o^ 
 
 M 
 
 IV 
 
 r 
 
 LISRARY 
 
 "^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORN A 
 SAN DIEGO 
 
 J
 
 r 

 
 a
 
 HANDBOOKS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Edited bv Professor Hales. 
 Crovn 8vo, 3.?. 6f/. each. 
 
 THE AUE OF ISIILTON (1632-1660). liy the Rev. 
 J. H. B. Masterman, M.A. AVith an Introduction, 
 etc., by J. Bass Mullinger, M.A. 
 
 THE AGE OF DRYDEN (1660-1700). ]5v Richard 
 Garnett, C.B., LL.D. 2iid Edition. 
 
 THE AGE OF POPE (1700-1748). By John Dennis. 
 
 linl Edition. 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON (1748-1798). By Thomas 
 Seccombe. 
 
 THE AGE OF AVORDS WORTH (1798-1830). By Pro- 
 fessor C. H. Herford, Litt.D. 3rd Edition. 
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON (1830-1870). By Professor 
 Hugh AValker, M.A. 2nd Edition. 
 
 Thefolloicing Volumes are in, jjveparation : 
 THE AGE OF ALFRED. By H. Frank Heath, Ph.D. 
 THE AGE OF CHAUCER. By Professor Hales. 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE. By Professor Hales.
 
 HANDBOOKS 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 EDITED BY PROFESSOR HALES 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON
 
 GEORGE BELL & SONS 
 
 LONDON: YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN 
 NEW YORK, 66, FIFTH AVENUE, AND 
 BOMBAY : 53, ESPLANADE ROAD 
 CAMBRIDGE : DEIGHTON, BELL & CO.
 
 THE 
 
 AGE OF JOHNSON 
 
 (1 748- 1 798) 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS SECCOMBE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GEORGE BELL AND SONS 
 
 1900
 
 CHISWICK PRESS : CHARLES WHITTINGH AM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COIRT, CHANCEKY LANK, LONDON.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I'AUE 
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 Chapter I. Essayists axu Ckitrs 1 
 
 /Samuel Johnson— Oliver Goldsmith— Joseph AVarton — 
 Thomas Warton — Thomas Gray — Minor Critics. 
 
 Chapter II. Memoirs and Letters . • . . . :« 
 Lord Chesterfield — Horace Walpole — James Boswell — 
 Tliomas Hoi croft — SamuelBurdy — Wolfe Tone — Madame 
 D'Arblay— Mrs. Thrale— Mrs. Trench— Thomas Twining. 
 
 Chapter III. Political Writers 66 
 
 Edmund Burke — Junius — Thomas Paine. 
 Chapter IV. Study and Research. 
 
 I. Economists and Philo-suphcrs ..... 88 
 Adam Smith— David Hume— David Hartley — Erasmus 
 Darwin. 
 
 II. Naturalists and Gcograjjlicrs ..... 98 
 Gilbert White — James Bruce — Arthur Young — Thomas 
 Pennant — John Pinkerton — John Hawkesworth — 
 County Historians. 
 
 III. Classical Scholars and Humanists .... 105 
 Samuel Parr — Home Tooke— (Jilbert Wakefield — 
 Kichard Porson— Jonathan Touj). 
 
 Chapter V. The Theologians 110 
 
 William Paley — Josepli Priestley — Samuel Horsley— 
 Thomas Paiiie— l5isho]i Watson— Conyers Middleton— 
 William Warlmituu— Bishop Lowtli — luliii Wesley — 
 diaries Wesley. 
 
 Chapter \\. The Historians l-j; 
 
 Thomas t'arte -George i^ytteltou— l>a\ id Hume— 'J'obiiis 
 Smollett— William Kobertson^Ed\\ard(iil)bun- Tliomus 
 Somerville—Iiobert Watson— Kobert Orme-Uiiver (iold- 
 .smith — .\dam Ferguxm — Minor Historians.
 
 Till CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter VII. The Great Novelists . . . .153 
 Samuel Richardson— Henry Fielding— Tobias JSmollett— 
 Laurence Sterne. 
 
 Chapter VIII. Minor Novelists 189 
 
 Fanny Burney — Henry Brooke — Henry Mackenzie — 
 Clara Reeve — Mrs. Radcliffe — Joseph Strutt — Thomas 
 Day — Hannah More. 
 
 Chapter IX. The Drama 199 
 
 Samuel Johnson — Edward Moore — Jolin Home — Samuel 
 Foote — Arthur Murphy — James Townley — David Garrick 
 — George Colman — Hugh Kelly — Richard Cumberland — 
 Oliver Goldsmith — John G'Keeffe — Charles Macklin — 
 Frederic Reynolds — Richard Brinsley Sheridan — Thomas 
 Holcroft — John Tobin — W. H. Ireland. 
 
 Chapter X. The Poets. 
 
 I. The Tradition of Pope 222 
 
 Poets Laureate — AVilliam Whitehead — Henry James 
 Pye— Samuel Johnson — Charles Churchill — John Wol- 
 
 cot — Christopher Anstey — The Rolliad — The Anti- 
 Jacobin — William Gifford — Minor Satirists — Oliver 
 Goldsmith — William Falconer — Richard Glover — 
 James Grainger — Minor Bards — Erasmus Darwin. 
 
 II. The Transition 244 
 
 William Collins — Thomas Gray — The Wartous — 
 Thomas Russell— Christopher Smart— William Cowper 
 
 — James Macpherson— Thomas Chatterton— William 
 Blake. 
 
 III. Allan ruinmu/s School 285 
 
 The Hamiltons— Jean Elliot— James Beattie— Alex- 
 ander Ross— W. J. Mickle— John Logan— Michael 
 Bruce — Robert Fergusson. 
 
 IV. Robert Burns 297 
 
 Chronological Table 315 
 
 Index 335
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The period with wliicli we are to deal iu the present volume 
 rauges from 1748 to 1798, thus including almost two genera- 
 tions, and more great names in our literature than any 
 other ' Age ' included in this series. In some of its aspects, 
 as an age in which continental travel was still a mai*k of 
 distinction, or as the period of Waverley and Bedgauntlet, 
 it seems singularly remote ; while in others it is strangely 
 near to us, and, indeed, it is far from easy to realize that 
 the present gracious occupant of the English throne is the 
 granddaughter of George III., whose reign, commencing 
 in 1760, covers nearly the whole of our epoch. Two genera- 
 tions pass across the scene, yet there must have been not 
 a few old men who, having witnessed the fall of Sir 
 Eobert Walpole, the great military successes of 1759, and 
 the disasters and humiliations of 1781, lived on to see the 
 signal triumph of British Conservatism in the Peninsular 
 War, the overthrow of Napoleon, and the rise in the heavens 
 of that brilliant literary constellation of which Scott and 
 Byron, Wordsworth and Shelley, were luminaries. Horace 
 Walpole himself, who had an interview as a child with 
 George I,, lived down to 1797, and his Letters and Memoirs 
 are a chronicle in brief of his time. 
 
 In literary development, as in all the essential factors of 
 civilization, the age was one of rapid and vigorous growth. 
 It is, however, a noteworthy fact that from the time of 
 Coleridge and the great Romantic Renaissance there have
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 been a number of critical writers of no mean order, who 
 have carried out a kind of literary boycott of the eighteenth 
 century, or who, having made a rapid incursion to deliver 
 Blake and Chatterton, and possibly Gray, from the bonds 
 of a century into which (they protest) they must have got 
 by mistake, have denounced the age unsjiaringly as dull 
 and unprincipled, ugly and brutal. As the fourteenth 
 century with the thirteenth, so, entirely to its disadvantage, 
 the eighteenth century has been contrasted with the seven- 
 teenth, and its general tone held up for public reprobation. 
 
 Like other periods, the eighteenth century has its ugly 
 and depressing sides ; its distaste for the unknown, the mys- 
 terious, the transcendental is a feature especially rejiugnant 
 to enthusiastic Romanticists, by whom a dislike for prosaic 
 common sense, however great the prose may be, is genuinely 
 and sincerely felt ; it is a recognized tendency, moreover, 
 in a generation to underrate or to despise the achievements 
 of its great-grandfathers. Some such considerations as 
 these may serve to explain a portion of the critical reaction 
 against the tendencies of the eighteenth century, but they 
 by no means explain the whole of it. Many of the im- 
 jiutations against the century are intelligible enough, but 
 when we come to the reiterated charge of dullness we are 
 driven to account for the phenomenon as another illustra- 
 tion of the human weakness for dej^reciating things of the 
 qualities of which we are ignorant, of describing a terra 
 incognita as an arid desert, as the outcome, in brief, less 
 of prejudice than of ignorance. 
 
 Up to the time of Swift the great scholars of Western 
 Europe Avere prone to assume a complete and exhaustive 
 knowledge of all extant literature, and, indeed, many of 
 llicir treatises read as if they were designed to show how 
 many authorities the learned writer could cite upon any 
 given topic. At a time when a library of about a thousiind
 
 INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 folio volumes miglit be held to comprise the whole of 
 learned and polite literature worthy of the name, the claim 
 was tiot so preposterous as it might now ap])oar. Yet the 
 pedantry of this kind of pretension was so mercilessly 
 lashed by Swift and his disciples that it has never again 
 reared its head ; and since his day the pi'ess has been so 
 prolific, and the ovei'-population of our libraries has ad- 
 vanced to such a pitch, that a reader, however omnivorous, 
 has perforce to neglect huge tracts of literary territory. 
 How is he to arrange his itinerary with the least possible loss 
 of pleasure and instruction to himself? It is for an answer 
 to this question that the man of books turns as to a guide- 
 book to the literary critic. England has produced some 
 great literary guides from the time of Addison to that of 
 Matthew Arnold ; but can it be said that our criticism 
 has progressed jjrtri passu with our enormous book-pro- 
 duction, or that the ability manifested has been anything 
 like in proportion to the increasing imj^ortance of the 
 critic's function? AVhen in a great library one asks to be 
 conducted to the presses devoted to English critical litera- 
 ture,-one can hardly fail to be struck by the extreme paucity 
 of the achievements of our critics as a whole ; regarding 
 the vague and irregular tracks which they have left over 
 the vast region of English literature, can one fail to cast 
 an eye of admiration, not unmixed with envy, upon the well- 
 beaten sentler of French literary criticism ? Bewildered, 
 then, as he often is by a lack of adec[uate direction, or even 
 more probably misled by the cxti-eme importance attached 
 by his journal to the * Books of the Week,' it is scarcely to 
 be wondered at that the reader of to-day adopts the 
 ingenious method of elimination to which we have already 
 adverted, and stigmatizes as dull a period with which his 
 opi)ortunitics of acquaintance have hitherto been strictly 
 limited. He is, in truth, arriving at the conclusion that
 
 Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the eigliteeiitli century is dull, by tlie same process that 
 inauy Englishmen pronounce Grerman literature to be 
 stupid, and by which George III. doubtless decided that 
 much of Shakespeare was ' sad stuff.' There was an old 
 superstition that the application of a dead hand was a sure 
 remedy for swellings, and when one is vexed by the tumidity 
 with which so much work of a purely ephemeral order is 
 acclaimed, one is irresistibly tempted to prescribe a severe 
 application of the great literature of the dead past — to be 
 well rubbed in. How much better, indeed, if in the wise 
 words of Froude, ' each age studied its own faults, and 
 endeavoured to mend them, instead of comparing itself 
 with others to its own advantage ' ! 
 
 It would be interesting, and not perhaps unamusing, if 
 we had space to deal here with the various attempts that 
 have been made by well-meaning critics to juggle with the 
 chronology of the eighteenth century. One demonstrates 
 convincingly that it begins in 1660, while another would 
 retard its commencement until 1714. Nor is opinion less 
 divided as to when it should close ; one authority says 
 1748, another 1760, another 1782, and yet again, 1798. 
 In French eyes, it is needless to state, not merely a century 
 but a whole era came to an end in 1789. The consensus 
 that Johnson and Chatterton were of different centuries is 
 almost overwhelming. Such vagaries are laughable enough, 
 and it would certainly be convenient if we could palm 
 Martin Tupper off upon the twentieth century, or ignore 
 the fact that no English poet in the nineteenth had so wide 
 a circulation during his lifetime. 
 
 Assuming, as a mere working hypothesis, that the 
 eighteenth century commenced on January 1st, 1701 (12 
 William III.), and concluded on December 31st, 1800 (41 
 George III.), we shall now endeavour within the briefest 
 limits of space to consider, first, how far the specific charges
 
 INTRODUCTION. Xlll 
 
 brought by the Eomantic school of critics against the age 
 (and especially the period 1748-1798) are well founded, and 
 then, while fully admitting the faults and the failures with 
 which humanity in the eighteenth century is especially 
 chargeable, to appeal to some of its more distinctive achieve- 
 ments in justification of its claim, as one of the gi-eatest 
 creative periods in our national annals, to a somewhat 
 larger share of the regard and veneration of English readers 
 than it has of late been the fashion to accord to it. 
 
 In regard to the sweeping but reiterated charge of 
 dullness, in addition to what we have already said, we can 
 only claim that the great names in any one of our chapters 
 constitute a sufficient refutation. If the first chapter, with 
 Johnson, Goldsmith, and Gray, prove inconclusive, take 
 the second, with Boswell, Chesterfield, and Walpole ; here 
 sui'ely we have no less than three several refutations, for 
 the state of mind of the man who can describe Boswell's 
 biography or Walpole's Letters as dull is to the ordinary 
 literary imagination unthinkable. Peoyde of the critical 
 calibre of George III. may j^erhaps yet be found to call 
 Fielding dull, and Cowper brutal, and Uncle Toby unprin- 
 cipled ; but if Sheridan and dullness are convertible terms, 
 we may reasonably expect to hear that Shakespeare is 
 shallow, Milton no scholar, Hume obtuse, Tennyson coarse, 
 or George Meredith stupid. 
 
 In the foi'egoing incomplete enumeration, the reader will 
 perceive that the names of two men of genius, the most 
 conspicuous of our period — those of Edmund Burke and 
 Robert Burns — are omitted. The contrast between these 
 two men is a singular one — Burke perhaps the loftiest and 
 Burns the homeliest, in the best sense of homely — that 
 our literature has to show. The man who enunciated in 
 memorable words the fundamental principle that ' magna- 
 nimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom, and a
 
 XIV INTRODUCTION, 
 
 gi'eat empire and little minds go ill together,' was pre- 
 eminently one whose first characteristic was loftiness of 
 thought. It would be impossible to find among our senators 
 (and he did more than any man to invest the House of 
 Commons with the dignity atid gravity of a senate) a name 
 freer from suspicion of meanness or selfishness. His 
 appeals are ahvays made to the nobler sentiments of men, 
 which so few English speakers venture to address. He is 
 not ashamed to employ arguments which in the hands of 
 less earnest men, taking their ideas at second-hand, would 
 degenerate into claptrajx He addresses his audience, not 
 merely as politicians and voters, but as Englishmen, as 
 j)rofessed statesmen, assembled for the common purpose of 
 vivifying and directing an empire. Turning to Robert 
 Burns , so deservedly the idol of an inspiring local patriot- 
 ism, so perfected yet so typical a product of the chapter of 
 his country's literature that began with Allan Eamsay, 
 who has ever more truly and powerfully appealed to that 
 sense and feeling of home, which it was the special glory 
 of the eighteenth century to draw out to its full maturity, 
 than that Ayrshire ploughman when he sang : 
 
 ' To make a happy fireside clime 
 
 To weans and wife ; 
 That's the true pathos and snhlime 
 
 Of human life.' 
 
 The vgliness of the eighteenth century is often insisted 
 upon, and that not only by readers of the diatribes of a 
 prejudiced witness like Dickens, but also by many who 
 have studied the unlovely asi)ccts of life as depicted by 
 Fielding and Smollett, l:)y Hogarth and Eowlandson ; and it 
 is certainly true that there lingered on until the close of the 
 century but too many features of a semi-barbarous j^ast. 
 The English were ahvays regarded as an inartistic race, and 
 in 1775 a great Grerman aesthetic critic laboriously de-
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 moustrated that high art was inconceivable in England — 
 this at the very moment when the greatest school of painting 
 in the eighteenth century, and the greatest that England 
 has known, was developing its fullest powers. It is very 
 possible that the eclectics of to-day have a firmer taste than 
 that of the architect of Strawberry Hill ; but it is very far 
 indeed from sure that in those arts which may be said to 
 proclaim the general artistic sense of the people, such as 
 architecture, furniture, and costume, we are in any degree 
 superior to our f oi'efathers in the days of Chambers and of 
 Chippendale. In any case it can only have been by a queer 
 freak of irony that the nineteenth century has been impelled 
 to pronounce judgment upon the ugliness of the eighteenth. 
 A very able foreign observer has discerned two quite 
 different Englands occupied by men of our race in this 
 island of Great Britain to-day : 
 
 ' If you mean the EnglaiKl ut" Jane Austen, of George Eliot, of 
 Tli<inias Hardy, yon imagine a country of large silent pastmx's 
 with a fresh and clear vcnUire, spotted in Avhitc and red by 
 recumbent cattle, leisurely chewing the cud, of spacious nianor- 
 iiouses situate at the end of a perspective of ancestral oaks, of 
 deep lanes which wind towards peaceable little hamlets, of snug 
 parsonages tapestried with honeysuckle ; here and there a little 
 English church rears its weatherworn granite tower against a 
 gray sky, sending out every Sunday over solitary fields its 
 harmonious chime of church-going 1)ells. You perceive countri- 
 iied visages, the heavy rustic figures of labourers, prosperous 
 farmers with faces ruddy and massive, sitting stiff and straight 
 in their gigs as they drive to the neighbouring market, clean- 
 shaved parsons, pale and aristocratic of feature, alunuii of Oxford 
 or Cambridge, related to the s(|uire in all probability, or at least 
 to the s(piirearchy : then the S(piire himself with energetic and 
 clean-cut countenance, brisk and alert in gesture, strong and 
 virile in carriage, but most at ease in the saddle, and visible 
 oftcnest to his fellow-parishioners over the hedges, riding his 
 favourite hunter. A stroma and ancient hierarchy here of 
 
 b
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 patriarchal pattern, in which each individual falls at once into 
 the place that birth assigns him, and is sufficiently content to 
 remain there — a human existence calm and regular, the same to- 
 day as a hundred years since, sharing peacefully In the large out- 
 door life of plant and animal silently going on around. 
 
 ' But there is a second England very different from this. Here 
 one perceives vast expanses of bricks under a livid sky, lit up 
 by a vague gleam from a blood-red sun, contorted chimneys 
 emitting steady spirals of dense smoke, miles of yellowish streets, 
 with occasional strips of black water shaded away into the mist, 
 washing with leaden gleam the shadowy sides of huge vessels 
 and of barges laden with coal, immense quays fringed with 
 interminable warehouses, and huge and sinister-looking cranes 
 and derricks, all of a wearying and oppressive sameness ; enorm- 
 ous tunnels penetrate the soil, and down through the darkness, 
 to the accompaniment of the tremor of machinery and the noise 
 of engines and whistles, half stifled by the close sulphurous odour 
 of the nether air, pale men of haggard mien and faces worn by 
 nervous anxiety and struggle are hurried automatically along.' 
 
 The first tableau represents the England of small tovrns 
 and ijopulous fields, as it remained with little alteration 
 down to the time of Gilbert White ; the second is a picture, 
 but slightly exaggerated, of the industrial England which 
 is more especially the product of the nineteenth century. 
 When this century reproaches its predecessor upon the 
 ugliness exhibited in its national life, we may expect the 
 suburb to take up its parable and lecture the country upon 
 deformity of outline. 
 
 The critics who are devoted to Eomanticism find the 
 eighteenth century dull and 'middle-aged,' prosaic and 
 uninspired ; yet the more we investigate below the surface, 
 the clearer traces do we find of the Eomantic movement, 
 which is implicit in a constant series of writers from Dyer 
 and Thomson to Chatterton and Blake. 
 
 1 A. Chevrillon, Sydney Smith et la Renaissance des Idees Ubc- 
 rales en Angleterre, 1894.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xvii 
 
 When Addisou begau his famous survey of the poetic 
 excellences of Milton in The Spectator he was content to 
 examine Paradise Lost under the four heads of the Fable, 
 the Characters, the Sentiments, and the Language. But, 
 as we know, he finally emerged from the stage in which 
 he considered this judgment sufficiently complete, and dis- 
 covered a principle of jjoetical appeal which enabled him 
 to transcend mere formal considerations by substituting 
 the power to affect the imagination for the Aristotelian 
 test of symmetry ; thereby emphasizing the fact that the 
 achievement itself, and not the means taken to secure that 
 achievement, ought to be the first object of a critic's con- 
 sideration. Johnson's training was too scholastic, his mind 
 too magisterial, and his instincts too conservative to re- 
 linquish the old-fashioned formal tests of excellence in a 
 play or a poem. The critical canon of Addison nevertheless 
 formed a germ which was to fructify abundantly during 
 the eighteenth century. 
 
 But if even in Queen Anne's time a contrary current is 
 discernible, in a period so rich and various as the Age of 
 Johnson, the danger of a sweeping generalization (such as 
 ' devoid of romantic feeling ') is exemphfied in a much 
 more striking fashion. The breath had scarcely left the 
 body of the Grand Mouarque before an intrigue was set 
 on foot to. dispute the jn-o visions of his will. So with the 
 critical testament of Pope : within a few years of his 
 death we find Joseph Warton repudiating its authority, 
 and denying to Pope the highest kind of poetic excel- 
 lence ; while Thomas Warton in his noble monument to 
 early English Poetry exalted ' fancy and invention ' at the 
 expense of the Augustan qualities of good sense and judg- 
 ment. Both literally and metaphorically the end of Pope's 
 reign was marked by the substitution of 'landscape' 
 schemes (of such artists as Bridgeman and Kent) for the
 
 XVlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 furinal gardens (of Le Notre, the gardener of Charles II., 
 and his successors, London and Wise), in which the trim- 
 ness of Loo was grafted upon the spacious geometry of 
 Versailles. Johnson, as we know, summarized a Highland 
 peat as ' a considerable i)rotuberance ' ; when he got to 
 ' such a place as a wi'iter of romance might have delighted 
 to feign,' he regarded it with unfeigned disgust ; he fully 
 shared Goldsmith's resentment against ' hills and rocks 
 that intercept every prospect,' and he may well have 
 inspired Gibbon's description of Caledonia as a region of 
 * gloomy hills assailed by the winter tempest, lakes con- 
 cealed in blue mist, and cold and lonely heaths over which 
 the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked 
 barbarians.' On the other hand, we have Gray e.dasie over 
 the mountain monotones o£ Ossian, and jjronounciug with 
 an almost Ruskiuian earnestness upon the obligation of 
 mountain pilgrimage ; while in successors of Thomson, 
 such as Beattie and Cowper, we can trace very clearly the 
 succession of the great laudscajje school of English poetry. 
 If, on the one hand, Ave find Chesterfield exjn-essing his 
 unspeakable contempt for the frivolous pedants who 
 occupy their minds with ' knicknacks, butterflies, shells, 
 etc.,' ' we must, on the other, find a place in our synopsis 
 
 ' Cf. : ' No piping nor fiddling, I beseech you ; no days lost in 
 poring upon almost imperceptible !'/;to^//oA' and C'ff/;ieo.?. . . .' The 
 noble earl, to whose mind there was ' nothing so illiberal and ill- 
 bred as audible laughter,' made a partial exception among the 
 sciences in favour of astronomy. ' Ask my friend I'Abbe Sallier 
 to recommend to you some meagre philomath, to teach you a little 
 geometry and astronomy, not enough to absorb your attention and 
 puzzle your intellects, but only enough not to be grossly ignorant of 
 either. I have of late been a sort of astronome malgre moi, by 
 bringing last Monday, into the House of Lords, a bill for reform- 
 ing our present Calendar, and taking the New Style. Upon which 
 occasion I was obliged to talk some astronomical jargon, of- which
 
 INTRODUCTION. XIX 
 
 for Grilbert White, the first and greatest of our hedgerow 
 pliilosophers. Johnson, a staunch ujiholder of the Popean 
 concordat, did his titmost to smother with contempt the 
 literary exhumations and the * new-fangled tricks,' the 
 ancient ballads, and the new-old sonnets which he saw 
 springing into recognition : 
 
 ' Whercsoe'er 1 turn my ^•i^•\\ , 
 All is strange yet nothing new : 
 Endless la1)0ur all along, 
 Endless la!)onr to he wrong ; 
 Phrase that time has tlnng away, 
 Unconth words in disarray, 
 Tricked in antii[ne inft'and lionnet. 
 Ode and elegy and sonnet." 
 
