS. " As if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit ; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect ; or a tower of state for a proud mind to rest itself upon ; or a fort or a commanding ground for strife and contention ; or a shop for profit and sale ; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate." The Advancement of Learning. " For envy is a gadding passion and walketh the street and does not keep at home." Of Envy. " All rising to great place is -by a winding stair ; and if there be factions, it is good to side a man's self [to take sides] whilst he is in the rising and to balance himself when he is placed." Of Great Place. " If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands but a continent that joins to them." Of Good- ness. " For as water will not ascend higher than the level of the first spring-head from whence it descendeth, so knowledge derived from Aristotle, and exempted from the liberty of examination, will not rise again higher than the knowledge of Aristotle." The Advancement of Learning. 4. Knowledge of Human Nature Sagacity. Bacon's great natural powers of observation seem to have been sharpened by his intimate relations with the courtiers of Elizabeth and James. He analyzes human character as a chemist does a natural compound. "His 'Essays' are the counsels of a shrewd, politic man of the world, who has looked with eager and penetrating eye upon mankind as it appears in the senate-house, in courts of law, in the commercial world ; of a man who is firmly con- vinced that self-interest is the actuating principle of human- ity." j/. 14 BACON "It was not in the knowledge of nature but in the knowl- edge of human nature that Bacon pre-eminently excelled. . His knowledge of human nature was the result of the tranquil deposit, year after year, into his receptive and capacious intellect of the facts of history and of his own wide experience of various kinds of life. . . . The most val- uable peculiarity of this wisdom is that it not merely points out what should be done but it points out how it can be done. . . . He regarded the machinery in motion ; the human being as he thinks, feels, and lives ; men in their re- lations with men ; and the phenomena presented in history and life he aimed to investigate as he would investigate the phenomena of the natural world." E. P. Whipple. " He had made an exact and extensive survey of human requirements ; he took the gauge and metre, the depths and soundings of human capacity. He was master of the com- parative anatomy of the mind of man, of the balance of power among the different faculties. . . . Bacon has been called one of the wisest of mankind. The word wisdom characterizes him more than any other. . . . He had great sagacity of observation, solidity of judgment, and scope of fancy." Hazlitt. "His sagacity and knowledge of state affairs proved so true a guide that his views of the main actions have not been set aside by more patient investigations." William Minto. " There is not to be found in any human composition a passage more eminently distinguished by profound and serene wisdom than the description of ' The House of Solomon ' in the ' New Atlantis.' " Macaulay. ILLUSTRATIONS. " This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen, who, having sharp and strong wits and abundance of leisure and small variety of reading ; but their wits being shut BACON 15 up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle, their dictator) as their persons were shut up in the cells of their monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books." The Advancement of Learning. " It was prettily devised of yEsop, the fly sat upon the axle- tree of the chariot and said, ' What a dust do I raise ! ' So are there some vain persons that, whatever goeth alone, or moveth upon greater means, if they have never so little hand in it, they think it is they that carry it. They that are glorious [boastful] must needs be factious ; for all bravery [vaunting] stands upon comparisons. They must needs be violent to make good their own vaunts ; neither can they be secret and therefore not effect- ual.''^ Vain Glory. " A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others. For men's minds will either feed upon their own good or upon others' evil, and who wanteth the one will prey upon the other, and whoso is out of hope to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand by depressing another's fortune. A man that is busy and inquisitive is commonly envious ; for to know much of other men's matters cannot be, because all that ado may concern his own estate. Therefore it must needs be that he taketh a kind of play pleasure in looking upon the fort- unes of others. Neither can he that mindeth but his own busi- ness find much matter for envy." On Envy. 5. Frequent Biblical and Classical Quotation and Allusion. Bacon's knowledge of the ancient classics seems to have been limited only by the writings themselves. On almost every page some brilliant side-light is thrown from this source, and often from a writer who is quite unknown to the best of our modern classical scholars. The moral ob- liquity of Bacon's later life certainly was not due to a lack of familiarity with Bible truths and teachings. His acquaintance with Holy Writ is almost equal to that of Shakespeare, and the works of both unite with many modern masterpieces in testify- ing to the value of the English Bible as a literary model. 16 BACON Bacon quotes very frequently from the Bible, and from the Latin writers, especially Tacitus, Lucretius, and Cicero. "In his 'Advancement of Learning,' addressed to King James, he seems to humor the pedantry of the monarch, and introduces not a few Latin quotations without translating them. ' ' William Minto. "That he felt any pride in, or even set just value on, his unique mastery of the English language, there is scarcely any indication. Of his Latin he was proud." E. A, Abbott. ILLUSTRATIONS. "The blessing of Judah and Issachar will never meet; that the same people or nation should be both the lion's whelp and the ass between burdens ; neither will it be that a people over- laid with taxes should ever become valiant and martial." Of Kingdoms and Estates. " And it cometh many times to pass that ' materiam super- abit opus," 1 that the work and coinage is worth more than the ma- terial, and enricheth a state more." Of Kingdoms and Estates. " This same ' multis utile bellum ' is an assured and infallible sign of a state disposed to seditions and troubles." Of Seditions and Troubles. " And therefore it was well said, ' Invidia festos dies non agit? for it is ever working upon some or other." Of Envy. " Usury is one of the certainest means of gain, though one of the worst ; as that whereby a man doth eat his bread in the sweat of another's brow." Of Riches. " By all means it is to be procured that the trunk of Nebuchad- nezzar's tree of monarchy be great enough to bear the branches and the boughs ; that is, that the natural subjects of the crown or state bear a sufficient proportion to the stronger subjects that they govern ; therefore all states that are liberal of naturalization toward strangers are fit for empire." Of Kingdoms and Estates. 6. The Use of Obscure Latin Derivatives and Obsolete Words. " Bacon uses a great many more obso- lete words than either Hooker or Sidney. ... In his BACON 17 narrative and in his ' Essays,' as well as his scientific writings, he shows a decided preference now and then for ' ink-horn terms.' " William Minto. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Preserve the right of thy place, but stir not questions of juris- diction." Of Great Place. " As for facility [ease of access] it is worse than bribery." Of Great Place. " The lighter sort of malignity turneth but to a coarseness or forwardness or aptness to oppose, or difficileness, or the like ; but the deeper sort to envy and mere mischief." Of Goodness. " We see the Switzers last well notwithstanding their diversity of religion and cantons ; for utility is their bond and not respects [consideration of persons]." Of Nobility. 7. Eloquence. "Bacon was an orator, not a worker; a Tyrtaeus, not a Miltiades." H. J. Nicoll. " His power as an orator is attested by two eminent author- ities. Sir Walter Raleigh says that 'he surpassed other men in speaking as much as he did in writing ; and Ben Jonson affirms : ' No man had their affections more in his power. ' . . . From all that we know it seems unmistakable that he addressed chiefly the self-interest and confirmed passions of his audience. The main study of his life was how to ' work ' men." William Minto. - " He is the most eloquent of all discoursers on the phi- losophy of science, and the general greatness of his mind is evident even in the demonstrable errors of his system." E. P. IVJiipple. "His eloquence alone would have entitled him to a high rank in literature." Macaulay. ILLUSTRATIONS. " As for nobility in particular persons, it is a reverend thing to see an ancient castle or building not in decay, or to see a fair 18 BACON timber-tree sound and perfect ; how much more to behold an an- cient noble family, which hath stood against the waves and weathers of time ! for new nobility is but the act of power, but ancient nobility is the act of time." Of Nobility. 11 Your Majesty's eloquence is indeed royal, streaming, and branching out in Nature's fashion as from a fountain, copious and elegant, original and inimitable." Advancement of Learn- ing. "A man shall find in the traditions of astrology some pretty and apt divisions of men's natures, according to the predom- inances of the planets ; lovers of quiet, lovers of action, lovers of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of pleasure, lovers of art, lovers of change, and so forth. ... Of much like kind are those impressions of nature which are imposed upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by the health and sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are inherent and not extern ; and again, those which are caused by extern fortune ; as sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy, privateness, prosperity, adversity, constant fortune, variable fortune, and the like." Advancement of Learning. 8. Intellectual Elevation. " In the tone of his mind there is something imperial. When he writes on buildings, he speaks of a palace, with spacious entrances and courts and banqueting halls ; when he writes on gardens, he speaks of alleys and mounts, waste places and fountains of a garden ' which is indeed prince-like.' " Alexander Smith. " All who read Bacon are impressed with a certain dignity, majesty, and grandeur in his intelligence." E. P. Whipple. " He views objects from the greatest height, and his re- flections acquire a sublimity in proportion to their profundity, as in deep wells of water we see the sparkling of the highest fixed stars." Hazlitt. " The quality of strength in his style is intellectual rather than emotional. In his narrative there is very little expres- sion of feeling ; the strength comes chiefly from conciseness, secured by comprehensive statement, pregnant metaphor, and BACON 19 occasional strokes of epigrammatic condensation. . To read the productions of Bacon's vigorous and subtile in- tellect has a bracing influence." Minto. ILLUSTRATIONS. " When the mind goes deeper and sees the dependence of the causes and works of Providence, it will easily perceive, accord- ing to the mythology of the poets, that the upper link of Nat- ure's chain is fastened to Jupiter's throne." Advancement of Learning. "The first creature of God, in the works of days, was the light of the sense, the last was the light of reason, and his Sabbath work, ever since, is the illumination of the spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos, then he breathed light into the face of man ; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen." Of Truth. " The understanding when left to itself in a man of a steady, patient, and reflecting disposition, makes some attempt in the right direction, but with little effect, since the understanding, un- directed and unassisted, is unequal and unfit for the task of vanquishing the obscurity of things. "Novum Organum. MILTON, 1608-1674. Biographical Outline. JOHN MILTON, born December 9, 1608, in Bread Street, Cheapside, London ; father a scriv- ener a man of scholarly and musical attainments ; Milton is first taught by a private tutor, one Thomas Young ; enters St. Paul's School not later than 1620 ; is passionately devoted to study, reading till midnight regularly, while yet a child, and thus early injuring his eyesight; he learns Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and some Hebrew ; is a poet at ten, and is devoted to Spenser's " Faery Queene ; ' ' writes two paraphrases of the Psalms before he is fifteen ; enters Christ's College, Cambridge, February 12, 1624-25, as a pensioner, and is matriculated on the gth of the following April ; keeps every term at Cambridge, taking A.B. in March, 1629, and A.M. in July, 1632 ; is harshly treated (tradition says whipped) by his tutor, one Chappel ; is highly respected at the university for his scholarship ; corresponds in Latin with his friends Diodati, Young, and Gill, while at Cambridge; writes sev- eral Latin poems and ' ' Prolusione s Oratorice" (published in 1674) as college exercises ; writes his " Ode on the Nativity " at Christmas, 1629, and his Sonnet to Shakespeare in 1630 ; ex- presses scorn for the dramatic performances seen at Cambridge, the narrow theological studies of his fellows, and their igno- rance of philosophy; is nicknamed "the lady" at college because of his long, flowing locks, his personal beauty, and his sensitiveness ; becomes a good fencer, but holds himself austerely aloof from most student society ; develops great hostility to scholasticism ; even while at Cambridge Milton already considered himself as dedicated to the utterance of 20 MILTON 21 great thoughts and to the strictest chastity, on the ground that "he who would write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem ; " Milton is educated with a view to taking holy orders, but, on leaving Cambridge, he decides to postpone (but not to abandon) that course ; is alienated from the Church by the intolerant policy of Laud ; soon de- cides to devote himself exclusively to literature, and settles with his father at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, twelve miles from London, where he resides from 1632 to 1638; while at Horton Milton visits London frequently, to obtain instruc- tion in music and mathematics, and writes his "Allegro" and ' ' Pen seroso ; " writes also his masque "Arcades," for the Countess-dowager of Derby, and "Comus," for the Earl of Bridge water (performed at Ludlow Castle in September, 1634, and published by Milton's musical collaborator, Henry Lawes, without acknowledging Milton's authorship) ; Milton writes " Lycidas " in November, 1637, on the death of his friend Edward King; starts, in April, 1638, on a Continental tour, taking a servant and being liberally supplied with money by his father ; makes brief visits to Paris, Nice, Genoa, Leg- horn, and Pisa, and spends two months in Florence and two more in Rome ; thence to Naples, where he learns of the threatened revolution, and determines to return- home, "lest I should be travelling abroad while my countrymen were fight- ing for liberty ; " stops two more months at Florence on his way homeward, and returns by way of Ferrara, Bologna, Ven- ice, Verona, Milan, and (probably) the Simplon ; spends some time in Geneva, and reaches England via Paris in July, 1639; while abroad he offends the Italians by his strict morality and his outspoken attacks on popery, but is received and honored by many eminent persons, including Grotius, the Academi- cians of Florence, Galileo, and others ; during his tour he writes five Italian sonnets and a canzone ; on his return, takes lodgings in a tailor's house in St. Bride's Churchyard, Lon- don, and receives there his sister's two sons (aged eight and 22 MILTON nine) as pupils ; soon afterward takes " a pretty garden-house " in Aldersgate Street ; establishes for himself and his pupils a regime of " hard study and spare diet," allowing himself but one " gaudy day " a month, and carrying out, with his pupils, the methods of education described in his tractate on that subject; in 1643 takes more pupils, and writes his Latin idyll ' ' Epitaphium Damonis ; ' ' sketches the plan of a poem on Arthur, draws up a list of ninety-nine subjects for other poems, and already contemplates a poem on " Paradise Lost " ; enters political discussion by publishing, anonymously, in the summer of 1641, three pamphlets "Of Reformation Touching Church Discipline in England," "Prelatical Episcopacy," and " Animadversions upon the Remonstrance Defence," all three being vehement attacks on the episcopacy and scathing re- plies to the pleas of its adherents; in February, 1641-42, Mil- ton publishes, under his own name, " The Reason of Church Government Urged Against Prelacy ; " in April, 1642, pub- lishes his "Apology," defending himself against a slanderous attack by Bishop Hall and replying most vehemently in kind; declines to enter the army at the outbreak of the civil war in 1642, on the ground that his mind is stronger than his body, and is therefore more useful to the cause of liberty ; on May 21, 1643, after a surprisingly short courtship, Milton marries Mary Powell, aged seventeen, daughter of a Cavalier land- holder, residing at Forest Hill, Oxfordshire, who had long owed Milton a debt of ^312; soon afterward, Milton's father, driven by the Royalists from his home at Reading, comes to live with Milton ; Milton's wife soon becomes dis- satisfied with the dulness of his home and the crying of his oft-beaten pupils, and Milton finds his wife stupid ; so she re- turns to her father after a month's trial of " a philosophical life," promising to return at the ensuing Michaelmas; she refuses to return ; Milton's messenger is uncivilly treated by her family, and then (within three months of his marriage) Milton writes his tractate on " The Doctrine and Discipline MILTON 23 of Divorce," in which he justifies divorce on the ground of incompatibility or of mutual consent, especially if there be no children, and proposes sweeping changes in the marriage- laws ; the tractate makes him notorious, and he is bitterly at- tacked, especially after his second and acknowledged edition of the tractate in February, 1643-44; publishes a second pamphlet on divorce in July, 1644 ; influenced by the demand that his books be burned and by the threat of prosecution be- cause he had not obtained a proper license from the Stationers' Company, Milton writes his " Areopagitica" published No- vember 24, 1644, and generally acknowledged to be the best of his prose works ; publishes two more pamphlets on divorce in 1644-45, an d proposes to apply his principles by marrying the daughter of one Dr. Davis, a lady immortalized in Mil- ton's Sonnet to " Lady Margaret " : meantime his wife's par- ent's lose their property, and she begs his pardon and asks to be received again ; Milton reluctantly consents, and they take a house in the Barbican (a street near Aldersgate Street) large enough to accommodate his increasing number of pupils; by Mary Powell, Milton has four children : Anne, Mary, John (who died in infancy), and Deborah; Mrs. Milton dies in 1652; Milton publishes the first collected edition of his poems in 1645, placing the Latin and the English verseson separate pages; his pupils increase in number, and include several sons of promi- nent families; in the autumn of 1647 Milton removes to a house in High Hoi born and gives up teaching ; it is supposed that he inherited a competency from his father, who died in March, 1646-47 ; in his sonnet to Fairfax and in other writings he expresses deep sympathy with the Puritan cause ; writes para- phrases of seventeen of the Psalms and a ' ' History of Bri tain ; ' ' immediately after the execution of Charles I., he publishes a pamphlet on "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates," and is consequently invited to become Latin Secretary to the Council of State ; he accepts, and takes office March 15, 1648-49, at a salary of about ^730 a year; his duties are to translate the 24 MILTON foreign dispatches of the government into dignified Latin, to examine papers found on suspected persons, and to act as a licenser of books ; he is directed by the government to answer the " Eikon Basilike" a book then popularly supposed to have been written by Charles I., in defence of his character and position, but really written by the Bishop of Exeter; Milton publishes his answer October 6, 1649, under the title " Eikonoklastes" of which a French translation is ordered made by the Council of State ; Milton is ordered by the coun- x cil, in January, 1650, to reply to Salmasius, a professor at Leyden " a man of enormous reading and no judgment " whom the Scottish Presbyterians had invited to write in de- fence of their theological and political position, and who had accordingly published, in 1649, the " Defensio Regio pro Carolo I.; Milton's reply, ' 'Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio," appears in March, 1650, and he refuses ,100 voted him by the council as payment for the work ; completes the destruction of his eyesight by overwork on his" Defence ; " in March, 1652, he is attacked with gross personal abuse by one Peter du Mou- lin in a book entitled " Rcgii Sanguinis Clamor ad Ca'/um," dedicated to Alexander More, formerly professor of Greek at Geneva, and attributed to More by Milton ; he is or- dered by the council to reply to the" Clamor" and pub- lishes his answer in May, 1654, under the title ''Defensio Stcunda" a book full of savage abuse, but containing, also, valuable autobiographical passages and an apostrophe to Cromwell ; More replies, denying the authorship of the " Clamor," and Milton writes a third book, " Pro Se Defen- sio" in August, 1655 ; while Latin secretary he occupies for a time chambers at Whitehall ; later removes to another "pretty garden-house," afterward 19 York Street, subsequently oc- cupied successively by Bentham, James Mill, and Hazlitt, and demolished in 1877 ; he lives here till the Restoration ; is as- sisted in his duties as secretary by Andrew Man ell and others; in 1655, apparently because of his blindness, Milton's salary MILTON 25 is reduced to ^150 a year, which was to be paid during his life, and was soon increased to ^200; on November 12, 1656, he marries Catherine Woodcock, by whom he has one child, but mother and child die in February, 1658 ; Milton is said to have had an allowance first from Parliament and afterward from Cromwell for the maintenance of a " weekly table" for the entertainment of eminent foreigners, who came to England especially to see him; in 1659 he publishes two pamphlets favoring a purely voluntary ecclesiastical system, and in 1660 one proposing that Parliament make itself perpet- ual; in April, 1660, writes " Brief Notes," attacking a royal- ist sermon ; at the Restoration Milton conceals himself in a friend's house in Bartholomew Close; on June 16, 1660, it is ordered by the Commons that his " Pro Populo Anglicano De- fensio ' ' be burned by the common hangman and that he be indicted and taken into custody ; he is arrested during the sum- mer, but is ordered released at the next session on the payment of fees amounting to ^150 ; the Indemnity Act frees him from all legal consequences of his actions ; the lenient treatment of Milton was probably due to the efforts of his friends Marvell and D'Avenant, for the latter of whom he had formerly entreated when D'Avenant had been in danger of execution ; on regaining his liberty, Milton takes a house in Holborn and soon after- ward removes to Jewett Street; by the changes attendant on the Restoration his income is reduced from ^500 to about ^200 a year ; Mrs. Powell, mother of Milton's first wife, attempts to obtain some of his property, and apparently succeeds in part; on February 24, 1662-63, ne marr ies Eliza- beth Minshull, and soon afterward removes to a small house with a garden, in Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields, where he re- sides till death, if we except a reported short sojourn as a lodger in the house of the bookseller Millington ; during the plague of 1665 he retires to Chalfont St. Giles, where "a pretty box " was taken for him by the Quaker, Thomas Ell- wood ; Ellwood had previously formed a friendship with Mil- 26 MILTON ton, had read Latin books to him, received from him in the " box " at Chalfont the manuscript of " Paradise Lost," and suggested a poem on "Paradise Regained ; " the house at Chal- font is still preserved (1898) as a public memorial of Milton ; he begins " Paradise Lost " in 1658 and finishes it in 1663 ; loses his house in Bread Street (inherited from his father) in the great fire of 1666; on April 27, 1667, Milton sells the copyright of " Paradise Lost " to Samuel Simmons, the terms being that Milton is to receive ^5 down and ^5 additional for each of the first three editions of not more than 1,500 copies each; receives his second ^5 in April, 1669, and these 10 are all he ever received personally for " Paradise Lost; " in 1680 Milton's widow sells to Simmons a perpetual copyright of the book for 8 ; 4,500 copies were sold by 1688 ; Dryden first appreciated itsTalue, saying of Milton: " This man cuts us all out, and the ancients, too; " with Milton's permission, Dryden puts " Paradise Lost " into a drama in rhyme, under the title " A Heroick Opera," published in 1674; Milton is much visited, in his later years, by foreigners and men of rank; "Paradise Lost" is translated into German and into Latin in 1682 ; Milton publishes " Paradise Regained " and "Samson Agonistes " together in 1671, and could never bear to hear " Paradise Regained " pronounced inferior to his first epic; in 1669 he publishes his Latin grammar and his "History of Britain," written long before; in 1673 puts forth a new edition of his early poems ; suffers during his last years from the gout and from unpleasant domestic relations ; dies at his house in Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields, November 8, 1674, leaving ^100 each to his " undutiful children," and ^600 to his widow. MILTON 27 . BIBLIOGRAPHY ON MILTON'S STYLE. Scherer, E., "Essays on English Literature." New York, 1891, Scrib- ner, 111-150. Bayne, P., "The Puritan Revolution." London, 1878, James Clark & Co., 297-347. Channing, W. E., "Works." Boston, 1867, American Unit. Ass'n, 20: 30. Coleridge, H., "Essays," etc. London, 1851, E. Moxon, 2: 18-28. Lowell, J. R., " Latest Literary Essays." New York, 1892, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Taine, H., " History of English Literature." New York, 1874, Holt, I : 409-456. Ward, T. H., "English Poets" (Pattison). New York, 1881, Macmil- lan, 2 : 293-306. Gilfillan, G., "Literary Portraits." Edinburgh, 1851, J. Hogg, 2: 1-27. Arnold, M., " Mixed Essays." New York, 1879, Macmillan, 256-257. Hazlitt, W., " Lectures on the English Poets." London, 1884, G. Bell & Son, 75-90. Hallam, H., "Works." New York, 1859, Harper, i: 131, and 2: 182, and see index. Hazlitt, W., "Table Talk." London, 1882, G. Bell & Sons, 240-249. Newman, J. H., " Essays on Milton's Style." London, 1872, Longmans, 54-60. Garnett, R., " John Milton " (Great Writers). London, 1890, W. Scott, v, index. Bagehot, W., " Works." Hartford, 1889, Travellers' Insurance Co., I: 303-352. Pattison, M., "Milton" (English Men of Letters). New York, 1879, Harper, 79. Saintsbury, G., "A History of Elizabethan Literature." New York, 1887, Macmillan, 317-330. Macaulay, T. B., "Essays" (Miscellaneous Works). New York, 1880, Harper, I : 13-64, and v, index. Lowell, J. R., "Among My Books." Boston, 1891, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 274-276. Dowden, E., "Studies in Literature." London, 1878, Kegan Paul & Co., 88-90. Arnold, M., " Essays in Criticism" (Second Series). New York, 1888, Macmillan, 56-69. DeQuincey, T., "Works." Edinburgh, 1890, A. & C. Black, ill 453-473. and 4 : 86- i 18. 28 MILTON Johnson, S., "Works" (Lives of the Poets). New York, 1846, Harp- er, 2 : 22-46. Birrell, A., " Obiter Dicta." New York, 1887, Scribner, 2: 1-52. Minto, Wm., " English Prose Literature." Edinburgh, 1876, Black, 311. Masson, D., "Essays, Biographical and Critical." Cambridge, 1856, Macmillan, 37-53- Brooke, S., "John Milton." New York, 1879, Appleton, 112-125. Nicoll, H. J., "Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1883, Appleton, 112-125. Dawson, G., " Biographical Lectures." London, 1886, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 82-88. Rice, A. T., " Essays from North American Review " (Emerson). New York, 1879, Appleton, 99-122. Dowden, E., "Transcripts and Studies." London, 1888, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 454-473. Windsor, A. L., " Ethica." London, 1860, Smith, Elder &Co., 57-112. Browning, E. B., "Essays on the Poets." New York, 1863, James Miller, 192-199. Collier, W. F., " History of English Literature." London, 1892, Nel- son, 194-211. Reed, H., " British Poets." Philadelphia, 1857, Parry & Macmillan, I : 199-233- Hunt, L., " Selections from English Poets." Philadelphia, 1854, W. P. Hazard, 172. Masson, D., " Three Devils. " London, 1874, Macmillan, 125-150. Philips, M. G., "A Manual of English Literature." New York, 1885, Harper, I : 293-373. Carlyle, T., "Essays." London, 1869, Chapman & Hall, 2: 64. Welsh, A. H., "The Development of English Literature." Chicago, 1884, Griggs, I : 472-495- Hunt, T. W., "English Prose, and Prose Writers." New York, 1887, Armstrong, 246-264. Dennis, J., " Heroes of Literature." London, 1883, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 114-147. Rossetti, W. M., " Lives of Famous Poets." London, 1878, E. Moxon, 65-79. Dobson, W. T., "The Classic Poets." London, 1879, Smith, Elder & Co., 394-452- Seeley, J. R. , " Lectures and Essays." London, 1870, Macmillan, 89- 154- Yonge, C. D., "Three Centuries of English Literature." New York, 1889, Appleton, 185-210. MILTON 29 Hutton, L., "Literary Landmarks of London." New York, 1892, Harper, 210-216. Howitt, Wm., " Homes and Haunts of British Authors." London, 1847, Bentley, i : 67-104. Masson, D., "In the Footsteps of the Poets." New York, 1893, Whit- taker, 13-105. Sterling. John, "Essays and Tales." London, 1848, Parker, I : 73-87. Contemporary Review, 19: 198-209 (Do wden) ; 22: 427-460 (P. Bayne). Quarterly Review, 143: 186-204; 32: 442-457; 63: 29-61 (J. H. Lord). Edinburgh Rei'iew, 69 : 112-121 (Channing) ; 42: 304-346 (Macaulay). Christian Examiner, 57: 323-339 (S. Osgood) ; 66: 401-431 (G. E. Ellis) ; 3 : 29-77 ( w - E - Channing). LittelTs Li-'hig Age, 44 : 497 (Lamartine). British Quarterly, 29: 185-214; 10: 229-254. International Review, 9: 125-135 (H. C. Lodge). North British Review, 30: 281-309; 16: 295-335 (D. Masson). Fortnightly Revie-a, 54: 510-519 (Pollock). The Nation, 47: 310 (E. S.); 13: 91-92 (Allen); 17: 165-166 (Al- len); 31: 15-16 (Allen); 26: 342-344 (Diman) ; 30: 30-32 (G. Smith). Century Magazine, 36: 53-55 (M. Arnold). North American Review, 47 : 56-73 (Emerson) ; 82 : 388-404 (Whit- ney); 22: 364-373; 31: 101-103 and 33 8 and 45 J -452; 3& : 243-246; 41: 375-382 (Channing); 46: 216-217 (Emerson); 126: 536-543 (D. Masson). National Magazine, I: 9-13. Methodist Quarterly Review, 17: 542-559(7. H. Newhall). Foreign Quarterly Review, 10 : 508-513. Eclectic Review, 25 : 288-291 ; 89 : 507-521 (J. A. St. John). New Monthly Magazine, 40 : 39-50. The At/i entfiim, 2(1884): 359-360. Fortnightly Magazine, 54: 510-520 (Pollock). Edinburgh Revim\ 69: 214-230 (J. M. Mason). Bibliotheca Sacra, 4: 251-269 (T. W. Hunt). Presbyterian Review, 4 : 681-709 (Van Dyke). Presbyterian Quarterly, I : 382-395 (Gillette). Unitarian Revie-M, 20 : 242-^250 (J. H. Allen). De Bow's Commercial R t ~!'ieit>, 29 : 430-441 (G. Fitzhugh). Fraser's Magazine, 17: 627-635 (W. E. Channing). Congregational Magazine, 10 : 33-41 (J. H. Todd); 17: 217-225 (Rob- ert Fletcher). 30 MILTON Colburn's NrM Monthly Magazine, 40 : 39-51. Contemporary Review,. 19: 198-211 (E. Dowden) ; 22: 427-460 (Bayne). Macmillan's Magazine, 31 : 554-556 (J. C. Shairp) and 380-387 (M. Pattison). PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS. I. Majestic Eloquence Magnificence Sublim- ity. " This is the quality," says Mark Pattison, " which the poverty of our language tries to express by the words solem- nity, gravity, majesty, nobility, loftiness, and which, name it as we may, we all feel in reading ' Paradise Lost.' The ' Areopagitica ' is a copious flood of majestic eloquence, the outpouring of a noble soul with a divine scorn of narrow dogma and paltry aims." Macaulay declares that Milton's prose writings "abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance." His pamphlets are "orations rather than treatises or disser- tations." Many passages in his prose parallel " the solemn music of his own best verse." " There is something indescribably heroical and magnifi- cent which overflows from Milton, even when he is engaged in the most miserable discussions. . . . The language in these pamphlets is instinct with fire there is no prose poetry in the language comparable with it. The eloquence is now sad, tender, and again wild and tempestuous as the hurricane of heaven. . . . There are moments when, shaking the dust of argument from him, the poet suddenly bursts forth and carries us off on the torrent of an incomparable eloquence. It is no rhetorical phrase-making, it is poetic enthusiasm, a flood of images shed over the dull and arid theme, a wing- stroke that sweeps us high above piddling controversies." Edmond Scherer. 11 It [the ' Areopagitica '] is a pleading of the highest elo- quence and courage, with interspersed passages of curious in- MILTON 31 formation, keen wit, and even a rich humor, such as we do not commonly look for in Milton." David Masson. " Milton's prose works are studded with words and phrases of intense nobleness, which beacon the gloom of sordid ages and send rays of star-like illumination into the dusk of com- promise, conventionality, and hypocrisy. . . . These writings [of Milton] are wonderful for the truth, learning, subtilty, and pomp of language." Peter Bayne. " It [the ' Areopagitica '] is the most literary of Milton's prose, eloquent, to the point, and full of noble images, splen- didly wrought and fitted to their places. ... At times they rise into an eloquence which has nothing like it in Eng- lish literature for grandeur, music, splendor." Stopford Brooke. " Among Milton's many great attributes, his mastery of the sublime is the one which has probably received the most frequent laudation." W. M. Rossetti. " Milton's chief talent, and, indeed, his distinguishing ex- cellence, lies in the sublimity of his thoughts." Addison. " There are splendid passages in Milton's prose works, pas- sages where we are carried away by torrents of gorgeous elo- quence. ... In comparison with his organ tones the voices of contemporary singers seem as penny whistles." H. J. Nicoll. Lowell calls the " Areopagitica " an " impassioned harangue of a supremely eloquent man," and adds : " His more elab- orate passages have the multitudinous roll of thunder." " We have in Milton no trash, no effusion of pious senti- mentalism, like certain herbs, too sweet to be wholesome; but a strain that might have been sung by the angelic host on the plains of Bethlehem and rehearsed by the shepherds in the ears of the infant God." George Gilfillan. Taine calls this quality "sacerdotal pomp and majesty," and adds, "As of old, he went out of this lower world in search of the sublime. ' ' 32 MILTON ILLUSTRATIONS. "Thou, therefore, that sittest in light and glory unapproach- able, parent of angels and men ! next thee I implore, Omnipotent King, Redeemer of the lost remnant, whose nature thou didst assume ; ineffable and everlasting Love ! and thou the third subsistence of divine infinitude, illumining Spirit, the joy and solace of created things ! one Tri-personal God-head ! look upon this thy poor and almost spent and expiring church. . . . Oh, let them not bring about their damned designs to reinvolve, us in that pitchy cloud of infernal darkness, where \ve shall nev- ermore see the sun of thy truth again, never hope for the cheerful dawn, never more hear the bird of morning sing." Animadver- sions, etc. " Then, amidst the hymns and hallelujahs of saints, someone may, perhaps, be heard offering at high strains in new and lofty measures to sing and celebrate thy divine mercies and marvel- lous judgments in this land throughout all ages, whereby this great and warlike nation, instructed and inured to the fervent and continual practice of truth and righteousness, and casting far from her the rags of her old vices, may press on hard to that high and happy emulation to be found the soberest, and wisest, and most Christian people at that day when thou, the eternal, and shortly expected King, shall open the clouds to judge the several kingdoms of the world." Reformation in England. " Ye are now in the glorious way to high virtue and matchless deeds, trusted with a most inestimable trust, the asserting of our just liberties. Ye have a nation that expects now, and from mighty sufferings aspires to be the example of all Christendom to a perfect reforming. Dare to be as great, as ample, and as eminent in the fair progress of your noble designs as the full and goodly stature of truth and excellence itself; as unlimited by petty precedents and copies as your unquestionable calling from Heaven gives you power to be." On Divorce. 2. Gorgeous, Often Excessive, Imagery." He breaks forth into magnificent images, he displays in his style the force which he perceives around him and in himself. Im- agination carried Milton away and enchained him in met- MILTON 33 aphor. . . . Overloaded with ornaments, infinitely prolonged, these periods are triumphant choruses of angelic alleluias, sung by deep voices to the accompaniment of ten thousand harps of gold." Taine. " He was rich in the cumulative treasures of an exhaustless imagination, sometimes lavished with the imprudence of a too prodigal hand. . . . If, in a general summary of Milton's characteristics, I should be asked to point out the predominat- ing feature in his organism, I should unhesitatingly direct at- tention to his imagination." A. C. Windsor. Macaulay compares the gorgeous splendor of Milton's words and imagery, his weighty aud ornate magnificence, to a per- fect field of cloth-of-gold. " The style," he says, " is stiff with gorgeous embroidery. It is, to borrow his own majestic language, ' a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping sym- phonies.' ' Many of his figures his "jewels five words long " seem to be brought in for their own sake instead of growing naturally out of the thought. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rous- ing herself like a strong man after sleep and shaking her invin- cible locks : methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam ; purging and unsealing her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance ; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms." Areopagitica. '' Then was the priest set to con his motions and his postures, his liturgies and his lisures [lessons], till the soul, by this means of overbodying herself, given up justly to fleshly delights, bated her wing apace downward, and rinding the ease she had from her visible and sensuous colleague, the body, in performance of re- ligious duties, her pinions now broken and flagging, shifted off from herself the labor of high soaring any more." Reformation in England. 34 MILTON " Then was the sacred Bible sought out of the dusty corners where profane falsehood and neglect had thrown it, the schools opened, divine and human learning raked out of the embers of forgotten tongues, the princes and cities trooping apace to the new-erected banner of salvation ; the martyrs, with the un- resistible might of weakness, shaking the power of darkness and scorning the fiery rage of the old red dragon." Reformation in England, 3. Intense Energy Vituperation. This quality of Milton's style appears especially in the boldness of his figures and the fierceness of his invectives. His controversial writ- ings abound in sharp rejoinder and vituperation, often de- scending to unpardonable coarseness and insult. In the words of Edmond Scherer, "Luther and Calvin, those virtuosos of in- sult, had not gone farther. ' ' It was an age of fierce and coarse controversy, and Milton felt called to defend himself and his cause with the same weapons that his enemies used. We have his own confession that he entered the contest un- willingly, for he says : " Surely, to every good and peaceable man, it must in nature needs be a hateful thing to be the dis- pleaser and molester of thousands ; much better would it like him, doubtless, to be the messenger of gladness and content- ment, which is his chief intended business to all mankind, but that they resist and oppose their own happiness. But when God commands to take the trumpet and blow a dolorous or a jarring blast, it lies not in man's will what he shall say or what he shall conceal." "In his earliest prose works we are aware of a gigantic strength, a clash and clang of militant energy. In the prose the torrent foams, leaps, rages, tosses rocks about. The tempest hurtles through the air, driving the clouds before it like the routed autumn leaves." Peter Bayne. MILTON 35 ILLUSTRATIONS. " You scrape together whatever seems to make for your opinion either out of ostentation or out of weakness ; you would leave out nothing that you could find in a baker's or a barber's shop ; nay, you would be glad of anything that looked like an argument from the very hangman." Defence, " That all this is true, whoso desires to know at large with least pains and expects not here overlong rehearsals of that which is by others already so judiciously gathered, let him hasten to be acquainted with that noble volume written by our learned Selden, ' Of the Law of Nature and of Nations,' a work more useful and more worthy to be perused by whosoever studies to be a great man in wisdom, equity, and justice than all those ' decretals and sumless sums,' which the pontifical clerks have doted on, ever since that unfortunate mother famously sinned thrice, and died impenitent of her bringing into the world those two misbegotten infants, and forever infants, Lombard and Gratian, him the com- piler of canon iniquity, the other the Tubal Cain of scholastic sophistry, whose overspreading barbarism hath not only infused their own bastardy upon the fruitfullest part of human learning, not only dissipated and dejected the clear light of nature in us, and of nations, but hath tainted also the fountains of divine doc- trine, and rendered the pure and solid law of God unbeneficial to us by their calumnious dunceries." On Divorce. " You who know so many tongues, who read so many books, who write so much about them, you are yet but an ass. . . . O most drivelling of asses, you come driven by a woman, with the cured heads of bishops whom you had wounded, a little image of the great beast of the Apocalypse." Reply to Salmasius. 4. Involution and Inversion. The difficulties in Mil- ton's prose style would he sufficient to exclude a less energetic author from the list of master -writers. His " page-long pe- riods " are both obscure and wearisome. In the words of Pattison, " he does not seem to have any notion of what a period means. He leaves off, not when the sense closes, but when he is out of breath." His controversial writings bear the marks of reckless haste in construction. Hales calls him 36 MILTON " the last of the Titans the last great writer in the old pe- riodic style," and adds, " he had more to say than he could say. His thoughts rush upon him in a throng that he can at times scarcely order and control. His utterance is almost choked." The "stiff Latinity " that causes Shaw to call Milton "the most Roman of English authors," is a blemish that belongs to nearly all the Elizabethan prose. Harsh in- versions and cumbrous construction everywhere abound. Yet no less an authority than William Ellery Channing excuses Milton's sins of arrangement as follows : " It is objected to his prose-writings that his style is difficult and obscure, abounding in involutions, transpositions, and Latinisms; that his protracted sentences exhaust and weary the mind and too often yield it no better recompense than con- fused and indistinct perceptions. . . . We mean not to deny that these charges have some grounds ; but they seem to us much exaggerated ; and when we consider that the dif- ficulties of Milton's style have almost sealed up his prose- writings, we cannot but lament the fastidiousness and effem- inacy of modern readers. We know that simplicity and perspicuity are important qualities of style ; but there are vastly nobler and more important ones, such as energy and richness, and in these Milton is not surpassed. The best style is not that which puts the reader most easily and in the shortest time in possession of the writer's naked thoughts ; but that which is the truest image of a great intellect, which conveys fully and carries furthest into other souls the con- ceptions and feelings of a profound and lofty spirit. To be universally intelligible is not the highest merit. A great mind cannot, without injurious restraint, shrink itself to the grasp of common, passive readers. Its natural movement is free, bold, and majestic ; and it ought not to be required to part with these attributes that the multitude may keep pace with it. A full mind will naturally overflow in long sentences ; and in the moment of inspiration, when thick-coming thoughts MILTON 37 and images crowd on it, will often pour them forth in a splen- did confusion, dazzling to common readers, but kindling to congenial spirits. There are writings which are clear through their shallowness. We must not expect in the ocean the trans- parency of the calm inland stream. For ourselves, we love what is called easy reading perhaps too well, especially in our hours of relaxation ; but we love, too, to have our faculties tasked by master-spirits. We delight in long sentences in which a great truth, instead of being broken up into numer- ous periods, is spread out in its full proportions, is irradiated with variety of illustration and imagery, is set forth in a splendid affluence of language, and flows, like a full stream, with a majestic harmony which fills at once the ear and soul." ILLUSTRATIONS. " They who to states and governors of the commonwealth direct their speech, High Court of Parliament, or, wanting such access in a private condition, write that which they foresee may advance the public good ; I suppose them as at the beginning of no mean endeavor, not a little altered and moved inwardly in their minds : some with doubt of what will be the success, others with fear of what will be the censure ; some with hope, others with confi- dence of what they have to speak." Areopagitica. " Whose unerring guidance and conduct having followed as a loadstar, witk all diligence and fidelity, in this question, I trust, through the help of that illuminating Spirit which hath favored me, to have done no every day's work, in asserting, after many the words of Christ, with other scriptures of great concernment from burdensome and remorseless obscurity, tangled with man- ifold repugnancies, to their native lustre and consent between each other ; hereby also dissolving tedious and Gordian difficul- ties ; which have hitherto molested the church of God, and are now decided, not with the sword of Alexander, but with the im- maculate hands of charity, to the unspeakable good of Christen- dom." On Divorce. " And if others may chance to spend more time with you in canvassing later antiquity, I suppose it is not for that they ground themselves thereon ; but that they endeavor by showing the cor- 38 MILTON ruptions, uncertainties, and disagreements of those volumes, and the easiness of erring, or overslipping in such a boundless and vast search, if they may not convince those that are so strongly persuaded thereof ; yet to free ingenious minds from an over- awful esteem of those more ancient than trusty fathers, whom custom and fond opinion, weak principles, and the neglect of sounder and superior knowledge hath exalted so high as to have gained them a blind reverence ; whose books in bigness and number so endless and immeasurable, I cannot think that either God or nature, either divine or human wisdom, did ever mean should be a rule or reliance to us in the decision of any weighty or positive doctrine." Animadversions. 5. Inequality Incongruity. "It is not uncom- mon," says Channing, " to find, in the same sentence, his affluent genius pouring forth magnificent images and expres- sions and suddenly his deep scorn for his opponents suggest- ing and throwing into the midst of this splendor sarcasms and degrading comparisons altogether at variance with the gen- eral strain." Concerning the same characteristic, Haliam re- marks: "The majestic soul of Milton breathes such high thoughts as had not been uttered before ; yet even here he frequently sinks in a single instant, as is usual with our old writers, from his highest flights to the ground." " There are passages which for richness of texture, harmony of tone, and artistic distribution of parts, can hardly be matched in our language ; but that equable distinction which is the constant note of his verse is wanting. ... A sen- tence builded majestically with every help of art and imagi- nation too often thrusts heavenward from a huddle of vulgar pentices [sheds] such as used to cluster about mediaeval cathe- drals. Never was such inequality. He is careless of euphony, seeming to prefer words not only low but harsh, and such superlatives as ' virtuousest,' ' viciousest,' ' sheepishest.' ' Lowell. " The prose works descend to brutalities of personal abuse MILTON 39 and recrimination often coarse, and are full of the miseries of debate. We slip from passages full of stately thought and splendid diction into passages which we are almost ashamed to read." Stopford Brooke. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Thus large I have purposely been, that if I have been justly taxed with this crime, it may come upon me, after all this my confession, with a tenfold shame ; but if I have hitherto de- served no such opprobrious word or suspicion, I may hereby en- gage myself now openly to the faithful observation of what I have professed. I go on to show you the unbridled impudence of this loose railer, who, having once begun his race, regards not how far he flies out beyond all truth and shame ; who from the single notice of the "Animadversions," as he protests, will undertake to tell ye the very clothes I wear, though he be much mistaken in my wardrobe ; and like a son of Belial, without the hire of Jeze- bel, charges me ' of blaspheming God and the King,' as ordina- rily as he imagines ' me to drink sack and swear,' merely because this was a shred in his commonplace book, and seemed to come off roundly, as if he were some empiric of false accusations, to try his poisons upon me, whether they would work or not." Apology for Smcctymnuus. " Who can with patience hear this filthy, rascally fool speak so irreverently of persons eminent both in greatness and piety ? Dare you compare King David with King Charles ; a most religious king and prophet with a superstitious prince, and who was but a novice in the Christian religion ; a most prudent, wise prince with a weak one ; a valiant prince with a cowardly one ; finally, a most just prince with a most unjust one ? " Defence of the Peo- ple, etc. "But ever blessed be He, and ever glorified, that from his high watch-tower in the heavens, discerning the crooked ways of perverse and cruel men, hath hitherto maimed and infatuated all their damnable inventions and deluded their great wizards with a delusion fit for fools and children ; had God been so minded, He could have sent a spirit of mutiny amongst us, as He did be- tween Abimelech and the Shechemites, to have made our funerals, and slain heaps more in number than the miserable surviving 38 MILTON ruptions, uncertainties, and disagreements of those volumes, and the easiness of erring, or overslipping in such a boundless and vast search, if they may not convince those that are so strongly persuaded thereof ; yet to free ingenious minds from an over- awful esteem of those more ancient than trusty fathers, whom custom and fond opinion, weak principles, and the neglect of sounder and superior knowledge hath exalted so high as to have gained them a blind reverence ; whose books in bigness and number so endless and immeasurable, I cannot think that either God or nature, either divine or human wisdom, did ever mean should be a rule or reliance to us in the decision of any weighty or positive doctrine." Animadversions. 5. Inequality Incongruity. "It is not uncom- mon," says Channing, " to find, in the same sentence, his affluent genius pouring forth magnificent images and expres- sions and suddenly his deep scorn for his opponents suggest- ing and throwing into the midst of this splendor sarcasms and degrading comparisons altogether at variance with the gen- eral strain." Concerning the same characteristic, Hallam re- marks : "The majestic soul of Milton breathes such high thoughts as had not been uttered before ; yet even here he frequently sinks in a single instant, as is usual with our old writers, from his highest flights to the ground." " There are passages which for richness of texture, harmony of tone, and artistic distribution of parts, can hardly be matched in our language ; but that equable distinction which is the constant note of his verse is wanting. ... A sen- tence builded majestically with every help of art and imagi- nation too often thrusts heavenward from a huddle of vulgar pentices [sheds] such as used to cluster about medieval cathe- drals. Never was such inequality. He is careless of euphony, seeming to prefer words not only low but harsh, and such superlatives as ' virtuousest,' ' viciousest,' ' sheepishest.' ' Lowell. " The prose works descend to bruttJities of personal abuse MILTON 39 and recrimination often coarse, and are full of the miseries of debate. We slip from passages full of stately thought and splendid diction into passages which we are almost ashamed to read." Stopford Brooke. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Thus large I have purposely been, that if I have been justly- taxed with this crime, it may come upon me, after all this my confession, with a tenfold shame ; but if I have hitherto de- served no such opprobrious word or suspicion, I may hereby en- gage myself now openly to the faithful observation of what I have professed. I go on to show you the unbridled impudence of this loose railer, who, having once begun his race, regards not how far he flies out beyond all truth and shame ; who from the single notice of the "Animadversions," as he protests, will undertake to tell ye the very clothes I wear, though he be much mistaken in my wardrobe ; and like a son of Belial, without the hire of Jeze- bel, charges me ' of blaspheming God and the King,' as ordina- rily as he imagines ' me to drink sack and swear,' merely because this was a shred in his commonplace book, and seemed to come off roundly, as if he were some empiric of false accusations, to try his poisons upon me, whether they would work or not. "- Apology for Smectymnuus. 11 Who can with patience hear this filthy, rascally fool speak so irreverently of persons eminent both in greatness and piety ? Dare you compare King David with King Charles ; a most religious king and prophet with a superstitious prince, and who was but a novice in the Christian religion ; a most prudent, wise prince with a weak one ; a valiant prince with a cowardly one ; finally, a most just prince with a most unjust one ? " Defence of the Peo- ple, etc. "But ever blessed be He, and ever glorified, that from his high watch-tower in the heavens, discerning the crooked ways of perverse and cruel men, hath hitherto maimed and infatuated all their damnable inventions and deluded their great wizards with a delusion fit for fools and children ; had God been so minded, He could have sent a spirit of mutiny amongst us, as He did be- tween Abimelech and the Shechemites, to have made our funerals, and slain heaps more in number than the miserable surviving 42 MILTON and the Learning of the best Ages of the World on its side." Reply to Salmasius. " In handling almost the greatest subject that ever was (with- out being too tedious in it), I am in hopes of attaining two things, which indeed I earnestly desire. The one not to be at all want- ing, as far as in me lies, to this most Noble Cause and most worthy to be recorded to all future ages ; the other, that I may appear to have avoided myself that perilousness of matter, and redundancy of words, which I blame in my antagonist." Reply to Salmasius. 7. Independence Mental Isolation Intolerance. While closely allied to the sixth quality of Milton's style, just discussed, his mental isolation is not identical with his conscious inspiration. The two qualities are frequently found distinct. "Like Dante," says Lowell, "Milton was forced to become a party by himself. He stands out in marked and solitary individuality, apart from the great move- ment of the Civil War, apart from the supine acquiescence of the Restoration, a self-opinionated, unforgiving, unforgetting man. . . . Gentle as Milton's earlier portraits would seem to show him, he had in him by nature, or bred into him by fate, something of the haughty and defiant self-assertion of Dante and Michael Angelo. In no other author is the man so large a part of his works. Milton's haughty conception of himself enters into all he says and does. Always the neces- sity of this one man became that of the whole human race for the moment. There were no walls so sacred but must go to the ground when he wanted elbow-room ; and he wanted a great deal. . . . It results from the almost scornful with- drawal of Milton into the fortress of his absolute personality that no great poet is so uniformly self-conscious as he. . . . He makes Deity a mouth-piece for his present theology. . . . Now it is precisely this audacity of self-reliance, I suspect, which goes far toward making him sublime. . . . The grand loneliness of Milton in his latter years, while it makes MILTON 43 him the most impressive figure in our literary history, is reflected also in his maturer poems by a sublime independence of human sympathy, like that with which mountains fascinate and rebuff us." " Narrowness is his fault, but the intense individuality which often accompanies narrowness is his great virtue a virtue which no poet, which no writer, either in prose or verse, has ever had in greater measure than he." SaiHfsfatry. Speaking of Milton's university career, Birrell says: " Mil- ton was not a submissive pupil; in fact, he was never a submissive anything, for there is point in Dr. Johnson's mali- cious remark, that, in Milton's opinion, man was born to be a rebel and woman to be a slave. He considered a state of subscription to articles a state of slavery. . . . That Milton was both proud and rebellious cannot be disputed. . . . The pamphlet on divorce marks the beginning of his mental isolation. Nobody had a word to say for it." " He was isolated in his generation by the very force of his genius. Wordsworth expresses this quality of Milton's style and of his character in the single line, ' His soul was like a star and dwelt apart.' " Edmond Scherer. " A want of humor, with its usual concomitant, a want of power to do justice to men of different types from himself, was Milton's great defect through life." H. J. Nicoll. ILLUSTRATIONS. " For God, it seems, intended to prove me, whether I durst alone take up a rightful cause against a world of disesteem, and found I durst. My name I did not publish, as not willing it should sway the reader either for me or against me. But when I was told that the style, which what it ails to be so soon distin- guishable I cannot tell, was known by most men, and that some of the clergy began to inveigh and exclaim on what I was credibly informed they had not read. I took it then for my proper season, both to show them a name that could easily con- temn such an indiscreet kind of censure, and to reinforce the 44 MILTON question with a more accurate diligence ; that if any of them would be so good as to leave railing and to let us hear so much of his learning and Christian wisdom as will be strictly demanded of him in his answering to this problem, care was had he should not spend his preparations against a nameless pamphlet." On Divorce. "When the liberty of speech was no longer subject to control, all mouths began to be opened against the bishops. ... I saw that a way was opening for the establishing of real liberty ; that the foundation was laying for the deliverance of man from the yoke of slavery and superstition ; . . . and as I had from my youth studied the distinction between civil and religious rights, ... I determined to relinquish the other pursuits in which I was engaged, and to transfer the whole force of my tal- ents and my industry to this one important object." Second Defence. " You cannot be truly free unless we are free too : for such is the nature of things that he who entrenches on the liberty of others is the first to lose his own and become a slave. But if you, who have hitherto been the patron and tutelary genius of liberty ; if you, who are exceeded by no one in justice, in piety, and good- ness, should hereafter invade that liberty which you have de- fended, your conduct must be fatally operative, not only against the cause of liberty but the general interests of piety and vir- tue. Your integrity and virtue will appear to have evaporated, your faith in religion to have been small ; your character with posterity will dwindle into insignificance, by which a most de- structive blow will be levelled against the happiness of mankind." Second Defence. " For he who freely magnifies what hath been nobly done, and fears not to declare as freely what might be done better, gives ye [the Lords and Commons] the best covenant of his fidelity." A reopagitica . 8. Moral Elevation Purity. Carlyle has called Mil- ton "the moral king of English literature." In his second Defence of the People of England, Milton declares, concern- ing his experience on the Continent: " I again take God to witness that, in all those places where so many things are con- MILTON 45 sidered lawful, I lived sound and untouched from all profligacy and vice, having this thought perpetually before me, that though I might escape the eyes of men, I certainly could not the eyes of God." " Milton consecrated his thoughts as well as his words. . . . He praised everywhere chaste love, piety, gener- osity, heroic force. . . . They [the masques] were amusements for the castle ; he made out of them lectures on magnanimity and constancy. . . . He was born with the instinct of noble things." Taine. Milton was sensuous, as he declared all poetry should be, but he was never sensual. His conception of the dignity and the moral possibilities of poetry is best expressed in his own words : " These [poetic] abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired gift of God, rarely bestowed, but yet to some (though most abuse) in every nation ; and are of power beside the office of a pulpit, to imbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and public civility, to allay the perturbations of the mind, and set the affections in right tune ; to celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the throne and equipage of God's almightiness, and what he works, and what he suffers to be wrought with high providence in his church ; to sing the victorious agonies of martyrs and saints, the deeds and triumphs of just and pious na- tions, doing valiantly through faith against the enemies of Christ." " Look at the Lady in ' Comus! ' " exclaims Van Dyke ; she is the sweet embodiment of Milton's youthful ideal of virtue, clothed with the fairness of opening womanhood, armed with the sun-clad power of chastity. Darkness and danger cannot stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts ! Evil things have no power upon her, but shrink abashed from her presence. ' ' " He had a gravity in his temper not melancholy ; not till the later part of his life sour, morbid, or ill-tempered ; but a 46 MILTON certain serenity of mind a mind not condescending to little things. ' ' Walter Bagehot. " It was the glory of Milton to create for himself a universe of his own ; and every line of his works shows us an instance of the employment of ordinary materials in relation to a high internal moral end." -John Sterling. "The man was as great and pure as the author." Miss Mitford. "The almost passionate praise of purity, the scorn mani- fested for those who indulge in sensual delights ! Irritable, exacting, vindictive, he was totally free from any- thing deserving the name of vice ; conscientious, high- minded, dignified, and courageous." H. J. Nicoll. ILLUSTRATIONS. "After the performing so glorious an action as this, you ought to do nothing that's mean and little, not so much as to think of, much less to do, anything but what is great and sublime. . . . Show as much justice, temperance, and moderation in the main- taining your liberty as you have shown courage in freeing your- selves from slavery." Reply to Salmasius. " Nature and laws would be in an ill case, if Slavery should find what to say for itself and Liberty be mute : and if tyrants should find men to plead for them, and they that can master and vanquish tyrants should not be able to find advocates." Reply to Salmasius. " I thought it base that I should be travelling abroad for pleasure while my fellow-countrymen at home were fighting for liberty." From a Letter. 9. Erudition Profound Learning. This endow- ment appears continually both in Milton's prose and in his poetry. In his early manhood he wrote to a friend: "I, who certainly have not wetted the tip of my lips in the stream of these the classical languages, but in proportion to my years have swallowed the most copious draughts, can yet some- MILTON 47 times retire with avidity and delight to feast on Dante, Petrarch, and many others." " His literature was unquestionably great. He read all the languages which are considered either learned or polite ; Hebrew, with its two dialects ; Latin, Greek, Italian, French, and Spanish. In Latin his skill was such as places him in the first rank of writers and critics, and he appears to have culti- vated Italian with uncommon diligence." Samuel Johnson. "The author unfolds the treasures of his learning [in the controversy with Salmasius], heaping up the testimony of Scripture, passages from the fathers, and quotations from the poets, laying sacred and profane antiquity alike under contri- bution, and subtly discussing the sense of this and that Greek or Hebrew term." Edmond Scherer. " From the twelfth year of his life, Milton tells us he rarely went to bed without studying until midnight. During the five years at Horton, after leaving Cambridge, he says : ' I was wholly intent, through a period of absolute leisure, on a steady perusal of Greek and Latin writers. . . . Occa- sionally I exchanged for life in the city, either for the purpose of buying books or for that of learning anything new in mathematics or music, in which I then took delight.' " H. J. Nicoll. ILLUSTRATIONS. "Thus Mithridates exprest himself in a letter to Arfaces, King of the Parthians : ' If you were to have been the trum- peter, not so much as Homer's mice would have waged war against the frogs. . . . You take care, and so you might well, lest any should imagine that you were about to bereave Cicero or Demosthenes ; . . . but like a second Crispin, or that little Grecian Tzetyes, you do but write a great deal, take no pains to write well. . . . You conclude very tragically, like Ajax in his raving.' " Reply to Salmasius. " To this purpose Josephus writes, a proper and able interpre- tator of the laws of his own country, who was admirably well versed in the Jewish policy, and infinitely preferable to a thou- 48 MILTON sand obscure, ignorant Rabbins. He has it thus in the fourth Book of his Antiquities '\ptaroKparia ntv ovv ^paritrroi',' etc. Another Jewish author, Philo Judaeus, who was Josephus's contemporary, a very studious man in the Law of Moses, upon which he wrote a large commentary." Reply to Salmasius. " He told them the manner of their king, as before he told us the manner of the priests, the sons of Eli ; for he uses the same word in both places (which you in the thirty-third page of your book, by an Hebrew solecism, too, call nisn). The fathers have commented on this place too ; I'll instance in one, that may stand for a great many ; and that's Sulpitius Severus, a contemporary and intimate friend of St. Jerome, and, in St. Augustine's opinion, a man of great wisdom and learning. . . . But according to Sallust, that lawful power and authority that kings were intrusted with, . . . and you might have learnt from Lichardus, that most of the Rabbins too were of the same mind." Reply to Salmasius. 10. Coarseness Vulgarity. " He used an intol- erable deal of bad language, which, however excusable in a heated controversialist, ill became the author of ' Connis.' . This noble argument [' The Defence of the English People '], alike worthy of the man and of the occa- sion, is doubtless overclouded and disfigured by personal abuse. His defences are rendered provoking by his extraor- dinary language concerning his opponents; 'numskull,' 'beast,' 'fool,' 'puppy,' 'knave,' 'ass,' 'mongrel-cur,' are but a few of the epithets that may be selected from this descriptive catalogue." Augustine Birrell. " He was not nice in the choice of his missiles, and too often borrows a dirty lump from the dung-hill of Luther. His sentences are often loutish and difficult ; in controversy he is brutal, and at any, the most inopportune moment, capable of an incredible coarseness." Lowell. "It is a more serious objection that they [his prose writ- ings] are disfigured by party spirit, coarse invective, and controversial asperity. Milton's alleged virulence was man- MILTON 49 ifested toward both private and public foes." W. E. Channing. " Milton retorts, . . . seasoning the mess with coarse epigrams and with vulgar terms of abuse. Luther and Calvin themselves, experts as they were in insults, had never done it better. " Edmond Scherer. " The natural acerbity of his temper, quickened by the insults of his assailants, often led him to indulge in the most vulgar railing." George Dawson. ILLUSTRATIONS. " 'And I wish,' you say, 'that the writer had been burned as well.' Is this your disposition, slave ? But you have taken good care that I should not indulge a similar wish toward you ; for you have been long wasting in blacker flames. Your con- science is scorched by the flames of adultery and rape and those perjuries by the help of which you debauched an unsuspecting girl, to whom you promised marriage and then abandoned to de- spair. You are writhing under the flames of that mercenary passion which impelled you, though covered with crimes, to lust after the functions of the priesthood and to pollute the conse- crated elements with your incestuous touch." Second Defence. " As for the queen herself, she was made believe that by put- ting down bishops her prerogative would be infringed, of which shall be spoken anon as the course of method brings it in ; and why the prelates labored it should be so thought, ask not them, but ask their bellies. . . . But he that will mould a modern bishop into a primitive, must yield him to be elected by the popular voice, undiocesed, unrevenued, unlorded, and leave him nothing but brotherly equality, matchless temperance, frequent fasting, incessant prayer and preaching, continual watchings and labors in his ministry ; which what a rich booty it would be, what a plump endowment to the many-benefice-gaping-mouth of a prelate, what a relish it would give to his canary-sucking and swan-eating palate, let old Bishop Mountain judge for me." Reformation in England. BUNYAN, 1628-1688 Biographical Outline. John Bunyan, born at Elstow, near Bedford, in November, 1628 ; name spelled Buignon, Buniun, Bonyan, Binyan, and in twenty-nine other ways ; father a tinker and mother a "decent " woman of the lower class ; the family had a forge and a workshop at Elstow, where, from time immemorial, they had occupied a freehold ; Bunyan learns to read and write " according to the rate of other poor men's children," but is early called from school to help his father, and soon forgets his learning, as he says, " even almost utterly ; " the loss of his mother, in June, 1644, and the prompt advent of a step-mother estrange him from his home and induce him to enlist as a soldier in the Civil War, probably (but not certainly) on the Parliamentary side ; while in the army he is providentially preserved from death by the sudden and voluntary substitution of another soldier in his place in a file drawn to besiege a certain point, the substitute being immediately killed ; at the close of the Civil War Bunyan is supposed to have returned to Elstow and to his trade as tinker or "brasier;" he is married about the end of 1648 (he gives neither the date of his marriage nor the name of his wife) to a woman of godly parents, but they have " not so much as a spoon or a household dish between them ; ' ' his wife's dowry consists of two pious books (' The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven ' and ' The Practice of Piety '), the reading of which profoundly affects Bunyan and produces an external change in his habits; he gives up dancing, bell-ringing, and profanity, and becomes a diligent student of the narrative parts of the Bible ; although " a brisk talker on religion," he 50 BUNYAN 51 soon realizes that he is "a poor painted hypocrite " and that he entirely lacks a personal knowledge of deep spiritual ex- periences ; he enters upon the tremendous spiritual conflict afterward so graphically described in his " Grace Abound- ing; " after three years of this struggle he enters into pro- found spiritual peace, and joins a non-conformist body meet ing at Bedford under the ministrations of " holy Mr. Gifford," who has much influence over Bunyan ; Bunyan still resides at Elstow, where his blind daughter, Mary, and his second daughter, Elizabeth, are born ; he removes to Bedford about 1655, where, after the death of his wife and his pastor, Bun- yan, who had been a deacon, begins to exhort, at first pri- vately and gradually " in a more publick way ; " he is for- mally acknowledged and consecrated as a preacher in 1657 ; his preaching draws great crowds, all the Midland counties demanding to hear him ; he continues his trade as a ' ' brasier ; ' ' while a few churches are opened to him, most of his ser- mons are delivered " in woods, in barns, on village greens, or in town chapels; " he meets great opposition from the established clergy because of his effort " to mend souls as well as kettles and pans ; " he is indicted for preaching in 1658 (with unknown result), is called " a witch, a Jesuit, a highway- man," and is otherwise grossly slandered; publishes his first book, " Some Gospel Truths Opened," at Newport Pagnel in 1656, protesting against the mysticism of the Quakers ; he is answered by oneBurrough, and replies, in 1657, with "A Vin- dication of Gospel Truths ; " both of Bunyan's books show a great command of plain English and a thorough knowledge of the Bible ; in 1658, just before Cromwell's death, Bunyan pub- lishes " Sighs from Hell, or the Groans of a Damned Soul," a discourse founded on the parable of the rich man and Laz- arus ; ignoring the revival of the acts against non-conformists at the Restoration, he continues to preach in barns, etc. ; he is arrested while conducting a meeting near Bedford, Novem- ber 12, 1660, disdaining to improve an opportunity given 52 BUNYAN him to escape ; he refuses to promise to forbear preaching, and is committed .by Justice Wingate (who really wished to release him) to the county jail (not the town gaol on the Ouse Bridge, as has been commonly believed), where he re- mains nearly all the time for the ensuing twelve years ; he is tried, somewhat irregularly (no witnesses appear against him), at Bedford in January, 1661; he confesses the indictment, and declares his intention to repeat his offence at the first op- portunity ; he is sentenced to three months' imprisonment, with the addition of banishment if he persists in his contumacy, and execution if, after banishment, he return to England without royal license ; at the end of three months he is urged to agree to some sort of a compromise, such as confining him- self to private exhortation, but he refuses ; refuses also to take advantage of the general pardon offered on the coronation of Charles II. ; a year before his arrest he had married a second wife, who afterward went to London and appealed to the House of Lords in his behalf, but was referred to his judges ; in the summer of 1661 she appeals three times to have Bunyan for- mally tried and fully heard, but in vain ; another vain effort is made in 1662; except for a slight interval in 1666, Bunyan remains in jail till 1672 ; during the early years of his im- prisonment he is allowed to leave the jail frequently and to attend religious meetings at Bedford, and even as far away as London, but the irregularity is discovered, the jailer nearly loses his place in consequence, and Bunyan is forbidden henceforth " even to look out at the door ; " he is liberated in 1666, but is soon rearrested for repeating his former offence ; while in jail he supports his family by making long-tagged laces ; " nor was the Word of God bound," for he preached to his fellow -prisoners, many being his co-religionists ; he studies ardently the Bible and Fox's " Book of Martyrs," and writes, while in prison, many pamphlets and tracts ; his first prison book, called ''Profitable Meditations," is written in verse, and has small literary merit j in 1663 he publishes " Praying BUNYAN 53 in the Spirit " and " Christian Behavior ; " between 1663 and 1665 appear "Four Last Things," " Ebal and Gerizim," "Prison Meditations" (these three in verse), "The Holy City," and " The Resurrection of the Dead ; " he publishes his first immortal work, "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners," about the time of his brief release in 1666 ; dur- ing the second period of his imprisonment he apparently does little literary work ; in 1672 he publishes "A Defence of Jus- tification by Faith," being an unjustifiably ferocious attack on a work then popular by the Rev. Edward Fowler ; Bunyan publishes also, in 1672, " The Confession of My Faith and Reason of My Practice," a vindication of his course and an appeal for liberty; although " Pilgrim r s Progress" is de- clared by Bunyan to have been written in "the gaol," re- cently discovered evidence tends to prove that it must have been during a later and shorter imprisonment, about 1675, from which he was released by the intervention of Thomas Burton, then Bishop of Lincoln ; he is released from jail in the spring of 1672, and receives, by royal authority, a license to preach, on May Qth of that year and a formal pardon on September 1 3th following ; his release is due to a general plan of Charles II. for setting up the Roman Catholic worship in England by first showing leniency to all non -conformists ; on January 21, 1672, Bunyan is called to the pastorate of the non-conformist congregation at Bedford, which worshipped in a barn from the Restoration till 1701 ; he makes frequent preaching tours through the surrounding country, and is play- fully known as " Bishop Bunyan ; " publishes " The Strait Gate " in 1676 and the first and second editions of " Pilgrim's Progress" in 1678; in 1679 appears the third edition of " Pilgrim's Progress," both the second and the third contain- ing important additions to the first edition ; in 1678 he pub- lishes also " Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ " and " A Treatise on the Fear of God ; " in 1679 he also publishes his third great book, "The Life and Death of Mr. Badman," unap- ^ 54 BUNYAN preached save by the tales of Defoe as a picture of the rough English country-town life under Charles II. ; in 1682 Bun- yan publishes " The Holy War," and between 1682 and 1684 " The Barren Fig Tree " and " The Pharisee and ,the Pub- lican ; " the second part of " Pilgrim's Progress " appears in 1684 ; with the renewed enforcement of the acts against non- conformists in 1675, Bunyan's preaching tours again become dangerous, but he abstains from political disputes, and is not disturbed; he preaches frequently in London to large congre- gations, but repeatedly refuses tempting offers to leave his' Bedford flock for more attractive fields ; under James II. he refuses a royal offer of a political office, made on condition that he take a personal part in remodelling the corporation of Bedford ; Bunyan is unofficial chaplain to the Lord-Mayor of London at the time of his death, which occurs August 31, 1688, in London, at the house of a friend ; he is buried in Bunhill Fields, and leaves a personal estate of less than one hundred pounds. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON BUNYAN'S STYLE. Macaulay, T. B., "Essays" (Miscellaneous Works). New York, 1880, Harper, i: 523-535; 2: 641; 4: 25-39. Venables, E., "Life of John Bunyan." London, 1861, Murray, 168. Minto, W., "English Prose Literature." Edinburgh, 1886, Blackwood, 301-330. Taine, H. A., "History of English Literature." New York, 1874, Holt, 2: 80-96. Cheever, G. B., "Lectures on Pilgrim's Progress." London, 1799, Religious Tract Society, 1-279. Lang, A., "Essays in Little." New York, 1891, Scribner, 183-192. Woodberry, G. E., "Studies in Letters." Boston, 1891, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 209-219. Gilfillan, G., "Literary Portraits." Edinburgh, 1852, J. Hogg, i: 3H-330; 3: 336-348. Hallam, H., "Literature of Europe." New York, 1847, Harper, 2: 417. Masson, D.,. "British Novelists." Boston, 1892, W. Small, 80-85. BUNYAN 55 Gosse, E., " History of English Literature of the Eighteenth Century." New York, 1889, Macmillan, 82-86. Dawson, G., "Biographical Lectures." London, 1886, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 106-125. Hazlitt, W. C, "Offspring of Thought in Solitude." London, 1884, Reeves & Turner, 213-220. Tuckerman, B., "History of English Prose Fiction." New York, 1882, Putnam, 106-111. Froude, J. A., " Bunyan " (English Men of Letters). New York, 1880, Harper, 152-165. Punshon, W. M., "Exeter Hall Lectures." London, 1857, Nisbet, 12: 459-484. Southey, R., "Cromwell and Bunyan." London, 1861, Murray, 168. Whittier, J. G., "Prose Works." Boston, 1866, Ticknor & Co., I : 218. Collier, W. F., " History of English Literature." London, 1892, Nel- son, 227-231. Tulloch, J., "English Puritanism and Its Leaders." Edinburgh, 1861, Blackwood, 393-488. Philip, R., " Life and Times of Bunyan." London, 1839, George Virtue. Brown, J., " Life, Times, and Work of John Bunyan." Boston, 1885, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Anderson, W., "Self-made Men." London, 1879, J. Snow & Co., 65-112. Scott, Sir W., "Critical and Miscellaneous Essays." Philadelphia, 1841, Carey & Hart, I : 315-345. Nicoll, H. J., " Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1891, Appleton, 101-106. Welsh, A. H., " Development of English Literature." Chicago, 1884, Griggs, 2 : 45-54. Whittier, J. G., " Poetic Works." Boston, 1889, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 6(2); 9-37. Stephen, L. (Venables), "Dictionary of National Biography." New York, 1886, Macmillan, 7: 275-284. Allibone, S. A., "Dictionary of Authors." Philadelphia, 1858, Childs & Peters, i : 282-284. Phillips, M. G., "A Manual of English Literature." New York, 1885, Harper, I : 288-289. Russell, W. C. , "The Book of Authors." London, n. d., Warne, 90- 92. Harper's Magazine, 14 : 776-782 (Macaulay). 5^ BUNYAN MacmiHarfs Magazine, 30: 273-280 (A. P. Stanley); 39: 23-31 (Net- tleship) ; 28 : 238-242. Eclectic Review, 23 : 318-334 (Cheever) ; 70 : 468-480 (R. Philip) ; 95 : 263-281 (G. Opper); 83: 129-147 (Cheever). North American Review, 36 : 449-472 (Cheever). Catholic World, 6 : 536-544. Dublin University Magazine, 37 : 435-453 (Cheever). National Magazine, 6: 97-108 and 205-213. American Church Review, 16 : 337-354 (J. Ferguson). Christian Review, 4: 394-419 (R. Philip); 19: 243-258 (V. R. Hotchkiss). Methodist Quarterly Review, 9: 466-470 (Cheever); 18 : 209-227' (L. A. H.). Westminster Review, 17 : 103-118 (H. V. Knight). Christian Observer, 32 : 805-813 ; 46 : 501-509 ; 32 : 596-620 and 668-689. People 's Journal, 10 : 281-284^. Whitehead). Princeton Review, 31 : 232-257 (S. D. Alexander). Contemporary Review, 50 : 464-480 (Goldwin Smith). Congregationalist, 15 : 785-792. Dial, 6 : 298-299 (G. C. Noyes). Athenaum, \ : 1886, 449-450. Spectator, 59 : 49-50; 60 : 439-440; 63: 840-842. Nation, 42 : 59-61 (Woodberry) ; 30 : 404-406 (A. V. Dicey). Academy, 29 : 1-2 (E. Peacock). Saturday Review, 62 : 63-65. Good Words, 26 : 693-700 (J. A. Picton). Book Lore, 4 : 144-145. Catholic Presbyterian , 3 : 401-410 (D. Sime). Presbyterian Quarterly Review, IO: 434-461. Frazer's Magazine, 31 : 308-319. PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS. i. Vigor Terseness Freshness. Next to that of the English Bible, Bunyan's language is the most terse and idiomatic to be found in our literature. Ninety-three per cent, of his vocabulary is Anglo-Saxon. In some of his pages there is not a word of more than two syllables. Punshon speaks of " his array of ' picked and packed ' words, the clearness with which he enunciates, and the power with BUNYAN 57 which he applies the truth, his intense and burning ear- nestness, the warm soul that is seen beating in benevolent heart-throbs, through the transparent page. ' ' He has the rare faculty of using no unnecessary words. " In Bunyan's pict- ures, ' ' says Venables, ' ' there is never a superfluous detail. Every stroke tells, and helps to the completeness of the por- traiture. " His diction bears plainly the marks of the few books that he knew, and knew so well. His constant compan- ions were the Bible and Fox's " Book of Martyrs," and every page shows the impress of one or the other of these books. Southey calls Bunyan's diction " a pure stream of current Eng- lish." Hallam calls him "powerful and picturesque from concise simplicity." "Under his simplicity," says Taine, " you will find power, and in his puerility, intuition." Ma- caulay says, of the " Pilgrim's Progress : " " There is no book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the fame of the unpolluted English language, no book which shows so well how rich that language is in its own proper wealth and how little it has been improved by all that it has borrowed. His knowledge of the Bible was such that he might have been called a living concordance." " Never was the inward life of any being depicted with more vehement and burning language. It [' Grace Abound- ing '] is an intensely vivid description of the workings of a mind of the keenest sensibility and the most fervid imagina- tion. . . . It is condensed, severe, and naked in its style, beneath the pent fire of Bunyan's feelings and the pressure of his conscience, forbidding him to seek for beauty." G. B. Cheever. " His characters come as fresh, as vivid, as if they were out of Scott or Moliere ; the tinker is as great a master of charac- ter and fiction as the greatest, almost." Andrew Lang. " The pent-up fire glows in every line, and kindles the hearts of his readers. Beautiful images, vivid expressions, forcible arguments all aglow with passion, tender pleadings, 58 BUNYAN solemn warnings, make those who read him all eye, all ear, all soul. . ... He did not set himself to compose theo- logical treatises upon stated subjects, but after he had preached with satisfaction to himself and acceptance to his audience, he usually wrote out the substance of his discourse from memory, with the enlargements and additions it might seem to require. And thus his religious works have all the glow and fervor of the unwritten utterances of a practised orator." E. Venables. " The thing which gave Bunyan notoriety in the days of his ungodliness was the energy which he put into all his do- ings. . . . Though there is a great appearance of ampli- tude about his compositions, few of his words could be want- ed." -James Hamilton. " Nothing, as a rule, is colder than the characters in an allegory ; his are living" Tainc. " More earnest words were never written [speaking of ' Grace Abounding ']. It is the entire unveiling of a human heart the tearing off of the fig-leaf covering of sin." }Vhit- ticr. " Read not Addison nor Johnson, read Bunyan, who em- ployed direct and true English. . . . The man who would speak good English should take for his company the authorized version of the Bible and Bunyan's ' Pilgrim's Prog- ress.' Bunyan's is chapel English, man's English, woman's English, the English spoken anywhere by the native sons and daughters of the soil." George Dawson. ILLUSTRATIONS. " They then began to pick holes, as we say, in the coats of some of the godly, and with that devilishness that they may have a seeming colour to throw religion (for the sake of some infirmities they have espied in them) behind their backs." Grace Abound- ing. " His house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of BUNYAN 59 savour. There is there neither prayer nor sign of repentance ; yea, the brute in his kind serves God far better than he. He is the very stain, reproach, and shame of religion, to all that know him ; it can hardly have a good word in all that end of the town where he dwells, through him. ' A saint abroad, and a devil at home.' His poor family finds it so ; he is such a churl, such a railer at and so unreasonable with his servants, that they neither know how to do for or speak to him. Men that have any deal- ings with him say it is better to deal with a Turk than with him, for fairer dealing they shall have at their hands. This Talkative, if it be possible, will go beyond them, defraud, beguile, and over- reach them." Pilgrim's Progress. " How many steps have I took in vain ! Thus it happened to Israel, for their sin ; they were sent back again by way of the Red Sea ; and I am made to tread those steps with sorrow which I might have trod with delight, had it not been for this sinful sleep. How far might I have been on my way by this time ! I am made to tread those steps thrice over which I needed not to have trod but once ; yea, now also I am like to be benighted, for the day is almost spent. Oh, that I had not slept ! " Pil- grim's Progress. 2. Imaginative Power Portraiture. W. M. Pun- shon calls his imagination ' ' princely, almost beyond compare. ' ' Every object, every character is brought before the reader with wonderful vividness. " Abstract qualities of charac- ter," says Froude, " were never clothed in more substantial flesh and blood than Bunyan's jurymen." Bunyan pos- sessed in a remarkable degree the power of graphic represen- tation. Says Taine : ' ' He transforms arguments into para- bles. . . . Giant Despair, a simple abstraction, becomes as real in his hands as an English gaoler or farmer. Powerful as that of an artist, but more vehement, this imag- ination worked in the man without his co-operation, and be- sieged him with visions which he had neither willed nor fore- seen. . . . He has no trouble in calling up or forming imaginary objects. They agree in all their details with all 60 BUNYAN the details of the precept which they represent, as a pliant veil fits the body which it covers. He distinguishes and ar- ranges all the parts of the landscape here the river, on the right the castle, a flag on its left turret, the setting sun three feet lower, an oval cloud in the front part of the sky with the preciseness of a carpenter. ' ' " He was a lad to whom nature had given a powerful imagination and sensibility which amounted to a disease. . . . Images came crowding on his mind faster than he could put them into words ; quagmires and pits, steep hills', dark and horrible glens, soft vales, and sunny pastures. . . . To the last he loved to draw his illustrations of sacred things from camps and fortresses, from guns, drums, trumpets, flags of truce, and regiments arrayed, each under its own banner." Macaulay. " Bunyan's imagination was powerful enough, in connec- tion with his belief in God's superintending Providence, to array his inward trials with a sensible shape and external events with a light reflected from his own experience ; hopes and fears were friends and enemies ; acting in concert with these, all things that he met with in the world were friends and enemies likewise, according as they aided or opposed his spiritual life." G. B. Cheever. " He had to render into outward and visible forms the subtle and strong passions of individual and internal life. . . . He has taken the hidden things of the interior life and put them into words as an artist puts them upon canvas ; and there are no better pictures." George Dawson. "Bunyan combined the power of expressing thoughts of universal acceptability in a style of the most perfect clearness, with a high degree of imaginative genius and a vivid descrip- tive faculty ; his works are equally attractive to readers of all ages and every variety of mental culture ; they are among the first to be taken up in the nursery and among the last to be laid down when life is closing in on us ; they have filled the BUNYAN 6l memory with pictures and peopled it with the most unfor- gettable reality. . . . Nor is there one [of his works] which does not here and there exhibit specimens of Bunyan's picturesque and imaginative power. In nothing is his vivid- ness more displayed than in the reality of his impersonations. The dramatis persona are not shadowy abstractions, moving far above us in a mystical world or lay figures ticketed with certain names, but solid men and women of our own flesh and blood, living in our own every-day world, men of like passions with ourselves. Many of them we know familiarly ; there is hardly one we should be surprised to meet any day." E. Venables. " His imagination [after conversion] ceased its childish fabling, and became visionary ; he saw mind-pictures, and this the more readily because his uneducated mind was accus- tomed to move through concrete ideas, and was characterized by a high visualizing power." G. E. Woodberry. "It [' Pilgrim's Progress '] is the matchless and inimitable crystallization into imaginative art of the whole system of Puri- tan Protestantism." Edmund Gosse. ILLUSTRATIONS. " He took me, and had me where he showed me a stately pal- ace, and how the people were clad in gold that were in it ; and how there came a venturous man, and cut his way thro* the armed men that stood in the door to keep him out ; and how he was bid to come in and win eternal glory." Grace Abounding. " Now there was, not far from the place where they lay, a castle called Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair ; and it was in his grounds they now were sleeping. Wherefore he, getting up in the morning early and walking up and down in his fields, caught Christian and Hopeful asleep in his grounds. Then, with a grim and surly voice, he bid them awake, and asked them whence they were and what they did on his grounds. They told him they were pilgrims and that they had lost their way. Then, said the giant, ' You have this night 62 BUNYAN trespassed on me, by trampling in and lying on my grounds ; and therefore you must go along with me." So they were forced to go, because he was stronger than they. They also had but little to say, for they knew themselves in a fault. The Giant, therefore, drove them before him and put them into his castle, in- to a very dark dungeon, nasty and stinking to the spirits of these two men. Here, then, they lay from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, without one bit of bread or drop of drink or light or any to ask how they did." Pilgrim's Progress. " So he went on and Apollyon met him ; now the monster was hideous to behold. He was clothed with scales like a fish (and they are his pride), he had wings like a dragon, feet like a bear, and out of his belly came fire and smoke, and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion." Pilgrim's Progress. ''Then went the jury out, whose names were Mr. Blindman, Mr. No-good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-lust, Mr. Live-loose, Mr. Heady, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty, Mr. Hate-light, and Mr. Implacable, who every one gave in his pri- vate verdict against him among themselves, and afterward unan- imously concluded to bring him in guilty before the Judge. And first among themselves, Mr. Blindman, the foreman, said, ' I see clearly that this man is a heretic.' Then said Mr. No-good, 'Away with such a fellow from the earth!' ' Ay,' said Mr. Malice, 'for I hate the very look of him.' Then said Mr. Love- lust, ' I could never endure him.' ' Nor I,' said Mr. Live-loose, ' for he would always be condemning my way.' ' Hang him, hang him!' said Mr. Heady. 'A sorry ,' said Mr. High- mind. ' My heart riseth against him,' said Mr. Enmity. 'He is a rogue,' said Mr. Liar. ' Hanging is too good for him,' said Mr. Cruelty. ' Let us dispatch him out of the way,' said Mr. Hatelight. Then said Mr. Implacable, ' Might I have all the world given to me, I could not be reconciled to him ; there- fore let us forthwith bring him in guilty of death.' " Pilgrim's Progress. 3. Homeliness Naturalness. This means some- thing more than simplicity. He abounds in homely collo- quialisms. Minto declares that Bunyan's language " is homely indeed, but it is not the every-day speech of hinds BUNYAN 63 and tinkers ; it is the language of the Church, of the Bible, of Fox's ' Book of Martyrs,' and whatever other literature Bunyan was in the habit of perusing." It is this plainness of style that has caused " Pilgrim's Progress" to be translated into more languages than any other English book ; while, for two hundred years, the Bible excepted, it has been the most widely read book in our literature. " His English is plain but never vulgar, homely but never coarse, and still less unclean ; full of imagery but never obscure, always intelligible, always forcible, going straight to the point in the fewest and simplest words. It may indeed be affirmed that it was impossible for Bunyan to write badly. His genius was a native genius. As soon as he began to write at all he wrote well. Without any training, as he says, in the school of Aristotle or Plato, or any study of the great masters of literature, at one bound he leapt to a high level of thought and composition. His earliest book, ' Some Gos- pel Truths Opened,' 'thrown off,' writes Dr. Brown, 'at a heat,' displays the same ease of style and directness of speech and absence of stilted phraseology which he maintained to the end. The great charm which pervades all Bunyan's writings is their naturalness. You never feel that he is writ- ing for effect, still less to perform an uncongenial piece of task-work. He writes because he had something to say which was worth saying, a message to deliver on which the highest interests of others were at stake, which demanded nothing more than a straightforward earnestness and plainness of speech, such as, coming from the heart, might best reach the hearts of others. He wrote as he spoke, because a neces- sity was laid upon him which he dared not evade." Ven- ables. ' ' The vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common people. There is not an expression, if we except a few technical terms of theology, which would puzzle the rudest peasant. We have observed several pages which do not contain a single 64 BUNYAN word of more than two syllables. Yet no writer has said more exactly what he meant." Macaulay, " Shorn of all ornament, simple and direct as the contrition and prayer of childhood, . . . the style [of ' Grace Abounding '] is that of a man dead to self-gratification and only desirous to convey to others the lesson of his inward trials, temptations, sins, weaknesses, and dangers."- Whittier. "These repetitions, embarrassed phrases, familiar compari- sons, this artless style, whose awkwardness recalls the child- ish periods of Herodotus, and whose simplicity recalls tales for children, prove that if his work is allegorical, it is so in order that it may be intelligible, and that Bunyan is a poet because he is a child." Taine. " His is a homespun style, not a manufactured one. If it is not a well of English undefiled to which the poet and philologist must repair, . . . it is a clear stream of cur- rent English, the vernacular speech of his age, sometimes, in- deed, in its rusticity and coarseness, but always in its plain- ness. . . . His language is everywhere level to the most ignorant reader and to the meanest capacity ; there is a homely reality about it ; a nursery tale is not more intelligi- ble, in its manner of narration, to a child." Robert Sort they. " It [' Pilgrim's Progress '] is composed in the lowest style of English, without slang or false grammar. If you were to polish it, you would at once destroy the reality of the vision." Coleridge. "This book [' Pilgrim's Progress '] is written so plainly, simply, and true to nature, that a sentence means almost a volume, and we find ourselves quoting from it constantly as we do from Shakespeare. . . . They [his pictures] are homely, you say. So much the better. And what realism there is about them ! There are so many characters in the book that those whom he addresses are pretty sure to find themselves in it." George Dawson. BUNYAN 6$ ILLUSTRATIONS. ' ' Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, ' I am void of fear in this matter ; prepare thyself to die ; for I swear by my infernal den that thou shall go no fur- ther ; here will I spill thy soul : ' and with that he threw a flaming dart at his breast ; but Christian had a shield in his hand with which he caught it, and so prevented the danger of that. Then did Christian draw, for he saw it was time to bestir him ; and Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing darts as thick as hail." Pilgrim's Progress. 11 Why, they, after their headstrong manner, conclude that it is a duty to rush on their journey all weathers ; and I am for waiting for wind and tide. They are for hazarding all for God at a clap ; and I am taking all advantages to secure my life and estate." Pilgrim's Progress. " Will a man give a penny to fill his belly with straw ? or can you persuade the turtle-dove to live on carrion, like the crow ? Though faithless ones care for carnal lusts, pawn or mortgage, or sell what they have and themselves outright to boot." Grace Abounding. 4. Quiet Humor Latent Satire. "We have strokes of pleasantry which bring back the smile to our faces and humorous thrusts about Hopeful's courage when the thieves were at a distance, and at the way in which ' Peter would swagger, aye, he would, but who so foiled and run down by villains as he ? ' " John Brown. "The open-heartedness, humor, and deep sensibility of Christian's character make us love him. ... It is amusing to see the manner in which, by turns, their [Bunyan's personages] real character is expressed in Bunyan's honest, rugged, plain-dealing, and humorous way." Sir Walter Scott. "The man must have been not a little waggish as well as witty who invented such happy names for the judge and jury that tried and burnt Faithful at Vanity Fair. . . . 66 BUNYAN Many of the characters of his ' Holy War ' also, as well as the manoeuvres of it, are rich in masterly strokes of shrewd- ness and piquancy. His coinage, like Fuller's or Donne's, ' rings like good metal.' . . . The ' Holy War ' abounds with sparkling wit as well as with profound metaphysics. It is, altogether, ' a witty invention,' which verifies the proverb, that ' Wisdom dwells with Prudence.' It is needless to say that this wit is of the highest order ; and the more remark- able, inasmuch as it is struck out from abstract qualities and personified passions." Robert Philip. " He can, by the quiet touch of sarcasm, wither up a pom- pous pretender, tear off the mantle of a hypocrite, expose a fool, and blast an impostor. ... He is at times dan- gerous in the cool naivete of his satire." George Gilfillan. ILLUSTRATIONS. " I like you wonderful well, for your sayings are full of convic- tion ; and I will add, what thing is so pleasant and what so profita- ble as to talk of the things of God ? What things so pleasant (that is, if a man hath any delight in things that are wonderful) ? For instance, if a man doth delight of the history or the mystery of things ; or if a man doth delight to talk of miracles, wonders, or signs, where shall he find things recorded so delightful and so sweetly penned as in the Holy Scripture ? . . . What you will : I will talk of things heavenly or things earthly ; things sacred or things profane ; things past or things to come ; things foreign or things at home ; things more essential or things circumstantial ; provided that all will be done to our profit. "- Pilgrim's Progress. ff Yes, and my wife is a very virtuous woman ; the daughter of a virtuous woman : she was my Lady Feigning's daughter, there- fore she came of a very honorable family, and is arrived to such a pitch of breeding that she knows how to carry it to all, even to prince and peasant. It is true we somewhat differ in religion from those of the stricter sort, yet but in two small points : we never strive against wind or tide ; secondly, we are always most zealous when religion goes in his silver slippers : we love to walk BUNYAN 67 with him in the streets if the sun shines and the people applaud him." Pilgrim's Progress. " But will it not be counted a trespass against the Lord of the city whither we are bound, thus to violate his revealed will ? They told him that, as for that, he needed not to trouble his head thereabout ; for what they did they had custom for, and could produce, if need were, testimony that would witness it for more than a thousand years. ' But,' said Christian, 'will your practice stand a trial at law ? ' They told him that, ' custom, it being of so long a standing as above a thousand years, would doubtless now be admitted as a thing legal by any impartial judge ; and besides,' said they, 'so be we get into the way, what's matter which way we get in ? If we are in, we are in.' " Pilgrim's Progress. 