Part 190

Pope was the most brilliant and impressive of the new writers. His _Essay on Man_ and his _Essay on Criticism_ enshrined many old philosophical truths in epigrammatic form. The heroic couplet became in his hands an instrument for cutting diamonds, but the lover of poetry longs after a time to exchange his dazzling couplets for the flowers of poesy. In all that he did, however, whether the work took the form of satires, essays, epistles, or translations, Pope was the finished artist.

The minor poets of Pope’s period included John Philips, known by his _Splendid Shilling_; John Gay, the author of the _Shepherd’s Week_, and the _Fables_; Samuel Garth, the writer of the mock heroic poem of _The Dispensary_; and Richard Blackmore, who tried to restore the epic in _Prince Arthur_.

Prose literature had many distinguished exponents. Jonathan Swift looms up before us as a gloomy, overshadowing figure, whose saturnine genius found bitter yet powerful expression in _Gulliver’s Travels_, the _Battle of the Books_, and the _Tale of a Tub_. His command of English was masterly, but his wit was coarse, his life hopelessly sad, and his death miserable.

Daniel Defoe was not only one of the most vigorous of political pamphleteers, but practically the father of the English novel by his _Robinson Crusoe_, a work which has surpassed almost every other in its uninterrupted popularity. Defoe invested fictitious events with an unapproachable semblance of truth. Metaphysical literature had its best representative in the philosopher Bishop Berkeley, the founder of Idealism in English philosophy; Bernard de Mandeville unfolded a new satirical philosophy in _The Fable of the Bees_, which was intended to prove that the vices of society are the foundation of civilization; and Bishop Butler sought to reconcile reason and revelation by his closely argumentative work, the _Analogy of Religion_.

RISE OF THE ESSAY AND MODERN NEWSPAPER.--A new and interesting form of literary effort, which popularized letters and criticism, was the periodical essay, instituted by Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele.

The latter began the _Tatler_, which dealt in humorous and incisive fashion with the social and political life of the times. Steele was aided by Addison, and they afterwards founded the more famous _Spectator_, which was inimitable in its humor and criticism. The _Guardian_ and the _Freeholder_ followed, and a higher tone was given to both literature and manners by these admirable publications.

The modern newspaper had its origin in the _Public Intelligencer_, begun in August, 1663, by Sir Roger L’Estrange. The _Oxford Gazette_ began in November, 1665, and the _London Gazette_ on the 5th of February, 1666. Defoe, while in prison, began the publication of the _Review_ (February, 1704).

The drama at the close of the seventeenth century had, besides the greater names already mentioned, Sedley, Shadwell, Mrs. Behn, and Mrs. Centlivre, all of whose comedies, however, were licentious. Nicholas Rowe wrote heavy tragedies, which are no more likely to rise again in popularity than Addison’s _Cato_. Foote, Cibber, and Fielding reproduced the follies of the times in their comedies and farces; and the _Beggar’s Opera_, by Gay, produced in 1728, was the first specimen of the English ballad opera. Sentimental comedy is associated with Macklin, the Colmans, Murphy, Cumberland, and others; but the two greatest names in English comedy in the eighteenth century are Goldsmith and Sheridan. The delightful humor of _The Good-natured Man_ and _She Stoops to Conquer_ is only to be matched by the sparkling wit of the _Rivals_ and the _School for Scandal_.

Samuel Johnson, born in 1709, began to write in 1744, and from that period until his death in 1784 he was an acknowledged leading power in letters. His _Lives of the Poets_, his _Rasselas_, _The Rambler_, and the great _Dictionary_ were remarkable undertakings in various fields; while the world could afford to part with a thousand masterpieces rather than lose that immortal _Biography_ by Boswell which has enshrined his master’s opinions and conversations. The _Letters of Junius_ remind us of the right of criticism over public events and public men, and of the struggle by which the freedom of the press was ultimately won.