 He employed similar weapons against Percy, and tlireat- 
 ened poor Ossian with the bludgeon ; but the rising tide 
 was too strong for him, though he did not live to see the 
 flood. He could only express unqualified amazement at 
 the performance of that ' extraordinary young whelp,' 
 Thomas Chatterton. Tlie infant genius of Chatterton was 
 almost strangled by the false taste of the premature 
 Grothic revival ; but we hail with reverence such verses as 
 tliese, expressing the aspiration of Elle's sprite : 
 
 ' To hear the chantry-song sound in nnne ear, 
 
 To hear the masses of our lioly dame, 
 
 To view the cross-aisles and tlie aivlies fair I 
 
 Through the half-hidden silver twinkling glare 
 
 Of yon 1)right moon in foggy mantles dressed . . . ' 
 
 as a protest against Smollett's sour and contemptuous 
 
 1 did not understand one word, hut got it hy heart and spoke it hy 
 rote from a master' (Fehriiury, 1751-2). The current ])reiudice 
 against ('hestertiehl is unfortunate, for he is not only the most 
 elegant, hut also the most di\i'rtiiig of tlic prose aufliors of the 
 eighteenth century.
 
 XX IXTRODUCTIOX. 
 
 ' disgust ' at the ' melancholy gloom ' of Liucoln and Yorlc 
 Minster. Even within the limits of the classical prose of 
 our period we shall find a sufficiently marked contrast 
 between the stately periods of Gibbon and the delicate 
 porcelain of Sterne, that first of prose impressionists. 
 Sterne's sentimentalism, again, is one of those diversities 
 which must disconcert the serious belief of those who 
 would regard the century as a lofty but uninteresting 
 plateau. It was primarily, j^erhaj^s, a protest against the 
 rationalizing tendencies that were prevalent — a plea for a 
 morale de cosur in place of the enlightened self-interest of 
 official orthodoxy. The same movement — to supply an 
 antidote, as it were, to the prevailing comm-on sense — was 
 carried into other and further extremes by Ann Radcliffe 
 and Clara Reeve, in Zeluco and in the Longsivord of Thomas 
 Leland. A more violent opposition still is that between the 
 Epigoniads and the Athenaids of the period, or the lifeless 
 dogmatism of the rhetorical criticaster Blair and the 
 exquisite lyrics of Bm-ns and of Blake. The most robust 
 believer in the miscreance of the eighteenth century can 
 hardly fail to be staggered by such contradictions as these. 
 Profounder still lies the fact that this age of the negation 
 of spirituality, of Fielding and of Hume and of Horace 
 Walpole (who compared Dante with a Methodist parson in 
 Bedlam), was also the age of the Wesleys, of the revival 
 of mysticism and spirituality in religion, of the most 
 exquisite devotional hymns (such as those of Charles 
 Wesley, Cowper, and Toplady), and (in Smart's Song to 
 David) of the noblest poem which the ancient grandeur 
 of the Hebrew psalmody has ever inspired. 
 
 The unshaken believer in the immensity of modern pro- 
 gress is fain to point to the hrutaliiy of the age of whipping- 
 posts, and hulks and gin-hells and debtors' prisons, and, 
 if necessary, to base our claim to have attained a higher
 
 IXTRODUCTIOX. XXI 
 
 plane of morality and civilization upon our emancipation 
 from these evils alone. That great strides have been made 
 not only in police and sanitary administration, but in 
 general amenity of manners, since the days of Jonathan 
 Wild and of John Wilkes, is a fact as satisfactory as it is 
 undoubted ; but if we come to take the measure of the 
 general advance in the public sense of morality and of 
 decency, we shall find that the progress made between 
 Dryden's day and the close of the eighteenth century was 
 considerably greater than that made during the hundred 
 years that have elajised since the death of Horace Walpole. 
 All the really great steps that have been made in the direc- 
 tion of elevating the national conscience since the death of 
 Dr. Johnson have been due to men trained at the close of 
 our special period — among whom it suffices to name Howard 
 and Wilberforce, Bentham and Romilly. So much is 
 chattered to-day of progress, and so much importance 
 attached to the unaided efforts of Time as a finisher and 
 perfecter of the human species, that the modern Englishman 
 is in some real danger of looking down upon his great- 
 great-grandfather as a very rude and unsophisticated being. 
 Superficially the changes due to the growth of machinery, 
 and consequently of population and pi'oduction, have been 
 very considerable ; but the two great institutions which are 
 in so many respects the backbone of our national life, the 
 English Church and the English jniblic school, are essen- 
 tially the same ; no less distinctive and persistent has 
 been the disposition of England to abide by its old aris- 
 tocratic polity of govei'nance — the ideal constitution of 
 Bui'ke discernible to this day beneath all the trappings and 
 disguises that the ingenuity of Whig doctrinaires has 
 devised for its benefit. The old ' Venetian oligarchy ' 
 that owed its origin to 1688 is no doubt enlarged since the 
 day when a feAV hundred people, secure of their position,
 
 XXll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 formed English society, and the atmosphere of a compact 
 and intimate aristocracy is very greatly modified. Yet in 
 spite of reform and franchise and education bills, the 
 country, the army, the church, are governed hardly less 
 exclusively than in Johnson's day by the noblesse and the 
 gentry, reinforced, not as then, by the nabobs, but by the 
 organizers and chieftains of the subsequently developed 
 industrial helotry — the second nation of Disraeli's Sybil ; 
 now, as then, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say by 
 wealth — wealth upon the condition of its being consoli- 
 dated and extending over more generations than one. 
 It is only necessary to scratch the surface of the average 
 Englishman of to-day, and to scrape off a few affectations 
 of the hour and a few habits due to his superior command 
 of machinery, to reveal a man almost identical in all pro- 
 founder respects with his Johnsonian ancestor. As a coun- 
 terpoise to his increased power over nature he has lost 
 some of the old individuality- — the result of the beach 
 pebble attrition with his kind which is an inevitable feature 
 of the modern industrial life in our large towns. As a 
 whole, however, the persistence of the type is that which 
 is most pal])able. The English now and then seem a race 
 apart, silently but none the less superbly conscious of 
 superiority, strongly insular, self-controlled and conserva- 
 tive, a nation of shop-keepers and colonists, envied (often 
 very unreasonably) even more than disliked by their 
 neighbours ; a good deal less influential than they imagine 
 in the evolution of the planet, yet very influential, largely 
 by reason of a literature amazing in its richness and 
 variety, a literature which has been judged by competent 
 critics in respect of its intensity and originality to rival the 
 shapelier, and in some respects maturer, literatures of 
 Greece and of Gaul. 
 
 Elaborate refutation is scarcely j^erhaps needed in answer
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXlll 
 
 to those who would pretend to ignore, or systematically to 
 depi-eciate, the achievements of the eighteenth century. To 
 affect not to perceive a century which of necessity looms so 
 large in the receding past were about as sensible as to try 
 to evade the laws of perspective : attempts to minimize 
 the value of large and original work in literature, however 
 well concerted and ingenious, can never attain permanent 
 success. In this particular case it is only fair to say that 
 the defects with which the eighteenth century is charged 
 by a superficial criticism are not in any way distinctive — 
 are not in reality peculiar to the eighteenth century at all. 
 It is when we come to examine the great qualities of the 
 l^eriod that we shall find its genuine and characteristic de- 
 fects thrown into a proper relief. 
 
 Few would deny that the first twelve years of our period 
 were not only decisive, but together form an epoch which 
 in importance as regards results has scarcely been ec[ualled 
 in our annals. Then were firmly laid the foundations of 
 our over-sea empire ; then was perfected that new species 
 of literary product, the novel, which in the hands of its 
 greatest masters has exercised an empire even more world- 
 wide over the minds and imaginations of men. It is cer- 
 tainly very curious to note that this great and germinal 
 period was heralded by a literary foi'ecast (not altogether 
 devoid of skill and insight) in which scarcely a vestige of 
 hope for the future is allowed to penetrate through the 
 general atmosphere of gloom and depression. The author, 
 John Brown (1715-1766), expounded his views in An 
 Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times (1757), 
 a book which in Cowper's verse ' rose like a paper kite and 
 charmed the town,' and which in sober prose went thi'ough 
 several editions. 
 
 ' Admitliufr tluit Lis ctuiiitryuifii luive still some .spirit of 
 liljcrty, some liunmnity, iukI some equity, Brown argues that
 
 XXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 their chief characteristic is " a vain, hixurious, and selfish cfTem- 
 inacy." At our schools the pupils learn words, not things ; 
 univei'sity professorships are sinecures ; on the grand tour our 
 young men learn foreign vices without widening their minds ; we 
 go to dinner in chairs, not on horseback, and spend money on 
 foreign cookeiy instead of plain English fare ; conversation is 
 trivial or vicious ; for solid literature we really silly plays, novels, 
 and periodicals, though, amidst this general decay of taste and 
 learning, one great writer, to wit Warburton, " bestrides the 
 narrow world like a colossus " ; the fine arts are denraved ; opera 
 and pantomime have driven Shakespeare into the background ; 
 our principles are as bad as our manners ; religion is universally 
 ridiculed, and yet our irreligion is shallow ; Bolingbroke is 
 neglected, not because he is impious, but because he fills five 
 quarto volumes, whilst Hume's ilimsy essays may amuse a break- 
 fast table ; honour has gone with religion ; we laugh at our vices 
 as represented on the stage, and rei)eat them at home without a 
 blush ; public spirit has declined till a minister is regarded as a 
 prodigy for simply doing his duty, and if the domestic affections 
 are not extinct, we may doubt whether their survival is not 
 another proof of our effeminacy. The professions are corrupt 
 with two exceptions, law and physic are still tolerably sound, 
 because directly useful even to the most selfish and effeminate ; 
 but our politicians are mere jobbers, and our officers mere gam- 
 blers and bullies ; whilst our clergy have become, and deserved 
 to become, contemptible, because they neglect their duties in 
 order to slumber in stalls, " haunt levees," or folloAV the gainful 
 trade of election jobbing. Low spirits and nervous disorders 
 have notoriously increased, and made us incapable of self-defence ; 
 our cowardice appeared in 1745, and was due not to a decay of 
 spirit in the lower orders, but to the prevalence amongst their 
 superiors of the sentiment which led a gentleman to say, " If the 
 French come, I'll pay, ])ut devil take me if I fight." Suicide is 
 common, but it is the suicide of ruined gamblers, not of despairing 
 patriots. The officers of the army divide their time in peace 
 between milliners' shops and horse races ; officers of the navy, 
 even in time of war, attend chiefly to ]n'izc-money. The chain of 
 self-interest, now the only binding chain, extends from the lowest 
 cobbler to the King's Prime IMinister ; but it is but a rope of
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXV 
 
 sand, and the first shock will dissolve us into an " infinity of 
 fiictions." Our colonies have outgone us in " fashionable de- 
 generacy," and if the French take North America we shall be 
 confronted by a naval jiower ccjual to our own. " Thus, by a 
 gradual and unperceived decline, we seem gliding down from 
 ruin to ruin ; we laugh, we sing, we feast, Ave play," and in blind 
 security, though not in innocence, resemble Pope's lamb licking 
 the hand just raised to shed his blood.' ' 
 
 Within two or three years of this despondent tirade the 
 British arms were successful in every quarter of the globe, 
 and Chatham had proved himself the organizer of victory 
 in the most distant parts of the earth's surface. It was a 
 signal triumjih over the great monarchy which Henri IV. 
 and Richelieu had bequeathed to Louis XIV., and it was 
 the achievement of the English oligarchy as settled in 1688. 
 * England,' wrote one of the most enlightened of our foreign 
 critics, ' degraded by the selfishness of Charles II., as it 
 had formerly been devastated by civil war, distracted by 
 childish theological disputes from 1600 to 1640, enslaved 
 by the Elizabethan autocracy, brutalized by Henry VIII., 
 only developed its full resources after 1688.' During the 
 century that followed, in spite of disasters, in spite of 
 crimes, it was rapidly fulfilling its destiny in becoming ' le 
 centre lumineux de I'Europe du Nord,' and when the clock 
 of Time struck the hour of Revolution it dared to fight 
 alone against the revolution hydra, the great Napoleon. 
 Details might be objected to in the generalization by M. 
 Philarete Chasles (which we have thus summarized), yet 
 it can scarcely be denied that during the long period of 
 Titanic contest for Colonial Empire — a drama in which 
 the curtain fell successfully upon the glorious peace of 
 1 763, the shameful loss of our colonies in 1 783, and the 
 
 ' Leslie Stephen's Eiujllslt TlKiiKjld in ihc Ei<ihfrniih Crntnrii, 
 di. X., § G.
 
 xxvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 phoenix-like triumph of 1815— the crisis of material expan- 
 sion was accompanied by manifestations of great intel- 
 lectual and especially literary grandeur. An illustration 
 of the way in which imaginative vigour and strenuous 
 action go hand in hand was added to those already afforded 
 by Periclean Greece, by Augustan Rome, by Grhaznevidiau 
 Persia, by Republican North Italy, by Catholic Spain, by 
 Elizabethan England, and by the cjnmd siccle in France. 
 
 There was an underside to both the great, empires, the 
 early triumphs of which at the outset of our period it is so 
 interesting to contemplate ; but the statesmen who com- 
 mitted Great Britain to a world-wide empire, a dispropor- 
 tionate population, and a ubiquitous trade could hardly 
 be expected to foresee that their country thereby was to 
 lose many of its insular advantages, while from the great 
 founders of the empire of the Novel it was perhaps merci- 
 fully hidden that the novel was destined not only to wield 
 an offensive tyranny over every other kind of imaginative 
 literature, but, owing to over-production and abuse, to pro- 
 voke the denunciations of the censors of a distant age as a 
 kind of literary chloral. As a revelation of the immense, 
 hitherto unsuspected, power over men in the mass that was 
 latent in literature, the discovery of the modern novel was 
 hardly less striking than that of the steam printing-press. 
 Benign though its influence was to prove as a whole, like 
 modern journalism, it brought unforeseen evils in its train, 
 one of the worst of which, an enervating sentimentalism, 
 is, as we shall see, most distinctly traceable to our period. 
 
 One of the most distinctive intellectual features of the 
 eighteenth century as compared with its predecessors 
 was the widespread spirit of religious toleration. Equal 
 rights were not, indeed, accorded to the different religious 
 sects which co-existed side by side with the official Angli- 
 canism in England, and various archaic penal statutes
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXVll 
 
 luiglit liave Leeu invoked at any time against sceptics and 
 unbelievers; but, as a matter of fact, from 1714 onwards 
 scarcely anyone tliouglit of invoking, still less of enforcing, 
 such laws. One of the chief characteristics (and weak- 
 nesses) of the age was an amusing complacency, a tendency 
 to optimistic generalization, based too often upon very 
 insufficient data, traceable very clearly from Pope and 
 Bolingbroke to Eobertson and Adam Smith. The idea, 
 which Avas in all probability formulated in the first instance 
 at Versailles under Louis XIV., that society had pretty 
 well reached its final development, and that only slight and 
 superficial changes in manners and sentiments were hence- 
 forth to be anticipated, found a most congenial soil in 
 Augustan England. With this came an inclination in 
 England to regard the state of things before the civil war 
 as more or less barbarous, a strong consensus of feeling 
 that antiquities were best left exclusively to lawyers and 
 dryasdusts, a profoundly ignorant contempt for the medi- 
 aeval period, now nicknamed ' the dark ages,' and a disdaiu- 
 fid pity for the ' gloomy ' Gothic cathedral and the ' super- 
 stitious ' worship Avhich it was built to enshrine. The 
 states of mind that a tolerant age found it most difficult 
 to condone are illustrated by three of its bugbears, 
 ' mysticism,' ' fanaticism,' and ' enthusiasm.' The supreme 
 latitudinarianism of the supreme head of the Church 
 (George II.) served as an examj^le which the chief digni- 
 taries of the establishment did their best to follow. A little 
 later in the century Wilberforce affords us in the case of 
 Thomas Whalley ''at rue picture of a sensible, well-informed 
 and educated, polished, old, well-beneficed, nobleman's and 
 gentleman's house frecjuentiug, literary and chess-playing 
 divine.' When you look behind this amiable (and typical) 
 
 ^ IJoni in 17-l:(j, author of Thn Fatal Kins, a poem (,1781), and 
 Va-acs to iVra. Siddona (1782).
 
 XXVlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 product, you liud a curate starving upou a pittance and 
 doing the rector's work in a fen-parisli so unhealthy that 
 the bishop of the diocese (Ely) when he conferred the 
 benefice upon his well-connected friend, made the express 
 stipulation that he should never enter into residence. 
 Among the curates upon whom the parochial work devolved, 
 nine out of ten carefully abstained from dwelling, when in 
 the pulpit, upon Christian doctrine. Such toijics exjjosed 
 the preacher to the dreaded charge of fanaticism. Even 
 the sober Crabbe was stigmatized as ' a Methody,' because 
 he introduced into his sermon the notion of future reward 
 and jjunishment. An orthodox clergyman, it was held, 
 should be content to demonstrate to his people the worldly 
 advantage of good conduct, and to leave heaven and hell to 
 the ranters. Yet the Church at the close of George II. 's 
 reign was (in a thoroughly worldly way) benevolent and 
 philanthropic, and upon the whole decidedly prosperous. 
 The old Protestant dissent seemed dwindling, and never had 
 the prospect of a general comprehension seemed so likely to 
 be eventually realized. The churchmen, however, in their 
 complete indifference to the sj^iritual side of Christianity, 
 and to the hidden spring that moves man to be religious, had 
 entirely under-estimated both the strength of the Protestant 
 spirit and of the schismatic temper in the English race. 
 
 The theological passion that had responded to the fierce 
 call of Knox, the gentler enthusiasm that had kindled at 
 the voice of Herbei't, was in reality far from extinct. The 
 preaching of the Wesley s and Whitefield from 1748 on- 
 wards woke up the religious heart of England. The vast 
 crowds which on moor or hillside, in the deserted quarries 
 of the west or the winds wej^t downs of the north, listened 
 spellbound to the new preachers, * almost maddened by the 
 passionate tone of exhortation, lifted into heaven and shaken 
 over hell ' in turns as the sermon went on, crying aloud,
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXIX 
 
 writhing on the ground — these crowds demanded the 
 means of giving vent to their religions emotion. Their 
 needs descended to Cowper through John Newton, and 
 found vent in his hymns and poems, constituting one of 
 the direct causes of the renaissance of intense passion and 
 personal feeling in English poetry. 
 
 The same schismatic spirit, which seems implicit in the 
 intense love of independence that is characteristic of the 
 Anglo-Saxon, was abundantly manifested in the great 
 historical event of the century, the revolt of the American 
 colonies. One of the disadvantages of the great victories 
 of 1759-60 was that by ridding the colonists of all danger 
 from the French it gave them both the idea and the possi- 
 bility of accomplishing a much more complete emancipation 
 fi'om European connection. In men of lofty ideas such as 
 Burke, arising above the mere squalor of faction, the mis- 
 understanding due to the arrogant assertion bred of ultra- 
 Imperialist notions on the one hand, and to a somewhat 
 sordid and narrow view of self-interest on the other, must 
 have given rise to some inexpressibly sad thoughts ; for 
 the eventual separation did not merely deal a terrible blow 
 at British pjrestige, it was also the death-blow to one of the 
 fairest prospects of humanity.^ 
 
 ' It is a ciicuuistance of happy augury that the pohtical and 
 social schism which spUt up the English race has not been followed, 
 as was gloomily predicted, by a bifurcation of tongue— at least as 
 far as the written language is concerned. The solidarity of English 
 literature on Ijulh sides of the Atlantic has, indeed, been contirmed 
 and assured by a small series of lucky incidents. Among these 
 may be mentioned : ( 1 ) Among the greatest of Johnson's successors 
 in lexicography have been conspicuous two Americans, Noali 
 Webster and William Dwight Whitney. Both Webster's Inter- 
 national and Whitney's Century Dictionary have been at least as 
 widely used and appreciated in England as in the States. (2) The 
 dilatoriness of the United States Government in according an equit-
 
 XXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 But wliik' losing the Western liemispliere, England, 'in 
 a fit of absence of mind,' as has beeu said, was gaining 
 empires elsewhere. One of the most reinartable of these 
 conquests was that which English literature (not without 
 valuable aid from British commerce) was gaining for the 
 English language. English literature iu the seventeenth 
 century had been to the rest of Europe a note of interroga- 
 tion. Shortly after the Restoration (1660) the Erench 
 government had caused diplomatic inquiries to be made, 
 just as in the present day a consul-general in the Corea 
 might be directed to ascertain if there were any native 
 literature. The great French writers of Molicre's day had 
 established Erench as the polite language of Western 
 Europe, and in preference to the hitherto universal Latin 
 as the language of dii)lomacy. By the Age of Johnson all 
 this is completely changed. Voltaire and Prcvost had 
 already begun to eulogize, and then more gradually to 
 popularize, our literature, and they were being zealously 
 followed by Diderot and by Kousseau. Papers like the 
 Journal Etrangere made English literary topics the stajjle 
 of their communications. A regular class of ' Anglomanes ' 
 
 alile inea.^uie()f copyriglit protection to Jiritisli authors has llooilcd 
 America -with standard Eiiglisli authois sold at a fraction above 
 cost-price. (3) The hitlierto unrivalled excellence of the great 
 American illustrated magazines has made them literally, what the 
 first French Iteview professes to be, Bccicics of Tvo Wvrhh. A 
 writer in New England always has readers in Old England in 
 \\Q\\, and vkc verm. (4) Franklin, as we shall see, was to all 
 intents and purposes an English writer, who modelled himself ui>on 
 Swift and Defoe. Among his successors three of tiie greatest and 
 most widely popular, Washington Irving, Hawthorne, and Long- 
 fellow, are peculiarly English in tone and sentiment as Avell as in 
 manner, and consequently in phrasing. Of the other American 
 writers in the Pantheon of World Literature, Foe, Emerson, and 
 Lowell (to whom may possibly be added Thojeau and Holmes), all 
 may strictly claim to be wells of English undetiled.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXI 
 
 began to be recognized, at their head Suard, the translator 
 of Robertson, who claimed for himself the consideration of 
 a magister whenever England or English subjects came up 
 for discussion. A large group of French critics looked to 
 England for emancipation from the bonds of classicism, for 
 iiututored strength and originality, and for the develoji- 
 nient of individualistic philosophy, no less than for a prac- 
 tical embodiment of the noblest conceptions of liberty. 
 