5. Realism. "Bunyan always preached 'what he saw and felt. "... How he preached when himself amidst the terrors of his own ' Pilgrim ' in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, may be gathered from his own mouth. He acted always under one character, the Christian Soldier, realizing in his own conflicts and conquests the Progress of his own Pilgrim. Therefore his great work is not a book of imaginations and shadows but of realities experienced. . . It will be pleasing to the imagination just in proportion as the mind of the reader has been accustomed to interpret the things of this life by their connection with another and by the light which comes from that world to this. A reader without this habit, and never having felt that he is a stranger and a pilgrim in a world of temptations and snares, can see but half the beauty of such poetry as fills this work, because it cannot make its appeal to his own experience. ... Of the faithfulness with which Bunyan has depicted the inward trials of the Christian conflict, of the depth and power of the appeal which that book makes to the Christian's heart, of the accuracy and beauty of the map therein drawn of the deal- ings of God's spirit in leading the sinner from the City of 68 BUNYAN Destruction to Mount Zion, he knows and can conceive noth- ing." G. B. Cheever. " This is the highest miracle of genius that things which are not should be as though they were ; that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another. . . . Bunyan is almost the only writer that ever gave to the abstract the interest of the concrete. His imagination exercised despotic power over his body and mind. . . . He felt his infernal enemy pulling at his clothes behind him. He spurned with his feet and struck- with his hands at the destroyer." Macau/ay. "How close, how truthful to his surroundings, he was as a literary workman, is brought home with great force by the view which this biography [' Pilgrim's Progress '] gives of Bed- ford things and people." G. E. Woodberry. " The ' Pilgrim's Progress ' is a study, unsurpassed for faith- fulness of detail and large suggestiveness, of one of the most remarkable epochs in any land. It is no mere realistic sketch of the Bedford of Puritan times ; it is a masterly and brilliant picture of the people of Puritan England and of the moral and ideal forces in the air. Christian, Faithful, and Mr. Greatheart ; Pliable, Obstinate, and Talkative ; Mr. Saveall, Mr. Moneylove, and Mr. Byends were, doubtless, but decent, ' douce ' folks from Bedford ; . . . but they were immedi- ately recognized in every parish in the country. . . . The character, the spirit, and the tendencies of the time are all here. . . . The earnestness of the times, the narrowness, the piety, the superstitions, and the excesses religious and irreligious are all here. The fragment is simply invaluable. No ancient statue, no shield or stone weapon, and no fossil, plant, fish, or foot-mark ever gave so real and so rich a glimpse of its times as this fantastic dream. . . . It is more than a mere likeness, and for this reason is of more than special in- terest to the student of history. He sees in the little sketch far more than mere villagers and pietists ; for he sees, in these BUNYAN 69 villagers and pietists, the impulse that made Puritanism great. . . The characters are drawn with the firmest fidelity to truth so much so that we may predicate with assurance what they will think, feel, will, or even what they will do, under given circumstances. ' ' David Simc. " He places before his readers certain pictures which he himself saw almost as clearly as if he had been Christian trudg- ing upon a real highway, instead of Bunyan writing within dark prison walls. And this he has done with such marvel- lous skill that we, too, feel the green grass of the Delectable Mountains beneath our feet and shudder as the awful darkness of the Valley of the Shadow of Death closes around us." W. F. Collier. " The more we study the 'Pilgrim's Progress' and the ' Holy War,' in connection with his own history and times, the more shall we see reason to believe that his numerous characters directly and broadly reflect both the outer and in- ner characteristics of the religious world familiar to him. . . There is also everywhere, in his allegories, the evi- dence of a rare power of actual observation of sharp insight into the living characteristics around him, and of great fulness of artistic skill in drawing these from the life as he knew and saw them. ... It is, above all, this realistic element that gives to Bunyan's great allegory its special interest. It is because he draws so much from outward fact that we find his pages so living and linger over them, and return to them and find them not only instructive, but entertaining. Spen- ser in his great allegory is richer, . . . but he has nowhere caught life and mirrored it as Bunyan has done. . . . Puri- tanism lives in his pages spiritually and socially in forms and in coloring which must ever command the sympathy and enlist the love of all good Christians." John Tulloch. " A man so sensitive to supernatural impressions could re- alize them as completely as the actual experiences of his daily life. . . . The same impression of reality pervades the 7O BUNYAN whole book [' Pilgrim's Progress '].... Every person- age whom he meets on his journey and every place through which he passes, appears to the mind of the reader with the vividness of actual experience. The child or the laborer reads the ' Pilgrim's Progress ' as a record of adventures undergone by a living man ; the scholar forgets the art which has raised the picture before his mind in a sense of contact with the sub- ject portrayed. . . . Other allegorists have pleased the fancy or gratified the understanding, but Bunyan occupies at once the imagination, the reason, and the heart of his reader. In ' Pilgrim's Progress ' strange and unreal places become well-known places, and moral qualities become dis- tinct human beings." Bayard Tuckerman. ' ' He was one of those enthusiasts whom some call fanatics and some madmen ; who hear suggestions, as they believe, from visible, tangible forms about their beds, and to whom it is in vain to say that they do not see them, for they verily and firmly believe that they do. ... Such a process is like catching a cloud and making it permanent, or like turn- ing a thought into a thing. But John Bunyan has done it." George Daw son. ILLUSTRATIONS. " I have also another stratagem in my head : you knosv Man- soul is a market-town, a town that delights in commerce ; what, therefore, if some of our Diabolonians shall feign themselves far countrymen, and shall go out and bring to the market of Man- soul some of our wares, though it be but for half the worth ? Now let those that thus trade in their market be those that are true to us, and I will lay down my crown to pawn it will do. There are two that are come to my thoughts already, that I think will be arch at this work, and they are, Mr. Penny-wise-pound- foolish and Mr. Get-i'-th'-hundred-and-lose-i-th'-shire ; nor is this man with the long name at all inferior to the other." The Holy War. 11 I saw then in my dream that they went on in this their soli- BUNYAN 71 tary ground, till they came to a place at which a man is apt to lose his way. Now though when it was light their guide could well enough tell how to miss those ways that led wrong, yet in the dark he was put to a stand ; but he had in his pocket a map of all ways leading to or from the Celestial City ; wherefore he struck a light, for he never goes, also, without his tinder-box, and takes a view of his book or map, which bids him be care- ful, in that place, to turn to the right-hand way." Pilgrim's Progress. " It made me laugh to see how old Mr. Prejudice was kicked and tumbled about in the dirt : for though a while since he was made a captain of the Diabolonians, to the hurt and damage of the town, yet now they had got him under their feet ; and I'll assure you he had by some of my Lord Understanding's party his crown cracked to boot. Mr. Anything also became a brisk man in the broil ; but both sides were against him, because he was true to none. Yet he had for his malpertness one of his legs broken ; and he that did it wished it had been his neck. Much harm more was done on both sides : but this must not be forgot- ten. It was now a wonder to see my Lord Will-be-will so indif- ferent as he was ; he did not seem to take one side more than another, only it was perceived that he smiled to see how old Prejudice was tumbled up and down in the dirt ; also when Cap- tain Anything came halting up before him, he seemed to take but little notice of him." The Holy War. 6. Catholicity Common Sense. "His common sense ... is extraordinarily close-packed and hard, and exhibits acute observation of the ways of human nature in practical life. . . . In an age of sectaries, he was not a narrow bigot, and did not stickle for meaningless things ; and in the time of political strife growing out of religious differences, and though himself a sufferer by twelve years' experience in prison, he did not confuse heaven with any fantastic monarchy or commonwealth of Christ, nor show any rancor or revengeful spirit as a subject." G. E. Woodberry. " You cannot say from a perusal of that work ['Pilgrim's Progress '] whether its author was a Presbyterian 72 BUNYAN or a Lutheran, only that he did not mean, in drawing his own portrait of a true Christian, that he should belong to any of these parties exclusively. . . . The portraiture was a compound of what was excellent in them all. . . . You do not meet truth in fragments, or in parts, but for the whole. You do not meet prejudices, bigotries, reproaches, nor any- thing in the sweet fields through which he leads you that can repel any the humblest, most forgotten Christian, or the wisest, most exalted one from these lovely enclosures; . . . conversing with you all the way so lovingly, so in- structively, so frankly, that nothing can be more delightful. You have in him more of the ubiquity, unity, and harmony of divine truth, more of the pervading breath and stamp of inspiration, than in almost any other uninspired writer. . In him there was a remarkable translucence of the general in the particular, and of the particular through the general. . . . Bunyan's book has the likeness of this universality, and Christians of every sect may take what they please out of it, except their own sectarianism ; they cannot find that. In this respect it bears remarkably the divine stamp. . . . It is a work so full of native good sense that no mind can read it without gaining in wisdom and vigor of judgment. . . . It is the charm of common sense and reality that constitutes in great measure the charm of Bunyan's book." G. B. Cheever. "The 'Pilgrim's Progress' is entirely catholic that is, universal in its expression and in its thoughts. It may con- tain sentiments distasteful to this or to that section of Chris- tians may tinge of the Calvinist or of the Puritan ; but what is remarkable is that this peculiar color is so slight." A. P. Stanley. "John Bunyan doubtless owed to John Gifford the peculiar type of his Christianity, its comprehensiveness, its sect-forgetting zeal for the things of Jesus Christ." James Hamilton. BUNYAN 73 "John Bunyan dipped his pen in the Catholicism of Cath- olicity. He had no sympathy with any ism, however novel or specious or popular, which corrupted or darkened the sim- plicity of the Gospel. With him charity was not a mere clap-trap sentiment for the platform, but a deep conviction, a strong principle, a fruit of the Holy Spirit." W. Anderson. ILLUSTRATIONS. " I saw then in my dream so far as this valley reached there was on the right hand a very deep ditch ; that ditch is it into which the blind have led the blind in all ages, and have both there miserably perished. Again, behold, on the left hand, there was a very dangerous quag, into which, if even a good man falls, he can find no bottom for his feet to stand on. Into that quag King David once did fall, and had no doubt therein been smoth- ered, had not He that is able plucked him out." Pilgrim's Progress. " Now I began to consider with myself that God hath a bigger mouth to speak with than I had a heart to conceive with ; I thought also with myself that He spoke not his words in haste or in an unadvised heat, but with infinite wisdom and judgment and in very truth and faithfulness." Grace Abounding. " The Publican hath now new things, great things, and life-long things to concern himself about : his sins, the curse, with death and hell, began now to stare him in the face : wherefore it was no time now to let his heart or his eyes or his cogitations wander, but to be fixed, and to be vehemently applying himself as a sin- ner to the God of Heaven for mercy." The Pharisee and the Publican. " My sons, you have heard, in the words of the truth of the Gospel, that you must ' through many tribulations enter into the kingdom of heaven ; ' and again, that ' in every city bonds and afflictions await you ; ' and therefore you cannot expect that you should go long on your pilgrimage without them in some sort or other. You have found something of the truth of these testimo- nies upon you already, and more will immediately follow ; for now, as you see, you are almost out of this wilderness, and there- fore you will soon come into a town that you will by and by see 74 BUNYAN before you ; and iu that town you will be hardly beset with ene- mies, who will strain hard but they will kill you ; and be sure that one or both of ypu must seal the testimony which you hold with your blood ; but be you faithful unto death, and the King will give you a crown of life. He that shall die there, although his death will be unnatural, and his pain, perhaps, great, he will yet have the better of his fellows ; not only because he will be arrived at the Celestial City soonest, but because he will escape many miseries that the other will meet with the rest of the jour- ney. But when you are come to the town, and shall find ful- filled what I have here related, then remember your friend, and quit yourselves like men, and commit the keeping of your souls to God in well-doing, as unto a faithful creator." Pilgrim's Progress. 7. Biblical Coloring Spirituality. "His genius pursued a path dictated by his piety, and one that no other being in the world ever pursued before him. . . . The very discipline of his intellect was a spiritual discipline ; the conflicts that his soul sustained with the powers of darkness were the very sources of his intellectual strength. The light that first broke through his darkness was the light from Heaven. . . . Bunyan has given a powerful rela- tion of his own religious experience in a little work entitled, ' Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.' . . . Not only was his heart made new by the spirit of the Bible, but his whole intellectual being was penetrated and transfigured by its influence. . . . The spirit of his work is Hebrew : we may trace the mingled influence of David and of Isaiah in the character of his genius ; and as to the images of the sacred poets, he is lavish in the use of them in the most natural and unconscious manner possible ; his mind was imbued with them." G. B. Cheever. "There is scarce a circumstance or metaphor in the Old Testament which does not find a place, bodily and literally, in the story of the ' Pilgrim's Progress ; ' and this peculiar arti- BUNYAN 75 fice has made his own imagination appear more creative than it really is." Hallam. " The ' Pilgrim's Progress ' is not only one of the first and most beautiful English offsprings of the Scriptures, but it is so like them in style, language, imagery, and sustained fervor that it might be taken as an appendix to the Bible. The tale so glows from beginning to end with Eastern imagery and fer- vor of prophets and seers that it may be viewed as an English flower grown upon Jewish soil. . . . It is so full of their sublime images that it comes upon the reader as an apocalypse of the Apocalypse. ... To the glad, pious ears of the Pilgrim the very birds, when they sing sweetly, sing aloud the Psalms of David." David Sime. " It was only its relation to religion that made any aspect of life interesting to him. . . . Bunyan knew no liter- ature except that of the Bible ; his imagination fed itself upon its grand forms of expression its wondrous scenes. His alle- gories are found constructed upon such great outlines of im- aginative incident and scenery as he had there learned to admire. All critics have been struck with the simplicity and faithfulness with which he reproduced scriptural circumstance and idea. . . . Nature is beheld by him only in the light of the sacred page and delineated by him only in the light of its descriptive language." John Tulloch. "It is the English of the Bible. His images are images of prophet and evangelist. So completely had the Bible be- come Bunyan's life that one feels its phrases as the natural ex- pression of his thoughts. He lived in the Bible till its words became his own. ' '/. R. Green. " Bunyan had occasion to mention an entertainment. Every dish which he placed on the table is in itself a scriptural parable ; and the precise nature of the refreshment . . . is found, on referring to the texts indicated, to have an ex- plicit connection with some striking particular of the Holy Wri t. " Sir Walter Scott. 76 BUN VAN " ' Pilgrim's Progress' seems to be a complete reflection of scripture with none of the rubbish of the theologians mixed up with it." Thomas Arnold. " ' Pilgrim's Progress ' has been called ' the creed of Cal- vin, illustrated by the genius of Shakespeare. ' ' ILLUSTRATIONS. " But at last I began to consider, that * that which is highly esteemed among men, is had in abomination with God.' And I thought again, this shame tells me what men are ; but he tells me nothing what God or the Word of God is ; and I thought, moreover, that at the day of doom we shall not be doomed to death or life according to the hectoring spirits of the world, but according to the wisdom and law of the Highest. Therefore, thought I, what God says is best, indeed is best, though all the men in the world are against it." Pilgrim's Progress. " Then said my lord mayor, ' We have sinned indeed, but that shall be no help to thee, for our Immanuel hath said it, and that in great faithfulness, ' and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.' He hath also told us (O our enemy) that ' all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to the sons of men.' Therefore we dare not despair, but will look for and wait for mercy." The Holy War. " Look to the heavens, and behold and consider the stars, how high are they ! Can you stop the sun from running his course, and hinder the moon from giving her light ? Can you count the number of the stars, or stop the bottles of heaven ? Can you call for the waters of the sea, and cause them to cover the face of the ground ? Can you behold everyone that is proud and abase him and bend their faces in secret ? Yet these are some of the works of our King, in whose name, this day, we come up un- to you, that you may be brought under his authority. In his name, therefore, I summon you again to yield up yourselves to his captains." The Holy War. 8. Sympathy Tenderness. " Religion has scarcely ever worn a form so calm and soothing as in his allegory. The feeling which predominates throughout the book is a BUNYAN 77 feeling of tenderness for weak, timid, and harassed minds. The character of Mr. Fearing, of Mr. Feeblemind, and Mr. Despondency and his daughter Miss Muchafraid ; the account of poor Littlefaith, who was robbed by three thieves of his spend- ing money ; the description of Christian's terrorin thedungeon of Giant Despair and in his passage through the river all show how strong a sympathy Bunyan felt, after his own mind had become clear and cheerful, for persons afflicted with religious melancholy. ' ' Macaulay. " He had in himself all these ingredients of full-formed humanity. . . . How sorry he is for Mr. Badman ! and how he makes you sympathize with Christian and Mr. Ready-to-halt and Mr. Feeblemind ! . . . * In his ser- mons how piteously he pleads with sinners for their own souls! And how expressive is the undisguised vehemency of his yearning affections ! " -James Hamilton. "Throughout the 'Pilgrim's Progress' are evidences of strong human sympathy and a kindly indulgence for the weak and erring among his fellow-men. . . . Bunyan himself was distinguished by a general sympathy with his fellow-men which the narrowness of Puritanism had failed to impair." Bayard Tuckerman. " That man knew his Bible well, and he knew that other book well the human heart." George Dawson. ILLUSTRATIONS. " If, therefore, any of them should at any time be sick or weak, and so not able to perform that office of love, which, with all their hearts they are willing to do (and will do also when well and in health), slight them not, nor despise them, but rather strengthen them, and encourage them, though weak and ready to die, for they are your fence and your guard, your wall, your gate, your locks, and your bars. And although, when they are weak, they can do but little, but rather need to be helped by you than that you should then expect great things from them, yet, when well, you know what exploits, what feats and warlike 78 BUNYAN achievements they are able to do and will perform for you." The Holy War. "Now, when he had heard me make my complaint, he said, ' Peace be to thee.' He also wiped mine eyes with his handkerchief, and clad me in silver and gold. He put a chain about my neck, and ear-rings in mine ears, and a beauti- ful crown upon my head. Then he took me by the hand, and said, 'Mercy, come after me.' So he went up, and I followed, till we came at a golden gate. Then he knocked ; and when they within had opened, the man went in, and I followed him up to a throne, upon which one sat, and he said to me, ' Welcome, daughter." Pilgrim's Progress. , " But alas ! who knows the many straits, and as I may say, the stress of weather (I mean the cold blasts of hell) with which the poor soul is assaulted betwixt its receiving of grace and its sensible closing with Jesus Christ ? None, I dare say, but it and its fellows. . . . Oh, what mists, what mountains, what clouds, what darkness, what objections, what false apprehensions of God, of Christ, of grace, of the Word, and of the soul's con- dition, doth Satan now lay before it, and haunt it with ; whereby he dejecteth, casteth down, daunteth, distresseth, and almost driveth it into despair !" The Pharisee and the Publican. 9. Dramatic Instinct. "Its ['Pilgrim's Progress'] dramatic power is wonderful. Every character is distinct and real. Every person introduced is a man or a woman and not a shadow, an abstraction to which names are given. . . . His persons all have human hearts, and the red blood of life flows through their veins, and they talk and feel and slip and get on, even as the people we meet." Lang- ford. " In the works of many celebrated authors men are merely personifications. . . . The mind of Bunyan, on the con- trary, was so imaginative that personifications became men. A dialogue between two qualities in his dream has more dra- matic effect than a dialogue between two human beings in most plays. ' ' Ma can lav. BUNYAN 79 " Its [' Pilgrim's Progress '] dramatic skill is of the highest order. The characters are never confused, inconsistent, or mechanical. On the contrary, they are vivid, life-like, and always full of supreme interest. So intensely dramatic is the work that probably only its religious character has prevented it from long ago having been put upon the stage. But, in point of fact, it requires no stage to bring out its dramatic effects. Even the tiny boy with the book before him can construct such a stage for himself. . . . For sheer, strong, human interest, it stands only beside the very best dramas and romances in our language." David Sime. " The 'Pilgrim's Progress ' is marked by a dramatic unity not always possessed by even greater books. . . . The unity of the story is kept up from point to point. The episodes by the way never draw us so far aside that we forget the main story, but rather contribute to its effect. Bunyan's characters never linger, never tire us. As soon as they step on to the scene we feel their personality so vividly that we are sure that we should know them again. They proceed at once to instruct or amuse or interest, having done which they disappear, leaving us regretful they have van- ished so soon. ... By a few strokes only, sometimes by the mere giving of a name, an abstraction rises up clothed in flesh and blood." -John Brown. " Honest John Bunyan is the first man I know of who has mingled narrative and dialogue together ; a mode of writing very engaging to the reader, who, in the most interesting passages, finds himself admitted as it were to the company and present at the conversation." Benjamin Franklin, ILLUSTRATIONS. " The captains, therefore, being fled into the castle, the enemy, without much resistance, possess themselves of the rest of the town, and spreading themselves as they went into every corner, they cried out as they marched, according to the com- 80 BUNYAN mand of the tyrant, ' Hell-fire ! Hell-fire ! Hell-fire ! ' so that nothing for a while throughout the town of Mansoul could be heard but the direful noise of ' Hell-fire ! ' together with the roar- ing of Diabolus's drum. And now did the clouds hang black over Mansoul, nor to reason did anything but ruin seem to attend it." The Holy War. " One thing I would not let slip ; I took notice that now poor Christian was so confounded that he did not know his own voice. And thus I perceived it : just when he was come over against the mouth of the burning pit, one of the wicked ones got behind him, and slept up softly to him, and whisperingly suggested many grievous blasphemies to him, which he verily thought had pro- ceeded from his own mind." Pilgrim's Progress. 10. Conscious Inspiration Earnestness. "In recommending his own religious experience to the readers of his romance, Bunyan was impressed with a sense of the sacred importance of the task for which he had lived through poverty and captivity. . . . To gain the favor of Charles and all his court he would not, we are confident, have guided Christian one step off the straight and narrow path. "Sir Walter Stott. " Not more abandoned to the power of supernatural influ- ence was Ezekiel . . . than was the tinker of Elstow when following the footsteps of Christian in that immortal pilgrimage, or when beleaguering Mansoul with those multitu- dinous hosts of darkness." George Gilfillan. " To attempt this [stepping into a higher style] would be, to one of his intense earnestness, to degrade his calling. He dared not do it. . . . God had not played with him, and he dared not play with others. His errand was much too serious, and their need and danger too urgent to waste time in tricking out his words with human skill. . . . Every sentence breathes the most tremendous earnestness. It is just this, which, with all their rudeness, their occasional bad grammar, and their homely colloquialisms, gives to Bunyan's writings the power of riveting the attention and BUNYAN 8l stirring the affections which few authors have attained to." E. Venables. "It [' Pilgrim's Progress '] has the one supreme quality of all true inspiration, that it is not so much the man taking pos- session, deliberately, of the subject, as it is the subject coming down and bearing away the man." -John Brown. ILLUSTRATIONS. " I dared not, when I came before the Lord, go off my knees until I had entreated him for help and mercy against the tempta- tions that are to come ; and I beseech thee, reader, that thou learn to beware of my negligence by the afflictions that for this thing I did for days and months and years with sorrow undergo." Grace Abounding. " Whoso believes and understands it cannot live without con- fession of sin and a coming to him for mercy. . . . The terror of the Lord, how will it appear, when his wrath shall burn and flame out like an oven or a fiery furnace before him, while the wicked stand in his sight ! . . Who can conceive this terror ! much more unable are men to express it with tongue or pen ; yet the truly penitent and sin-confessing publican hath ap- prehension so far thereof by the word of the testimony that it driveth him to God with a confession of sin for an interest in God's mercy." The Pharisee and the Publican. " That which made me fear was this : lest Christ should have no liking to me, for he called whom he would. But oh ! the glory that I saw in that condition did still so engage my heart that I could seldom read of any that Christ did call but I pres- ently wished, ' Would I had been in their clothes, would I had been born Peter ; would I had been born John ; or, would I had been by and had heard him when he called them, how would I have cried, O Lord, call me also ! But oh ! I feared he would not call me.' " Grace Abounding. ADDISON, 1672-1719 Biographical Outline. Joseph Addison, born May i. 1672, at Milston, near Amesbury, Wilts ; father a clergyman, afterward Dean of Lichfield ; Addison attends school, succes- sively, at Amesbury, Salisbury, Lichfield, and the Charter- house; forms a life-friendship with Steele at the Charterhouse ; in 1687 he enters Queen's College, Oxford, where his classical attainments attract attention, and soon gain for him a demy- ship (a half- fellowship) at Magdalen College; he takes A.M. in 1693, gains a probationary fellowship in 1697 and in 1698 a regular fellowship, which he holds till 1711 ; takes sev- eral pupils, and rapidly acquires a reputation for elegant scholarship, especially in Latin poetry, in which he excels all Englishmen except Milton and Buchanan ; among the sub- jects of his Latin poems are the Peace of Ryswick, an altar- piece of the Resurrection at Magdalen, a description of the bowling green, a barometer, a puppet-show, addresses to Dr. Hannes and Dr. Burnet, of the Charterhouse, and a mock- heroic war between the cranes and the pygmies, in which Swift's Lilliputians are foreshadowed ; Addison's literary reputation reaches London, and he writes a congratulatory poetical address to Dryden, which Dryden inserts in the third part of his " Miscellany Poems," published in 1693 ; to the fourth part of Dryden's " Miscellany," published in 1694, Addison contributes a translation of parts of Virgil's Fourth Georgic and a didactic account of "The Greatest English Poets;" in 1697 he contributes an anonymous essay on the Georgics to Dryden's translation of Virgil, and in a postscript to his " ^Eneis " Dryden refers to him as " the ingenious Mr. Addison, of Oxford ; " Addison at one time intended to take 82 ADDISON 83 holy orders, but was deterred (Tickell says) by his diffidence ; he engages to make a translation of Herodotus ; is introduced to Charles Montague (later Earl of Halifax) by Congreve, of whom Montague (then Chancellor of the Exchequer) was al- ready a patron; in 1695 Addison publishes a poem to the king, with a dedicatory address to Lord Somers, both ex- pressing orthodox conservative political opinions; in 1697 he publishes his Latin poem on the Peace of Ryswick, with a dedication to Montague, who obtains for Addison, through Somers, a pension of ^300 a year, and declares that he will keep him out of the Church ; the alleged object of the pension was to enable Addison to qualify himself for diplomatic em- ployment ; he leaves England in the autumn of 1699, visits Paris, and settles in Blois, where he lives for a year in great seclusion, assiduously mastering the French language ; he re- turns to Paris in 1700, and converses with Malebranche and Boileau ; Boileau is impressed with Addison's Latin scholar- ship and exerts a strong influence on him thereafter ; Addison leaves France in December, 1700, for a tour through Italy; he visits Genoa, Milan, Venice, San Marino, Rome, Naples, and Capri ; spends the early autumn of 1701 in Rome, and reaches Geneva in November, going via Florence and Mont Cenis ; throughout his tour he studies the scenery of Italy as illus trating the writings of Virgil, Juvenal, Ovid, Manlius, and Seneca; in a "Letter from Italy" addressed to Halifax, he expresses himself forcibly against fabled Christian antiquities, : popery, and tyrannical political power; while at Geneva he-'- learns of Halifax's expulsion from office, of the death of Will- iam III., and of the consequent loss of his pension, which had then been paid but one year, so that he is left with only his Oxford fellowship for support ; he remains on the Continent till September, 1703, spending the summer of 1702 in Vienna, where he writes his dialogues on " Medals; " later he visits Hamburg and Holland ; Swift's assertion that, while abroad, Addison became " travelling tutor to a squire " is not corrob- 84 ADDISON orated, as he refused to become tutor to the son of the Duke of Somerset because he considered a salary of one hundred guineas a year, with expenses, insufficient pay ; returning to London in the autumn of 1703, he remains for a year without employment ; continues his intimacy with prominent Whigs, and becomes a member of the famous Kitcat Club; after the battle of Blenheim, in August, 1704, Godolphin seeks a poet to commemorate the English victory ; Halifax suggests Add i- son, who is found in poor lodgings and who is made Commis- sioner of Appeals as a retainer for his services in writing the poem ; he writes " The Campaign," and is rewarded by be- ing made Under Secretary of State, in 1706, an office that he retains, though under different superiors, till 1709, when he becomes secretary to Wharton, then just made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland ; Addison is made also Keeper of the Records, at a salary of ^400 a year ; while holding these political offices he published (1705) "Remarks on Several Parts of Italy" (which became very popular and was republished in 1718) and "Fair Rosamond," an opera in three acts, published anonymously (1707), which failed at first, but afterward suc- ceeded when set to new music by Arne ; during this period Addison also aided Steele in writing his play " The Tender Husband," and formed a close friendship with Swift, whom he calls, in 1705, " the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of his age ; " Addison spends much of his time at Will's and later at Button's Coffee House, with Pope, Tickell, Davenant, Ambrose Phillips, and other literary friends ; though not intemperate, according to the standards of the time, he sometimes used wine to excess, gen- erally taking it to overcome his natural diffidence and to stimulate his conversational powers, which Swift, Steele, and Lady Mary Montague declare to have been remarkable ; he enters Parliament for Lostwithiel in 1708, is unseated in De- cember, 1709, and through the influence of Wharton is at once reflected for Malmesbury; he holds this office during life, ADDISON 85 but his modesty prevents him from speaking in Parliament ; he defends the Whig ministry vigorously in the Whig Examiner (five numbers) in the autumn of 1710; with the fall of the Whigs, early in 1711, Addison loses his secretaryship (then worth ^2,000 a year), and in the same year loses an estate in India valued at ^14,000, left him by a brother ; but he soon afterward buys an estate in Bilton, Warwickshire, paying ;io,ooo ; other indications of his comfortable financial con- dition are the resignation of his fellowship in 1711 and the abandonment of half the profits of his play, " Cato " in 1713 ; Steelehad started the Tatler on April 12, 1709, and Addison, then in Ireland, contributed one or two papers, but his fre- quent and important contributions do not begin till October 15, 1709 (No. 8 1 of the Tatler}; he contributes frequently during 1710, and his papers have great influence in making the periodical popular ; of the Tatler papers, forty-one are attributed solely to Addison and thirty-four to Addison and Steele in conjunction ; Addison's contributions are in the form of essays rather than statements of news, and contain some of the finest specimens of his humor ; the Tatler ceases January 2, 1711; the Spectator begins March i, 1711, and continues through 555 daily numbers, till December 6, 1712, when it is killed by the new stamp duty ; its daily sales some- times reached 20,000 copies ; of the 555 numbers, Addison wrote 274, his contributions being signed by one of the let- ters CLIO; his Spectator essays, especially the Roger de Cov- erley papers, established his style as a model for the century following ; in seventeen Spectator papers on " Paradise Lost, ' ' he establishes the orthodox estimate of Milton's genius ; Ad- dison's " divine poems " are also published in the Spectator during the autumn of 1712 ; he finishes his play of " Cato " (most of it written as early as 1703), and it is put on the stage April 14, 1713, with great success, although its dra- matic weakness and its excessive declamation are admitted ; Pope wrote a prologue for the play, Swift overcame his recent 86 ADDISON hostility to Addison and attended a rehearsal, and both Whigs and Tories vied with each other in patronizing both the au- thor and the actors; eight editions of " Cato " were pub- lished during 1713, and it was translated into French, Italian, German, and Latin ; Voltaire called it " the first reason- able English tragedy; " John Dennis made a severe attack on Addison because of its awkward dramatic construction, and was answered by Pope ; later, Pope became offended at Addison, unjustly charging him with abetting Tickell in Tickell's supposed attempt to rival Pope's " Homer," and so Pope wrote his famous satire on "Atticus; " evidence since discovered has proved Pope guilty of despicable conduct in his treatment of the case, and has shown Addison to have been entirely innocent of Pope's charges ; Addison contributes fifty- one papers to the Guardian during 1713 and twenty-four papers to a new Spectator (probably conducted by Budgell) in 1714 ; during the same year he furnishes two papers to Steele's Lover, and writes a prose comedy, " The Drummer," which is represented unsuccessfully in 1715, and is afterward pub- lished by Steele ; on the death of Queen Anne (August i , 1714) Addison is made secretary to the Lords Justices, and soon afterward becomes secretary to Sunderland, then newly appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland ; ten months later, on Sutherland's retirement, Addison is made one of the Lords Commissioners of Trade; from December 23, 1715, to June 9, 1716, he publishes the Freeholder fifty-five papers in defence of Whig principles; on August 3, 1716, he mar- ries the Countess of Warwick, his long-time friend and neighbor ; gossip says that the alliance was an unhappy one, but his marriage doubtless aided Addison's political ad- vancement ; in the spring of 1717 he is made fellow Secre- tary of State with Townshend ; he retires from office in March, 1718, with a pension of ^1,500 a year, and begins, but does not complete, several literary undertakings ; meantime he has become estranged from Steele because of Steele's failure tore- ADDISON 87 pay loans made him by Addison ; Addison's last writing con- sists of two papers in the Old Whig, in March and April, 1719, severely replying to articles by Steele, published in the Plebeian ; he dies peacefully at Holland House, June 17, 1719, leaving his widow and one daughter, the latter said to have been of feeble mind. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON ADDISON'S STYLE. Thackeray, W. M., "The English Humorists." New York, 1886, Har- per, 173-191. Johnson, S., "Works." New York, 1846, Harper, 288-309. Macaulay, T. B., "Miscellaneous Works." New York, 1880, Harper, 3: 407-488. Gosse, E., " History of the i8th Century Literature." New York, 1889, Macmillan, 105-107 and v. , index. Taine, H. A., "History of English Literature." New York, 1875, Holt, 2: 3 1 9-35 1. Courthope, W. J., "English Men of Letters." New York, 1884, Har- per. Hazlitt, W., " Lectures on the English Poets." London, 1884, G. Bell & Son, 2: 127-133. De Quincey, Thomas, " Works." Edinburgh, 1890, A. & C. Black, II : 19-29. Nicoll, H. J., "Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1883, Appleton, 171-181. Green, J. R., "Essays of Addison." New York, 1890, Macmillan, 5-25. Hunt, T. W., " Representative English Prose." New York, 1887, Arm- strong, 288-309. Collier, W. F., " History of English Literature." London, 1892, Nel- son, 260-265. Aiken, J., "Essays." London, 1811, J. Johnson, 335-346. Phillips, M. G., "A Manual of English Literature." New York, 1893, Harper, i : 499~533- Stephen, L., "Dictionary of National Biography." New York, 1888, Macmillan, i: 122-134. Ward, T. H., "The English Poets." New York, 1881, Macmillan, 3 : 1-6. Pope, A., "Poems" ("Dunciad"), 2: verses 124-140. L'Estrange, A. G., "History of English Humor." London, 1878, Hurst & Blackett, 2 : 77-99. 88 ADDISON Howitt, William, "Homes and Haunts of British Poets." London, 1863, Routledge, I : 139. Hurd, Bishop, " Works of Addison, with Notes." London, 1854, Bohn, v. Preface to Vol. I. Bascom, J., "The Philosophy of English Literature." New York, 1870, Putnam, 178-181. Minto, W., " English Prose Literature." Edinburgh, 1886, Blackwood, 377-392. Backus, F. J., & Shaw, " History of English Literature." New York, 1879, Sheldon, 214-223. Knight, Thomas, " Gallery of Portraits." London, 1836, C. Knight A: Co., 6: 147-155. Addison, J., "Works" (" Addisoniana "). London, 1883, G. Bell* & Sons, 6: 673-752. Russell, W. C., "The Book of Authors." London, n. d., F. Warne & Co., 153-163. Saturday Review, 8 : 394-396. Eraser's Magazine, 28 : 304-320. Gentleman's Magazine, 7 : 324-344 (C. C. Clarke). London Quarterly, 4: 99-122 (Lyall). Temple Bar, 41 : 319-337 ; 55 : 33~52- Edinburgh Review, 78 : 193-260 (Macaulay). Eclectic Review, 78: 193 and 264-290 (Aiken). Western Magazine, 3: 232-244 (J. J. J.). Century Magazine, 48 : 703-709 (Mrs. Oliphant). Canadian Monthly, 15: 411-420 (Lyall). Dial (Chicago), 4: 282-283 (M. B. Anderson). North American Review, 64: 314-372 (W. B. Peabody); 79: 90-109 (H. T. Tucker man). Southern Literary Messenger, 32: 450-455. Century, 26: 703-709 (Mrs. Oliphant). PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS. I. Urbanity Elegance. To the familiar ease of Steele Addison added a polish never surpassed and rarely equalled. " He represents," says one critic, " the amenities and not the heroism of literature. ' ' Bascom calls him ' ' a polished shaft in the temple of letters. " For two hundred years the literary world accepted Johnson's famous dictum : " Whoever wishes to attain an English style familiar but not coarse and elegant ADDISON 89 but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." He is " eminent for his humanity." " Elegance," says Minto, " is the ruling quality of his style. We might go the round of our great writers for such another example of superficial smoothness. The wit and polish are exquisite." " Were I left to myself," says Addi- son, in one of his papers, " I should rather aim at instructing than diverting, but if we will be useful to the world, we must take it as we find it. ' ' And so he diverts by the elegance of his diction as well as by the brightness of his wit. While, in the opinion of some critics, Macaulay and Hawthorne have supplanted Addison as models for the writers of the present day, he must still be regarded as one of the greatest masters of elegant yet idiomatic prose. Macaulay calls Addison's ' ' Cato ' ' "a play the whole merit of which consists in its stately rhetoric, a rhetoric sometimes not unworthy of Lucan." " His writings are the pure source of classical style. Men never spoke in England better. Ornaments abound, and rhetoric has no part in them. There are happy expressions, easily discovered, which give things a new and ingenious turn ; harmonious periods in which the sounds flow into one another with the diversity and sweetness of a quiet stream ; a fertile vein of invention and images, through which runs the most amiable irony. . . . His writings are conversa- tions, masterpieces of English urbanity and reason ; nearly all the details of his character and life have contributed to nourish this urbanity and reasonableness." Taine. "I have often reflected, after a night spent with him [Ad- dison], apart from all the world, that I had the pleasure of conversing with an intimate acquaintance of Terence and Catullus, who had all their wit and nature heightened with humor more exquisite and delightful than any other man ever possessed . ' ' Steele. " His conversation had something in it more charming than I have found in any other man." Pope. go ADDISON " Many of his moral essays are exquisitely beautiful and happy. They are the perfection of elegant sermonizing." Hazlitt. " The great Boileau, upon perusal of Mr. Addison's ele- gant hexameters, was first made aware that England was not altogether a barbarous nation." Thackeray. " The first English writer who composed a regular tragedy and infused a spirit of elegance through every part of it was the illustrious Mr. Addison. His ' Cato ' is a masterpiece both with regard to the diction and the harmony and beauty of the numbers." Voltaire. " He wrote English with the simplicity, directness, and grace which still render the Spectator a model of prose com- position. . . . If we have remained true to the fountain of ' English undefiled,' amid the glaring and spasmodic al- lurements of later authors, the tranquil tone, the clear diction, and the harmonized expression of Addison will affect us like the permanent effulgence of a star when the flashing curve of a rocket has gone out in darkness. . . . His censorship was tempered with good-feeling, his expression untainted with vulgarity ; he was familiar without losing refinement of tone ; he used language as a crystal medium to enshrine sense and not as a grotesque costume to hide the want of it ; he was above the conceits of false wit and too much of a Christian to profane his gifts ; in a word, he wrote like a gentleman and a scholar, and yet without the fine airs of the one or the pedantry of the other. . . . He lacked em- phasis and fire ; but their absence is fully compensated by grace, truth, and serenity. It is not only among the moun- tains and by the sea-shore that Nature hoards her beauty but also on meadow-slopes and around sequestered lakes ; and in like manner human life and thought have their phases of tran- quil attraction and genial repose as well as of sublime and impassioned development." H. T. Tuckerman. " His style, with its free, unaffected movement, its clear ADDISON 91 distinctness, its graceful transitions, its delicate harmonies, its appropriateness of tone ; the temperance and moderation of his treatment, the effortless self-mastery, the sense of quiet power, the absence of exaggeration or extravagance, the per- fect keeping with which he deals with his subjects ; or again the exquisite reserve, the subtle tenderness, the geniality, the pathos of his humor what are these but the reflection of Addison himself, of that temper so pure and lofty yet so sym- pathetic, so strong yet so lovable? " J. R. Green. "As a writer he is urbane, cheerful, charming, and well- mannered to a degree which has scarcely been surpassed in the history of the world. His irony prepossesses a little circle of the best and most cultivated listeners. . . . Addison was excessively fastidious in choice of words, laboriously polish- ing and balancing his phrases until they represented the finest literary art at his disposal." Edmund Gosse. " His elegance of language and variegation of prose and verse gain upon the reader. . . . Before the profound observers of the present race repose too securely on the con- sciousness of their own superiority to Addison, let them con- sider his remarks on Ovid, in which may be found criticisms sufficiently subtle and refined ; let them peruse likewise his essays on 'Wit ' and on the ' Pleasures of the Imagination,' in which he founds art on the base of nature, and draws the principles of invention from dispositions inherent in the mind of man with skill and elegance such as his contemners will not easily attain." Samuel Johnson. ILLUSTRATIONS. " There is an infinite variety of motions to be made use of in the flutter of a fan ; there is the angry flutter, the modest flut- ter, the timorous flutter, the confused flutter, the merry flutter, and the amorous flutter. Not to be tedious, there is scarce any emotion in the mind which does not produce a suitable agitation in the fan ; insomuch that, if I only see the fan of a disciplined 92 ADDISON lady, I know very well whether she laughs, frowns, or blushes." The Spectator, " The club of which I am a member is very luckily composed of such persons as are engaged in different ways of life and de- puted as it were out of the most conspicuous classes of mankind : by this means I am furnished with the greatest variety of hints and materials, and know everything that passes in the different quarters and divisions not only of this great city but of the whole kingdom." The Spectator, " These obvious speculations made me at length conclude that there is a sort of vegetable principle in the mind of every man when he comes into the world. In infants the seeds lie buried and undiscovered till after awhile they sprout forth in a kind of rational leaves, which are words, and in due season the flowers begin to appear in a variety of beautiful colors, and all the gay pictures of youthful fancy and imagination." The Spec- tator, " A man of polite imagination is led into a great many pleas- ures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can con- verse with a picture and find an agreeable companion in a statue. He meets with a secret refreshment in a description, and often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospects of fields and meadows than another does in the possession. It gives him, indeed, a kind of property in everything he sees, and makes the most rude and uncultivated parts of nature administer to his pleasures : so that he looks upon the world, as it were, in another light, and discovers in it a multitude of charms that conceal themselves from the generality of mankind." The Spectator, 2. Keen Satire. Until Addison's day English satire had been comparatively gross. His satire is more polite than that of Butler and Swift, but perhaps not quite so kindly as that of Steele. Minto alone, of all his critics, sees an ele- ment of malevolence in Addison's satire. He calls him " the great English example of polite ridicule." and declares that not a single paper of Addison's can be pointed out that does not contain " a stroke of gay malevolence." On the other hand, Thackeray calls him " the gentle satirist, who hit no un- fair blow; the kind judge, who castigated only in smiling," and ADDISON 93 Macaulay declares that Addison revolutionized society without writing one personal lampoon. His satire is usually pointed at classes, but it is at classes under imaginary individual types. In one of his earliest papers, Addison says: " I must entreat every person who reads this paper [the Spectator] never to think himself or any of his friends aimed at in what is said, for I promise him never to draw a faulty character which does not fit at least a thousand people or to publish a single paper that is not written in the spirit of benevolence." "As a moral satirist he stands unrivalled. . . . Ad- dison's power of turning either an absurd book or an absurd man into ridicule was unrivalled. . . . He was gifted with incomparable powers of ridicule. . . . There are certainly no satirical papers superior to those in which the Tory fox-hunter is introduced. ... As a satirist, he was, at his own weapons, more than Pope's match. The great satirist, who, alone knew how to use ridicule with- out abusing it." Macaulay. " Perhaps the best way of describing Addison's peculiar pleasantry is to compare it with the pleasantry of some other great satirists. The three most eminent masters of the art of ridicule during the eighteenth century were, we conceive, Addison, Swift, and Voltaire. Which of the three had the greatest power of moving laughter may be questioned. But each of them, within his own domain, was supreme. Vol- taire is the prince of buffoons. His merriment is without disguise or restraint. He gambols; he grins; he shakes his sides ; he points the finger ; he turns up the nose; he shoots out the tongue. The manner of Swift is the very opposite of this. He moves laughter, but never joins in it. He appears in his works such as he appeared in society. All the company are convulsed with merriment ; while the dean, the author of all the mirth, preserves an invincible gravity, and even sourness of aspect, and gives utterance to the most eccentric and ludicrous fancies with the air of a man reading the commination service. 94 ADDISON The manner of Addison is as remote from that of Swift as from that of Voltaire. He neither laughs out like the French wit, nor, like the Irish wit, throws a double portion of severity into his countenance while laughing inly ; but preserves a look peculiarly his own a look of demure severity, disturbed only by an arch sparkle of the eye, an almost imperceptible elevation of the brow, an almost imperceptible curl of the lip. We own that the humor of Addison is, in our opinion, of a more delicious flavor than the humor of either Swift or Vol- taire. Thus much, at least, is certain, that both Swift and Voltaire have been successfully mimicked, and that no man has yet been able to mimic Addison." Macaulay. " His .delicate satire . . . gives his sketches a pre- cision, a neatness, an epigrammatic point which are wanting in Steele's more clumsy and more good-humored delinea- tions."^./. Nicoll. " Addison gave the first example of the proper use of wit. It was his practice, when he found any man invincibly wrong, to flatter his opinions by acquiescence and sink them yet deeper into absurdity." Swift. " The first paper sent by Addison to the Tatter was No. 1 8, wherein is displayed that inimitable art which makes a man appear infinitely ridiculous by the ironical commen- dation of his offences against right, reason, and good taste. . . . His power of ridiculing keenly without malignity is, of course, best shown in the character of Sir Roger de Coverley, whose delightful simplicity of mind is made the medium of much good-natured satire on the man- ners of the Tory country gentleman of the period. On other occasions he ridicules some fashion of taste by a perfectly grave and simple description of its object. Per- haps the most admirable specimen of the oblique manner of his satire is that on the Italian Opera, in the number of the Spectator describing the various lions who had fought on the stage with Nicolini." W. J. Courthope. ADDISON 95 ILLUSTRATIONS. " The next step to our refinement was the introducing of Ital- ian actors into our opera ; who sang their parts in their own language, at the same time that our country performed theirs in our native tongue. At length the audience grew tired of under- standing half the opera ; and to ease themselves entirely of the fatigue of thinking, have so ordered it at present that the whole opera is performed in an unknown tongue. I have heard the word And pursued through the whole gamut, have been enter- tained with many a melodious The, and have heard the most beautiful graces, quavers, and divisions, bestowed upon Then, For, and From ; to the eternal honor of our English particles." The Spectator. " A third kind of female orators may be comprehended under the word Gossips. Mrs. Fiddle Faddle is perfectly accomplished in this kind of eloquence ; she launches out into descriptions of christenings, runs divisions upon an head-dress, knows every dish of meat that is served up in her neighborhood, and entertains her company a whole afternoon together with the wit of her little boy before he is able to speak." The Spectator. " He is therefore to teach them the art of finding flaws, loop- holes, and evasions in the most solemn compacts, and particu- larly a great rabbinical secret, revived of late years by the fra- ternity of Jesuits, namely, that contradictory interpretations of the same article may both of them be true and valid. ... In short, this professor is to give the society their stiffening and in- fuse into their manners that beautiful political starch, which may qualify them for levees, conferences, visits, and make them shine in what vulgar minds are apt to look upon as trifles." The Spectator. 3. Moral Elevation High Purpose. Addison is the great lay-preacher of our literature. He spoke to a peo- ple still steeped in the vices that followed the Restoration a people who would not have heeded for a moment the reproofs of a regularly ordained clergyman and by his winsome skill he even "made morality fashionable." Taine unjustly ridi- cules " the sticky plaster of his morality," but he justly C/5 ADDISON adds, " Formerly honest men were not polished and polished men were not honest ; piety was fanatical and urbanity de- praved." It was Addison's glory that, as he said, he " brought philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses." " We put as the supreme point in the man," says Bascom, " the purity of his spirit, the generosity of his temper, and rejoice that his excellent work stands fast by the altar of worship." " Is the glory of Heaven to be sung only by gentlemen in black coats ? Must the truth be expounded only in gown and surplice, and out of those two vestments can nobody preach it ? Commend me to this dear preacher without orders this parson in the tye-wig. . . . His sense of religion stirs through his whole being." Thackeray. " Of the services which his essays rendered to morality it is difficult to speak too highly. . . . He taught the na- tion that the faith and the morality of Hale and Tillotson might be found in company with wit more sparkling than the wit of Congreve, and with humor richer than the humor of Vanbrugh. So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which had recently been directed against virtue, that, since his time, the open violation of decency has always been considered among us as the mark of a fool. Macau/ay." " No whiter page than Addison's remains ; He from the taste obscene reclaims our youth, And sets the passions on the side of truth ; Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art, And pours each human virtue through the heart." Pope. "The world became insensibly reconciled to wisdom and goodness when they saw them recommended by him with at least as much spirit and elegance as that with which they had been ridiculed for half a century." Tickell. "It is justly observed by Tickell, that he employed wit on ADDISON 97 the side of virtue and religion ; he not only made the proper use of wit himself, but taught it to others ; and from his time it has been generally subservient to the cause of reason and of truth. He has dissipated the prejudice that has long con- nected gayety and vice, and easiness of manner with laxity of principles. He has restored virtue to its dignity, and taught innocence not to be ashamed. This is an elevation of literary character above all Greek, above all Roman fame. . . If any judgment be made from his books of his moral character, nothing will be found but purity and excellence. As a teacher of wisdom he may be confidently fol- lowed. His religion has nothing in it enthusiastic or super- stitious ; he appears neither weakly credulous nor wantonly sceptical ; his morality is neither dangerously lax nor im- practicably rigid. All enchantment of fancy and all cogency of argument are employed to recommend to the reader his real interest, the care of pleasing the Author of his being. Truth is shown sometimes as the phantom of a vision, some- times appears half-veiled in an allegory, sometimes attracts regard in the robes of fancy, and sometimes steps forth in the confidence of reason. She wears a thousand dresses, and in all is pleasing." Johnson. " What has given its superior reputation to the Spectator [over the Taf/er\ is the greater gravity of its pretensions, its moral dissertations, and critical reasonings." Hazlitt. " The work of Addison consisted in building up a public opinion, which, in the way of durable solidity, seems, like the great Gothic cathedrals, to absorb into itself the individuality of the architect. A vigorous effort of thought is required to perceive how strong this individuality must have been. We have to reflect on the ease with which, even in these days when the foundations of all authority are called in question, we form judgments on questions of morals, breeding, and taste, and then to dwell in imagination on the state of conflict in all matters religious, moral, and artistic which prevailed 7 98 ADDISON in the period between the Restoration and the succession of the house of Hanover. To whom do we owe the comparative har- mony we enjoy? Undoubtedly to the authors of the Spectator, and first of all these, by universal consent, to Addison. The aim of the Spectator was to establish a natural standard of conduct in morals, manners, art, and literature. He showed the courtiers, in a form of light literature which pleased their imagination, and with a grace and charm of manner that they were well qualified to appreciate, that true religion was not opposed to good-breeding. On the other hand, he brought his raillery to bear on the super-solemnity' of the trading and professional classes, in whom the spirit of Puritanism was most prevalent. . . . His design was to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature, so that the conscience of society might recognize in a dramatic form the nature of its lapses from virtue and reason. . . . His moralizing is natural, for the age required it ; but it is free from the censoriousness of the preacher. " W. J. Courthope. 11 Addison corrects failings by showing their absurdity; he does not smite the erring with a flail ; he takes them cordially by the hand, puts them in the straight path of morals, and sends them on their way with a compliment. . . . Ad- dison has more pity for than wrath against great offenders. He gleams out with playful summer lightning, and while offenders admire, they yet look up. Their eye is not yet on the earth, their gaze is on heaven ; and when the moral philosopher has got them there, he leaves them to the chance of finding a Christian missionary who may do what he was unequal to lead them to something more profitable than gazing. . . . He was better qualified perhaps than most men for being the censor of abuses and the corrector of manners. He could afford to be indulgent while he was most severe ; he condones even while he condemns. His pen is not dipt in gall. He has not the scowl of the cynic or the grin of the satyr. He does not wield the lash of the execu- ADDISON 99 tioner nor the birch of the pedagogue. He looks with kindly eye upon the very follies which he chastises, while his moral instincts lead him to recoil from all that is base in purpose and unworthy in conduct." W. Lyall. "Addison gave to literature a respectability which it sel- dom possessed before. He became the ideal of an author. He helped to dig the channel which connects the stream of private knowledge with the popular mind, across the isthmus of an aristocracy of birth, of education, and of society." H. T. Tuckerman. " Without inflicting a wound he effected a great social reform, and reconciled wit and virtue after a long and disastrous separation, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy and virtue by fanaticism. . . . That which chiefly distinguished Addison from Swift, from Vol- taire, from almost all the other great masters of ridicule, is the grace, the nobleness, the moral purity, which we find even in his merriment. . . . Nothing great, nothing amiable, no moral duty, no doctrine of natural or revealed religion has ever been associated by Addison with any degrad- ing idea. His humanity is without a parallel in literary his- tory. . . . No kind of power is more formidable than the power of making men ridiculous ; and that power Addison possessed in boundless measure. But of Addison it may be confidently affirmed that he has blackened no man's character, nay, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find, in all the volumes that he has left us, a single taunt which can be called ungenerous or unkind." Macaulay. "And out of that [Sir Roger de Coverley's] laughter, and out of that sweet weakness, and out of those harmless eccen- tricities and follies, and out of that touched brain, and out of that honest manhood and simplicity we get a result of hap- piness, goodness, tenderness, pity, piety such as, if my audi- ence will think their reading and hearing over, doctors and divines but seldom have the fortune to inspire. . . . 100 ADDISON When this man looks from the world, whose weaknesses he describes so benevolently, up to the heaven which shines over us all, I can hardly fancy a human face lighting up with a more serene rapture a human intellect thrilling with a purer love and adoration than Joseph Addison's. . . . When he turns to heaven a Sabbath comes over that man's mind ; and his face lights up from it with a glory of thanks and prayers. His sense of religion stirs through his whole being. In the field, in the town ; looking at the birds in the trees, at the children in the street ; in the morning or in the moon- light ; over his books in his own room, in a happy party at 'a country merry-making or a town assembly, good-will and peace to God's creatures and love and awe of Him who made them, fill his pure heart and shine from his kind face." Thackeray. " He acquired the art of rendering morality visible and truth expressive. . . . Such a man might judge and counsel his fellows ; his judgments were not amplifications arranged by a process of the brain but observations controlled by experience ; he might be listened to on moral subjects as a natural philosopher was upon subjects of physics ; we feel that he spoke with authority and that we are instructed. . He employed all his talent and all his writings in giving to us the notion of what we are worth and of what we ought to be. ... [He once wrote] ' The great and only end of these, my speculations, is to banish vice and ignorance out of the territories of Great Britain.' And he kept his word. . . . It is no small thing to make mo- rality fashionable. Addison did it, and it has remained in fashion. For the first time, Addison reconciled virtue with elegance, taught duty in an accomplished style, and made pleasure subservient to reason. . . . His papers are wholly moral advice to families, reprimands to thoughtless women, a portrait of an honest man, remedies for the pas- sions, reflections on God, on the future life. . . . He ADDISON IOI is full of epigrams written against flirtations, extravagant toilets, useless visits. He writes a satirical journal of a man who goes to his club, learns the news, yawns, studies the barometer, and thinks his time well spent. He considers that our time is a capital, our business a duty, and our life a task." Taine. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Were I conscious of anything in my writings that is not in- nocent, at least, or that the greatest part of them were not sin- cerely designed to discountenance vice and ignorance and sup- port the interest of true wisdom and virtue, I should be more severe upon myself than the public is disposed to be." The Spectator. "And now, who would not quit all the pleasures and trash and trifles which are apt to captivate the heart of man, and pursue the greatest rigors of piety and austerities of a good life, to purchase to himself such a conscience, as at the hour of death, when all the friendship in the world shall bid him adieu, and the whole creation turn its back upon him, shall dismiss the soul, and close his eyes with that blessed sentence, ' Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.'" The Spectator. " There is another kind of virtue that may find employment for those retired hours in which we are altogether left to our- selves, and destitute of company and conversation ; I mean that intercourse and communication which every reasonable being ought to maintain with the great Author of his being. The man who lives under a habitual sense of the divine presence keeps up a perpetual cheerfulness of temper, and enjoys every mo- ment the satisfaction of thinking himself in company with his dearest and best of friends." The Spectator. 4. Delicate Humor. Addison appeared in an age of lit- erary affectation, an age when scurrility and licentious literary buffoonery had depraved the public taste. "It was," says T. W. Hunt, " the golden age of the anagram, the acrostic, and the far-fetched simile. ' ' Addison at first defined true humor 102 ADDISON and then continually exemplified it. Thackeray well calls him " a wit that makes us laugh and leaves us good and happy," and adds, " He came in that artificial age and began to speak with his noble, natural voice." His papers fairly overflow with good-humor. He abounds in what Hallam aptly calls "some sly Horatian pleasantry on fashionable follies." "In the constellation of men of genius which shed lustre upon English literature during the early part of the eighteenth century, the palm is given to Addison for that delicate kind of humor which, for the purpose either of correction or amuse- ment, attaches a gentle and good-natured ridicule to delinea- tions of manners and customs. This award of criticism seems never to have been disputed ; and if we include in the com- petition all the attempts in this walk that have appeared from his age to the present time, the claim of Addison to superi- ority will probably still remain unshaken. His humor is most effectual for correcting the follies and foibles of mankind, which he seems to have had much at heart. . . . The Tatlcr, in its later portions, is enriched with some exquisite specimens of that delicate and graceful wit, that original vein of humor, and that sportiveness of fancy, in the union of which he had no predecessor or rival and has had no suc- cessor." Aiken. " The gentle graces of Mr. Addison never forsake him in a paper of humor ; the bent of his genius lying so strongly that way."/. R. Green. "The brilliant Mary Montagu said that she had known all the wits, and that Addison was the best company in the world. Steele, an excellent judge of lively conversation, said that the conversation of Addison was at once the most polite and the most mirthful that could be imagined. If, as Jenyns oddly imagined, if the happiness of Seraphim and just men made perfect be derived from an exquisite perception of the ludicrous, their mirth must surely be none other than the mirth of Addison a mirth consistent with tender compassion ADDISON 103 for all that is frail, and with profound reverence for all that is sublime. But what shall we say of Addison's humor of his sense of the ludicrous, of his power of awakening that sense in others, and of drawing mirth from incidents that occur every day and from little peculiarities of temper and manner such as may be found in every man ? We feel the charm ; we give ourselves up to it ; but we strive in vain to analyze it." Macau-lay. Dr. Kippis summarily describes the character of Addison's humorous productions in these words : " There are none of his works in which his merit as a graceful writer more dis- tinguishingly appears than in his humorous pieces. His hu- mor is so natural, so easy, so unaffected, that we never grow weary of it ; and we shall find upon a diligent examination of the papers of this kind that it is prodigiously various and extensive. He scarcely ever descends to personal satire, and his ridicule of certain characters in life, while it is remark- ably striking, is so gentle that persons who answer to the characters must read him with pleasure. A wit that was so copious and inexhaustible, without trespassing against good- nature or offending against decency, is entitled to the highest admiration and applause." Gosse says, " His wit is as penetrating as a perfume," and Thackeray declares that ' ' Addison wrote his papers as gayly as though he were going out for a holiday." "I have the good fortune to be intimate with a gentle- man remarkable for this temper [bashfulness] who has an inex- haustible source of wit to entertain the curious, the grave, the hjamorous, and the frolicsome. . . . You discern the brightness of his mind and the strength of his judgment ac- companied with the most graceful mirth. In a word, by this enlivening aid he is whatever is polite, instructive, and di- verting. He was above all other men in that talent called humor." Steele. "The finest critic, the finest gentleman, the most ten- 104 ADDISON der humorist of his age. . . . He throws a delightful gleam of love and laughter upon the eccentricities and charac- teristic follies of individual nature." Mrs. Oliphant. " The essence of Addison's humor is irony. . . . He ridicules some fashion or taste by a perfectly grave and simple description of its object. . . . Charles Lamb, again, has passages which, for mere delicacy of humor, are equal to any- thing in Addison's writings. But the superiority of Addison consists in this, that he expresses the humor of the life about him, while Lamb is driven to look at its oddities from out- side." W. J. Courthope. " His humor is so happily diffused as to give the grace of novelty to domestic scenes and daily occurrences. He never outsteps the modesty of nature, nor raises merriment or won- der by the violation of truth. His figures neither divert by distortion nor amuse by aggravation. ... In argument he had many equals ; but his humor was singular and match- less. Bigotry itself must be delighted with the Tory fox- hunter. ' ' Johnson. ILLUSTRATIONS. " As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in very good order, and will allow nobody to sleep in it [the church] besides himself ; for if by chance he has been sur- prised into a short nap at sermon, upon recovery out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees anybody else nod- ding, either wakes them himself or sends his servant to them."- The Spectator. " He [Sir Roger de Coverley] has, moreover, bequeathed to the chaplain a very pretty tenement with good lands about it. It being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourn- ing to every man in the parish a great frieze-coat and to every woman a black riding-hood." The Spectator. " When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal to her lover's importunities, he whispered me in the ear that he was sure that she would never marry him ; to which he added, with a more ADDISON 105 than ordinary vehemence : ' You can't imagine, sir, what it is to have to do with a widow. ' Upon Pyrrhus his threatening afterward to leave her, the knight shook his head, and muttered to himself : ' Ay, do if you can.' This part dwelt so much upon my friend's imagination that, at the close of the third act, as I was thinking of something else, he whispered in my ear : ' These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world. But pray,' says he, ' you that are a critic, is the play according to your dramatic rules, as you call them ? Should your people in tragedy always talk to be understood ? Why, there is not a single sentence in this play that I do not know the meaning of.' "Sir Roger at the Theatre. " As I was walking with him last night, he asked me how I liked the good man whom I have just mentioned ; and without staying for my answer told me that he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own table ; for which reason he desired a particular friend of his at the University to find him a clergyman rather of plain sense than much learning, of a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable temper, and, if possible, a man that un- derstands a little of backgammon. . . . ' At his first settling with me I made him a present of all the good sermons which have been printed in English, and only begged of him that every Sunday he would pronounce one of them in the pulpit. Accord- ingly he has digested them into such a series that they follow one another naturally, and make a continued system of practical di- vinity.' " The Spectator. 5. Skill in Portraiture. In the ability to seize upon "the fugitive traits of some popular habit, vice, or caprice, and so to combine these in an imaginary personage that we seem to be reading of an actual living being of like feelings and passions with ourselves," Addison is surpassed only by Shakespeare. "That delectable creation," Sir Roger de Coverley, is compared by Walpole to Falstaff. Addison is never weary, says J. R. Green, " of tracking out human character into its shyest recesses." Sir Roger is aptly called by one critic " the legitimate precursor of Squire Weston, Parson Adams, the Man of Feeling, and Pickwick," and by 106 ADDISON another " a perfectly finished picture worthy of Cervantes or Sir Walter Scott." In one line of portraiture, however, Ad- dison failed ; his portrayal of female character is neither just nor discriminating. Thackeray best tells the reason for this lack : " He was a man's man, remember. The only woman whom he did know he didn't write about. I take it there would not have been much humor in that story." " Addison has gained himself immortal honor by his man- ner of filling up this last character [Sir Roger de Coverley]. Who is there that can forget, or be insensible to, the inimitable nameless traits of nature and of old English character in it? to his unpretending virtues and amiable weaknesses ; to his modesty, generosity, hospitality, and eccentric whims; to his respect of his neighbors and the affection of his domes- tics; to his wayward, hopeless, secret passion for his fair enemy, the widow, in which there is more of real romance and true delicacy than in a thousand tales of knight-errantry (we perceive the hectic flush of his cheek, the faltering of his tongue in speaking of her bewitching airs and ' the whiteness of her hand ') ; to the havoc he makes among the game in his neighborhood ; to his speech from the bench, to show the Spectator what is thought of him in the country ; to his un- willingness to be put up as a sign-post and his having his own likeness turned into the Saracen's head ; to his gentle reproof of the baggage of a gypsy that tells him he has a widow in his line of life ; to his doubts as to the existence of witchcraft and protection of a reputed witch ; to his ac- count of the family pictures and his choice of a chaplain ; to his falling asleep at church and his reproof of John Will- iams, as soon as he recovered from his nap, for talking in ser- mon-time? . . . The characters of Will Wimble and Will Honeycomb are not a whit behind their friend Sir Roger de Coverley in delicacy and felicity. The delightful simplicity and good-humored officiousness in the one are set off by the graceful affectation and courtly pretension in the other. How ADDISON . 107 long since I first became acquainted with these two characters in the Spectator ! What old-fashioned friends they seem, and yet I am not tired of them, like so many other friends, nor they of me ! How airy these abstractions of the poet's pen streaming over the dawn of our acquaintance with human life ! How they glance their fairest colors on the prospect before us ! How pure they remain in it to the last, like the rainbow in the evening cloud, which the rude hand of time can neither soil nor dissipate ! What a pity that we cannot find the reality, and yet if we did, the dream would be over." Hazlitt. "The abundance of his own mind left him little in need of adventitious sentiments ; his wit always could suggest what the occasion demanded. He had read with critical eyes the important volume of human life, and knew the heart of man, from the depth of stratagem to the surface of affectation. As a describer of life and manners, he must be allowed to stand perhaps the first of the first rank. . . . His figures neither divest by distortion nor amaze by aggravation. . . . He copies life with so much fidelity that he can be hardly said to invent. . . . His exhibitions have an air so much origi- nal that it is difficult to suppose them not merely the product of imagination. ' ' Johnson. " What he observed he had the art of communicating in two widely different ways. He could describe virtues, vices, habits, whims as well as Clarendon. But he could do some- thing better. He could call human beings into existence and make them exhibit themselves. If we wish to find anything more vivid than Addison's best portraits, we must go either to Shakespeare or Cervantes. As an observer of life, of man- ners, of all shades of human character, he stands in the first class. ' ' Macaulay. "The figure of Sir Roger de Coverley, though it belongs to a by-gone stage of society, is as durable as human nature it- self, and, while language lasts, the exquisite beauty of the 108 ADDISON colors in which it is preserved will excite the same kind of pleasure. Scarcely below the portrait of the good knight will be ranked the character of his friend and biographer, the silent spectator of men. Addison rescued the lineaments of the original English country gentleman and kept them bright and genuine for the delight of posterity, ere their individu- ality was lost in the uniformity of the locomotive age. It is surprising that features so delicately pictured, incidents so unromantic, and sentiments so free from extravagance should thus survive intact. It is the nicety of the execution and the humor of the character that preserves it. . . . Addisori's delicate and true hand gave the character of Sir Roger color and expression and therefore unity of effect." W. J. Court- hope. " Addison's greatest achievement is universally admitted to be the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. Sir Roger is the incarnation of Addison's kindly tenderness, showing through a vein of delicate persiflage." Leslie Stephen. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Will Wimble is younger brother to a baronet, and descended of the ancient family of the Wimbles. He is now between forty and fifty ; but being bred to no business and born to no estate, he generally lives with his older brother as superintendent of his game. He hunts a pack of dogs better than any man in the country, and is very famous for finding out a hare. He is ex- tremely well versed in all the little handicrafts of an idle man. He makes a May-fly to a miracle, and furnishes the whole country with angle rods. As he is a good-natured, officious fellow, and very much esteemed on account of his family, he is a welcome guest at every house, and keeps up a good correspondence among all the gentlemen about him. He carries a tulip root in his pocket from one to another, or exchanges a puppy between a couple of friends that live in the opposite sides of the country. Will is a particular favorite of all the young heirs, whom he frequently obliges with a net that he has weaved or a setting dog ADDISON 109 that he has made [trained] himself. He now and then presents a pair of garters of his own knitting to their mothers or sisters, and raises a great deal of mirth among them by inquiring as often as he meets them, ' how they wear ! ' These gentleman-like manufactures and obliging little humors make Will the darling of the country." The Spectator. "My friend Will Honeycomb values himself very much upon what he calls the knowledge of mankind, which has cost him many disasters in his youth ; for Will reckons every misfortune that he has met with among the women and every rencounter among the men as parts of his education ; and fancies he should never have been the man he is had not he broke windows, knocked down constables, disturbed honest people with his mid- night serenades, and beat up a lewd woman's quarters, when he was a young fellow. The engaging in adventures of this nature Will calls the studying of mankind, and terms his knowledge of the town the knowledge of the world. Will ingenuously confesses that for half his life his head ached every morning with reading of men overnight ; and at present comforts himself under certain pains which he endures from time to time, that without them he could not have been acquainted with the gallantries of the age. This Will looks upon as the learning of a gentleman, and regards all other kinds of science as the accomplishments of one whom he calls a scholar, a bookish man, or a philosopher." The Spec- tator. " I had, some years ago, an aunt of my own, by name, Mrs. Martha Ironside, who would never marry beneath herself, and is supposed to have died a maid in the fourscorth year of her age. She was the chronicle of our family, and passed away the greater part of the last forty years of her life in recounting the antiquity, marriages, exploits, and alliances of the Ironsides. Mrs. Martha conversed generally with a knot of old virgins, who were likewise of good families. My aunt Martha used to chide me very fre- quently for not sufficiently valuing myself. She would not eat a bit all dinner-time, if, at an invitation, she found she had been seated below herself ; and would frown upon me for an hour together, if she saw me give place to any man under a bar- onet. ... A little before her death she was reciting to me the history of my forefathers ; but dwelling a little longer than ordinary upon the actions of Sir Gilbert Ironsides, I gave an un- I TO ADDISON fortunate pish, and asked, ' What was all that to me ? ' Upon which she retired to her closet, and fell a-scribbling for three hours together, in which time, as I afterward found, she struck me out of her will." The Spectator. 6. Conventionality Formalism. "His morality, thoroughly English, always crawls among commonplaces, discovering no principles, making no deductions. The fine and lofty aspects of the mind are wanting. He gives inim- itable advice, a clear watchword, justified by what happened yesterday, useful for to-morrow. . . . There is nothing sublime or chimerical in the end which he sets before us ; all is practical, that is, business-like and sensible : the question is, ' How to be easy here and happy afterward." . . . The continuous period is like the shears of the Quintinie, which crop all the trees round, under the pretence of beautifying. This is why there is a coldness and monotony in Addison's style. He seems to be listening to himself. He is too meas- ured and correct. . . . He has his rules in his pocket, and brings them out for everything. . . . His Spectato r is only an honest man's manual, and is often like ' The Complete Lawyer.' It is practical, its aim being not to amuse but to instruct us. ... He thinks of the future life, but does not forget the present ; he rests virtue on interest rightly un- derstood. He strains no principle to its limits; he accepts them all, as they are to be met with everywhere. What a store he has of resolutions and maxims ! All rapture, instinct, inspiration, and caprice are abolished or disciplined. No case surprises him or carries him away. He is always ready and protected ; so much so that he is like an automaton. Argument has frozen and inveiled him. . . . To put calculation at every stage ; such is the morality of Addison and of England. . . . Underneath his morality is a pair of scales, which weighs quantities of happiness. He stirs him- self by mathematical computations to prefer the future to the present. Thus arises this religion, a product of melancholic ADDISON 1 1 1 temperament and acquired logic, in which man, a sort of cal- culating Hamlet, aspires to the ideal by making a good busi- ness of it, and maintains his poetical sentiments by financial calculations. . . . There is an element of coarseness in this fashion of treating divine things, and we like still less the exactness with which he explains God, reducing him to a mere magnified man. . . . The sincerity of his emo- tions makes us respect even his catechetical prescriptions." Taine. " Steele seems to have gone into his closet chiefly to set down what he observed out-of-doors. Addison seems to have spent most of his time in his study, and to have spun out and wire-drawn the hints which he borrowed from Steele, or took from nature, to the utmost. . . . The humorous descrip- tions of Steele resemble loose sketches or fragments of a comedy ; those of Addison are rather comments or ingenious paraphrases on the genuine text." Hazlitt. " Addison shrank from every bold and every profound ex- pression as from an offence against good-taste. . . . He durst as soon have danced a hornpipe on the top of the ' Monument ' as have talked of a ' rapturous emotion. ' What would he have said ? Why, ' Sentiments that were of a na- ture to prove agreeable after an unusual rate.' " De Quincey. " The judicious Mr. Addison had the effeminate complais- ance to soften the severity of his dramatic characters so as to adapt it to the manners of the age ; and from an endeavor to please, quite mined a masterpiece of its kind." Voltaire. " Its [' Cato's '] pompous monotony was taken for dignity, and its strict adherence to the critical rules then accepted was preferred by Addison's contemporaries to the truth and nature of Shakespeare. In it the dramatic unities unity of place, unity of time, and unity of action are observed with a com- pleteness that leads to some rather ridiculous results ; all the characters go through their actions and their speeches with the utmost conventional correctness." H. J. Nicoll. 112 ADDISON "In all those parts of the poem [' Cato '] where action and not ornament is demanded, we seem to perceive the work of a poet who was constantly thinking what his characters ought to say in the situation rather than of one who was actually living with them in the situation itself." W. J. Courthope. " Mr. Addison could not give out a common order in writ- ing from his endeavoring always to word it too finely." Pope. "In 'Remarks on Italy' the comparative absence of earnest poetical feeling is manifest throughout. At Venice he was not haunted by ' the gentle lady wedded to the Moor,' nor does the noble Portia rise to view." H. T. Tuckerman. " We delight in his company so greatly that we do not pause to reflect that the inventor of Sir Roger de Coverley and of Will Honeycomb had not half of the real comic force of Far- quhar or Van Brugh, nor so much as that of the flashing wit of Congreve. Human nature, however, is superior to the rules, and Addison stands higher than those more original writers by merit of the reasonableness, the good sense, the wholesome humanity, that animates his work. He is classic while they are always a little way over on the barbaric side of perfection. . . . The air of good breeding at which he always aimed, . . . the excessive and meticulous civility of Addison. ' ' Edmund Gosse. ILLUSTRATIONS. " The story of Solomon's choice does not only instruct us in that point of history, but furnishes out a fine moral to us, namely, that he who applies his heart to wisdom does, at the same time, take the most proper method for gaining long life, riches, and reputation, which are very often not only the rewards but the ef- fects of wisdom." The Guardian. " It is the great art and secret of Christianity, if I may use that phrase, to manage our actions to the best advantage and di- rect them in such a manner that everything we do may turn to ADDISON 1 1 3 account at that great day when everything we have done will be set before us." The Spectator. "There is nothing of greater importance to us than thus dil- igently to sift our thoughts and examine all those dark recesses of the mind, if we would establish our souls in such a solid and substantial virtue as will turn to account in that great day when it must stand the test of infinite wisdom and justice." The Spec- tator. " I never could have a taste for old bricks and rubbish, nor would trouble myself about the ruins of Augustus's Palace so long as I could see the Vatican." Of Ancient Medals. 11 Upon laying together all particulars and examining all the moles and marks by which the mother used to describe the child when he was first missing, the boy proved to be the son of the mer- chant, whose heart had so unaccountably melted at the sight of him. The lad was very well pleased to find a father who was so rich and likely to leave him a good estate ; the father, on the other hand, was not a little delighted to see a son return to him whom he had given up for lost, with such a strength of constitution, sharpness of understanding, and skill in languages." Sir Roger and the Gypsies. 7. Verbal Precision Fastidiousness. Addison has been generally criticised for carrying this quality to ex- cess for " confounding correctness with mechanism." Haz- litt prefers " Steele's occasional selection of beautiful poetical passages, without any affectation of analyzing their beauties, to Addison's fine-spun theories." The one great lack in Addison's style is the element of deep feeling. All is clear, correct, and elegant, but there is an absence of that element, so noticeable in Steele, that takes hold of the heart of the reader. Addison addresses, almost without exception, the purely intellectual side of our natures. He abounds, says Taine, in "commercial common-sense and business-like reso- lutions and maxims. He explains God and describes Heav- en." He comes "with weights and figures into the thick of human passions, to ticket them and classify them like bales ; 8 1 14 ADDISON to tell the public that the inventory is complete, and to lead them by the mere virtue of statistics to honor and duty." "The mere choice and arrangement of his words would have sufficed to make his essays classical. For never, not even by Dryden, not even by Temple, had the English lan- guage been written with such sweetness, grace, and facility." Macaulay. " He had accepted the public as his judges j and he writes as if some critical representative of the public were at his elbow, putting to the test of reason every sentiment and every expression. Wharton tells us, in his ' Essay on Pope,' that Addison was so fastidious in composition that he would often stop the press to alter a preposition or conjunction ; and this evidence is corroborated in a very curious and interesting man- ner by the MS. of some of Addison's essays, discovered by Mr. Sykes Campbell in 1858. A sentence in one of the papers on the ' Pleasures of the Imagination ' shows, by the vari- ous stages through which it passed before its form seemed satisfactory to the writer, what nice attention he gave to the balance, rhythm, and lucidity of his periods." W. J. Courthope. " The select world refines language. It does not suffer the risks and approximations of extempore and inexperienced speaking. It requires a knowledge of style, like a knowledge of external forms. It will have exact words to express the fine shades of thought and measured words to preclude of- fensive or extreme impressions. It wishes for developed phrases, which, presenting the same idea under several aspects, impress it easily upon the desultory mind. It demands harmonious words, which, presenting a known idea in a smart form, may introduce it in a lively manner to its desultory imagination. Addison gives it all that it desires ; his writ- ings are the pure source of classic style ; men never spoke better in England. . . . Throughout we have precise contrasts, which serve only for clearness, and are not too pro- ADDISON 115 longed . . . harmonious periods, in which the sounds flow into one another with the diversity and sweetness of a quiet stream." Taine. " There is a studied absence of all such features of style as redundance, inversion, and circumlocution. There is very little verbal tinsel for the sake of effect and no desire to con- ceal under a veil of words. It is in point here to note that verbal precision was carried to an unhealthful extreme by Addison and his school. He was as fastidious in prose as Pope and Dryden were in poetry. . . . Verbal preci- sion overreaches itself in Addison. ... It was indeed the error of the age. ... He was careful to a fault." T. IV. Hunt. "Addison was excessively fastidious in his choice of words, laboriously polishing and balancing his phrases until they rep- resented the first literary art at his disposal, until the rhythm was perfect, the sentence as light and bright as possible, and the air of good breeding, at which he always aimed, success- fully caught. He was probably the earliest English author of prose, except, perhaps, Sir Thomas Browne, who aimed delib- erately at beauty of execution and treated the pedestrian form with as much respect as though it had been verse. Addison's share in completing the development of our lan- guage was very considerable he smoothed down English phraseology to an almost perilous extent ; and Swift, who ad- mitted that the Spectator was very pretty, thought that Ad- dison's tendency was too feminine." Edmund Gosse. ILLUSTRATIONS. " True happiness is of a retired nature and an enemy to pomp and noise ; it arises in the first place from the enjoyment of one's self and in the next from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions ; it loves shade and solitude, and naturally haunts groves and fountains, fields and meadows ; in short, it feels everything it wants within itself, and receives no addi- Il6 ADDISON tion from multitudes of witnesses and spectators." The Spec- tator. " A good intuition joined to a good action gives it its proper force and efficacy ; joined to an evil action, extenuates its malig- nity, and in some cases may take it wholly away ; and joined to an indifferent action, turns it to a virtue, and makes it meritori- ous as far as human actions can be so." The Spectator. " Since I have just mentioned the word enemies, I must explain myself so far as to acquaint my reader that I mean only the in- significant party zealots on both sides ; men of such poor narrow souls that they are not capable of thinking on anything but with an eye to Whig or Tory. During the course of this paper I have been accused by these despicable wretches of trimming, time- serving, personal reflection, secret hate, and the like." The Spectator. STEELE, 1675-1729 Biographical Outline. Richard Steele, born of Eng- lish parents in Dublin, March 12, 1675 ; father secretary to the Duke of Ormond, then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland ; Steele is placed in the Charterhouse School, London, through the influence of Ormond ; he forms there a close friendship with Addison; enters Merton College, Oxford, in 1692, and re- mains three years ; becomes enamored of a military life, fails to secure a commission, and enlists as a private in the Horse- Guards ; is disinherited by a rich relative for this step ; is soon promoted to a captaincy ; plunges into a life of fashionable dis- sipation and extravagance; as " a check on his irregularities a self-monitor " he writes " The Christian Hero," published in 1701 ; turns his talent toward comedy, and produces, suc- cessively, from 1701 to 1704, "The Funeral," " The Ten- der Husband," "The Lying Lovers ;" is appointed Gazetteer in 1705, through Addison's influence; obtains an estate in Barbadoes at the death of his first wife, and adds to his fort- une by marrying "Molly Scurlock ; " lives extravagantly, and is always familiar with "duns and bailiffs, misery, folly, and repentance;" establishes The Tatter, April 12, 1709; is aided by Addison ; the Tatler is discontinued January 2, 1710-11, and the Spectator is established March i, 1710-11 ; the Spectator is discontinued in December, 1712, and the Guardian is established in March, 1713, and is continued through 175 numbers; later Steele establishes the English- man (57 numbers), the Lover, the Reader, the Plebeian, and the Theatre ; of 271 Tatlers, Steele wrote 188; of 635 Spec- tators, 240 ; of 175 Guardians, 82 ; he is assailed by Swift ; enters Parliament, writes a pamphlet, "The Crisis," reflect- 117 Il8 STEELE ing on the Protestantism of the government, and is expelled from Parliament therefor in 1714; he holds several minor offices under George I., and is again elected to Parliament ; in 1718 he publishes " The Fishpool," and in 1719 opposes the Peerage Bill, and thus incurs the anger of Addison, who dies before they become reconciled ; Steele opposes the South-Sea scheme in 1720, publishes "The Conscious Lov- ers" (a comedy) in 1722, and dies in Wales, September i, 1729. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON STEELE'S STYLE. Thackeray, W. M., " The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Cen- tury." London, 1886, Smith, Elder & Co., 192-227. Minto, W., " English Prose Literature." Edinburgh, 1886, Blackwood, 392-400. Dobson, A., "English Writers" (Andrew Lang). New York, 1886, Appleton, 225-233. Aitken, G. A., "Life of Richard Steele." Boston, 1889, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 2 : 343-345. Montgomery, R., " Memoirs of the Life of Steele," etc. Edinburgh, 1865, Nimmo, 2 : 295-309. Hazlitt, W., "The Round Table." London, 1871, Bell & Daldy, 9-14. Drake, N., "Essays." London, 1885, Sharpe, I : 185-291. Hazlitt, W., " Lectures on the English Poets." London, 1884, G. Bell & Daldy, 127-128. Gosse, E., " History of the Eighteenth Century Literature." New York, 1889, Macmillan, 186-192. Nicoll, H. J., " Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1883, Appleton, 175-183. Welsh, A. H., "The Development of English Literature." Chicago, 1884, Griggs, 2 : 76-80. Dennis, J., " Studies in English Literature." London, 1876, Stanford, 148-191. Courthope, W. J., "Joseph Addison." New York, 1884, Harper, 85- 109. Chalmers, A., "British Essayists." Boston, 1856, Little & Co., Pref- ace. Friswell, J. H., "Essays." London, 1880, Love & Manta, 114 & 299- 300. STEELE Bascom, J., " The Philosophy of English Literature." New York, 1874, Putnam, 171-174. Craik. G. L., " History of English Literature." New York, 1869, Scrib- ner, 248-250. Macaulay, T. B. , " Miscellaneous Works." New York, 1880, Harper, 3 : 85 and v. index. Kingsley, H., " Fireside Studies." London, 1876, Chatto & Windus, i : 1-128. Collier, W. F., " History of English Literature." London, 1892, Nel- son, 269-273. Taine, H. A., " History of English Literature." New York, 1875, Holt, v. , index. Russell, W. C., " Book of Authors." London, n. d., Warne, 147-149 &I55- L'Estrange, A. G., " History of English Humor." London, 1878, Hurst & Blackett, 2 : 62-83. Tuckerman, H. T., "Biographical Essays." Boston, 1857, Phillips, Sampson & Co., 405-411. Morley, H., Spectator. London, n. d., Routledge, Preface. North American Review, 108 : 78-95 (Tuckerman) ; 46 : 341-372 (W. E. Channing). Quarterly Review, 96 : 509-568 (J. Forster). Blackwood's Magazine, 99 : 726-746. Atlantic Monthly, 59 : 127-129 (Austin Dobson). New Monthly Magazine, 161 : 633-656 (Converse). Cornhill Magazine, 34 : 408-426 (Dennis). Gentleman's Magazine, 7 : 336-344 (C. C. Clarke). Contemporary Review, 56 : 503-515 (Dobson). Dial, 10 : 249-252 (Richards). Colburrf s Magazine, 161 : 633-656. Southern Literary Messenger, 15 : 651-656 (Tuckerman). Spectator, 62 : 301-302. PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS. I. Colloquial Ease Companionship. "Mon- taigne, whom I have proposed to consider as the father of this kind of personal authorship among the moderns, in which the reader is admitted behind the curtain, and sits down with the writer in his gown and slippers, was a most magnanimous and undisguised egotist ; but Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. was the more 120 STEELE disinterested gossip of the two. The English journalist good naturedly lets you into the secret both of his own affairs and those of his neighbors. A young lady, on the other side oi Temple Bar, cannot be seen at her glass for half a day to- gether, but Mr. Bickerstaff takes due notice of it ; and he has the first intelligence of the symptoms of the belle passion appearing in any young gentleman at the west end of town. Steele's papers in the Tatler are more like the re- marks which occur in sensible conversation and less like a lecture. . . . Steele seems to have gone into his closet chiefly to set down what he observed out of doors. Addison seems to have spent most of his time in his study." Hazlitt. " The originator of the social element in English liter- ature," says Montgomery, " was Richard Steele. The idea of a colloquial critic and censor first found adequate illustration in his pen." Another critic calls him "more human and less bookish than any other writer of the eighteenth century," and adds : . . . " His essays are more like the gossip of a friend than formal literature. He is a man who puts us into good humor with ourselves." Since Steele's day this element of " personal authorship" has been a well-defined feature of the style of nearly every famous English essayist. Steele, like Montaigne, really, therefore, inaugurated a new method of composition. " The great charm of Steele's writing is its naturalness. He wrote so quickly and carelessly that he was forced to make the reader his confidant and had not time to deceive him. He had a small share of book-learning but a vast acquaintance with the world. He had known men and taverns. He had lived with gownsmen, with troopers, with gentlemen Ushers of the Court, with men and women of fashion, with authors and wits, with the inmates of the sponging-houses, and with the frequenters of all the clubs and coffee-houses in the town. He was liked in all company because he liked it ; and you liked to see his enjoyment as you like to see the glee of a box- STEELE 121 ful of children at the pantomime. He was not of those lonely ones of the earth whose greatness obliged them to be solitary ; on the contrary, he admired, I think, more than any other man who ever wrote ; and, full of hearty applause and sym- pathy, he wins upon you by calling you to share his delight and good humor. His laugh rings through the whole house. He must have been invaluable at a tragedy, and have cried as much as the most tender young lady in the boxes." Thack- eray. " . . . If we have read Steele much, and turn to him yet again, every new reading seems more like an act of meditation or memory than receiving another's thoughts. We do not say a word to ourselves about its merits. All that we are conscious of is a succession of familiar, agree- able images which we begin to value as part of ourselves [He is] an early companion, who is so visible and intelligible in every word that he is at our side and talking with us. Happily, Steele never writes as if he had a lite- rary character to support, or indeed any character but that of the good old gentleman who has taken our morals into keep- ing . . . an easy, natural humor which never quite runs over and never loses its charm. . . . There is, how- ever, something better than grace and polish to denote his common manner ; we mean his familiar colloquial ease and directness. . . . He has a method of stating things which the reader would pronounce the same in which they would occur to himself, and which at once makes him a party in the matter, and puts the writer quite out of consideration for the time." W. E. Channing. " He was, indeed, far more of a companion than a scholar. It was by virtue not so much of the finish as the free- dom of his style that Steele won the town. . . . The most felicitous of Steele's essays are colloquial without any loss of dignity. Writing became more conversational and talking more finished. ... Sir Richard's easy temper 122 STEELE and frank companionship lowered his class-Mentor from stilts, and promoted his access to common readers." H. T. Tuck- erman. ILLUSTRATIONS. " At fifteen I was sent to the university and stayed there for some time ; but a drum passing by, being a lover of music, I listed myself for a soldier." The Tatler. " After this my reader will not be .surprised to hear the account which I am about to give of a club of my own contemporaries, among whom I pass two or three hours every evening. This I look upon as taking my first nap before I go to bed." The Tatler. " But I must turn my present discourse to what is of yet greater regard to me than the care of my writings ; that is to say, the preservation of a lady's heart. Little did I think I should ever have business of this kind on my hands more ; but, as little as anyone who knows me would believe it, there is a lady at this time who professes to love me." The Tatler. " Nay, I have known a young fellow who was regularly bred an attorney, and was a very expert one till he had an estate fallen to him. The moment that happened, he who could before prove the next land he cast his eye upon his own, and was so sharp that a man at first sight would give him a small sum for a general receipt whether he owed him anything or not ; such a one, I say, have I seen, coming upon an estate, forget all his diffidence of mankind and become the most manageable thing breathing." The Tatler. 2. Minuteness Realism. "The social sketches of the Tatler must always retain a certain interest. The whole of the time is mirrored in its pages. We see the theatre with Betterton and Bracegirdle on the stage ; we see the side-box bowing from its inmost rows at the advent of the radiant Cynthia of the minute ; we see the church, with its high pews and its hour-glass by the pulpit ; we hear, above the rus- tle of the fans and the coughing of open-breasted beaux, the sonorous periods of Burnett or Atterbury ; we scent the fra- grance of bergamot and lavender and Hungary-water. We STEELE 123 follow the gilded chariots moving slowly round the ring in Hyde Park; we take the air in the Mall with the bucks and pretty fellows ; we trudge after the fine lady bound in her glass chair upon her interminable ' how-dees ; ' we listen to the politicians at White's or the Cocoa- Tree ; ... we call for the latest Tatler at Morphew's by Stationer's Hall. It is not true that Queen Anne is dead ; we are living in her very reign ; and the Victorian Era, with its steam and its socialism, its electric lights and its local option, has floated away from us like a dream. . . . Steele, with his eye on the object, sketches what he sees among his fellows. He is sensitive about his claim to scholarship ; but his range of read- ing is restricted, and his real book is human nature." An- drew Lang. " In reading the pages of the Tatler, we seem as if sud- denly transported to the age of Queen Anne, of toupees and full-bottomed periwigs. . . . We distinguish the dappers, the smarts, and the pretty fellows, as they pass by Mr. Lilly's shop windows in the Strand ; we are introduced to Betterton and Mrs. Oldfield behind the scenes ; are made familiar with the persons and performances of Will Estcourt or Tom Durfey. . We are surprised with the rustling of hoops and the glittering of paste buckles. ' ' Hazlitt. "As we read in these delightful volumes of the Tatler and Spectator, the past age returns, the England of our ancestors is revivified. The May-pole rises in the Strand again in London ; the churches are thronged with daily worshippers ; the beaux are gathering in the coflee-houses, the gentry are going to the Drawing-room, the ladies are thronging to the toy-shops, the chair-men are jostling in the streets, the foot- men are running with links before the chariots or fighting around the theatre doors. In the country, I see the young Squire riding to Eton with his servants behind him, and Will Wimble, the friend of the family, to see him safe." Thackeray. 124 STEELE "There are many points of view in which these 'essays' have an interest at the present day. . . . They are not so properly a history as a set of pictures of the times. . . They raise the veil of a hundred years and, by a kind of magic, show us the whole of daily English city life at that period ; the men and their costumes, the professions, the theatres, the trades, the interior of private houses, the prevail- ing notions respecting education and criticism. We have every condition of life, every pursuit, and almost every kind of an opinion, conversation, tastes, fashions, follies, vices. Till we think a little of the subject, we shall have no concep- tion of the minuteness and extent of information which these papers give us. ... Here is illusion produced by realities, and not an idea of reality created, as in fine romances, by animating descriptions and actions, and where our warmed imaginations are made to do half the work for the author. Steele's characters are not sketches. They are genuine living men and women. We know them and their manner of life. We are prepared for all they have to say." IV. E. Channing. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Upon the mantle-tree stood a pot of lambative electuary, with a stick of liquorice, and near it a phial of rose-water and powder of tutty. Upon the table lay a pipe filled with betony and colt's-foot, a roll of wax-candle, a silver spitting-pot, and a Seville orange." Two Old Ladies. 11 Whereas Bridget Howd'ye, late servant to the Lady Fardin- gale, a short, thick, lively, hard-favoured wench of about twenty- nine years of age, her eyes small and bleared, her nose very broad at bottom and turning up at the end, her mouth wide and lips of an unusual thickness, two teeth out before, the rest black and uneven, the tip of her left ear being of a mouse-color, her voice loud and shrill, quick of speech, and something of a Welsh accent, withdrew herself on Wednesday last from her lady's dwelling-house, and with the help of her consorts, carried off the following goods of her said lady, viz : [here follow two pages of the names of articles stolen]." The Tatler. STEELE 125 " When I was a middle-aged man, there were many societies of ambitious young men in England, who, in their pursuits after fame, were every night employed in roasting porters, smoking cobblers, knocking down watchmen, overturning constables, breaking windows, blackening sign-posts, and the like immortal enterprises, that dispersed their reputation throughout the whole kingdom." The Tatler. 3. Humanity Sympathy. " There may have been wiser, stronger, greater men. But many a strong man would have been stronger for a touch of Steele's indulgent sympathy ; many a great man has wanted his genuine largeness of heart ; many a wise man might learn something from his deep and wide humanity. His virtues revealed his frailties. . . . For words which the heart finds when the head is seeking ; for phrases glowing with the white-heat of a generous emotion; for sentences which throb and tingle with a manly pity or courageous indignation, we must turn to the essays ofSteele." Andrew Lang. " It is obvious that the social tone of the Spectator is as much owing to Steele as its grace and humor are to Addison. If the one was a fine scholar, the other was a most agreeable gentleman ; if the one was correct, the other was genial ; if the one had reliable tastes, the other had noble impulses so that between them there was a beautiful representative hu- manity." H. T. Tuckerman. ' ' When Addison was so delicately weighing and polishing his sentences, Steele was pouring out what he saw or what he felt. When he preaches, as he is very apt to do, we fall to ' nodding in his face.' But we wake again when he returns to the subject he knows best the shifting pictures of human life, with its hopes and disappointments, its laughter and its tears. . . . His style takes fire, ' the motion doth dilate the flame,' and Steele becomes a great writer." Edmund Gosse. " Steele's papers are easily distinguished to this day by 126 STEELE their pure humanity, springing from the kindness and the gentleness of his heart." Coleridge. " It may be that he was a more negligent writer than Addi- son ; but the genuineness of his feelings frequently carries him farther." Austin. Dobson. " He has a relish for beauty and goodness wherever he meets it. He admired Shakespeare affectionately, and more than any other man of his time, a^id, according to his gener- ous, expansive nature, called upon all his company to like what he liked himself. He did not damn with faint praise; he was in the world and of it ; and his enjoyment of life presents the strangest contrast to Swift's savage indignation and Ad- dison's lonely serenity. . . . Dick set about almost all the undertakings of his life with inadequate means ; and, as he took and furnished a house with the most generous inten- tions toward his friends, the most tender gallantry toward his wife, and with this only drawback, that he had not where- withal to pay the rent when quarter-day came so, in his life, he proposed to himself the most magnificent schemes of virt- ue, forbearance, public and private good, and the advance- ment of his own and the national religion ; but when he had to pay for these articles so difficult to purchase and so costly to maintain poor Dick's money was not forthcoming ; and when Virtue called with her little bill, Dick made a shuffling excuse that he could not see her that morning, having a head- ache from being tipsy overnight ; or when stern Duty rapped at the door with his account, Dick was absent and not ready to pay. He was shirking at the tavern ; or had some par- ticular business (of somebody's else) at the ordinary ; or he was in hiding, or worse than in hiding, at the lock-up house. What a situation for a man ! for a philanthropist for a lover of right and truth for a magnificent designer and schemer ! not to dare to look in the face the Religion which he adored and which he had offended ; to have to shirk down back lanes and alleys, so as to avoid the friend whom he loved and who STEELE 127 had trusted him ; to have the house which he had intended for his wife, whom he loved, and for her ladyship's company, which he wished to entertain splendidly, in the possession of a bailiff's man ; with a crowd of little creditors grocers, butchers, and small-coal men lingering round the door with their bills and jeering at him ! Alas for poor Dick Steele ! For nobody else, of course. . . . There are no little sins, shabby peccadilloes, importunate remembrances, or disappoint- ed holders of our promises to reform, hovering at our steps or knocking at our door. Of course not. We are living in the nineteenth century ; and poor Dick Steele stumbled and got up again, and got into jail and got out again, and sinned and repented, and loved and suffered, and lived and died scores of years ago. Peace be with him. Let us think gently of one who was so gentle ; let us speak kindly of one whose own breast exuberated with human kindness." Tfiackeray. " His large heart seems to rush out in sympathy with any tale of sorrow or exhibition of magnanimity." Courthope. ILLUSTRATIONS. " A poor fellow at the end of the passage, with a rusty coat, a melancholy air, and soft voice, desired them ' to look upon a man not used to beg.' The latter received the charity of almost everyone that went by. The strings of the heart, which are to be touched to give us compassion, are not so played on but by the finest hand." The Tatler. " To enquire into men's faults and weaknesses has something in it so unwelcome that I have often seen people in pain to act before me, whose modesty only makes them think themselves liable to censure. This and a thousand other nameless things have made it an irksome task to me to personate Mr. Bickerstaff any longer ; and I believe it does not often happen that the reader is delighted where the author is displeased." The Tatler. "If we could look into the secret anguish and affliction of every man's heart, we should often find that more of it arises from little imaginary distresses, such as checks, frowns, contra- 128 STEELE dictions, expressions of contempt, and (what Shakespeare reckons among other evils under the sun) ' The proud man's contumely, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes ' than from the more real pains and calamities of life. The only method to remove these imaginary distresses as much as possible out of human life would be the universal practice of such an ingenuous complaisance as I have been here describing." The Guardian. 4. Kindly Satire. Of all English writers who have satirized human foibles and frailties, Steele is the kindliest. Himself " ever sinning and repenting," he had the warmest sympathy with his erring fellow-mortals. It is this quality that makes him always more beloved, though less respected, than his more pious and sometimes more malevolent friend, Addison. " Steele exemplified," says Bascom, " the strong, heedless, generous impulses of his Irish nationality." His satire is certainly generous, and all his acts and expressions were impulsive. " He is a writer of genuinely amiable humor. . . . Steele was a kindly observer of human frailties. Against what he considered to be heartlessness and vice he was open- ly indignant. Minor faults he ridiculed with good-humor, with a certain fellow-feeling for the objects of his ridicule." Minto. " We can forgive his tippling in taverns in consideration of the loving touch with which he handles the foibles of his neighbors and the mirth without bitterness that flows from his gentle pen." W. F. Collier. "This native vein is the study of humanity, and upon this he delights to exhaust the resources of his genial humor, his art, his raillery, and his playfulness. The world about him, not always a very reputable world, but one of considerable STEELE 129 extent and variety, this is what he shows us, this is what he laughs with and at, this is what he strives to conquer by the light artillery of ridicule." Andrew Lang. " His humor is uniformly kindly, genial, indulgent, recog- nizing always that to 'step aside is human.' An object is never so ludicrous but he has somewhere a subordinate stroke to show that, though he is laughing, there is nothing ma- licious in his mirth. He often seems to be satirizing himself more than others, and smiling a little ruefully perhaps at his own weaknesses rather than theirs. ... He rallied the follies of society with unfailing tact and good-humor ; he rebuked its vices with admirable courage and dignity." Austin Dobson. " A universality of aim took away the special intent of his hits at folly ; and self-love was not wounded by the judicious advice of a kindly man of the world, anonymously tendered. The satire had too much of pleasantry to embitter its object." H. T. Tuckerman. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Some men are born at twenty years of age, some at thirty, some at three-score, and some not above an hour before they die ; nay, we may observe multitudes that die without ever being born, as well as many dead persons that fill up the bulk of man- kind and make a better figure, in the eyes of the ignorant, than those who are alive and in their proper and full state of health." Dead Folk. " But, being driven out of his little law and logic, he told me, very pertly, that he looked upon such a perpendicular creature as man to make a very imperfect figure without a cane in his hand. ' It is well known,' says he, ' we ought, according to the natural situation of our bodies, to walk upon our hands and feet ; and that the wisdom of the ancients had described man to be an animal of four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three at night ; by which they intimated that a cane might very proper- ly become part of us in some period of life.'" Bickerstaff, Censor. 9 130 STEELE " But we must bear with this false modesty in our young nobil- ity and gentry till they cease at Oxford and Cambridge to grow dumb in the study of eloquence." Bickerstaff. " There is a doctor in Mouse Alley, near Wapping, who sets up for curing cataracts upon the credit of having, as his bill sets forth, lost an eye in the emperor's service. His patients come in upon this, and he shows his muster-roll, which confirms that he was in his majesty's troops ; and he puts out their eyes with great success." Quack Advertisements. " It is very remarkable that these brothers of the blade began to appear upon the first suspension of arms ; and that since the conclusion of the peace the order is very much increased, both as to the number of the men and the size of their weapons." The Tatler. 5. Intense Pathos. Steele was a man of deep, emo- tional nature. He has less polish than Addison, but he has more human sympathy. He frequently portrays what Hazlitt calls "the heart-rending pathos of private distress." His pathos is too intense to be artistic. It is not a " sweet sor- row," but rather a scene from which we turn away in pain. " If he describes a death -bed scene, or tells a pathetic story," says one critic, "it is not with the trickery of an author striving for effect, but with the simple unconscious pathos of a man who has witnessed the scene, and is still under its sad- dening influences." Even Steele himself was often overcome by the painfulness of his own creations, and he often sought relief by indulgence in wine or by very abruptly changing the current of his thought. He said of himself, " Pity is the weakness of my heart." "As might be expected from his emotional nature, his pathetic side is especially strong ; but it is strong with all the defects of that nature that is to say, it is rather poignant and intense than fine or suggestive. He is not in the least ashamed of his tears ; and when, with Master Stephen, he mounts his stool to be melancholy, he is for no half-measures in grief." Andrew Lang, STEELE 131 " Steele is one of the most touching of our writers. The incidents that he recalled or imagined were of the most heart- rending character. . . . Most of those [papers] that do appeal to our tender sensibilities lay before us situations of extreme anguish." Minto. ILLUSTRATIONS. " O Death, thou hast right to the bold, to the ambitious, to the high, and to the haughty ; but why this cruelty to the humble, to the meek, to the undiscerning, to the thoughtless ? Nor age, nor business, nor distress can erase the dear image from my imagi- nation. In the same week I saw her dressed for a ball and in a shroud. How ill did the habit of death become the pretty trifler ! I still behold the smiling earth . A large train of disasters were coming on to my memory, when my servant knocked at my closet door, and interrupted me with a letter, attended with a hamper of wine, of the same sort with that which is to be put to sale on Thursday next at Garraway's coffee -house." Recol- lections. " Sir, I, who two hours ago told you truly I was the happiest man alive, am now the most miserable. Your daughter lies dead at my feet, killed by my hand, through a mistake of my man's charging my pistols unknown to me. . . . Him I have mur- dered for it. Such is my wedding-day. I will immediately fol- low my wife to her grave ; but before I throw myself upon my sword, I command my distraction so far as to explain my story to you. I fear my heart will not keep together till I have stabbed it. Poor, good old man ! Remember, he that killed your daughter died for it. In the article of death, I give you my thanks and pray for you, though I dare not for myself. If it be possible, do not curse me." Love and Sorrow. " My heart was torn to pieces, to see the husband on one side suppressing and keeping down the swellings of his grief, for fear of disturbing her in her last moments ; and the wife even at that time concealing the pains she endured for fear of increasing his affliction. She kept her eyes upon him for some moments after she grew speechless, and soon after closed them forever. In the moment of her departure, my friend, who had thus far com- 132 STEELE manded himself, gave a deep groan and fell into a swoon by her bedside." The Wife Dead. 6. Good Sense Sound Judgment. Steele mani- fested peculiar skill in his method of applying truths and principles to the social problems with which he was dealing. He had a clear perception of character and "a clear, strong, practical distinction of what was true, useful, and becoming in the matter before him." "The general purpose of the whole," wrote Steele of the Spectator, "has been to recom- mend truth, honor, and virtue as the chief ornaments of life ; but I considered severity of manners was absolutely essential to him who would censure others, and for that reason, and that only, chose to wear a mask." In his expressions con- cerning the manners, morals, and politics of the time, there appear constantly statements that impress one with their hard, practical common-sense. This can better be illustrated than defined. " The cardinal quality of these papers [Steele's ' Essays '] is their good sense ; this never forsakes them. Their philos- ophy presents it in a penetrative, their humor in a pungent, form. This good sense was most effective in securing uni- form success. Whatever the object of satire the pedantry of learning, the conceit of rank, the foppishness of dress, the frivolity of etiquette, the prejudice of partisanship the same sober, sound opinion underlay and sustained the attack." Bascom. Steele says of himself: " It was my aim, in any intelligible manner as I could, to rally all those singularities of human life, through the different professions and characters in it, which obstruct anything that is truly good and great." Minto speaks of Steele's " mingling good sense and earnest- ness with merriment and burlesque," and Drake says, "He was uniformly the friend of virtue, propriety, and good sense. ' ' STEELE 133 ILLUSTRATIONS. " Any doctrine on the subject of dying other than that of liv- ing well is the most insignificant and most empty of all labors of men." The Tatler. " Learning does but improve in us what nature has endowed us with, for not to have good sense with learning is only to have more ways of exposing one's self." The Tatler. " He who thinks no man his superior but for virtue and no man his inferior but for vice, can never be obsequious or assum- ing in a wrong place, but will be as ready frequently to emulate men in rank below him as to avoid and pity those above." The Tatler. "It is a mistaken sense of superiority to believe a figure or equipage gives men precedence to their neighbors. Nothing can create respect from mankind but laying obligations upon them ; and it may very reasonably be concluded that if it were put into a due balance, according to the true state of the account, many who believe themselves in possession of a large share of dignity in the world must give place to their inferiors. The greatest of all distinctions in civil life is that of debtor and creditor ; and there needs no great progress in logic to know which, in that case, is the advantageous side." Men Not Their Own Masters. " Familiarity, among the truly well-bred, never gives authority to trespass upon one another in the most minute circumstance ; but it allows us to be kinder than we ought otherwise to presume to be." The Tatler. 7. Reverence for Womanhood. " Steele's wife preserved every scrap of his written communications to her. . . It is remarkable what a key is thus furnished to the knowledge of his heart and habits. Above all, these little notes, in every phrase and tone, evidence Steele's warm, wise, and chivalric appreciation of woman a sentiment rare in his day. . . . For him it were needless to plead for woman's rights ; he recognized them, not indeed as external civil priv- ileges, but as social authorities, in her very nature. . . . 134 STEELE His recognition of woman's needs as a rational creature, and his respect and tenderness for her, as evinced in his writings, are confirmed by, or rather originated in, his private experi- ence. . . . Women, especially, owe Steele no small ob- ligation for advocating the mental capabilities, recognizing the social mission, and exposing the baneful follies of their sex." H. T. Tuckerman. 1 ' All women especially are bound to be grateful to Steele, as he was the first of our writers who really seemed to admire and respect them. ... It was Steele who first began to pay a manly homage to their goodness and understanding as well as to their tenderness and beauty. . . . Steele admires women's virtue, acknowledges their sense, and adores their purity and beauty with an ardor and strength which should earn the good-will of all women to their hearty and respectful champion. He paid the finest compliment to a woman that perhaps ever was offered. He said, ' To have loved her was a liberal education.' . . . His breast seems to warm and his eyes to kindle when he meets a good and beautiful woman, and it is with his heart as well as with his hat that he salutes her. ... A gallant tenderness for the sex [female] shines through good-natured Dick's mock-heroic humor. Addison politely holds the sex up to ridicule ; Steele sympathizes with their little artifices, and even insinuates a piece of genuine good advice as to the best means of success. . . . Steele's ' Sir Roger ' is quite a different person from Addison's 'Sir Roger.' All that is amiable in the conception belongs to Steele." Thackeray. " He wrote of women and children as, in his day, no writer had hitherto dared to do. As the first painter of do- mesticity the modern novel owes him much. . . . Of women Steele wrote with an insight, an admiration, an hon- esty, and a chivalry which should forever entitle him to the gratitude of the sex." Austin Dobson. STEELE 135 ILLUSTRATIONS. " You see in no place of conversation the perfection of speech so much as in an accomplished woman, whether it be that there is a partiality irresistible when we judge of that sex, or whatever it is, you may observe a wonderful freedom in their utterance and an easy flow of words, without being distracted, as we often are who read much, in the choice of dictions and phrases." The Tatler. " You will therefore forgive me that I strive to conceal every wrong step made by any who have the honor to wear petticoats, and shall at all times do what is in my power to make all mankind as much their slaves as myself." The Tatler. " In short, I must tell my female readers, and they may take an old man's word for it, that there is nothing in woman so grace- ful and becoming as modesty. It adds charms to their beauty, and gives a new softness to their sex." The Tatler. 8. Power of Portraiture. " The lesson is generally instilled unostentatiously by a vivid sketch of some individual, so full of life that a very few words suffice to make the char- acter remain fixed in our memories. In the number and variety of such portraits Steele is unrivalled." Aitken. " The Portraits of Bickerstafif and Cynthio in the Tatler, of Sir Roger de Coverley in the Spectator, and of Nestor Iron- sides in the Guardian, are drawn and finished in a manner which not only indicates a perfect insight into the passions and feelings of the human frame, but demonstrates likewise the possession of that creative energy which, from the numerous shades and gradations of manner, can select and associate such features as shall designate a character altogether original, though founded on the usual acknowledged motives and ac- tions of mankind." N. Drake. " By what other power is it that Steele assembles his little groups at the coffee-houses, or in private families, or in his own apartment, and sets people before us in such a manner 136 STEELE that we at once become acquainted with them, as if they had fallen in our way, and makes them talk, not as in books, but as if every word had been taken down from real conver- sation? . . . This familiar every-day acquaintance with characters of every variety and without number, is not and could not be obtained from mere delineation. They are not sketches ; they are genuine living men and women. We know them and their manner of life. We are prepared for all they have to say. We can account for their motives, an- ticipate their doubts, answer their objections, advise them what to do, and predict their destiny." W. E. Channing. ILLUSTRATIONS. " That animal whom we call a pretty fellow ; who, being just able to find out that what makes Sophronius acceptable is a nat- ural behavior, in order to the same reputation, makes his own an artificial one. Sophronius just now passed into the inner room directly forward ; Jack comes as fast after as he can for the right and left looking-glass, in which he had but just approved himself by a nod at each, and marched on. He will meditate within for half an hour, until he thinks he is not careless enough in his air, and come back to the mirror to recollect his forgetfulness." The Tatler. " I had hardly been accommodated with a seat, before there entered into the aisle a young lady in the very bloom of youth and beauty, and dressed in the most elegant manner imaginable. Her form was such that it engaged the eyes of the whole congre- gation in an instant, and mine among the rest. Though we were all thus fixed upon her, she was not in the least out of counte- nance or under the least disorder. However, she had not in the least a confident aspect, but moved on with the most graceful modesty. The deputy of the ward sat in that pew, and she stood opposite to him ; and at a glance into the seat, though she did not appear the least acquainted with the gentleman, was let in with a confusion that spoke much admiration at the novelty of the thing. The service immediately began, and she composed herself for it STEELE 137 with an air of so much goodness and sweetness that the confes- sion, which she uttered so as to be heard where I sat, appeared an act of humiliation more than she had occasion for. The truth is, her beauty had something so innocent and yet so sublime that we all gazed upon her like a phantom. None of the pictures which we behold of the best Italian painters have anything like the spirit which appeared in her countenance at the different sen- timents expressed in the several parts of the divine service. That gratitude and joy at a thanksgiving, that lowliness and sorrow at the prayers for the sick and distressed, that triumph at the pas- sages which gave instances of the divine mercy." The Spectator. "But the next heir that possessed it was this soft gentleman, whom you see there. Observe the small buttons, the little boots, the laces, the slashes about his clothes, and above all the post- ure he is drawn in (which to be sure was his own choosing) ; you see he sits with one hand on a desk, writing and looking as it were another way, .like an easy writer or a sonneteer. He was one of those that had too much wit to know how to live in the world ; he was a man of no justice, but great good manners ; he ruined everybody that had anything to do with him, but never said a rude thing in his life ; the most indolent person in the world, he would sign a deed that passed away half his estate with his gloves on, but would not put on his hat before a lady if it were to save his country." Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. 9. Spontaneity Vivacity. "Addison, with all his amazing genius, could not get on without Steele. There was an amount of nerve and, if we may be allowed a vulgar- ity, 'go' about Steele which Addison never had." Charles Kingsley. " His humor, in short, has the prevailing characteristic of his genius it is spontaneous and genuine, but often loose and ill-considered in expression. Still, it is so cheerful and good-natured, so frank and manly, that one is often tempted to echo the declaration of Leigh Hunt ' I prefer open- hearted Steele with all his faults to Addison with all his es- says.' " Andrew Lang. " The first sprightly runnings are there [in the Tatler\ 138 STEELE it has more of the original spirit, more of the freshness and stamp of nature."- Hazlitt. " While Mr. Addison was abroad, and after he came home, in rather a dismal way, to wait upon Providence in his shabby lodging in the Haymarket, young Captain Steele was cutting a much smarter figure than that of his classical friend of Charterhouse Cloister and Maudlin Walk. Could not some painter give an interview between the gallant captain of Lu- cas's, with his hat cocked, and hfs lace, and his face too, a trifle tarnished with drink, and that poet, that philosopher, pale, proud, and poor, his friend and monitor of school-days, of all days ? How Dick must have bragged about his chances and his hopes, and the fine company he kept, and the charms of the reigning toasts and popular actresses, and the number of bottles that he and my lord and some other pretty fellows had cracked overnight at the ' Devil ' or the ' Garter ! ' Can- not one fancy Joseph Addison's calm smile and cold gray eyes following Dick for an instant as he struts down the Mall to dine with the Guard at St. James, before he turns, with his sober pace and threadbare suit, to walk back to his lodgings up the two pair of stairs ? " Thackeray. " We have already called Steele' s wit fresh and natural. It came with no stinted flow. He wrote as he lived, freely and carelessly, scattering the coinage of his brain, as he did his guineas, with an unsparing hand. All who read his pa- pers or his letters to Prue cannot help seeing the good heart of the rattle-brain shining out in every line." W. F. Collier. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Two sisters in Essex Street are eternally gaping out of the window, as if they knew not the value of time. . . . Upon which I writ the following line : ' Dear Creatures, on the receipt of this, shut your casement.' But I went by yesterday, and found them still at the window. What can a man do in this case but go on and wrap himself up in his own integrity ? "- The Tatler. STEELE 139 " Since this body must be earth, I shall commit it to the dust in a manner suitable to my character. Therefore, as there are those who dispute whether there is any such real person as Isaac Bickerstaff or not, I shall excuse all persons who appear what they really are from coming to my funeral. But all those who are, in their way of life, personce, as the Latins have it, persons assumed, and who appear what they really are not, are hereby invited to that solemnity." The Tatler. " The last letter I shall insert is as follows : This is written by a very inquisitive lady ; and I think such interrogative gentle- women are to be answered no other way than by interrogation. Her billet is this : ' Dear Mr. Bickerstaff : ' Are you quite as good as you seem to be ? ' CHLOE.' To which I can only answer : ' Dear Chloe : ' Are you quite as ignorant as you seem to be ? 'I. B.'" The Tatler. 10. High Moral Aim. "In his ever-lovable writings he always kept before him the highest aims, endeavoring to reform manners and help m raising mankind to a higher level ; whatever the method, the aim was always the same, and in no field were his efforts without success." Aitken. " It was no part of Steele's object or habits to make brilliant sentences on any subject. He was deliberately occupied with making men better. . . . The utmost sweetness and love breathe through his moral speculations. How tender his re- membrance of affecting scenes in his childhood ! How lively his sense of the beauty of a sound, honest heart ; of the dig- nity and benign power of women ; of the claims, confidence, and reward of friendship ; of the deference we owe to others in the smallest things ! We are drawn near to him, and breathe the air of benevolence and courtesy, and love him the more that he is not perfect, if only for sympathy ; . . . Though in the great variety of his topics he says many things frivolous and exceptionable, yet the inculcation of re- 140 STEELE ligious truth, motives, and obligations is, in his lateres says at least, steadily, perseveringly pursued. It is postponed for nothing else. It is introduced at any moment and in any connection where it can be with prudence and decency ; and for the most part in a strictly practical manner." W. E. Channing. " He brought his daily observations of life, his gleanings in society, his early studies, his critical estimate of authors and actors, and his reflections on the destiny and duty of his fel- lows to bear on his essays, . . . now entering a satirical protest, advocating amelioration in manners, suggesting im- proved standards, winning to more wise pastimes and more gracious intercourse." H. T. Tuckerman. " His utterances on Charity, Benevolence, Praise, Flattery, Distinction, and the like, are admirable lay-sermons, full of a noble and earnest sincerity." Andrew Lang. "Without any fear of scoffing and deistical critics before their eyes, they [Addison and Steele] tried to uphold common sense, decency, order, virtue, and religion, and on the other hand to show the folly of vice and to laugh at the senseless prof- ligacy of the rake, the fop, and the fool." J. H. Friswell. " The papers which originated with Steele . . . were a social evangel. . . . They aimed at what they did much to accomplish, a social regeneration." /. Bascom. ILLUSTRATIONS. " As for my part. I ever esteemed a drunkard of all vicious persons the most vicious. ... If a man consider that he cannot, under the oppression of drink, be a friend, a gentleman, a master, or a subject ; that he has so long banished himself from all that is dear, and given up all that is sacred to him ; he would even then think of a debauch with horror." The Tatler. " The world will never be in any manner of order or tranquillity till men are firmly convinced that conscience, honor, and credit are all in one interest ; and that without the concurrence of the STEELE HI former, the latter are but impositions upon ourselves and others." The Taller. " Now the bubble courts the impostor, and pretends at the utmost to be but his equal. To clear up the reasons and causes in such revolutions and the different conduct between fools and cheats, shall be one of our labors for the good of this kingdom." The Taller. " Of all the evils under the sun, that of making vice commend- able is the greatest ; for it seems to be the basis of society that applause and contempt should be always given to proper objects. But in this age we behold things for which we ought to have an abhorrence not only received without disdain but even valued as motives of emulation. This is naturally the destruction of sim- plicity of manner, openness of heart, and generosity of temper. When one gives one's self the liberty to range and run over in one's thoughts the different geniuses of men which one meets in the world, one cannot but observe that most of the indirection and artifice which is used among men does not proceed so much from a degeneracy in nature as [from] an affectation of appear- ing men of consequence by such practices." The Toiler. ii. Grave Intentional Exaggeration. This has always been a common form of humor, but few writers have equalled the founder of the Tatler in the profound gravity and deliberation with which he sets down the most astound- ing hyperbole. " He knows very well how to exaggerate in a quiet, grave style, which looks like truth, and throws the whole force of the manner upon the point he aims at." W. E. Channing. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Being informed that several dead men in and about this city do keep out of the way and abscond, for fear of being buried ; and being willing to respite their interment, in consideration of their families and in hopes of their amendment, I shall allow them certain privileged places, where they may appear to one another, without causing any let or molestation to the living, or 142 STEELE receiving any, in their own persons, from the company of Up- holders . " Bicker sta/. ' ' The stratagem had so good an effect upon him that he grew immediately a new man, and is learning to speak without an oath ; which makes him extremely short in his phrases ; for, as I observed before, a common swearer has a brain without any idea on the swearing side ; therefore my ward has yet mighty little to say, and is forced to substitute some other vehicle of nonsense to supply the defect of his unusual expletives." Pacolet. " Whereas, a commission of interment has been awarded against Doctor John Partridge, philomath, professor of physic and astrology, and whereas the said Partridge hath not sur- rendered himself, nor shown cause to the contrary : These are to certify that the Company of Upholders will proceed to bury him from Cordwainer's Hall, on Tuesday the twenty-ninth in- stant, where any six of his surviving friends, who still believe him to be alive, are desired to come prepared to hold up the pall." Pacolet. " I shall here publish to the world the life of a person who was neither man nor woman ; . . . who, as the town very well knows, was a woman that practised physic in a man's clothes, and, after having had two wives and several children, died about a month since." The Tatler. DEFOE, 1661 (?)-i73i Biographical Outline. Daniel Defoe, born in 1660 or 1 66 1 in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, London ; father a well-to-do nonconformist butcher named Foe ; Defoe changes his name to Defoe about 1703, for reasons variously assigned ; he enters the academy at Newington Green at the age of fourteen ; he afterward declared that he " understood " Latin, Spanish, and Italian, that he " could read " Greek, and that he spoke French "fluently;" he also obtained some knowledge of mathematics, a wide acquaintance with geography, modern history, and the existing commercial con- ditions of his day, and took the theological and philosophical courses necessary to fit him for the dissenting ministry ; he goes into business as a hose factor about 1685 ; participates in the "No-popery" riots of 1685; joins William's army on its approach to London, in 1688; in 1701 he publishes a pamphlet on the succession, proposing to investigate the claims of Monmouth ; he engages in foreign trade, visiting France, Germany, and Spain, and becomes bankrupt about 1692; by 1705 he has reduced his debts from ^17,000 to ,5,000, discharging in full obligations for which composi- tion had been accepted ; he philosophizes on his financial experience in an "Essay on Projects," published in 1698 ; in this essay he shows himself to be a most intelligent observer, and foreshadows several commercial institutions that were not developed till a century later ; in 1694 he refuses the offer of a commercial agency in Spain, in order to give his services toward solving the financial problems of the government ; in 1695 he is made accountant to the Commissioners of the Glass 143 144 DEFOE Duty, an office that he held till the commission was suppressed in 1699 ; he is also secretary and a partner in a company en- gaged in making pantiles [curved roof-tiles] at Tilbury a business that proves remunerative ; in the later years of William's reign Defoe becomes prominent as a pamphleteer in support of the king's character and policy ; he argues in favor of a standing army in 1697; in 1700 he publishes The Two Great Questions, a pamphlet vigorously defending the expected war, of which a French translation, with a reply, appeared in 1701; in 1701 he also writes "The True-Born Englishman, a Satyr," being a reply to a poem by one Tut- chin, in which William had been called a Dutchman ; by 1705 nine genuine and twelve pirated editions of this poem had been printed, and 80,000 copies sold in the streets ; Defoe is presented to William, who treats him with confidence; in 1701 he writes Six Distinguishing Characters of a Parliament Man, denouncing stock-jobbers and calling attention to the serious political questions of the day ; in the same year, on the imprisonment of the Whig presenters of the " Kentish Peti- tion," he publishes the "Legion Memorial," and presents it to the Speaker of the House of Commons, with the result of liberating the petitioners; in December, 1701, he publishes " The Original Power of the Collective Body of the English People," his most noteworthy discussion of political theories; in his " Reasons against a War with France " (1701) he urges that England should secure the colonial empire of Spain ; on William's death, March 8, 1702, he publishes a poem, " Mock Mourners," ridiculing the official lamentations, and a pam- phlet, New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty, at- tacking the high church party ; in 1702 he joins in the con- troversy over the bill suppressing "occasional nonconformity," though he admits the necessity of the Established Church as a barrier against popery and infidelity, and does not object to limited tests ; in his Dissenters' Answer to High Chunk Challenge he asserts that the dissenters would conform if ob- DEFOE 145 noxious ceremonies were not insisted on, and argues that it is an injustice to require military and naval service from dis- senters while excluding them from preferment ; he is charged with desertion by the more narrow dissenters, and, in self- defence, publishes The Shortest Way with Dissenters, a satirical pamphlet ostensibly written by a high churchman, in which it is proposed to extirpate the dissenters as the French king had extirpated the Protestants ; the more vehement Tories approve the pamphlet in earnest, and one clergyman places it next to the Bible in his estimation ; but the reaction soon comes, and Defoe is prosecuted for libelling the Church by misrepresenting its principles; the House of Commons orders the pamphlet to be burned, and a reward is offered for Defoe's apprehension ; he is indicted February 24, 1703, is tried in the following July, acknowledges the authorship, and is sentenced to pay a fine of two hundred marks, to stand three times in the pillory, to be imprisoned during the Queen's pleasure, and to give security for his good behavior during the succeeding seven years ; he publishes several other pamphlets on the subject of conformity, all advocating toleration ; he stands in the pillory July 29, 30, and 31, 1703 ; the popu- lace form a guard, cover the pillory with flowers, and drink to his health ; Defoe publishes his " Hymn to the Pillory," which sells in great numbers ; afterward he is imprisoned in Newgate, and is thus compelled to abandon his business at Tilbury, thereby losing ,3,500 ; he obtains a precarious support for his wife and six children by writing pamphlets on the questions of the day, besides A Layman 's Sermon on the great storm (November 27, 1703) ; his notoriety leads to a spurious publication of his writings, and, in 1703, he pub- lishes the first volume of a "true collection," followed, in 1705, by a second volume; during his imprisonment he be- gins his Review, at first a weekly paper and afterward issued r\vo and three times a week, of which the full title was "A Review of the Affairs of France and of All Europe, as Influ- xo 146 DEFOE enced by the Nation; " an imaginary "Scandal Club" con- tributes to its pages, and fills five monthly supplements in 1704 with its "Advices; " during half of 1705 the "Ad- vices" appear twice a week as a separate publication called The Little Review ; in July, 1712, the Review ceases in its old form, but a new series, called simply The Review, is is- sued twice a week till June, 1713 ; during the ten years of the publication Defoe writes all its contents, never missing a number ; during the same period he also publishes eighty other books equalling the Review in bulk ; the Review marks the beginning of English periodical literature, and suggested, later, the Tatler and the Spectator ; the expulsion of Notting- ham, Defoe's special enemy, and the admission of Harley to the ministry in the spring of 1704, result in the relief of De- foe's family by a sum sent from the treasury, and, four months later, in his release from prison ; his bond for good behavior is still in force, and some conditions are imposed on his lib- eration ; he retires for a time to St. Edmund's Bury, returns to London in October, 1 704, and in November publishes a pamphlet entitled Giving Alms no Charity ; during 1705 he publishes The Consolidate, or "Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon," and enters into a correspondence with Lord Halifax, which shows that Defoe was then receiving, through one of the Whig junto, financial aid from some "unknown benefactor; " he is employed by Harley, then Secretary of State, "in several honorable though secret services ; " takes part in the political campaign of 1705, writing a satire The Dyet of Poland, attacking the high church party; in 1706 he publishes "The True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal " and a polit- ical satire in twelve books of verse, entitled "Jure Divino ; " the common story that " Mrs. Veal " was written to help ad- vertise Drelincourt's book on the ' Fear of Death ' has been proved false; in the autumn of 1706 Defoe is sent by the ministry as a secret agent to Scotland to aid in negotiations DEFOE 147 looking to the Union, and kisses the Queen's hand on his ap- pointment ; he publishes six essays ' ' Toward Removing National Prejudices " against the measure in both countries; he remains in Scotland through 1707, is consulted on ques- tions of trade, is once threatened by a mob, and defends him- self against the charge of dependence on the ministry with some equivocation ; he is still persecuted by his creditors, though he had surrendered to the commissioners appointed for the relief of debtors ; upon Harley's ejection from the minis- try, Defoe offers his services to Godolphin, Harley's bitter enemy, is accepted, and again is sent to Scotland in 1708 ; for a time he prints the Review in both Edinburgh and Lon- don, and makes a pretence of intending to settle in Scotland ; he supports Godolphin through the Review in the elections of 1708, and attacks Sacheverell so vehemently that Defoe is threatened with assassination ; on Godolphin's dismissal Defoe is "providentially cast back upon his original benefactor" (Harley), as he puts it ; the Review suddenly changes its spirit to correspond with Defoe's partial political somersault ; in October, 1710, he publishes two essays, " Public Credit " and "Loans," both so clearly in Harley's interest that they are attributed to Harley ; Defoe now so strongly urges acqui- escence in the peace (condemned by the Whigs) that Mesna- ger,the French agent, translates one of Defoe's pamphlets into French and sends him one hundred pistoles ; the Review is in- jured by the new tax, imposed in 1712, but Defoe continues its publication through one more volume, eloquently asserting his independence and his suffering in the cause of truth, and then discontinues the Review, to become the principal contribu- tor to the Mercator, issued in Harley's (then Lord Oxford's) interest; he is again sent to Scotland in the latter part of 1712, where he writes several anti -Jacobite pamphlets under osten- sibly Jacobite titles, such as Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover, What if the Pretender Should Come, etc. ; these pamphlets offend the Whigs, who now 148 DEFOE regard Defoe as a hireling renegade ; he is prosecuted for li- bel, the pamphlets are declared treasonable, and he is impris- oned, April 22, 1713., but immediately secures a pardon under the great seal ; he continues to write pamphlets and to con- tribute to the Mercator in Oxford's interest ; in a " Letter to the Dissenters" (December, 1713) he exhorts them to neutrality; in April, 1714, he replies in "The Public Spirit of the Whigs," to Swift's attack on the Scots, and defends Oxford in a tract ; Defoe is engaged by one Hunt, a book- seller, to issue a periodical called The Flying Sheet, in oppo- sition to one already published under that title ; in its pages Defoe attacks Lord Annesley, and is again prosecuted for libel ; while his trial is pending he writes (September, 1714) his "Appeal to Honour and Justice," his "Advice to the People of Great Britain," and "A Secret History of One Year " (the first year of William's reign) ; he is severely ill early in 1715, but in March he publishes his "Family In- structor," a book of 450 pages, presumably written earlier ; in July, 1715, he publishes "A History of the Wars of His Present Majesty, Charles XII., King of Sweden," and in the same month is convicted of libel on Lord Annesley ; A Hymn to the Mob and other pamphlets appear soon after- ward ; in November, 1715, when his fellow-convicts are im- prisoned, Defoe escapes punishment by proposing, through Judge Parker, to enter the employ of the government under Townshend, then Secretary of State ; his proposal is accepted, and from May, 1716, till September, 1720, he publishes a monthly paper called Mercurius Politicus, at the same time contributing to the News Letter, a high church journal, cir- culated only in manuscript, of which Defoe owned a part ; he also aids, during the same period, in managing Mist's Journal, a Jacobite organ, started in 1716 ; Defoe appears in Mist 's Journal as a translator of foreign news, but his au- thorship is suspected because of " his art in forging a story and imposing it on the world for truth ; " he also starts the DEFOE 149 WJiitehall Evening Post, a tri-weekly journal, in 1718, and writes for it till June, 1720; in October, 1719, he starts the Daily Post, for which he writes till 1725 ; he contributes also to Applebee 1 s Journal from 1720 to 1726; all these contributions and pamphlets, after 1709, were anonymous, as Defoe was regarded as a renegade ; he practically allowed himself to pass for a traitor or, more properly, a spy ; he dis- played wonderful versatility, writing on the widest variety of topics, but generally avoiding political themes during the later years of his journalism ; he publishes the first volume of " Robinson Crusoe " April 25, 1719, and sells it to one Tay- lor, who sells four editions in five months ; Defoe publishes the second volume August 8, 1719 ; in 1720 he publishes " Serious Reflections during the Life of Robinson Crusoe ; " "Robinson Crusoe" becomes marvellously popular, is ten times pirated and imitated, is translated into many languages, and is " bought by every old woman and left to her family as a legacy with ' Pilgrim's Progress ; ' " between the first and second editions of " Robinson Crusoe " Defoe publishes " The Anatomy of Exchange Alley," an attack on stock-jobbers, and " The Chimera," an attack on John Law's financial schemes ; he writes several short fictitious stories of criminals in 1719, and, in 1720, publishes " The Adventures of Captain Singleton ' ' and ' ' Memoirs of a Cavalier ; " " Moll Flan- ders," " Colonel Jacque," and " The Journal of the Plague" all appear in 1722, "Roxana" in 1724, and "A New Voy- age Round the World" in 1725; in his own view, Defoe was, in his stories of harlots and vagabonds, a sincere and zealous moralist ; in 1725 and 1727 he published two volumes of " The Complete English Tradesman " and " The Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed; " during 1726 appeared " The Political History of the Devil," "A System of Logic," "An Essay on the Reality of Apparitions," and several other books ; after 1725 Defoe wrote under the pseudonym of " An- drew Moreton ;" he appears at this period to have been fairly 150 DEFOE prosperous, for he had "a very handsome house" at Stoke Newington, and he invested a thousand pounds for an estate for his daughter Hannah in 1722 ; he appears to have been commercially engaged in 1726; during 1729 some catastro- phe of unknown character befell Defoe, compelling him to make over all his property to his son, to go into hiding, and to fear violence; it is surmised that his " wicked, perjured, and contemptible enemy" was Mist, the editor of Mist's Journal, who had discovered Defoe's former duplicity, had escaped from imprisonment to France, and had, perhaps, in- formed the English Government of Defoe's double-dealing ; Defoe's last writing was "An Effectual Scheme for the Im- mediate Preventing of Street Robberies," published in 1731 ; he died " of a lethargy " in Ropemaker's Alley, Moorfields, London, April 26, 1731, and was buried in Bunhill Fields, where an obelisk was erected to his memory in 1870; he is known to have written at least 254 books, besides countless pamphlets and contributions to journals. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON DEFOE'S STYLE. Masson, D., " British Novelists." Boston, 1892, W. Small, 87-106. Chalmers, G., " Life of Defoe. " Oxford, 1841, Talboys, i: 1-118. Scott, Sir W., "Prose Works." Edinburgh, 1870, Black, 4: 228-296. Wilson, W., " Memoirs of Defoe." London, 1830, Hurst & Co., v., index. Dawson, G., "Biographical Lectures." London, 1886, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 125-141. Minto, W., "English Prose Literature." Edinburgh, 1886, Blackwood, 349-361. Stephen, L., " Hours in a Library." New York, 1894, Putnam, i : i- 47- Taine, H. A., "History of English Literature." New York, 1874, Holt, 2 : 393-400 and v., index. Dennis, J., " Studies in English Literature." London, 1876, Stanford, 77-88. Foster, J., "Critical Essays." London, 1875, Bell & Sons. DEFOE 151 Jeaffreson, J. C., "Novels and Novelists." London, 1858, Hurst & Blackett, i : 65-85. Mitchell, D. G., "Old Story Tellers." New York, 1878, Scribner, 198-218. Tuckerman, H. T., "Essays." Boston, 1857, Phillips, Sampson & Co., 285-303. \Votton, M. E., "Word Portraits." London, 1887, Bentley, 83-86. Chadwick, W., " Life and Times of Defoe." London, 1859, J. R. Smith. Wright, Thos., " Life of Defoe." New York, 1894, Randolph. Knight, Charles, "Gallery of Portraits." London, 1837, C. Knight & Co., 7: 1 12-120. Craik, G. L., "History of English Literature." New York, 1869, Scribner, 270-273. Macaulay, T. B., " Miscellaneous Works." New York, 1880, Harper, i: 116. Gosse, E., " History of the Eighteenth Century Literature." New York, 1889, Macmillan, 176-185. Nicoll, H. J., "Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1883, Appleton, 203-208. Russell, W. C., " The Book of Authors. " London, n. d., Warne, 91-133. Stephen, L., "Dictionary of National Biography." New York, 1888, Macmillan, 14 : 280-292. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Boston, 1877, Little, Brown & Co., 7 : 27- 30 (G. S. A.). L'Estrange, A. G., "History of English Humor." London, 1878, Hurst & Blackett, 2 : 22-44. North American Rwiew, 78: 277-279 (H. T. Tuckerman). Blackwoofs Magazine, 106: 457-487. Edinburgh Rei'ieui, 82, 480-533; 50: 397-425. British Quarterly Review, 27: 85-105; 50: 483-519 (W. Lee). Christian Examiner, 71 : 340353- Every Saturday, 5 : 453-464. Congregational Magazine, 13 : 1-7 and 57-64 (Walter Wilson). Westminster Review, 13: 69-85 (Walter Wilson). Dublin University Magazine, 48: 57-71. Retrospective Review', 3 : 354-379 ; 6 : 1-20. Southern Re^'^eu', 7: 68-101 (Walter Wilson). Eclectic Magazine, 74 : 366-371. Corn hill Magazine, 23 : 310-320. LitteWs Living Age, 29: 49-64 (Chambers) ; 50: 513-526. Spectator, 74: 210. London Quarterly Review, 57 : 345-370. I $2 DEFOE PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS. I. Minuteness. Defoe is the master-narrator. In his most purely fictitious productions he notes so minutely every circumstance that it has all the preciseness of history. Leslie Stephen calls his novels " simple history minus the facts." His "Memoirs of a Cavalier," the pretended jour- nal of a soldier in the English Revolution, deceived so acute a critic as Lord Chatham, while his " Journal of the Plague " and certain of his ironical writings were taken for earnest by some of the ablest men of the day. He is really the inventor of the realistic novel. He throws such an air of reality over the creations of his fancy that the reader is involuntarily sur- prised into a persuasion of their truth. He has a rare power of putting himself thoroughly in the place of the fictitious persons whom he invents. Concerning his " unflinching realism," Minto declares that "none of our writers, not even Shakespeare, shows half such a knowledge of the cir- cumstances of life among different ranks and conditions of men : none of them has realized with fidelity how so many different persons lived and moved." " His labor has been expended on making his narrative minutely circumstantial his reflection of life a picture of unparalleled fidelity and detail. He is incomparably graphic and impressive. He produces his effects not by ponderous epithets or impressive reflections, but by the ac- cumulation of striking details in homely language." Minto. " If Swift, in his fictions, is the satirist of the age, De- foe, in most of his, is its chronicler or newspaper reporter. Minuteness of imagined circumstance and filling up the power of fiction in fac -simile of nature is Defoe's unfailing characteristic. ' ' Masson. " Defoe had the kind of mind suitable to such a hard ser- vice, solid, exact, entirely destitute of refinement, enthusiasm, DEFOE 153 agreeableness. . . . Even in fiction his information is as precise as in history. He gives dates, year, month, and day ; notes the wind, northeast, southwest, northwest ; he writes a log-book, an invoice, attorney's and shopkeeper's bills, the number of moidores, interest, specie payments, payments in kind, cost and sale prices, the share of the king, of religious houses, partners, brokers, net totals, statis- tics. ... It seems as if our author had performed all Crusoe's labors, so exactly does he describe them, with numbers, quantities,^dimensions, like a carpenter, potter, or an old tar. The geography and hydrography of the island are so given ' that the reader is tempted to take an atlas and draw for himself a map of the place, to enter into all the details of the history, and to see the objects as clearly and fully as the author.' " Taine. "There is all the minute detail of a log-book in it [' Crusoe ']. . . . It is like reading evidence in a court of justice." Lamb. ILLUSTRATIONS. " My brother's house had a little court before it and a brick wall and a gate in it, and within that several warehouses, where his goods of several sorts lay. It happened that in one of these warehouses were several packs of women's high-crowned hats, which came out of the country, and were, as I suppose, for ex- portation, whither I know not." Journal of the Plague. 11 While I was at Chester we had some small skirmishes with Sir William Brereton. One morning in particular Sir William drew up and faced us ; and one of our colonels of horse ob- serving the enemy to be not, as he thought, above two hundred, desired leave of Prince Rupert to attack them with a like num- ber, and accordingly he sallied out with two hundred horse. I stood drawn up without the city with eight hundred more, ready to bring him off if he should be put to the worst, which happened accordingly." Memoirs of a Cavalier. 1 54 DEFOE " Before I set up my tent, I drew a half-circle before the hol- low place, which took in about ten yards in its semi-diameter from the rock and twenty yards in its diameter from its begin- ning and ending. ... In this half-circle I pitched two rows of strong stakes, driving them into the ground till they stood very firm like pikes, the biggest end being out of the ground above five feet and a half and sharpened on the top. The two rows did not stand above six inches from one another." Robinson Crusoe. 2. Homeliness. By this we mean something more than simplicity. Defoe continually uses old-fashioned phrases and the homely idioms of the street. He writes like a man of business rather than an artist. Tuckerman well calls him a man of the people, a writer of plain, vigorous, unembellished English." His independence of artistic rules appears also in the whimsical coinages found here and there. " The use of homely language is one of the most remarkable features of Defoe's style. It is one of the secrets of the con- tinued popularity of ' Robinson Crusoe. ' . . . His humor consists in the application of very homely language to affairs usually treated with stiff dignity. ... As suited to the vigorous popular style, his preference was for the homely and even the coarse. His allusions are sometimes learned, but always easily understood from the homeliness of the expression. . . . Defoe describes his own style as his ' natural infirmity of homely plain writing.' " Minto. " Defoe's one great aim in all his works is to destroy the illusion of romance and to write as though he were telling in homely language a narrative of ordinary life. There have been greater novelists, but not one who has shown more skill in the management of his materials or produced so fine an effect from the accumulation of prosaic details." Dennis. " The style of Defoe is plain and homely, but expressive, di- DEFOE 155 reel, and manly. It may be described as thoroughly English. It reflected the character of his mind, and bespoke the man of firm resolve and unshaken integrity. . . . His lan- guage is always that of the plain, unlettered person he pro- fesses himself: homely in phraseology, in expression rude and artificial, yet forcible, happy, and strongly descriptive. . . . Even Defoe's deficiencies in style, his homeliness of language, his rusticity of thought, expressive of what is called the Crassa Minerva, seem to claim credit for him as one who speaks the truth." Sir Walter Scoff. " In his works of imagination his almost constant charac- teristic is a simplicity and plainness, which, if there be any affectation about it at all, is chargeable only with that of a homeliness sometimes approaching to that of rusticity." G. L. Craik. " He drew upon his knowledge of low English life, framing imaginary histories of thieves, courtesans, buccaneers, and the like of the kind to suit a coarse popular taste." David Mas son. " His imagination was that of a man of business, not of an artist, crammed and, as it were, jammed down with facts. He tells them as they come to him, without arrange- ment or style, like a conversation, without dreaming of pro- ducing an effect or composing a phrase, employing technical terms and vulgar forms, repeating himself at need, using the same thing two or three times, not seeming to suspect that there are methods of amusing, touching, engrossing, or pleas- ing, with no desire but to pour out on paper the fulness of the information with which he is charged." Taine. " His style is everywhere beautiful, but plain and homely. ' Robinson Crusoe ' is delightful to all ranks and classes ; but it is easy to see that it is written in a phraseology peculiarly adapted to the lower conditions of readers." Lamb. 1 56 DEFOE ILLUSTRATIONS. " We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Tolera- tion ; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others ; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not." The Shortest Way with Dissenters. " The girl has scarce been a week, nay, a day in her service, but a committee of servant-wenches are appointed to examine her, who advise her to raise her wages or give warning ; to en- courage to which the herb-woman or chandler-woman or some other old intelligencer provides her a place of four or five pounds a year ; this sets Madam cock-a-hoop, and she thinks of nothing now but veils and high wages, and so gives warning from place to place till she had got her wages up to the tip-top." Every- body's Business. " But the greatest abuse of all is. that these creatures are be- come their own law-givers ; nay, I think they are ours too, though nobody would imagine that such a set of slatterns should bam- boozle a whole nation." Everybody's fiusiness. 3. Realism Verisimilitude. " He was, perhaps, the greatest liar that ever lived. . . . He has absolute com- mand over the scaffolding and carpentry of realism. . . . The realism, the unvarnished attention to minute fact, is just what preserves their [his novels'] interest." Edmund Gosse. 11 To Defoe was given a tongue to which no one could listen without believing every word he uttered. His unrivalled skill in mystification has made it difficult to distinguish the purely fictitious from the authentic part of his admitted nar- ratives, and in some places to separate genuine histories from stories composed by him. . . . He had the most marvel- lous power ever known "of giving verisimilitude to fiction. In other words, he had the most amazing talent on record for telling lies." Leslie Stephen. "The subject [of ' Robinson Crusoe'] was one admirably DEFOE 157 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 a reality that in reading it the insight and genius necessary to produce such a result fall out of view, and we imagine ourselves attending to the wonderful adventures of a veritable English sailor, and possessing more than the average proportion of the ordinary English faculty of adapt- ing himself with as good a grace as possible to any situation. . His ' Journal of the Plague ' is so minute, so cir- cumstantial, so exactly like reality, that it was believed by Dr. Mead to be the work of a medical man." H. J. Nicoll. " On the whole, however, it was his own robust sense of reality that led him to his style. ... In his representa- tions of English ragamuffin life there is nothing of allegory, poetry, or even of didactic purpose ; all is hard, prosaic, and matter-of-fact, as in newspaper paragraphs. . . . It is in the true spirit of a realist, also, that Defoe, though he is usually plain and prosaic, yet, when the facts to be reported are strik- ing or horrible, rises easily to their level. . . . It is evi- dent that no man ever possessed a stronger imagination of that kind which, a situation being once conceived, teems with cir- cumstances in exact keeping with it. ... Defoe's match- less power of inventing circumstantial incidents made him more a master even of its poetic capabilities than the rarest poet then living could have been." David Mas son. " Never was such a sense of the real, before or since. Our realists of to-day, painters, anatomists, who enter deliberately on their business, are very far from this naturalness ; art and calculation crop out amidst their too minute descriptions. Defoe creates illusion ; for it is not the eye which deceives us but the mind, and that literally. His account of the great plague has more than once passed for true ; and Lord Chatham mistook his ' Memoirs of a Cavalier ' for an authentic nar- 1 58 DEFOE rative. This was his aim. In the preface to the old edition of ' Robinson Crusoe ' it is said : ' The story is told, . . . to the instruction of others by this example, and to justify and honor the wisdom of Providence. The editor believes the thing to be a just history of facts; neither is there any appearance of fiction in it.' All his talents lie in this, and thus even his imperfections aid him ; his lack of art becomes a profound art ; his negligence, repetition, prolixity, con- tribute to the illusion ; we cannot imagine that such and such a detail, so minute, so dull, is invented ; an inventor would have suppressed it ; it is too tedious to have been put in on purpose ; art, therefore, cannot have piled up this heap of dull and vulgar accidents; it is the truth." Tainc. " No writer of fictitious narrative has ever excelled him in at least one prime excellence the air of reality which he throws over the creations of his fancy ; an effect proceeding from the strength of conception with which he enters into the scenes, adventures, and characters he undertakes to describe." G. L. Craik. " Defoe has a power of circumstantial invention, an un- rivalled genius for dyeing like truth. . . . He has often been quoted as a first - hand authority in matters of his- tory. . . . He was a great, a truly great liar, perhaps the greatest liar that ever lived." Minto. " The general charm attached to the romance of Defoe is chiefly to be ascribed to the unequalled dexterity with which he has given an appearance of reality to the incidents which he narrates." Sir Walter Scott. "Verisimilitude is the great merit of Defoe as a novelist. The seeming authenticity of his stories is also greatly enhanced by the autobiographic form in which they are cast. He is a model narrator ; passages of his fiction read like testimony elicited in a court of justice ; and incidental and apparently trifling circumstances are so naturally interwoven as to give a singular air of truth to the whole. " H. T. Tuckerman. DEFOE 159 ILLUSTRATIONS. " I could dwell a great while on the calamities of this dreadful time, and go on to describe the objects that appeared among us every day, the dreadful extravagances which the distraction of sick people drove them into ; how the streets began now to be fuller of frightful objects and families to be made even a terror to themselves ; but after I have told you, as I have above, that one man being tied in his bed and finding no other way to deliver himself, set the bed on fire with his candle, which unhappily stood within his reach, and burnt himself in bed ; and how an- other, by the insufferable torment he bore, danced and sung naked in the streets, not knowing one ecstasy from another ; I say, after I have mentioned these things, what can be added more ? " The Plague in London. " We had but little time to consult ; but being in one of the prin- cipal inns of the town, we presently ordered the gates of the inn to be shut, and sent to all the inns where our men were quartered to do the like, with orders if they had any back-doors or ways to get out, to come to us. By this means, however, we got so much time as to get on horseback, and so many of our men came to us by back-ways that we had near three hundred horse in the yards and places behind the house ; and now we began to think of break- ing out by a lane which led from the back part of the' inn ; but a new accident determined us another though a worse way." Memoirs of a Cavalier. " I cannot here omit one very remarkable instance of the Cath- olic zeal of that Prince, which I was soon after an eye-wit- ness of. I was at that time in the fruit-market, when the King passing by in his coach, the host, whether by accident or con- trivance, I cannot say, was brought at that very juncture out of the great church, in order, as I after understood, to a poor sick woman's receiving the sacrament. On sight of the host, the king came out of his coach, kneeled down in the street, which at that time proved to be very dirty, till the host passed by ; then rose up, and taking the lighted flambeau from him who bore it, he followed the priest up a straight nasty alley, and then up a dark ordinary pair of stairs, where the poor sick woman lay. There he stayed till the whole ceremony was over, when, return- l6o DEFOE ing to the door of the church, he very faithfully returned the lighted flambeau to the fellow he had taken it from, the people all the while crying out, ' Viva, Viva!' an acclamation, we may imagine, intended to his zeal as well as his person." Memoirs of Captain Carleton. 4. Undisguised Sarcasm. " No one can doubt for a moment that Defoe was a decided master of ridicule, and that, however his adversaries might affect to despise, they were as little able to endure his wit as to cope with his argu- ments. . . . He possessed a large share of that dry, caustic wit which gave a peculiar force to his language and told more significantly than whole pages of sentiment. . . . When his opponents argue fairly, he reasons with acuteness, vigor, and judgment ; but when they lose their temper, he laughs at their weakness, and answers their railings by sarcasm. . This satire [' Speculum Cr ape -G aw no mm '] gave an earnest of those sarcastic powers that were unfolded by Defoe in his subsequent writings. . . . The keen-ness of our author's satire brought upon him a host of enemies." Wal- ter Wilson. " He is a great master of the language of sarcasm and abuse. He deals in the same kind of undisguised banter as Macaulay ; only he is more exuberant, stands less upon his dignity, hits fearlessly at greater antagonists, and altogether has a more magnanimous air. . . . He is more openly derisive and less bitter than Addison, having no mastery of the polite sneer ; he is not a loving humorist like Steele, but sarcastically and derisively humorous ; and he is more mag- nanimous and less personal than Swift, dealing with public not with private conduct, and carrying into the warfare a spirit less savagely ferocious." Minto. ILLUSTRATIONS. " And then it comes out, with a great many grieving aggrava- tions to a parent, to find himself tricked and defeated in the DEFOE l6l expectations of his son's marrying handsomely and to his advan- tage, instead of which he is obliged, perhaps, to receive a dish- clout for a daughter-in-law, and see his name and family propa- gated by the descendants of a race of beggars." The Complete English Tradesman. " Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of Eng- land's just resentments ; now they cry out peace, union, forbear- ance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood, till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them." The Shortest Way with Dissenters. " But once set the Pretender upon the throne, and let the funds be but happily stopped and paid into his hands, that he may be in no more need of a Parliament, and all these dis- tempers will be cured as effectually as a fever is cured by cutting off the head, or the halter cures a bleeding at the nose." What If the Pretender Should Come? 5. Didacticism Moral Aim. "Defoe professes to write always with a moral and even with a religious pur- pose." Dennis. " It must be admitted that Defoe tacks some kind of moral to stories which show no great delicacy of moral feeling." Leslie Stephen. " However we regard his life, we see only prolonged efforts and persecutions. Joy seems to be wanting ; the idea of the beautiful never enters. When he comes to fiction, it is like a Presbyterian and a plebeian, with low subjects and moral aims, to treat of the adventures and reform the conduct of thieves and prostitutes, workmen and sailors. His whole delight was to think that he had a service to perform and that he was per- forming it." Taine. " Another universal feature of his fiction is the pure and pleasing morality constantly exhibited in the incident and reinforced by the reflections of the author. " Walter Wilson. ii 162 DEFOE ILLUSTRATIONS. " By this we may see what share fortune has in the greatest events. In all probability the Earl of Peterborrow had never engaged in such a dangerous affair, in cold blood and unprovoked ; and if such an enterprise had been resolved on in a regular way, it is very likely he might have given the command to some of the general officers : since it is not usual nor hardly allowable for one that commands in chief to go in person on such kind of services." Memoirs of Captain Carleton, " As I knew nothing, that night, of the supply I was to receive by the providential driving of the ship nearer the land by the storms and tide, by which I have since been so long nourished and supported, so these three poor desolate men knew nothing how certain of deliverance and supply they were, how near it was to them, and how effectually and really they were in a condition of safety, at the same time that they thought themselves lost and their case desperate. So little do we see before us in the world, and so much reason have we to depend cheerfully upon the great Maker of the world that He does not leave His creatures so abso- lutely destitute but that, in the worst circumstances, they have always something to be thankful for and sometimes are nearer deliverance than they imagine ; nay, are even brought to their deliverance by the means by which they seem to be brought to their destruction." Robinson Crusoe. " I must testify, from my experience, that a temper of peace, thankfulness, love, and affection, is much the more proper frame for prayer than that of terror and discomposure ; and that under the dread of mischief impending a man is no more fit for a com- forting performance of the duty of praying to God than he is for a repentance on a sick bed ; for these discomposures affect the mind, as the others do the body : and the discomposure of the mind must necessarily be as great a disability as that of the body, and much greater ; praying to God being properly an act of the mind, not of the body." Robinson Crusoe. DEFOE 163 6. Worldly Wisdom Sagacity. " Sound common sense and shrewd observation dressed in a lively and a fascinat- ing style are the characteristics of his work." British Quar- terly. " This ['A Serious Inquiry into the Question of Conformity of Dissenters'] evinces much good sense, couched in forcible yet becoming language. As a piece of serious argument it is irresistible ; and the adroitness with which he manages it shows that he was a master of human nature no less than of his subject. . . . His sentiments upon most subjects are dis- tinguished by good sense and a profound acquaintance with human nature." Walter Wilson. " He displays especial subtlety in tracing the gradual growth of an opinion, or a purpose, from its first suggestion to its full development. This power meets us in all his work." Minto. " In all his books we find a knowledge of different types of society, especially among the lower classes, such as has, perhaps, never been attained by any [other] writer." H. J. Nicott. " His intense love for facts and his very accurate and com- prehensive knowledge and wide experience of the world of men, made him of all writers the one most able to give a true picture. " National Review. " The great peculiarity of the work [' Robinson Crusoe '] is its immense display of worldly wisdom, and its wide and varied representation of the interests, motives, rewards, and considerations whereby men are actuated to their welfare or their sorrow." Chambers's Papers for the People. See Lit- tcir s Living Age. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Here we may observe, and I hope it will not be amiss to take notice of it, that a near view of death would soon reconcile men of good principles one to another, and that it is chiefly ow- ing to our easy situation in life and our putting these things far from us that our breaches are fomented, ill blood continued, I 64 DEFOE prejudices, breach of charity, and of Christian union so much kept and so far carried on among us as it is : another plague year would reconcile all these differences ; a close conversing with death, or with diseases that threaten death, would scum off the gaul from our tempers, remove the animosities among us, and bring us to see with differing eyes than those which we looked on things with before." The Plague in London. " Nay, so eager was the prince for fighting that when, from the top of Edgehill, the enemy's army was descried in the bottom between them and the village of Keynton, and that the enemy had bid us defiance by discharging three cannons, we accepted the challenge, and answering with two shots from our army, we must needs forsake the advantage of the hills, which they must have mounted under the command of our cannon, and march down to them into the plain. I confess I thought here was a great deal more gallantry than discretion ; for it was plain tak- ing an advantage out of our hands and putting it into the hands of the enemy. An enemy that must fight may always be fought with to advantage. My old hero, the glorious Gustavus Adol- phus, was as forward to fight as any man of true valour, mixt with any policy, need to be or ought to be ; but he used to say an enemy reduced to a necessity of fighting is half beaten." Memoirs of a Cavalier, "A tradesman behind his counter must have no flesh and blood about him, no passions, no resentment ; he must never be angry no, not so much as seem to be so, if a customer troubles him five hundred pounds' worth of goods, and scarce bids money for anything ; nay, though they really come to his shop with no intent to buy, as many do, only to see what is to be sold, and though he knows they cannot be better pleased than they are at some other shop where they intend to buy, 'tis all one ; the tradesman must take it, he must place it to the account of his calling that 'tis his business to be ill used and resent noth- ing ; and so must answer as obligingly to those who give him an hour or two's trouble and buy nothing as he does to those who, in half the time, lay out ten or twenty pounds. The case is plain ; and if some do give him trouble, and do not buy, others make amends, and do buy ; and as for the trouble, 'tis the busi- ness of the shop." The Complete English Tradesman. DEFOE 165 7. Sincerity Independence. " There were few braver men in England ; and hardly any were less in bond- age to the opinions of their neighbors, for he passed a life of danger and hardship solely in consequence of his determina- tion to think and act for himself on every possible occasion ; nor has any writer thought for himself with more persistency or stamped his own character more vigorously on every one of his own productions." Chambers's Papers for the People. See Litteir s Living Age. " All of them [his works] bear the traces of a sincere, earnest, manly character and of an understanding unusually active, penetrating, and well-informed." G. L. Craik. " There is evidence from his writings that he early dis- covered that spirit of independence which terminated in an unconquerable love of liberty. His was a soul of iron in a casement of adamant. His principles were of the sternest character, and the mind which formed them was not to be deterred from avowing them by suffering or reproach." Walter Wilson. ''A spirit of integrity and candor, a desire to see fair play and to do justice to all parties in a word, the spirit of common sense and common honesty runs through all Defoe's w r i t i ngs . " Hazlitt. " He was a brave, active man, who saw things as they were and said what he thought ; a man battling for liberty, who fought with a wrong-doer, whether friend or foe ; the Ishmael of political writing." George Dawson. " He worked for causes of which he really approved ; he never sacrificed the opinion to which he was most deeply at- tached." L eslie Stcph en . "The great charm of his fiction is its truth. His convic- tions were grave, his observation minute, and his experience of life painful, but conscience and intelligence were pro- foundly active. . . . He was too independent and too much in advance of his time not to be essentially apart from 1 66 DEFOE those who were ostensibly near and around him. He was driven into the entrenchments of conscience. Like all bold and individual thinkers, he was often alone." H. T. Tuck- erman. ILLUSTRATIONS. " The story of those three men, if the reader will be content to have me give it in their own persons, without taking upon me to either vouch the particulars or answer for any mistakes, I shall give as distinctly as I can ; believing the history will be a very good pattern for any poor man to follow, in case the like public desolation should happen here ; and if there may be no such occasion, which God in his infinite mercy grant us, still the story may have its uses so many ways as that it will, I hope, never be said that the relating has been unprofitable." The Plague in London. " The prodigious stupid bigotry of the people also was irksome to me ; I thought there was something in it very sordid. The en- tire empire the priests have over both the souls and bodies of the people gave me a specimen of that meanness of spirit which is nowhere else to be seen in Italy, especially in the city of Rome. ... It must forever be against them as a brand of infamy and as a reproach on their whole nation, that, purchased by the Parliament's money, they sold their honesty, and rebelled against their king for hire ; and it was not many years before, as I have said already, they were fully paid the wages of their un- righteousness and chastised for their treachery by the very same people whom they thus basely assisted ; then they would have retrieved it, if it had not been too late." Memoirs of a Cavalier. 8. Graphic Description. Defoe excels in single de- scriptive touches. This quality includes something more than that of minuteness, already discussed. It involves a concep- tion of relations as well as of details ; a feeling for the pict- uresque. Defoe carefully observes the cardinal principles of description as since formulated by Bain ; that is, he pre- sents, at the outset, a comprehensive view of the whole scene ; he conveys definite ideas of size, shape, etc., by comparison DEFOE 167 with well-known objects, and he often uses " the panoramic view " with great skill. ''It is worthy of remark that he observes the cardinal rule of description, the inaugural presentation of a comprehensive view. He fills in the picture by degrees, but he begins by drawing a comprehensive outline. . . . As is testified by every page of his writings, Defoe excelled in the graphic presentation both of concrete things and states of mind." Minto. ILLUSTRATIONS. " You ascend the great staircase at the upper end of the hall, which is very large ; at the foot of the staircase you have a Bac- chus as large as life, done in Peloponnesian marble, carrying a young Bacchus on his arm, the young one eating grapes and let- ting you see by his countenance that he is pleased with the taste of them." From London to Land's End. " He was a comely, handsome fellow, perfectly well made, with straight strong limbs, not too large ; tall and well-shaped, and, as I reckon, about twenty-six years of age. He had a very good countenance, not a fierce and surly aspect, but seemed to have something very manly in his face, and yet he had all the sweetness and softness of an European in his countenance too, especially when he smiled. His hair was long and black, not curled like wool ; his forehead very high and large, and a great vivacity and sparkling sharpness in his eyes." Robinson Crusoe. "On Friday, the 26th of November, in the afternoon, about four of the clock, a country fellow came running to me in a great fright, and very earnestly entreated me to go and see a pillar, as he called it, in the air, in a field hard by. I went with the fel- low : and when I came, found it to be a spout marching directly with the wind : and I can think of nothing I can compare it to better than the trunk of an elephant, which it resembled, only much bigger. It was extended to a great length, and swept the ground as it went, leaving a mark behind. It crossed a field ; and what was very strange (and which I should scarce have been induced to believe had I not myself seen it, besides several country-men who were astonished at it) meeting with an oak that stood towards the middle of the field, snapped the body of it asunder." The Storm. SWIFT, 1667-1745 Biographical Outline. Jonathan Swift, born No- vember 30, 1667, at Dublin; his father, who died before Swift's birth, was steward of the King's Inns, and was de- scended from an old loyalist family ; mother distantly related to Dryden ; when one year old Swift was kidnapped by his nurse, out of affection, and was carried to her home at White Haven, England, where his mother allowed him to remain for three years ; by his third year he could read any chapter in the Bible ; soon after the child was brought back to Dub- lin, his mother removed to Leicester and left him in the hands of an uncle, who sent him, in his sixth year, to Kilkenny School, then called " the Eton of Ireland ; " here Swift finds Congreve as a school-fellow ; Swift enters Trinity College, Dublin, April 24, 1682 ; he manifests an aversion to the scholastic metaphysics, neglects the regular studies of the cur- riculum for history and poetry, and, though living regularly and obeying the university statutes, is refused a degree at the expiration of his regular four years' course ; he seems to have obtained a fair knowledge of the classics ; he continues in residence at the university for some time, and eventually re- ceives his degree of A.B., but grows somewhat reckless and dissipated after the degree is first refused ; he is frequently censured by the college authorities for neglecting to attend chapel services and for haunting the town ; on November 20, 1688, he is suspended for inciting dissension and for insulting the dean ; while at Trinity he receives much-needed financial aid from his brother, Willoughby Swift, and from his uncle, William Swift ; he is deeply affected by his poverty and his sense of dependence, and this is doubtless one of the causes 1 68 SWIFT 169 of his life-long bitterness ; on the accession of King William in 1688, Swift flees from Ireland with other Jacobites and finds refuge in his mother's home at Leicester, where she was ''rich and happy on twenty pounds a year ; " in spite of her neglect during his infancy, he was deeply devoted to his mother; after seeking a means of livelihood for some time vainly, he is received into the family of Sir William Tem- ple at Moor Park, near Farnham, in Surrey, whither Temple had retired after his brilliant diplomatic career ; Temple had been a friend of Swift's grandfather, and was distantly related to Swift by marriage; after acting for a year as Temple's amanuensis, during which time Swift is said to have been treated somewhat as a menial, he returns to Ireland for a short time, on the advice of a physician, "who weakly im- agined that his native air might be of some use to recover his health ; " he bears a letter from Temple to the Secretary of State for Ireland, in Dublin, recommending Swift for a clerk- ship or a fellowship in Trinity College ; he soon returns to Moor Park, where Temple discovers his real ability and com- mends him to King William; Swift visits Oxford in 1692, and receives A.M. ad eundem ; in 1693 he is employed by Temple to explain to William's ministers Temple's views on the Triennial Bill ; about 1693 he begins his earlier poems, which are marked by great satirical vigor ; he predicts his future in the couplet : " My hate, whose lash just Heaven has long decreed Shall on a day make sin and folly bleed ; " in May, 1694, Swift declines an offer of ^120 a year to act as a clerk in the office of the Master of the Rolls in Ireland, and quarrels with Temple ; after swallowing his pride suffi- ciently to ask from Temple a needful letter of recommenda- tion, he is ordained a deacon, October 28, 1694, and a priest, January 15, 1695 ; he at once receives the small prebend of Kilroot, worth ^100 a year, but he soon tires of the obscure 1 70 SWIFT life, returns to Moor Park in May, 1696, and resigns his pre- bend to a friend in March, 1698 ; before leaving Kilroot Swift declares love passionately to one Miss Waring (" Va- rina "), an Irish lady, sister of an old college chum, but his suit is not encouraged ; he remains at Moor Park, acting as Temple's clerk, till Temple's death in 1699; he becomes a great walker, sometimes doing thirty-eight miles in a day and lodging at way -side inns, where, according to Orrery, Swift imbibed much of his coarseness of language from the discourse of the wagoners ; while at Moor Park he reads diligently in the Latin classics, history, and philosophy ; he also acts as tutor to Esther Johnson, a dependent of Temple's, unjustly suspected at the time of being Temple's natural daughter ; on Temple's death he leaves to Swift ^100, the privilege of editing Temple's posthumous works (worth perhaps ^200), and a recommendation of preferment to King William ; the recommendation proves of little value ; Swift began his liter- ary career by writing certain " Pindaric Odes," the last dated 1691, one of which caused Dryden to say to him, " You will never be a poet ; " Swift also writes poetical epistles to Con- greve and Temple ; in 1696 he writes " The Tale of a Tub " and in 1697 "The Battle of the Books," but both remain unpublished till 1704 ; in 1708, to prove that in his " Tale of a Tub" he had not intended to express sympathy with the current infidelity, he publishes " An Argument in Favor of Abolishing Christianity in England," intensely satirical; in a similar strain was his " Mr. Collins's Discourse of Free- thinking," published in 1713; in 1698, failing to secure preferment from King William (perhaps because the courtier to whom Swift entrusted his petition failed to deliver it), he becomes chaplain and secretary to the Earl of Berkeley, then just made one of the Lords Justices of Ireland ; on reaching Dublin the earl dismisses Swift in favor of another man ; he applies for the vacant deanery of Derry, but is refused by the secretary except on the presentation of a bribe SWIFT i;i the amount that had been offered by another candidate ; Swift is either unable or unwilling to pay the bribe ; in Feb- ruary, 1700, he receives the living of Laracor, a village near Trim, twenty miles from Dublin ; this, with two other small livings and a prebend in the Cathedral of St. Patrick, give him an income of about ^230 a year ; at this time " Varina ' ' (Miss Waring), whom Swift had frequently importuned to marry him, expresses a wish to have the marriage take place ; he refuses in a letter remarkable for its insulting brutality, in which he offers to marry the lady on conditions that her self- respect compel her to refuse; on Temple's death in 1699, leaving Esther Johnson (then become an attractive girl of twenty) homeless and with an inheritance of an Irish farm, Swift suggests to her that, with her friend Mrs. Dingley, she settle in Ireland, where she could live more cheaply; the ladies comply with the suggestion and settle in Dublin, in lodgings near those of Swift, sometimes occupying his apart- ments during his absence ; twice they accompany him on visits to London ; their relationship to him gives rise to nu- merous scandals, but there is good evidence that he never saw Miss Johnson except in the presence of a third person ; Swift's duties at Laracor were light, consisting of the reading of prayers twice a week to an audience averaging not over fifteen persons ; he becomes attached to Laracor, and greatly improves the living ; he is on friendly social terms with the successive Lord-Lieutenants Berkeley, Ormond, and Pem- broke, conducting a long correspondence with Lady Berkeley and acting as chaplain to Ormond and Pembroke ; between 1700 and 1710 he seems to have passed at least four years in London, sometimes acting as agent for the Church of Ireland and meeting many great people through his acquaintance with the Irish viceroys and with Congreve ; in 1705 he be- comes intimate with Addison, who greatly admires and pub- licly praises him; Swift manifests a strange indifference to literary fame ; while in London, early in 1708, he writes the 172 SWIFT famous Bickerstaff papers, ridiculing one Partridge, who had set up as an astrologer, and thus suggesting to Steele, who was just starting the Tatler, his pseudonym ; though intimate with the great wits and great statesmen of the day, Swift gets " nothing but the good words and good wishes of a decayed ministry ; " in 1701 he publishes his first political pamphlet, being a defence of Somers and other Whig ministers, recently impeached, under the title A Discourse on the Dissensions in Athens and Rome ; the pamphlet becomes very popular, and secures for Swift the friendship of Halifax, Somers, Sun- derland, and the other leading Whigs ; in November, 1707, he goes to London and attempts to secure for the Irish Church a restoration of the " first fruits and tenths," taken from the whole Church by Henry VIII., and already returned to the English Church by Queen Anne ; he remains in Lon- don till March, 1709 ; during 1708 Somers tries in vain to secure for Swift the vacant bishopric of Waterford ; in Oc- tober, 1708, Somers becomes President of the Council, and Wharton, a licentious infidel, is made Lord-Lieutenant of Ire- land ; about this time Swift shows his attachment to the Church by publishing his pamphlets, A Project for the Ad- vancement of Religion and The Sentiments of a Church of England Man ; in December, 1708, he publishes a pamphlet defending the Test Act ; all these pamphlets displeased the Whigs, then in power, who were inclined to favor the dissent- ers ; Swift is at last promised the "first fruits" that he sought for the Irish Church, but the promise is not fulfilled ; in the spring of 1709, after visiting his mother at Leicester, he retires to Laracor, sick in mind and body ; he remains for eighteen months in seclusion at Laracor, nourishing his indig- nation against the Whigs, and especially against Wharton ; on the overthrow of the Whigs in September, 1709, he starts again for London to urge his " first fruits " appeal ; he be- gins his famous "Journal to Stella" (letters written to Esther Johnson and Mrs. Dingley) in September, 1710, and con- SWIFT 1/3 tinues it till April, 1713; it was evidently written with no thought of publication ; he is received in London by the defeated Whig leaders with marked attentions, but he responds coldly; on October 10, 1710, he is introduced to Harley, one of the new Tory leaders, and is cordially received ; with- in a week Harley promises to get the " first fruits " business settled at once, and all the Tory leaders express delight at securing Swift's support ; the " first fruits" are granted No- vember 14, 1710; Swift becomes intimate with Harley and St. John, and is consulted on the most important official af- fairs ; he indignantly rejects an offer of money-payment for his services ; from November 2, 1710, to June 14, 1711, he writes weekly articles for St. John's Tory paper, the Exam- iner ; these papers contain some of his fiercest satire, and their influence is tremendous ; during the election of 1711 he wages a fierce pamphlet war with the Whig pamphleteers ; in November, 1711, he publishes The Conduct of the Allies, of which n,ooo copies are sold within two months ; the Tories are victorious in December, 1711, and Swift reaches the height of his political power, but his health is seriously af- fected by his old complaint of dizziness ; he secures many appointments for friends and other applicants, but refuses to ask for preferment for himself; at last he declares that he will write nothing more till something is done for him, and on April 23, 1713, he is appointed dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral at Dublin ; he leaves London for Dublin in June, 1713, is ordained, and remains at his post till October, when, on the appeal of his Tory friends, he returns to London ; he endeavors to save the Tory cause by reconciling the growing differences between the leaders Harley and St. John ; late in 1713 he publishes a scathing pamphlet, attacking Bishop Bur- net, and also his Public Spirit of the Whigs ; in the latter he attacks Steele, who had entered Parliament and had opposed Swift's party in a pamphlet called the Crisis; meanwhile Swift had quarrelled with Addison because, after Steele had 1/4 SWIFT lost his place as Gazetteer and after Swift had obtained a promise of reinstatement on condition of an apology by Steele to Harley for certain things in the Crisis, Addison advised Steele not to apologize ; good feeling was afterward restored between Swift and Addison, but Swift never became recon- ciled to Steele; in 1714 Steele was expelled from the House for his authorship of the Crisis ; in May, 1714, having failed to reconcile Harley and St. John, Swift retires to a parsonage at Upper Letcombe, in Berkshire ; he refuses all appeals to return to London, but writes, without publishing, his pam- phlet entitled Free Thoughts upon the Present State of Af- fairs ; although Oxford had not treated Swift well, Swift thrice writes to him, urging a course that would have saved Oxford ; on the death of Queen Anne and the expulsion of Oxford, in August, 1714, Swift returns to Dublin and shuts himself up with his chagrin and political despair ; in a letter to Oxford he offers to join him in the Tower ; he continues to affect brutality, especially toward women, issuing regular edicts, commanding all ladies who seek his acquaintance to make the first advances ; before the time of the ' ' Journal to Stella" she had refused as a suitor one Tisdall, a Dublin clergyman, whom Swift did not regard with favor ; certain passages in Swift's letters indicate that he was somewhat jeal- ous of Tisdall 's attentions to "Stella; " in 1708 he meets, in London, Mrs. Van Homrigh, a well-to-do widow, and her daughter Hester, then aged seventeen; in 1710 he takes lodgings with the Van Homrighs and becomes a member of the family ; about the time of obtaining his deanery he be- gins to call Hester Van Homrigh " Vanessa " and to make a confidante of her; in his autobiographical poem " Cadenus (Decanus, or the Dean) and Vanessa " he asserts that he re- garded her simply with fatherly affection, but she soon de- clared to him that he had won her heart ; he replied that his age, etc., put love out of the question, but offered her unlim- ited friendship ; on the death of Miss Van Homrigh's mother, SWIFT 175 soon after thp final retirement of Swift to Ireland, the young lady also retires to Ireland, with her sister, and eventually settles at Celbridge, near Dublin ; Swift shuns the company of " Vanessa," who adores him passionately, and he begs her to leave him forever ; it is believed by some of his biographers that his dilemma was due to the fact that he had been secretly married to " Stella" in 1716, but this remains neither proved nor disproved at least, he was most anxious to prevent a meeting between " his two slaves ; " in 1723 " Vanessa " is said to have written to " Stella," asking if she were Swift's wife, and " Stella" is said to have replied in the affirmative and to have shown "Vanessa's" letter to Swift; he rides to Celbridge, confronts "Vanessa" with the letter, and she dies soon afterward, first revoking her will, in which she had made him sole legatee, and after requesting her executors to publish both Swift's letters and his autobiographical poem " Cadenus and Vanessa ; " he visits England in the summer of 1726, but is made w r retched by the reports of " Stella's " declining health ; he spends the winter in Dublin, and re- turns to London during the summer of 1727 ; " Stella " dies at Dublin January 28, 1728 ; the story, widely circulated, that on her death-bed she refused Swift's offer to make their marriage public, is not sustained, neither is the equally prev- alent story that he discovered her to be his natural sister ; Swift's apologists explain his refusal to marry on the ground of his natural coldness of temper, his extreme economy, practised with a view to becoming independent, his chronic malady of vertigo, and his frequent forebodings of insanity ; after withdrawing from politics for ten years he publishes, in 1724, his " Drapier's Letters," combating a scheme of Walpole's for giving to one Wood a monopoly of copper coinage in Ire- land ; the effect of the " Letters " is tremendous, and the Privy Council modifies the terms of the monopoly ; ^300 are offered as a reward for the arrest of the author, and the printer is prosecuted ; the monopoly soon fails entirely, and Swift be- 1/6 SWIFT comes a popular idol; on his return from England, in 1726, he is greeted with public honors such as are generally re- served for princes; about 1727 he makes a long visit to Pope, meets Bolingbroke and Wai pole, and receives some assurances of court favor, which are not fulfilled ; he now speaks of re- maining in Dublin as " dying like a poisoned rat in a hole ; " he warmly defends the Church, and writes his fiercest satire, " The Legion Club," when Parliament proposes to invade Church privileges; while writing this he is seized with a fit, and is soon incapable of extended mental effort ; in 1729 he writes A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Becoming a Burden to their Parents or the Country ; as early as 1713-14 he had formed, with Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, the Scriblerus Club, whose ob- ject was the production of a joint stock satire ; this seems to have been the origin of the idea of "Gulliver's Travels; " Swift wrote a part of the "Travels" as early as 1722, com- pleted it in 1726, and published it anonymously in 1727 ; its success was overwhelming ; after its publication he returns to his "wretched dirty dog-hole of a prison," becomes the centre of a little intellectual circle, practises the most gener- ous charity, grows daily more sour and apparently avaricious, befriends Sheridan, and, by 1741, becomes so violently insane as to require restraint ; during his later years he amused him- self with writing acrostics, riddles, etc. ; his last writings worth noting are " Polite Conversation," " Directions to Servants " (the latter published after Swift became imbecile), and three poems: "Verses on Dr. Swift's Death," "A Rhapsody on Poetry," and "Verses to a Lady;" in 1735 he declared that he never had received a farthing for anything he wrote except that, through Pope's prudent management, he got ^200 for "Gulliver;" he gave the profits of his other writings to the publishers; he died at Dublin, October 19, 1745, and left ^12,000 to found St. Patrick's Hospital, which was opened in 1757 with fifty beds. SWIFT BIBLIOGRAPHY ON SWIFT'S STYLE. Gosse, E. , " History of English Literature." New York, 1868, Mac- millan, 140-167. Jeffrey, J., " Jonathan Swift. " London, 1853, Longmans, Green & Co., v., index. Craik, H., "Life of Jonathafc Swift." London, 1882, Macmillan, v., index. Philips, M. G., " Manual of English Literature." New York, 1893, Harper, I : 533~5 6 3- Thackeray, W. M., "The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Cen- tury." London, 1886, Smith, Elder & Co. , 119-155. Johnson, S., " The Lives of the Poets (Works)." New York, 1846, Harper, I : 211-223; 3 : 1-25. Minto, W., " English Prose Literature. " Edinburgh, 1886, Blackwood, 36I-377- Taine, H. A., "History of English Literature." New York, 1875, Holt, 2 : 352-392, and v. index. Morley, H. (Stephen), "English Men of Letters (Swift)." New York, 1879, Harper. Hazlitt, W., "Lectures on the English Poets." London, 1884, G. Bell & Sons, 145-152. Collier, W. F., " History of English Literature." London, 1892, Nelson, 282-288. Hannay, J., "Satire and Satirists." New York, 1855, Redfield, 130- I5i- Masson, D., "British Novelists." Boston, 1892, W. Small, 87-106. Forster, T., " Life of Jonathan Swift. " New York, 1876, Harper. Nicoll, H. J., " Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1883, Appleton, 162-170. Masson, D., " Three Devils, " etc. London, 1874, Macmillan, 235-301. Hunt, T. W., "Representative English Prose." New York, 1887, Armstrong, 265-287. Hallam, H., "Literature of Europe." New York, 1847, Harper, 419. Craik, G. L., "History of English Literature." New York, 1869, Scribner, 208-239. De Quincey, T., "Works." Edinburgh, 1890, C. & A. Black, II. 12-19. Eagle, J., "Essays." Edinburgh, 1857, Blackwood, 213-264. Coan, T. M., " Topics of the Times. " New York, 1883, Putnam, 2: 12 178 SWIFT Dilke. C. W., "Papers of a Critic." London, 1875, Murray, I: 361-382. Bascom, J., "The Philosophy of English Literature." New York, 1877, Putnam, 178. Knight, Charles, "Gallery of Portraits." London, 1835, C. Knight, 5= 45-52- Wilson, J., " Studies of Modern Mind and Character." London, 1881, Longmans, Green & Co., 69-116. Ward, T. H. (Nichol), " English Poets." New York, 1881, Macmillan, 3= 34-39- Dawson, G., "Biographical Lectures.", London, 1887, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 141-159. Russell, W. C., "Book of Authors." London, n. d., Warne, v., index. Timbs, J., "Wits and Humourists." London, 1872, R. Bentley, 2: 1-121. L'Estrange, A. G., "History of English Humour." London, 1878, Hurst & Blackett, 2 : 44-62. Howitt, William, " Homes and Haunts of British Authors. " New York, 1863, Routledge, 116-140. Wilde, Lady, " Notes on Men," etc. London, 1891, Ward & Downey, 85-112. Hay, Jos., "Jonathan Swift the Mystery of his Life and Love." London, 1891, Chapman & Hall. The Nation, 22 : 248-250 and 265-267 (Lowell). British Quarterly Review, 20: 528-560 (Masson). Gentleman's Magazine, 17: 436-456 (C. C. Clark). The Athenaum, 1886 (i): 96-97 (S. L. Poole). Dublin University Magazine, 33: 374-381 (W. R. Wilde); 15: 634- 661. I'nitarian Revino, II: 233-247 (N. P. Gilman). Edinburgh Re^'iew, 28: 1-58 (Jeffrey). Southern Literary Messenger, 15 : 141-147 (H. T. Tuckerman). North American Review, 106: 68-128 (A. S. Hill). Comhill Magazine, 33 : 172-183. Eclectic Afagazine, 28 : 83-91. North British Review, 1 1 : 337-368. SWIFT 179 PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS. I. Caustic Satire Impatience of Absurdity Ferocious Sarcasm. Sarcasm is Swift's favorite weapon, and in its use he is without a peer. T. W. Hunt calls him " the lord of irony; " Minto declares that "nobody can pretend to dispute his title of the prince of English satirists ; his mastery of language for the purposes of ridicule is universally allowed to be unsurpassed. His similitudes never elevate a subject except in irony. He exempts from his ridicule no profession, no foible, hardly any institution, hardly any character." Dr. Johnson calls his " Argument against Abol- ishing Christianity " "a. very happy and judicious irony." This is too mild a term to apply to most of Swift's works, but it must be said, in fairness, that his biting satire is generally without malice. He scourges with a whip of scor- pions, but he generally scourges with a good end in view. He sometimes hated men, but he hated dishonesty and meanness and injustice more. " He is the fiercest and, take him all in all, the greatest of all the satirists. . . . He is the greatest of the English satirists, I think, in all ways. . . . His satire goes very deep ; it is not only a bitter satire against individuals, it is philosophical satire, which goes to the root of things." J. Hannay. " The ludicrous in Swift arises out of his keen sense of impropriety, his soreness and impatience of the least ab- surdity. . . . He sets a mark of reprobation on that which offends good sense and good manners, which cannot be mistaken and which holds it up to our ridicule and con- tempt ever after." Hazlitt. "'The Battle of the Books' strikes an entirely different chord. Its object is satire, not criticism. . . . Like 180 SWIFT all the satire that Swift ever wrote, it goes directly to the point by its personal reference. . . . No weapon of sarcasm is neglected [in the ' Tale of a Tub '] and, after the ground has been mapped out and the general positions assigned, each new illustration, each subordinate metaphor, seems to give some new point to the ridicule. . . . Satire such as this reaches far beyond the accidents of ecclesiastical con- troversies, beyond the realm even of literary cliques ; it pur- sues human nature, and routs it put from all its subterfuges and disguises. ... In ' Brobdingnag ' the satire never allows itself to be forgotten long. . . . His sarcasm was too fierce to allow him to become a theoretical reformer. What strikes us most in the political tracts is the deliberate incisiveness of their irony, the despairing bitterness that gives them finish and completeness." G. L. Craik. " He moves laughter but never joins it. He appears in his works as he appears in society. All the company are con- vulsed with merriment, while the Dean, the author of all the mirth, preserves an invincible gravity and even sourness of aspect, and gives utterance to the most eccentric and ludicrous fancies with the air of a man reading the Commination Ser- vice.' ' Macaulay. " Each of these treatises [' The Battle of the Books ' and the ' Mechanical Operation of the Spirit '] shows a great free- dom from prejudice, a boundless impatience of humbug and pretension, and a savage touch which is all the more brutal because of the delicacy, keenness, and power of sympathy of which the author shows himself inherently capable upon every page. . . . Dean Swift could write finely on a broom- stick, and not finely merely, but with the most caustic and fatal pungency." Edmund Gosse. " Swift, in his fictions, as in the rest of his writings, is the British satirist of his age. ... In all that he said and did there was a vein of ferocious irony. ... In the ' Battle of the Books ' we have a satire directed partly against SWIFT l8l individuals and partly against a prevailing tone of opinion and criticism. In the ' Tale of a Tub ' he appears as a satirist of the existing Christian churches. . . . The author of these books could not but be acknowledged as the first prose satirist of the age." David Masson. "He was, without exception, the greatest and most effi- cient libeller that ever exercised the trade, and possessed in an eminent degree all the qualifications which it requires a clear head, a cold heart, a vindictive temper, no ad- miration of noble qualities, no sympathy with suffering, not much conscience, not much consistency, a ready wit, a sarcastic humor, a thorough knowledge of the baser parts of human nature, and a complete familiarity with everything that is low, homely, and familiar in language. These were his gifts, and he soon felt for what ends they were given. Almost all his works are libels generally upon individuals, sometimes upon sects and parties, sometimes upon human nature. What- ever be his end, however, personal abuse direct, vehement, unsparing invective is his means. It is his sword and his shield, his panoply and his chariot of war. In all his writings, accordingly, there is nothing to raise or exalt our notions of human nature, but everything to vilify and degrade." Jeffrey. ILLUSTRATIONS. " What they do in Heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not, we are told expressly, that they neither marry nor are given in marriage." Thoughts on Various Subjects. " It may be neither safe nor prudent to argue against the abol- ishing of Christianity at a juncture when all parties appear so unanimously determined upon the point, as we cannot but allow from their actions, their discourses, and their writings." The Abolishment of Christianity. "Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion for the same reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death." Thoughts on Various Subjects. 