RISE OF THE NOVEL AND PERIOD OF ROMANTICISM, 1740-1837

The modern novel of actual life and manners dates from 1740, when Samuel Richardson published his _Pamela_, a story that was the talk and wonder of the town. It was followed by _Clarissa Harlowe_, its author’s masterpiece--a book charged with pathos, and instinct with tenderness and morality. Henry Fielding, “the prose Homer of human nature,” and, if not so delicate, a more powerful artist than Richardson, issued his _Joseph Andrews_ in 1742, and his world-famous _Tom Jones_ in 1749. Tobias Smollett wrote his _Roderick Random_ in 1748, and this was followed by other stories as realistic as Fielding’s but much more marred by caricature. Laurence Sterne’s _Tristram Shandy_ and the _Sentimental Journey_ were novelties in prose writing, and, although they are thin as novels, they will live for their peculiar wit and pathos. Goldsmith’s _Vicar of Wakefield_, published in 1766, stands alone for its idyllic beauty and charming simplicity. Fanny Burney’s _Evelina_ and _Cecilia_ were noticeable for invention and observation and skill in portraiture.

The poetry of the second half of the century was varied in character, but it closed with a noble elevation in Burns. To the heavy religious poems of Blair and Young succeeded the more artistic strains of Gray and Collins and Goldsmith, and the mystical yearnings and Elizabethan fervor of Blake. Thomson, one of the most excellent of descriptive poets, had given place to Shenstone, who had less genius but more taste, and a third writer of the Spenserian stanza was found in Beattie. Percy’s _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_ brought the ballad again into favor; while Chatterton deceived the very elect by his marvelous imitation of the older forms of poetry.

William Cowper, notwithstanding his fastidiousness and over-refinement, was a poet of a high and genuine order. He let nature have its way in such exquisite poems as the _Lines to His Mother’s Picture_ and the _Loss of the “Royal George,”_ while any humorist might envy the delightful abandonment of _John Gilpin_. His larger poems are severer in style, yet many of their pictures, testifying to a reverent love of nature, remain imprinted on the memory; and they are full of happy phrases and turns of expression.

The new life infused into Scottish poetry was heralded by Michael Bruce, a sweet singer who died at twenty-one, and by Allan Ramsay, whose pastoral drama of the _Gentle Shepherd_ affords one of the most beautiful and tender pictures of Scottish rural life. The ballad acquired a new pathos and interest in such productions as Lady Anne Barnard’s _Auld Robin Gray_.

But the poetic genius of Scotland found its ripest and fullest expression in Robert Burns. His love songs have the freshness and fervor of the Elizabethan lyrics; his poems of man and of nature, like those of Cowper, reveal the highest aspirations for the welfare of humanity; his humorous compositions are as lifelike in their character-painting as they are full to overflowing of fun; and his serious poems reveal a pathos which has never been excelled. Nature seemed to put on new beauties when Robert Burns chanted her praises, and the daisy can never again seem commonplace since he immortalized it. The poor at length acquired their laureate in this sweet singer of the North.

Historical and philosophical literature attained a high level at this period. Edward Gibbon, though lacking human sympathy, had great creative power and originality, and his _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ is one of the most massive of historical conceptions, worked out with stately eloquence. David Hume, whose _History of England_ does not take such high rank, was more original in his philosophical speculations, referring all actual knowledge to experience, and making utility the standard of virtue.

Adam Smith, by his _Wealth of Nations_, established his claim to be regarded as the founder of the modern system of political economy, and one of the benefactors of his species. All questions of labor and capital were placed by this work on a scientific basis, and it paved the way for the doctrine of free trade.

Edmund Burke’s _Reflections on the French Revolution_ caused a revulsion of feeling against France, while his _Letters on a Regicide Peace_ increased the war fever in England. The former work was answered by Thomas Paine in his _Rights of Man_, and the latter by Sir James Mackintosh in his _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_. Burke’s philosophical works are models of eloquence and construction. William Paley, in his _Evidences of Christianity_ and other works, skillfully defended revealed religion against the attacks of its enemies.