 Simultaneously the English language Avas admitted to 
 be establishing itself as a dangerous rival to that of France. 
 In 1783 the Royal Academy of Berlin jiroposed as the sub- 
 ject for its prize essay, ' To what circumstance is due the 
 Universality of the French tongue ? ' and the winning 
 essay by Rivarol bore the motto ' Tu regere eloquio populos, 
 O Galle, memento.' Gibbon formed the idea of writing 
 his history in French, as he wrote many of his letters and 
 some portion of liis Memoirs, but Hume, stronglv tinged 
 though lie was with the spirit of the Enci/c/oprdte, induced 
 the historian to write in English. Our solid and increasing 
 establishment in America, he urged, promises a superior 
 stability and duratioii to the English language ; and his 
 advice was conceived in a prescient spirit at least as far as 
 the language is concerned. Only three years after Rivarol's 
 essay, a German writei-, Janisch, in his prize essay upon a 
 comparison of fourteen languages, assigned the general 
 palm of excellence to English, as the interpreter of the 
 literature of Eui-ope. Rivarol himself had already con- 
 ceded that, as far as its literature was concerned, England 
 might be deemed to dispute the palm even with France. 
 Some fifty years later Thomas Watts, the great linguist, 
 pronounced the prospects of the English language (the 
 coping-stones to the popularity of which had been laid in 
 the meantime by the world-wide fame of Scott and Dickens) 
 to be the most splendid that the world had ever seen, and 
 
 c
 
 Xxxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 there is little doubt that to-day the writer of Euglish ad- 
 dresses the largest audience. 
 
 There is ample justification for saying that this great 
 position was secured between 1750 and 1800, the period 
 which witnessed the culmination of English prose — for it 
 is upon a sound, clear, and flexible prose alone as a sub- 
 structure that the world-wide popularity of a language can 
 be reared. When Voltaire began to write, the superiority 
 of French as a vehicle for popularizing knowledge and 
 conveying information upon a variety of subjects to the 
 general reader seemed quite beyond challenge. In clear, 
 direct, and forcible expression the only competitor we could 
 l^ossibly venture to put into the field would be Swift. As 
 the century advanced, however, the perfect adaptability of 
 English to almost every kind of prose, and its capacity to 
 express the nicest shades in each, were triumf)hantly 
 vindicated. In the highest varieties of prose it is sufficient 
 to mention the names of Chesterfield, Goldsmith, and 
 Sterne ; in prose dialogue, Sheridan and Boswell ; in memoir 
 or chronicle, Hervey and Walpole ; in argumentative prose, 
 Paley and Watson ; in controversy, Horsley and Lowth ; 
 and in the delightful sphere of the familiar letter, in which 
 Lady Wortley Montagu had toiled in vain after Mme. de 
 Scvignc, such exquisite artists as Cowper and Gray. 
 
 By the excellent work which he put into his Dictionary, 
 Johnson refined, as he undoubtedly consolidated, the 
 English language. In his later life, together with not a 
 few of his early eccentricities of manner, he threw off much 
 of his ancient fondness for long words, involved phrases, 
 and balanced epithets, and in his Lives of the Poets he has 
 left a monument of strong, mascuhne, and dignified prose. 
 On the other hand, it must be admitted that with the 
 increasing dignity of English prose there Avent a certain 
 liability to pomposity, and Johnson cannot be acquitted
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXlii 
 
 of haviug- assisted the evil tendency, tor the influence of 
 his periodical essays, though it can easily be overrated, 
 must yet have been considerable. The stimulus given to 
 science by the foundation of the Royal Society, and the 
 ever-growing ardour with which scientific speculation was 
 pursued, exercised a not altogether favourable influence 
 upou our speech.^ The need for a wider scientific vocabul- 
 ary gave an impulse to the excessive Latinization of the 
 language, thus oversetting the delicate balance which is 
 so noteworthy in the beautiful phrases of the English 
 Prayer Boot. At a critical moment Johnson threw his 
 influence upon the same side. It is impossible to say how 
 far his personal influence may have extended, but since 
 his day the tendency has been permanent for jjurely English 
 words to lose the precision that attached to them in the 
 days of Swift, and for words of Latin origin to be preferred 
 in their stead. 
 
 There seemed some ground for apprehension that what 
 
 ' Curiously enouj;li a conniiittee was appointed, shortly after its 
 foundation, by the lioyal Society, in order to consider tlie improve- 
 ment of tlie English tongue. John Evelyn wrote on June 20th, 
 1665, a very interesting letter on the subject to .Sir l^eter Wyche, 
 chairman of this committee, recommending, among other things, a 
 liberal admis-iion of foreign words. 'bet us,' he says '(as the 
 IJomans did the Greek), make as many of these do homage to us 
 as are like to prove good citizens.' A good many l'"rcnch words 
 were admitted to tlie Englisli language during the second half of 
 the eighteenth century, but the recipi'ocity was fairly maintained 
 upon tile whole. English writers borrowed : anachronism, anecdote, 
 badinage, denouement, epaulet, reconnoitre, cotillon, cabriolet, 
 Creole, suicide, adequate, aggrandize, appreciate, decadence, in- 
 advertence. Most of these have done homage. Tlie French 
 borroweil from us during the same period : luulget, cabine, club, 
 coke, corporation, croup, drawback, excise, gentleman, interlojicr, 
 jury, jockey (libre-jienseur), obstruction, pamphlcl, parloir, v<itc, 
 toast.
 
 Xxxiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 our prose was gaiuiiig iu luciditj, sobriety, and order, it 
 might be losing in colour, in sensitiveness and delicacy of 
 tone — ^tliat its increased efficiency as an instrument of 
 thought might be symptomatic of atrophy in regard to 
 the higher, imaginative qualities. The danger appears 
 sufficiently real for us to value very highly the devotion of 
 Sterne in the quest of the mot projn-e. He did not, it is 
 true, dedicate his life to the pursuit, as did Stevenson. A 
 banal epithet or a clumsy phrase did not disturb the 
 action of his heart, as it did Flaubert's ; but he went so 
 far as to place an entirely new value upon choice of words 
 and variety of periods, upon the ' transitions ' and the 
 ' cadences ' of English prose. 
 
 It is surprising how many types of literary production 
 with which we are now familiar were first moulded into 
 definitive and classical form during the Johnsonian period. 
 In addition to the novel one need only mention the economic 
 treatise, as exemplified for the first time in the admirable 
 symmetry of The Wealth of Nations, the diary of a faithful 
 observer of Nature such as Gilbert White, the historico- 
 philosophical tableau as exemplified by Eobertsou and 
 Gibbon, the light political parody of which the poetry of 
 The Anti- Jacobin affords so many excellent models; and, 
 going to the other extreme, the ponderous archseological or 
 topographical monograph, as exemplified in Stuart and 
 Eevett's Antiquities of Athens, in Eobert Wood's colossal 
 Euins of Fahnyra (1753_), or the monumental History 
 of Leicestershire by John Nichols. Such works as this last 
 might well seem the outcome of Horace Walpole's maxim : 
 In this scribbling age 'let those who can't write, glean.' 
 In a word, the literary landscape in Johnson's day was 
 slowly but surely assuming the general outlines to which 
 we are all accustomed. The literary conditions of the 
 period dated from the time of Pope in their main features.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXV 
 
 and it is quite possible that tliey were more considerably mo- 
 dified ill Johuson's own lifetime than they have been since. 
 The booksellers, or, as they would now be called, publishers, 
 were steadily superseding the old ties of patronage, and 
 basing their relations with authors upon a commercial 
 footing. A stage in their progress is marked by the success 
 of Johnson's friend Strahan, who kept a coach, ' a credit to 
 Hterature.' The evolution of a normal status for the author 
 was aided by the definitiou of copyright and the extinction 
 of piracy, first in Scotland and Ireland, and eventually in 
 America. 
 
 Upon the whole, it would seem that poetry, history, and 
 most critical or speculative work of a high order were de- 
 cidedly better paid then than now. The demand was then 
 relatively much stronger for the moral essay or the book 
 of solid information, so much so that the period has been 
 defined as one in which authors had ceased to write for 
 students and had not begun to write for women ; when, 
 supplementing the professed student who devoured folios 
 of erudite stamp, there appeared as a class of literary con- 
 sumers a growing body of strong-headed, practical men. 
 To this period we must at the same time refer the 
 api)earance upon the foothills of the Parnassus range of 
 a ' monstrous regiment of women ' authors. The era of 
 literary overproduction definitely comniences, and ever 
 since the Age of Johnson, in all the lower grades of 
 letters, the scope of the purveyors of books has been 
 enormously increased, Avhile competition has produced its 
 inevitable results. 
 
 Taking a final glance at the period as a whole, one ob- 
 serves more and more clearly how the relative superiority 
 of our ])olitical machinery reacted in a favourable sense 
 upon the literary development. While trembling ui)on the 
 brink of the industrial chanues that were so largely tt)
 
 xxxvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 transform their external conditions, the people still clung 
 with an intuitive attachment to their old insular ideals, 
 and one can point to no period in which the nation's life, 
 manners, and literature have heen more distinctively 
 English, or more thoroughly and greatly original. The 
 germs of the great Romantic movement — the revival of the 
 older balladry and poetry, the widening popularity of the 
 newer landscape poetry — the forces about to animate a new 
 generation, all can be discerned in stages of vigorous 
 growth ; but upon the whole the jjeriod is one less of transi- 
 tion than of termination, the garnering up of a great age — 
 the harvest of the Augustan period in our literature after 
 its rich blossoming in the days of Queen Anne. 
 
 The best service that the unknown writer of a small 
 book upon an important subject can render to his readers 
 is a conspicuous act of homage to the eminent writers who 
 have written great books upon it. The jirimacy among 
 such writei's is due upon all grounds to William Hazlitt, 
 most stimulating of critics ; with his opponents when 
 living he may have been irritable, but to the Whigs and 
 Tories of a past age his geniality is impartial. Opj)osed 
 to him in many ways stands Robert Southey, one of the 
 first of our biographers, whose Life of Wesley and Life and 
 Letters of Coiv])er merit a large share of the eulogy that 
 has been lavished upon the Life of Nelson. On many of 
 the writers of Johnson's day Macaulay has written with 
 an imperishable vigour, and his voice still rings and echoes 
 so loudly in our ears that we are in danger of losing much 
 that is uttered in a lower key. Of the century that he 
 surveyed with such incomparable brilliancy, he Avas never 
 to enter into full possession ; but his mantle has fallen 
 upon worthy successors in Mr. Lecky and Mr. Morley,
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXvii 
 
 eminent (as he was) in politics and letters alike. It is 
 significant that the first of our living critics has chosen 
 the same century as his province; but the praises of the 
 author of English ThougJd in the Eighteenth Century are 
 Lest read in the Letters of Lowell, a worthy rival in critical 
 good sense, whose own Study Windoivs open so delight- 
 fully upon Selhorne. Then there is the biographer of 
 Hogarth and Horace Walpole, who, to fill up insterstices, 
 has given us those Vignettes of the eighteenth century that 
 rival Meissonier in delicacy and sparkle. A like devotion 
 to the minutiae of our period is manifested by Dr. Birkbeck 
 Hill and Professor Bury ; for where shall we find such 
 gi'eat books so well edited as Boswell's Johnson and 
 Gibbon's Decline and Fall ? We have reserved, for the 
 "purpose of emphasis, an expression of the gratitude that 
 is due from every student of the eighteenth century to 
 those French critics who are, at the present day, treading 
 in the footsteps of Suard and Villemain, of Chasles and 
 De Ecmusat, of Scherer and Sainte-Beuve. Where writers 
 such as Montegut and Stai:)fer, Texte and Chevrillon, are 
 in the field, we confine ourselves with difficulty to specify 
 but three : Alexandre Beljame, whose study of the trans- 
 formation of literarv conditions at the commencement of 
 the century is laboured with an amplitude and a technical 
 skill that stir every reader to amazement ; Leon Morel, 
 from whose superb monograph on James Thomson it seems 
 invidious to select for especial praise the chai:»ters upon the 
 sentiment of Nature in English poetry ; and Auguste 
 Angellier, avIio, venturing bravely within the jealously 
 guarded jurisdiction of the Northern Lights, has erected a 
 literarv beacon that will shine wherever admirers of Robert 
 Burns are to be found.
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 50, line 9, for " June, 1754," read " June, 1757/' 
 Page 113, line 7 from foot,. /or " Coplestone " read " Cople- 
 
 ston. " 
 Page 318, cobunu A, line 3,/ot- " Allan " read " Alban."
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ESSAYISTS AND CRITICS. 
 
 Dr. Johnson is niore readily accepted as a literary fig-ure- 
 liead than any English author, and when we speak of 
 ' The Age of Johnson ' the exj^ression is less an arbiti'ai'y 
 chronological convention than an admission that in the 
 popular imagination Johnson's figure dominates the literary 
 group in which he was a unit. The fact is rather an 
 anomalous one, for as an author — even in a period dis- 
 tinguished by no oDe commanding influence of the com- 
 prehensive genius of a Shakespeare or a Swift, a Voltaire 
 or a Hugo — Johnson can hardly be said to occupy an un- 
 disputed place in the first rank. The mocking inquiry 
 that De Quincey makes of Dr. Parr's admirers, ' What 
 has he written ? ' or the verdict that Mr. Lecky has 
 recently applied with great force to an author famous in 
 our own day,' might with little modification be employed 
 in the case of our ' literary dictator.' As Mr. Dobson 
 (inly half playfully asks : 
 
 ' ' Of all the hooks, essay.';, pamphlets, that is.siied from the 
 pen of Gladstone, it is more than doubtful if there is any one that 
 will he liereafter valueil either for the beauty of its expression or 
 for the intrinsic wisdom of its contents.' 
 
 B
 
 2 THE AGE OF JOHNSON, 
 
 ' Who now reads Jolinson ? if lie pleases still, 
 'Tis most for dorniitive or sleeping pill.' 
 
 The memory of other authors, says Macaulay, is kept 
 alive by their books, l)ut the memory of Johnson keeps 
 many of his books alive. His writings were admirefl by 
 his own age^his was indeed the singular destiny of being- 
 regarded ' in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a 
 companion ' — but there must have been a very large body 
 of dissentients even among his contemporaries ; and when 
 we speak of Johnson as literary dictator, the mental re- 
 servations that we have to make are truly considerable. 
 He was not in any sense like a Boileau or a Poj^e, ad- 
 mitted as ai'biter and feared as a censor by everyone who 
 aspired to be considered a wit. From all the most original 
 minds of his day he was in some way or other alienated, 
 the solitai'y but important exception being Edmund Burke. 
 Hume was his hete noir. Adam Smith he disliked, and 
 Monboddo was his laughing-stock ; by Walpole, whom he 
 regarded as a fribble, he was reciprocally despised ; Gibbon 
 thought of him as Chesterfield would have done, as a 
 powerful but very rude old Tartar. Fielding he would 
 not touch for fear of being defiled ; Sterne he read, but 
 only ' on a journey,' and then apparently with shame. 
 Gray was too fine for him, and Churchill too coarse ; 
 Warton too romantic, and Foote too pedestrian ; Capell 
 too narrow, and Voltaire too free. Johnson was thus in a 
 very partial sense only the literary representative of his 
 age ; but he was, as we shall perceive, greater as a man 
 than as an author, and as a man he was to a rare extent 
 typical of a common English ideal. 
 
 The English are undoubtedly fond of moral common- 
 place, in which Johnson abounded, but he is not specially 
 dear to us on that account. We readily admit that he is 
 over sententious — his didacticism is often exceedingly com-
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 8 
 
 monplace, his truisms ovei* true. Yet no man has been 
 more indulgent to the weaknesses of others or more honest 
 in acknowledcjment of his own. He was indeed the victim 
 of inconsistency and of strange prejudices, but they were 
 not hypocritical or time-serving prejudices, for we know 
 from abundant testimony that his good deeds were as 
 numerous as his good sayings. The truth of his hold 
 over our imaginations is that deep down in his nature are 
 to be found many, if not most, of the equalities which we 
 English especially prize. A man with his roots stubbornly 
 in the past ; a respecter of the traditional order and of 
 property, not from interest, but from instinct ; brave, with 
 a certain dogged pride and boastf^^lness about himself ; 
 contentious in argument, yet ready to admit and to pardon 
 most forms of human weakness ; a lover of truth and a 
 hater of cant and artifice ; merciful to the weak, but ob- 
 stinate upon slight 2>retext in opposition to strained au- 
 thority or in defence of professional or sectional rights or 
 prescription, Johnson in conversation and temper was just 
 such an Englishman as might be found the little king of 
 many a tavern parlour. The unusual combination of these 
 qualities with those of a scholar, and a wit, and a writer-of- 
 all-woi*k, eminent for the force and dignity of his pen, con- 
 tributed to give Johnson his unique j^osition. The dis- 
 covery of a Xenophon for the British Socrates in the person 
 of Boswell was all that was needed for his memory to be kept 
 alive with an ardour second only to that of Shakespeare. 
 And, thanks to Boswell and his rivals and his editors, 
 wherever Johnson pervades there we may confidently ex- 
 pect an atmosphere of good humour and good things. 
 
 Bom at Lichfield on September 18th, 1709, Samuel 
 Johnson was the son of Michael Johnson, a bookseller in 
 the western midlands, who settled at Lichfield after various 
 peregrinations, and imbibed some of the prejudices of
 
 4 lUK \r,K OF JOHNSON. 
 
 a cathedral city ; and wlio transmitted to his son, be- 
 sides a sentiment of conservatism in 
 
 ^'"(iTon'nsT" ^^^"^'^'^^ ^^''^ ^^^^"^^ ^ powerful frame and 
 a ' vile melancholy.' His mother Avas 
 of Warwickshire vconiau descent. Sanincl as a youth 
 siiffered tVoni scrofula, and was touched for the evil 
 by Queen Anne, whose silver ])enny he retained alone;- 
 with the recollection of a lady in diamonds and a long- 
 black hood. No less than his recollections, the roots of 
 Johnson's literary and political sentiment went back to 
 the days of Queen Anne. He learned Latin at Lichfield 
 school, and learned it well. He could converse in it 
 readily, and often did so until quite late in life. ' My 
 master whip't me well,' he vouchsafed in explanation of 
 his facility. He believed in the rod, saying of the humane 
 Dr. Rose's boys that what they gained at one end they 
 lost at the other ; and, like Cowjier, he had no faith in 
 emulation as a stimulus. At Oxford he seems to have 
 been poor and struggling, and, though he enjoyed a certain 
 reputation for wit and scholarship, insubordinate. Like 
 Gibbon, like De Quincey, he was scarcely influenced at all 
 by the regular curriculum, and he left without taking a 
 degi'ee. Like his contemporaries (' I never knew a man 
 who studied hard'), he received but little aid from his 
 tutors in combating ' the disease of idleness.' In October, 
 1729, he inscribed the pathetic resolution, ' Desidix valedixi.'' 
 The two leading events of his university career were, first 
 liis rendering into Latin hexameters of Pope's Messiah, a 
 performance which was shown to the great man in 1731 
 and elicited his approval, and secondly his reading of 
 Law's Serious Call, which powerfully affected him — ' I 
 expected to find it a dull book, but I found it quite an 
 overmatch foi- me.' From this time his religious sense 
 remained active until the end.
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 5 
 
 Jolinsou's father died in December, 17ol, and his inherit- 
 ance j)roved no more than =£20. After a dismal experience 
 as an usher he went to Birmingham, where he translated 
 Lobe's Voyage to Abyssinia for the chief bookseller-pub- 
 lisher of the town, and in July, 1735, being then twenty- 
 six, he married a widow, Elizabeth Porter (born Jarvis). 
 She was twenty and a half vears older than he was, and 
 she had a fortune of nearly d61,000 ; but the marriage was 
 'a love match on both sides ' (so Johnson told Beauclerk). 
 The newly-maiTied pair set up a school at Edial, near 
 Lichfield, where Johnson had two pupils, George and 
 David Garrick. It Avas suggested that he should take 
 orders, but he was reluctant to adopt the pulpit, his j^re- 
 dilection for more secular haunts being already in grain, 
 and in 1737 he determined to try his fortune in the capital 
 as a literary adventurer. He set out with a few guineas, 
 three acts of the tragedy of Irene in manuscrij^t, and two 
 or three letters of introduction in his pocket. His wife 
 followed him next year. 
 