1 82 SWIFT " I have been sometimes thinking, if a man had the art of the second sight for seeing lies, as they have in Scotland for see- ing spirits, how admirably he might entertain himself in this town by observing the different shapes, sizes, and colours of those swarms of lies which buzz about the heads of some people like flies about a horse's ears in summer." The Ex- aminer. 11 1 have been assured by a very knowing American of my ac- quaintance in London that a young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious,' nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout. . . . I grant this food will be somewhat dear and therefore very proper for [Irish] landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children." A Modest Proposal, etc. 2. Directness Sincerity Terseness. Like Mil- ton, Swift seldom, if ever, wrote merely for the purpose of making literature. He was intensely in earnest. Most of his prose is aggressive, and he attacks boldly and directly ; he makes no feints and no pretences. ' ' He does not address men in general," says Taine, " but certain men ; he does not care to teach a truth but to make an impression." " The merits of his prose are condensation, pith, always with the effect, generally the reality, of sincere purpose and, with few exceptions, simplicity and directness." F. Nichol. "In these poems [written for the Tatler\ Swift is splen- didly direct, vivid, and vigorous; his lines fall like well- directed blows of the flail. . . . He is a writer of the first order because he moulded language to be the vehicle of a sincerity that has never been surpassed. . . . The po- lemical and humorous parts [of ' The Tale of a Tub '] are direct and terse beyond anything that preceded them in Eng- lish." Edmund Gossc. SWIFT 183 " He separates with a severe and caustic air truth from false- hood, folly from wisdom, ' shows vice her o\vn image, scorn her own feature; ' and it is the force, the precision, and the honest abruptness with which the separation is made that ex- cites our surprise and our admiration." Hazlitt. "It is not only by its flashes of wit, by its bursts of elo- quence, by the steady and relentless heat of its satire, that it [Swift's style] is redeemed : but still more by the marvellous strength and grasp with which the whole of human nature is seized, bound to the dissecting-table, and made to yield to his pitiless scalpel the tale of its subterfuges and pretences and tricks. Other satires have their special application. Who is it that can limit the range of the satire in ' The Tale of a Tub?'" G. L. Craik. " They [' The Tale of a Tub ' and Gulliver '] are written with great plainness, force, and intrepidity advance at once to the matter in dispute give battle to the strength of the enemy, and never seek any kind of advantage from darkness or ob- scurity. . . . There is a force and terror about it [' The Legion Club'] which redeems it from ridicule and makes us shudder at the sort of demoniacal inspiration with which the malison is vented. . . . On the subjects to which he confines himself he is unquestionably a strong, masculine, and perspicuous writer. He is never finical, fantastic, or absurd takes advantage of no equivocations in argument and puts on no tawdriness for ornaments. . . . Though a great polemic, he makes no use of general principles, nor ever enlarges his views to a wide or comprehensive conclusion. Everything is particular with him and, for the most part, strictly personal. To make amends, however, we do think him quite without a competitor in personalities. With a quick and sagacious spirit and a bold and popular manner, he joins an exact knowledge of all the strong and the weak parts of every cause he has to manage." -Jeffrey. 1 84 SWIFT " No English is so pointed and so direct as Swift's. Every sentence is a keen knife that cuts straight to the core ; there is no hesitation or swerving; there is never a word wasted." Stanley Lane-Poole. "Swift wrote with a tact, a force, and a clearness that al- most ensured a satisfactory issue. He selected the best weapon and used it with rare judgment. . . . For perspicuity, directness, and freedom from involution or bombast, his style is a model." H. T. Tuckerman\ ILLUSTRATIONS. " For my own part, who am but a man of obscure condition, I do solemnly declare, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will suffer the most ignominious and torturing death rather than to submit to receive this accursed coin, or any other that shall be liable to these objections, until they be forced upon me by a law of my own country; and if that shall ever happen, I will trans- port myself into some foreign land and eat the bread of poverty among a free people." The Drapier's Letters. "Let them [the allies] therefore lay aside all clumsy pretence to address ; tell us no more of former sieges, battles, and glories ? nor make love to us in prose, and extol our beauty, our fortune, and their own passion for us up to the stars ; but let them come roundly to the business, and in plain terms give us to understand that they will not recognize any other government in Great Brit- ain but Whiggarchy only." The Conduct of the Allies. " I have never known this great town without one or more dunces of figure who had credit enough to give rise to some new word and propagate it in most conversation, though it had neither humor nor significance." The Examiner. " If a rebellion should prove so successful as to fix the Pre- tender on the throne of England, I would venture to transgress that statute so far as to lose every drop of my blood to hinder him from being king of Ireland." The Drapier's Letters. 3. Intensity. If qualities of style are to be measured by the results accomplished through their agency, then Swift must be considered one of the most forcible writers that ever held a SWIFT 185 pen. By his pamphlets he became almost the political dicta- tor of his day. His " Drapier's Letters" revolutionized the financial policy of the government. His " Conduct of the Allies" really caused the cessation of the Spanish War. Dr. Smith calls it the most successful pamphlet ever issued. Eleven thousand copies were sold within two months. Taine de- clares that his. Examiner " in one year transformed the opin- ion of three kingdoms. ' ' These marvellous results must be at- tributed largely to Swift's forcible way of putting things. His arguments and his invective were unanswerable, and his lan- guage was as forcible as his thought. Swift had nothing but contempt for the false refinements and meretricious ornaments of language from which his age was not free. On the other hand, the force of his style often degenerated into coarseness, even indecency. " If a single word were to be employed in describing it ['The Battle of the Books'], applicable alike to its wit and to its extravagance, intensity should be chosen." -John Forster. "The two qualities whose union marks Swift's genius are intensity and lucidity. . . . The anger [in ' A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures '] comes out in short pithy, telling sentences, which are abruptly closed, and leave a sense of power in reserve. . . . It is rigidly char- acteristic in its simple force, wasting no word by redundancy, marring the effect by no overwrought effort." G. L.Craik. " In vigor and poignancy of satire, in grave irony, in mas- culine force and intensity, ' The Tale of a Tub ' has never been surpassed." H. J. Nicoll. " In certain fine and deep qualities Addison and Steele, and perhaps Farquhar, excelled, . . . but in natural brawn and strength, in original energy, force, and imperious- ness of brain, he excelled them all." David Masson. " The power of Swift's prose was the terror of his own and remains the wonder of after-times. " F. Nichol. 1 86 SWIFT " He is careful to make his words fit close to his ideas, and often brings out his meaning sharply by contrasting it with what he does not mean. . . . His action is emphatic and copious, and the intense force of his satire is unsurpassed." Minto. ILLUSTRATIONS. " I know your Lordship means those long-since exploded doc- trines of obedience and submission to princes, which were only calculated to make a free and happy people slaves and miserable. Who but asses and pack-horses and beasts of burden can enter- tain such servile notions ? " A Pretended Letter, etc. " Cromwell was dead ; his son Richard, a weak ignorant wretch, who gave up his monarchy much in the same manner with the two usurping kings of Brentford [in the ' Rehearsal']." The Plea of Merit. " I hope your husband will interpose his authority to limit you in the trade of visiting ; half a dozen fools are, in all conscience, as many as you should require ; and it will be sufficient for you to see them twice a year ; for I think the fashion does not exact that visits should be paid to friends." Letter to a Young Lady on her Marriage. " It will no doubt be a mighty comfort to our grandchildren, when they see a few rags hung up in Westminster Hall, which cost a hundred millions, whereof they are paying the arrears, to boast as beggars do that their grandfathers were rich and great." The Conduct of the Allies. 4. Plainness Simplicity Homeliness Bald- ness. This means something more than mere simplicity of style. Swift laid down and followed the principle that " the divine should have nothing to say to the wisest of men that the most uneducated could not understand." " In respect to plainness," says Hunt, " he has no superior in English prose. He called things by their right names. He had no faith in Talleyrand's theory ' that language is the art of concealing SWIFT 187 thought. ' His style has a downright practical bluntness that marked it as superior, and makes it still representative." Craik calls Swift's style "so idiomatic, so English, so true and appropriate in all its varieties." "Every sentence," says Shaw, " is homely and rugged and strong." He seems to have hated foreign words as he hated men. Sometimes Swift carries this quality of plainness to such an extreme that, as Taine declares, " he has the style of a surgeon and a judge cold, grave, solid, unadorned. He imports into literature the positive spirit of men of business, degrading everything to the level of vulgar events." " Dean Swift may be placed at the head of those who have employed a plain style. Few writers have discovered more capacity. He treats every subject which he handles, whether serious or ludicrous, in a masterly manner. He knew, almost beyond any man, the purity, the extent, the precision of the English language." Blair. " He always understands himself, and his readers always understand him. The peruser of Swift wants little previous knowledge, and it is sufficient that he is acquainted with com- mon words and common things. He is neither required to mount elevations nor to explore profundities. His passage is always on a level or on solid ground, without asperities, with- out obstruction. ... He studied purity, . . . and whoever depends upon his authority may generally conclude himself safe. His sentences are never too much dilated or contracted, and it would not be easy to find any embarrass- ment in the complication of his clauses, any inconsequence in his connections or abruptness in his transitions. . . . They [his works] are written with great plainness, force, and in- trepidity advance at once to the matter in dispute give battle to the strength of the enemy, and never seek any kind of advantage from darkness or obscurity. . . . Its [' The Tale of a Tub's '] great merit seems to consist in the author's familiarity with all sorts of common and idiomatic expres- 1 88 SWIFT sions. ... To deliver absurd notions or incredible tales in the most authentic, honest, and direct terms, . . . and to luxuriate in all the variations of that grave, plain, and per- spicuous phraseology which dull men use to express their homely opinions, seems to be the great art of this extraordinary humorist. . . . His is radically a low and homely style without grace and without affectation and chiefly remark- able for a great choice and profusion of common words and expressions. ' ' Samuel Johnson. ' ' The brevity, the homeliness, the minuteness, the un- broken seriousness of the narrative [' Gulliver '], all give a character of truth and simplicity to the work. . . . His style is chiefly remarkable for a great choice and profusion of common words and expressions. . . . Other writers who have used a plain and direct style have been for the most part jejeune and limited in their diction, and generally give us an impression of the poverty as well as of the tameness of their language. Swift, without ever tres- passing into figures or poetical expressions, or ever em- ploying a word that can be called fine or pedantic, has a prodigious variety of good set phrases always at his command, and displays a sort of homely richness, like the plenty of an old English dinner or the wardrobe of a wealthy burgess." Jeffrey. "Swift's prose is never ungainly; it is simple and clear and direct, absolutely free from affectation or 'curious care," never seeking mere rhetorical effects ; but it is not the less polished to a smooth and brilliant surface not the polish of elaboration, but the fine chiselled surface of a mind that thought clearly and exactly." Stanley Lane-Poole. " His writings exhibit no tendency to exaggeration or bombast ; no fallacious images or far-fetched analogies ; no timid phrases in which the expression hangs loosely and in- accurately around the meaning. . . . His arguments are so plain that the weakest mind can grasp them, yet so logical SWIFT 189 that it is seldom possible to evade their force. . . . His style is always clear, keen, nervous, and exact. He delights in the most homely Saxon, in the simplest and most unadorned sentences. ' ' Lecky. " Nothing shows Swift's genius in these Irish tracts more conclusively than the marvellously simple materials with which he maintains their force. ... So vivid is the im- aginative power [in 'The Legion Club '] of his descriptions, that, as we read, we seem to see the gibbering of the madmen, twisting their straws, tugging at their chains, and making the place hideous with their foul and loathsome bestialities. His style is free from all tricks and peculiarities ; it holds to its purpose with absolute directness and lucidity. It has no balanced periods, no ornaments ; even grammatical regularity is sometimes wanting. But with dramatic nicety it suits the character in which he speaks, and he bends it to his purpose with the unconscious skill with which a well-trained fencer turns his foil. . . . His power was to be shown by the lucidity and the skill of expression. . . . He sought to make himself, above all, simple, clear, and logical in his method. . . . The strength of Swift's prose lies in its clearness and in its flexibility rather than in its technical cor- rectness." G. L. Craik. " He says what he means in the homeliest native English that can be conceived. . . . His sentences are self-sufficient, and fit the occasion as a glove the hand." T. H. Ward. " He is explicit in referring to what has been said, what is to come, and what is the connection of one theory with an- other. . . . When he writes seriously, his language is simple, unadorned, and designed above everything to con- vey his meaning directly." Minto. " At a time when elegance was thought to be all in all in writing, he showed what power lay in a simple, virile style, and what plain, homely words could do when managed by a mas- ter's hand." Lowell. 190 SWIFT ILLUSTRATIONS. " I have been frequently assured by great ministers that poli- tics were nothing but common sense ; which, as it was the only true thing they spoke, so it was the only thing they could have wished I should not believe." Some Free Thoughts, etc. " It is great fault among you that when a person writes with no other intention than to do you goo4, you will not be at the pains to read his advices. One copy of this paper may serve a dozen of you, which will be less than a farthing apiece." The Drapier's Letters. "A great minister puts you a case and asks your opinion, but conceals an essential circumstance, upon which the whole weight of the matter turns ; then he despises your understanding for councilling him no better, and concludes he ought to trust en- tirely to his own wisdom." Some Free Thoughts, etc. " And I defy the greatest divine to produce any law, either of God or man, which obliges me to comprehend the meaning of omniscience, omnipresence, ubiquity, attribute, beatific vision, with a thousand others so frequent in pulpits, any more than that of eccentric, idiosyncrasy, entity, and the like." Letter to a Young Clergyman. 5. Vehement Invective Insolence. While satire is Swift's favorite weapon, he frequently descends to use a bludgeon where Addison would wield a stiletto. Says Taine, " He knows life as a banker knows accounts ; and, his total once made up, he scorns or knocks the babblers who dispute it in his presence." He is given to the use of such terms as bully, sharper, rake, and the like. In the words of Thackeray : "It is Samson with a bone in his hand, rushing on his ene- mies and felling them." " Their [' Tale of a Tub ' and ' Gulliver '] distinguishing feature, however, is the force and vehemence of the invective in which they abound the copiousness, the steadiness, the perseverance, and the dexterity with which abuse and ridicule SWIFT 191 are showered upon the adversary. This, we think, was be- yond all doubt Swift's great talent and the weapon by which he made himself formidable. . . . Almost all his works are libels; generally upon individuals, sometimes upon sects and parties, sometimes upon human nature. Whatever be his end, however, personal abuse, direct, vehement, unsparing in- vective, is his means. . . . There is no spirit, indeed, of love or of honor in any part of them, -but an unvaried and harass- ing display of insolence and animosity in the writer and vil- lany and folly in those of whom he is writing. . . . He seems always to think the most effectual blows the most advis- able and no advantage unlawful that is likely to be successful for the moment. Disregarding all the laws of polished hos- tility, he uses at one and the same moment his sword and his poisoned dagger, his hands and his teeth and his envenomed breath. . . . The invective of Swift appears in this [' The Legion Club ' ] and some other pieces like the infernal fire of Milton's rebel angels, which ' Scorch'd and blasted and o'erthrew ' and was launched even against the righteous with such impet- uous fury, ' That whom it hit none on their feet might stand, Though standing else as rocks but down they tell By thousands, angel on archangel rolled.' It is scarcely necessary to remark, however, that there is never the least approach to dignity or nobleness in the style of these terrible invectives. . . . They are honest, coarse, and vio- lent effusions of furious rage and rancorous hatred." -Jeffrey. "Its ['A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manu- factures '] power lies in its variety. Indignant earnestness is subtly varied by sarcasm, straight blows of invective by deli- cate irony. The most withering of all his poetic 192 SWIFT satires is ' The Legion Club. ' His fury bursts all bounds in the storm of abuse and ridicule and utter scorn that he pours upon the august assembly." G. L. Craik. "He delighted in a strain of ribald abuse. . . . He possessed powers of satire perhaps as terrible as have ever been granted to a human being." Lecky. " They [' The Drapier's Letters '] are masterpieces of dread- ful humor and invective. . . . The assault is wonderful for its terrible rage." Thackeray. " The personal satire of Swift is often not only merciless but wholly unjustifiable." H. T. Tuckerman. " His ordinary style is grave irony. . . . Swift has the genius of insult ; he is the inventor of irony, as Shake- speare of poetry, and, as beseems an extreme force, he goes to extremes in his thought and art." Taine. ILLUSTRATIONS. " He humbly gave the modern generals to understand that he conceived, with great submission, they were all a pack of rogues and fools and d d cowards and confounded loggerheads and illiterate whelps and nonsensical scoundrels." The Battle of the Books. " ' Not to disparage myself,' said he, 'by the comparison with such a rascal, what art thou but a vagabond without house or home, without stock or inheritance, born to no possession of your own but a pair of wings and a drone-pipe ? Your liveli- hood is a universal plunder upon nature ; a freebooter over fields and gardens ; and for the sake of stealing, will rob a nettle as easily as a violet.' "The Battle of the Books. " When I reflect on this I cannot conceive you to be human creatures, but a sort of species hardly a degree above a monkey ; who has more diverting tricks than any of you, is an animal less mischievous and expensive, might in time be a tolerable critic in velvet and brocade, and, for aught I know, would equally become them." Letter to a Young Lady on her Marriage. " I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, SWIFT IQ3 and rakes to rid the world of each other by a method of their own, where the law has not been able to find an expedient." On Good Manners. 6. Wit Power of Ludicrous Combination. "His most grave themes were blended with ironical pleasantry ; and, in those of a lighter nature, deep and bitter satire is often concealed under the most trifling levity." Sir Walter Scott. "In his various works we find one quality almost always predominant an imperturbable humor ; and from this lam- bent spirit of pleasantry nothing human or divine was safe. The magnificence of Swift's anger, scintillating with wit, glowing with passion, throws its cometary splendor right across the Augustan heavens." Edmund Gosse. " As all know, it is in his character as a humorist, an in- ventor of the preposterous, as a medium for the reflective, and above all as a master of irony, that he takes his place as one of the chiefs of English literature." David Masson. " He never attempted any species of composition in which either the sublime or the pathetic was required of him ; but in every department of poetry where wit is necessary he dis- played, as the subject chanced to require, either the blasting lightning of satire or the lambent, meteor-like coruscations of frolicsome humor." Leslie Stephen. " For the qualities of sheer wit and humor Swift had no superior, ancient or modern ; ... his wit was perfect, as such a sheer meeting of the extremes of difference and likeness. ' ' Leigh Hunt. " In ' Lilliput ' the humor is on the surface : the satire is only occasional. ... By nothing did he affect men more than by his marvellous combination of the grimmest earnestness with the most mocking humor. In its latter and more matured form, his wit itself became earnest and passion- ate, and has a severity, a fierceness, a saera indignatio, that 13 194 SWIFT are all his own, and that have never been blended in any other writer with so keen a perception of the ludicrous and so much general comic power. The breadth of his rich, pun- gent, original jocularity is at the same time cutting as a sword and consuming as fire." G. L. Craik. 11 His wit was perfectly unbridled. His unrivalled power of ludicrous combination seldom failed to get the better of his prudence ; and he found it impossible to resist a jest. . . . His wit is a species of argument." Lecky. " He had more humor in him than Pope, who had it not in him to produce a downright side-shaking bit of rollicking fun. There is more laughter altogether about Swift's satire. . . . The Dean had a real humorous side." -J. Hannay. "His humor, though sufficiently marked and peculiar, is not to be easily defined. The nearest description we can give of it would make it consist in expressing sentiments the most absurd and ridiculous, the most shocking and atrocious, or sometimes the most energetic and original, in a sort of composed, calm, and unconscious way, as if they were plain, undeniable, commonplace truths, which no person could dis- pute or gain credit by announcing, and in maintaining them always in the gravest and most familiar language, with a con- sistency which somewhat palliates their extravagance, and a kind of perverted ingenuity which seems to give pledge for their sincerity. The secret, in short, seems to consist in em- ploying the language of humble good sense and simple, un- doubting conviction to express in their honest nakedness sentiments which it is usually thought necessary to disguise under a thousand pretences, or truths which are usually in- troduced with a thousand apologies." Jeffrey. ILLUSTRATIONS. " These papers are delivered to a set of artists, very dextrous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and letters ; for instance, they can discover a flock of geese to signify a senate ; a lame dog, an invader ; the plague, a standing army ; SWIFT 195 a buzzard, a prime minister ; the gout, a high priest ; a gibbet, a secretary of state ; a sieve, a court lady ; a broom, a revolution ; a mousetrap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court ; a cap and bells, a favorite ; a broken reed, a court of jus- tice ; an empty tun, a general." Gulliver's Travels. "They bury their dead with their heads directly downward, because they hold an opinion that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again ; in which period the earth (which they con- ceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at their resurrection, be found ready standing on their feet. " Gulliver's Travels. " What is man himself but a microcoat, or rather a complete suit of clothes with all its trimmings ? As to his body there can be no dispute ; but examine even the acquirements of his mind, you will find them all contribute in their order towards furnish- ing an exact dress ; to instance no more, is not religion a cloak, honesty a pair of shoes worn out in the dirt, self-love a surtout, vanity a shirt, and conscience a pair of breeches? " Tale of a Tub. 7. Coarseness. " His intensity of loathing leads him to besmear his antagonists with filth. He becomes disgusting in the effort to express disgust. . . . He tears aside the veil of decency to show the bestial elements of human nat- ure." L eslie Steph en . " [He is] a monster gibbering shrieks [in the fourth part of ' Gulliver's Travels '] and gnashing imprecations against mankind tearing down all shreds of modesty, past all sense of manliness and shame ; filthy in word, filthy in thought, furious, raging, obscene! " Thackeray. " He seems to delight in low metaphors and gross allu- sions. His coarseness is gratuitous and his smut deliberate. Indeed, the vulgarity of Swift is sometimes unendurable." H. T. Tuckerman. "Persons of delicate and refined taste have been hurt by its [' Gulliver's Travels '] grossness, and those of more severe and religious feelings have marked it with that moral dis- 196 SWIFT approbation which rejects a work so wide in its temper and feeling from the spirit of Christianity." John Mitford. " All his jests have the same character and insolence and coarseness. He does not even scruple, upon occasion, to imi- tate his own Yahoos, by discharging upon his unhappy victims a shower of filth, from which neither courage nor dexterity can afford any protection. . . . The greater part of the wis- dom and satire [of 'Gulliver's Travels '] appears to us to be extremely vulgar and commonplace. . . . If he can make his victim writhe . . . he is contented, provided he can make him sufficiently disgusting, that a good share of the filth that he throws should stick to his own fingers. ... In humor and in irony, and in the talent for debasing and defil- ing what he hated, we join with all the world in thinking the Dean of Saint Patrick's without a rival." -Jeffrey. " In the process of ' debasing and defiling ' he sometimes condescends to use the language of the brothel. . . . His allusions are often extremely gross." Minto. ILLUSTRATIONS. ^ " This honest, civil, ingenious gentleman knows in his con- science that there are not ten clergymen in England except non- jurors who do not abhor the thought of the Pretender reigning over us much more than himself. Yet this is the spittle of the bishop of Sarum, which our author licks up and swallows, and then coughs out again with an addition of his own phlegm." The Public Spirit of the Whigs. " Erect your schemes with as much method and skill as you please ; yet, if the materials be nothing but dirt, spun out of your own entrails, the edifice will conclude at last in a cobweb ; the duration of which, like that of other spiders' webs, may be im- puted to their being forgotten or neglected or hid in a corner. For anything else of genuine that the moderns may pretend to I cannot recollect ; unless it be a large vein of wrangling and sa- tire, much of a nature and substance with the spider's poison, which, however they pretend to spit wholly out of themselves, is SWIFT 197 improved by the same arts, by feeding upon the insects and ver- min of the age." The Battle of the Books. In "The Battle of the Books" and in Swift's "Direc- tions to Servants" will be found abundant illustrations of this characteristic some of them so extreme as not to bear repetition here. 8. Misanthropy.- "Among the ' Houyhnhnms ' proba- bility is ruthlessly sacrificed to the wild pleasure the author takes in trampling human pride in the mire of his sarcasm." Edmund Gosse. " In ' Gulliver ' we have a satire on the various classes of men and their occupations . . . and satires on human nature and human society down to their very foundations." David Mas son. " In parts of his work there is a sort of heartiness of abuse and contempt of mankind which produces a greater sympathy and animation in the reader than the most elaborate sarcasms that have since come into fashion. . . ." Jeffrey. "The satires proceeding from his later, most disappointed years are almost fiendish in the calm malignity of their expos- ure of the weakness and follies of mankind. . . . 'Gulli- ver's Travels' ... is the most ferocious satire on entire humanity ever written. It is a mockery of the spectacle of life such as has never proceeded from any other unbelieving and misbelieving soul. Its author rejoices to degrade what- ever in us is worthy and to set on high all the foulness and sin of which human nature is capable." N. P. Giltnan. " Of all the creations of his fancy it [' The Voyage to the Land of the Houyhnhnms'] is the most improbable; it is filled with such a fierce indignation against the frailties and vices to which our nature is so prone ; ... it indulges in such a fiendish mockery of the degraded species, and holds up such hideous representations of the loathsome depravity of our sins, while it renders its satire more effective by drawing 198 SWIFT through it the richest vein of ridicule and the most pointed wit." -John Mitford. " Swift exempts from his ridicule no profession, no faith, hardly any institution, hardly any character. . . . All come in for a cut of his stinging lash." Minto. ILLUSTRATIONS. " The daughters of great and rich families, computed after the same manner, will hardly amount to half the number of the male ; because the care of their education is either entirely left to their mothers or they are sent to boarding schools or put into the hands of English or French governesses, and generally the worst that can be gotten for the money. So that, after the reduction I was com- pelled to, from two thousand to one, half the number of well-edu- cated nobility and gentry must either continue in a single life, or be forced to couple themselves with women for whom they can possibly have no esteem ; I mean fools, prudes, coquettes, game- sters, saunterers, endless talkers of nonsense, splenetic idlers, intriguers, given to scandal and censure." On the Education of Ladies. " I have ever hated all societies, professions, and communities ; and all my love is toward individuals. . . . But principally I hate and detest that animal called man although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so on." Letter to Mr. Pope. " But instead of proposals for conquering that magnanimous nation, I rather wish they were in a capacity or disposition to send a sufficient number of their inhabitants for civilizing Europe by- teaching us the first principles of honour, justice, truth, temper- ance, public spirit, fortitude, chastity, friendship, benevolence, and fidelity." A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms. " And pray, what is man but a topsy-turvy creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational, his head where his heels should be grovelling on the earth ! and yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances ; rakes into every slut's corner of nature, bringing hidden corruptions to light, and raises a mighty dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all the while in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away." The Tale of a Tub. GOLDSMITH, 1728-1744 Biographical Outline. Oliver Goldsmith, born at Pallas, near Ballymahon, Ireland, November 10, 1728 ; father then a curate and small farmer, mother the daughter of a clergyman ; Goldsmith's father becomes rector of Kilkenny West in 1 730, and the family settle at Lissoy ; Goldsmith learns his letters from a Mrs. Delap, who thought him " impenetrably stupid ; " later he attends the village school of Lissoy, kept by an old soldier named Thomas Byrne ; Goldsmith is a dull pupil, but reads chap-books, learns ballads, and makes juve- nile rhymes; his school-life is interrupted by a severe attack of small-pox, which leaves his face badly marked ; later he stud- ies under a Mr. Griffin at Elphin School ; between 1739 and 1741 he is in a school at Athlone, and goes thence to a school at Edgeworthstown, where his cleverness attracts attention ; on June n, 1744, he enters Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar, being forced to take that menial position because of the econ- omy necessary that his father may provide Goldsmith's sister with an extravagant marriage-portion ; his tutor at Trinity, one Wilder, is harsh and brutal ; Goldsmith is humiliated by his position as sizar, and rebels against the mathematics and logic that he is compelled to study ; he receives some aid from an uncle by marriage, but often has to pawn his books and to earn his living by writing street-ballads, which he sells for five shillings each; in May, 1747, he narrowly escapes ex- pulsion for conspiring with other students to duck certain bail- iffs in the college cistern ; in the following June he tries in vain to secure a scholarship given- on examination, but wins an "exhibition" worth thirty shillings a year; he gives a supper and a dance- to celebrate his good fortune, is inter - 199 200 GOLDSMITH rupted by his tutor, is " chastised," and straightway sells his books and runs away to Cork; a reconciliation with the tutor is effected by Goldsmith's brother, who had been a pensioner at Trinity, and who held a scholarship there ; Goldsmith's father dies early in 1747; Goldsmith takes A. B. at Dublin in February, 1749; after leaving the university he occasionally assists in his brother's school at Pallas, loafs about the town of Ballymahon (where his mother lived in poverty), declines to take holy orders, plays the flute,, and throws the hammer ; through his uncle he obtains a tutorship with one Mr. Flinn, but soon resigns, obtains a good horse and thirty pounds, and starts for Cork, intending to sail thence for America ; he misses his ship, and soon returns to Ballymahon with a poor horse and no money ; he then borrows ,50 from his Uncle Contarine, starts for London to study law, and soon returns to Ballymahon, after losing the money in gambling at Dublin ; he is again aided by his uncle, his brother, and his sister, and goes to Edinburgh in the autumn of 1752 to study medicine; joins a students' club called "The Medical Society," tells stories, sings songs, and is generally popular ; he makes a tour of the Highlands early in 1753; he deter- mines to finish his medical studies abroad, pays his debts by means of a loan from two college friends, sails for Bordeaux, is driven into Newcastle by rough weather, and, with other passengers, is imprisoned for two weeks on the false charge of having enlisted in the French service in Scotland ; on his re- lease he sails for Rotterdam and goes thence to Leyden, where a fellow-countryman lends him money, which he forth- with expends in bulbs for his Uncle Contarine; early in 1755 he starts on his famous pilgrimage, " with one clean shirt and next to no money; " his exact itinerary is unknown, but he probably visited Louvain, Paris, Strasburg, several points in Germany and Switzerland, Venice, Padua (where he is sup- posed to have studied six months), Carinthia, and thence back through France to Dover, landing February i, 1756 ; he trav- GOLDSMITH 2OI elled principally on foot, and supported himself by playing on his flute, except in Italy, where he engaged in disputations at the universities and convents ; he is said to have taken a medi- cal degree at Louvain, but all the alleged details of his tour are doubtful ; he reaches London in great destitution, probably tries acting and school-teaching, soon becomes assistant to a chemist on Fish Street Hill, and later, through the aid of his friend Dr. Sleigh, sets up as a physician in.Bankside, South- wark; he is unsuccessful as a physician, writes tragedy (?), proposes to travel to Sinai to decipher " the written moun- tains," reads proof, and, late in 1756, becomes an usher in a school at Peckham kept by Dr. Milner, a dissenting minister, whose son Goldsmith had known at Edinburgh ; at Milner's house he meets Griffiths, proprietor of the Monthly Review, and agrees to write for the Review, receiving in return his lodging and "an adequate salary;" he is engaged on the Review from April till September, 1757; he writes also for other periodicals, and translates "Memoirs of Jean Marteilhe," published in 1758 ; he leaves Griffiths's employ because he is disgusted with the way in which his manuscript is "edited " by that worthy and his wife ; he returns for a while to Dr. Milner, and then " makes shift to live by a very little practice as a physician ; " during 1758 he publishes an essay on " The Present State of Taste and Literature in Europe," and solicits subscribers for the same; he obtains, through Milner, an appointment as physician to a factory on the coast of Coro- mandel promising an income of ^1,100; tries the requisite preliminary examination December i, 1758, and fails ; he bor- rowed from Griffiths the suit of clothes in which he appeared at the examination, and wrote four articles for the Monthly Review in payment; during 1759 he writes for Griffiths a superficial life of Voltaire, and receives twenty pounds for his work; the "Life" is published in the Lady's Magazine (then published by Griffiths), in 1761 ; about 1759 Gold- smith takes a lodging at 1 2 Green Arbour Court, near the Old 2O2 GOLDSMITH Bailey, and begins to acquire some reputation and social standing; his essay on "Polite Learning " attracts Thomas (afterward Bishop) Percy, who was then collecting materials for his " Reliques," and Percy calls on Goldsmith, whom he finds living in squalor ; Goldsmith also meets Smollett, then editor of the Critical Review, to which Goldsmith contrib- utes during 1757-59; during 1759-60 he also writes for the British Magazine (started by Smollett), The Lady's Maga- zine, the Bee, and the Busybody ; in 1760 he enters into an agreement with John Newbery, a "philanthropic book- seller" of St. Paul's Churchyard, by which Goldsmith is to contribute two papers a week to the Public Ledger (started by Newbery, January 12, 1760) and is to receive therefor the stated sum of ^100 a year; here appeared his "Chinese Letters," ninety-eight papers in all, which were reprinted in book form in 1762 under the title "A Citi- zen of the World ; "the " Letters" add to his reputation and his social standing, and in 1760 he removes to better lodg- ings at 6 Wine Office Court, Fleet Street ; here he is visited by Johnson (whom Goldsmith had previously complimented in the Bee} on May 31, 1761, and thus begins a friendship that serves greatly to aid Goldsmith ; about this time he ap- plies in vain to Garrick for aid in securing the secretaryship of the Society of Arts, then vacant; during 1762 Goldsmith does hack-work for Newbery, writing some seven volumes, including the paper on " The Cock Lane Ghost," his " His- tory of Mecklenburgh," "A Compendium of Biography," etc. ; Prior estimates Goldsmith's income during 1762 at be- low ^120; he removes to Islington late in 1762, and con- tinues to do hack-work for Newbery, from whom he borrows money in 1763; he probably writes " A History of England in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to His Son," pub- lished in 1764; about this time, in company with Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, Garrick, and others, he aids in form- ing the famous Turk's Head Club; he is still considered GOLDSMITH 203 "a mere literary drudge," though Johnson calls him "one of the first men we now have as an author;" on the publica- tion of "The Traveller," Dec. 19, 1764, Johnson's opinion is suddenly and generally adopted; " The Traveller" passed through four editions in 1765, and reached a ninth edition by 1774; Goldsmith received twenty guineas for the manu- script of the poem and probably twenty more on its success ; his new fame brings him to the notice of Robert Nugent (afterward Viscount Clare) and through Nugent to that of the Karl of Northumberland, then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland ; the Earl offers to aid Goldsmith, but he unwisely declines and recommends his brother Henry instead; later he writes his ballad "Edwin and Angelina" for the amusement of the Countess of Northumberland ; a collection of his essays is published in 1765, and he again tries in vain to set up as a physician ; on March 26, 1766, he publishes " The Vicar of Wakefield," written before " The Traveller " was published ; through Johnson's agency he obtains 60 for the manu- script of "The Vicar of Wakefield," and thus secures re- lease from his landlady, who had just arrested him for non- payment of rent ; " The Vicar of Wakefield ' ' establishes Gold- smith's reputation ; he removes to Temple Court and resides there, at 2 Bench Court, till his death, except for frequent short sojourns in the country; during 1771-74 he writes "She Stoops to Conquer," and works on his "Animated Nature" at a farm near Hyde ; he is devoted to society, masquerading, and gaming, but continues to do hack-work for booksellers ; in December, 1766, he publishes " Poems for Young Ladies," for which he receives ten guineas, and in April, 1767, " The Beauties of English Poesy," for which he receives probably fifty guineas; in 1769 Dennis pays him two hundred and fifty guineas for the manuscript of " A History of Rome; " in 1770 appeared his lives of Parnell and Bolingbroke, in 1771 his "English History," for which he was to receive five hundred guineas, and in 1773 his "Greek History," 2O4 GOLDSMITH for which Dennis paid him ^250 ; his " Animated Nature," which he had agreed in 1769 to write for Griffin eight volumes at one .hundred guineas a volume was not pub- lished till after Goldsmith's death, though he received full pay- ment ; early in 1767 he offers his " Good-Natured Man " to Garrick, who refuses it, probably because of some personal re- sentment against Goldsmith ; it is soon afterward accepted by Colman, but is not played till January 28, 1768 ; at first the play is not very successful, and the scene at the bailiffs is hissed ; but after this scene is omitted the play succeeds, and eventually brings to Goldsmith ,500; on May 26, 1770, he publishes "The Deserted Village," begun two years before; it passes at once through five editions; " She Stoops to Con- quer" is received with hesitation by Colman in 1772, but he is finally induced by Johnson to stage it, and on March 15, 1773, it scores a great success, running twelve nights and bringing to Goldsmith 500 ; he is widely known and es- teemed in his later years ; in 1770 he visits Paris in company with Mrs. Horneck and her daughters, one of whom was " the Jessamy bride; " in 1771 Goldsmith's old enemy, Kenrick, wrote a letter to the London Packet, insinuating that Gold- smith's relations with the Hornecks were not proper ; Gold- smith gave him a caning, and escaped prosecution for the deed by promising ^50 to a Welsh charity ; he visits Lord Clare at Bath in the winter of 1770-71, and writes "A Haunch of Venison" in the lord's honor; in 1773 he projects "A Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences," and is promised articles by Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and others ; one article is written by Burney, but the plan falls through ; Goldsmith writes his last poem, "Retaliation," probably in February, 1774, but it was not published till after his death, which occurred at his lodgings at 2 Bench Court, Lon- don, April 4, 1774; according to Reynolds he died owing ^2,000. GOLDSMITH 2O$ BIBLIOGRAPHY ON GOLDSMITH'S STYLE. Black, W., "English Men of Letters." New York, 1879, Harper, 81-87, etc. Phillips, M. G., "A Manual of English Literature." New York, 1893, Harper, 2 : 55-84. Giles, H., " Lectures and Essays." Boston, 1850, Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 218-258. De Quincey, T., " Works." Edinburgh, 1890, A. & C. Black, 4: 288- 323- Goldsmith, O. , "Miscellaneous Works " (D. Masson). Philadelphia, 1872, Claxton. Duyckinck, E. A., " Portrait Gallery." New York, 1875, Johnson, Wilson & Co., I : 28-43. Nicoll, H. J., "Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1883, Appleton, 249-256. Welsh, A. H., "Development of English Literature." Chicago, 1884, Griggs, 203-221. Taine, H. A., "History of English Literature." New York, 1875, Holt, 2 : 430-434 and index. Ward, T. H. (Dowden), "The English Poets." New York, 1881, Macmillan, 3 : 368-373. Cary, H. F., "Lives of the English Poets." London, 1846, Bohn, 222-246. Dawson, G., "Biographical Lectures." London, 1886, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 172-190. Tuckerman, H. T. , "Thoughts on the Poets." New York, 1846, Francis. Scott. Sir W., "Lives of the Novelists." New York, 1872, Denham, 210-234. Thackeray, W. M., "English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century. " London, n. d. , Smith, Elder & Co. Irving, W., " Life of Goldsmith. " New York, 1864, Putnam. Minto, W., "English Prose Literature. " Edinburgh, 1886, Blackwood, 461-473. Collier, W. F. , "History of English Literature." London, 1892, Nel- son, 324-342. Jeaffreson, J. C., "Novels and Novelists." London, 1858, Hurst & Blackett, I : 223-258. Macaulay, T. B. , "Miscellaneous Works." New York, 1880, Harper, I : 581-628 and 4: 40-55. 206 GOLDSMITH Chalmers, A., "English Poets." London, 1810, C. Wittingham, 16: 479-487- Bulwer-Lytton, E., " Miscellaneous Prose." London, 1868, R. Bent- ley, I : 49-94- Rossetti, W. M., " Lives of Famous Poets." London, 1878, Moson, 161-175. Gosse, E., " History of Eighteenth Century Literature." New York, 1889, Macmillan, 316 -332 and 344-450. Stephen, L., "Dictionary of National Biography." New York, 1890, Macmillan, 22 : 86-95. Brydges, Sir S. E., " Centura Literaria." London, 1815, Longman & Co., 7 : 334-356. Forster, J. , " Life, etc. , of Oliver Goldsmith. " Leipsic, 1873, Tauchnitz. Howitt, W., "Homes and Haunts of British Poets." London, 1858, Bentley, I : 286-336. Hunt, Leigh, "Classic Tales," London, 1806, Reynell & Hunt, 41-80. L'Estrange, A. G., "History of the English Humourists." London, 1878, Hurst & Blackett, 2 : 131-140. Tuckerman, B., " History of English Prose Fiction." New York, 1891, Putnam, 237-240 and 273. Yonge, C. D., " Three Centuries of English Literature." New York, 1889, Appleton, 59-68. Prior, Jos., "Life of Oliver Goldsmith." London, 1838, J. Murray, 2 vols. Allibone, S. A., "Dictionary of Authors." Philadelphia, 1858, Childs & Peters, I : 687-696. Southern Literary Messenger, 6, 267-274 (Tuckerman). Quarterly Review, 95 : 394-448. Blackwood's Magazine, 67: 296-308 and 137-153 and 297-309 (W. Ir- ving). North American Review, 70: 265-289 (C. M. Kirkman) ; 45: 91-116 (Channing). Edinburgh Review, 65 : 108-129 (W. Empson). American Whig Review , 10: 498-513 (J. D. W.). American Quarterly Review, 21 : 460-515. Museum, 6 : 1-13 (Sir Walter Scott). Dublin University Magazine, 7: 30-54; 83: 438-446 (Fitzpatrick) ; 88: 352-368 (R. B. Knowles). Bentley 1 s Miscellany, 24: 193-199. Chambers' s Journal, 9 : 343-347. Monthly Review, 142: 163-170. Biographical Magazine, 2: 99-120. GOLDSMITH 2O/ British Quarterly Review, 8: 1-25 (John Forster). LittelTs Living Age (from Sharpens Magazine}, 24 : 337-346 (Frederick Lawrence). Eclectic Review, 66 : 27-40 (James Prior). Appleton's Journal, n : 459-462 (S. M. Towle). Art Journal, 16: 305-308 and 326-328. Christian Quarterly Spectator, 10: 18-37 (J. Prior). Portfolio, 6 : 210-225. PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS. I. Graceful Ease. Goldsmith is remarkable for the way in which he has photographed his own traits and his life- history in all his scenes and characters. In turning his pages one feels, almost, that he is conversing with a friend. " Not one of us, however busy or hard," says Thackeray, "but once or twice in our lives has passed an evening with him, and undergone the charm of his delightful music. His song is fresh and beautiful as when first he charmed with it." Goethe, on listening to a German translation of " The Vicar of Wakefield," pronounced it " a prose idyl." Speaking of the characters in this immortal story, William Black says, "All is done with such a light, homely touch that one gets familiarly to know these people without being aware of it. " De Quincey speaks of Goldsmith's ' ' happy graces of style, plastic as the air or the surface of a lake to the pure impulses of nature." Forsyth calls " The Vicar of Wakefield " "as sweet a picture as was ever drawn of family life; " another critic considers " the sustained sweetness of Goldsmith's char- acter almost miraculous," while another exclaims, "How many a familiar truth has he clothed in clear and graceful diction ! " This quality of graceful ease is more easily felt than defined. As one critic says, "There is a charm, an effect, and that we all feel ; and we might almost as well try to produce as to express it." It is a matter of universal wonder among the critics that, although many of Goldsmith's tastes are known to have been low,, and though he had a life- 208 GOLDSMITH long fondness for vulgar associations, both his language and his sentiments are marvellously pure. " His simplicity," says Minto, "is an elegant simplicity. He is not homely like Paley nor coarse like Swift. The remarkable thing is his combination of purity with copiousness. He is never affect- edly easy, never condescends to polite slang. The light and graceful structure of his sentences cannot be too much ad- mired. The strong points of his intellect centred in his power of easy and graceful literary composition." In short, the literary world has approved the justice of Johnson's esti- mate in the famous Latin sentence which the "Dictator" wrote upon his friend's cenotaph in Westminster Abbey : "There is hardly any form of literature that he did not touch; and whatever he touched he adorned." That his ease and grace were both conscious and cultivated appears from one of Goldsmith's remarks. He once wrote, "To be dull and dronish is an encroachment on the prerogative of a folio." " Even when he is wrong as to his facts or his sweeping generalizations, one is inclined to forgive him on account of the quaint gracefulness and point of his style. Goldsmith put an anxious finish into all his better work ; per- haps that is the secret of the gracefulness that is apparent in every line. . . . Goldsmith was particularly happy in writing bright and airy verses ; the grace and lightness of his touch has rarely been approached." William Black. " His style was always pure and easy. . . . About everything that he wrote, serious or sportive, there was a certain natural grace and decorum hardly to be expected from a man a great part of whose life had been passed among thieves and beggars, street-walkers and merry-andrews." Macaulay. "The exquisite grace, the delicate choice of words, the amiability of sentiment, so peculiarly his own and so well suited to express the simple beauty of his thoughts, gave a GOLDSMITH 209 charm to the work which familiarity can only endear. . . . As an essayist, he has contributed some of the most pure and graceful specimens of English prose discoverable in the whole range of literature. . . . The fascinating ease of its flow is the result of long study and careful revision." Bayard Tuckerman. " While I am prepared to condemn him by my moral sense, and while obliged to say that he was not at all respect- able, yet he had those graceful graciousnesses and gracious gracefulnesses which, in spite of a sense of condemnation, make him, after all, one of the darlings of the human race." George Daw son. " Goldsmith, both in verse and prose, was one of the most delightful writers in the language. His verse flowed like a limpid stream. His ease is quite unconscious. Everything in him is spontaneous, unstudied, unaffected." Hazlitt. " The admirable ease and grace of the narrative, as well as the pleasing truth with which the principal characters are de- signed, make ' The Vicar of Wakefield ' one of the most delicious morsels of fictitious composition on which the hu- man mind was ever employed." Sir Walter Scott. " One of the most graceful, gentle-minded, and pure writ- ers our literature can boast of. ... His manners were without the refinement and good-breeding which the exquisite polish of his language would lead us to expect." H.J. Nicoll. " Where is there now a man who can pen an essay with such ease and elegance as Goldsmith? " Samuel Johnson. " He writes as if he were at full leisure to make everything perfect, and as serenely as if he were indifferent to fame or already secure in the possession of it." Channing. " He may be likened to his own writings, which, with all their incomparable grace, lightness, elegance, ingenuousness, and lambent fire, have nothing deep or grand : they charm ; they do not instruct, they do not inspire they are graceful, not wise. ' 'John Forster. 210 GOLDSMITH In the preface to the first edition of his " Citizen of the World" Goldsmith wrote : "In the intimacy between my author and me he has usually given me a lift of his eastern sublimity and I have sometimes given him return of my col- loquial ease. ' ' ILLUSTRATIONS. " I love everything that's old : old friends, old times, old man- ners, old books, old wine ; and, I believe, Dorothy [taking her hand], you'll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife.'' She Stoops to Conquer. " The place of our retreat was in a little neighborhood consist- ing of farmers, who tilled their own grounds, and were equal strangers to opulence and poverty. As they had almost all the conveniences of life within themselves, they seldom visited towns or cities in search of superfluity. Remote from the polite, they still retained the primeval simplicity of manners ; and frugal by habit, they scarcely knew that temperance was a virtue." Vicar of Wakefield. " I could not avoid showing my argument to my old friend Mr. Wilmot in the hopes of receiving his approbation ; but I discov- ered that he was most violently attached to the contrary opinion, and with good reason ; for he was at that time actually courting a fourth wife." Vicar of Wakefield. " I published some tracts on the subject myself, which, as they never sold, I have the consolation of thinking were read only by the happy few." Vicar of Wakefield. 2. Simplicity Naturalness Homeliness. " His writings partake strongly of his character. Candid simplicity, unaffected plainness, are symptomatic of both. In comparing Goldsmith with his fellow-novelists, his unreserved and un- sophisticated simplicity strikes us at once. . . . There is nothing but the simplest language conveying the simplest moral, evolved by the simplest agency." Macaulay. "The characteristic of our author's poetry is a prevailing simplicity, which conceals all the artifices of versification ; but it is not confined to his expression alone, for it pervades GOLDSMITH 211 every feature of the poem ['The Deserted Village']. His delineation of rural scenery, his village portraits, his moral, political, and classical allusions, while marked by singular fidelity, chasteness, and elegance, are all chiefly distinguished by their pleasing and natural character. "-- H'ijshingfon Iri'ing. " Goldsmith is among the simplest of our writers. . . . He resembles Addison ; his simplicity is an elegant simplic- ity." Minto. "In prose style, as in poetic, it is noticeable that Gold- smith has little in common with his great contemporaries, with their splendid bursts of rhetoric and Latin pomp of speech but that he goes back to the perfect plainness and simple grace of the Queen Anne men : colloquial ease of expression, an apparent absence of all effort or calculation." Edmund Gosse. "His 'Vicar of Wakefield ' is a prose idyl, somewhat spoilt by phrases too rhetorical, but at bottom as homely as a Flemish picture. Observe in Terburg's or Mieri's paintings a woman at market or a burgomaster emptying his long glass of beer ; their faces are vulgar, the ingenuousness is comical, the cookery occupies the place of honor ; yet these good folks are so peaceful, so contented with their small ordinary happi- ness, that we envy them. The impression left by Goldsmith's book is pretty much the same." Taine. "It is not for the plot that people now read ' The Vicar of Wakefield.' . . . Surely human nature must be very much the same when this simple description of a quiet Eng- lish home went straight to the heart of nations in both hemi- spheres. And the wonder is that Goldsmith, of all men, should have produced such a perfect picture of domestic life. Herder, again and again, throughout his life, reverted to the charm and delight with which he had made the acquaint- ance of the English ' prose idyl,' and took it for granted that it was a real picture of English life. . . ." William Black. 212 GOLDSMITH " 'And now, my dear mother, having struggled so hard to get back to see you, I wonder you are not more rejoiced to see me.' This is one of his immortal sentences, which is worth embalming, it is so deliciously simple. Goldsmith was a big baby, a baby to the end of his life ; but, remember, he was only half-baked ; the reasonable side of his nature was never developed ; he died before he had a chance of cutting his wisdom-teeth; he never did cut them, and he would have had to live to the age of Methuselah before he cut them. [The picture of the party at Vauxhall in the third of ' the Beau Tibbs' series] is as fresh in its fidelity to human nat- ure and as externally effective in its artistic oppositions as any of the best efforts of the great masters of fiction. . . He was in reality of so open and unguarded a disposition and so wholly incapable of any conventional concealment of his thoughts and affections, that in collecting anecdotes to illus- trate his characters it is of the first importance to ascertain whether the narrator is a friend or an enemy." George Daw- son. " He gives us pictures of home and rural life which denote an exquisite sense of their charms and an exact knowledge of their petty troubles. . . . Our minds are exercised, but without the least effort ; we get at the full meaning without seeking for it." W. E. Channing. ILLUSTRATIONS. " You may be as neat as you please and I shall love you the better for it ; but all this is not neatness but frippery. These rufflings and pinkings and patchings will only make us hated by all the wives of our neighbors." Vicar of Wakefield. " Every man who has seen the world and has had his ups and downs in life, as the expression is, must have frequently expe- rienced the truth of this doctrine ; and must know that to have much or to seem to have it is the only way to have more." Essays. GOLDSMITH 213 " My house consisted of but one story, and was covered with thatch, which gave it an air of great snugness ; the walls on the inside were nicely whitewashed, and my daughters undertook to adorn them with pictures of their own designing. Though the same room served us for a parlor and kitchen, that only made it the warmer. Besides, as it was kept in the utmost neat- ness, the dishes, plates, and coppers being well scoured and all disposed in bright rows on the shelves, the eye was agree- ably relieved, and did not want rich furniture. "Vicar of Wakefield. 3. Broad Sympathy Love of Humanity. It is this quality, above all others, that makes Goldsmith, as Thackeray justly calls him, " the most beloved of English writers." He is essentially a sympathetic writer. De Qnin- cey finely calls this trait in Goldsmith's style " that exquisite truth of household pathos " which causes the genial Irishman to be " remembered among men by tears of tenderness." Of that delicate pathos which lies half-way between smiles and tears Goldsmith was a consummate master. Thackeray at- tributes the charm of his style to " his sweet regrets, his del- icate compassion, his soft smile, his tremulous sympathy, the weakness which he owns," and adds: " Think of him, reck- less, thriftless, vain if you like, but merciful, gentle, generous, full of love and pity. Wander he must ; but he carries a home-relic with him, and dies with it on his breast." Per- haps the most characteristic adjective to be applied to Gold- smith is good-natured. Giles calls this good-nature " a copi- ous fountain of kindness, refreshing the life around him with streams of gayety, of fondness, and of pity. There was a be- nignity in him which gave his heart an interest in the hum- blest creature." As compared with the pathos of Sterne, Minto nicely observes that Goldsmith's "benevolence was more active than sentimental, just as Sterne's was more senti- mental than active." A critic in the North American Re- view is right when he declares that "it is to this wealth 214 GOLDSMITH of sympathy that Goldsmith's writings owe their immor- tality." 1 ' It is not to be described the effect which Goldsmith's ' Vicar of Wakefield ' had upon me just at the critical mo- ment of my mental development. That lofty and benevolent irony, that fair and indulgent view of all infirmities and faults, that meekness under all calamities, that equanimity under all changes and chances, . . . proved my best education." Goethe. " Not a little of the peculiar charm of Goldsmith is attrib- utable to the excellence of his heart. Mere talent would scarcely have sufficed to interpret and display so enchantingly the humble characters and scenes to which his most brilliant efforts were devoted. It was his sincere and ready sympathy with man, his sensibility to suffering in every form, his strong social sentiment, and his amiable interest in all around him which brightened to his mind's eye what to the less suscep- tible is unheeded and obscure." Bayard Tuckerman. 11 He learned to regard ' the human face divine' with af- fection and esteem. . . . He was ready to do anything Jack-of-all-trades, master of none until, by-and-by, he became master of the human heart and writer of two or three of the deepest, truest, sweetest things men ever have written. . . . In all literature I know of no such touch of that heavenly charity which Christians praise so much and know so little as where Dr. Primrose, on finding that his daughter has been seduced, curses the seducer, and Moses with loving sim- plicity rebukes his father. The old man replies, ' Did I curse him, child? then may heaven forgive me and him.' . . . High animal spirits, careless nature, readiness to give and re- ceive, gushing tenderness these were his virtues, and they are always popular. . . . I for one am glad that God sent Oliver Goldsmith into the world to teach, as he has done by his life and writings, that mercy, charity, and slowness to anger which, through all his sad, mean, and miserable life he GOLDSMITH 21 5 never failed to show. ... If Goldsmith's precepts leave us languid, his charming topography and his graceful mem- ories, his tender retrospect and his genial sympathy with hu- manity still invite and detain us. ... Its [' The Vicar of Wakefield's '] sweet humanity, its wisdom and its common sense, its happy mingling of character and Christianity, will keep it sweet long after more ambitious and in many respects abler works are forgotten." George Dawson. ' His benevolent spirit seems still to smile on us : to suc- cor with sweet charity; to soothe, caress, and forgive; to plead with the fortunate for the unhappy and the poor." Thackeray. " But the children of flesh, whose pulses beat too sympa- thetically, cannot sequester themselves in that way [as Milton did]. They walk in no such altitudes, but at elevations eas- ily reached by the ground-winds of humble calamity. And from that cup of sorrow which upon all lips is pressed in some proportion, they must submit, by the very terms on which they hold their gifts, to drink, if not more profoundly than others, yet more perilously as regards the fulfilment of their intellectual mission. Among this household of chil- dren, too sympathetically linked to the trembling impulses of earth, stands forward conspicuously Oliver Goldsmith." De Quincey. "We read 'The Vicar of Wakefield ' in youth and in age we return to it again and again, and bless the memory of an author who contrives to reconcile us to human nature." Sir Walter Scott. " The secret of its ['The Vicar of Wakefield's '] endur- ing popularity is undoubtedly its truth to nature, but to nat- ure of the most amiable kind, to nature as Goldsmith saw it." Washington Irving. " His charity seems to have been pushed beyond the lim- its of prudence, and all who knew him testify to the singular kindliness of his nature." Leslie Stephen. 2l6 GOLDSMITH " He was so generous that he quite forgot to be just." Macaulay. " He was kind and benevolent whenever he had it in his power ; and although frequently duped by artful men, his heart was never hardened against the application of the un- happy. ' ' Dr. Chalmers. " He had in himself an original to draw from, with pre- cisely those qualities which win general affection. Lovable himself, in spite of all his grave faults, he makes lovable the various copies that he takes from the master-portrait. He is precisely what Johnson calls him, the ' affectum lenis domina- tor' potens because lenis. He is never above the height of the humblest understanding ; and, by touching the human heart, he raises himself to a level with the loftiest." Bulwer- Lytton. ILLUSTRATIONS. " While the slightest inconveniences of the great are magnified into calamities ; while tragedy mouths out their sufferings in all the strains of eloquence, the miseries of the poor are entirely dis- regarded ; and yet some of the lower ranks of people undergo more real hardships in one day than those of a more exalted sta- tion suffer in their whole lives. It is inconceivable what diffi- culties the meanest of our common sailors and soldiers endure without murmuring or regret ; without passionately declaiming against Providence or calling their fellows to be gazers on their intrepidity. Every day to them is a day of misery, and yet they entertain their hard fate without repining." Essays. " ' Excuse me ! ' returned I ; ' these people, however fallen, are still men, and that is a very good title to my affections. . . . If these wretches, my children, were princes, there would be thousands ready to offer their ministry ; but, in my opinion, the heart that is buried in a dungeon is as precious as that seated upon a throne.' " Vicar of Wakefield. " Were I to be angry at men for being fools, I could find am- ple room for declamation, but alas ! I have been a fool myself; and why should I be angry with them for being something GOLDSMITH 217 so natural to every child of humanity ?" Description of Va- rious Clubs. 4. Pleasantry Mild Irony. Goldsmith is a master of humor as well as of wit. His pleasantry generally takes the form of playful, sympathetic irony, though we have fre- quent illustrations of pure humor of the slyest kind. He revels in what De Quincey calls " happy laughter untainted with malice." A writer in the North American Review de- fines this characteristic as " the same unobtrusive, ever-vary- ing humor, seen equally in deeds, words, characters, and situations, calling for no sagacity in us to catch it, and pro- ducing no surprise." Another critic calls it " sweetened wis- dom, sympathetic satire, unvenomed humor."' "Whom," asks Thackeray, "did the vagrant harper ever hurt? he car- ries no weapon save the harp on which he plays to you." "Goldsmith is the most amiable of our satirists. He was full of the milk of human kindness, and the range of his sym- pathies was wide. His ridicule is always on the side of good sense and good feeling, and he handles even his embodiments of folly and weakness ' tenderly, as if he loved them ; ' as if, at least, he had a lurking toleration for them and secretly recognized their claims to exist in their own way as varieties of multiform humanity. " Minto. " The vices and follies of the day are touched with the most playful and diverting satire. . . . He softens caus- tic satire with a pleasant humor. . . . He drew human nature as he found it, with the freedom of a satirist, but never with the coldness of a cynic. . . . No one ever excelled so much as he in depicting amiable follies and endearing weaknesses. His satire makes us at once smile and love all that he so tenderly ridicules." Talfourd. "The whimsical yet amiable views of human life and hu- man nature ; the mellow, unforced humor blended so happily with good feeling and good sense throughout his writings win 2l8 GOLDSMITH their way irresistibly to the affections and carry the author with them. What a bland, gentle, loving humor it is which occasionally steals over the picture of ' The Deserted Vil- lage, 1 giving here and there charming touches of gay sunshine breaking out upon the several points 'of a shaded landscape, yet never disturbing the sweet serenity and sadness of the whole ! Never did humor wear so gentle an aspect. . . . That which constitutes the greatest charm [of ' The Citizen of the World'] is the subdued and chastened satire one occa- sionally meets with. Not a rude and boisterous, a cutting and malicious satire, but such as requires to be read with some attention before the full force of its sly innuendoes is fully per- ceived. " Washington Irving. "Look ye now, for one moment, at the deep and delicate humor of Goldsmith. How at his touch the venial infirmities and vanity of this good Vicar of Wakefield live lovingly be- fore the mind's eye ! How we sympathize with poor Moses in that deep trade of his for the green spectacles ! How all our good wishes for aspiring rusticity thrill for the showman who would let his bear dance only to the genteelest tunes ! " E. P. Whipple. 11 The charm of the strictures of ' The Citizen of the World ' lies wholly in their delicate satire. ... At the same time it must be allowed that the utterance of these strictures through the mouth of a Chinese admits of a certain naivete which, on occasion, heightens the sarcasm. . . . The fine ladies and gentlemen who lived in that atmosphere of scandal and intrigue and gambling are also from time to time treated to a little decorous and respectful raillery." William Black. " With his comic sagacity and his genial perception of the ludicrous, no writer can give more amusing pictures than he does of sordid follies. . . . He drew human nature as he found it, with the freedom of a satirist, bat never with the coldness of a cynic." H. Giles. GOLDSMITH 219 "Such of his juvenile letters as have been preserved show that he possessed at an early age that charm of style and fe- licity of humorous description that afterward delighted the world. . . . His criticisms on the reigning modes of the time show wonderful powers of humor and gentle satire." H. J. Nicoll. ILLUSTRATIONS. " I had scarcely taken orders a year before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and chose my wife as she did her wed- ding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but for such qualities as would wear well. To do her justice, she was a good-natured, notable woman ; and as for breeding, there were few country ladies who could show more. She could read any English book without much spelling ; but for pickling, preserving, and cook- ery, none could excel her." Vicar of Wakefield. "I even went a step beyond Whiston in displaying my prin- ciples : as he had engraven on his wife's tomb that she was the only wife of William Whiston, so I wrote a similar epitaph for my wife, though still living, in which I extolled her prudence, economy, and obedience till death ; and having got it copied fair, with an elegant frame, it was placed over the chimney-piece, where it answered several useful purposes. It admonished my wife of her duty to me and my fidelity to her ; it inspired her with a passion for fame, and constantly put her in mind of her end." Vicar of Wakffield. " My wife and daughters happening to return a visit to neigh- bors, found that the family had lately got their pictures drawn by a limner, who travelled the country, and took likenesses for fif- teen shillings the head. As this family and ours had long a sort of rivalry in point of taste, our spirit took the alarm at this stolen march upon us, and notwithstanding all I could say, and I said much, it was resolved we should have our pictures done too. Having, therefore, engaged the limner (for what could I do?) our next deliberation was, to show the superiority of our tastes in the attitudes. As for our neighbor's family, there were seven of them, and they were drawn with seven oranges, a thing quite out of taste, no variety in life, no composition in the world. We de- sired to have something in a brighter style, and after many de- 22O GOLDSMITH bates, at length came to an unanimous resolution of being drawn together in one large historical family piece. This would be cheaper, since one frame should serve for all, and it would be in- finitely more genteel ; for all families of any taste were drawn in the same manner. As we did not immediately recollect an his- torical subject to hit us, we were contented each with being drawn as independent historical figures. My wife desired to be represented as Venus, and the painter was desired not to be too frugal of his diamonds in her stomacher and hair. Her two little ones were to be as Cupids by her side, while I, in my gown and band, was to present her with my books on the Whistonian con- troversy. Olivia would be drawn as an Amazon sitting upon a bank of flowers, dressed in a green Joseph, richly laced with gold, and a whip in her hand. Sophia was to be a shepherdess, with as many sheep as the painter could put in for nothing ; and Moses was to be dressed out with a hat and white feather." Vicar of Wakefield. 5. Power of Portraiture Fidelity. "They [the ' Chinese Letters '] contain many descriptions of character, which, if surpassed by himself, were surpassed by no other writer of the time." Leslie Stephen. " There is as much human nature in the character of the Vicar alone as would have furnished any fifty of the novels of that day or of this. Who has not been charmed by his sly and quaint humor, by his moral dignity and simple vanities, even by the little secrets he reveals to us of his paternal rule? It is of little consequence whether we say that Au- burn is an English village or insist that it is only Lissoy ideal- ized, as long as the thing is true in itself. And we know that this is true : it is not that one sees the place as a picture, but that one seems to be breathing its very atmosphere and listen- ing to the various cries that thrill the ' hollow silence.' . . . Again and again there are recurrent strokes of such vividness and naturalness that we yield altogether to the necromancer. Look at this perfect picture of human emotion and outside nature put in a,. few sentences. The old clergyman, after be- GOLDSMITH 221 ing in search of his daughter, has found her, and is now hav- ing left her in an inn returning to his family and his home. ' As I walked but slowly, the night waned apace. The labor- ers of the day were all retired to rest ; the lights were out in every cottage ; no sounds were heard but of the shrilling cock and the deep-mouthed watch-dog at hollow distance. ' What more perfect description of the stillness of night was ever given ? "William Black. " Within a small compass he drew with a singularly easy and vigorous pencil the characters of nine or ten of his inti- mate associates." Macaulay. " His talent for fresh and vivid delineation is ever most prominently displayed when he is describing what he actually witnessed." Bayard Tuckerman. " Few works exhibit a nicer perception or more delicate delineation of life and manners [than ' The Citizen of the World '], . . . and English characteristics in endless variety are hit off with the pencil of a master. . . . Fic- tion, in poetry, is not the reverse of truth, but her soft and enchanted resemblance ; and this ideal beauty of nature has been seldom united with so much sober fidelity as in the groups and scenery of ' The Deserted Village.' " Thomas Campbell. " The elements of the Vicar's character are certainly very common. We recognize an old acquaintance, and no study or ingenuity can make him anything else than what he ap- pears to plain men at the first reading. It is needless to add that, in spite of this, or in consequence of it, it is known all over the world as a master-work of genius. . . . He shows the irksomeness of the company of fools in his sketches of that matchless compound of superficiality, pretension, tawdriness, and self-content, the little second-rate beau, Mr. Tibbs." W. E. Channing. " There is a strong personal resemblance in all his charac- ters ; they are portraits of himself drawn with the features 222 GOLDSMITH widened into broad humor or elongated into saturnine wisdom. His Beau Tibbs seems to have been created by looking at and magnifying some of his own foibles ; his Dr. Primrose by drawing forth those grave and kindly feelings which, not- withstanding those foibles, lay, he knew, at the bottom of his heart. ' ' Washington Irving. ILLUSTRATIONS. "At a small distance from the house my predecessor had made a seat, overshadowed by a hedge of hawthorne and honeysuckle. There, when the weather was fine and our labor soon finished, we usually sat together, to enjoy an extensive landscape in the calm of the evening. There too we drank tea, which was now become an occasional banquet, and as we had it but seldom it diffused a new joy, the preparations for it being made with no small share of bustle and ceremony. On these occasions our two little ones always read to us, and they were regularly served after we were done. Sometimes to give variety to our amusements the girls sang to the guitar, and while they thus formed a little concert, my wife and I would stroll down the sloping field, that was embellished with blue-bells and century, talk of our children with rapture, and enjoy the breeze that wafted both health and harmony." Vicar of Wakefield. "During the reply I had the opportunity of observing the appearance of our new companion ; his hat was pinched up with peculiar smartness ; his looks were pale, thin and sharp ; round his neck he wore a broad black ribbon and in his bosom a buckle studded with glass ; his coat was trimmed with tarnished twist ; he wore by his side a sword with a black hilt ; and his stockings of silk, though newly washed, were grown yellow with long ser- vice." A Citizen of the World. " Our little habitation was situated at the foot of a sloping hill, sheltered with a beautiful underwood behind and a prattling riv- er before ; on one side a meadow, on the other a green. My farm consisted of about twenty acres of excellent land, I having given a hundred pounds for my predecessor's good-will. Noth- ing could exceed the neatness of my little enclosures ; the elms and hedge-rows appearing with inexpressible beauty. There were three other apartments, one for my wife and me, another GOLDSMITH 223 for our two daughters, within our own, and the third, with two oeds, for the rest of the children." Vicar of Wakefield. 6. Delicate Pathos. " Goldsmith is a master of pathos, exquisite of its kind. It is the pathos intimately allied to hu- mor and touching upon the tears that lie nearest to our smiles. The humor that draws tears, and the pathos that provokes smiles, will be popular to the end of the world." Bulwer-Lytton. "The very first line of the poem [' The Traveller'] strikes a key-note there is in it a pathetic thrill of distance and re- gret and longing. . . . The genuine and tender pathos [of his works] never at any time verges on the affected or theatrical. ' ' William Black. " He can be commended for the elegance of his imagery, the depth of his pathos, and the flow of his numbers. He is uniformly tender and impressive, but rarely sublime. Of the entire poem [' The Deserted Village '] it may be deliberately said that it has more tenderness and pathos, gives more of picture to the eye and of feeling to the heart, than any other in the language which is written in the same verse or metre." Washington Irving. " There is true pathos in that tender lament [' The Deserted Village '] over the superseded sports and ruined haunts of rus- tic enjoyment, which never fails to find a response in every feeling breast. It is an elaborate and touching epitaph, writ- ten in the cemetery of the world over what is dear to all hu- manity. " Bayard Tuckerman. " His poems and his novel contain some of the very finest touches of pathos. ' ' Minto. "That unfeigned compassion for the miseries of his kind with which he walked the London streets." Austin Dobson. ILLUSTRATIONS. " The old man's passion for confinement is similar to that we all have for life. V r e are habituated to the prison, we look 224 GOLDSMITH round with discontent, are displeased with the abode, and yet the length of our captivity only increases our fondness for the cell. The trees we have planted, the houses we have built, or the posterity we have begotten, all serve to bind us closer to earth, and embitter our parting." A Citizen of the World. "Then let us take comfort now, for we shall soon be at our journey's end ; we shall soon lay down the heavy burthen laid by Heaven upon us ; and though death, the only friend of the wretched, for a little while mocks the weary traveller with the view, and like the horizon still flies before him, yet the time will certainly and shortly come when we shall cease from our toil ; when the luxuriant great ones of the world shal) no more tread us to the earth." Vicar of Wakefield. " But who are these who make the streets their couch, and find a short repose from wretchedness at the doors of the opu- lent ? These are strangers, wanderers, and orphans, whose cir- cumstances are too humble to expect redress, and whose dis- tresses are too great even for pity. Their wretchedness excites rather horror than pity. Some are without the covering even of rags and others emaciated with disease : the world has disclaimed them ; society turns its back upon their distress, and has given them up to nakedness and hunger." A City Night Piece, " Life at the greatest and best is but a forward child, that must be humoured and coaxed a little till it falls asleep, and then all the care is over." The Good-Natured Man. 7. Cheerfulness Optimism. "He had a constitu- tional gayety of heart, an elastic hilarity and, as he himself expresses it, ' a knack of hoping ' which knack could not be bought with Ormus and with Ind nor lured for a day with the peacock-throne of Delhi." De Quinccy. " The cheerfulness which shines like sunlight through Gold- smith's writings did not altogether desert him even in the most trying hours of his wayward and troubled career. He had, with all his sensitiveness, a fine, happy-go-lucky disposi- tion ; was ready for a frolic when he had a guinea and when he had none, and could turn a sentence on the humorous side of starvation. ' ' William Black. GOLDSMITH 22 " His constant cheerfulness under all circumstances was the wonderful thing about him. . . . He lived in the sun- shine." George Dawson. " Not in those graces of style nor in that homely, cherished gallery of familiar faces can the secret of its [Goldsmith's style's] extraordinary fascination be said to consist. It lies nearer the heart a something which has found its way there ; which, while it amused, has made us happier; which, gently interweaving itself with our habits of thought, has increased our good humor and charity ; which, insensibly it may be, has corrected wilful impatiences of temper and made the world's daily accidents easier and kinder to us all ; somewhat thus should be expressed, I think, the charm of ' The Vicar of Wakefield.' "John Forster. " The artless benevolence that beams throughout his works ; the whimsical yet amiable views of human life and human nature ; the enforced humor, blending so happily with good feeling and good sense, and singularly dashed at times with a pleasing melancholy ; even the very nature of his mellow and flowing and softly tinted style all seem to bespeak his moral as well as his intellectual qualities, and make us love the man at the same time that we admire the author. . . . [His writings] put us in good humor with ourselves and with the world, and in so doing they make us happier and better men." Washington Irving. ILLUSTRATIONS. " All that the wisdom of the proud can teach is to be stubborn or sullen under misfortunes. The Cardinal's example will in- struct us to be merry in circumstances of the highest affliction. It matters not whether our good humour be construed by others into insensibility or even idiotism ; it is happiness to ourselves, and none but a fool would measure his satisfaction by what the world thinks of it ; for my own part, I never pass by one of our prisons for debt that I do not envy that felicity which is still go- 226 GOLDSMITH ing forward among those people who forget the cares of the world by being shut out from its ambition." Essays. " As for my misfortunes, master, I can't pretend to have gone through any more than other folks ; for, except the loss of my limb and my being obliged to beg, I don't know any reason, thank heaven, that I have to complain. There is Bill Thibbs, of our regiment, he has lost both his legs, and an eye to boot, but, thank heaven, it is not so bad with me yet." Essays. " ' There again you are wrong, my dear,' cried I, 'for though they be copper, we will keep them b,y us, for copper spectacles, you know, are better than nothing. . . . But let us have one bottle more, Deborah, my life, and Moses, give us a good song. What thanks do we not owe to heaven for thus bestowing tran- quillity, health, and competence ! I think myself happier now than the greatest monarch upon earth. He has no such fireside, no such pleasant faces about it. Yes, Deborah, we are now growing old ; but the evening of our life is likely to be happy. We are descended from ancestors that know no stain, and we shall leave a good and virtuous race of children behind. While we live they will be our support and our pleasure here, and when we die they will transmit our honour untainted to posterity. Come, my son, we wait for a song, let us have a chorus.' " Vicar of Wakefield. 8. Wit Comical Extravagance. " Goldsmith sur- passes all our humorists in the combination of delicate wit with extravagant fun. His fancy was of the lightest and airiest order, and his volatile spirit was easily warmed to the boiling-point of comical extravagance." Minto. " Fashions in dramatic literature may come and go ; but the wholesome, good-natured fun of ' She Stoops to Conquer ' is as capable of producing a hearty laugh now as when it first saw the light in Covent Garden. . . . Whenever the entertainer [Goldsmith] thin-ks he is becoming dull [in his essays] he suddenly tells a quaint little story, and walks off amid the laughter he knows he has produced." William Black. "His comic writing is of the class which is perhaps as GOLDSMITH 22J much preferred to that of a staider sort by people in general as it is by the writer of these pages comedy, running wit, farce. . . . It is that of the prince of comic writers, M ol i ere. " Leigh Hunt. " There is altogether ... an exuberant heartiness and breadth of genial humor in the comedy [' She Stoops to Conquer '] which seems of right to overflow into Tony Lump- kin. He may be farcical, as such lumpish, roaring, un- couth animal spirits have a right to be ; but who would abate a bit of Cousin Tony, stupid and cunning as he is ; impu- dent yet sheepish, with his loutish love of low company and his young squire sense of his ' fortin ? ' There is never any misgiving about Goldsmith's fun and enjoyment. It is not obtained at the expense of any better thing. . . . Whether it be enjoyment or mischief going on in one of Goldsmith's comedies, the predominant impression is hearty, jovial, and sincere." -John Forster. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Ah, there was merit neglected for you ! and so true a friend ! We loved each other for thirty years, and yet he never asked me to lend him a single farthing." The Good- Natured Man. " Mixing with the crowd, I was now conducted to the hall where the magistrates are chosen ; but what tongue can describe this scene of confusion ! the whole crowd seemed equally in- spired with anger, jealousy, politics, patriotism, and punch." A Citizen of the World. " It is a proverb in China, that a European suffers not even his spittle to be lost ; the maxim, however, is not sufficiently strong, since they sell even their lies to great advantage. Every nation drives a considerable trade in this commodity with their neighbours." A Citizen of the World. " ' Nay, don't talk ill of my master, madam. I won't bear to hear anybody talk ill of him but myself." The Good-Natured Man. "You must know, then, that I am very well descended ; my ancestors have made some noise in the world ; for my mother 228 GOLDSMITH cried oysters and my father beat a drum : I am told we have even had some trumpeters in our family. Many a nobleman cannot show so respectable a genealogy." Adventures of a Strolling Piper. 9. Concise Diction Nice Choice of Words. " His artless words were, each one, delicately chosen ; his simple constructions were studiously sought. ' ' Edward Dowden. " Any young writer who may imagine that the power of clear and concise literary expression comes by nature, cannot do better than study, in Mr. Cunningham's big collection of Goldsmith's writings, the continual and minute alterations which the author considered necessary even after the first edi- tion sometimes when the second and third editions had been published. Many of these, especially in the poetical works, were merely improvements in sound, as suggested by a singularly sensitive ear. . . . But the majority of the omissions and corrections were prompted by a careful taste, which abhorred everything redundant or slovenly. The English people are very fond of good English ; and thus it is that couplets from ' The Traveller ' and ' The Deserted Village ' have come into the common stock of our language, and that sometimes not so much on account of the ideas they convey as through their singular precision of epithet and musical sound." William Black. " He was a great, perhaps an unequalled master, of the arts of selection and condensation. ... In general, nothing is less attractive than an epitome ; but the epitomes of Goldsmith, even when not concise, are always amusing." -Macaulay. " A man who had the art of being minute without tedious- ness and general without confusion ; whose language was co- pious without exuberance, exact without constraint, and easy without weakness. " Samuel Johnson. GOLDSMITH 229 " What he aimed to do, and what he succeeded in doing, was to give a clear, concise, and readable account of his sub- ject."^./. Nicoll. " They ['The Traveller ' and ' The Deserted Village '] are cabinets of exquisite workmanship, which will outlast hundreds of oracular shrines of oak ill put together." Leigh Hunt. " The language of his prose works in general is admitted to be a model of perfection." Washington Irring. " ' The style is the man,' " says a French authority; at all events, the style is the writer. But where, in this irregular course of study where, in his college associations or his vil- lage festivities did this man, with his rustic manners and Irish brogue, pick up a style so pure, so delicate ? " Bulwer- Lyttcn. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Let me no longer waste the night over the page of antiquity or the sallies of contemporary genius, but pursue the solitary walk, where vanity, ever changing, but a few hours past walked before me ; where she kept up the pageant, and now, like a froward child, seems hushed with her own importunities." A Citizen of the World. " But times are altered ; trade's unfeeling train Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain ; Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose, Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose ; And every want to luxury allied, And every pang that folly pays to pride." The Deserted Village. ' ' They please, are pleased, they give to get esteem, Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem," The Traveller. 10. High Moral Tone." It ['The Vicar of Wakefield'] has the advantage that it is quite moral nay, in a pure sense Christian represents the reward of good will and persever- 230 GOLDSMITH ance in the right, strengthens an unconditional confidence in God, and attests the final triumph of good over evil ; and all this without a trace of cant or pedantry. . . . And in the end these are the thoughts and feelings which have re- claimed us from all the errors of life." Goethe. " He is a friend ofvirtue, and in his most playful pages never forgets what is due to it. A gentleness, delicacy, and purity of feeling distinguishes whatever he wrote, and bears a correspondence to the generosity of a disposition which knew no bounds but his last guinea. . . . He wrote to exalt virtue and expose vice ; and he accomplished his task in a manner which raises him to the highest rank among British authors." Sir Walter Scott. " His ' Vicar of Wakefield ' and his pictures of the village pastor present religion under its most endearing forms, and with a feeling that could only flow from the deep convictions of the heart. . . . Few productions of the kind afford greater amusement in the perusal [than does ' The Vicar of Wakefield '], and still fewer inculcate more impressive lessons of morality. Though wit and humor abound in every page, yet in the whole volume there is not one thought injurious in its tendency nor one sentiment that can offend the chastest ear. Its language is what ' angels might have heard and vir- gins told.' ' Washington Irving. "Its [' Vicar of Wakefield's '] sweet humanity, its simplic- ity, its wisdom and its common sense its happy mingling of character and Christianity, will keep it sweet long after more ambitious and in many respects abler works have found their level with the great democracy of the forgotten." Austin Dobson. " Protestant and English virtue has not a more approved and amiable exemplar. Religious, affectionate, rational, the Vicar unites predilections which seemed irreconcilable." Taine. "He had the happy art of being virtuous in his books, GOLDSMITH 231 though not altogether virtuous out of them. He had two sides: the under side, his life; the upper side the golden, glorious, beautiful side his works. He gave good advice in consequence of never having taken it. ... By his faults, his follies, his genius, his fooleries, his blunders, his mistakes, and his nonsenses, he learned, even as a preacher would learn, to preach well on virtue because of his acquaintance with vice. Goldsmith was a prince of moralists, a king of max- ims, a master of apothegms, lord of proverbs. . . . He had a disinclination for the clerical profession [for which he had been educated] he said he was not good enough for it. Deep down below all his nonsense there was a heart of goodness which made him shrink back in this case." George Daw son. " Its [' Vicar of Wakefield's '] perfect purity of tone afforded a pleasing contrast to most of the works of fiction that had preceded it." H. J. Nicoll. " Good predominant over evil is briefly the purpose and moral of the little story [' Vicar of Wakefield ']. It is designed to show us that patience in suffering, that persevering reliance on the providence of God, that quiet labor, cheerful endeavor, and an indulgent forgiveness of the faults and infirmities of others, are the easy and certain means of pleasure in this world and of turning pain to noble uses. It is designed to show us that the heroism and self-denial needed for the duties of life are not of the superhuman sort ; that they may coexist with many follies, with some simple weaknesses, with many harm- less vanities ; and that, in the improvement of mankind, near and remote, in its progress through worldly content to final happiness, the humblest of men have their places assigned them and their parts allotted them to play." John Forster. " His talents were sacredly devoted to the cause of virtue and humanity. No malignant satire ever came from his pen." Bayard Tuckerman. "His chaste pathos makes him an insinuating moralist. 232 GOLDSMITH His quiet enthusiasm leads the affections to humble things without a vulgar association." Thomas Campbell. " He is so remarkably free from the coarseness and ribaldry which were more than tolerated in some of the ablest writers of his time that it seems as if he could not have lived in the midst of licentiousness and known how much the public taste would endure. . . . When we come to think over the matter and find scenes, reflections, feelings, whole passages and simple sayings, not merely remembered but so wrought into the mind that they are a part of itself rather than its furniture, and that our tempers have been softened by them, our char- acters and sentiments moulded, and our happiness increased, we own that some power, deep as any philosophy, has been operating without our knowledge to produce effects like these, and that, while reading, we little thought of the mild, tender, yet clear light which made the images at once distinct and lovely." W. E. Channing. " How comes it that in all the miry paths of life that he had trod no speck ever sullied the robe of his modest and graceful muse ? How, amidst all that love for inferior company, which never to the last forsook him, did he keep his genius so free from every touch of vulgarity ? What style in the English language is more thoroughly elegant and high-bred more impressed with the stamp of a gentleman its ease so polished, its dignity so sweet ? " Bulwer-Lytton, " In an age when drunkenness was fashionable, he was not a drinker; in an age which appears to me strangely coarse in language and corrupt in morals the only immorality of which Goldsmith was guilty was gambling, which, in the estimation of his contemporaries, was no immorality at all ; and in his poems there is a striking freedom from the moral blemishes of Sterne and Swift, of Fielding and Smollett. . . . Had he lived to old age it is not likely that he would have pro- duced a nobler poem than ' The Deserted Village.' ' S. M. Towle. GOLDSMITH 233 ILLUSTRATIONS. " O my children, if you could but learn to commune with your own hearts and know what noble company you can make them, you would little regard the elegance and splendor of the worth- less." Vicar of Wakefield. " Heaven, we are assured, is much more pleased to view a repentant sinner than ninety-nine persons who have supported a course of undeviating rectitude : and this is right ; for that single effort, by which we stop short in the down-hill path to per- dition, is of itself a greater exertion of virtue than a hundred acts of justice.": Vicar of Wakefield. " ' Both wit and understanding,' cried I, ' are trifles without integrity ; it is that which gives value to every character. The ignorant peasant, without fault, is greater than the philosopher with many ; for what is genius and courage without a heart ? " An honest man is the noblest work of God ! " . . . Men should be prized not for their exemption from fault, but for the size of the virtues they are possessed of.' " Vicar of Wakefield. II. Mock-heroic Declamation. "Goldsmith some- times assumes a declamatory style, with oratorical interro- gation and answer and paragraphs in the form of a climax. In these declamations there is usually a tincture of mock hero- ism." Minto. "Among the minor writings of Goldsmith there is none more delightful than this [' The Life of Richard Nash '] : the mock-heroic gravity, the half-familiar, contemptuous good nature with which he composes this Funeral March of the Marionette, are extremely whimsical and amusing." William Black. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Does this look like security ? Does this look like confidence ? No, madam ; every moment that shows me your merit only serves to increase my diffidence and confusion." She Stoops to Conquer. 234 GOLDSMITH " This, too, is one of my nephew's tjopeful associates. O van- ity, thou constant deceiver, how do all thy efforts to exalt serve but to sink us ! Thy false colourings, like those employed to heighten beauty, only seem to mend that bloom which they con- tribute to destroy." The Good-Naturcd Man. "Doubt my sincerity, madam? By your dear self I swear; ask the brave if they desire glory ? ask cowards if they court safety ? ask the sick if they long for health ? ask misers if they love money ? " The Good-Natured Man. " Hail, O ye simple, honest Brahmins of the East ! Ye inof- fensive friends of all that were born to happiness as well as you ! You never sought a short-lived pleasure from the miseries of others ! " A Citizen of the World. 12. Unexpected Turn Epigram Antithesis. In his plays and his essays Goldsmith is fond of surprising his reader by giving to the sentence an unexpected turn just at the end. This is of the nature of epigram, and comes perhaps logi- cally under the head of wit, already discussed ; it is so marked a trait, however, that we venture to consider it distinctly. This sudden trip at the close of an otherwise sober sentence " peculiarly suited Goldsmith's gay volatility." " One is kept continually on the alert by the epigrammati- cal turn of his sentences." Knowles. "He was taken with the charm of rhetorical antithesis, and labored to deliver his sayings in an antithetical form."