CHAPTER IV.

PROGRESS OF THE NATION DURING THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.

Growth of Material Wealth--Condition of the Working Classes--The Charity Schools--Lethargy of the Church--Proposal to abolish Subscription to the Articles--A Bill for the further Relief of Dissenters--The Test and Corporation Acts--The Efforts of Beaufoy and Lord Stanhope--Attempts to relieve the Quakers--Further Effort of Lord Stanhope--The Claims of the Roman Catholics--Failure of the Efforts to obtain Catholic Emancipation--Lay Patronage in Scotland--The Scottish Episcopalians--Illustrious Dissenters--Religion in Wales and Ireland--Literature--The Novelists: Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne--Minor and later Novelists--Scott--Historians: Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon--Minor Historians--Miscellaneous Literature--Criticism, Theology, Biography, and Science--Periodical Literature--The Drama and the Dramatists--Poetry: Collins, Shenstone, and Gray--Goldsmith and Churchill--Minor Poets--Percy's "Reliques," and Scott's "Border Minstrelsy"--Chatterton and Ossian--Johnson and Darwin--Crabbe and Cowper--Poetasters and Gifford--The Shakespeare Forgeries--Minor Satires--Burns--The Lake School: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey--Scott, Campbell, Byron, Shelley, and Keats--Poets at the close of the Period--Improvement of Agricultural Science--Arthur Young--Drainage and Roots--Improvements in Road-making: Telford and Macadam--Brindley's and Telford's Canals--Bridges and Harbours--Iron Railways--Application of the Steam-Engine to Railways and Boats--Improvements in Machinery--Wedgwood--Manufacture of Glass--Collieries--Use of Coal in Iron-works--Improvements in various Manufactures--Scientific Discoveries--Music--Architecture--Painting--Sculpture--Engraving--Coins and Coinage--Manners and Customs 157