 No one ever did more than Johnson to regularize the 
 position of the paid author and to emancipate him from 
 the patron ; but the transition period was a trying one for 
 the professional writer. ' Johnson entered on his vocation 
 in the most dreary part of the dreary interval which 
 sepai'ated two ages of j)rosperity. Literature had ceased to 
 flourish under the patronage of the great, and had not begun 
 to flourish under the patronage of the public' The book- 
 sellers of the day were the smallest of small capitalists, 
 and liable to have even their comparatively small gains 
 ])ilfered by pirales in Dul)lin, if not nearer liome (for the 
 law of copyright was still in an eml)ryo condition) ; they 
 could only subsist at all by ' sweating ' their authors. 
 Such occupation as Avas open to the professional ' hackney ' 
 was soon obtained bv Johnson. From 1738 he was em-
 
 b THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 ployed by Edward Cave upon The Genthnian's Miujazine, 
 uovv seveu years old. One of liis ehief tasks was the eoni- 
 l)ilatiou from ro^^gll notes sui^plied by Cave of the parlia- 
 mentary debates. The idea was to sui:)ply ' the essence of 
 parliament,' but as direct reporting was forbidden, the 
 speakers were introduced under transparent nicknames as 
 senators of Lilliput. Where the notes were defective, 
 Johnson drew uj^on his own imagination, taking care, as 
 he afterwards declared, ' that the Whig dogs should not 
 have the best of it.' In this same year (1738) he got ^610 
 for his poem London, ' in imitation of the Third Satire 
 of Juvenal,' in which he adopts the conventional mode of 
 Pope and the artificial theories about the corruption of 
 town life, as subsequently developed by Groldsmith and 
 Rousseau. Pope prophesied that the author would soon 
 be deterre. In the meantime, however, he was occupied 
 U{)on translations and even less remunerative work. 
 Osborne the bookseller had the temerity to reprove him for 
 some negligence in preparing a catalogue of the Harleian 
 Library, and was knocked doAvn by the offended scholar 
 with a folio Septuagint. ' I have beat many a fellow,' 
 said the great man afterwards to Mrs. Piozzi, ' but the 
 rest had the wit to hold their tongues.' In 1744 he 
 Avrote off at a white heat his powerful though erroneous 
 Life of Eichard Savage, a scamp whose talent was thread- 
 bare enough, but whose wide experience of life had gained 
 him the ear and the sympathy of Johnson, ever ready to 
 listen io a tale of distress. The Life of Savage con- 
 tributed greatly to extend Johnson's reputation. He Avas 
 one day sitting in Robert Dodsley's shop when that book- 
 seller took occasion to observe that a dictionary of the 
 English language would be a work that would be well 
 received by the public. Johnson caught at the idea, but 
 after a pause said, ' I believe I shall not undertake it.'
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSOX. 7 
 
 He had, however, pondered such a work, aud Dodsley's 
 suggestion jirobably clinched the matter. The bookseller 
 induced him in 1747 to address a scheme or 'Plan' of 
 the dictionary to Lord Chesterfield, then Secretary of 
 State and the contemporary Maecenas. The payment of 
 the work was undertaken by a combination of booksellers. 
 Johnson was to receive a sum of d81,575, out of which he 
 had to pay several amanuenses. Asked by Dr. Adams 
 how he expected to finish such a work in three years, while 
 the French Academy of forty had taken forty years to 
 compile their dictionary, Johnson replied jocularly, ' Sir, 
 thus it is : this is the proportion ; 40 times 40 is 1,600. 
 As 3 to 1,600, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a 
 Frenchmau.' It took five or six men the best part of eight 
 years before the JDictionary was complete. In the mean- 
 time, in January, 1749, aj^peared his second poem. The 
 Vanity of Human Wishes, a poem more sincere in its melan- 
 choly than its predecessor, an exei'cise greatly admired by 
 Scott and by Byron, aud indeed, as an expression of rhe- 
 torical gloom, hardly to be surpassed. The same year saw 
 the production of Johnson's tragedy Irene, at Drury Lane, 
 through the kind offices of his friend Garrick. The player's 
 zeal procured for Irene a better reception than it deserved 
 (it ran for nine evenings). Apart from its frigidity and its 
 lack of dramatic interest, the blank verse in which it is 
 composed is execrably bad, speaking volumes as to Johnson's 
 subsequent judgments upon pre-Drydenian verse. The 
 great lexicographer probal>ly chei'ished some illusions about 
 his early tragedy, but when asked how he felt upon his ill- 
 success, replied, ' Like the Monument.' 
 
 About a year after the representation of Irene, Johnson 
 began to publish a series of short essays on morals, 
 manners, and literature. This species of composition had 
 been brought into fashion by the success of The Tatler,
 
 O THE AGE Of JOHNSON, 
 
 aud by the still more brilliant success of The Spectator. 
 A crowd of small writers under the first two Georges had 
 attempted to rival Addison and Steele, and the London 
 booksellers still had the utmost faith in these weekly or 
 bi-weekly issues/ In March, 1750, while his Bictionary 
 
 ' During' the Rambler and Idler periotl, tliat i.<, between 1750 
 ami 1760 (as Dr. Nathan Drake jioints out), not less than twenty 
 ])erio(lical papers were candidates for puLlic favour. Tlie most 
 notable of tliese were The World, started by Edward Moore in 
 17-53, and numbering Cliesterfield, Horace Walpole, Soame Jenyns, 
 Lord Hailes, Joseph Warton, and numerous otlier notabilities of 
 the ilay among its contributors ; and The Connoisseur, .started by 
 Colman and his friend Bonnell Thornton in January, 1754, and 
 numbering among its volunteers Cowper and Duncombe, Lloyd 
 and Orator Henley. Then there Avas the short-lived Dremner, 
 started by the once famous wit Dr. William King (1685-1763), 
 ])nncipal of St. ^Lary Hall, Oxford; there was Goldsmith's eidiem 
 eridal Bee (1759); there was The Visitor (1760) of Dr. William 
 Dodd, whom Johnson tried in vain to save from the gallows ; and 
 there was poor Kit Smart's Univzrscd Visitor (1756). Excluding 
 tiic political periodicals, such as Smollett's Briton and AVilkcs's 
 more famous North Driton, we come a little later to The Mirror, 
 written largely by the ' man of feeling,' Heniy ^Lackenzie, followed 
 by the more deserving Lounger and It Cumberland's Observer {1785), 
 whicli brings us down to The Microerjsui, started at Eton on No\-eni- 
 ber 6th, 17S6 (see Chap. X. ). But the most direct of all ThcRamiler's 
 rivals was The Adventurer, started by Dr. John Hawkesworth (1719- 
 1773) in 1752. He was aided in this not only by Joseph Warton 
 and Kichard Latiiurst, but also by Johnson liimself. It apijeared 
 e\ery Thursday and Saturday, for twopence, down to No. 140 
 (.Mareli 9th, 1754), and ail'ords an excellent example of the growing 
 inflnence of Dr. Johnson's style. The allegories and domestic tales 
 ill which those essays abounded became the natural property of 
 till' novelists of the next age. Hawkesworth, a]>art from his claim 
 to rank as a classical essayist, is remembered for bis edition of Swift 
 (1765) and his severely criticised edition of Cook's Voyacjes (1773). 
 To get an idea of the richness of the periodical literature of the 
 eighteenthcentury the student must bury himself in Nathan Drake's 
 most instructive though somewhat ill-arranged Essays (1810).
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 9 
 
 was iu mid-course, Jolmsou entered this field of industry 
 with his Bambler, w^hich continued to apjiear at the price 
 of twopence every Tuesday and Saturday down to March, 
 1752. The monthly canserie of to-day exhausts, after a 
 short interval, the capacity of many of our Avriters to 
 interest their readers. Johnson wrote The Bamhlers with 
 practically no extraneous aid, amid a variety of other 
 labours, and though the circulation w^as less than five 
 hundred he won some judicious admirers. This explains 
 the fact that as soon as the flying leaves were collected 
 and reprinted they became extremely popular, and were 
 widely regarded as models of Avholesome sentiment and 
 a perfect style. In them Ave see Johnson first definitely 
 adopting the style for which he is specially renowned 
 and deliberately translating his thoughts from the ver- 
 nacular idiom into the splendours of his ' Latinistic speech.' 
 The wags maintained that the hard words were iised to 
 show how indispensable was a large folio dictionary. ' His 
 Essays I detest,' wrote Horace Walpole. ' They are full of 
 what I call trijjtology, or repeating the same thing thrice 
 over, so that three papers to the same effect might be made 
 out of any one paper iu The Rambler.' Of all the fifteen 
 thousand Ramblers sold, the dust uj^on very few is disturbed 
 at the present day. As Mr. Raleigh pleasantly remarks, 
 ' The otiose prolongation of the periods, and the superabund- 
 ance of polysyllabic vocables, render the task of the intrepid 
 adventurer who shall endeavour to peruse the earlier jier- 
 formances of this writer an undertaking of no inconsider- 
 able magnitude.' JJut from these hovels Johnson, liaving 
 reached the perfection of the sententious, could scarcely fail 
 to decline; and consequently, in his second series of essays, 
 laiown as T/ie IJler (1758-60), the vein is consideral)ly 
 lighter, and we are treated to the portrait of Dick Minim, 
 a criticaster whom Johnson has drawn for us ad vivuin.
 
 10 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 The great work, tlie ' Plau ' of wliicli had heeii addressed 
 to Chesterfield in 1747, at length appeared on April 15th, 
 1755, in two folio volumes, at two guineas each, as A Dic- 
 tionary of the English La7iguage, in ivhich the words are de- 
 duced from their originals and illustrated in their different 
 significations hy examples from the best writers. Johnson's 
 Dictionary was a great advance iipou its predecessors ; ^ 
 the excellence of its definitions and the judicious selection 
 of illustrative passages (a feature new to the work) make 
 it entertaining as well as useful. Philology, however, was 
 less of an exact science then than now, and the most 
 obvious defect of the Dictionary was due to Johnson's 
 etymological deficiencies, his ignorance of the early forms 
 of the language, and his indifference to the growth of 
 words and significations. He simply aimed at fixing the 
 actual sense of words employed by the best authors, and 
 this he did surprisingly w^ell. 
 
 When the Dictionary was just about to appear, Chester- 
 
 ^ Before 1755 the standard English dictionary was that of 
 Nathan Bailey (died 1742), which reached a twenty-fourtli edition 
 in 1782; it was upon an interleaved copy of Bailey that Johnson 
 anil liis assistants worked. Such well-known personages in various 
 spheres as Daniel Defoe, Edward Cocker, and John Wesley were 
 sponsors for dictionaries of which Ave may he sure there were 
 ])lenty of purchasers. For their etymologies and derivations all 
 tlie compilers alike were indehted to the Etijmologicon of Francis 
 .Junius, a contemporary of Isaac Casaulxm ! Johnson corrected 
 four editions of his work. >Some of his humorous delinitions — such 
 as lexicograph(M', 'a harndess drudge' — are justly famous. The 
 commissioners of excise were so sore about ins definition of that 
 word tluit they took the ojiinion of tiie Attorney-Ueneral as to 
 \\ liether tliey could not proceed against tlie work as lihellous. 
 Some young ladies imputed to Johnson as a good deed that he had 
 omitted all 'naughty words.' 'So, my dears,' he replied, Avith a 
 sly good humovu very characteristic of him, ' you have been looking 
 for them.'
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 11 
 
 field bethought himself of the quasi-responsibility which 
 he had incurred by accepting the dedication in 1747. He 
 had, said Johnson, not too politely, ' for many years taken 
 no notice of me, bu^t he now fell a-scribbling ' in The World 
 about the forthcoming work. Ninety-nine authors out of 
 a hundred would have condoned the neglect in considera- 
 tion of a recommendation so flattering as that of the great 
 and urbane Chesterfield ; but Johnson was made of sturdier 
 stuff. ' I wa-ote him a letter,' he tells us, ' expressed in 
 civil terms,' and nothing that Johnson ever did is upon the 
 whole more admirable than this civil epistle. His letter is 
 not animated by a tone of indignant moral rej)roof (like 
 Burke's Letter to a Nolle Lord, or Hazlitt's to Grilford, or 
 Cowper's Valediction), but as a polite and overwhelming- 
 snub administered by a poor scholar to a great noble it has 
 never been approached, and it marks a new era in the story 
 of literary self-help. The rebuke so well deserved was 
 prepai'ed wntli unrivalled spirit and with evident enjoy- 
 ment by Johnson, and it appears to have been taken in 
 admirable part by its victim, than whom no one could 
 better have appreciated the peculiar merit of the execution. 
 The Dictionarij, wdiich added so greatly to Johnson's 
 reputation, added nothing to his pecuniary resources, for 
 the payment had already been anticijjated, and Johnson 
 had to fall back upon the old foi-ms of drudgery. He 
 abridged his Dictionary, issued proposals for an edition of 
 Shakespeare, and commenced a new series of essays, 
 entitled The Idler. These varied labours did not suffice to 
 keep him out of debt, and twice during a twelvemonth 
 after the comjjletion of the great Dictionary, he w-as 
 carried to spuuging-houses, and was only released through 
 the intervention of his good friend Samuel Richardson. 
 In 1759 his afl:"ectionate nature i-eceived a shock by the 
 death of his mother at Lichfield, aged ninety. ' I have
 
 1- Tilt: AGE OF JOIIXSOX. 
 
 ouly yuu uow,' he wrote to liis stepdaughter Lucy Porter. 
 He had sent his mother money to the last from liis ill- 
 su])i>lied purse, aud, iu order to pay her fuueral expenses 
 and outstanding small debts, he wrote in the evenings of 
 a single week his ethico-imaginative romance, Basselas. 
 (He got =£100 for the effort; novel-writing had already 
 established itself as the remunerative branch of the i)ro- 
 fessiou. Johnson was well aware of this, or he would not 
 have experimented in a genre of writing for which he had 
 no faculty.) Basselas is modelled upon one of the homily- 
 tales of The Spectator, having for its theme the author's 
 favourite tojnc of Vanitas Van 'datum, and recalling in 
 some 2^articulars Voltaire's simultaneous but much more 
 brilliant assault upon optimism in Candide. The plan of 
 luisselas supposes a ha])py valley in Abyssinia, where the 
 royal ]>rinces are confined in total seclusion, but with 
 ample supplies for every conceivable want. Easselas, who 
 has been thus educated, becomes curious as to the outside 
 world, and at last makes his escape with his sister aud the 
 ancient sage Imlac. Under Indac's guidance they survey 
 life and manners in various stations ; they make the 
 acquaintance of philosophers, statesmen, hermits, and men 
 of the world, and discuss their experiences much in the 
 style of The Bambler, with the result that by common con- 
 sent they resolve upon returning to the happy valley. 
 Macaulay's strictures upon Johnson's geography are just 
 about as applicable as they would be to Lilliput, for 
 Basselas is clearly to be ranked in the class of voyages 
 imaginaires. Tt is :i line exanijtle of Johnson's l)alanced 
 slyle ; but it is irrcjianilily lacking in vitality. 
 
 In July, \7iyl, through the representations of iniluential 
 iiiends to the niuch-abused Tory minister Bute, Johnson 
 was granted a government pension of i;300 a year, as a 
 recognition mainly of his services to literature in connec-
 
 sAMUi:!. JO II X. soy. 18 
 
 tiou with the Dictionary. He liad defiued ii liension in 
 that work as ' pay given to a state hireling- for treason to 
 his country'; hut when the opposition jeered, Johnson said 
 robustly that he wished the noise twice as loud, and the 
 pension twice as great. He now said good-bye to the hard 
 labour of the Grub Street galley-slave, and indulged his 
 constitutional indolence to the top of his bent. In 1763 
 he made the acquaintance of Boswell, and in 1764, with 
 a weekly supper at the Turk's Head, Gerrard Street, 
 Soho, was started the famous ' Club,' a reincarnation of 
 much more Bohemian gatherings of earlier days in Ivy 
 Lane and its purlieus.' The fierce light that plays upon 
 the throne of an elected monarch was henceforth upon 
 Johnson. The more remarkable is the legacy that he has 
 left to his countrymen of an essentially noble character. 
 While living from hand to mouth, it is recorded of him 
 that he would put pennies into the hands of outcast 
 children sleeping in the streets, so that when they woke 
 they might find a breakfast. Later in life he spent the 
 greater part of his i^ension in bounty. For himself he had 
 few needs but conversation. A London tavern was his 
 natural theatre ; his topics, metaphysical discussion, moral 
 theory, systems of religion, and literary anecdote. General 
 history he cared little for ; but biography Avas his delight, 
 and he had many of the qualifications of a first-rate 
 
 ^ ' TheChib,' as it is simply denominatetl, lias maintained to this 
 (lay its <rlorious tradition. (Jibbon and Fox joined in 1774 ; Adam 
 Smith in 1775 ; Sheridan, Lord Asliburton, Sir Joseph lianks, 
 Windliam, Lord Stowell, and Lord Spencer in 1778. During the 
 last eighty years, out of fifteen prime ministers, seven have l)een 
 members of the Club. Haliam, Grote, Milman, ALacanlay, Sydney 
 Smitli, Tennysrjn, were members, as to-day are Lord Acton, Mr. 
 Lecky, Mr. Balfour, Lord Duflerin, and Professor Jebb. For 
 some interesting particulars as to the recondite later history of 
 the Club, see Edinbunjh licciac, July, 189S.
 
 14 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 I)i(>ojraplier. Oue of the chief ai'ts he recognized was the 
 niaiiagement of the mind ; bnt though endowed with this 
 faculty to a remarkable extent, and also with humour, he 
 could not dominate either his melancholy or his growing 
 aversion to put pen to pai)er. ' Presto,' he once said to a 
 dog at the house of his friends the Thrales, at Streatham, 
 ' yovi are, if possible, a more lazy dog than I am.' Never- 
 theless, in 1765, stung by a gibe from Churchill, he 
 managed to get out his edition of Shakespeare,^ described 
 as ' at press ' as early as 1757, and in 1775 he published 
 his Tour to the Hehrhles, describing the journey he made 
 to the Western Islands with Boswell in 1773. After this 
 he wrote nothing (apai't from his admirable letters to 
 Mrs. Thrale and others, and a few minor poems and frag- 
 ments) until 1777, when he commenced the most per- 
 manent of his writings, and that one which falls least 
 behind his conversation in excellence. The Lives of the 
 
 ^ The previous editors of Shakespeare had been Nicholas Rowe 
 (8 vols., 1709-14), Alexander Pojie (6 vols., 1725), Lewis Theobald, 
 'the Person of Shakespearean criticism' (7 vols., 1733), and 
 Tliomas Hanuier (6 vols., 1744). Warbnrton revised Pope (8 vols., 
 1747), bnt he displayed more contempt for other people than 
 iiidnstry to improve njion his predecessors. The sixth editor, and 
 tlie first to come within our limits, was Johnson himself with his 
 eight-volume edition. He must be classed with Hanmer and 
 Pope as a plain and common-sense, not a profound or a very 
 scholarly editor ; and his best notes are those in which he had an 
 opportunity of showing how attentively he had during many years 
 observed human life and human nature. The later eighteenth 
 century was distinguished by three devoted, diligent, and in some 
 respects really great editors — Edward Capell(10 vols., 1768), George 
 Steevens (10 vols, in revision of Johnson, 1773), and Edmimd 
 Malone (10 vols., 1790). Reed and James Boswell the younger 
 (nephew of the biographer of Johnson) co-ordinated the results 
 obtained by jirevious editors in the famous edition of 1821, known 
 as ' Boswell's Malone.'
 
 SAMUEL .TOHXSOX. l' 
 
 Poetf^ forms Johnson's title to rank as a great ci'itic ; it 
 also shows us how narrow were the limits of his critical 
 perception. Anything much before Dryden, with the 
 solitary exception of Shakespeare's plays, was to Johnson's 
 mind archaic, and having little historic sense, and no 
 adequate conception at all of a theory of development, 
 archaic stood to him for ' imbecile, childish.' Like many 
 of his coutem]>oraries, Johnson's faith was that ' poetry 
 l^roperly began with Waller, and had gone on imj^roving 
 ever since.' Thus, when the booksellers proposed to com- 
 mence the English Poets from the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century, he fully acquiesced in their scheme, and 
 the only modification that he suggested was the inclusion 
 of Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden.' He sent The 
 Life of Cowley to press in December, 1777. Then quickly 
 followed those of Waller, Denham, and Butler. In 
 August, 1778, he finished The Life of Dryden, which he 
 wi'ote cori amove. Early in 1779 he disposed of Milton, 
 and in March, 1780, appeared twenty-two lives out of the 
 fiftv-two that were to be ariven. The lives mentioned are 
 
 O' 
 
 ' Johnson was pre-eminently fitted for the task, apart from his 
 literary capacity, as a depositary of literary tradition, history, and 
 anecdote, as far back as Congreve or even Dryden. His knoM - 
 ledge he had derived ' partly from books, and partly from sources 
 whicli iiad long been closed; from old (!rub Street traditions; 
 from the talk (if forgotten poetasters and pamphleteers who had 
 long been lying in parish vaults ; from the recollections of such 
 men as Oilbert Walmesley, wlio liad conversed Mith the wits of 
 Button's ; Gibber, who had mutilated the plays of two generations 
 of dramatists ; Orrery, Avho had been admitted to the society of 
 Swift ; and Savage, who had rendered services of no very honour- 
 able kind to Pope. The biographer, therefore, sat down to his 
 task with a mind full of matter. He had at first intended to give 
 only a paragraph to every minor poet, and only four or fne pages 
 to the greatest name. But the flood of anecdote and criticism 
 overflowed the narrow channel.'
 
 K) TlIK Af;K (IF .lOIIXSOX. 
 
 Ilidso which Johnson was best qnalified to elucidate, and 
 lie performed the second part of his task with litth^ zest 
 and a good deal of reluctance. ' I am seeking,' he writes, 
 lt>r ' something to say of men about whom I know nothing 
 but their verses, and sometimes very little of them.' The 
 (oil was irksome, and he was not unready to receive assist- 
 ance. ' The Life of YoiDKj was written at my request by a 
 gentleman [Sir Herbert Croft] who had better information 
 than I could easily have obtained.' In the case of Savage, 
 Johnson made use of the Life he had written nearly forty 
 vears before, just after his friend's death. Its length and 
 minuteness render it out of all proportion to the other 
 Lives. He had got the whole finished by Easter, 1781, 
 having written, as he tells us, ' in my usual way, dilatorily 
 and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour 
 and haste.' The result was a rough biographical history 
 of English poetry during the ages of Dryden and Pope.' 
 The style is much less pompous and sesquipedalian than 
 in his moral essays, though occasionally (as in his brutal 
 assault upon Lycidas, which drew from Cowper the remark 
 that he would like to dust his old jacket till his pension 
 jingled in the pocket) he seems almost wilfully perverse 
 and contentious. The robust common sense of many a stray 
 comment suggests a comparison with honest old Tom 
 Euller, a character with whom Johnson had not a little in 
 common, nor is the gay flicker of malice, so noteworthy in 
 Fuller, absent in his successor. 
 