- Minto. ILLUSTRATIONS. "After I had resided at college for seven years my father died and left me his blessing." The Man in Black. " O friendship ! thou fond soother of the human breast, to thee we fly in every calamity ; to thee the wretched seek for succor ; on thee the care-tired son of misery fondly relies ; from thy kind assistance the unfortunate always hopes for relief, and may be ever sure of disappointment." The Man in Black. " I have seen a lady dressed from top to toe in her own manu- GOLDSMITH 235 factures formerly. But nowadays, there's not a thing of their own manufacture about them except their faces." The Good- Matured Man. " Olivia wished for many lovers, Sophia to secure one. Oliv- ia was often affected with too great a desire to please, Sophia even repressed excellence from her fears to offend. The one en- tertained me with her vivacity when I was gay, the other with her sense when I was serious." The Vicar of Wakefield. SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1709-1784 Biographical Outline. Samuel Johnson, born at Lich- field, September 18, 1709; father a bookseller and a man of some standing in church and, political circles; Johnson inherits from his father " a powerful frame and a vile melan- choly ; " he is remarkably precocious ; suffers as a child from scrofula, which disfigures his face and affects the sight of one eye ; is " touched " by Queen Anne; after learning his let- ters at a dame school he enters Lichfield School, where the influence of the brutal head-master, one Hunter, permanently affects Johnson's educational theories ; in the autumn of 1725 he visits an uncle, Cornelius Ford, a clergyman of convivial tastes, who recognizes Johnson's ability, and causes him to be transferred to a school at Stourbridge kept by one Went- worth, whom Johnson is said to have assisted in teaching ; after remaining a year at Stourbridge he returns to his father's house in Lichfield and spends two years in " lounging," but is " immoderately fond " of reading old romances; he reads also widely in other lines, and writes a few verses ; Oc- tober 31, 1728, he enters Pembroke College, Oxford, being at first supported by one Andrew Corbet, " a neighboring gentleman," as a companion to Corbet's son, then at Pem- broke ; a disagreement with Corbet causes Johnson's supplies to be stopped after a time ; he remains at Oxford steadily till December 12, 1729, and is there at intervals till October 8, 1731 ; he despises his tutor's lectures, surprises the college by the extent of his reading, and translates Pope's "Messiah" into Latin verse, which is published in 1731 in an " Oxford Miscellany ; " while at Oxford Johnson is " miserably poor," suffers from hypochondria, and is sometimes proudly insubor- 236 SAMUEL JOHNSON 237 dinate ; he reads Greek and metaphysics in a desultory way, disdains financial aid, and leaves Oxford late in 1729 be- cause of his poverty ; his father, practically bankrupt, dies in December, 1731, leaving Johnson but ,20; after a long search for employment he becomes an usher in Market- Bosworth School, probably early in 1732 ; he is harshly treat- ed by Sir Wolstan Dixie, patron of the school (to whom Johnson acted as chaplain), and leaves the school after a ser- vice of a few months ; he goes to Birmingham and takes lodgings with a Mr. Warren, chief bookseller of Birmingham and publisher of the Birmingham Journal, to which Johnson becomes a contributor ; he translates for the Journal Labo's "Voyage to Abyssinia," and receives five guineas for the work; Johnson returns to Lichfield about 1734 and endeav- ors to obtain subscribers for an edition of Politian's Latin poems, which he proposes to publish ; in July, 1735, ^ e mar " ries a Mrs. Porter, the widow of a Birmingham mercer, a woman two years Johnson's senior and having a daughter (Lucy) by her first husband ; she brings to Johnson about ;8oo and they take a house at Edial, near Lichfield, where, as an advertisement in the Gentleman' 's Magazine announces, " young gentlemen are boarded and taught the Greek and Latin languages by Samuel Johnson;" among his pupils, who never exceeded eight in number, were Garrick and his brother ; Johnson's peculiarities of temper and appearance cause him to fail in two attempts, made about this time, to secure positions in public schools; March 3, 1737, he starts with Garrick for London to seek his fortune, leaving his family in lodgings at Lichfield ; while at Edial Johnson had written three acts of his drama " Irene ; " he finds a patron in Henry Hervey, third son of the Earl of Bristol ; he spends the summer of 1737 at Lichfield and there completes " Irene ; " returns to London with his wife in the autumn, taking lodg- ings for himself and wife in Woodstock Street, Hanover Square, and leaving Lucy Porter with his mother at Lich- 238 SAMUEL JOHNSON field; "Irene" is successively refused by the two principal theatrical managers of the day ; Johnson contributes to the Gentleman's Magazine for March, 1738, a Latin ode en- titled Sylvanus Urban, and soon becomes a regular con- tributor ; he also begins, about 1738, to edit the parliamen- tary debates, first reported by William Guthrie and published by Johnson fictitiously under the title " Doings of the Senate ,of Lilliput ; " Johnson himself writes the debates from July, 1741, to March, 1744, some of them being derived second- hand from actual hearers and others being simply the product of his own imagination ; he afterward told Boswell that he ceased writing the debates because he " would not be acces- sory to the propagation of a falsehood; " in 1738 he pub- lishes his satire "London," imitating Juvenal's Third Sa- tire, and receives ten guineas for the copyright ; it appears on the same day as Pope's " Epilogue," and reaches a second edition within a week ; in 1739 Johnson applies for the prin- cipalship of a school at Appleby, and Pope tries to secure for him the degree of A.M. from Dublin University, the posses- sion of the degree being a necessary condition of appointment at Appleby ; both attempts fail, as does an effort made by Johnson soon afterward to secure permission to practise as an advocate at Doctor's Commons ; he then engages with Cave, the publisher, to make a translation of Father Paul's " His- tory," and receives ^49 is. for work done upon it, but the translation is never completed ; Johnson continues to write for the Gentleman's Magazine; in 1742 he is employed to catalogue the library of Harley, second Earl of Osborne ; the earl treats Johnson insolently, and is promptly knocked down by the impecunious librarian ; little is known of Johnson's life about this time till February, 1744, when he publishes his "Life of Savage," in which he rehearses the hardships and the extreme poverty that he and Savage had suffered to- gether; in 1745 he publishes in pamphlet form certain crit- icisms of Hanmer's edition of Shakespeare, with proposals for SAMUEL JOHNSON 239 a new edition by himself; in 1747 he publishes the plan of his " Dictionary," inscribing the work to Lord Chesterfield ; by his contract with the booksellers, Johnson was to receive ^1,575 for the work ; he employs six amanuenses, and him- self reads and marks all the books used as sources of illustra- tive quotations; while preparing the " Dictionary " he writes "The Vanity of Human Wishes" (published in January, 1749), and receives fifteen guineas for the copyright; in 1749 Garrick, having become manager of the Drury Lane Theatre, brings out Johnson's drama "Irene;" it runs for nine nights, and brings to Johnson ^195 i-js. as royalty, which is supplemented with 100 received for the copyright, but the play is really a failure, and Johnson does not again try dramatic writing ; he publishes the first number of the Rambler, March 20, 1750, and issues it twice a week there- after till March 14, 1752, himself writing practically all the contents; Johnson receives two guineas a paper; the sales rarely exceeded five hundred copies, but the collected edition of one hundred and fifty numbers was popular, and was re- printed ten times during Johnson's life; the Rambler estab- lishes his reputation as a moralist; in 1750 he writes a pro- logue for Milton's " Comus," then performed at Drury Lane for the benefit of Milton's granddaughter ; he loses his wife in 1752, and writes a sermon to be preached at her funeral, which was not preached but was published after Johnson's death ; he contributes to the Adventurer, established by his friend and imitator, Hawkesworth, during 175354; early in 1755, when the "Dictionary" was nearing completion, Johnson writes his famous letter to Lord Chesterfield, reject- ing that nobleman's tardy offer of assistance with the mem- orable words, " I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it, I am lonely and cannot impart it. I am known and do not need it;" late in 1 754 he visits Warton at Oxford and receives (February 20, 1755) the honorary degree of M.A. ; the "Dictionary" appears April 15, 1755, and is at once ac- 240 SAMUEL JOHNSON cepted as a standard authority; from 1749 onward Johnson was connected with various tavern clubs, and formed friend- ships with Langton, Beauclerk, Burney, Goldsmith, Rey- nolds, Burke, and many other prominent men of the time ; between 1752 and 1759 he takes into his home a blind Welsh lady in reduced circumstances named Williams, an impov- erished French waiter named Levett, Mrs. Desmouslins, the daughter of his godfather, a Miss Carmichael, and one Bark- er, a colored servant, educated by Johnson ; all these de- pendents are cared for by Johnson till their deaths; although he had received 100 more than was promised for the " Dic- tionary," Johnson was so poor in 1752 as to be sued for a debt of ^51 3-y. , which was paid by a loan from Richardson ; he publishes the first number of the Idler, April 15, 1758, and issues it weekly thereafter till April 5, 1760; his profits on the collected edition, which appeared in October, 1761, were about ^84; on the death of his mother in January, 1759, in order to raise money for her funeral and other expenses, Johnson wrote " Rasselas," "in the evenings of one week," and received ^1,251 from the first two editions; about this time he gives up his house in Gough Square and takes lodgings at i Inner Temple Lane, where he lives " in indolent pov- erty ; " in 1760-61 he does little except to work on his edi- tion of Shakespeare ; in July, 1762, through the intercession of friends, he receives from George III. a pension of ^300 a year ; he is requested by the ministers to write pamphlets, and is supplied with materials for the same ; among these pamphlets are The False Alarm (1770) and Taxation no Tyranny (1775) ; the pension relieves Johnson from pecun- iary cares, but nearly palsies his pen ; he lies in bed till noon, and declares, " No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money ; " meets Boswell in May, 1763, " and thus became visible to posterity; " during the winter of 1763-64 he unites with Reynolds, Burke, and Goldsmith in forming the famous Turk's Head Club, which had weekly suppers till SAMUEL JOHNSON 241 1772 and then fortnightly suppers till 1783, the membership gradually increasing to thirty members; in 1764 Johnson meets and becomes intimate with the Thrales (Thrale was a wealthy brewer of Streatham), who have great influence on his life thereafter ; for the next twenty years he is practically a member of the Thrale family ; he is recognized as a literary dictator, and receives wide homage ; his conversations are recorded by Boswell, Mrs. Thrale (afterward Mrs. Piozzi), and Madame d'Arblay; in October, 1765, heat last brings out his " Shakespeare," and receives ^475 for the first two editions; in May, 1777, he engages to write prefaces fora proposed collection of the English poets, and names his own price ; the first four volumes of the collection appeared in 1779 and the last four in 1781 ; Johnson received, altogether, four hundred guineas for the work, though the publishers would have given a thousand or fifteen hundred if he had so demanded ; he makes frequent excursions to Lichfield and Oxford and, in the autumn of 1771, visits the Hebrides in company with Boswell; in 1775 Johnson publishes an ac- count of the latter journey ; in company with the Thrales he visits Wales in 1774 and Paris in 1775 ; in 1781, on the death of Thrale, Johnson becomes his executor and receives from him a legacy of 200 ; he suffers much from asthma and gout, and loses his home with Mrs. Thrale on the depart- ure of that lady for an Italian trip under the guidance of the musician Piozzi, whom she afterward married ; Johnson re- turns to his house in Fleet Street; he visits Oxford again, with Boswell, in 1784; he dies at his home December 13, 1784, and is buried in Westminster Abbey ; his property at his death amounted to ^2,300. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON JOHNSON'S STYLE. Stephen, L. , "Hours in a Library." New York, 1894, Putnam, 2: 1-33- Minto, W., "English Prose Literature." Edinburgh, 1886, Blackwood, 417-428. 16 242 SAMUEL JOHNSON Stephen, L., "English Men of Letters." New York, 1879, Harper, 166-195. Hazlitt, W., " Lectures on the English Poets." London, 1884, G. Bell & Sons, 2: 133-141. Waller, J. F., "Johnson and Boswell." London, j88i, Cassell & Co., 1-185. Masson, E. T., "Johnson, his Words and Ways." New York, 18/9, Harper, 1-306. Brougham, Lord Henry, "Works." London, 1846, Chas. Kingsley & Co., 1 : 304-378. Welsh, A. H., "The Development of English Literature." Chicago, 1884, Griggs, 2: 172-178. Murphy, A., "An Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson" (Johnson's Works). New York, 1846, Harper, I : 1-33. Payne, J., "Johnson's Life and Writings." New York, 1855, Harper, 1 : 13-100. Macaulay, T. B., "Essays" (Miscellaneous Works). New York, 1880, Harper, I : 58 1-628 and index. Hunt, T. W., " Representative English Prose." New York, 1887, Arm- strong, 310-333. Craik, G. L., " History of English Literature. " New York, 1869, Scrib- ner, 323-328. Collier, W. F., "History of English Literature." London, 1892, Nel- son, 343-35- Duyckinck, E. A., " Portrait Gallery." New York, 1875, Johnson, Wilson & Co., 2: 5-27. Gosse, E., "History of Eighteenth Century Literature." New York, 1889. Macmillan, 282-295. Stephen, L., "Dictionary of National Biography." New York, 1888, Macmillan, 30: 30-47. Hazlitt, W. C., "Offspring of Thought," etc. London, 1884, Reeves & Co., 47-56. Carlyle, T., " Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. " London, 1847, Chap^ man & Hall, 3 : 18-90. Carlyle, T., "Heroes and Hero Worship." Philadelphia, 1894, Alte- mus, 222-246. Grant, Lieut. -Col. F., "Samuel Johnson." London, 1887, W. Scott, 150-170. Scott, Sir W., "Lives of the Novelists." New York, 1872, Denham, 234-245. Hawthorne, N., "Tales, Sketches," etc. Boston, 1870, Fields, Osgood & Co., 294-306. SAMUEL JOHNSON 243 Birrell, A., " Obiter Dicra." New York, 1887, Scribner, I : III, etc. ; 2: 109-144. Towers, J., "Dr. Samuel Johnson," etc. London, 1886, Dilly, 1-124. Russell, A. P., "Characteristics." Boston, 1893, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 52-74. Masson, D., "British Novelists." Boston, 1892, W. Small, 156-157. Nicoll, H. J., "Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1883, Appleton, 238-251. Taine, H. A., "History of English Literature." New York, 1875, Holt, 2 : 434-443 and v. index. Allibone, A., "Dictionary of Authors." Philadelphia, 1858, Childs & Co., I : 971-983. Bascom, J., " Philosophy of English Literature." New York, 1874, Putnam, 186-208. Buckland, A., "The Story of English Literature." London, 1882, Cas- sell & Co., 442-457. Dawson, G., "Biographical Lectures." London, 1886, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 159-171. Gilfillan, G., "Gallery of Literary Portraits." Edinburgh, 1857, 2: 217-226. Perry, T. S., "English Literature in the Eighteenth Century." New York, 1883, Harper, 403-415. L'Estrange, A. G., " History of English Humor." London, 1878, Hurst & Blackett, 110-113. Page, \V. P., "Johnson's Life and Writings." New York, 1885, Harper, 1 : 13-100. Phillips, M. G., "A Manual of English Literature." New York, 1893, Harper, 2: 23-55. Macaulay, T. B., " Encyclopaedia Britannica." New York, 1881, Scrib- ner, 13: 719-730. Cornhill Magazine, 29 : 280-297 (L. Stephen). Macmillaii'f Magazine, 38: 153-160 (M. Arnold); 57: 190-194(0. B. Hill); 38: 153-160 (M. Arnold). New Monthly Magazine, 103 : 18-27 (Sir Nathaniel). Monthly Review, 6l : I-IO (Bathurst) ; 81-92; 186-191. Linen's Living Age, 144: 259-273^. Dennis); 52: 742-750 (G. D.); 176: 288-292 (G. B. Hill); 45: 221-227 (J- Murray); 138: 86-93 (Matthew Arnold). Harper's Magazine, 82 : 927-932 (Walter Besant). National Magazine, I: 393-402; 2: 206-213 (Courthope). Democratic Review, II : 165-171 (M. Darnlay). Contemporary Review, 55 : 88-99 (G. B. Hill) ; 32 : 707-728 (W. Cyples). 244 SAMUEL JOHNSON Quarterly Review, 46: 1-46. North American Review, 34: 91-119 (Peabody). The Nation, 45 : 296-299 (Lounsbury). Eclectic Magazine, 40 ; 424-427 (Macaulay) ; 34 : 492-500. British Quarterly Review, 70 : 347-372 (J. Dennis). Eclectic Magazine, 34 : 492-500. PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS. I. Latinized Diction. Johnson's diction abounds in sonorous Latin derivatives. He once said of himself that he had used, in a certain work of his, " too big words and too many of them." This quality of his style has been so gener- ally noticed as to give us the permanent adjective Johnsonian or Johnsonese. Carlyle calls it "a wondrous buckram style, . a measured grandiloquence, stepping or rather stalk- ing along in a very solemn way, but a phraseology that al- ways has something in it." Goldsmith once said to Johnson, " Doctor, if you were to write a fable about little fishes, you would make them talk like whales." It is but fair to say, however, that this trait is not found in Johnson's memorable table-talk nor prominently in his later writings. "Johnson's memory for words, and consequent command of language, was amazing. In this respect he stands in the very first rank. One might suppose, from what is usually said concerning the great preponderance of Latin words in his dic- tion, that he failed in command of homelier language ; but this is a mistake. His Rambler is highly Latinized ; but in his Preface to Shakespeare, 1768, we trace the beginning of a homelier style. In his ' Lives of the Poets ' the style is not so Latinized as the average style of the present day. The pro- portion of Latin words is not above half as great as in a leader of the Times. He is often studiously homely, and shows a perfect command of homely diction. . . . Perhaps the most common objection to Johnson's style is that it contains too many heavy words of Latin origin. The objection is just, but there are one or two things which the objectors com- SAMUEL JOHNSON 245 monly overlook. One is that his earlier style is much more Latinized than his later : ... his ' Lives of the Poets ' contains more of the Saxon element than the average style of the present day. Another thing is that his Latin deriv- atives are not of his own coining. . . . Finally, he is much less Latinized than several writers of note both before and after him. . . . Johnson had not the qualifications of a popular expositor. His diction was too Latinized, and he did not sufficiently relieve the dryness of general statements by examples and illustrations." Minto. "It is well known that he made less use than any other eminent writer of those strong plain words, Anglo-Saxon or Norman-French, of which the roots lie in the inmost depths of our language, and that he felt a vicious partiality for terms which, long after our own speech had been fixed, were bor- rowed from the Greek and Latin, and which, therefore, even when lawfully naturalized, must be considered as born aliens, not entitled to rank with the king's English. . . . His conversation appears to have been quite equal to his writings in matter, and far superior to them in manner. When he talked he clothed his wit and his sense in forcible and natural expres- sions. As soon as he took his pen in his hand to write for the public, his style became systematically vicious. All his books are written in a learned language in a language which nobody hears from his mother or his nurse ; in a lan- guage in which nobody ever quarrels or drives bargains or makes love in a language in which nobody ever thinks. It is clear that Johnson himself did not think in the dialect in which he wrote. The expressions which came first to his tongue were simple, energetic, and picturesque. When he wrote for publication, he did his sentences out of English into Johnsonese. His letters from the Hebrides to Mrs. Thrale are the original of that work of which the ' Journey to the Heb- rides ' is the translation, and it is amusing to compare the two versions. 'When we were taken upstairs,' says he in one of 246 SAMUEL JOHNSON his letters, ' a dirty fellow bounced out of the bed on which one of us was to lie. 1 This incident is recorded in the ' Jour- ney ' as follows : '-Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose, started up, at our entrance, a man black as a Cy- clops from the forge.' Sometimes Johnson translated aloud. ' The Rehearsal,' he said, very unjustly, ' has not enough wit to keep it sweet; ' then, after a pause, ' it has not vital- ity enough to preserve it from putrefaction.' ' Mtiiciti/tiy. " What he himself called his habit of using too big words and too many of them was not affectation, but as much the result of special idiosyncrasy as his queer gruntings and twitchings. ... In his letters . . . we see that he could be pithy enough when he chose to descend from his Latinized abstractions to good concrete English, but that is only when he becomes excited." Leslie Stephen. " In childish memories he is too constrained to be associ- ated with dust and dictionaries and those provoking obstacles to boys' reading long words." Augustine Birrell. "This [Johnson's Anglo-Latin element] is one of the first features that impresses the reader as he studies the prose struct- ure and diction, and it becomes more manifest as the perusal goes on. . . . There is a wide-spread antipathy by way of presumption against the Johnsonian style in this regard, so that many even among the educated must confess to an utter ignorance of the pages that they pronounce Latinized. . . . His diction is beyond question a mixed one. The foreign element is prominent enough to call attention to it as foreign and thus to detract from its native simplicity as seen in Swift and Addison. . . . The diction of the Rambler is a dis- tinctively classical diction. It is English in Latin dress. In his antipathy to the French, he favored the Latin unduly. He abhorred all Gallicisms, but in deference to the influence of such authors as Sir Thomas Browne and by reason of his personal classical attainments, he gave undue weight to the idioms of Rome. It is thus that we have such terms as SAMUEL JOHNSON 247 obstreperous, ratiocination and adumbrate in great profu- sion. . . . This Latinic element is not offensively pres- ent in all of his writings. Most of the extreme criticisms offered have been based upon a study of the Rambler. Up to this point, the criticism is just. These essays contain as much of this foreign caste as all his other works combined. The author's style simplified somewhat as he went on. . . . In ' Rasselas ' much of the crude and the burly style of the earlier writings gives place to a genuine pathos, while in the ' Lives of the Poets ' there is a quality of diction and an order of structure that may well be compared to that of any pre- ceding writer. . . . His diction was Latinic, though less and less [so] as his style advanced." T. W. Hunt, ILLUSTRATIONS. *' That affluence and power, advantages extrinsic and adventi- tious and therefore easily separable from those by whom they are possessed, should very often flatter the mind with expectations of felicity which they cannot give, raises no astonishment." Life of Savage. "'Dear Princess,' said Rasselas, 'you fall into the common errors of exaggeratory declamation, by producing, in a familiar disquisition, examples of national calamities and scenes of exten- sive misery, which are found in books rather than in the world.' " Rasselas. " I sit down, in pursuance of my late engagement, to recount the remaining part of the adventures that befel me in my long quest of conjugal felicity, which, though I have not yet been so happy as to obtain it, I have at least endeavored to deserve by unwearied diligence, without suffering from repeated disappoint- ments any abatement of my hope or repression of my activity." The Rambler. 2. Antithesis Balance Point. " His composition is full of antithesis ; he carefully balances the thought, limits it on this side and on that, and exhibits it in various rela- tions. An exact poise of ideas and correspondence of con- 248 SAMUEL JOHNSON siderations accompany him in his composition, whether it be grave or humorous." John Bascom. " Dr. Johnson is . . . . a complete balance-master in the topics of morality. He never encourages hope, but he counteracts it by fear ; he never elicits a truth, but he sug- gests some objection in answer to it. ... The structure of his sentences, which was his own invention, and which has been generally imitated since his time, is a species of rhyming in prose, where one clause answers to another in measure and quantity, like the tagging of syllables at the end of a verse ; the close of the period follows as mechanically as the oscillation of a pendulum ; the sense is balanced with the sound ; each sentence, revolving around its centre of gravity, is contained within itself like a couplet, and each paragraph forms itself into a stanza." Hazlitt. " The structure of the sentences is compact, though they are too elaborately balanced and stuffed with superfluous an- tithesis." Leslie Stephen. " None has more generally mutilated the flowing liberty of conversation and life by antithesis and technical words. . . . His phraseology rolls ever in solemn and majestic peri- ods, in which every substantive marches ceremoniously, ac- companied by its epithet ; grand, pompous words peal forth like an organ ; every proposition is set forth by another prop- osition of equal length ; thought is developed with the com- passed regularity and official splendor of a procession."- Taine. "The often -remarked mannerism of Johnson's sentences . . . consists in the frequent use of the balanced struct- ure. He employs liberally all the arts of balance both in sound and in sense. In ' The Lives of the Poets ' he is much less elaborate and sonorous in his balances than in the Ram- bler. ... In this work [' The Lives of the Poets '] bal- ances are numerous, but, on the whole, it may be said that in these the cadence is more varied, and that we have a greater proportion of curt, short sentences and balances. SAMUE-L JOHNSON Such balances as the following are very common ' If his jests are coarse, his arguments are strong.' From his earliest compositions to his last, Johnson shows a liking for strong antithesis. It is frequently combined with balance. . . . He is particularly fond of antithesis in his succinct expositions of character and style." Minto. "His balanced pomp of antithetic clauses soon had for others, as it had for him, an irresistible charm, and caused a complete revolution, for a time, in English style." A. H. Welsh. "A fondness for balanced periods was its [his diction's] special characteristic. . . . The measured pace, the constant balance of the style becomes quite intolerable." Brougham. "His constant practice of padding out a sentence with useless epithets till it became as stiff as the bust of an exqui- site ; his antithetical forms of expression, constantly employed even where there is no opposition in the ideas expressed ; his big words wasted on little things ; his harsh inversions, so widely different from those graceful and easy inversions which give variety, spirit, and sweetness to the expression of our great old writers all these peculiarities have been imitated by his admirers and parodied by his assailants, till the public has become sick of the subject. . . . Many readers pro- nounced the writer a pompous pedant, who would never use a word of two syllables where it was possible to use a word of six, and who could not make a waiting-woman relate her adventures without balancing a noun with another noun and every epithet with another epithet." Macaulay. ILLUSTRATIONS. " That this general desire may not be frustrated, our schools seem yet to want some book, which may excite curiosity by its variety, encourage diligence by its facility, and reward applica- tion by its usefulness." Preface to the Preceptor. SAMUEL JOHNSON " We are still so much unacquainted with our own state and so unskilful in the pursuit of happiness, that we shudder without danger, complain without grievances, and suffer our quiet to be disturbed and our commerce to be interrupted by an opposition to the government, raised only by interest and supported only by clamour, which yet has so far prevailed upon ignorance and timidity that many favour it as reasonable and many dread it as powerful." The False Alarm. " If the two versions are compared, perhaps the result would be that Dryden leads his reader forward by his general vigor and sprightliness, and Pitt often stops him to contemplate the excellence of a single couplet ; that Dryden's faults are forgotten in the hurry of delight, and that Pitt's beauties are neglected in the languor of a cold and listless perusal ; that Pitt pleases the critics and Dryden the people ; that Pitt is quoted and Dryden read." Lives of the Poets. 3. Fondness for Philosophizing Didacticism Triteness. "Johnson was extremely fond of reducing everything to general principles. Few writers have given us so many moral and literary maxims. Instead of giving ex- pression to the feelings naturally aroused by a sublime or pa- thetic object, he is ' paralyzed by his tendency to moralize. ' Johnson, it must be confessed, rather abuses the moralist's privilege of being commonplace. He descants not unfre- quently upon propositions so trite that even the most earnest enforcement can give them little interest. With all draw- backs, however, the moralizing is the best part of the Ram- bler. . . . What an amazing turn it [the Rambler'} shows for commonplaces ! That life is short, that marriage for mer- cenary motives produces unhappiness, that different men are virtuous in different degrees, that advice is generally ineffect- ual, that adversity has its uses, that fame is liable to suffer from detraction these and a host of other such maxims are of the kind upon which no genius and no depth of feeling can confer a momentary interest. . . . Johnson, it must be said, like most of his contemporaries, considered poetry al- SAMUEL JOHNSON 2$ I most exclusively from the didactic and logical point of view. He always inquires what is the moral of a work of art. John- son, it must be confessed, rather abuses the moralist's privilege of being commonplace. He descants not unfrequently upon propositions so trite that even the most earnest enforcement can give them little interest. With all drawbacks, however, the moralizing is the best part of the Rambler." Leslie Stephen. "On themes of sorrow, as on themes of sublimity, his power to move is paralyzed by his constant tendency to rea- son and moralize. Instead of sympathizing with distress, he seems to ask himself, ' Is distress in these circumstances rea- sonable?' . . . Such is his propensity to moralize that the events in his biographies seem reduced to the importance of so many texts. . . . What he keeps principally in view is the beneficial effect of religious belief on human con- duct, laying down the law in sonorous dogmas. In the presence of objects that raise emotions of sublimity in other men, he was on the watch to lay hold of general rules. In- stead of giving way to the aesthetic influences of the situation, he pondered on the causes or the moral value of them, and meditated dictatorial, high-sounding, general propositions. . . . His ' Rasselas ' is virtually a sermon on the impos- sibility of finding perfect happiness in the world ; one of its professed objects is the benevolent achievement of damping the ardor of youth. . . . Though called the Great Mor- alist, he expounded nothing that could be called an ethical system. He simply applied strong good sense to the common situations of life. His first principles were understood, not stated. Minto. " His truths are too true ; we already know his precepts by heart. We learn from him that life is short and we ought to improve the few moments granted to us ; that a mother ought not to bring up her son as a fop ; that a man ought to repent of his faults, and yet avoid superstition ; that in everything we ought to be active and not hurried." Taine. 252 SAMUEL JOHNSON ' ' Johnson was a prophet to his people ; preached a gospel to them as all like him always do. The highest gospel he preached we may describe as a kind of moral prudence : 4 in a world where much is to be done, and little is to be known,' see how you will doit\ . . . Such gospel Johnson preached and taught coupled, theoretically and practically, with this other great gospel : ' Clear your mind of cant ! ' " Carlyle. " The Rambler is a collection 'of moral essays, or scholas- tic theses, written on set subjects, and of which the individ- ual characters and incidents are merely artificial illustrations, brought in to give a pretended relief to the dryness of didactic discussion. The Rambler is a splendid and imposing com- mon-place book of general topics and rhetorical declamation on the conduct and business of human life. " Hazlitt. 11 ' Rasselas ' is less a novel or a tale than a series of John- sonian reflections strung on a thread of fictitious narrative." David Mas son. " The heik and burnoose of the Eastern prince and philos- opher cannot conceal the old brown coat and worsted stock- ings of the pompous English moralist." Collier. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Contempt is a kind of gangrene, which, if it seizes one part of a character, corrupts all the rest by degrees. Blackmore, being despised as a poet, was in time neglected as a physician ; his practice, which was once invidiously great, forsook him in the latter part of his life." Life of Blackmore. " The life that passes in penury must necessarily pass in ob- scurity. It is impossible to trace Fenton from year to year or to discover what means he used for his support." Life of Fenton. " Truth, such as is necessary to the regulation of life, is always found where it is honestly sought. Change of place is no natural cause of the increase of piety, for it inevitably produces dissipa- tion of mind." Rasselas. SAMUEL JOHNSON 253 4. Independence Sincerity Piety. While these terms express somewhat different ideas, they may be combined to describe one of Johnson's most prominent characteristics. He was a self-appointed literary dictator. He worshipped at no man's shrine, and belonged to no school but his own. He is the most individual writer of his age. To the last, he persisted in speaking his own thoughts in his own way. By his independent force of character, as well as by his abilities, he literally compelled the homage of such men as Goldsmith, Burke, and Reynolds. Carlyle, a kindred spirit, calls him "a mass of genuine manhood, . . . a hard-struggling, weary-hearted man, having in him the element of heart-sin- cerity, and preaching his great gospel, 'Clear your mind of cant ! ' Figure him there with his scrofulous diseases, with his great greedy heart, and unspeakable chaos of thoughts ; stalk- ing mournful as a stranger in this earth, . . . the largest soul that was in all England ; and provision made for it of fourpence-halfpenny a day. ... So much left un- developed in him to the last : in a kindlier element what might he not have been ! " His famous act of scornfully throwing from the window the shoes offered him in charity, while he stood with feet half-frozen in the frosty Oxford hall, gives the key-note to his whole character and career. To quote Carlyle again, this act portrayed " an original man not a sec- ond-hand, borrowing, or begging man. . . . In no wise a clothes-horse or patent digester, but a genuine man." Every- where Johnson manifests his " rooted contempt for whining." His independence appears especially in his literary criticisms. Sometimes, as in his strictures upon Milton's " Lycidas," his judgments are considered outrageously unjust; but, as Stephen says : " If Johnson's blunder in this case implied sheer stupid- ity, one can only say that honest stupidity is a much better thing than clever insincerity or fluent repetition of second- hand dogmas." Whatever other faults Samuel Johnson may have had, he is certainly free from literary servility. 254 SAMUEL JOHNSON " He was so majestic in intellect, so honest in purpose, so kind and pure in heart, so full of humour and reasonable sweet- ness, and yet so trenchant, and at need so grim, that he never sank to the figure-head of a clique, nor ever lost the balance of sympathy with readers of every rank and age. The charm of the book [' Rasselas '] is its humanity, the sweetness and wholesomeness of the long melancholy episodes, the wisdom of the moral reflections and disquisitions." Ed- mund Gosse. , "A noble, heroic nature was that of Samuel Johnson, be- yond all controversy ; not only did his failings lean to virtue's side his very intellectual weakness and prejudices had some- thing in them of strength and greatness ; they were the exu- berance and excess of a rich mind, not the stinted growth of a poor one. There was no touch of meanness in him : rude and awkward enough he was in many points of mere demeanor, but he had the soul of a prince in real generosity, refinement, and elevation. . . . The spirit of his philosophy is never other than manly and high-toned as well as moral." G. L. Craik. " His honesty of heart, his courageous temper, the value he set on things outward and material, might have made him a king among kings. . . . Once for all, [he] could not and would not believe, much less speak and act, a falsehood : the form of sound words, which he held fast, must have a meaning in it. Here lay the difficulty: to behold a preten- tious mixture of truth and falsehood, and feel that he must fight them ; yet to love and defend only the true. ... It does not appear that at any time Johnson was what we call irreligious : but in sorrows and isolation, when hope died away, and only a long vista of suffering and toil lay before him to the end, then first did religion shine forth in its meek, ever- lasting clearness ; even as the stars do in black night, which in the daytime and dusk were hidden in inferior lights. How Samuel Johnson, in the ear of Voltaire, can purify and SAMUEL JOHNSON 255 fortify his soul, and have real communion with the highest, . . . this too stands all unfolded in his biography, and is among the most touching and memorable things there. . . . Johnson's religion was the light of life to him ; without it his heart was all sick, dark, and had no guidance left. . . Such was Johnson's life : the victorious battle of a free, true man. ... In spite of all practical shortcomings, no one that sees into the significance of Johnson will say that his prime object was not truth. ... In his writings them- selves are errors enough, crabbed prepossessions enough ; yet these also of a quite extraneous and accidental nature, no- where a wilful shutting of the eyes to truth. . . . Quite spotless ... is Johnson's love of truth, if we look at it as expressed in practice, as what we have named honesty of action. . . . The life of this man has been, as it were, turned inside out and examined with microscope by friend and foe; yet was there no lie found in him. His doings and writings are not shows but performances ; you may weigh them in the balance, and they will stand weight. Not a line, not a sentence is dishonestly done, is other than it pretends to be. . Motive for writing he had none, as he often said, but money ; and yet he wrote so. ... Mark, too, how little Johnson boasts of his sincerity. He has no suspicion of his being particularly sincere of his being particularly any- thing ! He does not engrave truth on his watch- seal; no, but he stands by truth, speaks by it, works and lives by it. ... He has a basis of sincerity; unrecog- nized, because never questioned or capable of question. . . . He is under the noble necessity of being true. John- son's way of thinking about this world is not mine any more than Mahomet's was; but I recognize the everlasting element of heart-sincerity in both ; and see with pleasure how neither of them remains ineffectual. ... I find in Johnson's books the indisputablest traces of a great intellect and great heart ever welcome, under what obstructions and perver- 256 SAMUEL JOHNSON sions soever. They are sincere words, those of his ; he means things by them." Carlyle. ' ' The love which we feel for Johnson is due to the fact that the pivots upon which his life turned are invariably noble motives, and not mere obedience to customs. . . . How manly the self-respect with which he guarded his dignity, through all the temptations of Grub Street ! . . . John- son speaks with the sincerity of a man drawing upon his own experience. . . . He was no man to be put off with mere phrases in place of opinions or to accept doctrines which were not capable of expressing genuine emotions. . . . He had the rare courage ... to say what he thought as forcibly as he could say it. " Leslie Stephen. "Amidst prejudices and ridicule he has a deep convic- tion, an active faith, a severe moral piety. He is a Christian from his heart and conscience, reason and practice. The thought of God, the fear of the last judgment, engross and re- form him. He said one day to Garrick : ' I'll come no more behind your scenes, David, for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.' He reproaches himself with his indolence, implores God's pardon, is humble, has scruples." Taine. " If, indeed, he had become what he afterward described as one of the lowest of all human beings, a scribbler for a party, he might possibly have obtained a remunerative occu- pation ; but Johnson was too high-spirited to turn his pen to such vile uses." H. J. Nicoll. " His sound critical power and elevated feeling are well ex- emplified in the prologue spoken at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre ; and there is true greatness of spirit in his pro- logue to ' Comus. ' . . . His admirable independence of character is perhaps even better seen in the prologue to ' A Word to the Wise.' . . . Nothing can be better than the dignity with which Johnson, in this address, indirectly reproves them [the audience] for their previous disregard of SAMUEL JOHNSON 257 the laws of humanity, by which all their verdicts ought to be determined . " IV. J. Courthope. "He represents that vast army of electors whom neither canvasser nor caucus has ever yet cajoled or bullied into a polling-booth." Augustine Birrell. " He was full of gentle kindness and humanity, sweet - heartedness, good sense, bounti fulness, and hatred of what was mean and contemptible ; his prejudices and his rudeness must all be overlooked when one but simply glances at the struggles, the greatness, and the goodness of the man." George Daw- son. " He was a type, standing by himself, with wonderful characteristics. . . . It is his works which have been made immortal by him. They live because he lives. His fame is independent of them." Hazlitt. " Human dignity he maintained, ... we all know how well, through the whole long and arduous struggle of his life. ' ' Matthew Arnold. ILLUSTRATIONS. " He has, however, so much kindness for me that he advises me to consult my safety when I talk of corporations. I know not what the most important corporation can do, becoming manhood, by which my safety is endangered. My reputation is safe, for I can prove the fact ; my quiet is safe, for I meant well ; and for any other safety, I am not to be very solicitous." The Writ- ings and Genius of Pope. " To walk with circumspection and steadiness in the right path, at an equal distance between the extremes of error, ought to be the constant endeavour of every reasonable being ; nor can I think those teachers of moral wisdom much to be honoured as benefactors to mankind, who are always enlarging upon the diffi- culties of our duties and providing rather excuses for vice than incentives to virtue." The Rambler. " But I have no design to gratify pride by submission or malice by lamentation ; nor think it reasonable to complain of neglect ' '7 2$8 SAMUEL JOHNSON from those whose regard I never solicited. If I have not been distinguished by the distributors of literary honors, I have seldom descended to the arts by which favor is obtained. I have seen the meteors of fashion rise and fall without any attempt to add a moment to their duration. ... In my papers, no man could look for censures of his enemies or praises of himself." The Rambler. 5. Gravity Pomp Heaviness. In the closing num- ber of the Rambler, Johnson says, '" I have allotted few papers to the idle sports of the imagination." While Addison wrote of fops and fans, Johnson wrote of self-denial, prudence, and the like. His friend, Garrick, called him " a tremendous companion. ' ' This tendency to be " heavy ' ' appears especially when he attempts to express pathos and the other gentler emo- tions. " When he ventures upon such topics," says Stephen, "he flounders dreadfully, and rather reminds us of an artist who should attempt to paint miniatures with a mop." " What most distinguishes Dr. Johnson from other writers," says Hazlitt, " is the pomp and uniformity of his style. All his periods are cast in the same mould, are of the same size and shape. . . . He condescends to the familiar till we are ashamed of our interest in it ; he expands the little till it looks big." Taine calls him "the respectable, the tiresome Dr. Samuel Johnson." "Here and there, the pompous utterance invests them [Johnson's writings] with an unlucky air of absurdity. . To appreciate fairly the strangely cumbrous form of his written speech, we must penetrate more deeply than may at first sight seem necessary beneath the outer rind of this literary Behemoth. . No critic could have divined his power from the clumsy gambols in which he occasionally recreates himself. Nor, indeed, does his pomposity sink to mere verbiage so often as might be supposed. It is by no means easy to translate his ponderous phrases into simple words with- out losing some of their meaning. . . . His written SAMUEL JOHNSON 259 style, however faulty in other respects, is neither slipshod nor ambiguous. . .' . The language might be simpler, but it is not a mere sham aggregation of words. . . . Omit- ting its [the Rambler* s\ clumsy attempts at occasional levity, it maybe granted that in its ponderous sentences lies buried a great mass of strong sense and an impressive and characteris- tic view of life. . . . With all its faults the style has the merit of masculine directness. The inversions are not such as to complicate the construction. As Boswell remarks, he never uses a parenthesis ; and his style, though ponderous and wearisome, is as transparent as the master snipsnap of Macau- lay. . . . His style acquired something of the old elab- oration, though the attempt to conform to the canons of a later age renders the structure disagreeably monotonous. His tendency to pomposity is not relieved by the naivete of spontaneity. . . . We seem to see a man, heavy-eyed, ponderous in his gestures, like some huge mechanism which grinds out a ponderous tissue of verbiage as heavy as it is certainly solid. . . . He is often ponderous and ver- bose, and one feels that the mode of expression is not that which is most congenial; and yet the vigor of thought makes itself felt through rather clumsy modes of utterance. The Rambler had probably a more lasting success than any other imitation of the Spectator, though its rare modern readers will generally consider it as a proof of the amazing appetite of Johnson's public for solid sermonizing. . . . From this time Johnson became accepted as an imposing moralist." Leslie Stephen. " In writing ... his style becomes artificial and ponderous ; the whole process of his intellectual exertion loses much of its elasticity and life. . . . Even [the essays in] his Rambler, which we hold to be the most indigestible of his productions, are none of them mere leather or prunello. The pomposity and inflation of Johnson's compo- sition abated considerably in his own later writing, and, as 26O SAMUEL JOHNSON the cumbering flesh fell off, the nerve and spirit increased ; the most happily executed parts of 4 The Lives of the Poets ' offer almost a contrast to the oppressive rotundity of the Rambler, produced thirty years before." G. L. Craik. 4 ' Both the Rambler and the Idler are now found to be very heavy reading, and it would be idle to deny that a considerable portion of them is little better than sonorous commonplace. . . . It is interesting to compare John- son's ponderous but not uninteresting work [' Journey to the Hebrides '] with the volume in which Boswell . gave such a na'ive and amusing account of the adventures and conversations of himself and his great companion. Johnson has not the lightness of hand and the dexterity of touch which enabled Addison to treat trivial topics gracefully and appropriately, and when he aspires to do so he generally fails lamentably." ff.J. Nicoll. 44 Whatever the work be, tragedy or dictionary, biography or essay, he always writes in the same style. . . . Clas- sical prose attains its perfection in him, as classical poetry in Pope. Art cannot be more finished, or nature more forced. No one has confined ideas in more strait compartments ; none has given stronger relief to dissertation and proof; none has imposed more despotically on story and dialogue the forms of argumentation and violent declamation. ... It is the completion and the excess, the triumph and the tyranny of oratorical style." Taine. " It would be easy to select from Johnson's writings nu- merous passages written in that essentially vicious style to which the name Johnsonese has been cruelly given ; but the searcher could not fail to find many passages guiltless from this charge. The characteristics of Johnson's prose style are colossal good sense, though with a strong sceptical bias, good humour, vigorous language, and a movement from point to point which can only be compared to the measured tread of a well-drilled company of soldiers. " Augustine Birrell. SAMUEL JOHNSON 261 "The Rambler is 'too wordy,' as the author confessed; he tried to be a little lighter in manner in the twenty-nine papers he contributed in 1752 and 1753 to Hawkesworth's Adventurer. ... In these two short compositions [' In- troduction to Dictionary' and ' Letter to Lord Chesterfield '], in each of which the author is singularly moved, his Eng- lish, though always stately and formal, is lifted out of the sesquipedalian affectation of magnificence which has amused the world so much, and which was beyond question a serious fault of Johnson's style. Here, and especially in the ' Letter to Chesterfield,' he is simple, terse, and thrilling, and, as the occasion was a private one, we may take it that in the ex- traordinary fire and pungency of the sentences we have some- thing like a specimen of the marvellous power of conversation which made Johnson the wonder of his age." Edmund Gosse. "In his 'Lives of the Poets' he tried hard to work him- self out of the sonorous grandiloquence of the Rambler. Perhaps the less pompous diction of his later pro- ductions is partly a result of his great practice in conversation. As we have just said, he was conscious of the blemish in his Rambler and endeavored to amend. . . . The Rambler certainly is a very ponderous composition. Reviewing it himself later in life, he shook his head and exclaimed that it was ' too wordy.' The heaviness of Johnson's style does not arise from any abstruseness in the subject-matter. The Ram- bler took up mainly subjects suitable for light reading. The explanation seems to be that his ear was enamoured of a meas- ured, ponderous movement, of a lofty departure from the simple pace of common speech, and that he was not versa- tile enough to adopt any other, even when this was flagrantly unsuitable to the occasion. . . . Johnson's style is sel- dom or never impassioned. He delivers himself with severe majestical dignity and vigorous authoritative brevity. . . . The magisterial air of the Rambler probably awed many into 262 SAMUEL JOHNSON reading him with respect and trying to profit by his doctrine, but the dry, abstract character of the exposition must have made perusal anything but a labor of love." Minto. " When he talked he clothed his wit and his sense in for- cible and natural expressions. As soon as he took his pen in his hand to write for the public, his style became systemati- cally vicious. Macaulay. " His ' Letters from Correspondents,' in particular, are more pompous and unwieldy than 1 what he writes in his own person. . . . The fault of Dr. Johnson's style is that it reduces all things to the same artificial and unmeaning level. In his contributions to the Adventurer, the Doctor uses his stilts less; he walks more perhaps occasionally runs. Yet majestic diction was as natural to a man who thought in rounded periods as was a disjointed chaos of the parts of speech to many of his critics." Hazlitt. "A wondrous buckram style the best he could get to then ; a measured grandiloquence stepping, or rather stalking, along in a very solemn way, grown obsolete now; sometimes a tumid size of phraseology not in proportion to the contents of it all all this you must put up with." Carlyle. ILLUSTRATIONS. " As the last Idler is published in that solemn week which the Christian world has always set apart for the examination of the conscience, the review of life, the extinction of earthly desires, and the renovation of holy purposes, I hope that my readers are already disposed to view every incident with seriousness and im- prove it by meditation." The Idler. " Behold, Flirtilla, at thy feet, a man grown gray in the study of those noble arts by which right and wrong may be confounded, and caprice and appetite instated in uncontrolled command and boundless dominion ! Sjich a casuist may surely engage, with certainty of success, in vindication of an entertainment which in an instant gives confidence to the timorous and kindles ardor in SAMUEL JOHNSON 263 the cold ; an entertainment where the vigilance of jealousy has so often been eluded and the virgin is set free from the necessity of languishing in silence." The Rambler. "It is scarcely possible, in the regularity and composure of the present time, to imagine the tumult of absurdity and clamor of contradiction which perplexed doctrine, disordered practice, and disturbed both public and private quiet in that age where subordination was broken and awe was hissed away ; when any unsettled innovator, who could hatch a half-formed nation, pro- duced it to the public ; when every man might become a preach- er, and almost every preacher could collect a congregation." Life of Butler. " The spirit, volatile and fiery, is the Pope's emblem of vivac- ity and wit ; the acidity of the lemon will very aptly figure pun- gency of raillery and acrimony of censure ; sugar is the natural representative of luscious adulation and gentle complaisance ; and water is the proper hieroglyphic of easy prattle, innocent and tasteless." The Rambler. 6. Melancholy Despondency. All Johnson's writ- ings are tinged with a hue of melancholy. In his best known poem, " The Vanity of Human Wishes," he sounds the key- note of all his works. To him this earth is ever a place " Where wavering man, betrayed by venturous pride To tread the dreary paths without a guide, As treacherous phantoms in the mist delude, Shuns fancied ills or chases airy good." " He had to go about," says Carlyle, "girt with continual hypochondria, physical and spiritual pain like a Hercules with the burning Nessus-shirt on him." The melancholy cast of Johnson's mind appears especially in " Rasselas," com- posed, as it was, in solitude and sorrow. "The melancholy which colors it [the Rambler\ is the melancholy of a noble nature. . . . His melancholy is distinguished from that of feebler men by the strength of the conviction that ' it will do no good to whine.' The evils of life were too deeply seated to be caused or cured 264 SAMUEL JOHNSON by kings or demagogues. . . . His melancholy is not so heavy-eyed and depressing in his talk, for we catch him at moments of excitement ; but it is there, and sometimes breaks out emphatically and unexpectedly. The prospect of death often clouds his mind, and he bursts into tears when he thinks of his past sufferings. . . . Johnson has some- thing in common with the fashionable pessimism of modern times. No sentimentalist of to-day could be more convinced that life is in the main miserable. ,It was his favorite theory, according to Mrs. Thrale, that all human action was prompted by the vacuity of life. Men act solely in the hope of escaping themselves. Evil ... is the positive, and good merely the negative of evil. All desire is at bottom an attempt to escape from pain. . . . He differs from most modern sentimentalists in having the most hearty contempt for useless whining. If he dwells upon human misery, it is because he feels that it is as futile to join with the optimist in ignoring as with the pessimist in howling over the evil. We are in a sad world, full of pain, but we have to make the best of it. Stub- born patience and hard work are the sole remedies, or rather the sole means of temporary escape. Much of the Rambler is occupied with variations upon this theme, and expresses the kind of dogged resolution with which he would have us plod through this weary world. . . . Johnson is impressed by a deep sense of the evils under which humanity suffers, and forcibly rejects the superficial optimism of the day. Men, he tells us over and over, are wretched, and there is no use in de- nying it. ... We are almost appalled by the gloomy strength which sees so forcibly the misery of the world and rejects so unequivocally all the palliatives of sentiment and philosophy." Leslie Stephen. " There is a pathetic air of gloomy melancholy about 1m sonorous reflections on the vanity of human wishes. . f . But though he is said to ' bewail his miseries with eloquence,' his lamentations are not very touching." Minto. SAMUEL JOHNSON 265 " This element [didacticism] was undoubtedly deepened by his natural seriousness of mind, often tinged with melan choly. Had it not been for this inherited despondency, his large nature might have been healthfully tender and his style impassioned. . . . His extreme poverty and strong tendencies to melancholy made it impossible for him to attain to anything like a spacious and healthful view of life." T. W. Hunt. ' ' And so the story [ ' Rasselas ' ] rolls, pathetic and gloomy, like a bit of the Black Sea." David Masson. " Then followed ' The Vanity of Human Wishes,' contain- ing, in dignified and impressive verse, a declaration of John- son's profound and life-long conviction that, upon the whole, the amount of misery in the world is greatly in excess of the amount of happiness. . . . It [ ' Rasselas ' ] is a dis- course 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 contemplated life." H. J. Nicoll. " There appears before us a man with a gloomy and un- polished air, . . . suffering from morbid melancholy since his birth, and moreover a hypochondriac." Taine. " Fits of morbid melancholy often seized him, which, as he says, ' kept him mad half his life.' Penniless, . . . and touched with terrible insanity, the youth stood looking out upon a world that seemed all cold and bare and friendless to his gaze." W. F. Collier. " We see in it [' The Vanity of Human Wishes '] the mel- ancholy that darkened all his view of human existence." W. J. Coiirthope. " He was melancholy almost to madness, ' radically wretch- ed,' indolent, blinded, diseased." Augustine Birrell. " He had king's evil, he was purblind, he inherited the germs of many diseases, and was of a most melancholy tem- perament." George Dawson. 266 SAMUEL JOHNSON "His ' Rasselas ' is the most melancholy and debilitating moral speculation that ever was put forth." Hazlitt. " A deep melancholy took possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his views of human nature and of human destiny. " Macaulay. ILLUSTRATIONS. " When we take the most distant prospect of life, what does it present to us but a chaos of unhappiness, a confused and tumult- uous scene of labor and contest, disappointment and defeat ? If we view past ages in the reflection of history, what do they offer to our meditation but crimes and calamities ? One year is dis- tinguished by a famine, another by an earthquake : kingdoms are made desolate, sometimes by war and sometimes by pesti- lence ; the peace of the world is interrupted at one time by the caprices of a tyrant, at another by the rage of the conqueror. The memory is stored only with vicissitudes of evil ; and the happiness, such as it is, of one part of mankind, is found to arise commonly from sanguinary success, from victories which confer upon them the power not so much of improving life by any new enjoyment as of inflicting misery on others and gratifying their own pride by comparative greatness." The Adventurer. " But as we advance forward into the crowds of life, innumer- able delights solicit our inclinations, and innumerable cares distract our attention ; the time of youth is passed in noisy frol- ics ; manhood is led on from hope to hope and from project to project ; the dissoluteness of pleasure, the inebriation of success, the ardour of expectation, and the vehemence of competition chain down the mind alike to the present scene, nor is it remembered how soon this mist of trifles must be scattered and the bubbles that float upon the rivulet of life be lost forever in the gulf of eternity." The Idler. " 'The Europeans,' answered Imlac, ' are less unhappy than we ; but they are not happy. Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed.' " Rasselas. SAMUEL JOHNSON 267 7. Sturdy Conservatism Intolerance Preju- dice. " For him," says Hazlitt, "' out of the pale of estab- lished authority and received dogmas, all is sceptical, loose, and desultory." His pamphlet Taxation no Tyranny expresses the very essence of British prejudice against the principles involved in the Declaration of Independence. Minto observes that he "could not repress his political leanings even in writing the definitions for his Dictionary," and adds that, " when writ- ing the Parliamentary debates for the Gentleman' s Magazine, he took care that ' the Whig dogs should not have the best of it.' ' He hated dissenters as " honestly " as he hated Whigs, infidels, Frenchmen, and Scotchmen. He once re- marked that, for all he could see, all foreigners were fools. " Conservative in politics and religion, he was called the Hercules of Toryism, and declared that the first Whig was the Devil. He thought Rousseau to be the prince of felons, and could hardly settle the proportion of iniquity between him and Voltaire. . . . He was never able to divest himself entirely of prejudice, and the definitions [in his Dictionary] which betray his personal feelings and peculiarities are amus- ing."^. H. Welsh. " That Johnson, in spite of all drawbacks, adopted the con- servative side ; stationed himself as the unyielding opponent of innovation, resolute to hold fast the form of sound words, could not but increase, in no small measure, the difficulties he had to strive with. ... To resist innovation is easy enough on one condition : that you resist inquiry. This is, and was, the common expedient of your common Conserva- tive ; but this would not do for Johnson. . . . The last in many things, Johnson was the last genuine Tory ; the last of Englishmen who, with strong voice and wholly believing heart, preached the doctrine of standing still ; who, without selfishness or slavishness, reverenced the existing powers ; who had heart-devoutness with heart-hatred of cant 268 SAMUEL JOHNSON was orthodox-religious with his eyes open. . . . John- son's aim was in itself an impossible one: this of stemming the eternal flood of time; of clutching all things and an- choring them down and saying, ' Move not ! ' how could or should it ever have success ? . The essence of origi- nality is not that it be new ; Johnson believed altogether in the old ; he found the old opinions credible for him, fit for him ; and in a right heroic manner lived under them. . He stood by the old formulas ; the happier was it for him that he could so stand ; but in all formulas that he could stand by there needed to be a most genuine substance. . . . From Johnson's strength of affection we deduce many of his pecu- liarities, especially that threatening array of perversions known under the name of 'Johnson's Prejudices.' . . . Those evil-formed prejudices ot his, that Jacobitism, Church-of-Eng- landism, hatred of the Scotch, belief in witches, and such like what were they but ordinary beliefs of well-doing, well-meaning provincial Englishmen of that day? . . . Admire here this other contradiction in the life of Johnson; that, though the most ungovernable and in practice the most independent of men, he must be a Jacobite and worshipper of the Divine Right. . . . Touch his religion, glance at the Church of England, or the Divine Right, and he was upon you ! These things were his symbols of all that was good and precious for men ; his very Ark of the Covenant ; whoso laid hand on them -tore asunder his heart of hearts. Not out of hatred to the opponent but of love to the things opposed did Johnson grow cruel, fiercely contradictory." Carlyle. " His conservatism may be at times obtuse, but it is never of the cynical variety. ... He holds his own belief with so vigorous a grasp that all argumentative devices for loosening it seem to be thrown away. . . . His tenacious conservatism caused him to cling to decaying materials, for the want of anything better, and he has suffered the natural penalty. . . . Nothing, indeed, can be truer than that SAMUEL JOHNSON 269 Johnson cared very little for the new gospel of the rights of man. . . . [To him] the natural equality of man was mere moonshine. So far is this from being true, he says, that not two people can be together for half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other. Subordina- tion is an essential element to human happiness. . . . His hatred of the Americans was complicated by his hatred of slave-owners. . . . The attack upon the Americans is arrogant and offensive. Although Mr. Hill truly points out that Johnson's dislike to America was associated with his righteous hatred of slavery and consequent prejudice against the planters, it is equally true that he states the English claims in the most illiberal and irritating fashion. . . . His massive and keenly logical, but narrow and rigid intel- lect was the servant of strong passions, of prejudices imbibed through early associations, and of the constitutional melan- choly which made him a determined pessimist. . . . His Toryism and high-churchmanship had become part of his nat- ure. . . . Whiggism is vile, according to the Doctor's phrase, because Whiggism is ' a negation of all principle ; ' it is, in his view, not so much the preference of one form to an- other, as an attack upon the vital condition of all government. He called Burke ' a bottomless Whig,' in this sense, implying that Whiggism meant anarchy. . . . This dogged con- servatism has both its value and its grotesque side. Loving authority, and holding one authority to be as good as another, he defended with uncompromising zeal the most pre- posterous and tyrannical measures. The pamphlets against the Wilkesite agitators and the American rebels are little more than a huge rhinoceros snort of contempt against all who are fools enough or wicked enough to promote war and disturb- ance in order to change one form of authority for another." Leslie Stephen. " He was, as a politician, half ice and half fire. On the side of his intellect he was far too apathetic about public 2/O SAMUEL JOHNSON affairs, far too sceptical as to the good or evil tendency of any form of polity. His passions, on the contrary, were violent, even to slaying, against all who leaned to Whiggish prin- ciples. ... In Scotland he thought it his duty to pass months without joining in public worship, solely because the ministers of the kirk had not been ordained by bishops." Macaulay. ' Johnson was a grand conservative; nature and inclina- tion made him so. He was born'a worshipper of govern- ments. . . . Johnson leaned strongly to conservatism, perhaps too strongly ; but it was ever visible in all his actions that he disliked despotism. . . . They [people] imagine that Johnson was entirely composed of wisdom, and that he was nothing but a dictionary of aphorisms. He was no such thing. He was a great hungry man, with hot blood, strong passions, odd ways, queer likings and dislikes, and mountain- ous prejudices. . . . Yet this man a man of gigantic prejudices and strong dislikes, who, if he did not like a man, found it difficult to do him justice took the very work in hand [' Lives of the Poets '] and did it as no other man could have done it." George Dawson. " 'If,' said he, '-I saw a Whig and a Tory drowning, I would first save the Tory : and when I saw he was safe, not till then. I would go and help the Whig ; but the dog should duck first, the dog should duck,' laughing with pleasure at the thought of the Whig's ducking." Cary. " He was a high Tory and a high churchman in all con- troversies respecting the state. The Established Church, the established government, the established order of things in general, found in him an unflinching supporter." Brougham. " He was a strong force of conservation and concentra- tion, in an epoch which by its natural tendencies seemed moving toward expansion and freedom." Matthew Arnold. " I hold Johnson to be the great supporter of the British monarchy and Church during the last age better than whole SAMUEL JOHNSON 2/1 benches of bishops, better than Pitts, Norths, and the great Burke himself. Johnson had the ear of the nation; his im- mense authority reconciled it to loyalty and shamed it out of irreligion. ' ' Thackeray. " All these pamphlets [in The False Alarm] show Johnson's unusual vigor of style, his unbending Toryism, and his utter incapacity to take a candid and impartial view of a political controversy. ' Taxation No Tyranny ' is a very characteristic production. Even George III. could have desired no more strenuous and unreasoning support of the right of Great Britain to tax American colonies." H. J. Nicoll. " His naturally powerful reason was a good deal clouded by various prejudices. He would believe no good either of republican or of infidel. He did injustice to Milton ; he abused Bolingbroke without reading him ; and Boswell men- tions his having uttered about Hume a remark too gross to be committed to paper. He hated and ridiculed the French and the Scotch, and refused to be persuaded that anybody could live happily out of London. In these things, as in many others, he showed gross egotism and want of sympathy. . . . He was the last man in the world to coriciliate opposition, and his strong powers of argument were warped by prejudice. His 'Taxation no Tyranny ' . . . is at once overbearing and sophistical. It might inflame and embitter partisans, but it was too abusive and too unreasonable to make con- verts." Minto. " He had his prejudices and his intolerant feelings ; but he suffered enough in the conflict of his own mind with them. His were not time-serving, heartless, hypercritical prejudices, but deep, inwoven, not to be rooted out but with life and hope prejudices which he found from old habit necessary to his own peace of mind, and thought so to the peace of mankind. . . . They were between himself and his conscience." Hazlitt. 272 SAMUEL JOHNSON ILLUSTRATIONS. " It were a curious but an idle speculation to inquire what ef- fect these dictators of sedition expect from the dispersion of their Letter among us. If they believe their own complaints of hard- ship, and really dread the danger which they describe, they will naturally hope to communicate the same perceptions of their fel- low-subjects. But probably in America, as in other places, the chiefs are incendiaries, that hope to fob in the tumults of a con- flagration and toss brands among a rabble passively combustible. Those who wrote the Address, though they have shown no great extent of profundity of mind, are yet probably wiser than to be- lieve it : but they have been taught by some master of mischief how to put in motion the engine of political electricity ; to attract by the sounds of Liberty and Property, to repel by those of Popery and Slavery, and to give the great stroke by the name of Boston." Taxation no Tyranny. "A few weeks will show whether the government can be shaken by empty noise, and whether the faction which depends upon its influence has not deceived alike the public and itself. That it should have continued until now, is sufficiently shameful. None can indeed wonder that it has been supported by the sec- taries, the natural fomenters of sedition and confederates of the rabble, of whose religion little now remains but hatred of estab- lishments, and who are angry to find separation now only toler- ated which was once rewarded : but every honest man must la- ment that it has been regarded with frigid neutrality by the Tories, who, being long accustomed to signalize their principles by opposition to the court, do not yet consider that they have at last a king [George III.] who knows not the name of party, and who wishes to be the common father of all his people." The False Alarm. " We have found by experience that though ... a bor- ough has been compelled to see its dearest interest in the hands of him whom it did not trust, yet the general state of the nation has continued the same. The sun has risen and the corn has grown and whatever talk has been of the danger of property, yet he that ploughed the field commonly reaped it, and he that built a house was master of the door : the vexation excited by injus- SAMUEL JOHNSON 273 tice suffered, or supposed to be suffered, by any pri%'ate man or single community, was local and temporary ; it neither spread far nor lasted long." The False Alarm. 8. Brusqueness Harshness. Johnson's thirty years' struggle with want combined with his naturally splenetic temper to make him, at times, very harsh and unqualified in his criticisms. " One of his favorite methods of argument," says Grant, " was a flat denial of his opponent's statements, and he considered that treating an adversary with respect was giving him an advantage to which he was not entitled." His own strength mental, moral, and spiritual made him very unsympathetic toward what he considered the weaknesses of his associates. Taine, with characteristic French dislike of such a character, calls Johnson " a bear with the manners of a beadle and the inclinations of a constable." In his humor, as in his satire, he is broad and personal. As Stephen puts it, " He judges by his intuitive aversions." Boswell said of him: " He is through your body in an instant, without any preliminary parade ; he gives a deadly lunge, but cares little for skill of fence." Shaw fairly accounts for this trait in Johnson, saying, "When, weary and lame, he reached the top of the ladder by which he had climbed from poverty and obscurity to competence and fame, he had brought with him the begrimed and offensive manners of his underground life." " We know that he puffed and grunted, and contradicted everybody, reviling as fools and blockheads and barren ras- cals all who dared to differ from his literary highness." W. F. Collier. 11 This element [gravity] at times showed itself in the ex- treme form of rudeness bordering on severity. Mrs. Boswell spoke of him to her husband as a ' bear ' in his manners. Now and then his style had this bearish quality. There is a brusque and harsh tone about it that grates upon the ear. The sage of Lichfield had a good deal of the animal in his 18 2/4 SAMUEL JOHNSON nature, and it often ruled the other elements. When thus exercised he would indulge in the most cruel invective and spare no feelings whatsoever." T. W. Hunt. " He treated those whose opinions had an opposite inclina- tion with little tolerance and no courtesy." Brougham. " There is no arguing with Johnson, for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it." Gold- smith. "If he did not always think what he felt, he always said what he thought." Hazlitt. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Authoresses are seldom famous for clean linen, therefore they cannot make laundresses ; they are rarely skilful at their needle, and cannot mend a soldier's shirt ; they will make bad sutlers, being not much accustomed to eat. I must therefore propose that they shall form a regiment of themselves and garri- son the town which is supposed to be in most danger of a French invasion. They will probably have no enemies to encounter ; but, if they are once shut up together, they will soon disencum- ber the public by tearing out the eyes of one another.'' Employ- ment of Authors. " 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 pasto- ral ; easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting ; whatever images it can supply are long ago exhausted ; and its inherent improbabil- ity always forces dissatisfaction on the mind. . . . It is not to be considered as the effusion of real passion ; for passion runs not after remote allusions and obscure opinions. Passion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, nor calls upon Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells of rough satyrs and ' fauns with cloven heel.' Where there is leisure for fiction there is little grief." Criticism on Milton's Lycidas. "There are so many competitors for the fame of cleanliness that it is not hard to gain information of those that fail from those that desire to excel : I quickly found that Nitella passed SAMUEL JOHNSON 2/5 her time between finery and dirt, and was always in a wrapper, night-cap, and slippers, when she was not decorated for immedi- ate show." The Rambler. 9. Kindness Sympathy. " Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness in his manner ; but no man alive has a more ten. der heart. He has nothing of the bear but his skin." Gold- smith. ' ' He was a humane, warm-hearted man, at least toward cases of distress brought on by no fault of the sufferer ; he opened his house as a retreat for several ' infirm and decayed ' persons. ' ' Minto. " His nature was too tender and too manly to incline to Swift's misanthropy. Men might be wretched, but he would not therefore revile them as filthy Yahoos. . . . This depth of tender feeling was, in fact, the foundation of John- son's character. . . . His emotions were as deep and tender as they were genuine. How sacred was his love for his old and ugly wife ! how warm his sympathy wherever it could be effective ! . . . In his deep capacity for sym- pathy and reverence we recognize some of the elements that go to the making of a poet." Leslie Stephen. " Few men on record have had a more merciful, tenderly affectionate nature than old Samuel. He was called a bear ; . yet within that shaggy exterior of his there beat a heart as warm as a mother's, soft as a little child's. . . . But observe also with what humanity, what openness of love, he can attach himself to all things to a blind old woman, to a Doctor Levett, to a cat ' Hodge.' . . . Where in all England could there have been found another soul so full of pity, a hand so heavenlike bounteous as his? " Carlyle. " It was natural that, though his heart was undoubtedly generous and humane, his demeanor in society should be harsh and despotic. For severe distress he had sympathy, and not only sympathy but munificent relief. . . . He 2/6 SAMUEL JOHNSON would carry home on his shoulders a sick and starving girl from the streets. He turned his house into a place of refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could find no other asylum; nor could all their peevishness and ingratitude weary out his benevolence. But the pangs of wounded vanity seemed to him ridiculous ; and he scarcely felt sufficient com- passion even for the pangs of wounded affection." Macaulay. "Cumberland saw the tender-hearted old man standing beside his friend Garrick's grave, at the foot of Shakespeare's monument, bathed in tears." G. L. Craik. " In his best hours he was not devoid of susceptibility nor incapable of feeling. His profound sympathy for the poor, his affection for his chosen friends, and his indignation against what he felt to be wrong, reveal a sensitive nature." T. W. Hunt. "Johnson had the tenderest heart and the strongest temper the bitterest sarcasm and the gentlest spirit of considera- tion ; the most utter hatred of sin and the most tender mercy toward sinners. . . . But what I chiefly like him for, except his tender-heartedness and his unusual kindness, is his robust nature. . . . Nothing in history is more touching than this man's tenderness." George Daw- son. "Love and sympathy were as necessary to this rough and rugged man as to any sentimental girl. But he gave far more than he received." Walter Besant. " His beautiful lines on Levett's death are still more beauti- ful and touching because they recall a whole history of John- son's goodness, tenderness, and charity." Matthew Arnold. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Dear, Honored Mother. Your weakness afflicts me beyond what I am willing to communicate to you. I do not think you unfit to face death, but I know not how to bear the thought of los- SAMUEL JOHNSON 2/7 ing you. ... I pray often for you ; do you pray for me. . . . I am, dear, dear mother, your dutiful son, Sam John- son." Letters. " One reason why I delayed to write was, my uncertainty how to answer your letter. I like the thought of giving away the money very well ; but when I consider that Tom Johnson is my nearest relative, and that he is now old and in great want ; that he was my playfellow in childhood, and has never done anything to offend me ; I am in doubt whether I ought not rather give it him than any other." Letters. " Chambers, you find, has gone far, and poor Goldsmith is gone much farther. He died of a fever, exasperated, as I be- lieve, by the fear of distress. He had raised money and squan- dered it by every artifice of acquisition and folly of expense. But let not his frailties be remembered : he was a very great man." Letters. 10. Religious Superstition. " That Johnson's relig- ious opinions sometimes took the form of a rather grotesque superstition, may be true; and it is easy enough to ridicule some of its manifestations. He took the creed of his day with- out much examination of the evidence upon which its dogmas rested ; but the writer must be thoughtless indeed who should be more inclined to laugh at his superficial oddities than to admire the reverent spirit and the brave self-respect with which he struggled through a painful life. . . . He looked leniently upon superstitions, such as ghosts and second- sight, which appeared to fall in with his religious beliefs, while his strong sense often made him absurdly sceptical in ordinary matters." Leslie Stephen. " He went himself on a ghost-hunt to Cock Lane, and was angry with John Wesley for not following up another scent of the same kind with proper spirit and perseverance. He has gravely noted down in his diary that he once com- mitted the sin of drinking coffee on Good Friday. . . . But a man who took off his hat when he passed a church episcopally consecrated must be a good man, a pious man, a 278 SAMUEL JOHNSON man of good principles. Johnson could easily see that those persons who looked on a dance or a laced waistcoat as sinful, deemed most ignobly of the attributes of God and the ends of creation. But with what a storm of invective he would have overwhelmed any man who had blamed him for celebrating the redemption of mankind with sugarless tea and butterless buns! " Macaulay. " We can conceive that Johnson, had he lived when augury by tokens was in vogue, would have been a steadfast believer in the flight of crows ; and that, if his lot had been cast in an astrological age, he would have consulted his horoscope before going on a journey or embarking in an enterprise." Hazlitt. ILLUSTRATIONS. " ' That the dead are seen no more,' said Imlac, ' I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testi- mony of all ages and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. . . . That it is doubted by single cavillers can very little weaken the general evidence ; and some who deny it with their tongues confess it by their fears.' " Rasselas. " Methought I was in the midst of a very entertaining set of company, and extremely delighted in attending to a lively con- versation, when on a sudden I perceived one of the most shock- ing figures imagination can frame advancing toward me. She was dressed in black, her skin was contracted into a thousand wrinkles, her eyes deep sunk in her head, and her complexion pale and livid as the countenance of death. Her looks were filled with terror and unrelenting severity, and her hands armed with whips and scorpions. As soon as she came near, with a horrid frown, and a voice that chilled my very blood, she bid me follow her. I obeyed, and she led me through rugged paths, beset with briars and thorns, into a deep, solitary valley. Wherever she passed the fading verdure withered beneath her steps ; her pesti- lential breath infected the air with malignant vapours, obscured the lustre of the sun, and involved the fair face of heaven in uni- versal gloom. Dismal bowlings resounded through the forest, SAMUEL JOHNSON 279 from every baleful tree, the night raven uttered his dreadful note, and the prospect was filled with desolation and horror." The Rambler. " As I sat thus, forming alternatively excuses for delay and resolutions to go forward, an irresistible heaviness suddenly sur- prised me ; I laid my head upon the bank and resigned myself to sleep, when methought I heard the sound as of the flight of eagles and a being of more than human dignity stood before me. While I was deliberating how to address him, he took me by the hand with an air of kindness, and asked me solemnly, but without severity: ' Theodore, whither art thou going ? ' ' I am climbing,' answered I, ' to the top of the mountain, to enjoy a more exten- sive prospect of the works of nature.' ' Attend first,' said he, ' to the prospect which this place affords, and what thou dost not understand I will explain. I am one of the benevolent beings who watch over the children of dust, to preserve them from those evils which will not ultimately terminate in good, and which they do not, by their own faults, bring upon themselves. Look around, therefore, without fear : observe, contemplate, and be instructed.' " The Vision of Theodore. II. Humor. " By way of strange contrast to this quality [gravity] his style is not infrequently marked by the most playful humor. Bos well's biography is full of these outbursts of pleasantry, when, by way of reaction from the inherent gravity of his nature, he would indulge in sallies of wit and repartee. There is just enough of this in his prose to give it flavor and attractiveness. In ' The Lives of the Poets ' this order of style is well presented." T. W. Hunt. " When he is in a pleasant mood his humour is broad and arrogant. The most pleasing form of his humour is when he is humourous at his own expense. . . . Many of the Ram- blers are full of genuine humour, broad and hearty, and of happy strokes of wit." Minto. " When he threw aside his pen, which he regarded as an encumbrance, he became not only learned and thoughtful, but acute, witty, humourous, natural, honest." Hazlitt. 28O SAMUEL JOHNSOlST " His little circle of friends called forth his humour as the House of Commons excited Chatham's eloquence. His queer prejudices take a humourous form, and give a delight- ful zest to his conversation." Leslie Stephen. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Last Saturday I came to Ashbourne Ashbourne in the Peak. Let not the barren name of the Peak terrify you ; I have never wanted strawberries and cream. The great bull has no disease but age. I hope in time to be like the great bull ; and hope you will be like him too a hundred years hence." Dr. Johnson to Mrs, Thrale. " Dear Sir, ... I will not send compliments to my friends by name, because I would be loath to leave any out in the enumeration. Tell them, as you see them, how well I speak of Scotch politeness, and Scotch hospitality, and Scotch beauty, and of everything Scotch, but Scotch oat-cakes and Scotch prej- udices." To James Boswell, Esq. Johnson. " Nay, sir, it was not the wine that made your head ache, but the sense 1 put into it." Bos well. " What, sir ; will sense make the head ache ? " Johnson. " Yes, sir, when it is not used to it." Bosivelts Life of Johnson . 12. Personification of Abstract Nouns. This is a peculiarly Johnsonian characteristic. He continually uses the abstract noun as if it were a person, making it the sub- ject of an active verb, and thus gaining brevity. "To make up what is called ' the Johnsonian manner,' or ' Johnsonese,' we must take not only these striking peculiarities of sentence-structure but certain other peculiarities, especially a peculiar, use of the abstract noun." Minto. " It was not, however, the mere bigness of the words that distinguished his style but a peculiar love of putting the ab- stract for the concrete." Leslie Stephen. SAMUEL JOHNSON 28 I ILLUSTRATIONS. " Luxury, avarice, injustice, violence, and ambition take up their ordinary residence in populous cities ; while the hard and laborious life of the husbandman will not admit of these vices." Thoughts on Agriculture. " I shall therefore lay my case before you, and hope by your decision to be set free from unreasonable restraints and enabled to justify myself against the accusations which spite and peevish- ness produce against me." The Rambler. " To oppose the devastations of Famine, who scattered the ground everywhere with carcasses, Labour came down upon earth. Labour was the son of Necessity, the nurseling of Hope, and the pupil of Art ; he had the strength of his mother, the spirit of his nurse, and the dexterity of his governess." The Rambler. 11 My name is Religion. I am the offspring of Truth and Love and the parent of Benevolence, Hope, and Joy. The monster from whose power I have freed you is called Superstition. She is the child of Discontent and her followers are Fear and Sor- row." The Rambler. BURKE, 1729-1797 Biographical Outline. Edmund Burke, born at Dub- lin about January 12, 1729; father a Protestant attorney, mother a Roman Catholic ; Burke, is reared as a Protestant, but so many of his friends were Catholics that he early learned toleration; in 1741 he enters a school at Ballitore, County Kildare, kept by one Shackleton, a Quaker, with whose son, Richard, he forms and maintains a life-long friendship ; he enters Trinity College, Dublin, in 1743, and remains there till 1748, studying diligently, but not following any systematic course ; he becomes especially familiar with the works of Cicero, whom he takes as " the model on which he labored to form his own character, in eloquence, in policy, in ethics, and in philosophy; " he acquires some knowledge of Greek, and wins a scholarship on examination in 1746 ; he is entered at the Middle Temple, London, in 1747, takes A.B. at Dublin in the spring of 1748, and goes to London to study law in 1750; owing to weak health he does not study se- verely, but spends much time travelling about the Midland counties of England ; little is known of his life between 1752 and 1757 ; he appears to have visited France, to have frequented theatres and debating clubs, and to have met some eminent men, including Garrick, who became his life-long friend ; Burke refuses to enter upon the practice of law, which so angers his father that, in 1755, his paternal allow- ance of ;ioo a year is wholly or partly withdrawn, and he is forced to depend on literature for a livelihood ; he had probably written before that time " Hints for an Essay on the Drama," unpublished till after his death; in 1756 he pub- lishes " A Vindication of Natural Society " and " A Philo- 282 BURKE 283 sophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and the Beautiful," the latter having been begun in 1748; these two books at once give to Burke a high literary reputa- tion, and so please his father that he sends him a present of ^100 ; he takes lodgings (probably first at Bath) with his physician, Dr. Nugent, whose daughter Jane (reared as a Ro- man Catholic) he marries in the winter of 1756-57 ; his wife conforms to his religion, and the marriage proves happy ; in 1757 he publishes " An Account of the European Settlements in America," originally written by his cousin, William Burke, but revised and much modified by Burke ; he writes also, in 1757, his "Abridgment of the History of England;" in 1758 he begins to edit the Annual Register, receiving from the publisher, Dodsley, ^100 a year for his services; he contributes to the Register the "Survey of Events" for several years thereafter ; he resides in Wimpole Street, with his father-in-law, is in straitened financial circum- stances, and seeks in vain from Pitt the office of consul at Madrid; in 1759 he becomes private secretary to W. G. Hamilton ; this position brings Burke to the notice of many men in power, and, in 1761, he becomes secretary to the Earl of Halifax, whom Burke accompanies to Ireland ; while in Ireland he writes reflections on the penal code and also an address to the king in behalf of oppressed Irish Catholics, both papers being published after his death ; he returns to London after a year in Dublin and obtains, through Hamilton, in the spring of 1763, a pension of ^300 a year; he accepts the pension on condition that Hamilton allow him some time for literary work; in May, 1674, on Hamilton's expulsion, Burke returns to live with his father-in-law in Queen Anne Street; in 1762 he joins the Turk's Head Club, where he shines as a conversationalist with Johnson, Garrick, Reynolds, Goldsmith, and others ; he becomes warmly attached to John- son, Garrick, and Reynolds ; Burke refuses to give his whole time to Hamilton's service, and Hamilton breaks off his con- 284 BURKE nection with him, so that Burke loses his pension; he is in poverty for awhile, but seems to have reached a better finan- cial condition by .1765, probably through the speculations of his brother and his cousin ; in July, 1765, he becomes secretary to Lord Rockingham, First Lord of the Treasury ; Burke's en- emies try, unsuccessfully, to deprive him of his position by accusing him of being a Papist, a Jesuit, an Irish adventur- er, etc. ; Rockingham refuses to believe the slanders, becomes Burke's warm friend, and aids him financially, but the false charge of being a Papist was subsequently and frequently made against Burke; he is elected member of Parliament for Wend- over, December 23, 1765, and makes his first speech in Jan- uary, 1766, arguing in favor of receiving the petition from the American Congress ; he soon becomes a leading member of the House, and, according to Johnson, makes " two speeches on the repeal of the Stamp Act which were publicly com- mended by Mr. Pitt and have filled the town with wonder ; " he is greatly admired at first for his commanding eloquence, but he soon loses his power over the House, whose members could not follow his profound thoughts; the conservatives among the Whigs are determined to exclude him from high office, and this tends to sour his naturally high temper and to make him vehement and often undignified ; on the resignation of the Duke of Grafton as one of the Secretaries of State Burke endeavors in vain to secure the vacant office, and declines a proffered seat at the Board of Trade ; on Rockingham's dis- placement in June, 1766, he defends Rockingham's career in a pamphlet called A Short History of a Short Administra- tion ; he visits his relatives in Ireland in the summer of 1766, and on his return refuses overtures made by Chatham with a view to attaching Burke to the administration ; he op- poses Townshend's plan for taxing the American colonies in 1767 ; in the spring of 1768 he buys an estate of six hundred acres in Buckinghamshire, near Beaconsfield, twenty-four miles from London, paying ^6,000 down and borrowing the balance BURKE 285 of ;i 4,000 by mortgaging the estate ; he is supposed to have been aided by his brother, his cousin, and Lord Verney, who were engaged in somewhat reckless speculation at the time ; he borrows a part of the ^6,000 from Garrick, lives extravagant- ly, and is ever afterward in pecuniary straits, especially after the financial crash of 1769, which ruined his cousin and his brother; in 1769 he defends Wilkes, and in 1770 publishes his " Thoughts on the Present Discontents," which serves to regenerate the Whigs by demanding publicity of Parliamen- tary proceedings and an increase in the power of the people ; he also speaks, during the session of 1770, in favor of free speech, a free press, free trade, and freedom from church tithes ; he is virulently attacked by the pamphleteers, and is charged with the authorship of the " Letters of Junius ; " in the autumn of 1771 he is appointed agent for the province of New York at a salary of ^500, and, in the following year, he refuses to act as an agent of the East India Company with a higher salary ; he speaks in favor of religious toleration, in the session of 1773, but is intolerant toward infidels because of a view of French morals and philosophy obtained during a visit to Paris in February, 1773 ; he becomes an ally of Fox in 1774, and for the next eight years they vehemently oppose Lord North's administration ; Burke makes his great speech on American taxation in the spring of 1774, and opposes the bill for closing the port of Boston ; he is elected for Bristol in the succeeding autumn ; in March, 1775, ne protests against restraining the trade of the American colonies, and proposes his famous thirteen resolutions for conciliation, which are defeated; in November, 1776, he makes a final effort for the revision of all the acts aggrieving the colonies, and, after fail- ing, withdraws from Parliament during the discussion of all questions concerning America; he defends his action in "A Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol ; " during the sessions of 1778 and 1779 he labors to abolish wrecking, the use of the pillory, and the employment of Indians in the American war; 286 BURKE he tries in vain to secure the reform of domestic political abuses in the session of 1780, secures some modification of the acts against Irish trade, and advocates the relief of the Scotch Catholics ; he defies the mob in the " no-popery " riots of 1780, but is unharmed ; his efforts toward religious toleration and his defence of Ireland cause the loss of his political influ- ence in Bristol, but he secures a seat for Mai ton, through Rockingham ; in 1781 he again proposes a bill for economical reform, and is supported by William Pitt the Younger ; with the aid of Fox, Burke forces Lord North to resign in the spring of 1782 ; on the accession of the Rockingham Whigs in 1782 Burke is again excluded from the cabinet seat to which he was richly entitled, and is again put off with the paltry office of paymaster of the forces ; he again labors for self-govern- ment in Ireland, and at last carries a large part of his scheme for economical reform ; he receives a salary of ^4,000 as paymaster, and is promised by the government "something considerable for his wife and son ; " by the death of Rock- ingham he loses both his office and the promised "some- thing ; " he endeavors in vain to secure a political sinecure clerkship for his son ; he becomes paymaster again in 1783, and devotes himself to reforms in the government of India ; he meets and greatly admires Frances Burney (Madame d'Arblay), and is elected Lord Rector of Glasgow Univer- sity in 1784 ; his political enemies make his life miserable with slander and obloquy, and he is treated with great dis- respect in the House, though he recovers 100 damages, with costs, in a libel suit against the printer of the Public Advertiser ; he continues his efforts against the maladmin- istration of Hastings in India, and, on February 18, 1785, makes his famous speech on the Nabob of Arcot's debts ; he is re-elected Lord Rector of Glasgow in 1785, and makes a tour of Scotland, astonishing the northern scholars with the universality of his knowledge; in 1786 he is aided by Fox, Francis, Sheridan, and others in his attack on Hastings, and, BURKE 287 on May 10, 1787, he impeaches Hastings at the bar of the House of Lords ; he begins his great speech against Hastings February 15, 1787, and continues speaking during four days, except for a brief interruption due to illness ; he is in finan- cial straits again in 1787, and is aided by a gift of ^1,000 from his friend Dr. Brocklesby ; in November, 1788, when Fox comes into power, he [Fox] declines to aid in securing for Burke the cabinet position that Burke deserved, and arranges to give him, instead, his old office of paymaster, besides a pension of ^2,000, half to go to Burke's son and half to his wife ; Burke's disappointment increases his vehemence and bitterness during 1789, and his enemies renew their false charges of Jesuitism, etc. ; on May 4, 1789, he receives from the House a vote of censure for using violent expressions toward a fellow-member, and many regard him as '' an in- genious madman ; " he aids Wilberforce in 1788-89 in Wil- berforce's efforts to abolish the slave-trade an object for which Burke had begun to work as early as 1780; in the autumn of 1789 he writes his " Reflections on the Revolution in France" as a warning to his more radical countrymen, and publishes it November i, 1790; early in 1790 he be- comes estranged from Fox and Sheridan, who oppose Burke's position on the French Revolution; the " Reflections " pass through eleven editions in their first year, and Burke receives LL.D. from Dublin, after narrowly failing to receive D.C.L. from Oxford; the "Reflections" create a reaction against the French Revolution in England, and divide the country into two parties on the subject, thus doing much to weaken the Whigs ; Burke receives the compliments of foreign sov- ereigns ; he sits for Malton again in 1790, and renews his activity against Hastings ; he publishes " A Letter to a Mem- ber of the National Assembly" early in 1791, and soon af- terward breaks finally with Fox and with the Whig party on the debate over the Quebec Bill; he retires to Margate late in 1791 and publishes his " Appeal from the New to the Old 288 BURKE Whigs " and his " Thoughts on French Affairs; " in January, 1792, he writes his letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, discuss- ing religious toleration in Ireland; in February, 1792, on the death of his friend Reynolds, Burke receives from Rey- nolds a legacy of ^2,000 ; during the session of 1792 he op- poses a motion for Parliamentary reform and one for the re- peal of certain penal statutes as to religious opinions, thus giving color to the charge that he had discarded his life-long views of religious and civil liberty ; though without a party, Burke now becomes " a sort of power of Europe ; " he cor- responds with " Monsieur " (Louis XVIII.), and is regarded as the representative of the French refugees in England ; late in 1792 he advocates war with France, and takes sides with the Conservative ministry; his popularity returns with the declaration of war ; he mourns the loss of Fox's friendship, but declines to make overtures toward a reconciliation ; from May 28 to June 16, 1793, he makes a nine days' speech de- fending his impeachment of Hastings, and on the i9th he receives the thanks of the House ; he retires finally from Parliament in July, 1793: the loss of his son on the 2d of the following August nearly breaks Burke' s heart ; on Au- gust 3oth he is granted a pension of ^1,200 a year ; this was soon increased, and a second pension of ^2,500 was added, which Burke promptly sold to pay his debts ; he lives in re- tirement at Beaconsfield during 1795, but writes his "Re- marks on the Apparent Circumstances of the War" (pub- lished after his death) and " A Letter to a Noble Lord," the latter being a reply to an attack on Burke's pension made by the Duke of Bedford; in 1796 he founds at Penn, near Bea- consfield, a school for ihe sons of French emigrants; he writes and publishes his first two "Letters on a Regicide Peace " during the summer of 1796 ; he is severely ill late in the summer, and Windham, then Secretary of War, writes : "Your life is at this moment of more consequence than that of any [other] man living; " Burke is visited by Wilberforce BURKE 289 and many other eminent men ; he dies at Beaconsfield, July 9, 1797 ; Fox proposes in the House that he be buried at public expense in Westminster Abbey, but, in accordance with Burke's expressed wish, he is buried at Beaconsfield. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON BURKE'S STYLE. Prior, J., "Life of Edmund Burke." London, 1878, G. Bell & Sons, 512-519, etc. Brougham, H., " Statesmen of George III." Edinburgh, 1872, Black, 3: 231-261. Lecky, W. E. H., "England in the Eighteenth Century." New York, 1888, Appleton, 3 : 198-399. McKnight, T. , "The Life and Times of Burke." London, 1860, Chap- man & Hall, 3 : 1-752. Minto, W., "English Prose Literature." Edinburgh, 1886, Blackwood, 440-461. Goodrich, C. A., "British Eloquence." New York, 1853, Harper, 206- 240. De Quincey, T., " Literary Criticism." Boston, 1882, Houghton, Mif- flin & Co., 348-352. Rogers, S., " Recollections." London, 1859, Longmans & Co., 81-89. Craik, G. L., "History of English Literature." New York, 1869, Scribner, 328-353. Hazlitt, W., "Sketches and Essays." London, 1878, G. Bell & Son, 408-426. Morley, J., "English Men of Letters" (Burke). New York, 1879, Harper, 210-229. Knight, C., "Gallery of Portraits." London, 1837, C. Knight, 3: 33- 40. Croly, Geo., "The Political Life of Burke." London, 1840, Black- wood, v. index. Wilberforce, Bishop, "Life of Wilberforce." London, 1860, Black- wood, 57-68. May, Sir T. E., "Constitutional History." London, 1876, Macmillan, I : 492-493- Taine, H. A., "History of English Literature." New York, 1875, Holt, 2 : 309-318 and v. index in 3. Fox, C. J., "Parliamentary History." London, 1815, Reuter Agency, 28 : 363. 19 290 BURKE Stephen, L , "English Thought of the Eighteenth Century." London, 1881, Smith, Elder & Co., 219-252. Macaulay, T. B, "Miscellaneous Works." New York, 1880, Harper, 4: 1 20 and v. index. Buckle, H. T., '"' History of Civilization in England." New York, 1859, Appleton, 326-330. Hunt, T. W., "Representative English Prose." New York, 1887, Armstrong, 334-362. Mclntosh, Sir J., "Miscellaneous. Works. " New York, 1871, Apple- ton, 40-45. Ferris, G. F., "Great Leaders." New York, 1889, Appleton, 369- 378- Payne, E. J., Introduction to "Burke: Select Works." Oxford, 1883, Clarendon Press, XXX.-XLIX. Froude, J. A., "Short Studies." New York, 1877, Scribner, Armstrong &Co. Birrell, A., " Obiter Dicta." New York, 1887, Scribner, 2: 149-196. Gosse, E., "History of the Eighteenth Century Literature." New York, 1889, Macmillan, 365-374. Collier, W. F., " History of English Literature." London, 1892, Nel- son, 375-378. Robertson, J. B., " Lectures on the Life of Burke." Dublin, 1875. Dilke, C. W., "Papers of a Critic." London, 1875, J. Murray, 2: 309-330. Adams, W. H. D., "English Party Leaders." London, 1878, Tinsley Bros., 1 : 261-341. Dulcken, H. W., "Worthies of the World." New York, 1882, Put- nam, 33-58. Nicoll, H. J., "Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1883, Appleton, 256-261. Stephen, L., "Dictionary of National Biography." New York, 1890, Macmillan, 7 : 345-365. Hazlitt, W., "Political Essays." New York, 1889, \Varne & Co., 269, 276, and 361-377. Phillips, M. G., "A Manual of English Literature." New York, 1893, Harper, 2: 9-11, etc. Hunt, T. W., "Studies in Literature and Style." New York, 1890, Armstrong, 35-39. McCormick, Charles, " Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke." Lon- don, 1897, McCormick. Edgar, J. G., "Footprints of Famous Men." New York, 1854, Har- per, 46-67. BURKE 291 Miles, W. A., " Letter on Burke's ' Letter to a Noble Lord.' " London, 1796, J. Debrett, 101. , "The Georgian Era." London, 1832, Bronston & Co., 1 : 318-329. Wotton, Mabel E., "Word Portraits." London, 1887, Bentley, 39- 42. Fortnightly Review, 7: 129-303 and 420 (J. Morley). Xorth American Review, 88 : 61-113 (C. C. Smith). Bibliotheca Sacra, 31: 507-525 (G. Shepard). Quarterly Review, 34: 457-487 (J. Prior). Edinburgh Review, 46 : 269-303. Contemporary Review, 50: 27-47 (Birrell). Methodist Quarterly Review, 1 8 : IOI-IIO (Fry). National Magazine, 3 : 432-438. The Nation, 22 : 48-49 (A. V. Dicey). Eclectic Magazine, 30: 201-210 (Gilfillan). Edinburgh Review, 46: 277 (Adams). PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS. i. Impassioned Eloquence Miltonic Grandeur. It is this quality, perhaps, more than any other that has caused such critics as De Quincey, Craik, and others to call Burke " the supreme writer of his century." T. W. Hunt de- clares that Burke's style "marks the highest point as yet attained in England in forensic prose. His eloquence is supreme and rises to the level of the sublime. It is oratorical passion in the essence." Macaulay says that Burke is "in amplitude of comprehension and richness of imagination superior to ev- ery orator, ancient or modern." Of Burke's "Address to the King," John Morley says, "Each sentence falls on the ear with the accent of some golden-tongued oracle of the wise gods." Another critic calls him " an orator in all his thoughts and a sage in all his eloquence." Brougham speaks of his "fierce, nervous, overwhelming declamation, the heavy artillery of powerful declamation." Goodrich says that " the variety and extent of his powers in debate was greater than that of 292 BURKE any other orator in ancient or modern times." Minto con- siders his declamatory energy largely due to the concreteness of his terms and images. Chambers exclaims, " Who can withstand the fascination and magic of his eloquence ! " and Payne combines all these estimates when he says, " His writ- ings have ever since been the model of all who wish to say anything forcibly, naturally, freely, and in a comparatively small space." " I steadily affirm that of all th&men who are, or who ever have been, eminent for energy or splendor of eloquence, . . there is not one who surpasses Burke." Dr. Parr. " His descriptions were more vivid, more harrowing, more horrible than human utterance on either fact or fancy ever formed before. ... At one time he dropped his head upon his hands and was unable to proceed, while the bosoms of his auditors became convulsed with passion." Madame a' Arblay [describing the speech against Hastings]. "For half an hour I looked upon the orator in a revery of wonder, and actually felt myself to be the most culpable man on earth." Warren Hastings. " Burke had . . . the grandeur proper to a man dealing with imperial themes ; the freedom of nations, the justice of rulers, the fortunes of great societies, the sacredness of law. . . . He had the amplitude, the weightiness, the inspiration, the high flight of Milton, but there can hardly have been any conscious attempt at imitation. . . . He imprints himself upon us with a magnificence and elevation of expression that places him among the highest masters of lit- erature." -John Morley. " Burke has been compared to Cicero I do not know for what reason. Their excellences are as different, and indeed as opposite, as they can well be. Burke had not the polished elegance, the glassy neatness, the artful regularity, the exqui- site modulation, of Cicero. He had a thousand times more richness and originality of mind, more strength and pomp BURKE 293 of diction. . . . If it [grandeur] is not to be found in Burke, it is to be found nowhere. Burke's eloquence was that of the poet ; of the man of high and unbounded fancy : his wisdom was profound and contemplative. . . . Burke's eloquence was calculated to make them [men] think." Hazlitt. "The rapid, vehement, impetuous torrent of his eloquence, kindling as it flowed, and the nervous motions of his counte- nance reflected the ungovernable excitement under which he labored. . . . [There was] great magnetism in his elo- quence. He made the whole House pass in an instant from the tenderest emotions of feeling to bursts of laughter ; never was the electric power of eloquence more imperiously felt." W. E. H. Lecky. " The vast amount of his works rolls impetuously in a cur- rent of eloquence. . . . It is either the expose of a ministry or the whole history of British India or the complete theory of revolutions and the political conditions, which comes down like a vast overflowing stream, to dash with its ceaseless effort and accumulated mass against some crime that men would overlook or some injustice which they would sanction." Taine. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Therefore it is with confidence that, ordered by the Commons of Great Britain, I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, whose parliamentary trust he has abused ; I im- peach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonoured ; I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has subverted ; I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose property he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate ; I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed in both sexes ; and I impeach him in the name and by virtue of those eternal laws of justice which ought equally to pervade every age, 294 BURKE condition, rank, and situation in the world." Impeachment of Hastings. " Such is the republic to which we are going to give a place in civilized fellowship ;. the republic which, with joint consent, we are going to establish in the centre of Europe, in a port that over- looks and commands every other state and which eminently con- fronts and menaces this kingdom. You may call this faction which has eradicated the monarchy expelled the proprietary, persecuted religion, trampled upon law you may call this France if you please : but of the ancient France nothing remains but the central geography; its iron frontier'; its spirit of ambition ; its audacity of enterprise ; its perplexing intrigue. These and these alone remain. All the former correctives, whether of virtue or of weakness, which existed in the old monarchy are gone. No single corrective is to be found in the whole body of the new re- public a republic not of simple husbandmen or fishermen, but of intriguers and of warriors a republic of a character the most restless, the most enterprising, the most impious, the most fierce and bloody, the most hypocritical and perfidious, the most bold and daring that ever has been seen or indeed that can be con- ceived to exist." Thoughts on a Regicide Peace. " I call it atheism by establishment when any state shall not ac- knowledge the existence of God as a moral governor of the world ; when it shall offer to him no religious or moral worship ; when it shall abolish the Christian religion by decree ; when it shall perse- cute with a cold, unrelenting, steady cruelty, by every mode of confiscation and imprisonment, exile, and death, all its minis- ters ; when it shall generally shut up or pull down the churches ; when, in the place of that religion of social benevolence and in- dividual self-denial, in mockery of all religion, it shall institute impious, blasphemous, indecent rites, in honour of their vitiated, perverted reason, and erect altars to the personification of their own corrupted and bloody republic ; when schools and semi- naries are founded at the public expense to poison mankind from generation to generation with the horrible maxims of this im- piety ; when, wearied out with incessant martyrdom and the cries of a people hungering and thirsting for religion, they permit it only as a tolerated evil I call this atheism by establishment." Thoughts on a Regicide Peace. BURKE 295 2. Profuse, Sometimes Excessive, Imagery. - He had, as Brougham says, "an imagination marvellously quick to descry unthought-of resemblances." Yet he rarely if ever uses a trope merely for the purpose of ornament. De Quincey grows impatient with " the long-eared race of Burke's critics," who have understood him, " not as thinking in and by his fig- ures, but as deliberately laying them on by way of enamel or after-ornament," and declares that Burke " was a man of fancy in no other sense than as Lord Bacon was so, and Jeremy Taylor, and as all large and discursive thinkers must be." It is this rare power of figurative illumination that accounts for the fact, stated by Craik, that " the writings of Burke are, indeed, the only English political writings of a past age that continue to be read in the present." This "creative richness of imagination " appears in every one of his writings. " He had," says Ma- caulay, "in the highest degree that noble faculty whereby man is able to live in the past and in the future, in the distant and the unreal." C. A. Goodrich joins De Quincey in de- fending Burke against Fox's charge of floridity, and says that "a large part of his imagery is not liable to any censure of this kind ; many of his figures are so finely wrought into the texture of his style that we hardly think of them as figures at all." T. W. Hunt accounts for this trait, in part, by Burke's age and nationality : "In proneness to satire and fondness for imagery and romance he was a true Celt. . . . The age was agitative. All was aglow and ablaze." The sources from which Burke drew his figures are marvellously wide. History, art, science, literature, every profession, every trade is made to bear ready and continual tribute to the wonderful treasure-house of his fancy. ' ' The great element of power in Burke, over and above what he has in common with Macaulay, is his extravagant splendor of imagery. . . . Like Carlyle, he makes abundant use both of tropes and explicit figures. He is especially rich in metaphor. He has been called ' the greatest master of met- 296 BURKE aphor the world has ever known,' and if we except Carlyle, we may allow that he is the most metaphorical of our prose writers. . . . His extravagant imagery rises to the wild- est pitch in his ungovernable moments." Minto. " Burke' s profusion of figurative language has been the theme of endless admiration. His mind was a repertory of things generally known concerning history, sciences, profes- sions, manufactures, handicrafts ; and he drew illustrations from all classes of subjects in his multifarious knowledge. The framework of what Burke had to say was too thickly overlaid with Asiatic ornament. His natural ardor always impelled him to clothe his conclusions and to express them in glowing and exaggerated phrases : . . . The great offender and burden was that imagination, . . . bringing in all conceivable wealth of imagery, accumulating figures, and extending illustrations till they become a dazzling and bewildering veil of light, hiding the process, progress, and the very gist of the argument." -John Morley. " It is true, however, that, in some rare cases, Burke did in- dulge himself in a pure rhetorician's use of fancy, consciously and profusely lavishing his ornaments for mere purposes of effect. There are many such cases." De Quincey. " In debate, images and illustrations rose to his lips with a spontaneous redundance that astonished his hearers." W.E.H. Lecky. " The wheels of his imagination did not catch fire from the rottenness of the materials, but from the rapidity of their mo- tion. He most frequently produced an effect by the remote- ness and novelty of his combinations, by force of contrast, by the striking manner in which the most opposite and un- promising materials were harmoniously blended together ; not by laying his hands on all the fine things he could think of, but by bringing together those things which he knew would blaze out into glorious light by their collision. The florid style is a mixture of affectation and commonplace. Burke's was a BURKE 297 union of untamable vigor and originality. . . . He was completely carried away by his subject. He had no other object but to produce the strongest impression on his reader, by giving the truest, the most characteristic, the fullest, and the most forcible description of things, trusting to the power of his own mind to mould them into grace and beauty. He did not produce a splendid effect by setting fire to the light vapors that float in the regions of fancy. . . . His gold was not the less valuable for being wrought into elegant shapes and richly embossed with curious figures ; the solidity of a building is not destroyed by adding to it beauty and or- nament, . . . and the strength of a man's understanding is not always to be estimated in exact proportion to his power of imagination. . . . Burke was so far from being a gaudy or flowery writer, that he was one of the severest writers we have. . . . He unites every extreme and every va- riety of composition ; the lowest and meanest words with the highest. He excels in the display of power, in showing the extent, the force, and the intensity of his ideas ; he is led on by the mere impulse and vehemence of his fancy, not by the affectation of dazzling his readers by gaudy conceits or pom- pous images. . . . The ' Letter to the Duke of Bedford ' is the most delightful exhibition of wild and brilliant fancy that is to be found in English prose, but it is too much like a beautiful picture painted upon gauze ; it wants something to support it. ' The Regicide Peace ' is without ornament, but it has all the solidarity, the might, the gravity of a judicial record. It seems to have been written with a cer- tain constraint upon himself and to show those who said he could not reason that his arguments might be stripped of their ornaments without losing anything of their force." Hazlitt. " A robe of brocaded damask is splendid, sumptuous, and appropriate to noble public occasions, but it is scarcely flexi- ble. ' ' Edmund Gosse. 298 BURKE "He rarely employs simile, but delights in metaphor. He is rich, and even lavish, in the use of imagery ; but this is never introduced for the sake of ostentatious dis- play, but in order to enforce or illustrate an argument. "- J. B. Robertson. " There is a foam on its [the stream of his eloquence] ed- dies, mud in its bed ; thousands of strange creatures sport wildly on its surface ; he does not select, he lavishes ; he casts forth by myriads his multiplied ' fancies, emphases, harsh words, declamation, and apostrophes, jests and execrations, the whole grotesque or horrible assemblage of the distant regions and populous cities which his unwearied learning or fancy has traversed." Taine. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Astronomers have supposed that if a certain comet, whose path intercepted the ecliptic, had met the earth in some (I forget which) sign, it would have whirled us along with it in its eccen- tric course into God knows what regions of heat and cold. Had the portentous comet of the Rights of Man, which from its horrid hair shakes pestilence and war, and with fear of change per- plexes monarchs had that comet crossed upon us in that inter- nal state of England, nothing human could have prevented our being hurried out of the highway of heaven into all the vices, crimes, and miseries of the French Revolution." Reflections on the Revolution in France. "So long as the well-compacted structure of our Church and State, the sanctuary, the holy of holies, of that ancient law, de- fended by reverence, defended by power a fortress at once and a temple shall stand unviolate on the brow of the British Lion ; as long as the British monarchy, not more limited than fenced by the orders of the state, shall, like the proud keep of Windsor, rising in majesty of proportion and girt with a double belt of its kindred and coeval towers as long as this awful structure shall oversee and guard this subjected land, so long the mounds and dykes of the low, flat Bedford level will have nothing to fear from BURKE 299 all the pickaxes of all the levellers in France." Reflections on the Revolution in France. "The grants to the House of Russell were so enormous as not only to outrage economy but even to stagger credibility. The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the creatures of the crown. . . . He plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty. Huge as he is, and while he lies ' floating many a rood,' he is still a creature. His ribs, his fins, his whalebone, his blubber, the very spiracles through which he spouts a torrent of brine against his origin and covers me all over with the spray everything of him and about him is from the throne." Letter to a Noble Lord. 3. Invective Coarseness Ridicule. Burke's mind was eminently satirical. In his earlier writings this quality took the form of dignified irony ; but the stings and insults to which he was subjected in later years caused him to retort in the fiercest invective, often unpardonably coarse. Taine speaks of " the trumpet-blast of his curses," and declares that Burke had no taste. Like Swift, he is too intensely in earnest to make elegance an end in his writing. He is a striking illustration of the truth, that in literature, as in architecture, grace and force sometimes vary inversely with each other. "If," says John Morley, " anyone has imbued himself with that exact- ing love of delicacy, measure, and taste in expression, which was, until our own day, a sacred tradition of the French, then he will not like Burke. . . . The thought of wrong or misery moved him less to pity for the victim than to anger against the cause. He has some gratuitous and unredeemed vulgarity; some images whose barbarity makes us shudder. " Even Macaulay admits that his debates on the Regency were marked by "asperity and indecency." Minto observes that " whenever Burke wishes to cover anything with ridicule, his words are taken from every-day speech and his figures from the commonest objects." But even the righteous ends that Burke had in view fail to excuse the outrageous coarseness of 3OO BURKE some of his invective. He calls Hastings "a wallowing sow," " the keeper of a pig-sty, wallowing in filth and cor- ruption ; " and the like. "If by wit be meant any of its forms compatible with fierce invective, his speeches abound with innumerable speci- mens of the highest merit. . . . He does not scruple to make the most grossly offensive comparisons in the plainest terms. . . . He made abundant use of the weapon of ridicule. . . . We cannot suppose that he ever indulged in it [abuse or ridicule] without to some extent bullying his artistic as well as his prudential conscience." Minto. " He indulges in bitter invective mingled with poignant wit, but descending often to abuse and even scurrility ; he is apt, moreover, to carry an attack too far, to slay the slain, or to mingle and dilute the reader's contempt with pity." Brougham. "There appeared more of study than of truth, more of invective than of justice, and, in short, so little proof to so great passion that in a very short time, I, who had been overpowered by his eloquence, began to lift up my head ; . and before I was myself aware of the declension of Mr. Burke's powers over my feelings, I found myself looking all around with my opera-glass in hand." Miss Bitrney [describing the speech against Hastings]. " It is no use for him to study Cicero and to confine his dashing force in the orderly channels of Latin rhetoric ; he continues half a barbarian. . . . We give way to him, and see in his outbursts only the outpourings of a great heart and a deep mind, too open and too full ; and we wonder with a sort of strange veneration at this extraordinary outflow, impetuous as a torrent, broad as a sea, in which the inex- haustible variety of color and form undulates beneath the sun of a splendid imagination, which lends to this muddy surge all the brilliancy of its rays." Tame. " Though a most skilful and penetrating critic, and though BURKE 301 his English style is one of the very finest in the language, his taste was not pure ; even his best writings are sometimes dis- figured by strangely coarse and repulsive images ; and gross violations of taste seem to have been frequent in his speeches." W. E. H. Lecky. "It is distressing to see this master of the English lan- guage descending to scurrilities unworthy of a fish-wife and relinquishing all remnants of judgment, decorum, reason, and good sense in ravings about the tyrannies of a regicide Jaco- binism. " Edimmd Gosse. " He was terrible as well as offensive in the coarseness of his epithets ; would come down upon his adversary and stab him through with a rough, rusty blade, which he picked up for the purpose out of the filth of the gutter." -John Morley. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Benfield, a criminal, who long since ought to have fattened the region kites with his offal, is by his Majesty's ministers en- throned in the government of a great kingdom." Nabob of Ar- cofs Debts. " I find no man who has remained in that more than stoical apathy but the Prince de Conti. This mean, stupid, selfish, swinish, and cowardly animal, universally known and despised as such, has been perfectly neutral, except in one abortive at- tempt to elope." Policy of the Allies. " What was the event ? A strange uncouth thing [Napoleon], a theatrical figure of the opera, his head shaded with three-col- oured plumes, strutted from the back scenes, and, after a short speech, in the mock-heroic falsetto of stupid tragedy, delivered the gentleman fan English messenger] into the custody of a guard, . . . and ordered him to be sent from Paris in two hours." Letters on a Regicide Peace. " That debt forms the foul putrid mucus in which are engen- dered the whole brood of ascarides, all the endless involutions, the eternal knot added to knot of those inexpugnable tape-worms which devour the nutriment and eat up the bowels of India." Nabob of Arcofs Debts. 302 BURKE "With six great chopping bastards, each as lusty as an infant Hercules, this delicate creature [Hon. Henry Dundas] blushes at the sight of his new bridegroom and assumes a virgin deli- cacy ; or, to use a more fit as well as a more poetic comparison, the person so squeamish, so timid, so trembling lest the winds of heaven should visit too roughly, is expanded to broad sun- shine, exposed like the sow of imperial augury, lying in the mud with all the prodigies of her fertility about her, as evidence of her delicate amours." Nabob of Arcofs Debts. 4. Mental and Moral Elevation. In all his political conceptions Burke was lofty and majestic. He was an intel- lectual Titan. He had no taste for discussing what was puerile or trifling, and when compelled to do so, as Croly says, " He winged his tempest 'gainst a turnpike bill." Johnson de- clares that one could not meet Burke casually for five minutes in the street without becoming aware that he was a remark- able man, while Maurice says, " To read him makes us ac- knowledge that we are small men." Here, especially, " the style is the man." In an age when English political corrup- tion reached its climax, Edmund Burke remained " a pure, conscientious, upright man." Taine tells us that " he based human society on maxims of morality, insisted on a high and pure tone of feeling in the conduct of public business, and seemed to have undertaken to raise and authorize the generos- ity of the human heart. He fought nobly for noble causes ; against the crimes of power in England, the crimes of the people in France, the crimes of monopolists in India." John Morley says that Burke's style is " noble, earnest, deep-flow- ing, because his sentiment was lofty and fervid." T. W. Hunt compares Burke to Milton and Homer, and adds: " He was specially fond of discussing high themes his brow was massive and so was his soul. There is something about Burke's prose that is majestic and magisterial a kind of judi- cial gravity everywhere apparent, that makes it impossible for a man to be any other than in sober earnest as he peruses it BURKE 303 the embodiment of nobility and unselfishness in human nature." "He made himself everywhere the champion of principle and the persecutor of vice; and men saw him bring to the attack all the forces of his wonderful knowledge, his lofty rea- son, his splendid style, with the unwearying and untempered ardor of a "moralist and a knight." Taine. "There is no public man whose character was in all re- spects more transparently pure. Weak health and deep and fervent religious principles saved him from the temptations of youth ; and amid all the vicissitudes and corruption of poli- tics his heart never lost its warmth or his conscience its sensi- tiveness. ... In the higher moral qualities of public as of private life he has not often been surpassed. That loyal af- fection with which he clung through his whole life to the friends of his early youth ; that genuine kindness which made him when still a poor man the munificent patron of Barry and Crabbe; . . . that stainless purity and retiring modesty of nature which made his domestic life so different from that of some of the greatest of his contemporaries ; that depth of feeling which made the loss of his only son the death-knell of the whole happiness of his life, may be traced in every stage of his public career. Fidelity to his engagements, a disinterested pursuit of what he believed to be right, in spite of all the allurements of interest and popularity ; a deep and ardent hatred of oppression and cruelty in every form ; a readiness at all times to sacrifice personal pretensions to party interests ; a capacity of devoting long years of thankless labor to the service of those he had never seen, and who could nev- er reward him, were the characteristics of his life." W. E. H. Lecky. " One great feature in his statesmanship was his consistent endeavor to introduce into the conduct of affairs, between nation and nation, higher principles of morality." Minio. " The greatness of Burke as a thinker cannot be adequately 304 BURKE appreciated without noticing the nobility of his moral char- acter. ... A noble unselfishness stamps all his efforts." Leslie Stephen. ILLUSTRATIONS. "The worst event of this day, though it may deject, shall not break or subdue me. The call upon us is authoritative. Let who will shrink back, I shall be found at my post. Baffled, discoun- tenanced, subdued, discredited, as the cause of justice and hu- manity is, it will only be the dearer to me. Whoever, therefore, shall at any time bring before you anything towards the relief of our distressed fellow-citizens in India and towards a subversion of the present most corrupt and oppressive system for its govern- ment, in me shall find a weak (I am afraid) but a steady, ear- nest, and faithful assistant." The Nabob of Arcofs Debts. " The people are right. The calculation of money profit in all wars is false. On balancing the account of such wars, ten thou- sand hogsheads of sugar are purchased at ten thousand times their price. The blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our country, for our God, for our kind : the rest is vanity ; the rest is crime." Letters on a Regicide Peace. " I have little to recommend my opinions but long observa- tion and much impartiality. They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness ; and who, in his last act, does not wish to belie the tenor of his life." Reflections on the Revolution in France. "No man lives too long who lives to do with spirit, and suffer with resignation what Providence pleases to command, or in- flict ; but indeed they are sharp incommodities which beset old age." Letter to a Noble Lord. 5. Erudition Vast Knowledge. " No man of sense could meet Burke under a gateway, to avoid a shower, with- out being convinced that he was the first man in England. His stream of talk is perpetual ; and he does not talk from any desire of distinction, but because his mind is full. Take up whatever topic you please, he is ready to meet you." -Johnson. BURKE 305 "Dr. Smith, of Oxford, after spending several years upon a theory in chemistry, came up to London only to find that Burke, the politician, had anticipated him by some years." Buckle. ' ' Possessed of most extensive knowledge, and that of the most various description, acquainted alike with what different classes of men knew, each in his own province, and with much that one hardly ever thought of learning, he could either bring his masses of information to bear directly upon the sub- jects to which they severally belonged, or he could avail him- self of them generally to strengthen his faculties or enlarge his views, or he could turn any portion of them to account for the purpose of enlarging his theme or enriching his dic- tion. . . . When Burke is handling any one matter we perceive that we are conversing with a reasoner or a teacher, to whom almost every other branch of knowledge is familiar." Brougham. " There are few men whose depth and versatility have been so fully recognized by their contemporaries. Adam Smith declared that he had found no other man who, without com- munication, had thought out the same conclusions on political economy as himself. Winstanley, the Camden Professor of Ancient History, bore witness to his knowledge of philosophy, history, filiation of languages, and the principles of etymo- logical deduction. ... No other politician or writer has thrown the light of so penetrating a genius on the nature and workings of the British Constitution, has impressed his principles so deeply upon both the great parties in the state, and has left behind him a richer treasure of political wisdom applicable to all countries and to all times. . . . Take up what you please, he is ready to meet you. His intellect- ual energy was fully commensurate with his knowledge, and he had rare powers of bringing illustrations and methods of reasoning derived from many spheres to bear on any sub- ject he touched, and of combining an extraordinary natural fa- 306 BURKE cility with most untiring and fastidious labor." II'. E. H. Lecky. " He brought his subject along with him ; he drew his material from himself. The only limits which circumscribed his variety were the stores of his own mind. His stock of ideas did not consist of a few meagre facts meagrely stated, of half a dozen commonplaces tortured into a thousand dif- ferent ways ; but his mine of wealth was a profound under- standing, inexhaustible as the human heart and various as the sources of human nature. He therefore encircled every sub- ject to which he applied himself, and new subjects were only the occasions of calling forth fresh powers of mind which had not been before exerted." Hazlitt. " He was well versed in Greek and Latin literature, was familiar with the great masters of his own language, and had read the best models of the French. Ancient and modern history he had deeply studied ; he was an admirable connois- seur in art; and he was not unfamiliar with some of the natural sciences. To theology and philosophy he paid con- siderable attention. His acquaintance with English law as- tonished professional men themselves, while from the Roman jurisprudence he not unfrequently drew happy illustrations ; and, as is said of Shakespeare, he loved to converse with laborers and mechanics about their trades. He was a skilful, practical agriculturist ; in matters of commerce and finance he was exceedingly well versed, and in the whole science of economics he was far beyond his age." J. B. Robertson. 11 His speeches abounded in imagery, philanthropy, wis- dom, all the noblest characteristics of his genius. His mind was a repertory of things generally known concern- ing history, professions, manufactures, handicrafts ; and he drew illustrations from all classes of subjects in his multi- farious knowledge." Minto. " He knew how the whole world lived. Everything con- tributed to this : his vast desultory reading ; his education, BURKE 307 neither wholly a- ademical nor entirely professional ; his long years of apprenticeship in the service of knowledge ; his wan- derings up and down the country ; his vast conversational powers ; his enormous correspondence with all sorts of people ; his unfailing interest in all pursuits. . . . His writings are a storehouse of wisdom, the noble, animating wisdom of one who has the poet's heart as well as the statesman's brain." Augustine Birrell. "He entered Parliament, . . . having had time to train himself thoroughly in all matters; acquainted with law, history, philosophy, literature master of such a universal eru- dition that he has been compared to Bacon." Taine. " His learning is so various and extensive that we might praise it for its range and compass were it not still more praise- worthy for its solidity and depth." Thomas Campbell. " Considered simply as a master of English prose, Burke has not, in my judgment, been surpassed in any period of our literature. His speeches, literally speaking, are the only English speeches which may still be read with profit when the hearer and speaker have long been turned to dust. . . . Burke stands alone in his generation for the combination of width of view with deepness of sympathy. Thinking of the mass, he never forgets the individual. . . . Incomparably the greatest intellectual power of all English politicians, the life and soul of his party for some years." Leslie Stephen. ILLUSTRATIONS. " In Russia it is not held respectful to call the priests papas, their true and ancient appellation, but those who wish to address them with civility always call them hieromonachi." Penal Laws. "We know little of Sesostris but that he led an army of 900,- ooo men out of Egypt and overran the Mediterranean coast as far as Colchis. . . . The next personage who figures in the tragedy of the ancients is Semiramis, for we have no particulars of Ninus. . . . Like the fleets of Xerxes or the armies of Pergamus and Syria in their wars against the Scythians, . . . 3O8 BURKE they all overlook us like the malevolent being of the poet." The Sublime and the Beautiful. " Milk is the first support of our childhood. The component parts of this are water, oil, and a sort of very sweet salt called the sugar of milk. All these, when blended, have a great smooth- ness to the taste and a relaxing quality to the skin. We must observe that, as smooth things are, as such, agreeable to the taste and are found of a relaxing quality, so, on the other hand, things which are found by experience to be of a strengthening quality and fit to brace the fibres, are almost universally rough and pun- gent to the taste, and in many cases even rough to the skin."- The Sublime and the Beautiful. 6. Use of Apothegm Didacticism. "Burke will always be read with delight and edification, because, in the midst of discussions, ... he scatters apothegms that take us into the region 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 reminds us of some permanent relation of things, some enduring truth of human life or society. . . . He added much to the permanent consideration of wise political thought by his maxims. "John Morley. 11 His oratorical impressiveness was strongly connected with the weight of those maxims which he had formed from a long and profound study of the heart of man. And it is the force and abundance of those fine reflections which give an immortal value to his works on topics of the most temporary nature." George Croly. " He had a peculiar gift of introducing into transient party conflicts observations drawn from the most profound knowl- edge of human nature, of the first principles of government and legislation. . . . There is perhaps no English writer since Bacon whose works are so thickly starred with thought. The time may come when they will be no longer read ; the time will never come in which men would not grow wiser by reading them." W. E. H. Lecky. BURKE 309 ILLUSTRATIONS. " The taking away of a vote is the taking away of the shield which the subject has, not only against the oppression of power but that worst of all oppressions, the persecution of private so- ciety. . . . When we are to provide for the education of any body of men we ought anxiously to consider the particular func- tion they are to perform in life." On the Penal Laws. " A victory over real corruptions enables us to baffle spurious and pretended reformations. . . . Some persons, by hating vice too much, come to love men too little. . . . In all bodies, those who will lead must also in a considerable sense follow. . . . Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government. . . . Never did nature say one thing and wisdom another. ... To innovate is not to reform. . . . Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than pru- dence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years. . . . The church is the place where one day's truce surely ought to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind." Reflections on the Revolution in France. " But men may be sorely touched and deeply grieved in their privileges as well as in their purses. Men may lose little in prop- erty by the act which takes away all their freedom. When a man is robbed of a trifle on the highway, it is not the two-pence lost that constitutes the capital outrage. This is not confined to privileges. Even ancient indulgences withdrawn, without offence on the part of those who enjoyed such favors, operate as griev- ances." On Conciliation with America. 7. Conservatism Veneration for Ancient In- stitutions. "An abhorrence for abstract politics, a pre- dilection for aristocracy, and a dread of innovation were ever the most sacred articles of his political creed. He would not abandon to the invasion of audacious novelties opinions which he had received in his youth and had maintained so long which had been fortified by the applause of the great and the assent of the wise, and which he had supported against so many distinguished opponents." Sir James Mackintosh. " Burke had a constitutional love for old things; anything 310 BURKE that mankind had ever worshipped or venerated or obeyed was dear to him. . . . With all his passion for good government, he dearly loved a little rust." De Quincey. "He trembled for the fair fame of all established things, and to his horror saw men, instead of covering the thin surface with the concrete, digging in it for abstractions and asking fundamental questions about the origin of society. Burke was all his life through a passionate maintainer of the established order of things and, a ferocious hater of ab- stractions and metaphysical politics. Burke had a consti- tutional love for old things simply because they were old. Burke may be called the High Priest of Order, a lover of settled ways, of justice, peace, and se- curity." Augustine Birr ell. " It was peculiar to him that, possessed of a fancy and im- agination singularly brilliant united with stores of knowl- edge of a liberal and philosophical turn of mind, added to having passed much time among books all the elements which unite to compose a beautiful system and make an im- posing theorist, produced in him a distinctly opposite effect. He would admit no innovating speculations into the busi- ness of government. He professed to build . . . upon the basis of history and experience. . . . He entertained for ancient institutions that respect and admiration which all sober minds feel as long (but no longer) as they have been productive of good. . . . His aim was to preserve all our institutions in the main as they stood ; for the simple reason that under them the nation had become good and prosperous and happy. He would rather not innovate at all, for innovation was not reformation : tooverturn nothing which had the sanction of time and many happy days in its favor, to correct and perfect superstition, but to leave all foundations, the antiquity of which formed a guarantee of their usefulness and stability in general opinion, sacred and unharmed, this was his aim." -J. Prior. BURKE 311 " In discussing questions of domestic politics, he constantly refused to travel beyond the landmarks of the constitution as he found it established. ... A constitution was with him a thing of life." G. L. Craik. " To his eye the constitution was no makeshift scaffolding, destined to speedy decay, but a venerable edifice of super!) architecture resembling ' the proud keep of Windsor, rising in the majesty of proportion and girt with the double belt of its kindred and coeval towns.' " Leslie Stephen. " He held the principles of conservatism with the zeal of a Leveller, and tempered lofty ideas of improvement with the scrupulousness of official routine. There is no part of Burke's career at which we may not find evidence of his instructive and undying repugnance to the critical or revolutionary spirit and all its works." -John Morley. ILLUSTRATIONS. I reckon myself among the most forward in my zeal for main- taining our constitution and its principles in their utmost purity and vigour. Those who are attached to the constitution of this kingdom will take good care how they are involved with persons who, under a pretext of zeal toward the Revolution and constitu- tion, too frequently wander from their true principles, and are ever ready to depart from the firm but courteous and deliberate spirit which produced the one and presides in the other. . . . It is far from true that the right of the king depends on the will of the governed, or that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our own kings." Reflections on the Revolution in France. " With us the king and the lords are several and joint securi- ties for the equalities of each district, each province, each city. When did you hear in Great Britain of any province suffering from the inequality of its representation ; what district from having no representation at all ? Not only our monarchy and our peer- age secure the equality on which our unity depends, but it is the spirit of the House of Commons itself The very inequality of representation, which is so foolishly complained of, is perhaps the very thing which prevents us from thinking or acting as mem- 312 BURKE bers for districts. Cornwall elects as many members as all Scot- land. But is Cornwall better taken care of than Scotland ? Few trouble their heads about any of your bases, out of some giddy clubs. Most of those who wish for any change, upon any plausi- ble grounds, desire it on different ideas." Reflections on tke Revolution in France. " We must recall their erring fancies to the acts of the Revolu- tion which we revere, for the discovery of its true principles. If the principles of the Revolution of 1688 are anywhere to be found, it is in the statute called the Declaration of Rights. In that most wise, sober, and considerate declaration, drawn up by great law- yers and great statesmen, and not by warm and inexperienced en- thusiasts, not one word is said nor one suggestion made of a general right to chose our own governors, to cashier them for miscon- duct, and to form a government for ourselves." Reflections on the Revolution in France. 8. Catholicity Tolerance. "What distinguished him from all other men was a wide, comprehensive intellect, which . . . seized the general aspect of things and, be- yond text, constitution, and figures, perceived the invisible tendency of events and the inner spirit." Taine. "[In his argument] he moves on with composed air, the even, dignified pace of the historian ; and unfolds his facts in a narrative so easy and yet so correct, that you plainly perceive that he wanted only the dismissal of other pursuits to have rivalled Livy or Hume." Brougham. " His great and peculiar distinction was that he viewed all objects of the understanding under more relations than other men, and under more complex relations." De Quincey. "There was a catholicity about his gaze. . . . He saw all sides of a subject." Augustine Birrell. " In all things, while he deeply reverenced principles, he chose to deal with the concrete more than with abstractions; he studied men rather than man. . . . The principles of toleration ever found in him a powerful advocate, and he was ever zealous to remove imperfections and correct abuses BURKE 313 in the establishment, as the best means of securing its per- manent existence. . . . The mere fact that toward the close of a tolerably long career he should still have kept his mind sufficiently open to perceive and his honesty sufficiently vigorous to cleave to the new and barely suspected deductions from his principles which the French Revolution forced upon him, is worth taking into account when we hear that Burke had too much of the unflinching party-man about him to be a true thinker." -John Morley. " He believed that the interests of men in society should be consulted and their several stations and employments as- signed, with a view to their nature, not as physical but as moral beings, so as to nourish their hopes, to lift their imagi- nation, to enliven their fancy, to rouse their activity, to strengthen their virtue, and to furnish the greatest number of objects of present and future means of enjoyment to beings constituted as man is, consistently with the order and stability of the whole." Hazlitt. " Edmund Burke possessed and had sedulously sharpened that eye which sees all things, actions, and events in relation to the laws that determine their existence and circumscribe their possibility." Coleridge. " He belonged to all ages, and his mind was as catholic as it was clear and vast. . . . He had philosophic intellect; he had genius; ... he had heart, he had withal a most comprehensive view." George Gil- fillan. " He was endlessly interested in everything, in the state of the crops, in the last play, in the details of all trades, the rhythm of all poems, the plots of all novels, and indeed in the course of every manufacture. ... He bought Beaconsfield, where he entertained all sorts and conditions of men. . . . Burke was far too Asiatic, tropical, and splendid to have any- thing to do with small economics." Augustine Birrell. 314 BURKE ILLUSTRATIONS. " My resolutions therefore mean to establish the equity and justice of a taxation of America by grant and not by imposition ; to mark the legal competency of the colony Assemblies for the support of their government in peace and for public aids in time of war ; to acknowledge that this legal competency has had a dutiful and beneficial exercise ; and that experience has shown the benefit of their grants and the futility of parliamentary tax- ation as a method of supply." On Conciliation with America. " If there be one fact in the world perfectly clear it is this : ' That the disposition of the people of America is wholly averse to any other than a free government ; ' and this is indication enough to any honest statesman how he ought to adapt whatever power he finds in his hands to their case. If any ask me what a free government is, I answer that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so ; and that they and not I are the nat- ural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter." Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol. " It was long before the spirit of true piety and true wisdom, involved in the principles of the Reformation could be depurated from the dregs and feculence of the contention with which it was carried through. However, until this be done, the Reformation is not complete ; and those who think themselves good Protes- tants, from their animosity to others, are in that respect no Protestants at all. It was at first thought necessary, perhaps, to oppose to Popery another Popery, to get the better of it. What- ever was the cause, laws were made in many countries, and in this kingdom in particular, against Papists, which are as bloody as any of those which had been enacted by the Popish princes and states ; and where those laws were not bloody, in my opin- ion they were worse ; as they were slow, cruel outrages on our nature, and kept men alive only to insult in their persons every one of the rights and feelings of humanity." Speech at Bristol, Previous to the Election. 9. Fondness for Qualification. "In Burke some collateral adjunct of the main proposition, some temperament or restraint, some oblique glance at its remote affinities, will BURKE 315 invariably be found to attend the progress of his sentences. Burke looks forward, advancing and changing his own station concurrently with the advance of his sentences." De Quin- cey. " The admirable combination of the generalizing faculty, with a respect for concrete facts, was a marked peculiarity of Burke's mind. His theorizing is always checked and verified by the text of specific instances, and yet in every special case he always sees a general principle." Brougham. " For the immediate effect of his eloquence, it might have been better if his mind had not been so Argus-eyed to all the various conflicting points of every case which he discussed. . . . He was too careful and too deep for his hearers. He ' . . . still went on refining, And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining. ' . . . Thus he was continually looking before and after and on all sides of him, and stopping, whenever two or more apparently opposite considerations came in his way, to balance or reconcile them." G. L. Craik. " His mind was at once sublime and minute ; ... he is eager to embrace the whole of a subject ; to place the mat- ter in every variety of light and to apply every possible illus- tration. . . . He sometimes gives the first hint of a dif- ficulty in order to show his skill in overcoming it. ... His mind possessed a peculiar discursive quality." -J. Prior. " The subtlety of his mind was undoubtedly what rendered Burke a less popular writer than he otherwise would have been. . . . [To Burke] the most important truths must be the most refined and subtle, and for that very reason they must comprehend a great number of particulars, and instead of referring to any distinct or positive facts, must point out the combined effect of an extensive chain of causes, operating gradually, remotely, and collectively, and therefore imper- ceptibly. " Hazlitt. 316 BURKE ILLUSTRATIONS. " From hence they thought themselves obliged to dispose their citizens into such classes, and to place them into such situations in the state, as their peculiar habits might qualify them to fill and to allot to them such appropriated privileges as might secure to them what their specific occasions required, and which might furnish to each description such force as might protect it in the conflict caused by the diversity of interests, that must exist, and must contend, in all complex society : for the legislator would have been ashamed that the coarse husbandman should well know how to assort and to use his sheep, horses, and oxen, and should have enough of common sense not to abstract and equal- ize them all into animals, without providing for each kind an appropriate food, care, and employment ; whilst he, the econo- mist, disposer, and shepherd of his own kindred, subliming him- self into an airy metaphysician, was resolved to know nothing of his flocks but as men in general." Reflections on the Revolution in France. " Accordingly, that they might not relax the nerves of their monarchy, and that they might preserve a close conformity to the practice of their ancestors, as it appeared in the declaratory statutes of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, in the next clause they vest, by recognition, in their majesties, all the legal prerog- atives of the crown, declaring, ' that in them they are most fully, rightfully, and entirely invested, incorporated, united, and an- nexed.' In the clause which follows for preventing questions by reason of any pretended titles to the crown, they declare (observ- ing also in this the traditionary language, along with the tra- ditionary policy of the nation, and repeating as from a rubric the language of the preceding acts of Elizabeth and James), that on the preserving ' a certainty in the succession thereof, the unity, peace, and tranquillity of this nation doth, under God, wholly depend.' " Reflections on the Revolution in France. " But I cannot think that any educated man, any man who looks with an enlightened eye on the interest of Ireland, can be- lieve that it is not highly for the advantage of Ireland that this Parliament, which, whether right or wrong, whether we will or not, will make some laws to bind Ireland, should always have in BURKE 317 it some persons, who by connection, by property, or by early possessions and affections, are attached to the welfare of that country. I am so clear upon this point, not only from the clear reason of the thing, but from the constant course of my observa- tion by now having sat eight sessions in Parliament, that I de- clare it to you as my sincere opinion, that (if you must do either the one or the other) it would be wiser by far, and far better for Ireland, that some new privileges should attend the estates of Irishmen, members of the two Houses here, than that their char- acter should be stained by penal impositions, and their properties loaded by unequal and unheard-of modes of taxation." Letter to Sir Charles ing ham. 10. Stern Pathos. " Burke excels in pathos. It was inconsistent with his purpose as an orator to draw a soothing picture of distress. In the Warren Hastings trial he is said ' to have made an affecting appeal to the feelings of their lordships,' but his object was to horrify and inflame them, not to fill them with luxurious feelings of compassion and melancholy. . . . The well-known allusion to Marie Antoinette is very touching, but the emotion cannot long sustain itself in the melting mood, but passes into fiery indig- nation." Minto. 11 [His descriptions of the desolation wrought by the wick- ed policy of Hastings] are full of genuine pathos, and, while arousing righteous indignation against the oppressed, awaken sympathy for the suffering." T. W. Hunt. "In his 'Reflections on the French Revolution,' we find philosophy the most subtle, invective the most sublime, spec- ulation the most far-stretching, . . . piercing pathos . and eloquence the most dazzling that ever com- bined depth with splendor." George Gilfillan. ILLUSTRATIONS. " What a heart must I have to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall ! Little did I dream when she [Marie 318 BURKE Antoinette] added the duties of veneration to those of distant, enthusiastic, respectful love, that she would ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against dishonour concealed in that bosom. Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded ; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive the spirit of exalted freedom." Reflections on the Revolution in France. " Then ensued a scene of woe the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war before khown or heard of were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered ; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank or sacredness of function, fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry and amidst the goading spears of drivers and the trampling of pursuing horses were swept into captivity in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to evade -this tempest fled to the walled cities. But, escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine." The Nabob of Arcofs Debts. " I was entirely out of the way of serving or of hurting any statesman or any party when the ministers so generously and so nobly carried into effect the spontaneous bounty of the crown. Both descriptions have acted as became them. When I could no longer serve them, the ministers have considered my sit- uation. When I could no longer hurt them, the revolutionists have trampled on my infirmity. My gratitude, I trust, is equal to the manner in which the benefit was conferred. It came to me, indeed, at a time of life and in a state of mind and body in which no circumstance of fortune could afford me any real pleasure. But this was no fault in the royal donor or in his BURKE 319 ministers, who were pleased, in acknowledging the merits of an invalid servant of the public, to assuage the sorrows of a desolate old man." Letter to a Noble Lord. II. Vivid Imagination. " He had, in the highest degree, that faculty by which a man is enabled to live in the past and in the future, in the distance and in the unreal. In- dia and its inhabitants were not to him, as to most Englishmen, mere names and abstractions, but a real country and a real people. The burning sun, the strange vegetation of the palm and the cocoa tree, the rice-field, the tank, and the huge trees, older than the Mogul Empire, under which the village crowds assemble ; the thatched roof of the peasant hut ; the rich tracery of the mosque, where the imaun prays with his face toward Mecca, the drums, the banners, and the gaudy idol, the devotee swinging in the air, the graceful maiden with the pitcher on her head, descending the steps to the river-side, the black faces, the long beards, the turbans and the flowing robes, the spears and the silver maces, the ele- phants with their canopies of state, the gorgeous palanquin of the prince and the close litter of the noble lady all those things were to him as the objects amidst which his own life had been passed, as the objects which lay on the road be- tween Beaconsfield and St. James's Street. . . . He had just as lively an idea of the insurrection at Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots, and of the execution of Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. Dodd. Oppression in Bengal was to him the same thing as oppression in the streets of London." Mac ait lay. 11 Burke's imagination grew with his intellect, by which it was nourished with his ever-extending realm of thought. . . . Oppression in Massachusetts was the same as oppres- sion in Middlesex." G. L. Craik. " He had one of those fertile and precise imaginations which believe that finished knowledge is an inner view, which 320 BURKE never quit a subject without having clothed it in its colors and forms, and which, passing beyond statistics and the rub- bish of dry documents, recompose and reconstruct before the reader's eyes a distant country and a foreign nation, with its monuments, dresses, landscapes, and all the shifting detail of its aspects and manners. . . . His fire is so sustained, his convictions so strong, his emotion so warm and abundant, that we suffer him to goon, forget our repugnance, see in his inequalities and his trespasses only 'the outpouring of a great heart and a deep mind, too open and too full ; and we wonder with a sort of strange veneration at this extraordinary over- flow, impetuous as a torrent, broad as a sea, in which the inex- haustible variety of colors and forms modulates beneath the sun of a splendid imagination, which lends to this muddy surge all the brilliancy of its rays." Taine. " Burke's imagination led him to look out all over the whole land : the legislator devising new laws, the judge ex- pounding and enforcing old ones, the merchant despatching his goods and extending his credit, . . . Burke saw all this with the fancy of a poet and dwelt on it with the eye of a lover. ... It was Burke's peculiarity and his glory to apply the imagination of a poet of the first order to the facts and business of life." Augustine Birrcll. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Abbe Sieves has whole nests of pigeon-holes full of constitu- tions ready made, ticketed, sorted, and numbered ; suited to every season and every fancy ; some with the top of the pattern at the bottom and some with the bottom at the top ; some plain, some flowered : some distinguished for their simplicity, others for their complexity ; some of blood-colour ; some of bone de Paris ; some with directories, others without a direction ; some with councils of elders and councils of youngsters ; some without any council at all. Some where the electors choose the representa- tives ; others, where the representatives choose the electors. Some in long coats and some in short cloaks ; some with panta- BURKE 321 loons; some without breeches. Some with five-shilling qualifica- tions ; some totally unqualified. So that no constitution-fancier may go unsuited from his shop, provided he loves a pattern of pillage, oppression, arbitrary imprisonment, confiscation, exile, revolutionary judgment, and legalized premeditated murder, in any shapes into which they can be put." Letter to a Noble Lord. "Several English were the stupefied and indignant spectators of that triumph. It was (unless we have been strangely deceived) a spectacle more resembling a procession of American savages entering into Onondaga after some of their murders called vic- tories and leading into hovels hung round with scalps their cap- tives, overpowered with the scoffs and buffets of women as ferocious as themselves, much more than it resembled the tri- umphal pomp of a civilized martial nation." Reflections on the Revolution in France. " On that day, it was thought, he [The Archduke Charles of Austria] would have assumed the port of Mars ; that he would bid to be brought forth from their hideous kennel (where his scrupulous tenderness had too long immured them) those impa- tient dogs of war, whose fierce regards affright even the minister of vengeance that feeds them ; that he would let them loose, in famine, fever, plagues, and death, upon a guilty race, to whose frame, and to all whose habit order, peace, religion, and virtue are alien and abhorrent." On a Regicide Peace. 12. Rapidity. While few of his critics refer specifi- cally to this quality of Burke's style, it is certainly one of his most prominent characteristics, just as it is one of Macaulay's. "In many of his vehement passages the sentences move with an abruptness and rapidity resembling the habitual man- nerism of Macaulay." Minto. ILLUSTRATIONS. " That government is at once dreaded and contemned ; that the laws are despoiled of all their respected and salutary terrors ; that their inaction is a subject of ridicule and their exertion of abhorrence ; that rank and office and title and all the solemn 21 322 BURKE plausibilities of the world have lost their reverence and effect ; that our foreign politics are as much deranged as our domestic economy ; that our dependencies are slackened in their affection and loosened from . their obedience ; that we know neither how to yield nor how to enforce ; that hardly anything above or below, abroad or at home, is sound and entire ; but that disconnection and confusion, in offices, in parties, in families, in Parliament, in the nation, prevail beyond the disorders of any former time ; these are facts universally admitted and lamented." On the Present Discontents. " What softening of character is to be had, what review of the social situations and duties is to be taught, by these examples to kings, to nobles, to men of property, to women, and to infants ? The royal family perished because it was royal. The nobles perished because they were noble. The men, women, and chil- dren who had property, because they had property to be robbed of. The priests were punished after they had been robbed of their all, not for their vices, but for their virtues and for their piety, which made them an honour to their sacred profession and to that nature of which we ought to be proud, since they belong to it." On a Regicide Peace. " Well ! but will a lessening of prodigal expenses and the economy which has been introduced by the virtuous and sapient Assembly, make amends for the losses sustained in the receipt of revenue ? In this at least they have fulfilled the duty of a financier. Have those who say so, looked at the expenses of the National Assembly itself? of the municipalities? of the city of Paris ? of the increased pay of the two armies ? of the new police ? of the new judicatures ? Have they even carefully com- pared the present pension list with the former ? These politi- cians have been cruel, not economical." Reflections on the Revolution in France, LAMB, 1775-1834 Biographical Outline. Charles Lamb, born February 10, 1775, in Crown Office Row, the Temple, London; father originally a domestic servant to a bencher of the Inner Temple ; Lamb begins his school-life under one William Bird in a day-school leading out of Fetter Lane, which his sister Mary also attends; in 1782 he obtains a nomination to Christ's Hospital (the " Blue Coat School "), where he re- mains for seven years, and where he forms a lasting friendship with his fellow-pupil, Coleridge ; Lamb is a fair student, ac- quiring a considerable knowledge of Latin and obtaining the rank of "deputy Grecian" next to the highest rank; a serious impediment in his speech prevents his obtaining an "exhibition" to the university, a favor extended only to those qualified to enter the Church ; he leaves Christ's Hos- pital in 1789, while Coleridge remains three years longer, and goes thence to Cambridge ; Lamb at first secures a humble clerkship in the South Sea House, where his older brother, John, was employed, but, early in 1792, he is appointed to a clerkship in the East India House, a place that he held for the next thirty years ; his family leave the Temple on the death of Samuel Salt (Lamb's father's employer) in 1792, and their place of residence till 1796 is unknown ; in 1796 they lodge in Little Queen Street, suffering from poverty and barely supported by the salary of Charles and the earnings of Mary as a seamstress; the elder brother, "John Lamb, Gentleman," lives comfortably elsewhere, and does not aid in the family support ; Lamb's mother was an invalid, with an inclination to insanity; on September 22, 1796, Mary 323 324 LAMB Lamb becomes suddenly insane, attempts to stab a little 'prentice maid, and fatally stabs her mother, who had inter- fered ; at an inquest Mary is pronounced temporarily insane, and she would have been consigned to a public lunatic asylum if Charles had not given bonds to become her guardian and to restrain her from doing further harm a most trying bur- den, which he bore heroically till the day of his death ; al- though in love with a girl living in a cottage near Blakesware House, Hertfordshire, he gives up all thought of matrimony, at his mother's death, and removes, with his now imbecile father and a maiden aunt, to 45 Chapel Street, Pen ton vi lie, temporarily placing Mary in a private sanitarium at Hackney ; the old aunt dies in 1797 and the father in 1799 ; Lamb be- gins a life-long correspondence with Coleridge in May, 1796, and in one of his letters he records the fact that he himself had been in an asylum for six weeks during the winter of 1795-96 because of some mental derangement ; there is no evidence that he ever afterward suffered in that way ; his mental malady has been attributed to his disappointment in love affairs, but there is little evidence to support this theory ; in the spring of 1796 Coleridge publishes, through Cottle of Bristol, his first small volume of poems, and it includes four sonnets by Lamb, this being his first appearance in print ; in 1797 the second edition of Coleridge's poems includes "poems by Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd;" in the summer of 1797 Lamb visits Coleridge at Nether Stowey, where he meets Wordsworth and others ; in 1798 appears a small volume of verse by Lamb and Lloyd and Lamb's prose romance, " A Tale of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Mar- garet; " our earliest portrait of Lamb is made, through Cottle's agency, in 1798 ; late in that year he begins his correspond- ence with Southey, in which he first manifests his peculiar humor and quaintness ; on the death of Lamb's father, in the spring of 1799, Mary returns to live with her brother at Pentonville, but rumors of her insane violence soon compel LAMB 325 them to give up their lodgings ; during the next nine months they lodge at Southampton Buildings, Holborn, but are again driven out because of the rumors of Mary's insanity ; they then take lodgings in King's Bench Walk, in the Temple, where they remain for nine years, removing thence to lodg- ings in Inner Temple Lane for another nine years ; late in 1799 Lamb begins his correspondence with Thomas Man- ning, a Cambridge mathematician and orientalist, whom Lamb had met while visiting Lloyd at Cambridge; about this time Lamb also begins to write for the newspapers ; dur- ing the next three years he, contributes paragraphs and epi- grams to the Morning Post, the Morning Chronicle, and the Albion; in 1802 he publishes "John Woodvil," a play in blank verse, showing throughout the influence of the early Elizabethan dramatists, whom Lamb dearly loved and studied, and whose style he purposely imitated in his play ; the play is ignorantly and unfavorably reviewed in the Edinburgh Review for April, 1803 ; meantime Lamb and his sister are, as she writes, " very poor ; " late in 1805 he writes his farce Mr. H. ; " it is produced at Drury Lane Theatre, Decem- ber 10, 1805, and is, as he says, " incontinently damned; " during 1805 he meets Hazlitt and, through him, Godwin, who was then publishing books for children ; for Godwin Charles and Mary write "Tales from Shakespeare," which is pub- lished in 1807 and reaches a second edition in the following year ; the " Tales " first brought Lamb into notice as a writer; in 1808 he publishes a child's version of the adventures of Ulysses, based on Chapman's " Odyssey; " in 1808 he also publishes, through the Longmans, selections from the early English dramatists, under the title "Poets Contemporary with Shakespeare;" he is at once recognized by literary men as a critic of the highest order and a great prose writer ; in 1811 he publishes in Leigh Hunt's Reflector his essay on Hogarth and that on the tragedies of Shakespeare; in 1813 he publishes "Recollections of Christ's Hospital" in the 326 LAMB Gentleman's Magazine and, in 1814, his "Confessions of a Drunkard " in his friend Montagu's book, " Some Enquiries into the Effects of Fermented Liquors; " between 1808 and 1818 Lamb forms friendships with Procter, Talfourd, Crabbe, Haydon, and others, and is frequently embarrassed by the ex- penditures incident to the entertainment of numerous visitors ; in the autumn of 1817 the Lambs remove to lodgings in Great Russell Street, Covent Garden ; in 1818 Charles pub- lishes a collection of his miscellaneous writings, both prose and verse, including "John Woodvil " and "Rosamund Gray," dedicating the two volumes to Coleridge; early in 1820 he is presented by Hazlitt to the editor of the newly established London Magazine, and agrees to contribute occa- sional essays; in August, 1820, he contributes " Recollections of the South Sea House," to which he first appends his pseu- donyme " Elia " (at first spelled Ellia), appropriating the name of a long-forgotten old clerk in the South Sea House ; between August, 1820, and December, 1822, he contributes to the London Magazine twenty-five essays signed "Elia;" these were reprinted in a single volume in 1823 ; after the death of his brother in 1821, Lamb writes " Dream Chil- dren ; " in 1822 the Lambs make a brief tour in France, vis- iting Charles's friend, James Kenney, a dramatist, at Versailles; while abroad Mary suffers from one of her then more fre- quently recurring fits of insanity ; early in 1823 Southey publishes a severe criticism of Lamb's " Essays of Elia," de- claring that the essays, as a whole, lack sound religious feel- ing ; Lamb, deeply hurt, replies in "A Letter of Elia to Robert Southey, Esq.," published in the London Magazine for October, 1823 ; Southey replies in a generous letter of explanation, and their friendship is renewed ; while visiting at Cambridge, in 1823, the Lambs meet Ernma Isola, daugh- ter of one of the esquire bedells of the university ; Emma afterward often visits them in London, and is eventually adopted by them ; she becomes a great comfort to both LAMB 327 Charles and Mary, by whom she is educated, and remains with them till her marriage to Moxon,the publisher, in 1833 ; in August, 1823, the Lambs remove from Great Russell Street to a cottage in Colebrooke Row, Islington, where the New River runs at the foot of the garden ; about this time Lamb becomes attached to Bernard Barton, the Quaker Poet, to whom many of his best letters are addressed ; after a severe illness in the winter of 1824-25, by the advice of his phy- sicians he applies to the directors of the East India House for retirement with a pension ; his request is granted in March, 1825, his pension amounting to three-fourths of his salary at the time, less a slight deduction, to insure an allow- ance to Mary in case she should survive her brother ; the amount available for Lamb was ^441 a year; the Lambs make frequent visits to Hertfordshire, where they eventually take the little house known as "The Chace," at Enfield; Lamb seeks relief from the tedium of having nothing to do in long walks about the country; in 1826 he contributes to the Monthly Magazine his papers on ' ' Popular Fallacies ; ' ' in 1828 he writes his verses "On An Infant Dying as Soon as Born " (the child of his friend Thomas Hood), and makes extracts from the Garrick plays in the British Museum for the " Table Book" of his friend Hone; in 1830 he makes a collection of his acrostics, album-verses, etc., and publishes them through his friend Moxon under the title " Album Verses; " in 1829 Mary's increasing fits of insanity compel them to give up housekeeping, and they take lodgings in En- field, near " The Chace," with a family named Westwood ; Mary improves, but Charles grows restless to return to town life ; in 1833 they remove to Edmonton, the parish adjoining Enfield, where they take lodgings at Bay Cottage with the Waldens, who had cared for Mary during her previous at- tacks ; here the Lambs pass the last two years of their united lives; in 1833 Moxon marries Emma Isola, and publishes " The Last Essays of Elia," drawn mainly from the London 328 LAMB Magazine ; Lamb is greatly depressed by Coleridge's death in July, 1834 ; he dies at Edmonton December 27, 1834, and is buried there ; he leaves to his sister his accumulated sav- ings of 2,000; she survives him till May 20, 1847; at times he sought refuge from his great sorrow, and from the embarrassment due to his stammering, in the use of wine ; owing to his predisposition to insanity a very little alcohol affected him, but those who knew him best declare that he was never thus incapacitated for the performance of either his official or his domestic duties. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON LAMB'S STYLE. Hazlitt, W., "Spirit of the Age." London, 1886, G. Bell & Sons, 333-343- Pater, W., "Appreciations." New York, 1890, Macmillan, 107-126. Gilfillan, G., "Literary Portraits." Edinburgh, 1851, J. Hogg, i: 230-234. Oliphant, Mrs., "Literary History of England." New York, 1889, Macmillan, 2 : 1-18. De Quincey, T., "Works." Edinburgh, 1890, A. & C. Black, 5 : 215- 259- Reed, H., "British Poets." Philadelphia, 1857, Parry & McWilliams, 2: 127-132. Bulwer-Lytton, E., "Miscellaneous Prose Works." New York, 1868, Harper, 1 : 89-122. Stoddard, R. H., "Personal Recollections." New York, 1875, Scrib- ner, 1-47. Procter, B. W., "Charles Lamb." London, 1869, E. Moxon. Ainger, A., "English Men of Letters." New York, 1882, Harper, 100-121, etc. Birrell, A., " Res Judicatce. " New York, 1892, Scribner, 232-252. Pebody, C., " Authors at Work. " London, 1872, Allen & Co., 114-146. Welsh, A. H., " Development of English Literature." Chicago, 1884, Griggs, 2 : 298-299. Dawson, G., "Biographical Lectures." London, 1887, Kegan Paul, Trench &Co., 235-251. Allibone, S. A., " Dictionary of Authors. " Philadelphia, 1870, Lippin- cott, 2 : 1048. Ainger, A., "Essays of Elia." New York, International Book Co., I : 1-16. LAMB 329 Ireland, Alex., "William Hazlitt." New York, 1889, Warne, 300-306 and 471-474. Shaw, T. B., " A Manual of English Literature." New York, 1881, Sheldon, 347~348- Minto, \V., "English Prose Literature." Edinburgh, 1886, Blackstone, 537-539- Robertson, J. M., "An Essay Toward a Critical Method. " London, 1889, Unwin, v. index. Ward, T. H., "English Poets" (Dowden). New York, Macmillan, 4: 326-333- Russell, W. C., "Book of Authors." London, n. d., Warne, 399-402. Nicoll, H. J., " Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1883, Appleton, 365-368. Hall, S. C., " Book of Memoirs." London, 1871, Virtue, 51-61. Hall, S. C., " Retrospect of a Long Life." New York, 1883, Appleton, 316-317- Ainger, A., "Letters of Charles Lamb." London, 1888, Macmillan, two volumes, v, index. Moir, D. M., " Sketches of Poetical Literature." London, 1872, Black- wood, 89-90. Phillips, M. G., "A Manual of English Literature." New York, 1893, Harper, 2 : 243 and v. index. Morley and Tyler, " A Manual of English Literature." New York, 1882, Sheldon, 636. Hazlitt, William, "Table Talk." London, 1882, G. Bell & Sons, v. index. Craik, G. L., " History of English Literature." New York, 1864, Scrib- ner, 2 : 483-484. Swinburne, A. C., "William Blake " London, 1868, C. Holten, 8. Taine, H. A., " History of English Literature." New York, 1875, Holt, 3: 68-71. Talfourd, T. N., "Final Memorials of Charles Lamb." New York, 1849, Appleton, v. index. Talfourd, T. N.," Life and Letters of Charles Lamb. " London, 1886, Bell. Talfourd, T. N., "Memoirs of Charles Lamb." Philadelphia, 1892, Lippincott. Hood, Thomas, "Works." New York, 1864, Putnam, 6: 396. Fitzgerald, P., " Memoir of Charles Lamb." London, 1866, R. Bent- ley, v. index. Martin, B. E , " In the Footprints of Charles Lamb." New York, 1890, Scribner, 1-146. Lamb, C., " Letters." New York, 1888, Armstrong. 33O LAMB Stephen, L., "Dictionary of National Biography." New York, 1890, Macmillan, 31 : 423-429. Wotton, M. E., "Word Portraits." London, 1887, Bentley, 168-171. Paul, C. K., "William Godwin." London, 1876, King & Co., I : 362 and 2 : 3. Hutton, L. , " Literary Landmarks of London." New York, 1892, Harper, 182-192. Pym, H. N., "Memoirs of Old Friends." London, 1882, Smith, Elder & Co., I : 23. Froude, J. A., " Life of Carlyle." London, 1882, Longmans, Green & Co., l: 222 and 2 : 209-210. , Quarterly Review, 122: 17-20; 54: 58-77. Blackwood's Magazine, 66: 133-150; 3: 598-610; 108: 285-301. North American Review, 104 : 418-428 (A. S. Hill) ; 46 : 55-71 (C. C. Felton). Eclectic Magazine, 23: 491-496; 31: 399-405; 15: 67-77. Methodist Quarterly Review, 18 : 566-577 (W. H. Barnes); 47: 382- 397 (Wise). The Dial (Chicago), 9: 38-39 (E. G. Johnson); 4: no. Harpers' Magazine, 20: 88-97 (G. W. Curtis); 54: 916-917 (G. W. Curtis) ; 55 : 464-465 (G. W. Curtis) ; I : 272-274 (L. Hunt). Edinburgh Review, 124: 133-140 (Procter); 66: 1-20 (Talfourd) ; 2: 90-96. British Quarterly, 45 : 335-356 ; 8 : 381-395. Christian Examiner, 69: 415-434 (T. B. Fox). Fortnightly Review, 30 : 466-474 (W. H. Pater). Nineteenth Century, 17: 66-91 (Swinburne). Westminster Review, 126: 16-28 (Talfourd). Xorth British Review, 10 : 179-214 (Talfourd). Atlantic Monthly, n : 529-5450. E. Babson) ; 12: 401-417 (Bab- son); 14: 478-491 (Babson); 14: 552-563 (Babson) ; 27: 745- 757 (Babson). The Academy, 21 : 168 (R. C. Brown); 33: 265-266 (R. C. Brown). Temple Bar, 85: 33-51; 86: 237-257 (Roose). Gentleman's Magazine (New Series), 41 : 55-63 (Summers) ; 6 : 285- 298 (Pebody) ; 19: 113-122 (Shepherd). Dublin University Magazine, 79: 149-168. American Quarterly Review, 19 : 185-206 (Tuckerman) ; 22 : 473-483 (Talfourd). Historical Magazine, 9 : 45-49. The Athemnim, 1886 (2): 468 (Ainger) ; 1835 (l): 70-73 and 107-110 (Procter). LAMB 331 The New Englander, 44: 605 (\V. W. \Yells). Frascrs Magazine, 105: 607-617 (J. Dennis). Chambers' 's Journal, 43 : 763-766. Macmillan's Magazine, 15: 473-483; 55 : 161-173 (Ainger) ; 54: 276- 279 (Birrell). London Society, 42: 182-194. Christian Remembrancer, 16 : 424-458. Contemporary Kez'iew, 45 : 642-665 (R. H. Hutton). Spectator, 65 : 205-207. PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS. I. Quaintness Fondness for the Antique. Lamb has been justly called "an old writer, who lived a century or two after his time." He was a constant reader and a great admirer of the old English writers, such as Browne, Fuller, Taylor, and the like, and he succeeded in reviving the spirit of these authors in his own works. Taine says that " he re- stored the sixteenth century." He introduced the reading public of his day to the merits and beauties of the Elizabethan dramatists, and it is said that his tragedy "John Woodvil " bears all the marks of having been written two hundred years before. His biographer, Talfourd, calls this quality " that quaint sweetness, that peculiar union of kindness and whim." When Lamb was but twenty-one he wrote to Coleridge: " I wish you would try and do something to bring our elder bards into more general fame. I writhe with indignation when, in books of criticism, I find no mention of such men as Mas- singer or Beaumont and Fletcher, men with whom succeeding dramatic writers can bear no manner of comparison ; " and again, "I hate all that do read, for they read nothing but reviews and new books. I gather myself up into the old things." This trait in Lamb's style and character seems in part due to the influence of " the old and awful cloisters " of the school where he spent his most impressionable years. Barry Cornwall calls him " the last true lover of antiquity." He has a distaste for new faces, new books, new buildings, 332 LAMB and new customs. He says of himself that he loves " out-of- the-way humors and opinions heads with some diverting twist in them." He tells us also that he and his sister were tumbled early, by accident or design, into a spacious closet of good Old English reading, without much objection or pro- hibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage. The result of all this appears in the "picturesque quaintness " of his words, constructions, and themes. " He diverges into green lanes and sunshiny glades, and not seldom into the darker and more holy places of undiscovered solitude. ' ' " Crude they are, I grant you," says Lamb of his own writ- ings; " a sort of unlicked, incondite things, villainously planked out in an affected array of antique modes and phrases. ' ' "Mr. Lamb has raked among the dust and cobwebs of a remote period ; has exhibited specimens of curious relics, and poured over moth-eaten, decayed manuscripts for the benefit of the more inquisitive and discerning part of the public. . He prefers by-ways to highways. . . . The film of the past hovers forever before him. He evades the present, he mocks the future. ... His style is often conveyed through old-fashioned conduit-pipes ; but, never- theless, runs pure and clear." Hazlitt. " He was the quaintest of humourists. . . . In his search of matter for genius, he went into the oddest and most out-of- the-way corners. . . .His style is so antique yet racy, imitative yet original. . . - His letters are all so deli- ciously fresh and rich, so peppered with old world condiments, so brimful of the sparkling ' wine of life,' so tartly singular in their spirit and style." George Gilfillan. " From the olden time of authorship Thy patent should be dated, And thou with Marvell, Browne, And Burton mated." Bernard Barton. LAMB 333 " Even in what he says casually, there comes an aroma of old English. . . . He continually overawes one with touches of a strange utterance from worlds afar." Walter Pater. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do mostarride and solace me are thy repositories of mouldering learning. . . . What a place to be in is an old library ! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers that have bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians were reposing here, as in some dormitory or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage ; and the odor of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard." Oxford in Vacation. " Situated as thou art, in the very heart of living and stirring commerce amid the fret and fever of speculation with the Bank and the ' Change ' and the India-house about thee, in the hey- day of present prosperity, with their important faces, as it were, insulting thee, their poor neighbour out of business to the idle and merely contemplative to such as me, old house, there is a charm in thy quiet a cessation a coolness from business an in- dolence almost cloistral which is delightful ! With what rever- ence have I paced thy great bare rooms and courts at even-tide ! They spoke of the past the shade of some dead accountant, with visionary pen in ear, would flit by me, stiff as in life. Living ac- counts and accountants puzzle me. I have no skill in figuring. But thy great dead tomes, which scarce three degenerate clerks of the present day could lift from their enshrining shelves with their old fantastic flourishes and decorative rubric interlacings their sums in triple columniations, set down with formal super- fluity of ciphers with pious sentences at the beginning, without which our religious ancestors never ventured to open a book of business or bill of lading the costly vellum covers of some of them almost persuading us that we are got into some better library are very agreeable and edifying spectacles." The South-Sea House. "Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou that, being 334 LAMB nothing, art everything ! When thou wert thou wert not antiquity then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou calledst it, to look back to with blind veneration ; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejeune, modern ; what mystery lurks in this retroversion ? or what half Januses are we, that cannot look for- ward with the same idolatry with which we forever revert ! The mighty future is as nothing, being everything ! the past is every- thing, being nothing ! What were thy dark ages ? Surely the sun rose as brightly then as now ! " Oxford in Vacation. 2. Tenderness Sympathy with Humanity. In one of his letters, Lamb says : " I myself prefer the affections to the sciences." The expression is most characteristic of the man and of his style. With Goldsmith (possibly) excepted, he is the most gentle and lovable of our great essayists. Patmore, his intimate friend, says that it was impossible for Lamb to hate a human being. De Quincey, another friend, says that Lamb's temper was "angelically benign, but also, in a mor- bid degree, melancholy." In his writings, as in his life, he displayed the most delicate regard for the feelings of others, no matter how humble or how debased. It is said that he would give the right of way to a beggar on the street. The husband of a poor woman of Lamb's acquaintance is ar- rested for sheep-stealing, and Lamb urges his sister to call at once on the unfortunate woman, lest she may think their coldness due to the disgrace of her husband. " I have a ten- derness for a sheep-stealer," is Lamb's quizzical explanation to a correspondent. Talfourd justly says, that of all modern writers, Lamb's works " are most immediately directed to give us heart's-ease and make us happy." Says Hazlitt : "He yearns after and covets that which soothes the frailty of human nature." T. W. Hunt puts the case finely when he says that Lamb " has a large element of the Melanchthon in his style, and little of the Luther." "Thoroughly to understand and en- joy Lamb," says Ainger, " one must have come to entertain a feeling toward him almost like personal affection." Lamb's LAMB 335 tenderness often takes the form of the finest pathos "smil- ing pathos," De Quincey calls it. " His heart," says Cole- ridge, " is as whole as his head." "And I thought how natural it was for Charles Lamb to give a kiss to an old folio, as I once saw him do to Chap- man's ' Homer.' " Leigh Hunt. " He could not, or would not, see ugliness anywhere ex- cept as a sort of beauty-spot upon the face of beauty ; but beauty he could see everywhere, and nowhere shining so brightly as when in connection with what others call ugli- ness. . . . He loved those best whom everyone else hated." R. H. Stoddard. "He reasoned with his heart with his heart he loved ; in his heart he lived, moved, and had his being. And what a strange, wild, hot, large heart Lamb's was ! It was only less than that which lies in Dumfries kirk-yard, belonging to the man of whom it was said that if you touched his hand it would have burnt yours. This heart taught Lamb to love the out- casts of society, to associate with the excommunicates, to cry halves to every pelt of calumny which assailed their devoted heads. ' ' George Gilfillan. "His simple mother-pity to those who suffer by accident or by unkindness of nature has something primitive in its largeness. . . . Little arts of happiness he is ready to teach to others." Walter Pater. " His heart opened wide to real distress. . . . The large-minded human being . . . Charles Lamb ! who sympathized with all classes and conditions of men as readily with the sufferings of the tattered beggar and the poor chim- ney-sweeper's boy as with the starry contemplations of Ham- let ' The Dane,' or the eagle- flighted madness of Lear. . . The fact that distinguished Charles Lamb from other men was his entire devotion to one grand and tender purpose. He pitied all objects which had been neglected or despised."^. W. Procter, 336 LAMB " There was nothing too great for him to grasp, nothing too little for him to love." George Dawson. " With what a noble, independent, manly mind did he love his friends ! His masculine nature and absolute freedom from that curse of literature, coterieship, stand revealed on every page of the history of Lamb's friendships." Augustine Birrell. " No face can frown, no brow be overcast, when Elia the gentle, the tender, the humorous and ever-smiling, notwith- standing the deep dew of anguish which was never quite dried in his eyes makes his appearance upon the scene. Elia, the whimsical, the tender, whose every tear suggests a smile, and every smile a tear." Mrs. Oliphant. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress. Act a charity sometimes. When a poor creature (outwardly and visibly such) comes before thee, do not stay to inquire whether the seven small children, in whose name he implores thy assist- ance, have a veritable existence. Rake not into the bowels of unwelcome truth to save a half-penny. It is good to believe him. If he be not all that he pretendeth, give, and under a personate father of a family, think (if thou pleasest) that thou hast relieved an indigent bachelor. When they come with their counterfeit looks and mumping tones, think them players. You pay your money to see a comedian feign these things, which, concerning these poor people, thou canst not certainly tell whether they are feigned or not." The Decay of Beggars. " I like to meet a sweep understand me not a grown sweep- er but one of those tender novices such as come forth with the dawn, or somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes sounding like the peep peep of a young sparrow. . . . I have a kindly yearning toward these dim specks poor blots inno- cent blacknesses. . . . Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in thy early rambles, it is good to give him a penny. LAMB 337 It is better to give him two-pence. If it be starving weather, and to the proper troubles of his hard occupation a pair of kibed heels be added, the demand on thy humanity will surely rise to a tester." The Praise of Chimney Sweepers. 3. Graceful Ease Companionability. In a purely literary sense, the most prominent feature of Lamb's style is what Shaw calls " an unimaginable happiness of expression." Says Ainger, " There is an epithet commonly applied to Lamb so hackneyed that one shrinks from using it once more the epithet delightful. No other word certainly seems more appropriate, and it is perhaps because (in defiance of etymology) the sound of it suggests that double virtue of il- luminating and making happy. It is in vain to attempt to convey an idea of the impression left by Lamb's style. It evades analysis. One might as well seek to account for the perfume of lavender or the flavour of quince. . . . If he had by nature the delicate grace of Marvell and the quaint fancy of Quarles, he had also the chivalry of Sidney." De Quincey calls him " the exquisite Elia," abounding in " shy graces lurking half unseen, like violets in the shade ; a bril- liant star forever fixed in the firmament of English literature," and pronounces the essays of Elia " as exquisite a gem amongst the jewelry of literature as any nation can show. " There is a racy, colloquial, home-like quality about Lamb's prose that gives it a lasting charm. He is "sympathetic rather than scholastic." He purposely wrote in a conversational style. " He labored," says Taine, " to destroy the grand aristocrat - ical and oratorical style and to replace studied phrases and a lofty vocabulary by natural tones and plebeian words." As Hood expresses it, " Lamb, whilst he willingly lent a crutch to halting Humility, took delight in tripping up the stilts of Pretension." In a word, as a critic puts it in the Quarterly Review, " Lamb is one of those favorites of the Graces on whom the gift of charm is bestowed." 22 338 LAMB " Never was there more delightful playing with life and all its mysteries and depths, more soft and laughing banter, more tender thoughtfulness. . . . When he rises into the fun of the roast pig, or expatiates with humorous tenderness upon the 'innocent blacknesses,' the poor little sweeps for whose hard lot no alleviation of machinery in the shape of long- jointed brushes had yet been thought of, or falls into the vein of delicate sentiment in which he discourses with his 'dream children,' there is no more delightful companion. No true reader, wherever found, can fail to ac- knowledge the power of Elia. He is, in the best sense of the word, one who writes for writing's sake, not because he has much to tell us, but because it is a pleasure to him to make friends with us, to jest and sigh and trifle, to play some whim- sical trick upon us, to transport us in a moment, all unwit- tingly, from laughter into weeping, to play upon all the strings of our hearts. Writing of this description is apt to be considered by the ignorant the easiest of all manner of literary composi tion . ' ' Mrs. Oliphant. " The most beloved of English writers may be Goldsmith or may be Scott : the best beloved will always be Charles Lamb. His charm is incomparable with any other man's. It is impossible merely to like him : you must, as Wordsworth bade the redbreast whom he saw chasing the butterfly, ' love him, or leave him alone.' . . ' . There is in his work a sweetness like no other fragrance, a magic like no second spell in all the world of letters. " Sivinburne. " His Essays are carefully elaborated ; yet never were works written in a higher defiance to the conventional pomp of style ; a sly hit, a happy pun, a humorous combination lets the light into the intricacies of the subject, and supplies the place of ponderous sentences. Seeking his materials for the most part in the common paths of life often in the humblest he gives an importance to everything and sheds a grace over all." Talfourd. LAMB 339 "With what a gusto Mr. Lamb describes the Inns and Courts of law, the Temple and Gray's Inn, as if he had been a student there for the last two hundred years, and had been as well acquainted with the person of Sir Francis Bacon as he is with his portrait or writings. . . . There was no fuss or cant about him ; nor were his sweets or sours ever diluted with one particle of affectation. " Hazlitt. ILLUSTRATIONS. " No rascally comparative insults a beggar, or thinks of weigh- ing purses with him. He is not in the scale of comparison. He is not under the measure of property. He confessedly hath none any more than a dog or a sheep. No one twitteth him with os- tentation above his means. No one accuses him of pride, or up- braideth him with mock-humility. None jostle with him for the wall, or pick quarrels for precedency. No wealthy neighbor seeketh to eject him from his tenement. No man sues him. No man goes to law with him. If I were not the independent gen- tleman that I am, rather than I would be a retainer to the great, a led captain, or a poor relation, I would choose, out of the del- icacy and true greatness of my mind, to be a beggar." The De- cay of Beggars. " ' A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigor of the game.' This was the celebrated wish of old Sarah Battle (now with God), who, next to her devotions, loved a good game of whist. She was none of your lukewarm gamesters, your half-and-half play- ers, who have no objection to take a hand, if you want one to make up a rubber ; who affirm that they have no pleasure in winning ; that they like to win one game and lose another ; that they can while away an hour very agreeably at a card-table, but are indifferent whether they play or no ; and will desire an ad- versary who has skipped a wrong card to take it up and play an- other. These insufferable triflers are the curse of a table. One of these flies will spoil a whole pot. Of such it may be said that they do not play at cards, but only play at playing at them." Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist. " I love a fool as naturally as if I was of kith and kin to him. When a child, with childlike apprehensions that dived 34O LAMB down below the surface of the matter, I read those Parables not guessing at the involved wisdom. I had more yearnings tow- ard that simple architect that built his home upon the sand than I entertained for his more cautious neighbors. I grudged at the hard censure pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his tal- ent ; and, prizing their simplicity beyond the more provident, and, to my apprehensions, somewhat unfeminine wariness of their competitors I felt a kindliness that almost amounted to a tcn- dre for those five thoughtless virgins." All FooVs Day. 4. Amiable Humor. The qualities of Lamb's style al- ready discussed are continually found in combination with the most genial humor. This sometimes takes the form of familiar juggling with high themes, sometimes that of playful apos- trophe, such as we see in Carlyle and Burns, sometimes that of the gravest and most absurd exaggeration. His humor is especially noteworthy for its freedom from sarcasm. His "malice "is always playful. He laughs with men, not at them. De Quincey calls him "a Diogenes with the heart of a St. John." Charles Lamb lived all his life in the shadow of a terrible misfortune; yet he has brightened the world with the kindly pleasantry manifest on almost every page of his essays. "Among all the leading English essayists," says T. W. Hunt, " there is none in whom humor is so much an essential part of the man and his style. His face is always promising good things." " With what well-disguised humor," exclaims Hazlitt, " he introduces us to his relations, and how freely he serves up his friends ! " The Quarterly, again, sums up this quality by saying, " The humour of Charles Lamb is at once pure and genial ; it has no malice in its smile. His keenest sarcasm is but his archest pleasantry." Gerald Massey and others have called Lamb the first English humorist. Com- paring him with the "crowd of jesters," a writer in Black- wood's says: "We quit their uproarious laughter for his more quiet and pensive humor with somewhat of the same feeling that we leave the noisy though amusing highway for LAMB 341 the cool landscape and the soft greensward. We reflect as we smile ; the malice of our nature is rather laid to rest than called forth ; a kindly and forgiving temper is excited. We rise from his works, if not with any general truth more vividly impressed, yet prepared by gentle and almost imper- ceptible touches to be more social in our companionships and warmer in our friendships." "A combination of humor and pathos a sweet stream of thought, bubbling and sparkling with witty fancies. It was colored by a hundred gentle feelings. It bore the rose as well as the thorn. His heart warmed the jests and conceits with which his brain was busy, and turned them into flowers." B. W. Procter. " Who, I wonder, ever managed to squeeze into a cor- respondence of forty years truer humour, madder nonsense, sounder sense, or more tender sympathy ! These letters do not indeed prate about first principles, but they contain many things conducive to a good life here below." Augustine Birrell. " His sensibility to strong contrast was the foundation of his humour, which was that of a wit at once melancholy and willing to be pleased." Leigh Hunt. "He succeeds 'glimpse-wise' in catching and recording more frequently than others the gayest, happiest attitude of things." Walter Pater. " One of the gentlest, tenderest, rarest, and most delicate of English humourists. . . . Lamb's humour was marvellous- ly combined with pathos ; his fun was the sparkle and ripple and foam of a richly running river of humanity, pity, and ten- derness. ' ' George Dawson. "There is, indeed, scarcely a note a notelet (as he used to call his very little letters) Lamb ever wrote which has not something of that quaint sweetness, some hint of that peculiar union of kindness and whim which distinguished him from all other poets and humourists." Talfourd. 342 LAMB "What a keen, laughing, hair-brained vein of homefelt truth! " Hazlitt. " What arch, limpid humor, humor in its very essence, un- forced, honey-sweet, like the drops exuded from the grapes by their own pressure ! " G. W. Curtis. ILLUSTRATIONS. " What a careless, even deportment hath your borrower ! What rosy gills ! What a beautiful reliance on Providence doth he mani- fest taking no more thought than lilies ! What contempt for money accounting it (yours and mine especially) no better than dross. . . . He is the true taxer who calleth all the world up to be taxed. . . . His exactions, too, have such a cheerful, voluntary air ! So far removed from your sour parochial or state- gatherers those ink-horn varlets, who carry their want of wel- come in their faces ! He cometh to you with a smile, and troubleth you with no receipt ; confining himself to no set season. Every day is his Candlemas or his Feast of Holy Michael." The Two Races of Men. " The compliments of the season to my worthy masters, and a merry first of April to us all ! Many happy returns of this day to you and you and you, Sir nay, never frown, man, nor put a long face upon the matter. Do we not know one another ? what need of ceremony among friends ? we have all a touch of that same you understand me a speck of the motley. Beshrew the man who, on such a day as this, \hzgeneral festival, should affect to stand aloof. I am none of those sneakers. I am free of the corporation, and care not who knows it. He that meets me in the forest to-day shall meet with no wise-acre, I can tell him. Stultus sum. Translate me that, and take the meaning of it to yourself for your pains. What, man, we have four quarters of the globe on our side at the least computation." All FooVs Day. " All my intention was but to make a little sport with such public and fair game as Mr. Pitt, Mr. Wilberforce, Mrs. Fitzher- bert, the Devil, &c. gentry dipped in Styx all over, whom no paper javelin-lings can touch. To have made free with these cattle where was the harm ? 'twould have been but giving a polish to lampblack, not nigrifying a negro primarily." Letter to Man- ning. LAMB 343 5. Wit Epigram Paronomasia. Lamb is a wit as well as a humorist. He frequently gives us what De Quincey calls "minute scintillations of genius." He has "a talent for saying keen pointed things, sudden flashes or revelations of hidden truths, in a short, condensed form of words." His wit appears most brilliantly in his letters and in his recorded conversations. "Sometimes his wit appears in the form of epigram, sometimes in a brilliant pun, a fantastic coinage, a dash of irony." " His jests scald like tears, and he probes a question with a play upon words. . . . He is as little of a proser as possible ; but he blurts out the finest wit and sense in the world. ... No one ever stammered out such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent things in a half-dozen half-sentences as Lamb did." Hazlitt. " Lamb every now and then irradiates, and the beam, though single and fine as a hair, is yet rich with colors, and I both see and feel it." Coleridge. " Here is a rich vein of quaint surprises, good to recall as to encounter, their after-gust as pleasant (if not so pungent) as their first shock." R. C. Brown. ILLUSTRATIONS. Speaking of Cowper in one of his letters, Lamb writes : " But the poor gentleman has just recovered from his lunacies, and that begets pity, and pity love, and love admiration, and then it goes hard with the people but they lie." We append other detached specimens : " When Southey becomes as modest as his prede- cessor, Milton, and publishes his epics in duodecimo, I will read "em." " George Dyer hath prepared two volumes full of poetry and criticism. They impend over the town, and are threatened to fall in the winter." " Your woodcock, snipe, teal, widgeon, and other lesser daughters of the ark." " Clarkson tells me you are in a smoky house. Have you cured it ? It is hard to cure anything of smoking." " Dear Wordsworth : Thanks for the books you have given me and for all the books you mean to 344 LAMB give me." " Opinion is a species of property that I am always desirous of sharing with my friends." " Godwin is five hundred pounds ideal money qut of pocket by the failure of his tragedy." " Braham, the singer, is a mixture of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel." " Martin [to his friend, Martin BurneyJ, if dirt were trumps, what a hand you would hold!" " Very well, my dear boy [to Procter], Ben Jonson has said worse things than that and better." "Charles," said Coleridge to Lamb, "have you ever heard me preach ? " "I n-n-ever heard you do anything else," replied Lamb. " T. W. is severity years old ; he has some- thing under a competence ; he has one joke and forty pounds a year, upon which he retires in a green old age." "If I had a little son, I would name him 'Nothing to do.' " " But I am your factotum, and that, save in this instance, which is a single case (and I can't get at you), shall be next to a fac-nihil at most, a fac-simile." " Hang the Age ! I will write for Antiquity ! " "Above all, those insufferable concertos and pieces of music, as they are called, do plague and embitter my apprehension. Words are something ; but to be exposed to an endless battery of mere sounds ; to be long a-dying, to be stretched upon a rack of roses ; to keep up languor by unintermitted effort ; to pile honey upon sugar and sugar upon honey to an interminable tedious sweetness ; to fill up sound with feeling and strain ideas to keep pace with it ; to gaze on empty frames, and be forced to make the pictures for yourself; to read a book, all stops, and be obliged to supply the verbal matter ; to invent extempore trage- dies to answer to the vague gesture of an inexplicable rambling mime these are faint shadows of what I have undergone from a series of the ablest-executed pieces of this empty instrumental music." A Chapter on Ears. " Dear old friend and absentee : This is Christmas day, 1815. What the time be with you, I do not know. The I2th of June next year, perhaps. And if it should be the consecrated season with you, I don't see how you can keep it; you have no turkeys ; you would not desecrate the festival by offering up a withered Chinese bantam instead of the savory Norfolcian holocaust that smokes all around my nostrils at this moment from a thousand firesides. Then, what puddings have you ? Where will you get holly to stick into your churches, or churches to stick (that must be the substitute) ? What memorials you can have of the holy LAMB 345 time, I see not. A missionary or two may keep up the idea of the wilderness. But what standing evidence have you of the nativity ? It is our rosy-cheeked, home-stalled divines whose faces shine to the tune of ' Unto us a child is born.' '' Letter to Manning in China. " Hang work ! 1 wish that all the year were a holiday. I am sure that indolence, indefeasible indolence, is the true state of man, and business the invention of old Teazer, whose interfer- ence doomed Adam to an apron and set him hoeing." Letter to Wordsworth. " What do you think of smoking ? I want your sober, average opinion ; I generally am eating my dinner about the time I should determine it. Morning is a girl, and could not smoke ; she is no evidence one way or the other ; and night is so bought over that he cannot be a very upright judge. Maybe the truth is, that one pipe is wholesome, two pipes toothsome, three pipes noisome, four pipes fulsome, five pipes quarrelsome, and that is the sum of it. But this is abstaining rather upon rhyme than upon reason, for after all our instincts may be best.' 1 Letter to Coleridge. "Two special things are worth seeing at Cambridge : the por- trait of Cromwell and a better one of Dr. Harvey, who found out that blood was red." Letter to Mrs. Wordsworth. 