Towards the close of the century the newspaper press received a strong impetus by the establishment of _The Times_ and other important journals; knowledge likewise began to be condensed and methodized in Cyclopædias; while criticism took a wider as well as a more popular range in the first decade of the nineteenth century by the foundation of the _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly Reviews_.

We cannot pass from the eighteenth century without noticing the remarkable development in hymnology. George Wither issued the earliest English hymn-book in 1623, _Hymns and Songs of the Church_; but the first hymn-book of the modern type was published by John Wesley for use in the Church of England in 1737. Among the hymnologists of the eighteenth century whose compositions remain in general use until this day may be mentioned A. M. Toplady, John Newton, the Wesleys, Isaac Watts, William Cowper, and Philip Doddridge.

ROMANTICISM AND THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY.--The literature of the nineteenth century is almost overwhelming in its magnitude and variety. In nearly every branch it has attained a higher level than in the preceding century, and in nothing is this more noticeable than in poetry. Although the century opened when Crabbe, the reporter of rural life, was painting his Dutch-like pictures, we soon pass on to higher things. There was a great revival in imaginative poetry before 1820.

Byron, with his precociousness in love and genius, took a high flight in his _Childe Harold_, and although all his works--_Don Juan_, _Manfred_, _Cain_, etc.--were impressed by his own gloomy personality, he yet made living verse.

Shelley, imbued with revolutionary ideas and aspirations after an ideal being, was one of the greatest poets of the age, now Miltonic in his elegiac verse in _Adonais_, and now unapproachable in his lyrics. No singer has ever drawn deeper from the wells of poetic inspiration.

Wordsworth, contemplative and philosophic the patriarch of the Lake School, taught the dependence of the poet on nature, and from the _Lyrical Ballads_ to the _Excursion_ he illustrated his own saying in his works, that “poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity.” He threw off the conventional, and endeavored to pierce to the heart of things, whether in man or in nature.

Fancy and imagination were made perfect in the exquisite creations and sensuous verse of Keats; wit and pathos abounded in Thomas Hood; while historic and romantic poetry found notable exemplars in Southey, Scott, Rogers, Campbell, and Coleridge. Hannah More and Joanna Baillie sought to galvanize the classical drama; Cunningham sang his Scottish songs; and Keble consecrated sacred hopes in the _Christian Year_.

The historic novel was made memorable by Sir Walter Scott, whose extraordinary fecundity was the wonder of his generation. His novels were the first and greatest prose result of the revived spirit of romanticism. Jane Austen did for the domestic novel what Scott did for the historical. The pictures of English life in _Pride and Prejudice_, _Mansfield Park_, and the remaining stories by this writer, have never been excelled. Her painting of manners was exquisite, and while her characters and incidents were of the most every-day description, she lifted them out of the commonplace by her exquisite touch and her absolute truthfulness to nature.

THE VICTORIAN PERIOD TO THE PRESENT, 1837- ----

The Victorian age may justly be called great in history, philosophy, biography, fiction, and poetry. Macaulay, in the earlier half of the Victorian period, illumined history by the brilliant glow of his imagination; while in the latter half Carlyle was not only his equal in history, but the first man of letters of his time. In his prose epic, _The French Revolution_, there was the vigor of a Rembrandt; biography was ennobled by his _Cromwell_; while throughout all his works--from _Sartor Resartus_ to the latest of his utterances--he upheld the dignity of labor, and the sacredness of duty.

English history in all periods, and the progress and growth of the constitution, found brilliant chroniclers or scholarly interpreters in Hallam, Freeman, Froude, Green, Stubbs, Brewer, and Gardiner; while the philosophical aspects of history have been vividly presented by Buckle and Lecky. Rome lived again in the pages of Merivale; the Jewish race in those of Milman; and Greece in those of Grote and Thirlwall.