 In April, 1781, Johnson lost his generous friend Henry 
 Thrale, a pi-osperous brewer, who gave him a regular 
 
 ^ For a good list of some of tlie more egregious errors, .see Pro- 
 fessor .J. W. Hales"s Introduction to the Bohn edition of the Lives, 
 1890, v(d. i., ])i). xix-xxi. A very interesting preliminary ' skeleton ' 
 of his Life of Pope, was given hy Di-<raeli in his Cariosities of 
 Literature, first series, ad fin.
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 17 
 
 ' asylum ' at bis large house at Streatliani ; and the three 
 remaining years of his life were, to a large extent, em- 
 bittered by his alienation from Thrale's widow, his former 
 l>upil, whom he had alternately flattered, caressed, and 
 tyrannized over for sixteen years. Deprived of the com- 
 fortable haven he had so long found in Thrale's family, he 
 endeavoured to find solace in his old resources, and even 
 started a new club and talked of a journey to Italy. At 
 the close of 1783 his health began to fail; but although 
 sorrowful and much perturbed by the fear of death and 
 liell, in which he firmly believed, he was not left desolate. 
 Many of his old club friends attended his death-bed, not- 
 ably Bennet Langtou, Windham, and Eeynolds, whom 
 he enjoined to read his Bible and not to paint on a Sunday. 
 Fanny Burney, whose Evelina he had acted with a c^uaint 
 buffoonery that delighted his intimates, Avept at his door. 
 Burke nearly broke down when he parted with his old 
 friend, saying, 'My dear sir, you have always been too 
 good for me.' On December 13th, 1784, he died, and 
 seven days later was laid to i-est in the Abbey. ' The 
 names of many greater writers are inscribed upon the 
 walls of Westminster Abbey ; but scarcely anyone lies 
 there whose heart was more acutely responsive during life 
 to the deepest and tenderest of human emotions. In 
 visiting that strange gathering of departed heroes and 
 statesmen, and philanthropists and poets, there are 
 many whose words and deeds have a far greater influence 
 i\\>on our imaginations, but there are very few whom, 
 when all has been said, we can love so heartily as Samuel 
 Johnson.' ' 
 
 Like Shakesjjcare, like Swift, and like Scott, Jolinson 
 attached an importance to the TrfjaKruwr jilor, greater than 
 
 ' See tlie perfect uioilel of a slioit life l).y Mr. liCsIie Sto|ilieii in 
 tlie Eiigliah ]Vritcn: 
 
 C
 
 18 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 that usual among men of letters. This cast of mind 
 enabled him to take up a manlier attitude for literature, 
 of which he was such a stalwart representative, than had 
 hitherto seemed feasible. His bravery, his love of truth, 
 his rugged integrity, the deep underlying tenderness of 
 his nature ('tears triclding down the granite rock' is the 
 l>icturesque i^hrase of Carlyle), contributed a type of 
 literary man calculated to win a respect for the profession 
 that could scarcely have been accorded to Dry den or to 
 Pope. The deep melancholy that overhimg his life en- 
 hances our respect for his valiant qualities and the spirit 
 of encouragement and helpfulness that he diffused about 
 him. In Johnson, Cowper, and Swift it seems hardly 
 fanciful to distinguish the preponderance respectively of 
 masculine, feminine, and neuter traits of the same hypo- 
 chondriacal malady. But there was little of Swift's cynical 
 misanthropy or of Cowper's shrinking timidity about 
 Johuson. He was as little of a hermit as his old ' patron ' 
 Chesterfield, and of a sj)irit as eminently qualified for 
 society. Chesterfield's arena happened to be the aristo- 
 cratic salon, while his was the literary tavern. Strangely 
 familiar as he has been rendered to us by an almost un- 
 paralleled sequence of brilliant writers and diligent editors, 
 there is yet one more anomaly to confront ere we take 
 leave of this extraordinary man : the last of the old Tories, 
 the last representative of many blunt, unfashionable faiths 
 and virtues, he is at the same time strangely aloof fi'om 
 us, and far more remote from our normal view-point than 
 almost any of his contemporaries. If Walpole or Grray 
 were to return to things sublunar they would call at the 
 Conservative Club and reciprocate gossip with Mr. Austin 
 Dobson or Mr. Grosse on terms of perfect ease or good- 
 fellowship ; and we can readily imagine Gibbon discussing 
 with Professor Bury the additions and emendations which
 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. ' 19 
 
 the lapse of time bad rendered necessary or desirable in 
 bis famous History, or Burke falling in witb the deference 
 of Mr. Balfour, or agreeing to differ on certain reserved 
 points witb sucb a sympatbetic critic as Mr. Morley. But 
 if Jobnson were to revisit tbe eartb and were to consent to 
 be present at a dinner of tbe literary fund, tbe managers of 
 tbat praiseworthy charity would i^robably find it scarcely less 
 difficult to place him than if Dean Swift himself were to swag- 
 ger up to the high table. The juxtaposition of Johnson and 
 Swift would be truly interesting. Assuming the soundness 
 of Pope's well-known proposition, humanity, since Shake- 
 speare, has had no properer students than these two men, 
 Tbe career of Oliver Goldsmith is a fitting appendix to 
 that of his almost parental adviser. Goldsmith was no 
 great critic, it is true, though apart from a few queer 
 prejudices be had an instinctive good taste ; but as an 
 essayist be is so charming that in his best work we have a 
 distinct foretaste of Charles Lamb, while as a literary 
 man-of-all-work (to use Scott's expressive phrase) he was 
 incomparably the most brilliant of bis own period, if not 
 of any period. 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith came of a clerical family, bis father, 
 
 ,„. ,, , , . , Charles Goldsmith, being vicar of Pallas- 
 Uhver Goldsiaitli ^ r^i- 7 
 
 (17-^8- 1774 ) uiore, where Oliver was born on Novem- 
 ber lOtli, 1728. The Irish Protestants 
 cherished the memory of Cromwell, and so it came that 
 Goldsmith bore the name of tbe stern Protector ; no two 
 great men ever bad less in common, unless it were Gold- 
 smith and his countryman Wellington. In 1730 Gold- 
 smith's father moved from ' Pallas ' to Lissoy, Killcenny 
 West, where the poet's early life was spent ; and there 
 no doubt be came under the sway of the village master : 
 
 ' A man severe he was and stern to vicAV, 
 I knew liiiii well and every truant knew :
 
 20 THE A(iE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 
 
 The day's disasters in his morning face : 
 
 Full Avell they laughed with counterfeited glee 
 
 At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; 
 
 Full well the busy whisper circling round 
 
 Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned. 
 
 Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught, 
 
 The love he bore to learning was in fault ; 
 
 The village all declared liow much he knew, 
 
 'Twas certain he could write and cypher too ; 
 
 Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 
 
 And e'en the story ran that he could gauge : 
 
 In arguing too the parson owned his skill ; 
 
 For e'en though van(piislied he could argue still ; 
 
 While words of learned length and thundering sound 
 
 Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ; 
 
 And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 
 
 That one small head could carry all he knew.' 
 
 Other liueamenis of Lissoy were afterwards blended 
 into the finished jjicture of ' sweet Auburn ' in The De- 
 serted Village, but if the poet really had Lissoy in his 
 mind it was Lissoy greatly idealized. The ejectment he 
 depicts so movingly he may indeed have seen in Munster ; 
 the rural paradise he is much more likely to have seen in 
 Surrey or Kent. 
 
 As a boy Goldsmith was ngly and dull, was constantly 
 in ill-health, and everywhere thought next door to a fool. 
 Nevertheless, he rhymed from an unusually early age, and 
 liis one good friend in the family, his ' Uncle Contarine,' 
 detected some latent wit in him. This discovery resulted 
 iu his being sent to a 'classical' in place of a hedge 
 school, and eventually, in June, 1745, he was sent as a 
 sizar to Trinity College, Dublin. His father died in 1747, 
 and even with the help of Uncle Contarine and a crown 
 now and again obtained from a bookseller for a street 
 Ijallad, the sizar had the utmost difficulty iu eking out his
 
 OLITER GOLDSMTTH, 21 
 
 finances and paying his numerous fines. He was continu- 
 ally in hot water, and his lawlessness reached a climax 
 when a nionth or so after his father's death he gave a 
 dance and su|)pcr in his college rooms to friends of both 
 sexes. His tutor entered the room in a rage and adminis- 
 tered a horsewhipping coram publico. He managed eventu- 
 ally in the same undistinguished kind of way as Swift to 
 scramble through his B.A. degree (February, 1749), and 
 then for about two years lounged about his mother's cot- 
 tage at Ballymahon ; a bishop would not ordain him — 
 they said because of his scarlet breeches. He threw up a 
 tutorship that was obtained for him, and after starting on 
 horseback and fairly provided with money for America 
 (where he might have anticipated Washington Irving), he 
 turned up again penniless at home. Again and again the 
 excellent Uncle Contarine supplied him with money for 
 outfit, and had to be content with some more or less true 
 talc about its disappearance. At last, in 1752, he started 
 for Edinburgh to study medicine. There in the students' 
 ' Medical Society ' he gave his contemporaries a notion of 
 what a clubbable man he might become under favourable 
 auspices, singing Irish songs, telling funny stories, and 
 writing an occasional letter with a taste in style already 
 formed and unerring. The whole of 1754 and 1755 he spent 
 abroad, rambling as far as Padua, where he is said to have 
 studied for six months, and visiting, among other places, 
 Paris, Strasburg, Leyden, and Louvain. He has often 
 been pictured as a musical mendicant, piping a merry 
 strain at the cottage door on a summer evening in the 
 south of France, with a Gainsborough landscape and Petit 
 Trianon peasants footing it to the music after the day's 
 toil. 
 
 He may, of course, have participated in such Arcadian 
 scenes as that depicted by E. M. Ward, or described by
 
 22 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Stonie in the l.ast section but one, ' The Grrace,' of the 
 Sentimental Jonrney, but the manner in which he sup- 
 ]iorted himself durino; these two years is in reality a com- 
 l»lete mystery. AVluit is certain is that he landed at 
 Dover on February 1st, 1756, and reached London shortly 
 afterwards in great destitution. He was then in rapid 
 succession usher in a country school, a chemist's assistant, 
 a physician in Baukside, Southwark, painfully carrying 
 his hat in such a manner as to conceal a patch in his 
 coat, a corrector of the press, and again an usher. While 
 ushering at Dr. Milner's, in Peckham, he met a book- 
 seller named Grriffiths, j^roprietor of The Monthly Review. 
 Griffiths divined the rich deposit of ' copy ' latent in the 
 young dominie and determined to annex it. In April, 1757, 
 accordingly, Griffiths installed him in his own house as 
 resident hack for The Reinew at an 'adequate' salary. 
 From Griffiths he was transferred as a going hackney to 
 other accredited jobmasters, such as Smollett (who ran The 
 Critical) and Newbery (purveyor of children's books in 
 St. Paul's Churchyard). His Chinese Letters,^ which ap- 
 peared in ISTewbery's PuUic Ledger during 1760, raised his 
 price and his reputation, and he moved into better lodgings 
 in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street. There he made the 
 acquaintance of Dr. Johnson. In 1764 he was one of the' 
 nine original members of the famous ' Club.' In this dis- 
 tinguished fraternity, of which Johnson was recognized as 
 
 ^ The Chinese Letters, containing the inimitahle humorous jjor- 
 trait of Beau Tibbs, were reprinted in 1762 as 77ie Citizen of the 
 World. In 1757 Horace Wali)ole had publislied anonymously a 
 squib called A Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese philosopher in London, 
 to Ills friend Lien Chi, at Pehiug. Goldsmitli, as 'scribbler general' 
 to The Monthly Eeviev-, described this as being in tlie manner of 
 Montesquieu — his Lcttres Persanes. The machinery of the Chinese 
 L^etfers was no doubt inunediately suggested to (loldsmitli by this 
 little tract. (See Dobson's Elyhtcenth Century Viyiiettes.)
 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 23 
 
 ruling elder, Goldsmith was the representative of poetry | 
 and light literature, Eeynolds of the arts, Burke of political ; 
 eloquence and political philosophy. There, too, were ; 
 Gibbon, the greatest historian, and Jones, the greatest \ 
 linguist, of the age ; while Garrick ' brought to the meetings 
 his inexhaustilile pleasantry, his incomparable mimicry, 
 and his consummate knowledge of stage effect.' In such 
 a company it is not to be marvelled at if ' Goldy ' sometimes 
 blundei-ed fearsomely when endeavouring ' to get in and 
 shine.' But though laughed at, he was sincerely loved by 
 his associates, and even Boswell, jealous though he was of 
 his fame and his intimacy with Joiinson, was not blind 
 either to the innate goodness of Goldsmith's disposition, or 
 to the drollery of many of his sallies. 
 
 In 1762, through Johnson's influence. Goldsmith, when 
 under arrest for debt, received =£60 for his yet unfinished 
 Vicar of WaJcefieJd. The work was published in 17G<>, and 
 established his reputation. Meanwhile, in 1764, the pub- 
 lication of The Traveller had brought him into the front 
 rank of living poets. In 1768 his comedy of The Good- 
 Natured Man was performed at Covent Garden theatre, but 
 was not a pronounced success. Two years later again, in 
 May, 1770, he published, with a singularly happy dedication 
 to Reynolds, his Deserted Village, which greatly increased 
 his fame as a poet. This was followed by his successful play 
 She Stoops to Conquer (see Chap. IX.), given at Covent Gar- 
 den in March, 1773. Meanwhile he had ' written for bread,' 
 or rather compiled with a flowing pen from materials that 
 came readiest to hand, his histories of England, Eome, and 
 Greece ; his biographies of ISTash and Voltaire ; and his 
 Animated Nature, drawn from Buffon with not a few gro- 
 tesque interpolations, such as his description of tigers in 
 Canada. He was latterly very well paid for his exertions, 
 but he was so constituted that whatever liis income might
 
 24 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 1)0 at a given time, lie would always sjiencl double the 
 aiuouiit. His debts induced a despondency of mind (illus- 
 trated in liis welldvnown answer to liis physician, 'Is your 
 mind at rest F ' ' No, it is not '), and a low fever carried him 
 oft" on April 4th, 1774, aged only forty-five. He was buried 
 in the grounds of the Temple Church. A quaint testimony 
 to Johnson's literai'y supremacy was the ' round robin ' 
 addressed to him, requesting an epitaph for ' poor Goldy.' 
 In response Johnson penned the immortal phrase, true at 
 least of him to Avhom it was first applied : 
 
 ' Nullum feve scribendi genus uon tetinit, 
 Nniuiiu (|U()(1 teti.n'it non oriiavit. ' 
 
 After his death were printed his clever jeu d^esprit, The 
 Haunch of Venison, and the noble fragment, Retaliation, 
 written in self-defence during a brief literary craze for com- 
 l^osing verse epitaphs. Here Goldsmith not only vindicated 
 his genius, and, as usual, surpassed all comers, but in the 
 l)ro])hetic description of Burke and the masterly delinea- 
 lion of Reynolds he perhaps surpassed anything that he 
 had yet written. 
 
 More imjiortant than the extravagant and somewhat 
 saddening, though often ridiculous, records of his later life 
 in London are the scanty notices we have of Goldsmith's 
 early career. For much of Goldsmith's very best work is 
 closely reminiscent, and he had an extraordinary gift for 
 heightening the serio-comic adventures of his discursive 
 ]iilgrimage toAvard manhood. The goal of manhood he can 
 liardly be said to have attained, for he remained until the 
 last a great baby ; he was in reality that for which Maeaulay 
 and Dickens mistook Boswell, an ' inspired oaf.' He had 
 scai'cely any thought in his composition ; as he told Johnson, 
 he could argue best by himself. But what Johnson called 
 his ignorance constitiited Goldsmith's stock-in-trade. In-
 
 OLIYRR GOLDSMITH. 25 
 
 difference to the literary ideals of the time allowed free play 
 to the excellent, gentle humour, which found its natural ex- 
 pression in his comedies, antagonistic in conception as they 
 were to the sentimental tlramas of the day. He managed, 
 similarly, to retain among all the formalisms of the fashion 
 the great gift of natural fun, partly inherited, in part de- 
 rived fx'om his close contact with the people. In his poetry, 
 apart from the easy flow, the cjualities which distinguish 
 him most above the level of the school of Poj)e are the 
 traits of artless nature, the semi-colloquial emphasis with 
 which certain words or phrases are hap[)ily repeated, the 
 unstudied wealth of metaphors. The even flow of his 
 narrative, which so excites our admiration, indicates the 
 profit that he derived from a discriminating admiration for 
 Voltaire and the limpid French prose of that day. Amiable, 
 various and bland, it needs his own pen, as Hazlitt says, 
 to describe the careless inimitable grace with which he 
 illustrates every kind of excellence. 
 
 Groldsmith had little originality ; he could do nothing 
 without a model before him. But althouQ-li essentiallv 
 imitative, whatever he touched he improved. It is not 
 improbable that Goldsmith got some hints for Dr. Pi-im- 
 rose from his eccentric contemporary, William Whiston, 
 the ' monogamaniac,' and The Vicar is undoubtedly under 
 obligations to Fielding's ' Parson Adams ' and to a little 
 piece called The History of Mrs. Stanton, but the best 
 touches are all Goldsmith's own. No praise can really be 
 too high for Goldsmith's style. If he had never written 
 anything but the first two or three chapters of The Vicar 
 of Wakefield they would have stamped him as a man of 
 genius. Goldsmith begins by the taking admission, ' there 
 are a hundred faults in this thing.' The chief fault is the 
 plot, which has been shown by Graik and others to be a 
 niei'e tissue of absurdities. Its shortcomings did not jn-event
 
 26 THE AOE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 tlio l)oolc from captivcating Europe. In Germany it pro- 
 duced, if possible, a greater impression even tliau in France. 
 Goethe derived from it liis first conceptioii of world litera- 
 ture and many of liis ' early moral ideas.' Jules Sandeau 
 lias depicted with force the conquest of its touching sini- 
 l»licitv over a strong Philistine disdain. What reader is 
 there in the world who is not the better for the story of the 
 washes which the worthy Dr. Primrose demolished so de- 
 liberately with the poker ; for the knowledge of the guinea 
 which the Miss Primroses kept imchanged in their pockets ; 
 the adventure of the picture of the Vicar's family, which 
 could not be got into the house; the group of the Flam- 
 borough family, all painted with oranges in their hands ; 
 or the story of the case of shagreen spectacles and the 
 cosmogony ? ^ 
 
 The decline of the classical English essay proceeded 
 rapidly when Johnson and Goldsmith ceased to write, and 
 those who had upheld it diverged naturally along the two 
 
 ' Tlie appearance of The Vicar, as Taine justly remarks, is a 
 turning-point in the history of the novel. ' The moment ap- 
 ])roaches when purified manners, ity purifying the novel, impress 
 upon it its final character. Of the two great tendencies mani- 
 fested by it, native hrutality and iiitense reflection, one at 
 la^t conquers the other : literature, grown severe, expels from 
 fiction tlie coarseness of Smidlett and the indecencies of Sterne ; 
 and the novel, in every respect moral, before falling into the 
 almost ]>rudisli hands of Miss Burney, passes into the noble hands 
 of (loldsmith. His Vicar of Wakefield is "a prose idyl," some- 
 what spoilt by phrases too well written, but at bottom as homely 
 as a Flemish picture. (Jbserve in Terburg or Mieris' paintings a 
 woman at market or a burgomaster emptying his long glass of 
 beer : the faces are vulgar, the ingenuousness is comical, the 
 cookery occupies the i)lace of honour ; yet these good folk are so 
 jieaceful, so contented with their small but secure happiness, that 
 we envy them. The impression left by (Joldsmitirs hook is pretty 
 much the same."
 
 JOSEPH WARTOX. 27 
 
 j^aths of fiction and criticism, the lattei' of wliicli we have 
 now to follow. 
 
 Conspictious among the men of letters who flourished 
 under Georire III. wei^e the two Wartons, both men of 
 high culture and critics of no little erudition and influence, 
 both also poets, and both alike to a great extent forgotten 
 or indistinguishably confused. 
 
 Joseph Warton, the elder of the two, was born in 1722, 
 and educated at Winchester (where Collins 
 (1722 18001 '^'^ ^^^ ^^^^ schoolfellow) and Oriel. On leav- 
 ing Oxford he enjoyed for a time, on terms 
 which can hardly be deemed other than humiliafing, the 
 pati'onage of the Duke of Bolton ; but this connection 
 terminated abruptly, Warton returning to England fi-om 
 the Continent without having performed the special ser- 
 vice for which he was retained. He produced in 1753 his 
 edition of Virgil and his translation of the Georgics, in 
 which he laments the necessity of using such coarse and 
 common words as plough, sow, dung, ashes, calculated 
 in his opinion to disgust every elegant reader. He was 
 still too much under the dominion of the circumlocution 
 mania, which prescribed that English poets of the age of 
 Pope should call a woman ' a fair,' fish ' the scaly tribe,' 
 and a caterpillar ' the crawling scourge that smites the 
 leafy plain.' Joseph Warton also wrote for Hawkesworth's 
 Adventurer and other periodicals pending his appointment 
 at Winchester as second master. While there he produced, 
 in 1757, the fii'st volume of his ponderous Essay on the 
 Genius and Writings of Pope, a work long held as a model 
 of critical thoroughness, and not without interest now as 
 showing the clearness of Warton's insight into the different 
 k'inds of poetical excellence. 'The sublime and the pathetic,' 
 he wrote, ' are the two chief nerves of all genuine poesy.' 
 Wliat is there transcendently sublime or pathetic in Pope ?
 
 28 THE APxE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 He applies to that Y>oet the character assigned by Voltaire to 
 Boileaii as the poet of reason, concluding that a clear head 
 atid acute understanding are not sufficient alone to make 
 a poet. ' The most solid observations on human life,' he 
 adds, ' expressed with the utmost elegance and brevity, are 
 morality and not poetry. ... It is a creative and glowing 
 imagination, acer sj]iritus ac vis. and that alone, that can 
 stamp a writer with this exalted and very uncommon 
 character.' Pope's great qualities ai-e indeed fully recog- 
 nized, but the recognition is counterbalanced by demands 
 which showed the advent of a new era — one in which the 
 greatness of wit and sense should be placed below great- 
 ness of imagination. Warton's book was dedicated to 
 Young, and when the second volume was published, in 
 1782, the first was revised, with an introductory epistle by 
 Tvrwhitt, who writes that under the shelter of Warton's 
 authority one might perhaps now venture ' to avow an 
 opinion that poetry is not confined to rhyming couplets.' 
 
 After eleven years as assistant, Warton succeeded Dr. 
 
 Burton as head master of Winchester, a post which he 
 
 j filled with distinction and marked success down to 1793. 
 
 ' Joseph Warton was a member of the Literary Club, but 
 
 ' was very rarely seen there, though he was known, and for 
 
 the most part esteemed, by the individual members. 
 
 Cowper expressed great respect for him as a critic ; his 
 
 verses are deservedly forgotten. 
 
 Thomas Warton, the younger and more worthily re- 
 membered of the brothers, was born at 
 (i-->s Fom Basingstoke in 1728. While at Trinity 
 
 College, Oxford, he wrote verses, and in 
 1754 published his Observations on the Faerie Qneene, 
 of which Johnson wrote in generous praise : ' You have 
 shown to all who shall hereafter attempt the study of 
 our ancient aiithors, the way to success by directing
 
 THOMAS WARTON. 29 
 
 lliem to the perusal of the books which those authors had 
 ]'ead.' They were afterwards uu happily estranged, Wartou 
 being one of the very rare friends that Johnson lost. It 
 appears that Johuson sneered at his poetry, while he was 
 equally contemptuous of Johnson's literary judgment. 
 Except in learning and laziness (the promise of both far 
 exceeding the performance), they had not, perhaps, much 
 in common. Tom Warton was described as the most 
 under-bearing person that breathed, and, like old Robert 
 Burton, he preferred the society of persons of mean rank 
 to that of literary bigwigs. He also delighted in school- 
 boys, and nsed to play amusing pranks with his brother's 
 pupils at Winchester. 
 