6. Self -Reflection Unselfish Egoism. Lamb stamped upon all he wrote a vivid impression of his own rare individuality. " Instead of undertaking to compose a liter- ary work out of such materials as he possessed," says A. S. Hill, " Lamb put himself, with whatever belonged to him, on paper. .A reader is less interested in the essays than in the essayist." Almost every paragraph is liberally sprinkled with the first personal pronoun, and yet the reader never feels that Lamb is egotistical in the ordinary offensive sense of that term ; and the details of his life, as found in his correspondence, prove him to have been as shy and modest as he was generous. Says the Quarterly Review : ' ' Lamb calls up, completes, and leaves to the admiration of all time a character which, as a personification of humour, is a higher 346 LAMB being than even Scott has imagined, viz., that of Charles Lamb himself." T. W. Hunt compares Lamb to Burns in that he " gave vent to his inner self" in his writings. At the age of twenty-five, Lamb wrote to Coleridge : ' ' For God's sake, don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gen- tle-hearted in print, or do it in better verses. It did well enough five years ago, when I was moral coxcomb enough to feed upon such epithets. My sentiment is long since van- ished. My virtues have done sucking. Such praise is fit only for a greensick sonneteer." "It is the man Charles Lamb that constitutes the enduring charm of his written works. . . . He is an egotist but an egotist without a touch of vanity or self-assertion an egotist without a grain of envy or ill-nature. It is this humanity that gives to his intellect its flexibility and its deep vision, that is the feeder at once of his pathos and of his humour." Alfred Ainger. " His essays are delightfully personal, and when he speaks of himself, you cannot hear too much." Bryan Wallet- Procter. " Especially when he spoke of himself, and his own re- strained and subdued life, was Lamb exquisite ; the ' sort of double singleness ' in which he and his sister lived, their har- mony, their little differences, their diversified tastes, their mutual recollections nothing could be more delicately set do w n . " Mrs. Oliphant. ILLUSTRATIONS. " I love Quaker ways and Quaker worship. I venerate the Quaker principles. It does me good for the rest of the day when I meet any of their people in my path. When I am ruffled or dis- turbed by any occurrence, the sight or quiet voice of a Quaker acts upon me as a ventilator, lightening the air and taking off a load from the bosom. But I cannot like the Quakers (as Des- demona would say) to live with them. I am all over sophisticated LAMB 347 with humors, fancies, craving hourly sympathy. I must have books, pictures, theatres, chit-chat, scandal, jokes, ambiguities, and a thousand whim-whams, which their simpler taste can do without. I should starve at their primitive banquet." Imperfect Sympathies. ' ' My reading has been lamentably desultory and unmethodical. Old, out-of-the-way English plays and treatises have supplied me with most of my notions and ways of feeling. In everything that relates to science I am a whole encyclopaedia behind the rest of the world. I should have scarcely cut a figure among the frank- lins or country gentlemen of King John's days. I know less geography than a schoolboy of six weeks' standing. To me a map of old Ortelius is as authentic as Arrowsmith. I do not knosv whereabout Africa merges into Asia; whether Ethiopia lies in one or the other of those great divisions, nor can I form the remotest conjecture of the position of New South Wales or Van Dieman's Land. Yet do I hold a correspondence with a very dear friend in the first named of these two terra incognita." The Old and the New Schoolmaster. " I even think that sentimentally I am disposed to harmony. But organically I am incapable of a tune. I have been prac- tising 'God Save the Queen' all my life, whistling and hum- ming of it over to myself in solitary corners, and am not yet arrived, they tell me, within many quavers of it. Yet hath the loyalty of Elia never been impeached. I am not without sus- picion that I have an undeveloped faculty of music within me." A Chapter on Ears. 7. Delicate Fancy. Lamb was endowed in a rare de- gree with that power that enables one to create a world for himself and people it at will. In the words of C. C. Felton : " He possessed the power of returning at will to the heaven that lies about us in our infancy ; or, rather, he never, except during the period of adolescence, travelled far away from it. ... He does not philosophize about childhood with Wordsworth, nor exhibit infant phenomenons with Dickens, but is a child, looks at the world through a child's eyes, has his night-fears, his day-dreams, his attachments, his repul- 348 LAMB sions, his awe of the unknown, and his shrinking from the un- familiar. " " The streets of London," says Hazlitt, " are his fairy land, teeming with wonder, with life and interest to his retrospective glance as it did to the eager eye of childhood ; he has contrived to weave his tritest traditions into a bright and endless romance." "The ' Essays of Elia' traverse a peculiar field of ob- servation, sequestered from general interest, and they are composed in a spirit too delicate and unobtrusive to catch the ear of the noisy crowd clamoring for strong sensations. ' ' De Quincey. "It is vain to attempt to convey an idea of the impression left by Lamb's style. It evades analysis. One might as well seek to account for the perfume of lavender or the flavor of quince. It is, in truth, an essence, prepared from flowers and herbs gathered in fields where the ordinary reader does not often range. . . . His style becomes aromatic, like the perfume of faded rose-leaves in a china jar." Alfred Ain- g*r-" " His work is small in quantity, but how rare and delicate is it in quality ! " H. J. Nicoll. " He knows the secret of fine, significant touches." Wal- ter Pater. "The most exquisite of essayists and the rarest of souls, profoundly original as a stylist and as a critic." -J. M. Rob- ertson. " His book has not only the delicate aroma which suits the most cultivated, but a something of native fragrance which appeals to the multitude as well. . . . There are many impatient readers who are not capable of this kind of litera- ture at all; who, indeed, are not to be called readers at all, but, on the one side, workmen in mines, out of which they mean to draw substantial advantage ; or, on the other, like the easy audience of the Eastern story-teller romance-de- vourers, seekers after excitement, if not in act and deed, in LAMB 349 narrative and history, in something that thrills and tingles the blood with the keen vicissitudes of a rapid tale." Mrs. Oliphant. ILLUSTRATIONS. "Sun-threads, filmy beams, ran through the celestial napery of what seemed its princely cradle. All the winged orders hov- ered round, watching when the new-born should open its yet closed eyes ; . . . then were celestial harpings heard, not in full sympathy as those by which the spheres are tutored, but as loudest instruments on earth speak oftentimes muffled so as to accommodate their sound better to the weak ears of the im- perfect-born. And with the noise of those subdued soundings the Angelet sprang forth, fluttering its rudiments of pinions, but forthwith flagged and was recovered into the arms of those full- winged angels. And a wonder it was to see how, as the years went round in heaven a year in dreams is as a day continually its white shoulders put forth buds of wings, but wanting the per- fect angelic nutriment, anon was shorn of its aspiring, and fell fluttering still caught by angel hands forever to put forth shoots and to fall fluttering, because its birth was not of the un- mixed vigor of heaven." The Child Angel, "Specially can I forget thee, thou happy medium, thou shade of refuge between us and them [the crew], conciliating interpreter of their skill to our simplicity, comfortable ambassador between sea and land ! whose sailor-trousers did not more convincingly assure thee to be an adopted denizen of the former than thy white cap and whiter apron over them, with thy neat-fingered practice in thy culinary vocation, bespoke thee to have been of inland nurture heretofore a master cook of Eastcheap ? How busily didst thou ply thy multifarious occupation, cook, mariner, attendant, chamberlain : here, there, like another Ariel, flam- ing at once about all parts of the deck, yet with kindlier minis- trations ; not to assist the tempest, but, as if touched with a kindred sense of our infirmities, to soothe the qualms which that untried motion might haply raise in our crude land-fancies." The Old Margate Hoy. " Hope is a charming, lively, blue-eyed wench, and I am al- ways glad of her company, but could dispense with the visitor she brings with her her younger sister, Fear a white-livered, 350 LAMB lily-cheeked, bashful, palpitating, awkward hussy, that hangs like a green girl at her sister's apron-strings, and will go with her whithersoever she goes." Letters, 8. Melancholy. "The sad event of Lamb's life im- parted a melancholy to his writings, even where they seem to abound in good-humor." T. B. Shaw. " Lamb's deeper and sadder heart lay for the most part in quiet concealment. ' ' Edward Dowden. Bulwer speaks of that "subdued and serene melancholy which rarely saddens, but often sweetens, the music of Lamb's gentle laugh." ILLUSTRATIONS. " These pleasant and some mournful passages, with the first sight of the sea, co-operating with youth and a sense of holidays and out-of-door adventure, to me, that had been pent up in popu- lous cities for many months before, have left upon my mind the fragrance as of summer days gone by, bequeathing nothing but their remembrance for cold and wintry hours to chew upon."- The Old Margate Hoy. " Alas ! the great and good go together in separate herds and leave such as I to lag far, far behind in all intellectual, and far more grievous to say in all moral accomplishments. Wesley has said : ' Religion is not a solitary thing.' Alas ! it necessarily is so with me, or next to solitary." Letters " I pity you for overwork, but, I assure you, no work is worse. The mind preys on itself, the most unwholesome food. I bragged formerly that I could not have too much time. I have now a sur- feit. With few years to come, the days are wearisome." Letters. 9. Critical Acumen. "There is a quaint vigor of lan- guage, a fanciful acuteness of observation, and such true hu- manities and noble sensibilities sparkling everywhere as rank him among the most original critics of the age. " Allan Cun- ningham. " His critical notices are extremely valuable and above any praise of mine. ... If his strength as a critic was and LAMB 351 remains for us as the 'strength of ten,' it was because his heart was pure. . . . As a critic he had no master it might almost be said no predecessor. He was the inventor of his own art. . . . Lamb's criticism as often takes the form of a study of human life as of the dramatic art. Lamb is our best and wholesomest example of that rare ability to value and enjoy one great literary school without at the same time disparaging its opposites." Alfred Ainger. " Lamb's essay on ' Shakespeare's Tragedies ' is one of the great documents of critical literature.";/. M. Robertson. ILLUSTRATIONS. " But the true poet dreams being awake. He is not possessed by his subject, but has dominion over it. In the groves of Eden he walks familiar as in his native paths. He ascends the empy- rean heaven, and is not intoxicated. He treads the burning marl without dismay ; he wins his flight without self-loss through realms of chaos ' and old night.' Or if, abandoning himself to that severer chaos of a ' human mind untuned,' he is content awhile to be mad with Lear or to hate mankind (a sort of mad- ness) with Timon, neither is that madness nor this misanthropy so unchecked but that, never letting the reins of reason wholly go, while most he seems to do so, he has his better genius still whispering at his ear, with the good servant Kent suggesting saner councils or with the honest steward Flavius recommend- ing kindlier resolutions. Where he seems most to recede from humanity he will be found the truest to it." The Sanity of True Genius. " It is an ordinary criticism, that my Lord Shaftesbury and Sir William Temple are models of the genteel style in writing. We should prefer saying of the lordly and the gentlemanly. Noth- ing can be more unlike than the inflated, finical rhapsodies of Shaftesbury and the plain , natural chit-chat of Temple. The man of rank is discernible in both writers ; but in the one it is only insinuated gracefully, in the other it stands out offensively. The peer seems to have written with his coronet on and his earl's mantle before him ; the commoner in his elbow-chair and un- dress. What can be more pleasant than the way in which the 352 LAMB retired statesman peeps out in his essays, penned by the latter in his delightful retreat at Sheen ? They scent of Nimeguen and the Hague. Scarce an authority is quoted under an ambassa- dor." The Genteel Style in Writing, 10. Discursiveness. It is one mark of Lamb's col- loquial vein, already referred to, that he allows himself to wander at will from his theme and to ramble whithersoever his lively fancy may lead him. In a writer who addressed himself mainly to the intellect this discursiveness would be regarded as a serious blemish; but in him who "prefers the affections to the sciences " we follow the ramblings with no feelings but those of quiet enjoyment. This quality cannot well be illustrated without quoting an entire essay, but the ob- servant reader will notice the frequent divergencies from the subject in almost any of Lamb's productions. SCOTT, 1771-1832 Biographical Outline. Walter Scott, born in Edin- burgh, August 15, 1771, the ninth of twelve children, six of whom died in infancy ; father a solicitor, descended from " a great riding, sporting, fighting clan " ; mother, daughter of a physician, and better educated than most Scotch women of her day ; she gave to her son much of the information and in- spiration for his romances ; during Scott's second year a teeth- ing fever results in making him lame for life ; for the sake of his health, he is sent out of the city to reside with his grand- father at the farm of Sandy-Knowe, southeast of Edinburgh ; he spends the sunny days with the shepherds among the sheep ; shows an early fondness for manly sports and heroic literature ; at six reads poems aloud to his mother, and is pronounced " a most astounding genius "; his childhood at Sandy-Knowe is pictured in the third canto of" Mar mi on " ; as a child he manifests remarkable spirit, gentleness, and self-command ; at school " he glanced like a meteor from one end of the class to the other," and " received more praise for his interpretation of the spirit of his authors than for his knowledge of their lan- guage " ; out of school he extemporizes innumerable stories for his comrades, and becomes a daring leader in all athletic sports and ventures ; masters Latin fairly, but refuses to study Greek ; studies first at the High School at Edinburgh and then at a school in Kelso, where the master becomes a friend and an inspiration ; from boyhood, Scott is " a worshipper of the past " and an in tense conservative; he enters the University of Edinburgh in 1783, remains three years, and obtains, in ad- dition to his Latin, some knowledge of French and German ; 23 353 354 SCOTT displays a phenomenal memory, great power of physical en- durance, and great fondness for romance ; begins to study law, first as an apprentice to his father and afterward at the Uni- versity ; is admitted to the bar in 1796 ; in 1787 he suffers from a hemorrhage, and, during the absolute silence imposed as an essential of recovery, begins "his study of the scenic side of history"; reads voraciously in the line of military exploit, romance, and mediaeval legend ; learns Italian and Spanish, and reads Cervantes, whose novels, he says, " first inspired me to excel in fiction" ; he tramps about the coun- try so much in search of natural beauty and historic associa- tions that his father pronounces him " better fitted for a ped- dler than a lawyer ' ' ; often walks thirty miles a day, though still very ame, and has many adventures and some carousals ; he studies the law carefully, however, and succeeds respect- ably, though he is a poor debater ; practises law more or less for fourteen years, never earning over ^230 a year ; he serves as Clerk of Session for several years without a sal- ary ; in 1790 he falls violently in love with the daughter of Sir John Belcher, but the lady marries another in 1796 ; Scott's success as a lawyer is marred by his " dabblings in poetry" and by his reputation for "wild and unpro- fessional adventurousness " ; he visits London and becomes widely known for his ballads of love, etc.; in 1797 he mar- ries Miss Charpentier (Carpenter), daughter of a French Roy- alist of Lyons " a bird of paradise mating with an eagle" ; his first serious literary attempt is a translation of Burger's " Lenore," made in 1795 and published in 1796; in 1798 he publishes a translation of Goethe's " Gottz von Berliching- en," and in 1799 the ballads " Glenfinlas," "The Eve of St. John," and "The Grey Brother" ; in January, 1802, publishes the first two volumes of " Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border" (including several ballads from his own pen); the first edition (eight hundred copies) is sold within one year, and Scott becomes famous ; he publishes the third vol- SCOTT 355 ume of the " Minstrelsy " in 1803 ; in 1805 publishes " The Lay of the Last Minstrel " (begun in 1802), of which 44,000 copies were sold regularly during the following twenty-five years, bringing Scott ^769; he publishes, " Marmion " (largely composed in the saddle) in 1808, and receives one thousand guineas for the copyright before publication ; during 1808 he also edits elaborate editions of Dryden and Swift, adding critical notes and a biography to each; from 1798 to 1804 he resides at Lasswade, six miles from Edinburgh ; he then removes to Ashestiel, in Selkirkshire, a few miles up the Tweed from Abbotsford, where he resides till 1812 ; while at Ashestiel he writes and publishes "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," " The Lady of the Lake " (for which he receives ^2,000 at its publication), "The Bridal of Triermain," a part of " Rokeby," and a vast amount of other material ; in 1 799 he is made Sheriff of Selkirkshire, with a salary of ^300 a year, an office that he holds till shortly before his death ; he becomes an officer in the Edinburgh volunteer cavalry, and gives much attention to military affairs; in 1812, having come into the salary of the Clerkship of Session, Scott buys " a mountain farm " of one hundred acres, five miles down the Tweed from Ashestiel, paying ^4,000, half of which he borrows from his brother on the security of a poem (" Roke- by ") not then written ; he takes to Abbotsford much of the material forming the present " armory " there, and resides at Abbotsford till his death, repeatedly enlarging the estate by buying up adjacent lands until his estate reaches 1,000 acres, and costs, for the land alone, ^29 ooo ; he surrounds himself at Abbotsford with numerous pet dogs and other animals, devotes much time to tree-planting, and entertains there many noted people; in 1802 he sends ^500 to James Ballantyne, a former school-fellow at Kelso, who had printed Scott's first work, and induces him to remove to Edinburgh ; in 1805 Scott becomes a silent partner with Ballantyne in the printing business, and in 1809 the admission of John, brother 356 SCOTT to James Ballantyne, results in the firm of John Ballantyne & Co., booksellers and publishers; in 1812-14 the concern is saved from bankruptcy only by the receipts from " Waverley " (begun in 1805 and published in 1814) ; " Waverley " is pub- lished anonymously, and meets with astounding success, over 60,000 copies being sold up to 1825 ; during 1811-14 Scott corresponds with Byron, Southey, and his friend Sir Hum- phry Davy; publishes " Rokeby " in 1812 and the "Bri- dal of Triermain " in 1813; 10,000 copies of "Rokeby" are sold within three months after publication ; Scott declines the offer of the laureateship in 1813; visits the Shetland Isles in 1814; in January, 1815, publishes "The Lord of the Isles," and in February, " Guy Mannering," in two vol- umes ; he receives ^2,000 for " Guy Mannering ," of which 2,000 copies were sold the day after its publication and 50,000 up to 1838, in Great Britain alone; he publishes, also, "Paul's Letters to His Kinsfolk" early in 1815 ; visits London in March, 1815, remaining two months, and meeting Byron and the Prince Regent, who gives a dinner in Scott's honor; visits Brussels and the field of Waterloo soon after the battle, in August, 1815, and returns to Abbotsford in September, after spending some time in Paris ; publishes his poem " The Field of Waterloo " in October, 1815, and "The Antiquary" in May, 1816 ; 6,000 copies of the latter were sold within six days after publication ; in December, 1816, still preserving his incognito, Scott publishes, through Murray, the first series of "Tales of My Grandfather," containing "The Black Dwarf" and "Old Mortality"; 4,000 copies were sold with- in six weeks; in January, 1817, he publishes "Harold the Dauntless," begun several years before, and makes a fruitless effort to secure an appointment as Baron of the Exchequer ; he is severely ill during the winter of 1817, and later in that year entertains, at Abbotsford, Lady Byron and Washington Irving; in December he completes and publishes "Rob Roy," of which 40,000 copies were sold in Great Britain up to SCOTT 357 1838 ; publishes " The Heart of Midlothian " in June, 1818; at this time the annual profits on his novels were about ^10,- ooo ; for several years prior to 1818 Scott edits the " Edin- burgh Annual Register," a history of the world for each pre- ceding year, making an annual volume of about four hundred pages ; while in Edinburgh he lives in Castle Street ; declares in 1818 that his annual expenditure for postage alone reaches ^150; in November, 1818, he accepts the offer of a baro- netcy ; in December, 1818, sells all his existing copyrights to Constable & Co. for ^12,000, they agreeing not to reveal the author's name under a forfeit of ^2,000 ; Scott suffers a return of his stomach malady in the spring of 1819, and dic- tates " The Bride of Lammermoor," " The Legend of Mont- rose " (both published in 1819), and the greater part of "Ivanhoe" while suffering intense physical pain ; he enter- tains Prince Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg and Miss Edgeworth in the summer of 1819, and publishes " Ivanhoe " during the following autumn ; it is received " with clamorous delight " ; during the winter of 1819-20 he publishes the essays entitled " The Visionary," giving his views " on certain popular doc- trines and delusions" ; entertains Prince Gustavus Vasa at Edinburgh in the winter of 1820, and publishes " The Mon- astery " in the following March ; proceeds to London to re- ceive his baronetcy, and, at the request of George IV., sits for his portrait, to be hung in the royal gallery at Windsor ; sits also for the bust that now best represents him ; becomes " Sir Walter Scott " March 30, 1820, King George conferring the honor in person ; in May, 1820, Scott receives tenders of the degree of D.C.L. from both Oxford and Cambridge ; in Sep- tember, 1820, he publishes "The Abbot," a continuation of " The Monastery," but the novel is not a success ; in Novem- ber is elected president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ; publishes " Kenilworth " in January, 1821, and begins to edit Ballantyne's " Novelist's Library " ; in November, 1821, sells to Constable the copyrights of " Ivanhoe," " The Mon- 358 SCOTT astery," "The Abbot," and " Kenilworth " for five thou- sand guineas, repeating the forfeit clause of ^2,000 to insure his incognito; Scott had already received ^10,000 profits from these four novels ; signs a contract, also, for " four works of fiction yet to be written "; publishes "The Pirate" in December, 1821, "The Fortunes of Nigel" in May, 1822, and " Halidon Hill" in June, 1822 ; superintends repairs to the ruin of Melrose Abbey and manages the popular recep- tion to George IV. at Edinburgh in the summer of 1822 ; publishes " Peveril of the Peak " in January, 1823, " Quen- tin Durward " in June, and " St. Ronan's Well " in Decem- ber; the comparatively cold reception given to the last two novels alarms both Scott and Constable, his publisher ; lie publishes " Redgauntlet" in June, 1824, and completes his mansion at Abbotsford in November; publishes "Tales of the Crusaders," including "The Talisman" and "Be- trothed," in June, 1825 ; visits Ireland in July, and is pub- licly honored at Dublin ; entertains Moore at Abbotsford in the autumn ; is alarmed by rumors of the failure of Consta- ble, with whom Scott and the Ballantynes had been long and intricately involved in business, but " the storm blows over" ; Scott gives up hunting and begins his diary in November, 1825, registering his purpose "to practise economics "; on January 17, 1826, both Constable and the Ballantyne firm be- come bankrupt, and Scott is left, in his own words, " a beg- gar " ; January 2ist he writes in his diary : " Naked we en- tered this world, and naked we leave it blessed be the name of the Lord " ; on the next day, spurring himself for his he- roic undertaking (which was nothing less than to earn over half a million dollars by his pen and so to pay up the debts of the firm), he writes : " Well ! Exertion exertion exertion ! O invention, rouse thyself! may man be kind ! may God be propitious ! The worst is, I never quite know when I am right or wrong " ; he disdains to take advantage of the bankrupt act, and begins " Woodstock," averaging thirty pages a day; SCOTT 359 is greatly depressed by the illness of Lady Scott, who dies May 15, 1826; publishes "Woodstock" in April, 1826, and receives ^8,228 in cash for the copyright; leaves A b- botsford for London in October, and proceeds thence to Paris in search of material for his " Life of Napoleon " ; is received with great public honors in both cities, and returns to Abbotsford late in November ; first acknowledges the au- thorship of the Waverley novels in February, 1827; publishes " Chronicles of the Canongate " and the second series of " Tales of a Grandfather" in December, 1828 ; during the same month, after being unconsciously rescued from the clutches of a firm of London Jewish brokers by friends, Scott sells his remaining copyrights, including the " Chron- icles," for ^8,500, and pays the Ballantyne creditors six shillings in the pound ; that is, he had earned, during the previous two years, about ^40,000; during 1828 he begins a new edition of his poems, with biographical prefaces, and a new edition of the novels, with elaborate notes ; publishes "The Fair Maid of Perth" in March, 1828, and the third series of "Tales of a Grandfather" in December; during 1829, though in continual ill-health, he publishes "Anne of Geierstein," the fourth series of "Tales of a Grandfather," and the first volume of " Scottish History " (in Lardner's Cy- clopaedia) ; during 1830 he publishes the second volume of the " Scottish History " and the new edition of his poems ; suf- fers a stroke of paralysis in February and another soon after- ward ; declines a royal pension and the rank of Privy Coun- cillor in the summer of 1830 ; publishes " Demonology " and " The History of France " during the same summer, and by September has paid over one-half of the vast debt ; in De- cember, 1830, he pays his creditors another three shillings in the pound, and they release to him his Abbotsford furni- ture, linens, plate, paintings, library, and curiosities of every description, on which they had held a claim (the estate of Abbotsford had previously been entailed to Scott's oldest son) ; 360 SCOTT Scott has another attack of apoplexy in August, 1831, but rallies, and, against the advice of all his physicians and the entreaties of friends, completes and publishes " Count Robert of Paris " and " Castle Dangerous " ; during the summer he entertains at Abbotsford the artist Turner, who comes to make drawings for illustrating Scott's poems, and also Words- worth, who comes to bid Scott farewell before the latter's tour to Italy in search of health ; Wordsworth afterward com- memorates the visit in his " Yarrow Revisited " ; Scott leaves Abbotsford September 23, 1831, spends a month in London, meeting again Moore, Irving, and many other old friends, and sails from Portsmouth October 2gih in the Barhant, a royal frigate placed at his disposal by the king ; he is accom- panied by his eldest son, Major Walter Scott, then connected with the British embassy at Rome ; reaches Malta November 25th; thence to Naples, where his younger son, Charles, awaits him and where Scott receives royal attentions ; in spite of remonstrances, he begins and nearly finishes ' ' The Siege of Malta" and "Bizzano," neither of which he publishes; leaves Naples April 16, 1832, accompanied by his son Charles, and starts homeward by way of the Tyrol and the Rhine; spends several weeks in Rome, leaving there May nth; hastens through Florence, Bologna, Venice, Innspruck, Mu- nich, Heidelberg, and Frankfort, travelling night and day in the hope of reaching Abbotsford before his death, which he knew to be near ; thence down the Rhine to Cologne ; suffers another severe stroke of apoplexy when near Minguen, June 9th, which renders him helpless; by steamer from Rotterdam, reaching London June i3th, where he remains till early in July, unconscious most of the time ; thence, accompanied by his two daughters and by Lockhart, by steamer to Edinburgh and thence to Abbotsford, which he reaches July i2th; Lockhart writes : "At the sight of his own towers he sprang up with a cry of delight"; his health improves during the first weeks after reaching Abbotsford, but then steadily de- SCOTT 361 clines till his death there, September 21, 1832 ; his unmarried daughter, Anne, receives from the privy purse of William IV. a pension of ^200 till her death, in 1833 ; his eldest son succeeds him in the baronetcy, and his daughter, the wife of Lockhart, is buried by the side of Sir Walter, at Dryburgh, in 1837; his obligations to his creditors, amounting to ^54,000 at his death, are settled by means of ^22,000 of life insur- ance, the balance being assumed by Cadell, the publisher, on the security of unexpired copyrights. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON SCOTT'S STYLE. Devey, J., "A Comparative Estimate, etc." London, 1873, E. Moxon, 212-225. Whipple, E. P., "Essays and Reviews." Boston, 1867, Ticknor, I: 318-329. Shairp, J. C., "Aspects of Poetry." Boston, 1882, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 323-349- Stephen, L., "Hours in a Library." New York, 1894, Putnam, I: 137-169. Hutton, R. H., " Sir Walter Scott." New York, 1878, Harper. Yonge, C. D., "Life of Sir Walter Scott." London, 1888, Walter Scott. Canning, A. S. G., " Philosophy of the Waverley Novels." London, 1879, Smith, Elder & Co. Bagehot, W., "Literary Studies" (Works). Hartford, 1889, Travel- lers' Insurance Co., 2: 197239. Jeffrey, F., " Modern British Essayists." Philadelphia, 1852, A. Hart, 6 : 359-3 8 . etc. Carlyle, T., " Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. " London, 1847, Chap- man & Hall, 4 : 99-165. Masson, D., " Sir Walter Scott. " New York, 1893, Whittaker. Sainte-Beuve, C. A., "Essays." London, 1893, W. Scott, 164-167. Watt, J. C., "Great Novelists." Edinburgh, 1880, Macniven & Wal- lace, 1-96. Oliphant, Mrs., "Literary History of England." New York, 1889, Macmillan, 2: 80-152. Landon, L. E., "Life and Literary Remains of L. E. L." London, 1841, Colburn, 2: 81-194. Hazlitt, W., "Lectures on the English Poets." London, 1884, G. Bell & Sons, 205-207. 362 SCOTT Hazlitt, W., "Spirit of the Age." London, 1886, G. Bell & Sons, 97- 117. Lang, A., "Letters to Dead Authors." New York, 1892, Longmans, Green & Co., 127-136. Macaulay, T. B., "Miscellaneous Works." New York, 1880, Harper, 1 : 200, etc., v. index. Masson, D., " British Novelists." Boston, 1892, W. Small, 161-214. Nicoll, H. J., "Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1883, Appleton, 323-340. Taine, H. A., "History of English Literature." New York, 1875, Holt, 2 : 73-80 and v. index. Ward, T. H. (Goldwin Smith), "The English Poets." New York, 1881, Macmillan, 4: 186-194. Gilfillan, G., "Life of Sir Walter 'Scott." Edinburgh, 1871, W. Oli- phant & Co. Rossetti, W. M., "Lives of Famous Poets." London, 1885, E. Moxon, 219-234. Tuckerman, B., "A History of English Prose Fiction." New York, 1882, Putnam, 278-284. Veitch, J., "The History and Poetry of the Scottish Border." Edin- burgh, 1898, Blackwood, 496-578. Welsh, A. H., "The Development of English Literature." Chicago, 1884, Griggs, 2 : 321-330. Lang, A., " Essays in Little." New York, 1891, Scribner, 171-182. Collier, W. F., "History of English Literature." London, 1892, Nelson, 399-413. Rice, A. T., " Essays from North American Review (W. H. Prescott)." New York, 1879, Appleton, 3-63. Talfourd, T. N., "Critical and Miscellaneous Essays." Boston, 1854, Phillips, Sampson & Co., 11-15. Duyckinck, E. A., " Portrait Gallery." New York, 1875, Johnson, Wil- son & Co., i: 476-488. Knight, C., " Gallery of Portraits." London, 1837, C. Knight & Co., 7 : 185-197. Mason, E. T., " Personal Traits of British Authors." New York, 1885, Scribner, 3 : 1-7. Pebody, C., "Authors at Work." London, 1872, W. H. Allen & Co., 36-85. Reed, H., " British Poets." Philadelphia, 1857, Parry & McMillan, 2: 60-89. Jeaffreson, J. C. , "Novels and Novelists." London, 1858, Hurst & Blackett, 2 : 31-84. SCOTT 363 Allibone, S. A., "A Critical Dictionary of Authors." Philadelphia, 1891, Lippincott, 2 : 1964-1979. Bryant, W. C. , " Orations and Addresses." New York, 1873, Putnam, 387-393. Chorley, H. F., "The Authors of England." London, 1838, C. Tilt, 7-13- Courthope, W. J., "The Liberal Movement in English Literature." London, 1885, Murray, 111-156. Dennis, J., "Heroes of Literature." New York, 1883, E. & J. B. Young, 300-321. Dickson, N., "The Bible in Waverley." Edinburgh, 1884, A. & C. Black. Graham, W., " Lectures, Sketches, etc." Edinburgh, 1873, Seaton & Mackenzie, 153-163. Howitt, W., " Homes and Haunts of British Poets." London, 1863, Routledge, 446-486. Irving, W., " Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey." New York, 1852, Putnam, 201-379. Jerrold, B., " The Best of All Good Company." London, 1871, W. T. Gill, 85-160. Lennox, Lord W. P., "Celebrities I have Known." London, 1877, Hurst & Blackett, 2 : 21-33. Lockhart, J. G., "Memoirs of Walter Scott." Boston, 1881, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Mackay, C., " Forty Years' Recollections." London, 1877, Chapman & Hall, I : 175-206. Martineau, H., " Miscellanies." Boston, 1836, Hilliard, Gray & Co., I : 1-12 and 27-56. Senior, W. W., " Essays on Fiction." London, 1864, Longmans & Green, 1-185. Prescott, W. H., " Biographical and Critical Miscellanies." Philadelphia, 1869, Lippincott. Dawson, W. J., " The Makers of Modern English." New York, 1890, Whittaker, 61-71. Mitford, M. R., "Recollections of a Literary Life." New York, 1851, Harper, 424-442. Minto, W., " Literature of the Georgian Era." New York, 1895, Harper, 235-253 and 286-289. Gibson, John, " Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott." Edinburgh, 1871, A. & C. Black. Doyle, Sir F. H., " Lectures on Poetry." London, 1869, Macmillan, 182-183, 78-127. 364 SCOTT " Encyclopaedia Britannica," gth edition (W. Minto). Edinburgh, 1871, Bell, 21 : 544-551. Everett, E., "The Mount Vernon Papers." New York, 1860, Apple- ton, 115-123 and 135-144. Moir, D., " Sketches of Poetical Literature." Cambridge, 1856, Black- wood, 116-127. Yonge, C. D., "Three Centuries of English Literature." New York, 1889, Appleton, 294-332. Masson, D., "In the Footsteps of the Poets" (J. Dennis). New York, 1893, Whittaker, 235-279. Phillips, M. G., " A Manual of English Literature." New York, 1893, Harper, I : 265-330 and v. index. Quarterly Review, 27 : 337-364 ; 26 : 110-130 (A. W. Senior). Atlantic Monthly, 46 : 313-320 (T. S. Perry) ; 69: 139-142. Edinburgh Review, 28 : 193-259 (Jeffrey) ; 29 : 403-432 (Jeffrey) ; 55 : 61-69; 6: 1-20 (Jeffrey) ; 16 : 263-293 ; 24 : 208-242 (Jeffrey). North American Review, 99 .- 5^3~S^7 (Senior) ; 46 : 445-474 (Lock- hart) ; 36: 289-315 (Cunningham); 32: 386-421 (Pebody) ; 35: 1 72-1 73 and 187-189 (W. H. Prescott). The Forum, 14 : 503-513 (Mallock). The Nation, 13: 103-104 (J. R. Dennett). Harper's Magazine, 43: 5 1 1-5 14 (Mrs. Z. B. Buddington). Macmillan's Magazine, 26 : 168 (Frere). Fraser's Magazine, 5 : 207-217; 36: 345-351. Monthly Review, 2 : 569-581. Nineteenth Century Magazine, 7 : 941-962 (Ruskin). BlackwoooTs Magazine, 19: 152-160; no: 229-256. New Monthly Magazine, 46 : 79-85 (Scott). Contemporary Review, 23 : 514-539 (J. Wedgewood). Good Words, 16 : 500-508 (J. C. Shairp). National Review, 6 : 444-472. Saturday Review, 14: 746-748. PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS. I. Vivid Personal Portraiture. Sainte Beuve, who is perhaps the greatest critic whom the nineteenth century has produced, calls Sir Walter Scott " an immortal painter of hu- manity." Richard Henry Hutton says: " Indeed, whether Scott draws truly or falsely, he draws with such genius that his pictures of Richard and Saladin, of Louis XI. and Charles SCOTT 365 the Bold, of Margaret of Anjou and Rene of Provence, of Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor, of Sussex and Leicester, of James and Charles and Buckingham, of the two Dukes of Argyle the Argyle of the time of the Revolution and the Argyle of George II. of Queen Caroline, of Claverhouse and Monmouth and Rob Roy, will live in English literature be- side Shakespeare's pictures probably less faithful if more imaginative of John and Richard and the later Henries and all the great figures by whom they are surrounded. No historical portrait that we possess will take precedence as a mere portrait of Scott's brilliant study of James I. in ' The Fortunes of Nigel. 1 ' "You find everywhere in Walter Scott a remarkable se- curity and thoroughness in his delineations, which proceed from his comprehensive knowledge of the real world, obtained by lifelong studies and observations and a daily discussion of the most important relations. He is equal to his subject in every direction in which it takes him ; 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." Goethe. "It seemed as if the author had transferred into his page the strong delineations of the Homeric pencil, the rude but generous gallantry of a primitive period, softened by the more airy and magical inventions of Italian romance." W. H. Prescott. "The characters, whether historical or fictitious, are as lifelike and natural as if drawn from personal acquaintance. He chiefly delights and excels in describing pecul- iar people, like Baillie Jarvie, Dominie Sampson, Meg Mer- rilies, David Deans, etc., and also in delineating historical characters with astonishing force and accuracy. Even when placing these historical characters in imaginary situations, he adheres so carefully to all that is known of 366 SCOTT them that the most practical reader will own that they would, in all consistency, have acted in those situations precisely as the novelist has made them." A. S. G. Canning. "We cannot say, of course, that figures in Scott's pages talked as he makes them talk, but the reader feels sure that if they did not they ought to have done so." -J. Dennis. 11 When he comes to the character of his heroes, he seizes at once upon the master-passion, and, by two or three leading strokes, stamps the man's history on his face in hues which impart a meaning to the least of his actions. ... By- bringing the new in contact with the old, men were enabled to trace the same bounding hopes and fears, the same hatreds and loves, the same rivalries and aspirations, arrayed in dif- ferent attire, developed under conflicting institutions, which now actuate them and animating a social structure they had hitherto vainly striven to piece together from the dry inves- tigations of the lawyer or the tedious narrative of the histo- rian." -J. Devey. ILLUSTRATIONS. " He [Mr. Holdenough] was a tall, thin man, with an adust complexion, and the vivacity of his eye indicated some irasci- bility of temperament. His dress was brown, not black, and over his other vestments he wore, in honor of Calvin, a Geneva cloak of a blue color, which fell backward from his shoulders. His grizzled hair was cut as short as shears could perform the feat and covered with a black silk skull-cap, which stuck so close to the head that the two ears expanded from under it as if they had been intended as handles by which to lift the whole person. Moreover, the worthy divine wore spectacles and a long, grizzled, peaked beard, and he carried in his hand a small pocket Bible with silver clasps." Woodstock. " Grahame of Claverhouse was in the prime of life, rather low of stature, and slightly, though elegantly, formed ; his gesture, language, and manners were those of one whose life had been spent among the noble and the gay. His features exhibited even feminine regularity. An oval face, a straight and well-formed SCOTT 367 nose, dark hazel eyes, a complexion just sufficiently tinted with brown to save it from the charge of effeminacy, a short upper lip, curved upward like that of a Grecian statue and slightly shaded by small mustachios of light brown, joined to a profusion of long curled locks of the same color, which fell down on each side of his face, contributed to form such a countenance as limners love to paint and ladies to look upon." Old Mortality. " Formed in the best proportions of her sex, Rowena was tall in stature, yet not so much so as to attract observation on account of her superior height. Her complexion was exquisitely fair, but the noble cast of her head and features prevented the insipidity which sometimes attaches to fair beauties. Her clear blue eye, which sat enshrined beneath a graceful eyebrow of brown, suf- ficiently marked to give expression to the forehead, seemed capable to kindle as well as melt, to command as well as to be- seech. If mildness were the more natural expression of such a combination of features, it was plain that in the present instance the exercise of habitual superiority and the reception of general homage had given to the Saxon lady a loftier character, which mingled with and qualified that bestowed by nature." Ivanhoe. 2. Realistic Description Imaginative Power. This quality is in part the same as the first except that it is applied to things rather than persons. Scott himself was fully conscious of his descriptive power; for, early in life, he writes of his boyish powers to a friend : " But show me an old castle or field of battle, and I was at home at once, filled it with its combatants in their proper costume, and overwhelmed my hearers by the enthusiasm of my description." " Everything appears before us in its true colors, with its true light and shade and true proportion and peopled with figures so varied, so life-like and individual that, after read- ing the novel, we cannot divest ourselves of a firm conviction of the reality of persons, places, and events. So much so, indeed, is this the case with nearly all Scott's historical novels that, when we afterward find in authentic history any proofs of occasional incorrectness or even anachronisms in these fie- 368 SCOTT tions, we deny the evidence of our reason, and cannot be in- duced to think that the manners, the characters, or the events could have been otherwise than as the artist has represented them." T. B. Shaw. " All that portion of the history of his country that he has touched upon (wide as the scope is) the manners, the person- ages, the events, the scenery lives over again in his volumes. Nothing is wanting the illusion is complete. There is a hurtling in the air, a trampling of feet upon the ground, as these perfect representations of human character or fanciful belief come thronging back upon our imagination. " Hazlitt. " Nature, history, tradition, life, everything and every place, were shown by this new and vigorous spirit to be full to overflowing with what had been, in the dim eyes of former soi-disant geniuses, only dry bones, but which, at the touch of this bold necromancer, sprung up living forms of the most fascinating grace. . . . The whole land seemed astir with armies, insurrections, pageantries of love, and passages of sorrow, that for twenty years kept the enraptured public in a trance, as it were, of one accumulating marvel of joy. There seemed no bounds to his powers or to the field of his opera- tions." William Howitt. " Whatever age he chooses for his story lives before us : we become contemporaries of all his persons and sharers in all their fortunes. ... In the vivid description of natural scenery, our author is wholly without a rival. . . . Every gentle swelling of the ground, every gleam of the water, every curve and rock of the shore, all varieties of the earth, from the vastest crag to the soft grass of the woodland walk, and all changes of the heavens from ' morn to morn, from noon to latest eve ' are placed before us in his works with a dis- tinctness beyond that which the painter's art can attain, while we seem to breathe the mountain air, to drink in the freshness of the valleys. " T. N. Talfourd. " He can describe a battle with a vividness unequalled by SCOTT 369 any poet since Homer. . . . The homelier characters are as much alive as if they were flesh. . . . He is a master of description of commonplace affairs and people." J. Dennis. " The manners, customs, language, ideas, together with the armor, dresses, and furniture of the period are described with a force and accuracy never surpassed, and perhaps never equalled, by any other author in prose fiction." A. S. G. Canning. ILLUSTRATIONS. " One end of this long and dusky apartment was entirely oc- cupied by a gallery, which had in ancient times served to accom- modate the musicians and minstrels. There was a clumsy stair- case at either side of it, composed of entire logs of a foot square ; and in each angle of the ascent was placed, by way of sentinel, the figure of a Norman foot-soldier, having an open casque on his head, which displayed features as stern as the painter's genius could devise. Their arms were buff-jackets, or shirts of mail, round bucklers, with spikes in the centre, and buskins which adorned and defended the feet and ankles but left the knees bare. These wooden warders held great swords or maces in their hands, like military guards on duty." Woodstock. " The floor was composed of earth mixed with lime, trodden into a hard substance, such as is often employed in flooring our modern barns. For about one-quarter of the length of the apart- ment the floor was raised by a step, and this space, which was called the dais, was occupied only by the principal members of the family and visitors of distinction. For this purpose, a table richly covered with scarlet cloth was placed transversely across the platform, from the middle of which ran the longer and lower board, at which the domestics and inferior persons fed, down toward the bottom of the hall. The whole resembled the form of the letter T or some of those ancient dinner-tables which, ar- ranged on the same principles, may be still seen in the antique colleges of Oxford or Cambridge. Massive chairs and settles of carved oak were placed upon the dais, and over these seats and the more elevated table was fastened a canopy of cloth, which served in some degree to protect the dignitaries who occupied 34 370 SCOTT that distinguished station from the weather, and especially from the rain, which, in some places, found its way through the ill-con- structed roof." Ivanhoe. " The scene was singularly romantic. On the verge of a wood, which approached to within a mile of the town of Ashby, was an extensive meadow of the finest and most beautiful green turf, sur- rounded on one side by the forest and fringed on the other by straggling oak-trees, some of which had grown to immense size. The ground, as if fashioned on purpose for the martial display which was intended, sloped gradually down on all sides to a level bottom, which was enclosed for the lists with strong palisades, forming a space of a quarter of a mile in length and about half as broad. The form of the enclosure was an oblong square, save that the corners were considerably rounded-off, in order to afford more convenience for the spectators. The openings for the entry of the combatants were at the northern and southern extremities of the lists, accessible by strong wooden gates, each wide enough to admit two horsemen riding abreast. At each of these portals were stationed two heralds, attended by six trumpets, as many pursuivants, and a strong body of men-at-arms for maintaining order and ascertaining the quality of the knights who proposed to engage in this martial game." Ivanhoe. 3. Picturesqueness Scenic Effect. While this quality is often found in combination with the second, they are by no means identical. There may be picturesqueness without vividness and vividness without picturesqueness. As Prescott says: "Scott was, in truth, master of the pictur- esque. He understood better than any historian since the time of Livy how to dispose his lights and shades so as to produce the most striking results. . . . If he wants the passion and fire of Moore and Campbell, his pictures are more true to nature than those of either. It [' The Lady of the Lake '] seemed like the breathings of his native pibroch, stealing over glen and mountain, and calling up all the de- licious associations of rural solitude." " A love of picturesque, of beautiful, vigorous, and grace- SCOTT 371 ful things, a genuine love . . . this is the highest qual- ity to be discovered in him." Carlyle. " Nothing could be more picturesque and animated than the panorama of brilliant and highly colored mediaeval life thus made to pass before us." Mrs. Oliphant. " Scott was eminently a painter of words. The pictur- esque was his forte. Witness the magnificent descriptions of natural scenery sunsets, stormy seas, deep woodland glades with which many of his chapters open." W. F. Collier. " He is in history as he is at Abbotsford, bent on ar- ranging points of view and Gothic halls. The moon will come well there between the towers ; here is a nicely placed breastplate ; the ray of light which it throws back is pleasant to see on these old hangings ; suppose we took out the feudal garments from the wardrobe and invited these guests to a masquerade ? The entertainment would be a fine one, in accordance with their reminiscences and their aristocratic principles. . . . Moreover, there are ladies and young girls, and we must arrange the show so as not to shock their severe morality and their delicate feelings make them weep becomingly. . . As he has the greatest supply of rich costumes, and the most inexhaustible talent for scenic effect, he makes all his people get on very pleasantly, and composes tales which, in truth, have only the merit of fashion, though that fashion may last a hundred years yet." Taine. "What picturesqueness ! from the castle to the cottage, from the religious zealot and the soldier of fortune to the very hounds snuffing the odor of supper in ' Redgauntlet ' ! If he seldom or never penetrates into the innermost regions of men, how fresh are all his outside sketches ! " B. IV. Procter. Ruskin has testified how true was Scott's sense of color and with what fidelity he describes the scenery which was familiar to him. Pitt said of " The Lay of the Last Min- strel " that it was the sort of thing he might have expect- 372 SCOTT ed in painting, but could never have fancied capable of being given in poetry. Mrs. Landon calls Scott " the founder of a new school the picturesque," and adds: " All his char- acters give the idea of portraits rather than inventions." "It is in the embellishment of his plots by graphic inci- dents as well as in his matchless delineations of character that Scott's powers as a poet are most conspicuous. He knew how to crowd his canvas with those lights and shades which have the effect of conveying the poej's creations with all their freshness and reality into the reader's heart. The picture of delicate beauty comforting giant strength, of the quiet repose of nature disturbed by the shaggy panoply of arms, of the silence and darkness of midnight broken by the war-whoop of the trooper or the torch of the incendiary these and other kindred points of contrast the poet brings out with a minute ness of touch which sets up the entire scene in all its gor- geous coloring before our eyes, while the faintest reverber- ation of the sounds echoes in the ear. . . . Men saw revived as in a glass all the artistic features of the Middle Ages, just as the last vestige of them had sunk beneath the tide of modern innovation." J. Devey. ILLUSTRATIONS. " As she passed for the third time the kneeling crusader, a part of a little and well-proportioned hand, so beautifully formed as to give the highest proportions of the form to which it be- longed, stole through the folds of the gauze, like a moonbeam through the fleecy cloud of a summer night, and again a rosebud lay at the feet of the Knight of the Leopard." The Talisman. " At the upper and eastern end of the chapel stood the altar, behind which a very rich curtain of Persian silk, embroidered deeply with gold, covered a recess containing, unquestionably, some image or relic of no ordinary sanctity, in honor of whom this singular place of worship had been erected. Under the im- pression that this must be the case, the knight advanced to the shrine and, kneeling down before it, repeated his devotions with SCOTT 373 fervency, during which his attention was disturbed by the curtain being suddenly raised, or, rather, pulled aside, how or by whom he saw not ; but in the niche which was thus disclosed he beheld a cabinet of silver and ebony, with a double folding-door, the whole formed into a miniature resembling a Gothic church." The Talisman. " The glorious beams of the rising sun, which poured from a tabernacle of purple and golden clouds, were darted full on such a scene of natural romance and beauty as had never before greeted my eyes. To the left lay the valley, down which the Forth wandered on its easterly course, surrounding the beautiful detached hill, with all its garland of woods. On the right, amid a profusion of thickets, knolls and crags, lay the head of a broad mountain lake, lightly curled into tiny waves by the breath of the morning breeze, each glittering into its course under the in- fluence of the sunbeams. High hills, rocks, and banks waving with natural forests of birch and oak formed the borders of this enchanting sheet of water ; and, as their leaves rustled to the wind and twinkled in the sun, gave to the depth of solitude a sort of life and vivacity." Rob Roy. 4. Vivacity Animation Sustained Vigor. This quality, while kindred to the three already considered, is dis- tinct. It is found mainly in Scott's narration, while they are found mainly in his description. Leslie Stephen says : "The vivacity of the description the delight with which Scott throws himself into the pursuit of his knick-knacks and an- tiquarian rubbish has something contagious about it." Dulcken declares that " when one has said that Scott is ex- ceedingly spirited, one has expressed the most salient and the finest of his excellencies. ' ' " His store of images is so copious that he never dwells upon one long enough to produce weariness in the reader; and, even when he deals in borrowed or in tawdry wares, the rapidity of his transition and the transient glance with which he is satisfied as to each, leave the critic no time to be offended, and hurry him forward along with the multitude, 374 SCOTT enchanted with the brilliancy of the exhibition. His narrative, in this way, is kept constantly full of life, variety, and color, and is so interspersed with glowing de- scriptions and lively illusions and flying traits of sagacity and pathos as not only to keep our attention continually awake but to afford a pleasing exercise to most of our other facul- ties. "Jeffrey. " The poet could only supply his want of abstract grandeur, of mental introspection, of profound pathos, by thrilling in- cident, by startling contrasts of situation, by grand scenic effects, by powerful delineation of character. . . . It is owing to his success in breathing into the martial relics of chivalry the spirit of human life that Scott is entitled to a high place in narrative poetry. . . . His heroes stride before us with an earnestness rather than with the sentimen- tality which speaks the atmosphere of romance." J. Drvey. " He had no philosophic meditativeness, but he knew how to tell a story. . . . There is a confident ease in his way of telling a story which no other writer of English fiction has ever possessed in anything like the same degree. He has made history live." R. L. Stevenson. " Scott's poetry abounds in vigorous, rushing lines, which no one familiar with them in youth is likely to forget in after years. . . . His genius was fed less on meditation than on action, and there is a strength and swiftness of movement in his verse which carries the reader with it. The author of ' Marmion ' never fails for want of vigor, and never loiters by the way when the plot requires that he should move over the ground swiftly. ' ' -J. Dennis. "The first quality of his character, or, rather, that which forms the basis of it, is his energy." W. H. Prescott. SCOTT 375 ILLUSTRATIONS. " ' He blenches not ! He blenches not ! ' said Rebecca. ' I see him now ; he heads a body of men close under the outer barrier of the barbican. They pull down the piles and palisades ; they hew down the barriers with axes. His high black plume floats abroad over the throng like a raven over the fields of the slain. They have made a breach in the barriers they rush in they are thrust back! Front-de-Bceuf heads the defenders; I see his gigantic form above the press. They throng again to the breech, and the pass is disputed hand to hand and man to man. God of Jacob ! it is the meeting of two fierce tides the conflict of two oceans moved by adverse winds.'" Ivanhoe. " ' I assure you, Colonel,' said Waverley, ' that you judge too harshly of the Highlanders.' " ' Not a whit, not a whit ; I cannot spare them a jot I cannot bate them an ace. Let them stay in their own barren mountains, and puff and swell, and hang their bonnets on the horns of the moon, if they have a mind ; but what business have they to come where people wear breeches and speak an intelligible language ? ' . . . " 'A fine character you'll give of Scotland upon your return, Colonel Talbot.' " ' Oh Justice Shallow,' said the Colonel, 'will save me the trouble" Barren, barren beggars all, beggars all. Marry, good air " and that only when you are fairly out of Edin- burgh, and not yet come to Leith, as is our case at present.'" Waverley. " ' Nay, I cannot tell what to make of you,' answered the chief of Maclvor ; 'you are blown about with every wind of doctrine. Here have we gained a victory and your behavior is praised by every living mortal to the skies and the prince is eager to thank you in person and all our beauties of the White Rose are pulling caps for you and/0w, the preux chevalier of the day, are stoop- ing on your horse's neck like a butter-woman riding to market and looking as black as a funeral.' " ' I am sorry for our poor Colonel Gardiner's death ; he was once very kind to me.' " ' Why, then, be sorry for five minutes, and then be glad again; his chance to-day may be ours to-morrow. And what does it 376 SCOTT signify ? the next best thing to victory is honorable death ; but it is a pis-aller, and one would rather a foe had it than one's self.' " \Vaverley. 5. Quiet, Kindly Humor Toleration Sympathy. "Walter Scott is never bitter; he loves men from the bottom of his heart, excuses or tolerates them ; does not chastise vices, but unmasks them, and that not rudely. His greatest pleasure is to pursue at length^ not, indeed, a vice, but a hobby ; the mania for odds and ends in an antiquary, the archaeological vanity of the Baron of Bradwardine, the aris- tocratic drivel of the Dowager Lady Bellenden that is, the amusing exaggeration of an allowable taste ; and this without anger, because, on the whole, these ridiculous people are es- timable and even generous. Even in rogues like Dirk Hat- teraick, in cut-throats like Bothwell, he allows some goodness. In this critical refinement and in this philosophy he resembles Addison. ... A continuous archness throws its smile over these interior and genre pictures, so local and minute. . . . Most of these good folk are comic. Our author makes fun of them, brings out their little deceits, parsimony, fooleries, vulgarity, and the hundred thousand ridiculous habits people always contract in a narrow sphere of life. . . . By this fundamental honesty and broad humanity, he was the Homer of modern-citizen life." Taine. "It is this beneficent spirit which* gives such an air of bonhomie to Scott's humor throughout his works. He played with the foibles of his fellow-beings, and presented them in a thousand characteristic and whimsical lights ; but the kind- ness and generosity of his nature would not allow him to be a satirist." Washington Irving. " There is no keen or cold-blooded satire, no bitterness of heart or fierceness of resentment in any part of his writings. His love of ridicule is little else than a love of mirth, and sav- ours throughout of the joyous temperament in which it ap- SCOTT 377 pears to have its origin ; while the buoyancy of a raised and poetical imagination lifts him continually above the region of mere jollity and good-humour, to which a taste by no means nice or fastidious might otherwise be in danger of sinking him." -Jeffrey. " In dry humour, and in that higher humour which skilfully blends the ludicrous and the pathetic so that it is hardly pos- sible to separate between smiles and tears, Scott is a master. [He produces] creations that make one laugh in- wardly as one reads." R. If. Hutton. "And no man has ever seen with more genial vision that mingling of noble qualities with abundant weaknesses which humorists love, . . . with a luminous perception of every man 'ganging his ain gait,' and all the wonderful curves and diversities of path through which he does so, and an amused, affectionate sense of the special foibles, broken bits of folly and wisdom, obstinacies, prejudices, absurdities, which en- velop here and there the best heart and nature." Mrs. Oli- phant. " His heart was an unfailing fountain, which not merely the distresses but the joys of his fellow -creatures made flow like water. . . . Rarely, indeed, is this precious quality found united with the most exalted intellect. . . . He had a ready sympathy, a word of contagious kindness or can- did greeting for all. . . . He did not deal in sneers. * Sir Walter,' said one of his old retainers, 'speaks to every man as if he were his blood-relation.' His heart overflowed with that charity which is the life-spring of our religion." W. H. Prescott. " There is a genial and, withal, sober manliness about him which is very noticeable. Since his day we have had many varieties of novels, but in this quality of genial humanity Scott still stands unrivalled. . . . His genial healthful- ness preserves in him a cordial and sympathetic view of life. Scott has dealt with every form of human trag- 378 SCOTT edy, but he has done so with the large and tolerant spirit of a great master. . . . Above all, he is a great humor- ist. He is quick to see the fun of a situation, and his laugh- ter is Homeric. It is this element of health in which Scott stands supreme, and it is precisely this quality which we most need to-day in our contemporary fiction and poetry. "- W. J. Dawson. What a fine, easy, natural, out-of-door air his scenes possess ! What great geniality he has ! . . Scott seems to have had no vanity. He never thrusts himself into the narrative. . . . His books are an evidence of an able, well-balanced mind." B. W. Procter. ILLUSTRATIONS. " ' Truly,' said Wamba, without stirring from the spot, ' I have consulted my legs upon this matter, and they are altogether of opinion that to carry my gay garments through these sloughs would be an act of unfriendship to my sovereign person and royal wardrobe ; wherefore, Gurth, I advise thee to call off Fangs and leave the herd to their destiny, which, whether they meet with bands of travelling soldiers, or of outlaws, or of wan- dering pilgrims, can be little else than to be converted into Nor- mans before morning, to thy no small ease and comfort.' " Ivanhoe. " I must do Balmawhapple, however, the justice to say that he not only kept the rear of his troops, and labored to maintain some order among them, but, in the height of his gallantry, an- swered the fire of the castle by discharging one of his horse-pis- tols at the battlements ; although, the distance being nearly half a mile, I could never learn that this measure of retaliation svas attended with any particular effect." Waverley. " Inglewood was, according to her description, a whitewashed Jacobite ; that is, one who, having been long a non-juror, like most of the other gentlemen of the country, had lately qualified himself to act as justice by taking the oaths to Government and this inactivity does not by any means arise from actual stupidity. On the contrary, for one whose principal delight is in eating and drinking, he is an alert, joyous, and lively old soul, which makes SCOTT 379 his assumed dulness the more diverting. So you may see Jobson on such occasions like a bit of broken-down bloodlet, con- demned to drag an overloaded cart, puffing, strutting, and splut- tering, to get the Justice put in motion, though while the wheels groan, creak, and revolve slowly, the great and preponderating weight of the vehicle fairly frustrates the efforts of the willing quadruped, and prevents its being brought into a state of actual progression." Rob Roy. 6. Excessive Detail Diffuseness. "He is elabor- ately minute in the specification of the dress and equipage of his heroes ; he will suspend his narrative until he has settled the martlets on their shields and told us whether the field of their escutcheons is argent ord'or. . . . Scott's pains- taking description of articles of attire, which occasionally has the air of an inventory, though frequently censured, was to some extent necessary, in order to impart an appearance of reality to those few touches on which he relied for breathing animation into figures decorated with so much skill. The truth is, Scott wrote about no subject in which his heart was not profoundly interested, or with the details of which he was not perfectly familiar. This is the real secret of his suc- cess. . . . And this was done with a brilliancy of effect, with a splendor of coloring, with a fidelity to nature, down to the most minute detail, which has never been surpassed ; with a truthful accuracy which simulated life in every degree of rank, and which may be said to have generalized history." J. Devey. ' ' The antique relics, the curious works of art, the hangings and furniture, even, with which his halls are decorated, were specially contrived and selected by him ; and to read his let- ters at this time [when he was writing his novels] to his friend Terry, one might fancy himself perusing the correspondence of an upholsterer, so exact and technical is he in his instruc- tions." W. H. Prescott. "Scott bestows an apparently disproportionate amount of 380 SCOTT imagination upon the mere scene-painting, the external trap- pings, the clothes or dwelling-places of his performers. A traveller into a strange country naturally gives us the ex- ternal peculiarities which strike him. Scott has to tell us what completed the costume of his Highland chiefs or medi- aeval barons. . . . He fairly carried away the hearts of his contemporaries by a lavish display of mediaeval uphol- stery." Leslie Stephen. 1 ' His faults may be summed up thus : frequent carelessness of language ; occasional quaintness of thought ; a trick of in- troducing learned terms into conversation, and, as with Baron Bradwardine and Jonathan Oldbuck, pursuing the humors of an odd character to a wearisome length ; . . . occasional repetition of himself, and an overloading of his page with an- tiquarian details." George Gilfillan. " He is terribly long and diffuse; his conversations are in- terminable ; he is determined, at all events, to fill three vol- umes." Taine. ILLUSTRATIONS. " The recesses within them were raised a step or two from the wall In one was placed a walnut-tree reading-desk and a huge stuffed arm-chair, covered with Spanish leather. A little cabinet stood beside, with some of its shuttles and drawers open, display- ing hawk's-bills, dog-whistles, instruments for trimming falcons' feathers, bridle-bits of various construction, and other trifles connected with sylvan sport." Woodstock. "The human figures which completed this landscape were, in number,two, partaking, in their dress and appearance, of that wild and rustic character which belonged to the woodlands of the West Riding of Yorkshire at that early period. The eldest of these men had a stern, savage, and wild aspect. His garments were of the simplest form imaginable, being a close jacket with sleeves, composed of the tanned skin of some animal, on which the hair had been originally left, but which had been worn off in so many places that it would have been difficult to distinguish, from the patches that remained, to what creature the fur had belonged. This primeval vestment reached from the throat to the knees, and SCOTT 38! served at once all the usual purposes of body-clothing. There was no wider opening at the collar than was necessary to admit the passage of the head, from which it may be inferred that it was put on by slipping it on over the head and shoulders, in the man- ner of a modern shirt or ancient hauberk. Sandals, bound with thongs made of boar's-hide, protected the feet, and a roll of thin leather was twined artificially around the legs, and, ascending above the calf, left the knees bare, like those of a Scottish High- lander. To make the jacket sit yet more close to the body, it was gathered at the middle by a broad leathern belt secured by a brass buckle, to one side of which was attached a sort of scrip, and to the other a ram's horn, accoutred with a mouth-piece, for the purpose of blowing, etc." Ivanhoe. " The livery cupboards were loaded with plate of the richest description and the most varied ; some articles tasteful, some perhaps grotesque in the invention and decoration, but all gorge- ously magnificent, both from the richness of the work and value of the materials. Thus, the chief table was adorned by a salt ship-fashion made of mother-of-pearl, garnished with silver and divers warlike ensigns and other ornaments, anchors, sails, and sixteen pieces of ordnance. It bore a figure of Fortune, placed on a globe, with a flag in her hand. Another salt was fashioned of silver, in form of a swan in full sail. That chivalry might not be outwitted amid this splendor, a silver Saint George was pre- sented, mounted, and equipped in the usual fashion in which he bestrides the dragon. The figures were moulded to be in some sort useful. The horse's tail was managed to hold a case of knives, while the breast of the dragon presented a similar accom- modation for oyster-knives." Kenilworth. 7. False Antiquarianism Anachronism. "Scott knew the Middle Ages perhaps better than any other man of his time; but he did not know them as they are known now ; and an antiquary would pick many holes in his cos- tume. His baronial mansion at Abbotsford was bastard Gothic, and so are many details of his poems." Goldwin Smith. " From Walter Scott we learned history ; and yet is this 382 SCOTT history ? All these pictures of a distant age are false. Cos- tumes, scenery, externals alone are exact ; actions, speech, sentiments, all the rest is civilized, embellished, arranged in modern guise. We might suspect it when looking at the character and modern life of the author ; for what does he desire ? And what do the guests eager to hear him demand ? Is he a lover of truth as it is, foul and fierce ? An inquisitive explorer, indifferent to contemporary applause, bent alone on defining the transformations of living nature ? By no means. He is in history as he is at Abbotsford, bent on arranging points of view and Gothic halls. . . . Walter Scott pauses on the threshold of the soul and in the vestibule of history, selects in the Renaissance and the Middle Ages only the fit and agreeable, blots out plain-spoken words, licentious sensuality, bestial ferocity. After all, his characters, to what- ever age he transports them, are his neighbors ' cannie ' farmers, vain lairds, gloved gentlemen, marriageable ladies, all more or less commonplace, that is, steady ; by their edu- cation and character at a great distance from the voluptuous fools of the Restoration or the heroic brutes and fierce beasts of the Middle Ages." Taine. " What did Scott care for a few anachronisms that would be the ruin of one of our contemporaries? He thought noth- ing of confusing all the dates about Shakespeare in his 'Wood- stock ' and the list of his sins in this respect might be made a long one." 7! 6". Perry. " Many inaccuracies of fact might be pointed out in them [Scott's historical novels]. His study of the character of James I. in ' The Fortunes of Nigel ' is in several respects en- tirely mistaken. His description of a euphuist in ' The Mon- astery ' bears no resemblance whatever to the followers of John Lyly." Bayard Tuckerman. " The murder of Amy Robsart is placed in the same year with Leicester's magnificent revel at Kenihvorth in Elizabeth's honor. It was, in fact, long before. . . . Scott connects SCOTT 383 Lady Derby with the Papist plot, though she had been dead many years, and was no Roman Catholic, but a member of one of the most distinguished Huguenot families of France." C. D. Yonge. "The sfudy of antiquarian lore became a necessity of Scott's being. He read up old churches, devoured legendary tales, tracked to its source every heraldic distinction, and studied feudal customs until chivalry became to him the only real thing in the world which had any meaning. He could sing only of ancient feuds, of magical enchantments, of mailed knights bent upon feats of war or gallantry, of gen- tle dames and cowled priests crossing each other's paths in the intrigues of love and statecraft, of errant damsels in moated castles perplexed by the claims of rival chieftains. In intermingling weird superstitions with his narrative, Scott was true to the character of the times he was endeavoring to depict ; but in confounding these with the whole machinery of the supernatural then existing, the poet committed an error, which should not be overlooked in any fair estimate of his powers. . . . When he sacrifices that broad spirit of Christianity permeating all the institutions of chivalry to a few wild legends, he dwarfs the leading element of the age and substitutes an excrescence. . . . Of the abysmal depths of religious feeling, and of the deeper mysteries of the human heart, he knew very little and discoursed less. In not diving beneath the surface, in giving us a mere travesty of the external embodiment in which this intensity of religious feeling had enwrapped itself, Scott so far was untrue to the spirit of the age he would represent. . . . The individual scenes are so artistically finished, the minor incidents are so elab- orated, that we lose sight of the incongruities marring the framework of the design in the lavish shower of beauties flung with reckless profusion at our feet." -J. Devey. Sufficient indications of this characteristic have been given in the critical quotations. 384 SCOTT 8. Romanticism. "Wordsworth turned from the Ti- tanic confusion of the French Revolution to the study of nature; Scott to the study of the romantic past. ... It was the splendor of the past rather than the thrilling strug- gles of the present which fascinated his imagination. . . . From childhood, his memory had been stored with fantastic relics of a legendary past. Old snatches of ballad poetry, curious stories of second-sight, all the odds and ends which the literary antiquary loves and cherishes, were the natural heritage of Scott. The grotesque, the heroic, the romantic, were the diet on which his imagination had been fed. . . . He rekindled the love of chivalry, the old admiration of the troubadour, in the English heart." W. J. Dawson. " He obeyed an easy and fertile inspiration, independent of passing questions, a stranger to the struggles of the time, loving past ages, whose ruins he frequented and whose spirits he invoked, searching out every tradition to revive and re- juvenate it." Sainte-Beuve. " Diving into the human heart, Scott discovered the secret of gratifying taste by the mysterious. . . . His love for the mysterious led him early to haunt ruined castles and to repeople them with the phantoms of their past existence. That the poet has raised the ghost of chivalry from the tomb in such a manner as to interest the public in its lineaments, is sufficiently evident from the popularity which his works still command." J. Devey. " A feeling of superstition seemed to hover about Scott's mind like some strange, mysterious dream, giving a roman- tic coloring to his conversation and his writings." W. H. Prescott. " With Scott, the romantic movement, the movement of an extended curiosity and enfranchised imagination, has begun." R. L. Stevenson. SCOTT 385 ILLUSTRATIONS. " Attended by this gallant equipage, himself well mounted and splendidly dressed in crimson and gold, bearing upon his hand a falcon, and having his head covered by a rich fur bonnet adorned with a circle of precious stones, from which his long, curled hair escaped and overspread his shoulders, Prince John, upon a gray and high-mettled palfrey, caracoled within the lists at the head of his jovial party, laughing loud with his train, and eying with all the boldness of royal criticism the beauties who adorned the lofty galleries." Ivanhoe. " Gradually the galleries became filled with knights and nobles in their robes of peace, whose long and rich-tinted mantles were contrasted with the gayer and more splendid habits of the ladies, who, in a greater proportion than even the men themselves, thronged to witness a sport which one would have thought too bloody and dangerous to afford their sex much pleasure. The lower and interior space was soon filled by substantial yeomen and burghers, and such of lesser gentry as, from modesty, pov- erty, or dubious title, durst not assume any higher place." Ivanhoe. " A spectre may, indeed, here and there still be seen of an old, gray-headed and gray-bearded Highlander with war-worn feat- ures, but bent double by age, dressed in an old-fashioned cocked- hat, bound with white tape instead of silver lace ; and in coat, waistcoat, and breeches of a muddy-colored red, bearing in his withered hand an ancient weapon called a Lochaber axe such a phantom of former days still creeps, I am informed, about the statue of Charles the Second." Heart of Midlothian. 9. Patriotism. Scott, even more than Burns, has made almost every district of Scotland classic ground. His spirit and his memory pervade every scene. The number of visitors to Scotland from foreign lands is an annual testimony to the literary as well as religious truth, "The things which are unseen are eternal." This quality did not appear in his earlier writings so clearly and fairly as in his novels, for Jeffrey wrote, when " Marmion " first appeared : "There is 25 386 SCOTT scarcely one trait of true Scottish nationality or patriotism introduced into the whole poem." But the following years abundantly reversed this verdict on Scott's work as a whole. John Dennis says : " No man of letters ever did so much for his country. . . . He removed the antagonism that had always existed between the Lowlander and the Highlander. Indeed, the Scotland we know may almost be called his creation. . . . The love of country animated all Scott's life and inspired all his best work." v " He idolized the wild scenery of his native country, and has described it in imperishable language." -J. Devey. ILLUSTRATIONS. " No, Cleveland ; my own rude country has charms for me, even desolate as you think it, and depressed as it surely is, which no other land on earth can present to me. I endeavor in vain to represent to myself those visions of trees and of groves which my eye never saw, but my imagination can conceive no sight in nat- ure more sublime than those waves when agitated by a storm, or more beautiful than when they come, as they do now, rolling in a calm tranquillity to the shore. Not the fairest scene in a foreign land, not the brightest sunbeam that ever shone upon the rich- est landscape, would win my thoughts for a moment from that lofty rock, misty hill, and wide-rolling ocean. Hialtland is the land of my deceased ancestors and of my living father ; and in Hialtland will I live and die." The Pirate. " ' Let us have his company, by all means,' answered my com- panion. ' I respect the Scotch, sir ; I love and honor the nation for their sense of morality. Men talk of their filth and poverty ; but commend me to sterling honesty, though clad in rags, as the poet saith. I have been credibly assured, sir, by men on whom I can depend, that there was never known such a thing in Scot- land as highway robbery.' " Rob Roy. " ' You do not know the genius of that man's country, sir,' answered Rashleigh ; ' discretion, prudence, and foresight are their leading qualities ; these are only modified by a narrow- spirited but yet ardent patriotism, which forms, as it were, the out- most of the concentric bulwarks with which a Scotchman fortifies SCOTT 387 himself against all the attacks of a generous philanthropical prin- ciple. Surmount this mound, you find an inner and still dearer barrier the love of his province, his village, or most probably his clan ; storm this second obstacle, you have a third his attach- ment to his own family his father, mother, sons, daughters, uncles, aunts, and cousins, to the ninth generation.' " Rob Roy. 10. High Moral Tone Reverence. Dean Stanley speaks justly of " the profound reverence, the lofty sense of Christian honor, purity, and justice that breathe through every volume of the romances of Walter Scott." " True virtue and religion are always reverently treated by him ; and if he laughs at the eccentricities and quaint expres- sions of a Puritan or a Covenanter, he never despises a man." -J. Dennis. " There is no man that we now recall, of historical celeb- rity, who combined in so eminent a degree the highest qualities of the moral, the intellectual, and the physical." W. H. Prescott. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Go to the king himself ; speak, speak to him, as the servants of God have a right to speak even to earthly sovereigns. Point out to him the folly and the wickedness of the course he is about to pursue ; urge upon him that he fear the sword, since wrath bringeth the punishment of the sword. Tell him that the friends that died for him in the fields of Worcester, on the scaffolds and on the gibbets, since that bloody day that the remnant, who are in prison, scattered, fled, and ruined on his account deserve better of him and of his father's race than that he should throw away his life in an idle brawl ; tell him that it is dishonest to venture that which is not his own, dishonorable to betray the trust which brave men have reposed in his virtue and in his courage." Woodstock. "The sincere and earnest approach of the Christian to the throne of the Almighty teaches the best lesson of patience under affliction. Since wherefore should we mock the Creator with sup- 388 SCOTT plications, when we insult Him by murmuring under His de- crees? " The Talisman. " The clergyman had reminded them that the next congrega- tion they must join would be that of the just or the unjust ; that the psalms they now heard must be exchanged, in the space of two brief days, for eternal hallelujahs or eternal lamentations ; and that this fearful alternative must depend upon the state to which they might be able to bring their minds before the moment of awful preparation ; that they should not despair on account of the suddenness of the summons, but rather feel this comfort in their misery, that, though all who now lifted their voices or bent the knee in, conjunction with them lay under the same sentence of certain death, they only had the advantage of knowing the precise moment at which it would be executed upon them. ' Therefore,' urged the good man, his voice trembling with emo- tion, ' redeem the time, my unhappy brethren, which is yet left, and remember that, with the grace of Him to whom space and time are but as nothing, salvation may yet be assured, even in the pittance of delay which the laws of your country afford yon.'" Heart of Midlothian. II. Dramatic Power. "He is superior to any of his rivals in the creation of incidents, in the manipulation of events, and in the grouping of his characters with a view to secure that dramatic interest so necessary to the dramatic suc- cess of a narrative poem." -J. Devey. ' ' Almost every appearance of Meg Merrilies is a stage effect as dramatic in situation as it is in language. . . . Pley- dell is a comedy in himself." L. E. Landon. " I see in no other author such a combination of truth and ease and dramatic power." B. W.Procter. ILLUSTRATIONS. " ' Repeat your defiance when I have counted thrice,' said Everard, ' and take the punishment of your insolence. Once I have cocked my pistol. Twice I never missed my aim. By all that is sacred, I fire if you do not withdraw. When I pro- nounce the next number, I will shoot you dead where you stand. SCOTT 389 I am yet unwilling to shed blood I give you another chance of flight. Once twice Thrice! ' " Everard aimed at the bosom, and discharged the pistol. The figure waved its arm in an attitude of scorn, and a loud laugh arose, during which the light, as gradually growing weaker, glanced and glimmered upon the apparition of the aged knight, and then disappeared. Everard's life-blood ran cold to his heart. ' Had he been of human mould,' he thought, ' the bullet must have pierced him ; but I have neither will nor power to fight with supernatural beings.' " Woodstock. " As, at the blast of that last trumpet, the guilty shall call upon the mountains to cover them, Leicester's inward thoughts invoked the stately arch which he had built in his pride to burst its strong conjunction and overwhelm him in its ruins. But the cemented stones stood fast, and it was the proud master himself who, as if some actual pressure had bent him to the earth, kneeled down before Elizabeth, and prostrated his brow to the marble flag- stones on which she stood. "' Leicester,' said Elizabeth, in a voice which trembled with passion, ' could I think thou hast practised on me on me, thy sovereign on me, thy confiding, thy too-partial mistress the base and ungrateful deception which thy present confusion surmises by all that is holy, false lord, that head of thine were in as great peril as ever was thy father's.'" Kenilworth . " ' I agree to it, sir ; I agree to it, perfectly,' said Morris, shrink- ing back as Campbell moved his chair toward him to fortify his appeal; 'and I incline, sir, ' he added, 'to retract my in- formation as to Mr. Osbaldistone ; and I request, sir, you will permit him, sir, to go about his business and me to go about mine, also ; your worship may have business to settle with Mr. Campbell, and I am rather in haste to be gone.' ' Then, there go the declarations,' said the Justice, throwing them into the fire; ' and now you are at perfect liberty, Mr. Osbaldistone. And you, Mr. Morris, are set quite at ease.' " 'Ay,' said Campbell, eying Morris as he assented with a rueful grin to the Justice's observations, much like the ease of a toad under a pair of harrows. ' But fear nothing, Mr. Morris ; you and I maun leave the house together.' With such a linger- ing look of terror as the condemned criminal throws when he is 390 SCOTT informed that the cart awaits him, Morris arose ; but, when on his legs, appeared to hesitate. ' I tell thee, man, fear nothing,' re- iterated Campbell ; ' I will keep my word with you. Bid the Justice farewell, man, and show your Southern breeding.' " Morris, thus exhorted and encouraged, took his leave, under the escort of Mr. Campbell ; but apparently new scruples and ter- rors struck him before they left the house, for I heard Campbell reiterating assurances of safety and protection as they left the ante-room." Rob Roy. " On the lower step of this throne,vthe champion was made to kneel down. And it was observed that he tottered as they guided him the second time across the lists. Rowena, descending with a graceful and dignified step, was about to place the chaplet which she held in her hand upon the helmet of the champion, when the marshals exclaimed, with one voice, ' It must not be thus his head must be bare ! ' " Ivanhoe. DE QUINCEY, 1785-1859. Biographical Outline. Thomas De Quincey, born at Greenheys, Manchester, August 15, 1785; father a merchant of some literary reputation and culture, a contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine; De Quincey's father dies in 1792, leaving an income of ^1,600 a year to De Quincey and his five brothers and sisters ; the death of three sisters, before he was six years old, had made a profound impression on him, which is recorded in his " Autobiographic Sketches" ; he is first taught by his guardian, the Rev. Samuel Hall, at Salford, and rejoices at the absence of his brother William at a board- ing-school, leaving the sensitive Thomas to be surround- ed by his sisters and not by "horrid, pugilistic brothers" ; De Quincey is precocious ; he enters the school of Dr. Mor- gan, at Bath, in 1796, accompanied by his brother Richard (" Pink ") ; at Bath he attracts attention by his skill in Latin and Greek, writing the latter language easily when thirteen, and conversing in it fluently when fifteen ; he is removed from Bath because of illness, due to a blow on the head by an usher; after a period of seclusion with his mother (" to sub- due his intellectual vanity"), he enters a school at Winkfield, Wiltshire, more religious than thorough ; while at Wiltshire he aids in publishing a school-paper called The Observer ; he visits his friend Lord Westport at Eton and also Lord West- port's family in Ireland ; visits, also, the family of Lord Car- berry, in Northamptonshire, where Lady Carberry has much influence over him ; he enters the Manchester Grammar - School in 1801, hoping to remain three years and thus to gain an " exhibition " of forty guineas, which, with his allow- 392 DE QUINCEY ance of ^150 a year, would carry him through Oxford; at Manchester, DeQuincey's liver becomes torpid through lack of exercise and unwise drugging; he becomes wretched and begs his guardians to remove him, but they refuse ; he borrows ten guineas from Lady Carberry (then visiting at Manchester) and runs away in July, 1802 ; he walks to Chester, meets an uncle, and is permitted to proceed to Wales, with an allowance of a guinea a week ; he wanders among the Welsh mountains, learns German, and partly makes his living by writing letters for the peasantry ; feeling the need of books and educated companions, he goes to London, and tries in vain to secure a loan of 200 with which to support himself till attaining his majority ; he is put off by money-lenders, is reduced almost to starvation, sleeps in a deserted house in Soho with a neg- lected child for his companion, and wanders about London during the day ; at one time he is saved from a fainting-fit by the generosity of an outcast woman, immortalized in his auto- biography under the name of "Ann" ; eventually he be- comes reconciled with his friends, and enters Worcester Col- lege, Oxford, with an allowance of ^100 a year ; he is quiet and studious at Oxford, and distinguishes himself in Latin, but he never takes a degree, partly because he despised the examination -system and partly out of diffidence as to oral tests (he insisted on answering questions about Greek in Greek) ; while at Oxford he suffers from a violent toothache, and, at the advice of student friends, takes laudanum for relief, thus beginning his use of opium ; in 1803 he had begun a corre- spondence with Wordsworth, whom he greatly admired ; he meets Coleridge at Nether Stowey in 1807, accompanies Cole- ridge's family to Grasmere, where he meets Wordsworth and Southey, and, on returning, aids Coleridge by lending him, anonymously, through Cottle, the bookseller, ^300 ; De Quincey is again at Oxford early in 1808 ; he goes thence to London, where he meets Davy, Lamb, and others, and studies law in a desultory way at the Middle Temple ; he visits DE QUINCEY 393 Wordsworth at Grasmere early in 1809, and, after returning to London and doing some proof-reading, etc., for Words- worth, settles at Townend, Westmoreland, in November, 1809, in a cottage previously occupied by Wordsworth, which he proceeds to " fill with books " ; he forms an intimate friend- ship with Professor Wilson ("Christopher North"), takes long nocturnal rambles with him, and visits him at Edinburgh during the winters of 1814-15 and 1815-16; De Quincey continues to read German metaphysics, and seeks relief in laudanum for an irritation of the stomach; by 1813 he is taking three hundred and forty grains of opium daily ; he becomes attached to Margaret Simpson (daughter of a " states- man " of Westmoreland), reduces his opium allowance to forty grains a day, improves in health, and is married ; the opium-habit soon masters him again, he gives up a projected philosophical work to be called " De Evicndatione Humani Intellciftts," and becomes incapable of mental work ; he reads Ricardo in 1819, and proceeds to draw up " Prolegomena of all Future Systems of Political Economy," which he does not complete; his indulgence in opium causes him to be haunted by monstrous dreams; by the failure of a bank, he loses most of his fortune, and is compelled to do something for support ; he contributes to Blackwood 1 s Magazine (edited by his friend Wilson) and to the Quarterly Review, and, in the summer of 1819, becomes editor of the Westmoreland Gazette ; he is recklessly liberal in his financial affairs; in 1821 he again at- tempts to give up opium, goes to London, and is befriended by the Lambs ; he meets Hood, Talfourd. and Hazlitt, and settles for a time at 4 York Street, Covent Garden, where he writes " The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater," which he publishes in the London Magazine for October and Novem- ber, 1821 ; the "Confessions" attract much attention, and are reprinted in 1822 and again in 1823, with an appendix giving a tabulated statement of his daily doses of opium ; he continues his contributions to the London Magazine, including 394 DE QUINCEV " Letters to a Young Man Whose Education Has Been Neg- lected " (1823), "The Dialogue of the Three Templars" (1824), and others;, in 1825 he translates, modifies, and ridi- cules the German novel IValladmoor, falsely attributed to Scott, and contributes to Knight 1 s Quarterly, sometimes lodging with Knight, and manifesting amusing simplicity in practical busi- ness affairs ; he becomes recognized as a writer, and is men- tioned by Wilson in the " Noctes Ambrosiana ;" he publishes in BfackwooeTs Magazine a translation of Lessing's " Laoco- 6n " (1826) and "Murder as One of the Fine Arts" (Febru- ary, 1827) ; his relations with Blackwood' 's cause him to settle in Edinburgh, where he lodges in Wilson's rooms, late in 1828; he contributes to the Edinburgh Literary Gazette during 1828-30 ; is joined by his family at Edinburgh in 1830, and does not return to Westmoreland ; in 1832 he publishes " Klosterheim," which, though never popular, was success- fully dramatized in London; after 1834 he contributes to Tait 's Magazine many autobiographical reminiscences of Cole- ridge, Wordsworth, and other literary friends, in which cer- tain indiscreet revelations caused De Quincey trouble afterward, though he was hardly in a responsible mental condition when the reminiscences were written ; between 1833 and 1837 he loses his wife and two sons ; he lodges for a time at 42 Lothian Street, Edinburgh, apart from his children ; in 1840 he takes a cottage at Mavis Bush, Lasswade, where his daughters settle permanently, and where he stays in the intervals between his sojourns in various places ; he returns to his opium excesses after his wife's death ; in 1844, after much suffering, he makes a final effort, and reduces his daily dose to six grains, which (his daughter says) he never again exceeded ; he hands over his business affairs in full to his daughter, and is not afterward troubled about finances, except as he is embarrassed by his per- sistent extravagance and "wanton charity"; he develops a mania for accumulating papers, and leaves six rooms full at dif- ferent places at the time of his death ; from March, 1841, to DE QUINCEY 395 June, 1843, he is at Glasgow as the guest of Professor Lushing- ton and Professor Nichol ; he lodges at Glasgow much of the time from 1843 to 1847 ; he contributes to Blackivood' 1 s from 1837 to 1841, and writes biographies of Shakespeare, Pope, and others for the "Encyclopaedia Britannica"; publishes " The Logic of Political Economy " in 1844, and contributes to Taif s Magazine during 1846 and 1847; he meets James Hogg, who projects a collected edition of De Quincey's works ; he is visited, in 1851-52, by James T. Fields, of Boston, who gives him a share of the profits arising from the sale in America of De Quincey's seven volumes of collected writings; he afterward revises his collected writings, which are published during 1853-60; he contributes, also, to Hogg's Instructor; he lodges again at 42 Lothian Street, Edinburgh, and, at seventy, is able to walk fourteen miles daily for exercise ; he attracts much attention by his marvellous powers of conversa- tion ; dies December 8, 1859. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON DE QUINCEY'S STYLE. Bayne, P., " Essays in Biography and Criticism." Boston, 1857, Gould & Lincoln, I : 15-50. Gilfillan, G., " Literary Portraits." Edinburgh, 1852, J. Hogg, I : 104- no; 2 : 294-364. Hodgson, S. H.. " Outcast Essays." London, 1881, Longmans, Green & Co., 1-67. Davey, S., "Darwin, Carlyle, and Dickens." London, 1879, Bumpus, 159-185. Saintsbury, G., "Essays in English Literature." London, 1890, Per- cival, 304-339. Masson, D., "English Men of Letters." New York, 1882, Harper. 134-158. Stephen, L., "Hours in a Library." New York, 1894, Putnam, i: 237-269. Hunt, T. W., "Representative English Prose." New York, 1887, Armstrong, 417-443. Minto, W., " English Prose Literature. " Edinburgh, 1886, Blackwood, 49-76. DE QUINCEY Mathews, W., " Hours with Men and Books." Chicago, 1882, Griggs, 9-58. De Quincey, T., "Works " (Autobiography). Edinburgh, 1889, A. & C. Black, i : 17-400; 2: 1-81. Oliphant, Mrs., "Literary History of England." New York, 1889, Macmillan, 2 : 18-30. Page, H. A., " De Quincey, His Life and Writings." New York, 1877, Scribner, v. index. Mason, E. T., " Personal Traits of British Authors." New York, 1885, Scribner, 3: 223-275. Nicoll, H. J., " Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1883, Appleton, 360-365. Stephen, L., "Dictionary of National Biography." New York, 1890, Macmillan, 14: 385-391. Masson, D., "Essays Biographical and Critical." Cambridge, 1856, Macmillan, 447-475. Oliphant, Mrs., "Victorian Age of English Literature." New York, 1882, Macmillan, 2 : 18-29. Giles, H., "Illustrations of Genius." Boston, 1854, Fields, 300-365. Christian Examiner, 74: 77-95 (Cheever); 54: 428-436 (H. T. Tucker- man). British Quarterly, 66: 415-433 (A. A. Page); 38: 1-29. Continental Monthly, 5: 650-662 (L. W. Spring). Saturday Review, 66 : 329-330. New Monthly Magazine, 98 : 389-399 (Sir Nathaniel) ; 96 : 142-147 (Sir Nathaniel). The Spectator, 64: 730-731. North American Review, 74: 425-445 (S. G. Brown); 88: 113-132 (Phillips). Harper's Magazine, I: 141-150. Atlantic Monthly, 12: 345-368 (Alden). Dublin University Magazine, 43 : 409-425 ; 44: 331-345 Fortnightly Review, 15: 310-329 (L. Stephen). Quarterly Review, no: 1-35. Christian Remembrancer, 29: 155-191. Eraser's Magazine, 62 : 781-792 (H. W. F.) ; 63 : 51-69 (H. W. F.). Westminster Review , 61 : 275-284. Gentleman's Magazine, 37: 117-135 (A. H. Japp). LitteWs Living Age, 66: 151-154 (The Press); 60: 387-398 (The Instructor) ; 35 : 442-445 (The Examiner). DE QUINCEY 397 PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS. i. Excessive Qualification and Suspense. A trait of De Quincey closely allied to his habit of digression, and one which the general reader must always regard as a defect, is his tendency to overload his sentences with irrelevant particulars. He appends relative clause to relative clause in several degrees of subordination, and often adds to such a combination a parenthesis within a parenthesis. Obviously, this excessive qualification is generally due to De Quincey's sometimes finical desire for exactness. Another cause of his " long evolutions " is to be found in his continued study of German authors. Many of his constructions are essentially Gothic. " Specially inclined to the elaborate, periodic order of sentence," says T. W. Hunt, " he found himself, at times, so involved midway in the structure as to make clearness impossible." "His sentences are stately, elaborate, crowded with quali- fying clauses and parenthetical allusions, to a degree un- paralleled among modern writers. If we try De Quincey by his own rule of 'unwieldy comprehensiveness,' we must con- vict him of many violations." Minto. " He is, from the very principles on which his style is con- structed, the most diffuse of writers. . . . His commend- able desire for lucidity of expression makes him nervously anxious to avoid any complexity of thought. . . . He abounds in diffuse discussions of irrelevant topics. . . . Why, on the very first page, having occasion to mention Christendom in the fifteenth century, should he provide against some eccentric misconception by telling us that it did not, at that time, include any part of America ? " Leslie Stephen. " He generally knows his conclusion from the first, and sometimes announces it dogmatically at the outset ; but, whether for inquiry toward his conclusion or for proof of it 398 DE QUINCEY after it has been announced, his habit is to choose a point of entry and thence, by subtle and intricate windings, to reach the centre, where the concurrent trains will meet, and all will become clear." Mdsson. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Caesar, the Dictator, at his last dinner party, on the very even- ing before his assassination, when the minutes of his earthly career were numbered, being asked what death, in his judgment, might be pronounced the most eligible, replied, ' That which should be most sudden.' " On Ccesar. " Whatever we may swear with our false, feigning lips, in our faithful hearts ; we still believe, and must forever believe, in fields of air traversing the total gulf between earth and the central heavens. Still, in the confidence of children that tread without fear every chamber in their father's house, and to whom no door is closed, we, in that Sabbatic vision, which sometimes is re- vealed for an hour upon nights like this, ascend with easy steps from the sorrow-stricken fields of earth upward to the sandals of God." An English Mail-Coach. " At this stage of advance, and when a true European feeling has been created, a ' sensus communist or community of feeling, on the main classification of wars, it will become possible to erect an operative tribunal, or central Amphictyonic Council for all Christendom, not with any commission to suppress wars a policy which would react as a fresh cause of war, since high-spirited na- tions would arm for the purpose of resisting such arrogant de- crees but with the purpose and effect of oftentimes healing local or momentary animosities, and also (by publishing the opinion of Europe assembled in Council) with the effect of taking away the shadow of dishonor from the act of making concessions." On War. " I was then fifteen years old and a trifle more, and, as it had come to the knowledge of Mr. G., a banker in Lincolnshire (whom hitherto I have omitted to notice among my guardians, as one too generally prevented from interfering by his remoteness from the spot, but whom otherwise I should have recorded with honor as by much the ablest among them), that some pecuniary advan- tages were attached to a residence at the Manchester Grammar- DE QUIXCEY 399 School, while in other respects that school seemed as eligible as any other, he had counselled my mother to send me hither." Confessions of an Opium-Eater. 2. Inveterate Digression. In one respect De Quincey is far from a model writer, and that is in his ungovernable habit of digressing from his given theme. He not only digresses from his main theme, but he digresses from his first digression, and sometimes even from his third. Says Masson : " His windings have often the appearance of wilful digres- sions. . . . His digressions, however, to use his own phrase, ' have a wonderful knack of revolving to the point whence they set out,' and generally with a fresh freight of meaning to be incorporated at that point. . . . But there are cases, his greatest admirers must admit, in which the subsidiary swallows up the primary, and the captain's lug- gage all but sinks the ship and cargo." "At times," says another critic, " his mind seems to move vaguely round in vast, unreturning circles. The thoughts catch hold of nothing, but are heaved and tossed like masses of cloud by the wind." Minto also finds palliation for this offence in De Quincey's consciousness that he is digressing and his care in inform- ing the reader when he leaves the main theme and when he returns. To use a homely figure, the railway-track of De Quincey's thought is notable for the abundance of switches, and switches from switches ; but the point where he leaves the main track and the point where he returns are generally marked by very distinct signals. " You can as soon calculate on the motions of a stream of the aurora as on those of his mind. From the title of any one of his papers, you can never infer whether he is to treat the one announced or a hundred others, or into how many foot-notes he is to draw away, as if into subterranean pipes, its pith and substance. ... At every possible angle of his road he contrives to break off." Gilfillan. 400 DE QUINCEY " De Quincey often offends beyond the possibility of justifi- cation, overloading his sentences, in a gossiping kind of way, with particulars that have no relevance whatever to the main statement. ' ' Minto. " The goal, indeed, is always kept in view ; however circuit- ous the wandering may be, there is always a return to the subject." Peter Bayne. " Like Bishop Berkeley, who commenced one of his treatises on the virtues of tar-water and ended it on the immortality of the soul, when he [De Quincey] begins a subject, no one can tell what it will include." S. Davey. " It is absolutely impossible for him to keep his subject, or any subject. It is as impossible for him to pull himself up briefly in any digression from that subject. In his finest pas- sages, as in his most trivial, he is at the mercy of the will-o'- the-wisp of divagation." Saintsbury. ILLUSTRATIONS. " I have used my privilege of discursiveness to step aside from Demosthenes to another subject, not otherwise connected with the Attic orator than, first, by the common reference of both sub- jects to rhetoric ; but, secondly, by the accident of having been jointly discussed by Lord Brougham in a paper which (though now forgotten) obtained at the moment most undue celebrity." On Demosthenes. " Looking back to the foot-note on the oriental idea of the hakim, as a mask politically assumed by Christ and the evangel- ists, under the conviction of its indispensableness to the free propagation of Christian philosophy, I am, indeed, inclined for the sake of detaining the reader's eye a little longer upon a matter so important in the history of Christianity, if only it may be re- garded as true, to subjoin an extract from a little paper written by myself heretofore, but not published. I may add these two remarks, viz.," etc. On Judas Iscariot. " Out of this digression, for the purpose of showing how inex- tricably my feelings and images of death were entangled with those of summer, as connected with Palestine and Jerusalem, let DE QUINCEY 4OI me come back to the bed-chamber of my sister." Autobiog- raphy. " I beg the reader's pardon for this disproportioned digression, into which I was hurried by my love for our great national litera- ture, my anxiety to see it among educational resources invested with a ministerial agency of far ampler character, but, at all events, to lodge a protest against that wholesale neglect of our supreme authors which leaves us open to the stinging reproach of ' tread- ing daily with our clouted shoon ' (to borrow the words of Comus) upon that which high-minded foreigners regard as the one para- mount jewel in our national diadem. " This incident I have digressed to mention because this Malay (partly from the picturesque exhibition he assisted to frame, partly from the anxiety I connected with his image for some days) fastened afterward upon my fancy, and through that upon my dreams, bringing with him other Malays worse than himself, that ran ' amuck ' at me and led me into a world of nocturnal trou- bles. " Opium- Eater. 3. Scrupulous Precision Subtlety. De Qtiincey is one of the most accurate of our writers in his use of language. If the highest attainment in style is always to use the right word in the right place, then the estimate placed upon De Quincey by Masson, William Mathews, and others must be accepted as correct. Mathews calls him " by universal acknowledg- ment the most powerful and versatile master of the English tongue in our time." He is certainly the most scholarly, the most subtle and analytic of the great essayists. De Quincey once said of himself: ''From my birth I was made an in- tellectual creature. . . . My proper vocation, as I well knew, was the exercise of the analytic understanding." Mas- son declares that " De Quincey's sixteen volumes of magazine articles are full of brain from beginning to end." It is, in part, at least, the marvellous range of De Quincey's scholarship that gives him "his wonderful power of alighting on the exact word that is fittest." As Wilson puts it: "The best word always comes up." De Quincey has what Masson calls 26 402 DE QUINCEY " the metaphysical mood." Says another critic: "We are struck at once by the exquisite refinement of mind, the sub- tleness of association, and the extreme tenuity of the threads of thought." " Nothing can be more exquisite," says Minto, " than De Quincey's subtlety in distinguishing wherein things agree and wherein they differ. . . . The strong point in his diction is his acquaintance with the language of the thoughts and feelings, with the subjective side of the English vocabulary. . . . None of our .writers in general litera- ture have shown themselves so scrupulously precise." De Quincey sometimes carries this quality to an extreme by need- lessly cumbering his sentences with definitions of the terms used and with too minute explicitness of statement. He de- lights in subtle speculations, in the analysis of motives, in con- jecture as to the possible results of an action. He has what he himself calls " an inner eye and power of intuition for the un- seen." He " revels in nice distinctions and scrupulous qual- ifications." " So far as one might acquiesce in the description of some of De Quincey's mental products as ' wire-drawn,' it is in cases where one might agree with Carlyle, that the kind of matter dealt with was not worth so much manipulation, and that simple assumption or asseveration or decision by a toss-up, would have saved time and answered all practical purposes. Very rarely, however, will one of De Quincey's subt- lest ingenuities be voted useless by any reader who does come qualified with the due amount of preliminary interest in the kind of matter discussed so much pleasure is there in ob- serving the ingenuity itself, and so certain it is, as has been already said, that some germ of future thought will be left if the immediate result has been disappointing. Then, with what a passion for scientific exactness does De Quincey treat everything, and in what a state of finished clearness at the end he leaves every speculation of his, so far as it may have been carried ! His numerical divisions and subdivisions, so un- DE QUINCEY 403 usual in literary papers, are themselves signs of the practised thinker refusing to part with any of the habits or devices of scientific analysts wherever they will help him. In short, very seldom has there been such a combination of the purely log- ical intellect with so much of scholarly erudition." Masson. " He has all the characteristics of a scholar of the best and rarest kind the scholar who is exact as to language without failing to comprehend literature and competent in literature without being slipshod as to language." Saintsbury. " Each step of his argument, each shade of meaning, and each fact in his narrative, must have its own separate embodi- ment ; and each joint and connecting link must be carefully and accurately defined." Leslie Stephen. ILLUSTRATIONS. " In that great social organ which, collectively, we call litera- ture there may be distinguished two separate offices that may blend, and often do so, but capable, severally, of a severe insu- lation, and naturally fitted for reciprocal repulsion. 