Turning to philosophy and science, John Stuart Mill exercised a profound influence upon the age as metaphysician, logician, politician, and moralist. Charles Darwin revolutionized scientific thought by promulgating the theory of evolution, which Herbert Spencer, its most conspicuous philosophical exponent, applied to psychology, morals, and politics. Logic and science had other exponents in Brewster, Whately, Bain, Hugh Miller, John Tyndall, T. H. Huxley, T. G. Tait, and W. K. Clifford. John Ruskin has eloquently wedded art and morality, while biography and criticism have found representative writers in Lockhart, Forster, De Quincey, Masson, Arnold, “Christopher North,” Lewes, Helps, Trevelyan, John Morley, and others. Religious thought was deeply impressed by the school of religious literature which arose with the Oxford movement. In poetry, its greatest result was Keble’s _Christian Year_, while its greatest product in prose was the beautiful and haunting style of Cardinal Newman, best shown in his _Apologia_.

Pusey, Arnold, Maurice, Robertson, Stanley, Liddon, Martineau, Gladstone, Spurgeon, and many more of all creeds contributed in a lesser degree.

The literature of fiction was surprising in its growth, and practically limitless in its variety. Thackeray showed to what a pitch of literary excellence and finish the novel might attain, and also demonstrated its power as a moral scourge. Dickens, the Hogarth of modern novelists, evoked smiles and tears in myriads of homes by his vivid pictures of life; and George Eliot reflected much of the sadness and unrest of the time in her searching and minutely conscientious works. Charlotte Brontë uttered a passionate note on behalf of her suffering sisters; and Mrs. Gaskell proved herself a genuine artist in the delineation of human life.

Of later women writers, mention must be made of Mrs. Oliphant, Miss Braddon, Mrs. Henry Wood, and “Ouida”--all different in style, yet all equally prolific. Marryat, James, Ainsworth, Warren, and others still find readers.

Charles Kingsley struck a sympathetic human note in his fictions; Anthony Trollope was the most interesting even of all his brethren; Wilkie Collins was a master of mystery; Richard Jefferies was the interpreter of nature; Charles Reade was an intense moral reformer; George Meredith has delighted and puzzled his admirers by his brilliant powers and genius; Lord Lytton is still read for two or three of his healthiest works; and Lever and Lover for their rollicking Irish wit.

It would be invidious to attempt to give a catalogue of all contemporary novelists worthy of mention; but in addition to those already mentioned the names will occur of R. D. Blackmore, Thomas Hardy, Robert Buchanan, George Macdonald, and William Black--all widely different in their gifts and work, but all imbued with a sense of the dignity of the novelist’s art. Newer writers of imaginative and adventurous fiction have sprung up in Hall Caine, J. M. Barrie, Rider Haggard, R. L. Stevenson, and Rudyard Kipling.

TENNYSON AND OTHER POETS.--In poetry two names stand out above the rest through the Victorian age. Tennyson, the most artistic of all poets, deservedly occupies the first place from the breadth of his range. His lyrics are the finest since Shelley; his _Idylls of the King_ deserve the name of epic poetry; his dramas are finely conceived; and his _In Memoriam_ sums up the religious aspirations of the time.

Robert Browning, massive and profound in thought, was of all modern poets the most full of pith, energy, and moral aspiration. Mrs. Browning may well be called the daughter of Shakespeare, for never did poet play more divinely upon the Æolian harp of the human heart. Walter Savage Landor exhibited the classical spirit, and Matthew Arnold had an unbroken elevation in his verse. Swinburne is a master of music and rhythm, Rossetti is a perfect artist in construction, while William Morris is a Spenserian singer cast upon a later age.

Among later poets of undoubted gifts are Alfred Austin, William Watson, Clough, Christina Rossetti, Coventry Patmore, and Sir Lewis Morris.

The dramas of Talfourd, Sheridan Knowles, R. H. Horne, Lord Lytton, and Sir Henry Taylor exhibited striking but widely varying merits.

The minor poetic singers and writers of fugitive verse of both sexes are too numerous for particularization.

SUMMARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

NOTE.--Titles of words in _italics_ indicate that they are poetic or dramatic.