 After Johnson's own Lives of the Poets, Warton's 
 History of Emjlish Poetry (1774-81) was the most notable 
 contributiou of the age to a department in which Great 
 Britain has rarely shone, that of literary criticism. Warton's 
 theme was a much more arduous one than Johnson's. 
 Both Pope and Gray had meditated a history of the 
 different schools of English poetry, and Gray even made 
 over some of his plans to his Oxford rival. Warton 
 found the scheme of ranging the poets under different 
 schools impracticable, and preferred to work chronologic- 
 ally — tracing from the earliest time down to 1600 the 
 influence the classic and romantic movements exercised in 
 turn upon English poetry. 
 
 In spite of tlie lawlessness of Warton's style and 
 methods, we feel ourselves, in reading him, under the 
 guidance of a strong, acute, an<l fearless mind, which 
 refused to be boun<l by conventions, and which steers its 
 way boldly thi'ough regions often completely unexplored. 
 The writer's reading and learning were l»otli prodigious, 
 and the digressions show frec|uently a grasp and origin- 
 ality which go far to atone for the irrelevance. The age
 
 30 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 of The Divine Legation was indeed one of supei'-erudite 
 irrelevaucies. It is needless to say that such a work 
 abounded in errors, many to be imputed to the hazards of 
 a first exploration, or to the state of learning at the time ; 
 others, beyond question, to Warton's consummate laziness. 
 Ritson, whose abstinence from animal food cannot be said 
 to have improved his temper, attacked the History 
 venomously, commencing a minute and carping inquisi- 
 tion upon the book by traversing Warton's opening 
 sentence. When all deduction is made, however, the 
 book marks an epoch. If it was not his to solve the 
 problems of his subject, Warton was at least the first to 
 understand and propound many of the problems that have 
 to be dealt with. He, moreover, expressed a feeling which 
 was unknown to the school of Pope — a movement of 
 sympathy towards the bedrock of Teutonic romance upon 
 which the wonderful aptitude of the race for intense 
 poetry is based. 
 
 Thomas Warton had been appointed professor of poetry 
 at Oxford in 1757, and in 1785 he Avas made laureate. The 
 chajjlet, fresh from the brows of Tate and Gibber, he handed 
 on with but little additional glory to Whitehead and Pye. 
 It is not his Birthday Odes, but his careful cultivation of 
 the despised sonnet-form that gives him his small but 
 certain claim to commemoration as a poet. He handed 
 on the torch to Thomas Russell and to Bowles ; but apart 
 from this influence, which is undoubted, some of Warton's 
 own compositions in this form deserve to be examined. That 
 ' written in a blank leaf of Dugdale's Monasticon,' ending — 
 
 ' Nor roiigli nor barren are tlie winding M'ays 
 Of hoar Antiquity, but strown with flowers,' 
 
 was warmly praised by Charles Lamb, to whom the senti- 
 ment was congenial. None of Warton's sonnets are, it
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 31 
 
 must be admitted, free from grave technical defects (and 
 the rhyming is indifferent — thus, ' flowers ' above rhymes 
 with ' explores ') ; but they all show, as his other poetry 
 does to a less extent, the influence of good antique models 
 (especially of Milton's early poetry) and the stirring of an 
 original and genuine though sluggish jjoetical impulse. 
 
 With increasing years Warton grew fonder of his ale 
 and his pipe, of Oxford and of slumber. He was always 
 good-natured and gentle, especially to children. He got 
 decidedly fat, and Johnson said his talk resembled the 
 gobble of a turkey-cock. He was uniformly poj^ular at 
 Oxford, and when he died in 1790, at the age of sixty- 
 two, his funeral was attended by the vice-chancellor and 
 by all the heads. It was suggested upon Warton's death 
 that Cowper might set up a claim for the laureateship, a 
 proposition to which Cowper's response was, ' Heaven 
 guard my brains ! ' 
 
 The dawn of what is now called romanticism is seen to 
 be flushing in the writings of the Wartons^ and in the 
 contemporary poems of Collins, but the critical writings 
 of Thomas Gray ^ best represent the historic and poetic 
 study of literature that held so fair a promise for the future. 
 Unhappily Gray never brought his critical Organou to frui- 
 tion, though in 1770, as we have seen, he sent a quantity 
 of material to Thomas Warton. Warton did his best and 
 made a rude trench, as it were, through a vast accumula- 
 tion of materials ; but neither his culture nor his genius 
 were adequate to do justice to the delicate intuitions and 
 the catholic taste of such a profound connoisseur and 
 critic as Gray. The latter, by a somewhat cowardly re- 
 
 ' See NVaitou\s PoeiiLs in the eighteenth vohuue oi Chahaers's 
 English Poems, 1810 ; .see also Dennis '« Studies in Eitylish Litera- 
 ture, 1876, The Wartous. 
 
 ■^ For a .sketch of Gray'.s Ufe, see Cliap. X.
 
 32 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 uuuciatioii of a great task for wliicli he was iu almost 
 every respect pre-eminently fitted, retarded the growth in 
 England of a wide cosmopolitan school of criticism, such 
 as we now associate most readily with the name of Cole- 
 ridge. Nevertheless, Gray's letters and fragments afford 
 a mine rich in suggestions for a liberal and scholarly 
 criticism. The seventeenth century had explored the 
 writers of antiquity too often in a ' dry as dust ' fashion as 
 a mine for precedents and citations. Since the conspiracy 
 of Swift, Arbuthnot, and Boliugbroke against ' the pedants,' 
 they had been cruelly neglected. Now Gray frequently 
 cites them, but he does so in a discerning way and with 
 the familiarity of ohl and close acquaintanceship. He 
 questions some of the conclusions of Puttenham and Sid- 
 ney ; he admires the picturesqueness of Froissart, the 
 ' Herodotus of his age ' ; he also knew Villehardouin and 
 Commines. Pausauias and Athenseus he read through 
 more than once. 'I take verse and prose,' he wrote, ' together 
 like bread and cheese.' He lived with the old poets ; read 
 and re-read ^schylus and Pindar and the Greek epigram- 
 matists ; was familiar with Chaucer and even with Lydgate. 
 Later on he loved Racine and Gresset, and in Johnson's 
 despite waxed enthusiastic over Eousseau and his Emile. 
 ' Remember Dryden ; be blind to his faults,' he concludes 
 one his letters. There is no trivial preciosity about his 
 judgments; he spoke highly of stanzas in The Castle of 
 Indolence ; appreciated Montesquieu and Buffon ; delighted 
 in Clarendon's Continuation, and was an excellent critic of 
 Sbenstone. ' He goes hopping about his own gravel walks, 
 and never deviates from the beaten path for fear of being 
 lost.' He is in a characteristic mood in his letter to Hurd 
 of August, 1757, which helps to explain his non-achieve- 
 ment of some of the great things posterity would have had 
 from him. 'To be employed is to be happy. This
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 33 
 
 principle of mine (and I am convinced of its trutli) lias, as 
 usual, no influence on my practice. I am alone and enmiye 
 to the last degree, yet do nothing. Indeed, I have one 
 excuse. My health is not extraordinary— ever since I 
 came hither [to Stoke]. It is no great malady, but several 
 little ones that seem brewing no good to me. It will be a 
 particular pleasure to me to know whether content dwells 
 in Leicestershire, and how she entertains herself there. 
 Only do not be too happy, nor forget entirely the quiet 
 ugliness of Cambridge.' His expertness in dating archi- 
 tecture, his tastes for gardening and heraldry betokened 
 the virtuoso. But where he really surpassed his age was 
 his much deeper love for nature. His comments in his 
 Linnaius, says Arnold, are those of an intelligent natural- 
 ist. His notes on the signs of the approach of summer 
 almost suggest the delicacy of Richard Jefferies. He notes 
 the changes of the landscape in the progress of the dav ; 
 marks the hoar frost that melts and exhales in a thiu 
 bluish smoke ; rejoices in the tender emerald green pre- 
 served late in the summer by the long rains. What sensi- 
 tiveness to colour is there in his description of Saddleback, 
 whose 'fuiTowed sides were gilt by the" noonday sun, 
 while its brow appeared of a sad purple from the shadow 
 of the clouds as they sailed slowly by it.' Both he and 
 Cowper, more directly perhaps in their letters than in 
 their poems, show themselves prophetic of Wordsworth 
 and Tennyson. Gray expressed what many cultured minds 
 felt, and this closer affection for the varying moods of 
 nature is symptomatic of the change of sentiment which 
 the Lake school was to consecrate. No less important as 
 a symptom of the growing revolt against the self-com- 
 lilacency of the moralizing grand siecle was Gray's interest 
 in the j^ioneers of our English literature, and in the old 
 Norse and Icelandic mythology as revealed now for the 
 
 D
 
 34 TIIK AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 first time on a large scale in Mallett's splendid monument 
 of Scandinavian lore.' 
 
 The horizon was, in fact, simultaneously widening in 
 several directions. Richard Kurd's Letters on Chivalry 
 and Romance- (1762), in which he vindicated Gothic litera- 
 ture and art from the imputation of barbarism, gave the 
 signal in England for that Gothic delirium Avhich, though 
 for a time disfigured by ignorant extravagance, was yet in 
 a generation or two to confer such signal benefits on litera- 
 ture by refreshing it with new images and providing it 
 with new enthusiasms. Such books as Spence's Polymetis 
 (1747), Stuart's Antiquities of Athens (1762), and Wood's 
 Essay on the Genius of Homer (1771), indicate a powerful 
 revival of curiosity in a remoter past. The great revival 
 of Shakespeare criticism and research by men like Capell, 
 Steevens, and Malone, editions like Tyrwhitt's Chaucer 
 
 ' The first book in Europe to excite a wide interest in northern 
 mythology and the literature of the Eddas Avas the Introduction a 
 rhistoire de Danncinarc of the Genevese, Paul Henri Mallett 
 (1730-1807), published in 1755. The first two volumes of this 
 important Avork were translated by Bishop Percy in 1770 as 
 Northern. Antiqiritics. In the meantime, in its French garb the 
 l)Ook had profoundly impressed Gray and his disciples. Mac- 
 pherson claimed to illustrate Erse poetry. The claims of the 
 Welsh bards were first set forth in Evan Evans' Sjiecinicns of the 
 Poetry of the Anticnt Welsh m 1764. Under such auspices wild 
 and picturesque poetry became the rage both in England and in 
 Europe among the advanced school of critics. The chief repre- 
 sentative of the new taste was Gray. Johnson rallied the con- 
 servatives to the standards of Dryden and Pope. Walpole (who 
 stuck in the middle of Mallett) occupied a midway position. At 
 heart he was an Augustan, but in his desire to be in the moitvcment 
 and his love of novel and uncommon opinions he struggled to keep 
 abreast with Gray and Ritson. 
 
 - Kurd's book seems to have owed its inspiration, at least in 
 some measure, to Sainte-Palaye's Memoires snr Vancienne Che- 
 Valerie, the first volume of which appeared in 1759.
 
 MINOR CRITICS. 35 
 
 (1775-8), and collections like Grose's Antiquities of Scotland 
 (1791), all point in the same direction. Men were groping 
 in various directions for materials as instruments of the 
 historical criticism which Middleton had used with such 
 effect in his Essay on Miracles. Highly valuable in this 
 respect wei'e the elucidations of mediaeval handwriting 
 embodied in Thomas Astle's Origin and Progress of Writing 
 (1784). But the importance of these and similar new and 
 significant investigations is overshadowed in importance 
 by the Beliques of Ancient Poetry, published by Dr. 
 Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, in 1765, a sufficiently 
 uncritical collection of ballads, some genuine and old, others 
 hopelessly corrupted.^ But the book mai'ks an epoch, 
 for from 1765 dates a lasting interest in our older poetry 
 and our rich ballad literature. Less successful exploi'ers 
 in the same field, such as Joseph Ritson (1752-1803), were 
 green with envy, and the old school, as represented by 
 Warburton and Johnson, were not sparing in their con- 
 demnation and contempt. More discerning critics were 
 full of encouragement, and the impulse once given, the re- 
 action towards romanticism in poetry was fairly launched. 
 Na'ive old ballads such as Chev y Clni.^', which had stirred 
 tlie 1)lood of Sir Philip Sidney two lumdred years before, 
 were resuscitated from tlieir long sleep and supplied to" 
 imaginative youth towards the close of the century a 
 
 ' Percy gives 176 hallads ; of these tlie nucleus was a folio 
 manuscript written al)out l(j30, containing 191 songs and ballads, 
 some fragmentary. Oi these Percy took 45. Other originals he 
 derived from MSS. in the Pepysian, Ashmolean, and Bodleian 
 liljraries, and he included some printed ballads and a few furnished 
 by the Society of Anti(|uaries, by AV'arton and Sir David Dal- 
 i-ymple. He restored and filled in lacnnjc with a free liand, and 
 some oi the poems are almost entirely his own. The liberties he 
 took were first revealed in Dr. f^univall's edition of the nucleus- 
 folio, 1868.
 
 36 III!'; A'iK ')K JOHNSON. 
 
 incntiil food f\\\\\r (lifCcvout from that in whic;!) tlujir fathers 
 ;iii<l ;jjrau(lfa,thors had heen reared. The dawn of a n(!W 
 kind of taste, a fe(.'lin<,^ for nature 'when imadorncd, 
 adorned the most,' is well represented in a sort of hall' 
 lament in one of iiic interesting essays of Vieesimns Knox 
 (1752-1821 ), himself in certain respects one of tlx' jiioneers 
 of the new ]>oetical reformation. 
 
 ' The auti(|uariiin spirit,' he says, ' which was once i-on- 
 fined to enquiries concerning the manners, the buildings, 
 the records, and the coins of the ages that preceded us, 
 has now extended itself to those })oetical compositions 
 wliich were popular among our forefathers, but which 
 liave gradually sunk into oblivion through the decay of 
 language, and th«! ])reval(mc(! of a correct and polished 
 taste. Thus the po]>ular ballad, composed by some illiter- 
 ate minstrel, and which has been handed down by tradi- 
 tion for several centuries, is rescued from the bands of t he 
 vulgar to obtain a jilace in the collection of the man of 
 taste. Verses which a few years past werci thought 
 worthy the attention of children only, or of the lowest 
 and rud(!st orders, are now admired for that artless sim- 
 |>licity which onc(! obtained the name of coarseness and 
 vulgarity.' .Siniihir complaints had been heard, expressed 
 in somewhat more ambiguous language, in Goldsmith's 
 Enqviry info the, Present State of Polite Learnhuj {\7'}\)), 
 
 Such passages show that the literati of the day were 
 not unconscious of the critical issue which was being 
 joined. Johnson was the champion of the older Augustan 
 school of Pope and Boileaii, and his sympathies and argu- 
 ments were ever on the side of the symmetry, the restraint, 
 tlie decorum, and all the conventicms of the great classical 
 tec[ini((ue. lie aske<l the ])rofessors of letters to submit 
 to the old discipline, tlic established rules, to copy the 
 recognized models and comiily wIlli the ol(l conventions.
 
 THE RENAISSANCE OF ROMANCE. o7 
 
 Like Goldsiuitli, lie disliked, as a ' licentious ' and erroneous 
 innovation, the ' disgusting solemnity ' of blank verse. He 
 heartily despised romantic ' fopperies ' and all new-fangled 
 modes in literature.^ He Avas there to chastise lawlessness, 
 and, if necessary in the interests of correctness and pro- 
 priety, he would chastise Milton himself. On the other 
 side was a school, somewhat apologetically led by the 
 Wartons. who, surfeited with Pope's rhetorical devices, 
 fatigued by his portable platitudes and the uurelaxing 
 brilliance and compression of the language in which he 
 embalmed them, sought deliverance in poetry of a more 
 intense, aspiring, and imaginative order. With the grow- 
 ing enthusiasm for Spenser (exhibited in imitations and 
 studies such as those of Thomson, Shenstone, and Mickle) 
 went an increasing love of landscape effects in poetry and 
 a ])assion for the elemental forces of nature, in striking 
 contrast to the narrow \u-T)an and gregarious proclivities 
 of Queen Anne's day. The medianalism of Gray and 
 W'alpole furnished the new romantic school Avith an almost 
 unlimited supply of new constructive material, and the 
 new movement, despite the jeers of Johnson and Colman, 
 and the unbending conservatives, Avent on steadily, if some- 
 what circuitously, till it culminated in the masterpieces 
 of Bvron and Shellev, of Wordsworth and Walter Scott. 
 
 ' Johnson Wiixod very merry over tlie ballad of The C/iildrcii in 
 f/ir ]Vi>o(f, the stanzas of which he thus jiarotlied : 
 
 ' 1 |iiU my lial iiiioii my lii'ad 
 
 And walked into llie Strand ; 
 And tiiere I met another man 
 
 Wliose hat was in Ids hand." 
 
 As fur Chci'ii Vliusi , he said ' there is a eidll and lifeles> imheeility 
 ahont it. The story cannot i»ossihly ho t(dd in a manner that shall 
 make les> impression on the mind.' AVe can conceive what his 
 opinion would have heen of ll'c arc Seven.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MEMOIRS AND LETTERS. 
 
 Bishop Burnet in his History of his Own Time had shown 
 the way in which contemporary history, coinpounded with 
 plenty of gossip and conjecture, could be rendered highly 
 entertaining. The path which he had traced was followed 
 — much less formally, it is true — by Lord Hervey in his 
 malicioiis but enlivening Memoirs of the Beign of George II. 
 (written in the early forties of the eighteenth century, 
 though not published until 1848). Hervey's greater suc- 
 cessor as a chroniqueur was Horace Waljiole. Closely 
 allied to these Memoirs are the chronicles not restricted 
 to politics, but embracing literature and travel, rej^re- 
 sented by the clever Letters of Lady Mary Wortley 
 Montagu. 
 
 After the middle of the century this kind of work multi- 
 plied abundantly. The golden age of letter-writing in 
 England set in, and many of the best writers and the 
 most cultured Avits gave off as a by-product, if not a 
 budget of letters, then either memoirs and chronicles or 
 autobiographies, in which history and personal gossip 
 (with its feminine, scandal) are blended with character- 
 drawing and introsjDective study. 
 
 If a question of primacy were raised we should be in- 
 clined to assign the first place to Cowper, for though he 
 threw his nets far less widely than Walpole, yet in depth
 
 MEMOIRS AND LETTERS. 39 
 
 of feeling and in artless, spontaneous eliarui, his letters 
 have no equal. ^ Then there are the delightful letters of 
 Grray. We have but few letters of Goldsmith, though we 
 have some interesting fragments of portraiture and a most 
 graceful specimen of biography in his Memoir of Richard 
 Nash. Hume and Gibbon both left autobiographical 
 work of very great, though unequal interest. But as 
 Cowper, Gray, Goldsmith, Hume, and Gibbon were re- 
 spectively poets, essayists, or historians in the first place, 
 and letter or memoir writers only in the second, the three 
 great writers with whom we have to deal most fully under 
 this head, as owing their fame pi'imarily either to epistolary 
 or biographic work, are Lord Chesterfield, Horace Walj^ole, 
 and James Boswell. 
 
 It might well be contended that the first place among 
 the miscellaneous prose-writers of our period belongs to 
 Lord Chesterfield, one of the greatest masters of English 
 prose style. He is a brilliant acquisition to English 
 letters, for he added to them some of the grace that Mmc. 
 de St'vigne and St. Simon had lent to the literature of 
 France. He showed that as a vehicle for the nicest jjoints 
 of communication, for diplomacy, for the minutiae of in- 
 struction, and for the elegant turns which give an air of 
 suave refinement to the most trivial narration, or mitigate 
 the shai'p edge of a strict injunction or an implied rei^i'oof, 
 
 ' The canon of Letter- Writing is laid down rather well by 
 Mackintosh. The letters of Walpole and CJray api)ear to him 
 imitative (of Mme. de Sevigne), formal, and too extraordinary, 
 excellent though tliey are as regards matter. ' Letters must not 
 be on a subject. J^ady INIary W'ortley's letters on her joui-ney to 
 Constantinople are an admirable book of travels, but they are not 
 letters. A meeting to discuss a question of science is not a con- 
 versation, nor arc jiapcrs written to another to inform or discuss, 
 letters. Conversation is relaxation, not business, and nuist never 
 apijcar to be occu[iatiou ; nor must letters.'
 
 40 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 our language could quite well comj^ete witli any in Euroj^e. 
 It lias to be realized that Chesterfield entered a world in 
 whieli Clarendon and Temple were accepted as elegant 
 models. It is true that Swift and Defoe had done much 
 to simplify and to shorten the sentence, while Pope in his 
 letters, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in her much 
 livelier ones, had considerably advanced the art of fluent 
 narration ; but no one probably did more than Chester- 
 field to regularize and abbreviate or to purge the Avritten 
 language of vulgarity and of ambiguity and of superfluous 
 2>arenthesis. 
 
 The training that surrounded the youthful Chesterfield 
 
 was thoroughly aristocratic at every point. 
 