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." Essays. " Wine unsettles and clouds the judgment, and gives a preter- natural brightness and a vivid exaltation to the contempts and admirations, to the loves and the hatreds, of the drinker ; opium, on the contrary, communicates serenity and equipoise to all the faculties, active and passive ; and, with respect to the temper and moral feelings in general, it gives simply that sort of vital warmth which is approved by the judgment, and which would probably always accompany a bodily constitution of primeval or antedi- luvian health." Confessions of an Opium-Eater . " What, then, is religion ? Decomposed into its elements, as they are found in Christianity, how many powers for acting on the heart of man does, by possibility, this great agency include ? According to my own view, four. I will state them and number them. Firstly, a form of worship, a cultus. Secondly, an idea of God. . . . Thirdly, an idea of the relation which man oc- cupies to God. . . . Fourthly, a doctrinal part, . . . and 4O4 DE QUINCEY this [doctrinal part] divides into two great sections." Christian- ity an Organ of Political Movement. " In general, whenever a paramount interest of human nature is at stake, a suicide which maintains that interest is self-homi- cide ; but, for a personal interest, it becomes self-murder." Murder as a Fine Art. 4. Stately Rhythm. De Quincey ranks with Hooker and Milton as a master of stately, melodious cadence. Says Leslie Stephen : " De Quincey stands absolutely alone as the inventor and sole performer on a new musical instrument for such an instrument is the English language in his hands. The sentences are so delicately balanced and so skil- fully constructed that his finer passages fix themselves in the memory without the aid of metre. . . . His most ex- quisite passages are intended to be musical compositions in which words have to play the part of notes. . . . If De Quincey obtains, without the aid of metre, graces which few other writers have won by the same means, it is all the more creditable to De Quincey. One may fancy that, if De Quin- cey's language were emptied of all meaning whatever, the mere sound of the words would move us, as the lovely word Mesopotamia moved Whitefield's hearers." The Opium- Eater gloried in this power of his ; he delights in what he calls "bravura," "melodious ascents." "His prose," says T. W. Hunt, " possesses what Beethoven calls ' pronunciabili- ty,' and what Masson calls 'musical beauty.' . . . Intellect- ual as his style was, it was conspicuously artistic, and this pictorial and artistic quality rises at times to magnificence." Mathews calls De Quincey's prose " the most passionately eloquent, the most thoroughly poetical prose our language has produced, the organ-like variety and grandeur of its cadence affecting the mind as only perfect verse affects it." Masson calls it " the style of sustained splendor, of prolonged wheel- ing and soaring, as distinct from the style of crackle and brief glitter, of chirp and short flight." One critic says of certain DE QUINCEY 405 passages in De Quincey's " Suspt'ria," " The mind is swept away by them into some shadowy region, where one vision of innocence, or beauty, or fear, or sorrow chases another till all at last ' fade into the light of common day. ' ' In one of his essays, De Quincey interrupts himself to explain that he might have ended the sentence more briefly by substituting for the last nine words the single term master-builder, but adds that his ear could not endure "a. sentence ending with two consecutive trochees, and each of these trochees ending with the same syllable er. " "Ah, reader," he exclaims, " I would the gods had made thee rhythmical, that thou mightest comprehend the thousandth part of my labors in the evasion of cacophony ! " " The acutest and, at the same time, the most gorgeous and eloquent writer of English prose in the nineteenth cen- tury, combining the rarely harmonizing elements of severe logic and exuberant fancy." William Mathews. " Many passages might be quoted from De Quincey of which the melody is so striking as irresistibly to attract attention and make us linger lovingly over them, apart altogether from the matter they contain." H. G. Nicoll. " De Quincey is rich in the language of elaborate stateliness. He takes rank with Milton as one of the masters of stately cadence as well as of sublime composition. . . . He finds the happiest exercise of his powers in sustained flights through the region of the sublime." Minto, ILLUSTRATIONS. " From the silence and deep peace of this summer night from the pathetic blending of this sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dream- light from the manly tenderness of this flattering, whispering, murmuring love suddenly, as from the woods and fields sud- denly, as from the chambers of the air opening in revelation suddenly, as from the ground yawning at her feet, leaped upon her, with the flashing of cataracts, Death, the crowned phantom, 406 DE QUINCEY with all the equipage of his terrors and the tiger-roar of his voice." The Stage- Coach. " O just, subtile, and mighty opium ! that to the hearts of poor and rich alike, for the wounds that will never heal and for 1 the pangs that tempt the spirit to rebel,' bringest an assuaging balm ; eloquent opium ! that with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath, and, to the guilty man, for one night givest back the hopes of youth and hands washed pure from blood . " Confessions of an Opium- Eater. " Then, like a chorus, the passion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake, some mightier cause than ever yet the world had pleaded or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sud- den alarms ; hurryings to and fro ; trepidations of innumerable fugitives ; darkness and light ; tempests and human faces ; and at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms and the features that were worth all the world to me ; and, but a moment allowed and clasped hands, with heart-breaking partings, and then everlasting farewells ! and, with such a sigh as the caves of hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of Death, the sound was reverberated everlasting fare- wells ! and again, and yet again reverberated everlasting fare- wells ! " Confessions of an Opium- Eater. 5. Sense of the Mysterious. A profound sense of awe in the presence of the phenomena of nature characterizes De Quincey's mind and style. Says Leslie Stephen: "He appeals to our terror of the infinite, to the shrinking of the human mind before astronomical distances and geological periods of time. He paints vast perspectives, opening in long succession, till we grow dizzy in the contemplation. . . Melancholy and an awe-stricken sense of the vast and vague are the emotions which he communicates with the greatest power." Minto observes that De Quincey's tendency was to " discover and develop lurking objects of admiration and as- tonishment." He seems constantly to be under the impres- sion that certain mysterious and occult agencies, not conceived DE QUINCEY 4O/ by ordinary men, are interfering with human affairs. Masson suggests that "the best name for this variety of the affection for the mysterious in De Quincey's mind is Druidism, or the Druidic element. He was wrapt in religious wonder ; he went through the world, one may say, in a fit of metaphysical musing. . . . The thunder and the lightning, the sun in the heavens, the nocturnal sky, the quiet vastness of a mountain range, the roar of the unresting ocean, the carnage of a great battle-field, the stealthy ravage of a pestilence such were the physical grandeurs, and such the facts and moments of historic majesty, with which De Quincey's mind delighted to commune. It was a saying of his own that he could not live without mystery. No man that is worth much can." " He is to some extent an intellectual mystic meaning a certain affinity for the mysterious a strange idiosyncrasy, in which associations of terror, of gladness, or of gloom link themselves with certain seasons and places." Peter Bayne. " None, we think, have so dipped their pens in the varied lines of sunshine and gloom, or been able to fix that which is fleeting and transient. De Quincey lived in a dream-world until dreams became, as it were, the substantial realities of his existence." S. Davey. " He is much of a thinker on the metaphysics of things, and he feels the mystery of being; he is much of an inquirer into the constitution of things, and he feels the mystery of creation ; he is much of a muser on this full world, this vital world, throbbing in every speck of it with a quickening pulse, and he feels the mystery of life." H. Giles. ILLUSTRATIONS. " The sun of midsummer, at mid-day, was showering down tor- rents of splendor. The weather was dry, the sky was cloudless, the blue depths seemed the express types of infinity ; and it was not possible for the eye to behold or for the heart to conceive any symbols more pathetic of life and the glory of life. ... A 408 DE QU1XCEY solemn wind began to blow the saddest that ear ever heard. It was a wind that might have swept the fields of mortality for a thousand centuries ; whose hollow, sad, Memnonian but saintly swell was the one great audible symbol of eternity. Then a trance fell upon me. A vault seemed to open in the zenith of the far, blue sky, a shaft which ran up forever. Frost gathering frost, some Sarsar wind of death seemed to repel me ; some mighty relation between God and death dimly struggled to evolve itself from the dreadful antagonism between them." Autobiog- raphy. " The awful stillness oftentimes of summer noons, when no winds were abroad, the appealing silence of gray or misty after- noons these were fascinations as of witchcraft. Into the woods, into the desert air 1 gazed, as if some comfort lay hid in them. Obstinately I tormented the blue depths with my scrutiny, sweep- ing them forever with my eyes and searching them for one angelic face that might perhaps have permission to reveal itself for a moment." A utobiography. " Great is the mystery of Space, greater is the mystery of Time. Either mystery grows upon man as man himself grows ; and either seems to be a function of the godlike which is in man. He trembles at the abyss into which his bodily eyes look down." Autobiography. 6. Erudition Extensive Range. "One may mark the indications of a gigantic receptive faculty seizing hundred- handed, and gathering into one store-house, from all lands and centuries, what intellectual treasures it chooses to make its own. " Peter Bayne. " One of the first things that strikes us is the multifarious- ness of his knowledge. A systematic student in none of the sciences, nevertheless he had gleaned technical terms from every science." Minto. " An obvious characteristic of De Quincey's writings is their extreme multifariousness. They range over an extraordinary extent of ground, the subjects of which they treat being them- selves the most diverse kinds, while their illustrative references and allusions shoot through a perfect wilderness of miscellane- DE QUINCEY 4O9 ous scholarship. . . . There are few courses of reading from which a young man of good natural intelligence would come away more instructed, charmed, and stimulated, or, to express the matter as definitely as possible, with his mind more stretched. Good natural intelligence, a certain fineness of fibre, and some amount of scholarly education, have to be presupposed, indeed, in all readers of De Quincey. But, even for the fittest readers, a month's continuous course of De Quin- cey would be too much. Better have him on the shelf, and take down a volume at intervals for one or two of the articles to which there may be an immediate attraction. An evening with De Quincey in this manner will always be profitable. Not only was it De Quincey's laudable habit to put brain into all his articles, but it so chanced that the brain he had at his disposal was a brain of no common order. Let us get rid, however, of the disagreeable word brain, and ask, in more manly and less physiological fashion, what were the chief char- acteristics of De Quincey's peculiar mind and genius. At the basis of all, as we have seen, was his wealth of miscellaneous and accurate knowledge." Masson. " Few English writers have touched so large a number of subjects with such competence, both in information and in handling. ' ' Saintsbury. ILLUSTRATIONS. "Such is man, though a Deucalion elect; such is woman, though a decent Pyrrha. . . . Against thugs, I had Juvenal's license to be careless in the emptiness of my pockets (cantabit I'acuus coram latione viator}. . . . The first, to borrow a technical distinction from medicine, is a case of acute, the second of chronic pleasure. ... I was, indeed, like a person who, according to the old pagan legend, had entered the cave of Tro- phonius. . . . Being an oracle, it is my wish to behave my- self like an oracle and not to evade any decent man's questions in the way that Apollo too often did at Delphi." Confessions of an Opium- Eater. 4IO DE QUINCEY " Lord Bacon it is who notices the subtle policy which may lurk in the mere external figure of a table. A square table, having an undeviable head and foot, two polar extremities of what is highest and lowest, a perihelion and an aphelion, together with equatorial sides, opens at a glance a large career to ambition ; while a cir- cular table sternly represses all such aspiring dreams, and so does a triangular table. Yet if the triangle should be right-angled, then the Lucifer seated at the right angle might argue that he subtended all the tenants of the hypothenuse ; being, therefore, as much nobler than they as Atlas wasjiobler than the globe which he carried." Confessions of an Opium-Eater . 7. Affected Familiarity Forced Homeliness Slang. De Quincey seems to have realized that the diffuse- ness and stateliness of his style would prevent him from be- coming a popular writer, for we frequently find evidences of a deliberate and forced attempt to be popular in his diction. Like all forced attempts in writing, these are melancholy fail- ures. The result, in De Quincey's case, comes nearer vulgarity than anything else, and can but be regarded as a blemish on a style possessed of many rare beauties. Says Stephen : " He is conscious that, as a great master of language, he can play what tricks he pleases, without danger of remonstrance. And therefore he every now and then plunges into slang, not ir- reverently, as a vulgar writer might do, but of malice pre- pense. The shock is almost as great as if an organist perform- ing a solemn tune should suddenly introduce the imitation of the mewing of a cat." Another critic calls De Quincey's slangy apostrophes " exquisite foolery." " By a kind of reaction from his other extreme of stateli- ness, he is apt to be too familiar and colloquial and to help himself to slang and kitchen-rhetoric." Masson. " He has a singular facility of fusing his most learned spec- ulations into the idiom of English thinking, even into the idiom of its drollery and its slang." H. Giles. DE QUINCEY 41 1 " He does not disdain to use the slang of all classes, from Cockney to Oxonian." Minto. " He is a complete master of the English language even of its slang." 6". Davey. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Wicked Joseph, listen to me : You've been telling us a fairy- tale ; and, for my part, I've no objection to a fairy-tale in any situation, because, if one can make no use of it oneself, always one knows that a child will be thankful for it. But this tale, Mr. Joseph, happens also to be a lie ; secondly, a fraudulent lie ; thirdly, a malicious lie." The Essencs. '"I (said Augustus Caesar) found Rome built of brick, but I left it built of marble.' Well, my man, we reply, for a wondrous- ly little chap, you did what in Westmoreland they call a good darroch (day's work) ; and if navvies had been wanted in those days, you should have had our vote to a certainty." Essay on Casar. " If, quitting the one great blazing jewel, the Urim and Thum- mim of the Iliad [Achilles], you descend to individual passages of poetic effect, and if among these a fancy should seize you of asking for a specimen of the sublime in particular, what is it that you are offered by the critics ? Nothing that we remember be- yond one single passage, in which the god Neptune is described in a steeplechase and making play at a terrific pace. And cer- tainly, enough is exhibited of the old boy's hoofs and their spank- ing qualities to warrant our backing him against a railroad for a rump and dozen ; but after all, there is nothing to grow frisky about, as Longinus does, who gets up the steam of a blue- stocking enthusiasm, and boils us a regular gallop of routing." A Brief Appraisal of Greek Literature. "Joanna never was in service; and my opinion is that her father should have mended his own stockings, since probably he was the party to make the holes in them, as many a better man than D'Arc does, meaning by that not myself, because, though probably a better man than D'Arc, I protest against doing any- thing of the kind. . . . The better men that I meant were the sailors in the British Navy, every man of whom mends his 412 DE QUINCEY own stockings. Who else is to do it ? Do you suppose that the junior lords of the admiralty are under articles to darn for the navy ? "Joan of Arc. 8. Grotesque, Playful Humor. De Quincey's humor has little of the genial quality which marks that of Lamb and Goldsmith. In many cases it consists of treating horrible themes in a cool, deliberate way, as if he were talking of the most innocent actions of every-day life or the data of some science. Minto calls it " the humour of bringing the ideas of fine art and ordinary business into ludicrous collision with solemn or horrible transactions." In the opinion of another critic, " the first paper on Murder as One of the Fine Arts, with its various and out-of-the-way lore, with its mixture of subtile discrimination and satire and rollicking humor, is worthy "of Professor Wilson or Charles Lamb. ' ' " He shows us grotesque and fanciful shapes, with beautiful devices ; faces of cherubims and archangels, side by side with goblin-like forms and unearthly shapes of monstrous divini- ties." S. Davey. " De Quincey's humor is odd, unique, as original as his genius. Always playful and stingless, it takes at one time the form of a banter, at another that of mock dignity. At one hour it greets us in the grave robe of the critic, and pokes fun at the learned ; at another, in the scarlet dress of the satirist, and blasts hypocrisy with its ridicule." William Mathews. " The delicate wit and irony of the essay upon ' Murder as a Fine Art ' has moved many a reader to such a laugh, tem- pered with a thrill of visionary excitement and horror, as is rare among the laughters of literature." Mrs. Oliphant. " A sense of fun follows him into his most serious disqui- sitions, and reveals itself in freaks of playfulness and jets of comic fancy. ... In its display on a smaller scale, it is generally good-natured and kindly. . . . It cannot be said that his humour is of the largest-hearted kind, so dependent is DE QUINCEY 413 it on deliberate irony, a Petronian jostling of the ghastly with the familiar or the express simulation of lunacy." Masson. ILLUSTRATIONS. " If once a man indulge in murder, he comes very soon to think little of robbing ; from robbing he comes to drinking and Sabbath- breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastina- tion. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time." Murder as a Fine Art. " Gentlemen I have had the honor to be appointed by your committee to the trying task of reading the Williams' Lecture on Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts a task which might be easy enough three or four centuries ago, when the art was little understood and few great models had been exhibited ; but in this age, when masterpieces of excellence have been exe- cuted by professional men, it must be evident that, in the style of criticism applied to them, the public will look for something of a corresponding improvement. Practice and theory must ad- vance pari passu. People begin to see that something more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and to be killed a knife a' purse and a dark lane. Design, gentlemen, grouping, light and shade, poetry, sentiment, are now deemed indispensable to attempts of this nature." Murder as a Fine Art. " It has been repeatedly affirmed by the learned that opium is a tawny brown in color and this, take notice, I grant ; second- ly, that it is rather dear which also I grant ; and thirdly, if you eat a good deal of it, most probably you must do what is disagreeable to any man of regular habits, viz., die." Confes- sions of an Opium- Eater. " Hobbes but why, or on what principle, I never could un- derstand was not murdered. This was a capital oversight of the professional men of the seventeenth century ; because in every light he was a fine subject for murder, except, indeed, that he was lean and skinny ; for I can prove that he had money, and (what is very funny) he had no right to make the least resistance ; since, according to himself, irresistible power creates the very highest species of right, so that it is rebellion of the blackest dye 414 DE QUINCEY to refuse to be murdered when a competent force appears to murder you." Murder as a Fine Art. 9. Perception of Resemblances. De Quincey has what he himself calls " the higher faculty of an electric apti- tude for seizing analogies . . . the logical instinct for feelin-g in a moment the secret parallelisms that connect things apparently remote" what T. W. Hunt calls "the detection of those hidden analogies that escape most men." He is a model of exact comparison. " Another rare endowment, which he has to a wonderful degree, is the power of detecting resemblances." Mathews. "It is a logical intellect, acute in the discovery of agree- ment and difference, fertile in methods of comparison, and decisive in rectitude of inference. " H. Giles. " To point out with deliberate some would say with tedi- ous scrupulosity the resembling circumstances in the things compared, peculiarly suits his subtilizing turn of mind. He never seems to be in a hurry, and does not aspire to hit off a similitude in a few pregnant words ; his characteristic is punctilious accuracy, regardless of expense in the matter of words. Nothing can be more exquisite than his subtlety in distinguishing wherein things agree and wherein they dis- agree." Minto. " In the act of thinking anything, metonymies, meta- phors, anecdotes, illustrations, historical or fantastic, start up in his mind, become incorporate with his primary thought, and are, in fact, its language." Masson. ILLUSTRATIONS. "But strange, indeed, where everything seems strange, is the arrangement of the Ceylonese territory and people. Take a peach ; what you call the flesh of the peach, the substance which you eat, is massed orbicularly round a central stone often as large as a pretty large strawberry. Now, in Ceylon the central district, answering to this peach-stone, constitutes a fierce little DE QUINCEY 415 Lilliputian kingdom, quite independent, through many centuries, of the lazy belt, the peach-flesh, which swathes and enfolds it, and perfectly distinct by the character and origin of its popu- lation. The peach-stone is called Kandy and the people Kan- dyans." Essays. " To take an image from the language of eclipses, the corre- spondence between the disk of the original nord and its trans- lated representative is, in thousands of instances, not annular ; the centres do not coincide ; the nords overlap." An English Mail Coach. "The town of L represented the earth, with its sorrows and its graves left behind, yet not out of sight, nor wholly forgot- ten. The ocean in everlasting but gentle agitation, and brooded over by dove-like calm, might not unfitly typify the mind and the mood which then swayed it." Autobiography. " In the twinkling of an eye, at a sudden summons, as it were from the sounding of a trumpet, or the oriental call by the clapping of hands, gates are thrown open, which have an effect corresponding in grandeur to the effect that would arise from the opening of a ship-canal across the Isthmu^ of Darien, viz., the introduction to each other face to face of two separate in- finities. Such a canal would suddenly lay open to each other the two great oceans of our planet, the Atlantic and the Pacific ; while the act of translating into Greek and/ram Hebrew, that is, transferring out of a mysterious cipher as little accessible as Sanscrit, and which never -would be more accessible through any worldly attractions of alliance with power and civic grandeur of commerce, out of this darkness into the golden light of a lan- guage the most beautiful, etc." On the Supposed Scriptural Expression for Eternity. 10. Profound Religious Faith Reverence. " De Quincey is a Christian on epicurean principles. He dislikes an infidel because his repose is disturbed by the arguments of free-thinkers. " Leslie Stephen. " De Quincey is distinctly and avowedly a Christian." H. Giles. " We find a profound and sincere religious feeling. . . . 4l6 DE QUINCEY As a moralist, De Quincey takes his stand upon Christianity, and his whole system of belief is built upon it. He is a sin- cere Christian believer, without compromise or reserve. He everywhere extols the Christian religion, and is jealous for its character and sanctity. " C. C. Smith. 11 With all his errors, De Quincey has not ceased to believe in Christianity." Harper 1 s Magazine. " De Quincey ever shows himself a believer in revealed religion and a firm adherent of the Established Church." Christian Examiner. ILLUSTRATIONS. " The great principles of Christian morality are now so inter- woven with our habits of thinking that we appeal to them no longer as Scriptural authorities but as the natural suggestions of a sound judgment. For instance, in the case of any wrong offered to the Hindoo races, now so entirely dependent upon our wisdom and justice, we British immediately, by our solemnity of investigation, testify our sense of the deep responsibility to India with which our Indian supremacy has invested us. We make no mention of the Christian oracles. Yet where, then, have we learned this doctrine of far-stretching responsibility ? In all Pagan systems of morality there is not the vaguest and slightest appreciation of such relations as connect us with our colonies. But from the profound philosophy of Scripture we have learned that no relations whatever, not even those of property, can con- nect us with even a brute animal but that we contract concurrent obligations of justice and mercy." Essay on Christianity. " All false religions have perished by their own hollowness and by internal decay, under the searching trials applied by life and the changes of life, by social mechanism and the changes of social mechanism, which wait in ambush upon every mode of religion. False modes of religion could not respond to the demands ex- acted from them or the questions emerging. One after one they have collapsed, as if by palsy, and have sunk away under new aspects of society and new necessities of man which they were not able to face. Commencing in one condition of society, in one set of feelings, and in one system of ideas, they sank instinc- DE QUINCEY 417 lively under any great change in these elements, to which they had no natural power of plastic self-accommqdation. A false religion furnished always a key to one subordinate lock ; but a religion that is true will prove a master-key for all locks alike. This transcendental principle, through which Christianity trans- ers herself so readily from climate to climate, from land to land, from century to century, from the simplicity of shepherds to the utmost refinement of philosophers, carries with it a correspond- ing necessity (corresponding, I mean, to such infinite flexibility) of an infinite development." Essay on Protestantism. " How grand a triumph, if, even then, amidst the raving of all around him and the frenzy of the danger, the man is able to con- front his situation is able to retire for a moment into solitude with God and to seek his counsel from Him." The English Mail Coach. II. Originality Independence. "The originality, the independence of his exposition is in every case the most remarkable part of it. You have the subject treated at first hand." S. H. Hodgson. " He had the independence of a true critic. ... He brings to light and to being that which is his own. He fol- lows here the guidance of no master." T. W. Hunt. 11 Few, if any, have the indefinable quality of freshness in so large a measure." Saintsbury. "Of his multifarious writings all are strongly marked by the individuality of the author." S. Davey. " It is rare to find an author whose works seem to bear more truly and clearly the stamp of his own mind, and whose judg- ments moral, political, and literary are set down with less apparent reference to the opinions of contemporaries." G. G. Brown. "No one can better develop the utmost possibility of a musty adage, a threadbare proverb, a flavorless bit of slang, or a joke that has seen better days." Littell 's Living Age, from the Press. " He was as original a thinker as most men are who take 27 418 DE QUINCEY comparatively little for granted and who inquire before they conclude." B: A. Page. ILLUSTRATIONS. "War stands, or seems to stand, upon the double basis of necessity ; a primary necessity that belongs to our human degra- dations, a secondary one that towers by means of its moral rela- tions into the region of our impassioned grandeurs. The two propositions on which I take my stand are these : first, that there are nowhere latent in society any powers by which it can effectually operate a war for its extermination. The machinery is not there. The game is not within the compass of the cards. Secondly, that this defect of power is not a curse, but on the whole a blessing from century to century, if it is an inconvenience from year to year. The Abolition Committees, it is to be feared, will be angry at both propositions. Yet, gentlemen, hear me strike, but hear me. That's a sort of plagiarism from The- mistocles. But never mind. I have as good a right to the words, until translated back into Greek, as that most classical of yellow admirals. I protest that I should have used these words even if Themistocles had absconded into Scythia in his boyhood." Essay on War. "My own impressions incline me to represent the earth as a fine, noble young woman, full of the pride which is so becoming to her sex, and well able to take her own part, in case that, at any solitary part of the heavens, she should come across one of those vulgar, fussy comets disposed to be rude and take improper liberties. But others there are, a class whom I perfectly abom- inate, that place our earth in the category of decaying, nay, of decayed women. Hair like arctic snows, failure of vital heat, palsy that shakes the head as in the porcelain toys on our mantel- pieces, asthma that shakes the whole fabric these they abso- lutely fancy themselves to see; they absolutely hear the tellurian lungs wheezing, panting, crying, ' Bellows to mend ! ' periodi- cally as the earth approaches her aphelion.'' Essay on System of the Heavens. 12. Insight into Character. "He had an extraor- dinary insight into practical human life ; not merely in the DE QUINCEY 419 abstract, but in the concrete ; not merely as a philosopher of human nature, but as one who saw into those who passed him in the walk of life with the kind of intuition attributed to ex- pert detectives." Burton. " While it was a peculiarity of his intellect to be exquisitely introspective, he was yet marvellously swift in his appreciation of men and things." William Mathews. " He had that mental acumen which found such fitting ex- ercise in the study of men." T. W. Hunt. ILLUSTRATIONS. "Knowing that she would reap nothing from answering her persecutors, why did she not retire by silence from the superflu- ous contest ? It was because her quick and eager loyalty to truth would not suffer her to see it darkened by frauds which she could expose. ... It was through that imperishable grandeur of soul which taught her to submit meekly and without a struggle to her punishment, but taught her not to submit no, not for a mo- ment to qalumny as to facts or to misconstruction as to mo- tives." Joan of Arc. " It is unintelligibly but mesmerically potent, this secret fasci- nation attached to features oftentimes that are absolutely plain ; and as one of many cases within my own range of positive experi- ence, I remember, in confirmation, at this moment, that in a clergyman's family, counting three daughters, all on a visit to my mother, the youngest Miss F P , who was strikingly and memorably plain, never walked out on the Clifton Downs unat- tended but she was followed home by a crowd of admiring men, anxious to learn her rank and abode ; whilst the middle sister, eminently handsome, levied no such visible tribute on the public ; I mention this fact one of a thousand similar facts simply by way of reminding the reader of what he must himself have often witnessed, viz., that no woman is condemned by nature to any ignoble necessity of repining against the power of other women ; her own may be far more confined, but within its own circle may possibly, measured against that of the haughtiest beauty, be the profounder." Autobiography, MACAULAY, 1800-1859 Biographical Outline. Thomas Babington Macaulay, born at Rothby Temple, Leicestershire, October 25, 1800; father a merchant and publicist, who was active in abolishing the slave-trade ; removes to Birchin Lane and, in Thomas's third year, to Clapham ; Macaulay begins reading at three, and exhibits marvellous powers of memory at four ; is petted by Hannah More; at seven he begins a compendium of uni- versal history, and at eight writes a theological discourse : memorizes Scott's poems and begins writing poems and hymns ; first attends a private school in Clapham, then (in 1812) to the school of one Preston, at Little Shelford, near Cambridge; reads with astonishing voracity and rapidity ; enters Trinity College, Cambridge, in October, 1818; exchanges Tory for Whig political views ; wins college prizes in Latin. declama- tion and in English poetry ; is refused college honors because of his dislike for mathematics ; is made a fellow of Trinity in October, 1824; takes private pupils in 1823, because of his father's business reverses ; his family remove to London in 1821 ; Macaulay lives with his parents till 1829 ; is called to the bar in 1826; does not practise, but frequents the House of Commons, makes political speeches, and writes for the mag- azines; first contributes to Knighf s Quarterly Magazine an article on " Ivry and the Armada;" in August, 1825, pub- lishes in the Edinburgh Review his essay on Milton, which is highly praised by Jeffrey ; is offered the editorship of the Edinburgh Review on Jeffrey's retirement, but declines; his other essays, twenty-six in number, appear in the Edinburgh Review from 1825 to 1844 ; is made a Commissioner in Bank- ruptcy in 1828, by Lord Lyndhurst, a political opponent; 420 MACAULAY 421 this, with his fellowship and his receipts from the Review, give him an income of ^900 ; he is elected a member of Parliament for Calne in 1830; wins great fame by a speech on the second reading of the Reform Bill in 1831 ; is courted by Sydney Smith, Hallam, and other literary celebrities ; by the abolition of his commissionership and the expiration of his fellowship Macaulay is reduced to selling his university gold medals ; he engages in controversy with J. W. Croker ; is made a Commissioner of the Board of Control [of Indian affairs] in 1832, and soon afterward becomes secretary of the board; continues in Parliament, representing Leeds; although needing the income as commissioner to help pay his father's debts, Macaulay resigns his office so as to be free to oppose a government bill for apprenticing liberated slaves ; his resigna- tion is not accepted ; he is offered a seat in the Supreme Coun- cil of India, at ^10,000 a year for five years ; he accepts only on condition that his sister Hannah shall accompany him to India ; sails for India in February, 1834 ; resides at Calcutta till December, 1838, when he returns to England; is made president of a committee which founds the educational system of India ; prepares, also, a criminal code for India, which was published in December, 1837 ; his penal code became law in 1860 ; meantime Macaulay reads a vast amount of classical literature, and learns German on his homeward voyage ; on arriving he is challenged to a duel by one Wallace, whose life of Mclntosh Macaulay had condemned in the Edinburgh Re- view ; Macaulay accepts the challenge, but friends arrange a bloodless settlement ; he makes a tour of Italy in the autumn of 1838, and receives impressions for his "Lays of Ancient Rome;" returns to London, and begins his "History of England " in March, 1839 ; is elected to Parliament for Edinburgh in 1839, and becomes Secretary of War in Sep- tember of that year ; till 1841 he lives in London with Sir George Trevelyan, who had married Macaulay's sister Han- nah ; he is reluctantly forced to publish his essays in 1843, as 422 MACAULAY Americans had already published them ; the annual sales of the essays reach 6,000 by 1864; publishes his " Lays of Ancient Rome " in 1842 ; 18,000 copies are sold during the first ten years ; in 184142 Macaulay advocates and secures important changes in the law of copyright ; he advocates the repeal of the corn-laws; is made Paymaster-General in 1846, and is re- elected for Edinburgh ; is defeated at the Edinburgh election of 1847 because of his approval of the Established Church and his independent views in general ; he declines further participation in politics and devotes himself to literature ; the first two vol- umes of his " History " appear in November, 1848 ; 13,000 copies are sold the first four months ; he is ordained Lord Rec- tor of the University of Glasgow in March, 1849; declines the professorship of Modern History at Cambridge ; declines a Cabinet position in 1852 ; his health suddenly and seriously fails ; makes his last speech in the House of Commons in July, 1853 ; prepares civil-service rules and examinations for India in 1854; publishes the third volume of his "History" in December, 1855 ; 26,500 copies are sold during the first ten weeks; the "History" is at once translated into twelve languages, and in March, 1856, Macaulay receives from his publishers royalties amounting to ^20,000 ; he buys and set- tles at Holly Lodge, Kensington, in 1856 ; accepts a peerage in 1857 ; is made high steward of the borough of Cambridge in 1857 ; continues work upon his "History," and contributes several articles to the "Encyclopaedia Britannica ; " dies at Holly Lodge, December 28, 1859, and is buried in Westmin- ster Abbey; the fifth volume of the "History," edited by Lady Trevelyan, appeared in 1861. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON MACAULAY'S STYLE. Saintsbury, G., "Impressions." New York, 1895, Dodd, Mead & Co., 79-98. Oliphant, Mrs., "Victorian Age of English Literature." New York, 1892, Tail, H9-I97- MACAULAY 423 Minto, W., "English Prose." Edinburgh, 1886, Blackwood, 87-130. Stirling, J. H., "Jerrold, Tennyson, and Macaulay." Edinburgh, 1868, Edmonston & Douglas, 112-172. Pebody, C, "Authors at Work." London, 1872, W. H. Allen, 208- 246. Jones, C. H., "Macaulay, His Life and Writings." New York, 1880, Appleton, 229-247. Lancaster, H. H., "Essays and Reviews." Edinburgh, 1876, Edmon- ston & Douglas, 178-229. Mason, E. T., " Personal Traits of British Authors." New York, 1885, Scribner, 4: 33-81. Stevens, A., "Character Sketches." New York, 1882, Phillips & Hunt, 53-107. Russell, A. P., "Characteristics." Boston, 1893, Houghton, Mirflin & Co., 74-105. Russell, W. C., "The Book of Authors." London, 1879, Warne & Co., 469-472. Skelton, J., "Essays in History and Biography." Edinburgh, 1883, Blackwood, 279-283. Stephen, L., "Hours in a Library." New York, 1894, Putnam, 3: 343-376. Collier, W. F., " History of English Literature." London, 1892, Nel- son, 461-467. Nicoll, H. J., "Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1893, Appleton, 412-420. Welsh, A. H., "Development of English Literature." Chicago, 1884, Griggs, 2: 301-309. Taine, H. A., "History of English Literature." New York, 1875, Holt, 3 : 256-294. Stephen, L., "Dictionary of National Biography." New York, 1890, Macmillan, 34 : 410-418. Henley, W. E., "Views and Reviews." New York, 1890, Scribner, 1 6. Home, R. H., "A New Spirit of the Age." New York, 1844, Har- per, 2 1 1-22 1. Grimm, H., " Literature." Boston, 1886, Cupples & Co., 130-168. Bayne, P., "Essays in Biography and Criticism." Boston, 1858, Gould & Lincoln, 2 : 52-85. Gilfillan, G., "Literary Portraits." Edinburgh, 1851, J. Hogg, i: 262- 271; 2: 81-100; 3: 278-313. Whipple, E. P., "Essays and Reviews." Boston, 1861, Ticknor, i: 9-31- 424 MACAULAY Bagehot, W., "Literary Studies." Hartford, 1856, Travellers' Insur- ance Company, 2 : 58-99. Martineau, H., "Biographical Sketches." New York, 1876, Leopold & Holt, 102-113. Freeman, E. A., "Atlas Essays." New York, 1877, Banks, 2: 1-14. Morley, J., "English Men of Letters" (Morrison). New York, 1882, Harper, 38-65. Spedding, J., " Evenings with a Reviewer." Boston, 1882, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., v. index., 2 vols. Trevelyan, G. O., "Life and Letters of Macaulay. " New York, 1876, Longmans, Green & Co., 1 : 1-465 ; ~2 : 1-480. Punshon, W. M., " Life of Macaulay" (Exeter Hall Lectures). Boston, 1873, Estes & Lauriat, 39-97. Anton, P., "Masters in History." Edinburgh, 1880, Macmillan, 121- 194. Gladstone, W. E., " Gleanings, " etc. New York, 1879, Scribner, 2: 265-341. Kebbel, T. E., "Essays upon History and Politics." London, 1864, Chapman & Hall, 30. Morley, J., "Critical Miscellanies." New York, 1893, Macmillan, i: 253-293- Fortnightly Review, 25 ; 494-514 (J. Morley). Quarterly Review, 142: 1-50 (Trevelyan); 124: 1-50 and 287-333 (Trevelyan); 71: 453-47- Harper's Magazine, 53; 85-97 and 238-244 (R. H. Stoddard). Princeton Review, 12: 431-451 (J. M. Alexander). Belgravia, 29 : 397-410 (T. H. S. Escott). Debow's Magazine, 28 : 667-679 (G. Fitzhugh). Macmillan 's Magazine, I: 241-247 (F. D. Maurice) ; 34: 85-97 (Mor- rison) ; i: 287-298 (H. Moore). Methodist Quarterly, 37 : 197-225 (A. Stevens). Saturday Review, 9 : 9-10. Littelfs Living Age, 64: 506-509 (Saturday Review}; 37: 323-340 {Chambers' s Repository). Eclectic Magazine, \<$: 505-509 (Hannah More); 51: 145-161 (J. A. Froude) ; 13 : 35-46 (G. Gilfillan). Eraser's Magazine, 62 : 438-446 (J. Skelton) ; 33 : 77-85 ; 62 : 438-446 (Shirley) ; 103 : 187-196 (E. Myers) ; 33 : 77-84. Spectator, 66: 337-338. Edinburgh Review, 100: 252-275. Blacfcivood's Magazine, 86 : 162-174. Eclectic Review, 3 : 273-276. MACAULAY 425 Cornhill Magazine, i: 129-134. Forum, 18 : 80-94 (F. Harrison). Motion, 56: 16-17 (W. C. Sydney); 22: 337~33 8 and 35 2 -353 (A. V. Dicey). North American AVrvVa 1 , 93: 418-456 (C. C. Smith). North British Review, 25: 41-58; 33: 229-247 (H. H. Lancaster). I. Fondness for Contrast Balance Point Epigram. "Macaulay delights to leave us face to face with contrasts. He likes to represent a man as a bundle of contradictions, because it enables him to obtain startling results." Leslie Stephen. 1 ' He makes considerable use of the conventional balanced phrases for amplifying the roll of a sentence. . . . His pages are illuminated not only by little sparks of antithe- sis but by broad flashes. Not only is word set off against word, clause against clause, and sentence against sentence ; one group of sentences answers another, and paragraphs are balanced against paragraphs. ... A favorite and char- acteristic way of getting up an antithesis is, before narrating an event, to recount all the circumstances that concurred to make it different from what it ultimately proved to be. Another favorite device is in the course of his narrative to speculate what might have happened had circumstances been different. ... A large portion of his sentences contain words and clauses in formal balance. . . . Passages show balance combined with antithesis. . . . The strik- ing characteristic of abruptness in Macaulay's style is caused chiefly by his way of transition and connection. We are constantly being jerked from the immediate subject and back again with a 'but.' . . . Very often all the sentences up to the last are a preparation for the shock of astonishment administered at the close. He likes to occupy the first sen- tences of the paragraph with circumstances leading us to expect the opposite of what is really the main statement. . . . A preference is given to flash and startling facts to 426 MACAULAY material that is good for pictures and for dazzling paradoxes. The scintillations of antithesis are almost incessant." Minto. " As nimble and concise in wit as Sydney Smith, . . the wonderful clearness, point, and vigor of his style send his thoughts right into every brain. . . . His spice is of so keen a flavor that it tickles the coarsest palate. Common historical events he narrates with all the brilliancy of epigram. ' ' Walter Bagehot. " He delights to cram tomes of diluted facts into one short, sharp antithetical sentence and to condense general principles into epigrams. . . . His words overflow with anti- thetical forms of expression and thoughts condensed into sparkling epigrams. His page is brightened by them, gleam- ing over the discussion of a question of taste like incessant flashes of heat-lightning thrown off like glittering sparks in the rush of his declamatory logic." E. P. Whipple. 11 Macaulay's style was like Pope's . . . artificial by nature; deficient in flexibility and compass, as inferior to Burke as Pope was to Dryden ; below Johnson in elegance and below Hume in combination of strength, polish, and simplicity, he had something which all three wanted, and has in consequence had a thousand readers for every one of theirs. . . . No one of these writers ever leaves us at a loss for his meaning, but they do not pointedly call attention to it. ... We cannot read a page of his work without finding ourselves continually laying stress upon particular words, whether we will or no. To such perfection has he carried this practice that he seldom or never stands in need of italics, and his argument remains impressed upon the mind like a clearly marked tune upon the memory. So much in- deed is this the case that in his later writings his style not un- frequently degenerates into a mere jig." 7! . Kebbel. MACAULAY 427 ILLUSTRATIONS. " We charge him with having broken his coronation oath ; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow ! We accuse him of hav- ing given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot- headed and hard-hearted of prelates, and the defense is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him." Essay on Milton. " Among statesmen of the age Halifax was, in genius, the first. His intellect was fertile, subtle, capacious. His polished, lumi- nous, and animated eloquence set off by the silver tones of his voice was the delight of the House of Lords. His conversation overflowed with thought, fancy, and wit. Yet he was less suc- cessful in politics than many who enjoyed smaller advantages." Essay on Bacon. " He applied to the government ; and it seems strange that he should have applied in vain. His wishes were moderate. He- reditary claims on the administration were great. He had him- self been favorably noticed by the Queen. His uncle was Prime Minister. His own talents were such as any minister might have been eager to enlist in the public service. But his solicitations were unsuccessful. The truth is that the Cecils disliked him and did all that they could decently do to keep him down." Essay on Bacon. " This great commander [Lord Galway] conducted the cam- paign of 1707 in the most scientific manner. On the plain of Almanza he encountered the army of the Bourbons. He drew up his troops according to the methods prescribed by the best writers, and in a few hours lost eighteen thousand men, a hun- dred and twenty standards, all his baggage, and all his artillery." War of the Succession in Spain. " Melville was not a great statesman : he was not a great ora- tor : he did not look or move like the representative of royalty : his character was not of more than standard purity : and the standard of purity among Scottish senators was not high : but he was by no means deficient in prudence and temper : and he suc- ceeded, on the whole, better than a man of much higher qualities might have done." History of England. 2. Profuse Repetition. " It seems as if he were mak- ing a wager with his reader and said to him : ' Be as absent 428 MACAULAY in mind as you will, as stupid, as ignorant ; in vain you will be ignorant, you shall learn ; I will repeat the same idea in so many forms.' ' Taine. " [He has] a profuse way of repeating a thought in several different sentences. . . . His ideal is evidently to turn a subject over on every side, to place it in all lights." Minto. " He remembers that he has not only to exhibit his proofs, but to hammer them into the heads of his audience by incessant repetition. . . . He goes on ^blacking the chimney with a persistency which somehow amuses us because he puts so much heart into his work." Leslie Stephen. " The style of Macaulay is a diorama of political pictures. You seem to begin with a brilliant picture its colors are dis- tinct, its lines are firm ; on a sudden it changes, at first gradu- ally, you can scarcely see how or in what, but truly and un- mistakably a slightly different picture is before you ; then the second vision seems to change it too is another and yet the same ; then the third shines forth and fades : and so without end. The unity of this delineation is the identity the ap- parent identity of the picture in no two moments does it seem quite different, in no two is it identically the same." Walter Bagehot. ILLUSTRATIONS. " That these practices were common we admit. But they were common just as all wickedness to which there is a strong tempta- tion always was and always will be common. They were common just as theft, cheating, perjury, adultery have always been com- mon. They were common, not because people did not know what was right, but because people liked to do what was wrong. They were common though prohibited by law. They were com- mon though condemned by public opinion. They were common because in that age law and public opinion had not sufficient force to restrain the greediness of powerful and unprincipled magis- trates. They were common as every crime will be common when the gain to which it leads is great and the chance of punish- ment small." History of England. MACAULAY 429 " Thus was it with that famous assembly. They formed a force which they could neither govern nor resist. They made it powerful. They made it fanatical. As if military insolence were not of itself sufficiently dangerous, they heightened it with spirit- ual pride ; they encouraged the soldiers to rave from the tops of tubs against the men of Belial till every trooper thought himself a prophet. They taught them to abuse popery till every drum- mer fancied that he was as infallible as a pope." Essay on Milton. " Pitt was emphatically the man of parliamentary government, the type of his class, the minion, the child, the spoiled child, of the House of Commons. For the House of Commons he had a hereditary, an infantine love. Through his whole boyhood, the House of Commons was never out of his thoughts or out of the thoughts of his instructors ; ... he was constantly in train- ing for the conflicts of the House of Commons. He was a dis- tinguished member of the House of Commons at twenty-one. The ability which he displayed in the House of Commons made him the most powerful subject in Europe before he was twenty- five, etc." Essay on William Pitt. 3. Rapidity Profusion Erudition. " This abun- dance of thought and style, this multitude of explanations, ideas and facts, this vast aggregate of historical knowledge, goes rolling on, urged forward by an internal passion, sweep- ing away objections in its course, and adding to the dash of eloquence the irresistible force of its mass and weight." Taine. " Take at hazard any three pages, and you see one, two, three, a half dozen, a score of allusions to other his- toric facts, characters, literature, and poetry with which you are acquainted. . . . He reads twenty books to write a sentence ; he travels a hundred miles to make a line of de- scription.' ' Thackeray. "There is a fulness and a rapid continuance of utterance that hurry us triumphantly along the stream of expression. . The swiftness of its speed is as the rush of the eager victor through the broken wreck of the terrified foe that 430 MACAULAY flees. ... [It is] transparent but flushed rapidity." /. H. Stirling. "Knowledge and important principles generalized from knowledge are scattered with careless ease and prodigality, as though they would hardly be missed in the fulness of mind from which they proceed. . . . The most gorgeous trappings of his rhetoric are radiant with thought." Walter Bagehot. " He has gathered only those flowers that grow far out of the common path, in the by-ways of history and poetry and these he scatters over his pages with what might be called an elaborate carelessness and profusion. . . . His pictures float past the reader like the cumulus clouds of a summer's day, clear, swiftly flying, and touched with the loveliest hues." Peter Bayne, "Hastings' trial is a picture . . . which in its thick and crowded magnificence reminds you of the descriptions of Tacitus, or (singular connection !) of the paintings of Ho- garth. As in Hogarth, the variety of figures and circum- stance each and all bear upon the main object, to which they point like fingers. . . . His papers are thickly studded with facts." George Gilfillan. " The author has weighted himself with a load of minute detail such as no historian ever uplifted before." -J. C. Mor- rison. " Quotations from obscure writers or from obscure works of great writers ; multitudinous allusions to ancient classics or to modern authors whom his mention has gone far to make classics; references to some less-studied book of Scripture ; names which have driven us to the Atlas to make sure of our geography, or to the Biographical Gallery to remind us that they lived they crowd upon us so thickly that we are bewil- dered in the profusion, and there is danger to our physical symmetry from the enlargement of our bump of wonder." Morley Punshon. "There is a certain music, but it is the music of a man MACAULAY 43 1 everlastingly playing for us rapid solos on a silver trumpet, never the swelling diapason of the organ, never the deep ecstatics of the four magic strings. . . . He revels in bold assertion, gratuitous assumption, ingenious illustration, brilliant rhetoric, and eloquent declamation. With these he confuses, confounds, captivates, overpowers, and carries along his readers. He so excites their admiration as to disqualify them for cool and deliberate reflection. He dethrones their judgment and enthrones their passions and prejudices. He is irresistible on first reading. His splendid paradoxes, his bold- ness, his audacity, his very outrageousness, hurry us along and leave no time for thought or criticism. ... A large portion of the wide historic realm is traversed in that ample flight of reference, allusion, and illustration ; and what unspar- ing copiousness of knowledge gives substance, meaning, and attraction to that blaze and glare of rhetoric ! . . . Fig- ures from history, ancient and modern, sacred and secular ; characters from plays and novels, from Plautus down to Walter Scott and Jane Austen ; images and similes from poets of every age and every nation ; shrewd thrusts from satirists, wise saws from sages, pleasantries, caustic and pathetic, from humourists ; all through, Macaulay's pages are alive with the bustle and variety and animation of some glittering masque and cosmoramic revel of great books and heroical men. . . . Macaulay's knowledge was not only very wide ; it was both thoroughly accurate and instantly ready. For this stream of apt illustrations he was indebted to his extraordi- nary memory and his rapid eye for contrasts and analogies. They come to the end of his pen as he writes ; they are not laboriously hunted out in indexes and then added by way of after-thought and extraneous interpolation. Hence quotations and references . . . find their place in a page of Ma- caulay as if by a delightful process of complete assimilation and spontaneous fusion." -John Morley. " His style was like a full-blooded steed on the race-course, 432 MACAULAY fleet, direct, and of simple but splendid proportions. . . . Nearly every one of his essays is a good example of his versa- tility, an ample resume of the best student's knowledge not only of the character or subject treated, but of its epoch, sum- marized with a marvellous tact and colored by an artist's hand." Leslie Stephen. " His history is like a cavalry charge. Down go horse and man before his rapid and reckless onset. His ' rush ' is irre- sistible save by the coolest judgment and the most cultivated intellects. Ranks are broken, guns are spiked, and away sweeps the bold dragoon to arrive at a fresh square." T. E. KebbeL ILLUSTRATIONS. " Twice, within the memory of men yet living, the natives had attempted to throw off the alien yoke; twice the intruders had been in imminent danger of extirpation ; twice England had come to the rescue, and had put down the Celtic population under the feet of her own progeny. Millions of English money had been expended in the struggle. English blood had flowed at Boyne and at Athlone, at Aghrim and at Limerick. The graves of thou- sands of English soldiers had been dug in the pestilential morass of Dundalk. It was owing to the exertions and sacrifices of the English people that, from the basaltic pillars of Ulster to the lakes of Kerry, the Saxon settlers were trampling on the children of the soil." History of England. " India and its inhabitants were not to him, as to most English- men, mere names and abstractions, but a real country and a real people. The burning sun, the strange vegetation of the palm and the cocoa-tree, the rice-field, the tank, the huge trees, older than the Mogul empire, under which the village crowds assemble ; the thatched roof of the peasant's hut ; the rich tracery of the mosque where the imaum prays with his face to Mecca, the drums and banners and gaudy idols, the devotee swinging in the air, the graceful maiden, with the pitcher on her head, descending the steps to the riverside, the black faces, the long beards, the yellow streaks of sect, tiie turbans and the flowing robes, the spears and the silver maces, the elephants with their canopies of state, the gorgeous palanquin of the prince, all these things were to him as MACAULAY 433 the objects amidst which his own life had been passed."- Essay on Warren Hastings. " Such a prince as our Henry the Fifth would have been the idol of the North. The follies of his youth, the selfish ambition of his manhood, the Lollards roasted at slow fires, the prisoners massacred on the field of battle, the expiring lease of priest-craft renewed for another century. The dreadful legacy of a causeless and a hopeless war bequeathed to a people who had no interest in its event, everything is forgotten but the victory of Agincourt." Essay on Machiavelli. 4. Harsh Invective Open Derision. " In propor- tion as his praise is eloquent and hearty for what is noble and good in character, his scorn is severe for what is little and mean. . . . He carries his austerity beyond the bounds of humanity. His harshness to the captive of his criticism is a transgression of the law against cruelty to animals. . . He is both judge and executioner ; condemns the prisoner puts on the black cap with a stinging sneer hangs, quarters, and scatters his limbs to the four winds without any appearance of pity or remorse. He breathes upon them the hot breath of scorn ; he crushes and grinds them in the whirling mill of his logic. Over the burning marl of his critical pandemonium he makes them walk with unsandaled feet, and views their ludicrous agonies with mocking glee. . . . His denunciation is frequently awful in its depth, earnestness, and crushing force. All cant about the rights of man, all whining and whimpering about the clashing interests of body and soul, are treated with haughty scorn and made the butt of contemptuous ridicule." E. P. Whipple. " Macaulay has a rough touch ; when he strikes he knocks down." Taine. " For a combination of sarcasm and crushing invective we hardly know where the sketch of Barere can find a parallel. ' ' H. H. Lancaster. 28 434 MACAULAY " We hold our breath while Nemesis descends to crucify the miscreant Barere. . . . That he was a good hater, there can be no question. . . . Dr. Johnson would have hugged him for the heartiness with which he lays on his dark shades of color." Morley Punshon. "In his contemptuous and derisive moods, he uses a studied meanness of expression that reminds us of the coarse famil- iarity of Swift. ' ' Minto. " Macaulay's wit is always sarcasm sarcasm embittered by indignation, and yet performing its minute dissections with judicial gravity. ... He first flays, then kills, then tramples, and then hangs his victim in chains. . . . Nor will his sarcastic vein, once awakened against Croker, sleep till it has scorched poor Bozzy to ashes and even singed the awful wig of Johnson." George Gilfillan. " His fury expressed itself in a studied affectation of scorn and in that rueful laugh which is described in unclassical English as proceeding from the wrong side of the mouth. There is an unfading charm in the swing and vigor of the lines [of the ' Lays '] which brings to our ears the very songs of the battle, the clash of steel, and the rushing of the horses, the noise of the captains and the shouting ' a cut- and-thrust style,' Wilson calls it, without any flourish. . . . Though not malevolent, or even naturally an uncharitable man, Macaulay was too ready to form an unkindly judgment of his political adversaries. . . . He spoke his hatred out, as was his nature, and he refused to see any redeeming points in the character of his adversary ; we may say indeed that he was incapable of seeing them." Mrs. Oliphant. " In his review of James Mill's ' Essay on Government, 1 he treated the author with such contemptuous vehemence of vituperation that he felt compelled to withdraw the article from publication and even to volunteer an apology for his language. . . . Nor is Macaulay's castigation, superflu- ously insulting and needlessly personal as that castigation was, MACAULAY 435 of Wallis, the editor of Macintosh's 'James II.' altogether creditable. It was a melancholy acknowledgment to make that he had ' attacked Mr. Wallis with an asperity which neither literary defects nor speculative difference can justify, and which ought to be reserved for offenders against the laws of morality and honor.' ' T.H. S. Escott. " When he hates a man he calls him knave or fool with unflinching frankness." Leslie Stephen. ILLUSTRATIONS. " The suit, happily for Bacon, was unsuccessful. The lady, indeed, was kind to him in more ways than one. She rejected him ; and she accepted his enemy. She married that narrow- minded, bad-hearted pedant, Sir Edward Coke, and did her best to make him as miserable as he deserved to be." Essay on Bacon. " The faults of James, both as a man and as a prince, were numerous ; but insensibility to the claims of genius and learn- ing was not among them. He was indeed made up of two men ; a witty, well-read scholar, who wrote, disputed, and harangued, and a nervous, drivelling idiot, who acted." History of Eng- land. " A wise man might talk folly like this by his own fireside ; but that any human being, after having made such a joke, should write it down, and copy it out, and transmit it to the printer, and correct the proof-sheets, and send it forth into the world, is enough to make us ashamed of our species." Essay on Southey's Colloquies on Society. " Honor and shame were scarcely more to him than light and darkness to the blind. His contempt of flattery has been highly commended, but it is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit." History of England. 5. Sacrifice of Fact to Form and Effect " The real and weighty objection to his inaccuracy is his habit of making broad, sweeping statements. . . . He is con- 436 MACAULAY stantly misleading by innuendo suggestive of the false, by epithets, by generalizations, by rhetorical extensions of the actual fact or text." Saintsbury. " Exact balance cannot long be kept up without a sacrifice to strict truth. . . . Both sides are extremely exagger- ated to make the antithesis more telling. . . . It is not denied that Macaulay had a tendency to make slight sacrifices of truth to antithesis. . . . He has been accused of col- oring his facts to suit his prejudice in favor of modern cul- tivation and to gratify his favorite passion for antithesis." Minto. " Herein lies his essential defect as an historian. In his judgment men are all black or all white. He applies the log- ical doctrine of the excluded middle to the domain of ethics. The characters whom he draws deserve immortal glory or eternal infamy. ... If Macaulay's account of the sev- eral periods which he describes were true, no honest man could have been a Royalist in the reign of Charles, and no patriot could have been a Tory in the time of William III." T. H. S. Escott. " His aptitude for forcing things into a firm outline and giving them a sharply defined edge these and other singular talents all lend themselves to his intrepid and indefatigable pursuit of effect. . . . Macaulay's hardy and habitual recourse to strenuous superlatives is fundamentally unscien- tific and untrue." -John Morley. "That his love for pointed diction leads him into many errors, cannot be denied." E. P. IVJiipple. "In seeking for paradoxes, Macaulay often stumbles on, but more frequently stumbles over, truth." George Gil- fillan. " The desire for effect at any cost makes some of his char- acters, such as Bacon, mere heaps of contradictory qualities." Leslie Stephen. " We will not deny that in the heat of his animosity he MACAULAY 437 may have distorted facts ; for every student of history knows with what readiness those elastic trifles will assume all va- rieties of shape according to the glasses through which they are observed. But these at the worst are in a few extreme instances, for which we at least are ready to forgive the only historian who has been able to make his readers live in the period of which he writes. Colored his narrative may be, yet it is history, and history of the most profitable kind." Mrs. Oliphant. ' ' The love of form may be cultivated to an unhealthy ex- tent, engendering a comparative indifference to the matter which it clothes. ... If history is made amusing, who will take the trouble to investigate its truth ? and who will care if it be true? . . . The deliberate rejection of all minor points which would mar the clearness of a statement, a refusal to come within the circle of some sweeping general- ization, must have created wrong impressions. . . . He had so much confidence in the truth of his general views that he doubtless considered himself justified in risking something to promote their popularity. Of these four volumes of bold and brilliant declaration we may say that they are beautiful, they are magnificent, but they are not history." T. E. KetbcL ILLUSTRATIONS. " For the public mind was possessed of the belief that the more conscientious a Papist was, the more likely he must be to plot against a Protestant government." Essay on Bacon. "The difference between the soaring angel and the creeping snake was but a type of the difference between Bacon the Philos- opher and Bacon the Attorney-General, Bacon seeking for truth and Bacon seeking for the seals." Essay on Bacon. " His occasional remarks on the affairs of ancient Rome and of modern Europe are full of errors ; but he writes of times with respect to which almost every other writer has been in the wrong ; and therefore, by resolutely deviating from his predecessors, he 438 MACAULAY is often in the right. . . . His style would never have been elegant, but it might at least have been manly and per- spicuous ; and nothing but the most elaborate case could possibly have made it so bad as it is." Essay on Mitford's History of Greece. " The King cringed to his rival that he might trample on his people, sank into a viceroy of France, and pocketed with com- placent infamy her degrading insults and her more degrading gold. The caresses of harlots and the jests of buffoons regulated the policy of the state. The government had just ability enough to deceive and just religion enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were the scoff of every grinning courtier and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. In every high place worship was paid to Charles and James, Belial and Moloch ; and England propitiated those obscene and cruel idols with the blood of her best and bravest children. Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till the race accursed of God and man was a second time driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth and to be a byword and a shaking of the head to the nations." Essay on Milton. 6. Narrative Power Panoramic View. "The first and most obvious secret of Macaulay's place on popular book shelves is that he has a true genius for narration, and narration will always, in the eyes of many all over the world, stand first among literary gifts. . . . His firmness and directness of statement, his spiritedness, his art of selecting salient and highly colored detail, and all his other merits as a narrator keep the listener's attention, and make him the easiest of writ- ers to follow." -John Morley. 11 Narrative was his peculiar forte." H. J. Nicoll. " The clearest and most fascinating of narrators. " E. A. Freeman. " That a man like Macaulay is always fascinating, that his account of the Seven Years' War and the Silesian campaigns attests a descriptive power of the very highest kind, I need not tell those who have read his essay. . . . Nothing could MACAULAY 439 be more brilliant than his manner of depicting the conquest of India by Lord Clive." Grimm. "There is no lack of pictorial matter in Macaulay. He had no bent for the description of still life. It was vigorous and stirring movement ' the rush and the roar of practical life ' that was of interest to him. . . . The character of our author's style consists more in pictorial touches brought in by a side wind than in the direct description of objects." Minto. " The ease and charm of the narrative in such favorite es- says as those on Clive and Warren Hastings cannot but be felt even by those who are most inclined to differ from his esti- mate of his subjects. . . . His history is one of the greatest efforts in narrative that have ever been made. From beginning to end we have a vast history in the original sense of the word, which is usually denoted by lopping the first syl- lable flowing on in a perfectly unbroken stream in a thousand little rivulets that converge into the main flood, neither neg- lected nor magnified into undue importance, but firmly and skilfully guided into their proper places as the component parts of a great whole. Nothing is more striking in Macaulay's style than this absolute continuity of story. . . . When we read Macaulay ... we feel like a spectator of a great natural drama unrolling itself before our eyes. We are not even hearing the story told by one of the actors but actually looking on at what is taking place. This is, to our mind, the great superiority of Macaulay's writings over those of more ex- act historians. ... In Macaulay's pictures of the past, the reader can see at a glance more of the real life of the world as it then was than the most toilsome examination of historical evidence can afford him." Mrs. Oliphant. 7. Eloquence Oratorical Climax. " Certain pas- sages of Macaulay's prose rise higher than the finest raptures 440 MACAULAY of his poetry, and the term Eloquence will measure the loftiest reaches of either." George Gilfillan. " Occasionally he uses the long oratorical, climactic period, consisting of a number of clauses in the same construction in- creasing gradually in strength so as to form a climax. The compact finish [is] produced by the frequent occurrence of the periodic arrangement. . . . Very often his elo- quence is lofty and inspiring. ... In every paragraph we are conscious of being led on to a. crowning demonstration. His arts of contrast have the effect of making a climax. He seems to pause in the course of his narrative or his argument and go back for a race that will carry him sweepingly over the next obstacle. He is careful to reserve the most telling for the end, and artfully prepares the way for a final resolu- tion." Minto. " Rarely has eloquence been more captivating than Macau- lay's. . . . He has the oratorical afflatus. ... Of whatever subject he treats, he is impassioned for his sub- ject." Taine. " He was one of the most eloquent speakers in Parliament." Leslie Stephen. " He displays much of the imperious scorn, passionate strength, and swelling diction of Brougham." Walter Bage- hot. " Of climax, the coping-stone of the emphatic style, he is a master, and this it is which gives to his rapid antitheses a strength and cogency of their own. After he has accumulated his evidence and brought out point after point in his own favor ... he never fails at the right moment to give the final blow which drives his conclusion home and leaves it embedded in our own minds to the exclusion of all subordi- nate ideas which might weaken our perception of its force." T. E. Kebbel. MACAULAY 441 ILLUSTRATIONS. " Such a mark of national respect was due to the unsullied statesman, to the accomplished scholar, to the master of pure English eloquence, to the consummate painter of life and manners. It was due, above all, to the great satirist, who alone knew how to use ridicule without abusing it; who, without inflicting a wound, effected a great social reform ; and who reconciled wit and virtue after a long and disastrous separation, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy and virtue by fanaticism." Essay on Addis on. " Then came those days, never to be recalled without a blush, the days of servitude without loyalty and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices. The paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the knave." Essay on Milton. " The time was approaching when our island, while struggling to keep down the United States of America, and pressed with a still nearer danger by the too just discontents of Ireland, was to be assailed by France, Spain, and Holland and to be threatened by the armed neutrality of the Baltic ; when even our maritime supremacy was to be in jeopardy ; when hostile fleets were to command the straits of Calpe and the Mexican sea ; when the British flag was to be scarcely able to protect the British Chan- nel." Essay on Hastings. 8. Clearness. " Nobody can have any excuse for not knowing exactly what it is that Macaulay means. This is a prodigious merit when we reflect with what fatal alacrity hu- man language lends itself, in the hands of so many performers upon the pliant instrument, to all sorts of obscurity, ambiguity, disguise, and pretentious mystification. . . . Macaulay never wrote an obscure sentence in his life." -John Morley. " Clearness is the first of the cardinal virtues of his style ; and nobody ever wrote more clearly than Macaulay." Les- lie Stephen. " One can trace in his writing a constant effort to make himself intelligible to the meanest capacity. Macaulay's 442 MACAULAY composition is as far from being abstruse as printed matter well can be. . . . For his perspicuity he certainly de- serves all praise." Minto. " At the close of the last of a series of meetings in which a gentleman read the ' History ' aloud to his poorer neighbors one of the audience rose, and moved in North-Country fash- ion a vote of thanks to Mr. Macaulay ' for having written a history which working men can understand.' " G. O. Tre- velyan. " Many a reader of Macaulay is deceived by his perfect clearness, and will not admit that what appears so plain, vis- ible, and obvious is in the least recondite or remote. A little haze would quadruple the distance, and a good Teutonic fog would have made him pass for one of the most profound thinkers of the age. . . . This lofty perspicuity, this power of sustaining himself at a height above a wide and complex subject, is as visible in the Essays as in the History." -J. C. Morrison. " Macaulay's writings have one very peculiar and very popular quality. They are eminently clear. They can by no possibility, at any time, be nebulous. You can read them as you run." George Gilfillan. " He thought little of recasting a whole paragraph in order to obtain a more lucid arrangement." A. P. Russell. ILLUSTRATIONS. " Where there was a good path he seldom failed to choose it. But now he had only a choice among paths every one of which seemed likely to lead to destruction. From one faction he could hope for no cordial support. The cordial support of the other faction he could retain only by becoming the most factious man in his kingdom, a Shaftesbury on the throne. If he persecuted the Tories their sulkiness would infallibly be turned into fury. If he showed favor to the Tories, it was by no means certain that he would retain their good-will ; and it was but too probable that MACAULAY 443 he might lose his hold on the hearts of the Whigs. Something, however, he must do : something he must risk : a Privy Coun- cil must be sworn in : all the great offices, political and judicial, must be filled. It was impossible to make an arrangement that would please everybody and difficult to make an arrangement that would please anybody : but an arrangement must be made." History of England, " To sum up the whole : we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to provide man with what he re- quires while he continues to be a man. The aim of the Platonic philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar wants. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants. The former aim was noble; but the latter was attainable. Plato drew a good bow, ... he aimed at the stars ; his arrows struck nothing. . . . Bacon fixed his eye on a mark which was placed on earth. . . . and hit it in the white." Essay on Bacon. " The heroic couplet was then the favorite measure. The art of arranging words in that measure, so that the lines may flow smoothly, that the accents may fall correctly, that the rhymes may strike the ear strongly, and that there may be a pause at the end of every distich, is an art as mechanical as that of mending a kettle or shoeing a horse, and may be learned by any human being who has sense enough to learn anything. But, like other mechanical arts, it was gradually improved by means of many experiments and many failures. It was reserved for Pope to discover the trick." Essay on Addison. 9. Ornamentation Splendor of Imagery. "What- ever his subject, he contrives to pour into it with singular dex- terity a stream of rich, graphic, and telling illustrations from widely diversified sources. . . . He has a rapid eye for contrasts and analogies." John Morley. " Macaulay was all fire and brilliancy. Every sentence was a rhetorical flourish, and he naturally seemed to speak in a dialect that can only be described as poetic." T, H. S. Escott. 444 MACAULAY " From another pen such masses of ornament would be tawdry : with him they are only rich. . . . He embel- lishes the barrenest subject. " IV. E. Gladstone. " Our path glitters with ' barbaric pearl and gold.' If we are wearied, it is from excess of splendor. . . . We are in a gorgeous saloon, from whose walls flash out upon us a long array of pictures. He ransacks for precedents and illus- trations the histories of almost every age and clime." Mor- ley Pitnshon. "His similitudes are often brilliantly ingenious and ex- pressed with his usual richness and felicity of language, but they are too artificial and gaudy finery to be worthy of serious imitation. . . . Instance is piled upon instance and com- parison upon comparison, where a full statement would be enough to make the meaning clear to the smallest capacity. The fluent abundance of examples and comparisons is often greater than the subject demands. . . . His prodigious knowledge of particulars betrays him into a superfluity of illus- tration. . . . He has an incomparable command of ex- amples and illustrations." Minto. " His powers of brilliant illustration have never been denied, and it would not be easy to name their equal." -J. C. Morrison. " He has unbounded command of illustration. . . . Macaulay's most memorable things are chiefly happy illustra- tions, verbal antitheses, and clever alliterations. . . . Frequent, cool, and refreshing literary illustrations, blowing like breezes across the otherwise arid and blood-dried pages." George Gilfillan. " The grave and rich ornamentation which Macaulay throws over his narrative, a sort of potent vegetation, flowers of brilliant purple like those which spread over every page of ' Paradise Lost ' and < Childe Harold.' "Tatne. " His early writings are overlaid with gaudy ornament." H. H. Lancaster. MACAULAY 445 " He gives us the most vivid and effective figures. . . . It [his style] is bright, glittering, brilliant. . . . It is dyed in a thousand colors ; it glitters with a thousand points." /. H. Stirling. ILLUSTRATIONS. " The person who on this occasion came forward as the champion of the Colonists, the forerunner of Swift and of Grattan, was William Molyneux. He would have rejected the name of Irishman as indignantly as a citizen of Marseilles or Cyrene, proud of his pure Greek blood and fully qualified to send a chariot to the Olympic race-course, would have rejected the name of Gaul or Libyian." History of England. " The people of India, when we subdued them, were ten times as numerous as the Americans whom the Spaniards vanquished, and were, at the same time, quite as highly civilized as the vic- torious Spaniards. They had reared cities larger and fairer than Saragossa or Toledo and buildings more beautiful and costly than the cathedral of Seville. They could show bankers richer than the richest firms of Barcelona or Cadiz, vice-roys whose splendor far surpassed that of Ferdinand the Catholic, myriads of cavalry and long trains of artillery which would have aston- ished the Great Captain." Essay on Lord Clive. " This is as absurd as it would be in a Haytian negro of our time to dwell with national pride on the greatness of Louis the Fourteenth and to speak of Blenheim and Ramillies with patriotic regret and shame. . . . One of the ablest among them, in- deed, attempted to win the hearts of his English subjects by espousing an English princess. But by many of his barons this marriage was regarded as a marriage between a white planter and a quadroon girl would now be regarded in Virginia." History of England . " Scotsmen, whose dwellings and whose food were as wretched as those of the Icelanders of our time, wrote Latin verse with more than the delicacy of Vida, and made discoveries in science which would have added to the renown of Galileo." History of England. 446 MACAULAY 10. Power of Personal Portraiture Delineation of Character. " He had a keen eye for the slightest hint that could be turned to account in sketching the portrait of a man. . . . All his portraits are drawn from life and stand out upon his canvas like Holbein's portrait of Wentworth you know the man in an instant." C. Pebody. " We thank him for the vividness of delineation by which we can see statesmen like Somers and Nottingham, etc." Morley Punshon. 11 [He paints] elaborate portraitures of the greatest English statesmen." H. H. Lancaster. " [He had] a delight in gathering and a power of painting personal peculiarities. [He was] a great master of portrait painting."/. H. Stirling. "To us there is an even greater attraction in the light yet elaborate studies of character such as are contained in the papers on Sir William Temple and Addison. . . . There is no point in which his genius is more amply displayed than in the masterly, if occasionally prejudiced, sketches of character with which the ' History' is interspersed. . . . Thus we get those exquisite little portraits in miniature which Macaulay threw in with such wondrous skill when he had to present new characters upon the scene." Mrs. Oliphant. ILLUSTRATIONS. " He [William of Orange] was now in his thirty-seventh year. But both in body and mind he was older than other men of the same age. . . . His external appearance is almost as well known to us as to his own captains and counsellors. . . . His features were such as no artist could fail to seize. His name at once calls up before us a slender and feeble frame, a lofty and ample forehead, a nose curved like the beak of an eagle, an eye rivalling that of an eagle in brightness and keenness, a thoughtful and somewhat sullen brow, a firm and somewhat peevish mouth, a cheek pale, thin, and deeply furrowed by sickness and by care. That pensive, severe, and solemn aspect could scarcely have be- MACAULAY 447 longed to a happy or a good-natured man. But it indicates in a manner not to be mistaken capacity equal to the most arduous enterprises and fortitude not to be shaken by reverses or dan- gers." History of England. " In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up the gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed with the scars of disease ; the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the gray wig with a scorched foretop ; the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth mov- ing with convulsive twitches ; we see the heavy form rolling ; we hear it puffing ; and then comes the ' Why, sir ! ' and the ' What then, sir ? ' and the ' No, sir ! ' and the ' You don't see your way through the question, sir ! ' " Essay on BosweWs Life of Johnson. " Steele had left college, been disinherited, led a vagrant life, served in the army, and had written comedies. He was one of those people whom it is impossible either to hate or to respect. His temper was sweet, his affections warm, his spirits lively, his passions strong, and his principles weak. His life was spent in sinning and repenting. He was, however, so good-natured that it was impossible to be seriously angry with him." Essay on Addison. II. Commonplace. " More than once his explications are commonplace. He proves what all allow." Taine. " He abounds in the stock metaphor, the stock transition, the stock equipoise, the stock rhetoric, the stock expedients generally of Addison, Robertson, Goldsmith, etc." -J. H. Stirling. " His work abounds in what is substantially commonplace. We may be sure that no author could have achieved Macau - lay's boundless popularity among his contemporaries unless his works had abounded in what is substantially common- place. . . . It is one of the first things to be said about Macaulay that he was in exact accord with the common average sentiment of his day on every subject on which he spoke. His superiority was not of that highest kind which leads a man to march in thought on the outside margin of 448 MACAULAY the crowd, watching them, sympathizing with them, hoping for them, but apart. Macaulay was one of the middle-class crowd in his heart, and only rose above it by extraordinary gifts of expression." -John Morley. " He states the grounds of his judgments in a manner so intelligible to all of us ; he appears to examine every ac- tion by a strict moral rule and yet by one which is not too high for us, which we can all recognize ; which, in fact, is deduced for the most part from habits and practices where- with respectable people in our century are in general con- formity." F. D. Maurice. ILLUSTRATIONS. " It is better that mankind should be governed by wise laws well administered, and by an enlightened public opinion, than by priestcraft : but it is better that men should be governed by priestcraft than by brute violence, by such a prelate as Dunstan than by such a warrior as Penda. A society sunk in ignorance and ruled by mere physical force has great reason to rejoice when a class, the influence of which is intellectual and moral, rises to ascendancy. Such a class will doubtless abuse its power, but mental power even when abused is still a nobler and better power than that which consists merely in corporeal strength." History of England. " Of course, we do not mean to defend all their measures. Far from it. There never was a perfect man ; it would, there- fore, be the height of absurdity to expect a perfect party or a perfect assembly. For large bodies are far more likely to err than individuals. The passions are inflamed by sympathy ; the fear of punishment and the sense of shame are diminished by partition. Every day we see men do for their faction what they would die rather than do for themselves." Essay on Hal- lam 1 s Constitutional History. " These things produced great excitement among the pop- ulace, which is always more moved by what impresses the senses than by what is addressed to the reason." History of England. MACAULAY 449 12. Patriotism. " The commonplaces of patriotism and freedom would never have been so powerful in Macaulay's hands if they had not been inspired by a sincere and hearty faith in them in the soul of the writer." John Morley. " His love of liberty is expressed in passages as full of fire as the poets." J. Skelton. " His country was England. In this little spot he concen- trated a force of admiration and of worship which might have covered all the world. . . . They [his works] are pervaded by a generous love of liberty." W. E. Gladstone. ' ' With Macaulay the love of country was a passion. How he kindles at each stirring or plaintive memory in the annals he was so glad to record !" Morley Punshon. " The noble love of liberty animates his entire work." Trevelyan. " He had a stout and noble patriotism." Saintsbury. ILLUSTRATIONS. " I shall relate how, from the auspicious union of order and freedom, sprang a prosperity of which the annals of human af- fairs had furnished no example ; how our country from a state of ignominious vassalage rapidly rose to the place of umpire among European powers ; how her opulence and her martial glory grew together ; how a gigantic commerce gave birth to a maritime power compared with which every other maritime power, ancient or modern, sinks into insignificance, etc." His- tory of England. " I hope that it will be in my power to inspire at least some of my countrymen with love and reverence for those free and noble institutions to which Britain owes her greatness and from which, I trust, she is not destined soon to descend." Speech on Retiring from Political Life. "The history of England is emphatically one of progress. . . . In the course of seven centuries this wretched and de- graded race have become the greatest and most highly civilized people that ever the world saw, have spread their dominion over 29 450 MACAULAY every quarter of the globe, have scattered the seeds of mighty em- pires and republics over vast continents of which no dim intima- tion had ever reached Ptolemy or Strabo have created a mar- itime power which would annihilate in a quarter of an hour the natives of Tyre, Athens, Carthage, Venice, and Genoa together, etc." Essay on Mackintosh's History. 13. Prejudice Partiality Bias. " He reserved his pugnacity for quarrels undertaken on public grounds and fought out with the world looking on as umpire. Independent, frank, and proud, almost to a fault, he detested the whole race of robbers and time-servers, parasites and scandal-mongers, led-captains, led-authors and some of his antipathies have stamped themselves indelibly on literary his- tory." G. O. Trevelyan. " He is a terribly partial historian." Saintsbury. "An incomparable advocate, he pleads an infinite number of causes. ' ' Taine. "He is a brilliant advocate for or against a person." Grimm. "He sometimes allows his Whig propensities to get the better of strict justice. ' ' H. J. Nicoll. " Partiality for some characters amounting to favoritism ; a hatred for others amounting to fury." George Gilfillan. "His prejudices were sometimes strong and extreme but they were honest." Alexander H. Stephens. " Lord Macaulay was a great man, but he was a great Whig man."/. H. Shirley. " Not only were his critical faculties of nearly the same calibre as Johnson's, they were invested with at least an equal amount of prejudice. . . . His history, in fact, flowed from his politics and not his politics from his history. . . . The party under whom he was to serve was ready to his hand, . . . and having once given his allegiance, he continued their faithful and successful soldier to his life's end. What sort of history would be written by such a man as this, MACAULAY 45 1 it is superfluous to inquire. . . . When he got to a Whig stratum of fact he wisely stopped digging, preconceived of the worthlessness of everything that lay beneath. His mind was already made up, and he only read for arguments to help out a foregone conclusion. . . . He did not consider that it was his business to discover truth. That, in his eyes, had been discovered already. He had to narrate the facts in which that truth lay embedded ; and those he was at liberty to narrate in any way that he thought likely to prove most attractive or that was most agreeable to his own genius. ... At the age of three or four and twenty he became mixed up with a great party struggle ; he remained in their [Whig] ranks till the battle was won ; and, like the battle of the Nile, it was not a victory, but a conquest. . . . His first experience of public life was brief and brilliant, and had stamped a character upon his mind which was never after- ward changed. His political creed remained stationary from that moment, growing in intensity but closed to impressions from without. . . . Not only does he seem to have been indifferent to truth as an abstract object, he seems not to have been acquainted with the deeper principles at stake in the religious and philosophic controversies which he under- took to discuss. . . . This defect is, of course, most conspicuous in his essay on Bacon. . . . Macaulay, of course, had a perfect right to consider metaphysics unworthy the attention of a man of sense. . . . But he had no right to assume it. ... His criticism [though sensible and clear] ... is not what, in these days, we should call philosophical criticism. . . . Though he was doubt- less a vivacious reader, it is not equally clear that he was a conscientious student. He found himself possessed of a fac- ulty which raised him above the necessity of research. With that he could command the homage of the people at will." T. E. Kebbel. 452 MACAULAY ILLUSTRATIONS. "There is, we have said, no consistency in Mr. Souther's political system. But if there be in his political system any leading principle, any one error which diverges more widely and variously than any other, it is that of which his theory about national works is a ramification. He conceives that the business of the magistrate is, not merely to see that the persons and prop- erty of the people are secure from attack, but that he ought to be a jack-of-all-trades, architect, engineer, school-master, mer- chant, theologian, a Lady Bountiful in every parish, a Paul Pry in every house, spying, eaves-dropping, relieving, admonishing, spending our money for us and choosing our opinions for us." Essay on Southey's Colloquies. " Meanwhile the unquiet brain of Monmouth was teeming with strange designs. He had now reached a time of life at which youth could no longer be pleaded as an excuse for his faults ; but he was more wayward and eccentric than ever. Both in his intellectual and in his moral character there was an abundance of those fine qualities which may be called luxuries and a lamentable deficiency of those solid qualities which are of the first necessity. He had brilliant wit and ready invention without common sense and chivalrous generosity and delicacy without common honesty." History of England. " It is, indeed, most extraordinary that a mind like Mr. Southey's, a mind richly endowed in many respects by nature and highly cultivated by study, a mind which has exercised con- siderable influence on the most enlightened generation of the most enlightened people that ever existed, should be utterly des- titute of the power of discerning truth from falsehood. Yet such is the fact. Government is to Mr. Southey one of the fine arts. He judges of a theory, of a public measure, of a religion or a political party, of a peace or a war, as men judge of a picture or a statue, by the effect produced on his imagination. A chain of associations is to him what a chain of reasoning is to other men ; and what he calls his opinions are in fact merely his tastes." Essay on Southey's Colloquies. MACAULAY 453 14. Assurance Self-Confidence Egotism. " Macaulay's manner of writing gives the impression that he is wholly infallible." Grimm. ' What at first sight wore the air of dignity and elevation in truth rather disagreeably resembles the narrow assurance of a man who knows that he has the battalions of public opin- ion with him. . . . It is oVerweeningness and self-con- fident will that are the chief notes of Macaulay's style." John Morlev. " His essays are pronounced in a tone of perfect assurance. His writings have all the stimulus of oracular de- cision . " George Gilfillan. When we find that he ignores all persons, however famous, with whom he was not intimately associated ; that he alludes only twice to Dickens ; that he merely mentions Bulwer to say that he has met him ; that on the rank and file of his con- temporaries in literature, society, and politics, he is almost entirely silent, and yet that he writes so voluminously and so minutely about himself, his feelings, and his intentions how is it possible to avoid feeling that an egotist in the ordinary sense of the word is exactly what Macaulay was? " T. H. S. Escott. ILLUSTRATIONS. " We think that the theory of Mr. Mill rests altogether on false principles, and that even on those false principles he does not reason logically. Nevertheless we do not think it strange that his speculations should have filled the Utilitarians with ad- miration. We have been for some time past inclined to suspect that these people, whom some regard as the lights of the world and others as incarnate demons, are in general ordinary men with narrow understandings and little information. The con- tempt which they express for elegant literature is evidently the contempt of ignorance." Essay on Milt's Essay on Government. " We have for some time past been convinced that this was really the case ; and that, whenever their philosophy should be 454 MACAULAY boldly and unsparingly scrutinized, the world would see that it had been under a mistake respecting them [the Utilitarians]. We have made the experiment ; and it has succeeded beyond our most sanguine expectations. A chosen champion of the school has come forth against us. A specimen of his logical abilities now lies before us ; and we pledge ourselves to show that no prebendary at an anti-Catholic meeting, no true-blue baronet after the third bottle at a Pitt Club, ever displayed such utter incapacity of comprehending or answering an argument as appears in the speculations of this Utilitarian apostle." Essay on the Utilitarian Theot y of Government. THACKERAY, 1811-1863 Biographical Outline. William Makepeace Thackeray, born at Calcutta, India, July 18, 1811 ; father, in the em- ploy of the East India Company, dies when Thackeray is five years old, and leaves him a fortune of ^20,000; in 1816 Thackeray is sent to England, and is placed in the famous Charter House School, where he remains till 1828 ; enters Trinity College, Cambridge, in February, 1829 ; while in Cambridge he helps to edit a periodical called The Snob; leaves Cambridge in 1830, visits Paris, Rome, Dresden, and Weimar, and meets Goethe ; reads law for a year or more in the Temple ; is ambitious to become an artist, travels over Europe, and studies art at Paris and Rome ; loses his fort- une within two years, partly .through the failure of an Indian bank, and mainly in an unsuccessful newspaper venture ; during 1833-34 he helps to edit and partly owns a paper called the National Standard ; resides in Paris, 1835-36, and publishes an illustrated folio called "Flore et Zephyr ; " he is forced to take up literature as a means of support, and be- comes a regular and frequent contributor to Eraser's Maga- zine ; contributes also to the Times, the New Monthly Review, and the Westminster Review; under the pseudonym of "Michael Angelo Titmarsh" he contributes to Eraser's "The Great Hoggarty Diamond" and "Barry Lyndon," the latter in 1837-38 ; in 1837 he marries Isabella Shawe, who becomes insane a few years later, and spends the remain- der of her life in retirement, away from her family ; under the pseudonym of "Titmarsh" Thackeray also publishes "The Parish Sketch-Book," in 1840, "The Second Funeral of 455 456 THACKERAY Napoleon," in 1841, "The Chronicle of the Drum," in 1841, and " The Irish Sketch-Book," in 1843; he becomes connected with Punch, in 1840; in Punch appear first the " Snob Papers " then " Jeames's Diary;" he then publishes "Vanity Fair" as a serial in twenty-four monthly parts, beginning in January, 1847 ; Thackeray's reputation is estab- lished by " Vanity Fair; " he is made widely known in Octo- ber, 1847, by Charlotte Bronte, who dedicated to Thackeray the second edition of (Jane Eyre) ; " in 1851 he delivers in America his lectures on "The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century;" " Pendennis " is also published in monthly numbers, beginning in November, 1848; his principal connection with Punch ceases in 1850 ; he begins lecturing in London, May 22, 1851, on George III. and on the Eng- lish Humorists of the Eighteenth Century, and has among his hearers Carlyle, Dickens, Hallam, Macaulay, Charlotte Bronte, and Harriet Marti neau ; during 1851 Thackeray repeats the lectures in Manchester, Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh; publishes "Henry Esmond" in 1852, and re- ceives ^"1,000 for the manuscript ; he sails for America, Oc- tober 30, 1852, having Lowell and Clough as fellow-passen- gers ; delivers his lectures on the Humorists in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond ; returns to London early in 1853 ; visits Paris and Baden, where he begins "The Newcomes," which he publishes in monthly numbers from October, 1853, to August, 1855 ; re- ceives ^4,000 for the novel ; sails for America again, Octo- ber 13, 1855, and lectures on "The Four Georges," from Boston to Savannah ; both American lecture-tours are very successful financially ; Thackeray returns to London in April, 1856; he repeats the lectures on "The Four Georges" throughout England and Scotland during 1856, and receives fifty guineas a night ; he stands for Parliament for Oxford in July, 1857, but is defeated by a slight majority; publishes "The Virginians " in monthly parts from November, 1857, THACKERAY 457 to October, 1859 ; becomes a friend and correspondent of Motley ; Thackeray is attacked unjustifiably in June, 1858, by Edmund Yates in Tou>n Talk; Thackeray demands and secures Yates's dismissal from the Garrick Club; the result is an estrangement between Thackeray and Dickens, who had tried to protect Yates an estrangement that ceased only a week before Thackeray's death ; Thackeray becomes the first editor of the Cornhill Magazine in 1859, and begins in its columns the publication of " Lovel the Widower " in Janu- ary, 1860, together with the first of his "Roundabout Pa- pers; " he publishes "The Adventures of Philip" in the Cornhill from January, 1861, to August, 1862 ; this is the first of his novels not originally illustrated by himself; he be- comes didactic and somewhat despondent in his later work; he resigns the editorship of Cornhill in March, 1862, and re- moves to a fine new home at Palace Green ; dies there sud- denly and alone on Christmas eve, 1863 ; is buried in Ken- sal Green Cemetery. BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THACKERAY'S STYLE. Whipple, E. P., "Character and Characteristic Men." Boston, 1884, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 197-218. Godwin, P., "Out of the Past." New York, 1870, Putnam, 226-240. Bayne, P., "Essays in Biography and Criticism." Boston, 1857, Gould & Lincoln, I : 389-392. Stoddard, R. H., "Anecdote Biography of Thackeray." New York, 1874, Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 1-196. Lancaster, H. H., "Essays and Reviews." Edinburgh, 1876, Edmon- ston & Douglass, 399-479. Brimley, G., "Essays." London, 1882, Macmillan, 258-269. Watt, J. C., "Great Novelists." Edinburgh, 1880, Macniven & Wal- lace, 97-161. Masson, D., " British Novelists. " Boston, 1892, W. Small, 235-259. Taine, H. A., "History of English Literature." New York, 1875, Holt, 3 : 80, 95, and 213-255. Xicoll, H. J., "Landmarks of English Literature." New York, 1883, Appleton, 385-390. 458 THACKERAY Henley, \V. E., " Views and Reviews." New York, 1890, Scribner, 9-20. Lang, A., " Essays in Little." New York, 1891, Scribner, 103-117. Lang, A., "Letters to Dead Authors." London, 1892, Longmans & Green, 1-9. Taylor, B., "Essays and Notes." New York, 1880, Putnam, 134-155. Collier, W. F., "History of English Literature." London, 1892, Nel- son, 487-493. Fields, J. T., "Yesterdays with Authors." Boston, 1893, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 11-39. Bagehot, W., "Works." Hartford, 1889, Travellers' Insurance Com- pany, 2: 154-197- Walsh, W. S. (Shepherd), "Pen Pictures of Modern Authors." New York, 1886, Putnam, 294-320. Bungay, G. W., " Off -Hand Takings." New York, 1854, DeWitt, 224-229. Trollope, A. (Thackeray), "English Men of Letters." New York, 1879, Harper, 1-210. Eagles, J., "Essays." Edinburgh, 1857, Blackwood, 213-264. Merivale, H. and Marzials, "Life of W. M. Thackeray." London, 1891, W. Scott, 1-248. Jeaffreson, J. C., "Novels and Novelists." London, 1858, Hurst & Blackett, 2 : 262-282. Gilfillan, G., "Literary Portraits." Edinburgh, 1854, J. Hogg, 3: 261-278. Berdmore, S., "Scratch Team of Essays." London, 1883, W H. Allen & Co., 97-122. Hannay, J., " Characters and Criticisms." London, 1865, David Bogue, 42-59- Senior, W. W., "Essays on Fiction." London, 1864, Longmans & Green, 321-394. Dawson, G., "Biographical Lectures." London, 1886, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 438-450. Hutton, L., " Literary Landmarks of London." New York, 1892, Harper, 302-307. Jerrold, B., "The Best of All Good Company." Boston, 1878, Sill & Co., 163-238. L'Estrange, A. G., "History of English Humour." London, 1878, Hurst & Blackett, 2 : 216-225. Parton, J., "Some Noted Princes," &c. New York, 1886, Crowell, 52-56. Phillips, S., "Essays from the Times." London, 1851-1854, Murray, 2: 320-338. THACKERAY 459 Skelton, J., "Essays in History and Biography." Edinburgh, 1883, Blackwood, 293-295. Smith, G. B., "Poets and Novelists." New York, 1876, Appleton, i-56. Vaughan, R. A., " Essays and Remains." London, 1858, J. W. Parker, 2: 311-320. Duyckinck, E. A., " Portrait Gallery." New York, 1875, Johnson, Wilson & Co., 5: 189-198. Oliphant, Mrs., "The Victorian Age of English Literature." New York, 1892, Tait, 261-281. Welsh, A. H., "Development of English Literature." Chicago, 1884, Griggs, 2: 415-418. Harper's Magazine, 49 : 533-549 (R. H. Stoddard). North American Review, 98 : 624-627 (J. R. Lowell) ; 67 : 368-370 (E. P. Whipple) ; 82 : 284 (Pebody) ; 100: 626 (C. S. Norton) ; 91 : 580-582 (Felton). Atlantic Monthly, 15 : 639-641 (Whipple) ; 25 : 247-249 (Howells) ; 51 ; 243 (M. S. Henry). Edinburgh Review, 87: 46-67; 137: 95-121. Christian Examiner, 60: 102-121 (H. T. Tuckerman). The Forum, 18: 326-338 (F. Harrison). Westminster Review, 74: 500-523; 82: 172-185; 59: 363-368. Scribner 3 ! Monthly, 21 : 535-543 (E. S. Nadal). Quarterly Review, 84: 153-185. The Nineteenth Century, 5 : 35-43 (A. Trollope). Putnam's Magazine, 6 : 623-627. Temple Bar, 61 : 469-475. Eclectic Magazine, 34 : 96-100 ; 6 : 562-593 ; 2 : 1-6. Longman'' s Magazine, 17: 673-682 (A. Lang). Cornhill Magazine, 9: 129-132 (Dickens). North British Re^