 Pliilii) Dormer The son of an earh and the grandson on 
 
 'IfchXVfteia ^"^ mother's side of the witty Marquis of 
 
 (1694-1773). Halifax, he was baptized at St. James's, 
 
 Piccadilly (October, 1694), and educated at 
 Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he acquired an enthusiasm 
 for the Latin classics, against which he thought it right 
 to be on his guard. He subsequently graduated in Flanders 
 in the petty court attached to the Duke and Duchess of 
 Marlborough. At twenty-one l:!e became a Gentleman 
 of the Bedchamber and a Member of Parliament. He 
 also became a member of the famous oligarchical strong- 
 hold of White's and a familiar figure in the most exclu- 
 sive salons of Paris. In 1 726 he took his seat in the 
 House of Lords, and two years later Itecame ambassador 
 at the Hague. Walpole's antipathy ])rocured his dis- 
 missal, and he went on to offend the king by marrying 
 his half-sister (a natural daughter of George I.) with- 
 out making the least effort to disguise the fact that the 
 attraction that he had in view was exclusively pecuniary. 
 Nevertheless, when the Pelhams came in, at the beginning 
 of 1745, Chesterfield was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ire-
 
 LOKD CHES'J'ERFIELD. 41 
 
 laud, and next year lie was appointed oue of the two 
 secretaries of state. But be retired in 1748, from wliicli 
 date until his death on March 24th, 1773, he lived in 
 literary, and at the same time influential and dignified, 
 retirement. Shortly before his death he wrote, ' Tyrawly 
 and I have been dead these two years, but we do not wish 
 it to be generally known'; his last words were, ' G-ive 
 Dayrolles a chair' — his good breeding only quitted him 
 with his life. In his lifetime he authorized the i:)ublica- 
 tiou only of a few political tracts. T!ie famous Letters to 
 his natural son, Philip ' Stanhope,' though never intended 
 in any way for publicity, were published by the son's 
 widow a year after his death in two volumes (1774). 
 His supplementary Letters, addressed to his godson, also 
 Philip Stanhope, who subsequently became fifth Earl of 
 Chesterfield, were first published in 1817. The two series 
 of Letters were originally written during the ])eriod rang- 
 ing from 1737 to 1770. " 
 
 As an educationist it must be admitted that Chester- 
 field in his Letters exhibited less than his usual penetration 
 and savoir faire. The direction of these little masterpieces 
 of tact aud worldly wisdom to a tough, irresi)onsive, Dutch- 
 built youth such as Chesterfield's son actually was, might 
 seem almost worthy of being classed among j^athetic in- 
 stances of parental delusion ; Init this peculiar epistolary 
 didacticism seems to have become almost a monomania 
 with Chesterfield — witness the letters Avritten to the god- 
 son loner after the failure of the like treatment in the case 
 of the son. There can, indeed, 1m' little doubt that Ches- 
 terfield definitely injured his son by drying uji the reservoirs 
 of boyish enthusiasm and of the boisterous mirth natural 
 to the period of youth. Later exi)erimentalists have gone 
 on quite different lines, and modern practice is all on the 
 side of the games Jind exercises which Chesterfield so
 
 42 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 heartily despised, as tending to j^repare the secretions that 
 enable a man to be formidable and successful in later 
 life. His idea was apparently to falsify the maxim, Si 
 jennesse savait ! si vieillesse po^ivait ! — or, according to the 
 darker view of Chesterfield,^ to manufacture an Alcibiades 
 out of a modest student. 
 
 But from every other point of view than that of im- 
 mediate applicability these Letters of Chesterfield con- 
 stitute an addition of a peculiar interest to our literature, 
 esj^ecially in regard to the nervous elegance of the English 
 style in which they are written. Voltaire spoke of Chester- 
 field as the most graceful of our writers. Wordsworth, 
 Avitli great insight, regarded him as the last great English 
 prose-writer before Johnson ' vitiated the language.' 
 Landor exj^ressed a similar view. Sainte-Beuve assigns his 
 work the milieu between Telemachus and the Mr moires of 
 Grrammont ; ' but it is a rich book,' he adds : ' you cannot 
 read one page of it without having to remember some 
 hajipy observation.' 
 
 By typical Anglo-Saxons such as Johnson, Carlyle, 
 Macaulay, Chesterfield has not unnaturally been held in 
 antipathy. ' This lord's directioiis concerning washing the 
 face and paring the nails are indeed trustworthy ' ; the 
 minores virtutes which were Chesterfield's preoccui^ation 
 and absorbing study did not greatly appeal to Johnson or 
 Carlyle. The severe indictment of Chesterfield (by Cowper) 
 as the ' gray-beard corrupter of our listening youth ' is even 
 more unfair. A person of great moral elevation may be 
 permitted to express the malaise which he experiences in 
 reading La Rochefoucauld. Yet, as a faithful presenta- 
 tion of human selfishness and pettiness, the ' odious 
 mirror ' has a very pertinent use indeed in showing us 
 
 ' A« embodied in the clever study of Cliestertield by Fhilarete 
 < 'luisles.
 
 LORD CHESTERFIELD. 43 
 
 what too many of us either are or may become. Niue- 
 tenths of Chesterfield's maxims are truisms of the mau of 
 the world. As Bacon said of Machiavelli, he only ' wrote 
 what men do.' As in the case of the Florentine, how- 
 ever, the mot (Vordre once given, in this case by Johnson, 
 Chesterfield's reputation only became more and more 
 sinister as his book was less and less carefully read. The 
 notoriety which the Letters have acquired as a text-book of 
 adultery, hypocrisy , untruth, and contempt for religion, con- 
 stitutes a travesty of the facts of the case ; for each of these 
 particular faults was odious to Chesterfield, and his detesta- 
 tion of one and all of them is specially emphasized in the 
 Letters. The latter, it must be remembered, supplement 
 an education ah*eady solid, but lacking in the arts which 
 make young men agreeable in society. Especially in the 
 letters to his godson, which exhibit, with a few signs of 
 age, a greater mellowness, one is continually struck by the 
 vein of real tenderness which underlies so much worldly 
 wisdom. One can trace throughout ' the efforts of a fine, 
 distinguished, energetic nature grappling with a disposition 
 naturally good, but indolent and clumsy.' The soil he was 
 labouring he found receptive enough as regards morals, 
 but when he came to mcears the task was less easy ; hence 
 he came to dwell disproportionately upon those parts of 
 the subject-matter which concern not morals, but the 
 minor moralities, and, as he insists and again insists, ' the 
 
 graces. 
 
 Chesterfield's own criticism of his son was that he was 
 too argumentative, too learned, and too laconic. Under the 
 laconism he was ajit to suspect that some irony might lurk. 
 With regard to the learning he wrote : ' I'd rather you 
 were in love with some determined coquette of condition 
 . . . than that you knew all Aristotle and Plato by heart.' 
 He had no elevated view of women, and his ideas on the
 
 44 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 subject of (jalanterie were just about the same, but uot a 
 whit more refined, than might have been promulgated over 
 the supper table at White's. That a man of his intel- 
 lectual stamp should have seriously commended such ideas 
 to his son for adoption is an indelible blot upon the ethics 
 of the Letters. It may be remembered, however, that his 
 advice was strictly confidential, and that he was addressing 
 a member of a class in which (as it would have been idle 
 to ignore) marriage was habitually regarded as a mere 
 alliance, an affaire de convenance. Chesterfield had always 
 more sympathy with foreign than with domestic modes of 
 thought. His models were chiefly French, his maxims 
 frequently (as his son remarked with some acumen) 
 calculated rather for the meridian of France or Spain than 
 of England.^ ' I have often said and do think,' he writes, 
 ' that a Frenchman who is fond of virtue, learning, and 
 good sense, and has the manners and good breeding of his 
 country, is the jierfection of human nature.' Ultimately 
 he sought a paragon among men in a combination of all 
 that is best in a typical Englishman and a typical French- 
 man — an ideal with which few will be found to quarrel. 
 
 In his hatred of insular gaucherie and Philistine preju- 
 dice Chesterfield anticij^ated Matthew Arnold. His own 
 philosophical descent, with his ardour for a pagan self-cul- 
 ture and a finished e2)icureanism, may be safely deduced 
 from Cicero and Horace among the ancients, while amongst 
 the moderns he clearly had mucli in common with Fenelon 
 and La Rochefoucauld. Fitness to live was to be assured, 
 in his view, by effecting an equilibrium of the faculties 
 and emotions of man — a ' harmony of man's nature ex- 
 
 ' His EngUsli istyle, utheiwise no excellent, ■was infected, like 
 that of Temple, by a iiuiuber of (Jallicisnis : thus he says, 'it is 
 ociual to me,' 'in the puhHc,' 'of tiie one side and of the otliei,' 
 ' upon your .subject,' k.t.X.
 
 LORD CHESTERFIELD. 45 
 
 pressed iu his nioeurs.' As for social duties, lie lays down liis 
 principle with admirable clearness. ' Your duty to man 
 is very short and clear ; it is only to do to man whatever 
 you would be willing that he should do to you. And re- 
 member in all the business of life to ask your conscience 
 this question : " Should I be willing that this should be 
 done to me ? " If your conscience, which will always tell 
 you the truth, says no, do not do that thing. Observe 
 these rules, and you will be happier in this world, and still 
 happier in the next.' ^ 
 
 One of those who felt impelled to parody Chesterfield 
 was Horace Walpole, a man who was probably more 
 worldly, and certainly not less selfish, than Chesterfield 
 himself. In answer to a question of Gleorge III. upon 
 one occasion, Walpole said he was ' never anything,' and 
 thereby supplied a clue to his own character and position 
 among men of letters. He was unattached to any small 
 secular cliqiie, yet he was not in any respect like the 
 scholar or the sovereign, ' above the clouds ' ; he was 
 thoroughly worldly, and, if he were anything, as we are 
 fain to think he must have been, it was a man of fashion. 
 Few men have lived so much in the ' best society ' as this 
 man of fashion, who spent every spai-e moment in despis- 
 
 ^ Needless to say, Cliestertield was nnich too Olympian, and 
 much too really serene and witty, to suffer more than a passin<;- 
 shadow of annoyance from Jolmson's famous letter. He admired 
 it for its literary adroitness and its mature vigour, and kejit it 
 constantly l)y him. The stories of C'liesterlield's imperturbaliility 
 are almost as nuiucrous as those of his urlianity. When in Ireland 
 as liord-Lieutenant, he was told one morninj^- that the people of 
 Connaught were risiiij^-. He took out liis watch, and said sim])ly, 
 ' It is nine o'clock, and certainly time for them to rise.' When he 
 proposed a certain name to George II., and the monarch angrily 
 said, ' I would rather iiave the devil,' the ex-minister rt'miiided 
 the king that the person nominated must be addressed in the com- 
 mission as ' ())n- trusty and well-beloved cousin.'
 
 46 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 ing and chronicling it. His contempt for the most eminent 
 of his contemporaries, such as Goldsmith, Johnson, Chester- 
 field, Boswell, and that ' she-meteor ' Lady Mary Wortley 
 Montagu, was most marked; yet (after Joseph Spence) 
 he may be called the founder of anecdotage in England — 
 the precursor of Disraeli and of Greville. He was above 
 all things a chroniqueitr of the trivial, a mere gossip — he 
 calls himself a garrulous Brantome, and he was in many 
 respects as arrierc as St. Simon — but he was a gossip in 
 the gi'and style. 
 
 Born at London on October 5th, 1717, Horatio was the 
 
 third and youngest son of the great states- 
 Horace Walpole man Sir Robert Walpole. His health 
 [Fourth Earl of ^^^^ delicate, and his life seemed fragile ; 
 „ ,„Q„- nevertheless, at ten he entered Eton, 
 
 where his father had been the companion 
 of Bolingbroke. There he met Thomas G-ray, and be- 
 came the devoted ally of Henry Seymour Conway. The 
 memory of his father and his friendship for Conway 
 became his two political passions. After his mother's 
 death in 1737, he left King's College, Cambridge, and 
 set out for Paris and Italy in company with Gray. 
 They separated en route in consequence of incompati- 
 bility of temper — Gray being stiff and rather uncompro- 
 mising, Walpole capricious and snobbish. At Florence 
 he made the acquaintance of his lifelong correspondent, 
 Sir Horace Mann. Their unique correspondence during 
 forty-six years forms a familiar picture of English life and 
 society from 1741 to 1786. On his return Horace sat in 
 Parliament for Callingtou, and was provided for by his 
 father. The sinecures that he enjoyed by letters patent 
 provided him with a secure income of about four thousand 
 a year. 
 
 Walpole was a man of slender passions. He lacked the
 
 HORACE WALPOLE. 47 
 
 moral and physical vigour which enables the possessor to 
 enjoy in their fvillness all the good things of life, and to 
 exercise in all their extent the faculties of our nature. He 
 understood with perfect astuteness the world in which his 
 lot was cast ; he could observe it and finely depict it, but 
 he could not dominate it in any way. While he could not 
 be its master, neither would he be its slave : he would be 
 content to amuse and instruct it ; he would give it tastes 
 and ideas. On every hand may still be seen intellectual 
 traces of Horace Walpole's passage through the England 
 of the eighteenth century. At the same time he held a 
 little disdainfully aloof from the active combats of litera- 
 ture. He loved his books,^ and the classics especially , as 
 he also loved the arts, and architecture, and gardens ; but 
 he was more critical than creative ; he touched on erudition 
 rather than plunged into it, and thoroughly scorned the 
 profession of letters. In all probability he was happiest 
 and best as a raconteur. Together with his restless intel- 
 ligence and easily fatigued temperament, he possessed a 
 versatility which prevented the possibility of fatigue on 
 the part of his hearers. To have heard him in this capa- 
 city, with his unrivalled tact, his volatile wit, his retentive 
 memory, and his well-selected phrases, must have been a 
 privilege indeed. Much of the charm of such a gossip 
 lias inevitably passed away ; for Walpole could neve r hav g 
 t o lerated such a kin dred spirit as Bos well about him. But 
 mucli is happily caught and contained for all time in his 
 marvellous corpus of Correspondence, which for pungent 
 epigram and delicate persiflage there is nothing in our 
 literature that can even approach. 
 
 A fop and a dilettante perhaps, selfish and trifling it 
 
 ^ Among his favoiu-ites we find, as M'e should expect, Mnie. de 
 Suvigne and De Grammont. He had a passion for books redolent 
 of aristocracy.
 
 48 IIII'; AOE OF JOHNSON'. 
 
 may be, a mau who does uot in the least waut to improve 
 
 ( you or correct you or ennoble you, yet ' Horry ' Walpole will 
 
 ! take yo uout of yourself and amuse you as no one else can. 
 
 I Try the Sories WaTpdfMirn , wheiv vmi wij], tlii^iiii^-TiTmr 
 
 i Cunningham's nine volumes of his Corresjjundence,^ you are 
 
 \ certain (as certain as in Boswell), to light upon something 
 
 \ bright and entertaining. After that of Cicero and Vol- 
 
 5 taire his correspondence is the most valuable as a docu- 
 
 l ment that exists. His style limpid, unstrained, admirably 
 
 I adapted to its purpose, resembles Voltaire's in its freedom 
 
 ■jfrom taint or affectation. 
 
 ' On the other hand, it may be admitted that the per- 
 sonality of the writer, where it is revealed, is not so wholly 
 attractive. There is here a good deal of pose and pettiness, 
 and a great waut of spontaneity. It is in this essential 
 quality that Walpole, as a letter-writer, falls so far short of 
 Cowper or Fitzgerald. The elaborated witticisms, excellent 
 though they often are, cannot replace the intimate charm of 
 [ a delightful character utterly free from self-deception or pose. 
 i We are made to feel too often that Walpole had no heart and 
 few convictions. Such sympathies as he had appear to be 
 reserved for persons of rank. His letter is rarely addressed 
 to the friend, but to the well-known antiquary or virtuoso." 
 
 ^ Published 1857-9, but still incomplete. 
 
 - Considerable as Walpole is as a writer, he is scarcely less so 
 as ,a virtuoso ; more than any other man, perhaps, he helped to 
 guide into England the stream of curiosities and works of art 
 which made it during the eighteenth century a vast depot of 
 artirh's de vertu and the market for old masters and choice 
 bil>elots. His passion for the embellishment of Strawberry was 
 dictated in large measure, no doubt, like that of Shenstone, by 
 mere vanity and love of notoriety ; yet he certainly felt keenly, 
 thougli vaguely, the beauties of the Gothic form, and he knew 
 something of tlie niisou d'etre and evolution of the style. A new 
 school rarely commences with the beautiful and the true. ' Gothic ' 
 was to be a mode before it became a science, and much exaggera-
 
 HORACE WALPOLE. 49 
 
 His lack of sonucl literary entliusiasBi is sliowu iu liis criti- 
 cisms ; Joliusou was simplv repulsive to him ; he abused 
 Thomson at the expense of Nat. Lee, ridiculed Richard- 
 sou, saw nothing in Hume, and preferred Crcbillon the 
 younger to Marivaux. As a connoisseur of fine literature 
 he was far below Chesterfield. 
 
 Apart from his wonderful correspondence, the best and 
 ripest Avorks of Walpole are those which most nearly 
 approach it in general character : such are his back-stairs 
 Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of King 
 George II., a somewhat acid but most entertaining sketch 
 of the political intrigues of the jjost- Walpole epoch, and 
 Memoirs of the Reign of George III., supplemented by a 
 Journal of the Reign of King George III. from 1771 to 1783. 
 These were alike pul^lished long after Walpole's death, 
 respectively in 1822, 1845, and 1859. The vitality which 
 Walpole manages to give to the i^rosaic personages and 
 parliamentary debates of this historical period is truly 
 astonishing. 
 
 As to The Castle of Otranto (1764), apart from its interest 
 in connection with the rise of romanticism and the early 
 history of the novel, what Gilly Williams wrote of it to 
 Selwyn in March, 1765, is as true now as when it w^as 
 written : ' Such a novel,' he wrote, ' that no boarding-school 
 miss of thirteen could get through it without yawning.' 
 The machinery is pastel)oard and the plot so puerile that 
 Walpole himself was fully justified when he called it a 
 ' f rautic thing.' His tragedy, The Mysterious Mother (1 768) , 
 is similarly a concatenation of mysterious horrors. The 
 
 tioii iiiiirkeil its eai']y lllallifestali()ll^. Walpolu is said to lia\e 
 'lutiiveil three sets of l)aUleiiiciits ujioii his fond iiie<lia'\al castle. 
 W liat is singular, liowevei', is that he i)ossessed this rare taste at 
 all, not that he did not jiossess it as laoditied hy a century of study 
 and dilettauteisni. 
 
 E
 
 60 Tllli AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 memory of Walpole is best served by leaving these two 
 l)ieces severely alone. Another product of 1768 was the iu- 
 genioiis Historic Doubts on the Life and Beign of Richard II. 
 Walpole's p>articular scepticism has not been justified to 
 any great extent by subsequent inquiry, but the spirit of 
 the book has remained a useful legacy to the historical 
 investigator. The remainder of Walpole's works are 
 chiefly compilations for the benefit of his famous press at 
 Strawberry Hill. 'June, 1754,' he writes, 'I erected a 
 printing press at my house in Strawberry Hill. 8 Aug. 
 1 published 2 Odes by Mr. Gray, the first productions of 
 my press.' In 1758 he issued his own Catalogue of the 
 lioyal and Noble Authors of England, in 1762 Anecdotes of 
 Fainting in England, both creditable efforts of compilation, 
 though in their present form they owe almost as much to 
 subsequent editors as to the original writer. In 1764 he 
 printed for the first time at Strawberry the curious Life 
 of Lord- Herbert of Cherbury, tvritten by Himself J 
 
 Of Walpole's later years, his fortunate friendshii^ Avith 
 the Miss Berrys, and his death at a ripe old age in the 
 appropriate atmosphere of Berkeley Square, on March 2nd, 
 1797, there is little to say. He was a very grudging critic, 
 and as a retribution his own great qualities as a litterateur 
 have been too long eclipsed by the severely moral estimate 
 of Macaulay. As a matter of fact, when you admit that 
 he was a little dry, a little disdainful, a little difficult ; when 
 you add that he was not unexacting and by no means 
 altogether free from pretension, and that his delicate frame 
 rendered him irritable, the bad part will have been told : 
 and, frankly, in what one calls ' the world,' is this a very 
 severe burden Avith which to load his memory ? He is 
 
 ' For a full li«t of the Struwbeny Hill i)uljlications ,see the 
 Ai>]iendix to Mr. Austin Dob,son's Horace Walpole: a 3Iemoir, 
 second edition, 1S93.
 
 HORACE WALPOLE — JAMES BOSWELL. 51 
 
 coutinually actuated by the sti'ougest desire to please, and 
 there_ is^ scarcely a dull page in the m ne_volumes of his 
 publishedcOTrespond^nce^ To stigmatize as affected the 
 coquetry" wTtlr'wlir5i°°sudi a man endeavours to veil his 
 foibles would surelv seem to indicate a gross -want of 
 gratitude/ 
 
 James Boswell of Auchiulech, the descendant of a high 
 
 Scots legal family, was born on October 
 (1740-1795) 29th, 1740, and brought up at Auchiulech 
 
 (Affleck), the family seat in Ayrshire. His 
 mother was connected with the noble house of Mar. He 
 made studies at Edinburgh and GTlasgow, cultivated the 
 affable Mr. Hume, and sat under Adam Smith. His father, 
 beneath his humour, secreted a cunning which he trans- 
 mitted to his son, and the latter treasured the quality as an 
 heirloom amid all the escapades of his giddy youth. In 
 1760 he migrated to London and Newmarket in order to 
 enjoy the society of the worst i>ossible company. Among 
 rakes, as among rigid moralists, he was always hon enfant, 
 amusing and good-humoured. He had, above all, what is 
 called facility of manner ; he took the liberty of exhibiting 
 his foibles to the world with a nciTve candour, and those 
 who laughed at him generally liked him. In 1762, in his 
 second visit to Loudon, he laid himself out to cultivate 
 men of letters. His ideal now seems to have been to oscil;^ 
 latebetween the ]iterar^averu"and the gaming table of 
 aristocral ic dissipation — in ' the nietropotis^ h fen entenc[u'''-^ 
 
 — Tlfi Bill ■» . .*--.- -* L 
 
 the provincialism of Edinburgh was his special abhorrence. 
 His success was so complete tliat by May 16th, 1762, lie 
 attaiiu'fl tlie long-desirod introduction to the literary dic- 
 
 ' Waliiule has been ailiiiirably criticised and appreciated l)y De 
 liciiiusat, by LesUe Steiilieii, and by Austin Dobson ; yet so pene- 
 trating is the eflect of Macaulay that ail their ofl'orts liave liarely 
 sulliced to keep the Italance true.
 
 52 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 hitur, aud, two luuatlis later, Johnson exclaimed, '1 love 
 the young dogs of this age.' The first meeting between 
 these two inimitable worthies occupies one of the most 
 famous passages in Boswell's Life. As in the case of the 
 et^ually famous Wilkes episode, the Scotsman's success 
 was the result of a carefully prepared plot. ' At last on 
 Monday the 16th of May' [1763, Johnson aged fifty-four, 
 Boswell tweuty-three], ' when I was sitting in Mr. Davies's 
 back parlour, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs. 
 Davies, Johnson unexpectedly came into the shop. Mr. 
 Davies having perceived him through the glass-door in the 
 room in which we were sitting, advancing towards us, — he 
 announced his aweful approach to me, somewhat in the 
 manner of an actor in the part of Horatio, when he 
 addresses Hamlet on the appearance of his father's ghost, 
 / "Look, my lord, it comes," '—a passage happily prophetic 
 I of the wit and talent with which Boswell was about to 
 heighten every incident of the association. The appearance 
 of the new satellite excited some astonishment among 
 ] Johnson's friends. ' Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's 
 \ heels ? ' asked some one. ' He is not a cur,' replied Gold- 
 I smith, ' he is only a bur. Tom Davies flung him at Johnson 
 \ in sport, and he has the faculty of sticking.' And the bur 
 * stuck till the end of Johnson's life. 
 
 The curiously assorted pair met sixteen times previously 
 to Boswell's departure for Utrecht in August. Boswell's 
 father, who supplied the funds, cherished the idea that his 
 son was going to Utrecht to study law^ ; but nothing was 
 farther from Boswell junior's intentions. In letters which 
 are a delightful mixture of persuasion and iiersiflagc he 
 intercedes with his parent for an orthodox grand tour. 
 The words of the apostle— 'I must see Rome '—are borne 
 in upon his mind ; four months at least he must have on 
 classic ground as a scholar and man of elegant curiosity.
 
 .TAMES BOSWET.L. 53 
 
 ' I slioll see Voltaire. I shall see Switzei'land and 
 Rousseau.' His father found it useless to resist the sen- 
 timental enthusiasm of his son. With all his impulsive- 
 ness went a capacity for taking- snubs and a determination 
 to intrude upon, or at least hy any and every means to in- 
 gratiate himself with, a select circle of celebrities. When 
 he met Voltaire, he wheedled him into withdrawing the 
 ' superstitious dog ' that he had flung at Johnson, and sub- 
 stituting ' honest fellow,' by telling him how the doctor 
 had conceived that a footboy whom Voltaire had employed 
 as amanuensis might write about as well as Frederick the 
 Grreat. 
 
 At Naples he was all effusiveness to the ' hero of liberty,' 
 John Wilkes. But his greatest coup was to procure an 
 inti'oduction to Pascal Paoli, the Corsican patriot, from 
 Rousseau. Paoli was the Garibaldi of the eighteenth 
 century, and Boswell's ambition for the hour was to be 
 Paoli's Englishman. Writing to Johnson with Melanch- 
 thon's tomb as his desk, he had been penetrated with 
 'solemn enthusiasm.' Conceive the cpanchement de coeur 
 as he landed at Corte. ' Sir,' he is said to have addressed 
 Paoli, ' I am upon my travels and have lately visited Rome. 
 I am come from seeing the ruins of one brave and free 
 l)eoj)le. I now see the rise of another.' Paoli regarded 
 him with a suspicion, which was, however, soon dissipated. 
 Boswell assumed Corsican attire and, thus masquerading, 
 called upon the elder Pitt shortly after his retiu-n to Eng- 
 land. 'As for myself,' he wrote to Chatham a little later 
 (in 1767), ' I am now fairly entered to the bar. I begin to 
 like it. I can labour hard ; I feel myself coming forward, 
 and I hope to be usef vd to my country. Could your Lord- 
 ship find time to honour me now and then with a letter ? 
 T have been told how favourably your Lordship has spoken 
 of me. To correspond with a Paoli and a Chatham is
 
 54 niE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 cnoTigli to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit of 
 a virtuous fame.' This outburst of personal confidential 
 talk is in Boswell's happiest, most characteristic style. 
 His altruistic impulses were of short duration, but this 
 exquisite egotism of his was a constant quality. Boswell's 
 Corsican antics were crowned, by the appearance in 1768 of 
 his Tour in Corsica, which gained him the appellation of 
 the ' celebrated traveller ' ; this was the recognition that he 
 yearned for. He succeeded in interviewing Horace Walpole 
 about the book, much against Walpole' s wish, and then 
 attacked Walpole, who readily forgave him, 'as he came 
 1o see me no more.' Grii.y said it showed that a fool may 
 write a valuable book by chance, thus summing up the 
 verdict of posterity. All this time he was almost for- 
 getting Johnson and ignoring the oath of eternal friend- 
 sliip sworn above the remains of Melanchthon. 
 
 In 1769 he was married, and. his next enthusiasm was 
 the Stratford Jubilee. But in 1773 his thoughts wei'e 
 finally diverted into the right channel ; he got elected into 
 the literary club, and formed the ingenious plan of a 
 journey with his patron through the Hebrides. Mrs. 
 Boswell's comment was that she had heard of a bear being 
 led by a man, but never till now of a man being led by a 
 bear. Erskine is said to have slyly pressed a shilling into 
 Boswell's hand for l)ringing the show along to Pai'liament 
 Close. Johnson ignored the ludicrous side of the peram- 
 bulation which cannot have been hidden from his sagacity, 
 and was himself, even in the frigid Mrs. Boswell's drawing- 
 room, where he turned the heads of the candles doAvn- 
 wards (according to his usual practice) when they did not 
 burn brightly enough to please him. And Johnson gave 
 liis cicerone the best testimonial he had yet received, writing 
 to Mrs. Thrale, ' I shall celebrate his good humour and 
 perpetual cheerfulness. He lias better faculties than I
 
 JAMES BOSWELL. 55 
 
 had imagined, aud more justice of discei'nment and more 
 fecundity of images.' Groldsmith bad asked Boswell liow 
 on earth he expected to drag Johnson's dead weight through 
 the Hio-hhxnds ; but Boswell surmounted all difficulties. 
 They returned to Edinburgh the second week in Novem- 
 ber, after a spirited tour of ninety-four days, adroitly 
 arranged by Boswell so as to bring himself prominently 
 before the public, present and future. Next year was 
 arranged the visit to Lichfield, and in 1776 the masterly 
 comedy of the dinner at Dilly's, at which was contrived 
 tlie famous meeting between Johnson and ' Jack Ketch,' 
 alins Jack Wilkes. In 1778 he was pretty constant in 
 attendance on Johnson, though he varied the task of 
 annotating by frequent flirtations and junketings, mo- 
 mentarily disgusting the doctor by getting very drunk 
 Avhile dining with a bishop. In 1780 and 1782 he was 
 kept away from Loudon by pecuniary difficulties ; but in 
 1781 and 1783 he saw a good deal of Johnsou. In June, 
 1784, he accompanied him to Oxford, and after their 
 i-eturn on June 19th, with much kindness of heart he 
 tried to arrange for Johnson to winter in Italy, and to 
 obtain an augmentation of his pension for this purpose. 
 His last farewell was said at the entry to Bolt Court, 
 whither he had conveyed the doctor in Reynolds's carriage. 
 Johnson, after getting down upon the pavement, ' sprang 
 away with a kind of pathetic briskness, if I may use that 
 expression, which seemed to indicate a struggle to conceal 
 uneasiness, and impressed me with a foreboding of our 
 long, long separation.' A few months later Johuson lay 
 upon his death-bed ; but Boswell made no effort to see him. 
 The ten years that follow Johnson's death on Decem- 
 ber 13tb, 1784, form, as far as Boswell is concerned, a 
 piteous record of vain struggles and broken resolutions, 
 followed by a gradual, helpless descent into a life of loose
 
 r,G THE ACiK OF jnilNSON. 
 
 pleasures and folly, bronglit to an end l»y a premature 
 death on May 19tli, 1795. It was, nevertheless, during 
 these years that he was enabled to prepare that pyramidal 
 Life, of which the truly great proportions are only now 
 gradually becoming fully apparent. 
 
 Very shortly after Johnson's death Boswell set about 
 seeing through the press his Journal of a Tour to the 
 Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Its immediate re- 
 ception was somewhat chequered. As with Fronde's JBemi- 
 ■niscenc.es when they first appeared, the wounds inflicted 
 upon persons living were thought to outweigh the literary 
 merit of the book. This isgni^w kind of libeb^aid one 
 of the critics, by which you may abuse anybocly, by saying- 
 some dead person said so and so of somebody else.^ The 
 l)ook was rather coarsely but effectively caricatured by 
 Peter Pindar and by Collins, an imitator of Eowlandson, 
 in twenty large comic cartoons. The author's autobio- 
 graphical admissions caused much satirical hilarity : ' It 
 is tlie story,' said Walpole, ' of a mountebank and his 
 zany.' 
 
 Henceforth Boswell was ' kept up,' saved from himself 
 and his terrible proclivities, mainly by his magnum, opus. 
 Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes apji^eared in 1785, and Sir John 
 Hawkins's Life in 1787; but it was not until the middle 
 of May, 1791, that was issued (in an edition of 1,700) 
 Boswell's last and most famous work, The Life of Samuel 
 Johnson, LL.D., issued, like the Jour7ial, after careful 
 revision at the hands of Edmund Malone. 
 
 The great success of the Life was never for a moment 
 a matter of doubt ; but for a long time critics were in 
 
 ' ' The Life of Johnson,'' said Wonlswortli, many years later, 
 ' has broken tlirough many pre-existing delicacies.' Tlie king 
 tliouglit that some strong means ought to he taken to preserve 
 .lohnson from his friends.
 
 JAMES BOS WELL. .^7 
 
 doubt as to tlie proportions of merit which were to lie 
 assigned to the biographer and his subject, tlie exhibitor 
 and the exhibited. As a general rule, owing to the wide- 
 spread feeling that Boswell had been recklessly indiscreet 
 and needlessly circumstantial in matters of detail, the 
 opinion prevailed that the interest of the book was due 
 almost exclusively to the fame and personality of Johnson, 
 and that Boswell was a mere reporter, or (if report spoke 
 true) scarcely more than a Silenus about the person of a 
 Socrates. 
 
 This view of Boswell as the foolish and irresponsible 
 author of a great and wise book was set forth with a great 
 amount of point and epigram by Macaulay. Carlyle, 
 though he does something to rectify the impression thus 
 conveyed, still pleads too much for Boswell as a kind of 
 Sancho Panza, to whom special indulgence is due. This 
 view would be perfectly just if Boswell's Life were no 
 moi'e than a tissue of Johnsonian Jogia linked together by 
 a few illustrative anecdotes or by formal padding. No 
 one would think of ranking the author of the Memorial 
 (le Saint Helene (extremely interesting though it is) with 
 Saint Simon, among the great classical writers of France. 
 But The Life of Johnson is very far indeed from being a 
 mere report of conversations ; ^ it is a finished portrait, not 
 
 ' ' Let anyone,' f*ays Jowctt, ' who believes tliat an ordinary man 
 can write a great l)iography make the experiment himself. I would 
 liave him try to describe the most interesting dinner-party at which 
 lie was ever present : let him write down from memory a few of 
 the good things ■which were said, not forgetting to make an in- 
 cidental allusion to the good things that were eaten; let him 
 aim at giving what I may call the dramatic effect of the party. 
 And then let him compare the result with Boswell's account of the 
 famous dinner at Mr. Dilly's, the bookseller in the Poultry, where 
 Johnson was first introduced to "Wilkes, and he will begin to 
 understand the nature of IJoswelTs tjenius.'
 
 THE AOE OF .TOITNSON. 
 
 an embellished pliotoo-vapli. Of its most distinguishing 
 characteristics it will suffice to mention first the style — a 
 style pre-eminently limpid and happy, displaying a rare 
 judgment in the use of words; and together with these 
 positive qualities a complete absence of straining after 
 literary ' realism,' no attempt at high colouring, none of 
 the dreary ' word-painting ' from which we have all suffered 
 so much. Then there are the inimitable glosses by which 
 Johnson's motives are explained, his state of mind upon 
 ]iarticular occasions indicated, the general feeling of his 
 company conveyed. This was part, of course, of the 
 artistic conception which Boswell had formed of his hero. 
 It has been pointed out that Boswell attempted to 
 extenuate some of his own foibles by attributing their 
 counterparts to his friend, and there is no doubt whatever 
 that his presentation of the great man is an artistic 
 rifacimento. The artistic qualities that Boswell displays 
 are the means by which he enables Johnson (a Johnson 
 much more real than any mere phonographic biograph 
 could supply) to rank not among the spectral and shadowy 
 figures of history and biography, but with Falstaff and 
 with Mr. Pickwick, among the flesh-and-blood creations 
 of imaginative fiction. It is needless to point out how 
 dramatic Boswell's groupings always are — the very fashion 
 that he adopted of giving the conversations not in the 
 neutral tints of oratio oUiqua, but in full oratio recta, was 
 a stroke of original genius. There is a touch of genius, 
 too, in the naif and persistent assiduity, and even in the 
 abnegation of personal dignity, with which he pursued his 
 hero. It implied a generous capacity for appreciating 
 human excellence.^ One recalls the words that Boswell 
 
 ' 'In fact,' writes Carlyle, 'the so copious terrestrial dross that 
 welters chaotically, as the outer sphere of this man's character, 
 does but render for us more remarkable, more touching, the celes-
 
 JAMES BOSWELL. 59 
 
 himself used of Groldsmitli : ' He had sagacity enough to 
 cultivate assiduously the acquaintance of Johnson, and his 
 faculties were gradually enlarged.' In fine, the more we 
 study Boswell, the more we comj^are him with other bio- 
 graphers, the greater his work appears. Grreat men are 
 scarce (to use the bookseller's distinction), but great bio- 
 graphers are positively rare. Character — the vital prin- 
 ciple — is the ignis fatuns of the well-intentioned and 
 efficient biographical chronicler. The great result is 
 attained by a striking variety of means — witness Aubrey, 
 Clarendon, RousseaiT, Gibbon, Lockhart, Trelawny, and 
 Trevelyan — but Boswell by his striking combination of 
 imaginative insight and historical veracity would seem 
 likely to retain a unique position as the greatest of all 
 masters of the resources of the biographic art. 
 
 The minor performers in the genre of memoirs and 
 letters are very numerous, and many of the woi'ks are not 
 only diverting, but also illustrative in a remarkable de- 
 gree of the period. Few, however, attain the distinction 
 which is needed to give them rank as permanent litera- 
 ture, and fewer still are typical in their character or 
 formative in their influence. The character, indeed, of 
 this style of literature lends itself but too easily to dis- 
 cursiveness and diifuseness, and to a somewhat careless 
 and rambling manner; the lack of discriminative power 
 wliich is destructive to future fame is often contributory 
 to immediate popularity ; the laborious accumulation of 
 detail is apt for the moment to obscure deficiency in the 
 higher equalities of truth, simplicity, and artistic selection. 
 
 Among many writers of genuine interest, and some of 
 real individuality, a selection is likely to be somewhat 
 arbitrary ; we miist be content with enumerating, how- 
 
 tial spark of goodness, of liglit, and Reverence for Wisdom,' etc., 
 etc.
 
 00 THE AGE OF .TOHNSON. 
 
 ovor liriofly, the memoirs of Holeroft, Burdy. and Tone, 
 
 the voluminous diaries of Miss Buruey, the anecdotes of 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi, and the letters of Twining and Mrs. Trench. 
 
 Thomas Holeroft, a man of extraordinary energy, but 
 
 an indifferent translator and a medioci'e 
 
 'J'lioiiias Holeroft n • i . j. i - j. i 
 
 ,1^1- ion,>; i)laywrignt, seems to have concentrated 
 
 (l/4i)-liS0!)). i .' d ' 
 
 what was hest in him into one fragment 
 of literature : Memoirs . . . ' written by himself and con- 
 tinued to his Death from his Diary and Notes ' (1816). As 
 often the case with vital boolcs, it was a parergon produced 
 under almost incredible conditions, for it was dictated a 
 sentence or so at a sitting from the author's death-bed ; 
 and it was not i>ublislied until nine years after Holcroft's 
 death, and then apparently with difficulty, for Hazlitt had 
 completed his task of editing it by 1810. Fortunate as he 
 was in his editor, the first seventeen chapters, which 
 appear exactly as he left them, are indubitably the best. 
 His grandfather, he tells us, was a cooper in the most 
 desolate part of Lancashire, and his father was a shoe- 
 maker, in whose shop, as a child, he pored over the 
 Seven Champions of Christendom. Extreme j)overty drove 
 the father to traverse the country as a pedlar, taking his 
 wife and child with him. How vivid is his account of his 
 father's early pride in him, and of the despair when it was 
 found necessary to encourage him to beg ; also his first 
 sight of a quack doctor and his merry andrew at Wisbech 
 Fair — an incident in which he traces his first 'attraction 
 to the dramatic art.' The depiction of his wanderings as 
 a boy of ten through the miry by-roads of the north of 
 England, of the ruinous hovel near Rugeley which he 
 called ' home,' of the surpassing miseries and hardships 
 that he had to endure, and the adult responsibilities that 
 he had to bear, has a ring of sincerity and pathos which 
 give Holeroft no mean place as a narrator of childish ex-
 
 SAMUEL BURDY — WOLFE TO^"E. 61 
 
 perieuce. His first ruug up tlie ladder was scaled wlieu, at 
 thii-teeu, he obtained a jockey's jjlace at Newmarket, and 
 no more graphic account of the singular life of a stable 
 lad is probably to be found than in the chapters he devotes 
 to this part of his career. When the turf or the theatre 
 become the main topics, literature is but too apt to stray. 
 This danger was averted by the perfect naivete with which 
 he records his experiences. The other besetting danger of 
 an autobiographer, that of a gradual diminution of interest, 
 was evaded by Holcroft, for he died when his book was in 
 mid-career, on March 23rd, 1809. 
 
 Samuel Burdy is known by one little cJief-cVceuvre, A 
 Life of Philip SkeUon (1792), a muscular 
 (1759-1S20) Christian who nobly revived the Protestant 
 faith in the remote wilds of Donegal 
 between 1730 and 1760, whose income was strictly limited 
 to dg40 a year, and who died in 1787. Burdy. the admirer, 
 and, on a modest scale, the Boswell of this singular man, 
 was born about 1759, and made the acquaintance of 
 Skelton not before 1781. The result of the association 
 was a book, justly characterized by Lord Macaulay as de- 
 lightful. It gives the real life of a minister who, like 
 Dr. Primrose, was a good man, labouring, upon a pittance, 
 among the poor in the west of Ireland, and is richly inter- 
 spersed with anecdotes, racy alike of the soil, the queer, 
 profusely generous, Irish nature of Skelton, and the wit of 
 his humblest parishioners. 
 
 Among the more exceptional autobiographies of the 
 period must l)e included that of Theobald 
 (17(i.3-]79S) Wolfe Tone, a formidable rebel, who, in the 
 words of Mr. Goldwin Smith, was as near 
 being a fatal enemy to England as Hannibal was to 
 Kome, but who eventually committed suicide while under 
 sentence of deatli in November, 1708. His Diary, first
 
 b2 THE AGE OF JOHNSO^^ 
 
 publislied in Pbilatlelpliia iu 1826 by his son, has been 
 often reprinted. A candid separatist and cons^jirator, 
 Tone was remarkably free from declamatory vapour and 
 revolutionary cant. He was full of faults, drank and 
 swore like a trooper, and was, in fact, more of a soldier 
 and adventurer than a political revolutionary or states- 
 man. His Diary is occasionally humorous, often witty, 
 and he has a strange gift for aj^posite tags and quota- 
 tions. 
 
 Fanny Burney, or Madame D'Arblay, as she became iu 
 
 1 793, claims originality rather as a novelist 
 ^ !V-ro 1 c4r/\ '^"^ "^^'^10 will always occupy a high jjlace iu 
 
 the second rank than as a diarist and 
 memoir-writer. In addition to her Early Diary, some 
 seven volumes of Letters and Diaries, forming a selection 
 from her multifarious scribblings, ajjpeared 1842-6. The 
 work has been claimed as a classic, but that it can never 
 become. The stories of Dr. Johnson (which showed for 
 the first time how gentle and endearing he could be) and 
 of his group will live in literarj^ history ; but the dispro- 
 portionate amount of trivial and tedious narration which 
 the writer bestows upon the insignificant contretemps of 
 the court of George III. incline us to believe that the 
 martyr of Macaulay's over-coloured description, at least 
 iu great part, deserved her fate as second keeper of the 
 queen's robes. The influence of Johnson was much more 
 pernicious to Miss Burney as a writer than the influence 
 of court life. The strange and pretentious Life of Dr. 
 Burney, wdiicli "was published by his daughter in 1832, is 
 an awful example of Johnsonian euphuism. Tlie tendency 
 to verbosity and to long Latin words which had been 
 perceived in Cecilia, and is distinctly felt in the Diary, has 
 now become intolerably offensive. An east wind becomes 
 iu this jargon the 'rude fierceness of wintry elemental
 
 MRS. THRALE— MELESINA TRENCH. G3 
 
 strife ' ; to be starved to death is ' to siuk from inanition into 
 uoueutitj ' ; and Mrs. Tlirale, when a party of clever people 
 sat silent, is said to have been ' provoked by the dulness 
 of a taciturnity that, in the midst of such renowned inter- 
 locutors, produced as narcotic a torpor as could have 
 been caused by a dearth the most barren of all human 
 faculties.' 
 
 Hester Lynch Salusbury, known to Johnson as Mrs. 
 
 Thrale, but who became, in 1784 (after Thrale's 
 Airs. Ihrale 1,1 t , • . t t , n • n 
 
 (1741-1821). <^^*^^tli and much agamst Johnsons advice), 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi, Avas a very charming Avoman, 
 frank, vivacious, extremely clever and well read in English 
 literature. She came short of the high, old-fashioned 
 English idea of perfect decorum, and she showed a certain 
 hardness when she sacrificed the affection of her old friend 
 and her children for Piozzi; yet, upon the whole, it is im- 
 possible to avoid liking her. She had a fatal facility in 
 composition, but two of her books at least will live on 
 account of their subject : Anecdotes of the late Br. Johnson 
 daring the last twenty years of Ms Life (1786), written in 
 Italy after her second marriage, and giving a very lively 
 picture of Johnson, though coloured in part by the desire 
 to defend her own conduct; and, secondly. Letters to and 
 from Dr. Johnson (1783). 
 
 Melesina Trench, a beauty of a somewhat austere and 
 
 .... „, , studious type, Avho yet lived much in the 
 
 Melesina Ireneh ,, ■ ^ s- t-> ,-, •. i- 
 
 (176S-IS27). society 01 Europe, Avas the writer of 
 
 a very interesting Journal and Letters 
 (first published by her son, Archbisho]) Eichard Chenevix 
 Trench, in 1862), Avliich is marked liv an excellent style 
 and a i)erfect natural taste. The artless yet perfectly 
 idiomatic style of these letters and the great refinement 
 of the writer's opinions seem to indicate the real develop- 
 ment that had been going on at once in English prose
 
 G4 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 aud ill cultured Euylisli taste. The same tendencies are 
 evident in the Twining correspondence. 
 
 Thomas Twining, born in January, 1735, a member of 
 
 the well-knowai tea-dealing family of 
 
 Thomas Twininti- m-- i- jii-^ii + 
 
 ,,„.,_ lorv.i Iwinmg, was designed by his father to 
 
 enter the tea business, but was eventually 
 sent to Cambridge. There he obtained a fellowship at 
 Sidney-Sussex, and became an excellent linguist and 
 musician. Most of his life was sjDent in a little parsonage 
 in Essex, whence he wrote delightful letters to his friends, 
 letters at once scholarly and literary, and showing a genuine 
 critical discernment. ' Whether he wielded an argument,' 
 wu'ote his friend the great Dr. Parr, ' or tossed about an 
 opinion, all was natural, original, and most delightful.' 
 He died at Colchester on August 6th, 1804; but his 
 Letters, mainly to his brother Richard and to Dr. Burney, 
 were not published until 1882. Twining's literary judg- 
 ments ujDon the books of his own day are, in the main, 
 surprisingly sound, and well deserve the attention of 
 students of this period. He has a catholic affection for 
 Swift and Fielding, but he cannot bear Lord Chesterfield's 
 Letters, with their ' pedantry of gentlemanship.' Of Bosweil 
 he writes : ' Yet there is a naivete, a candour and a hon- 
 hoinie about the man that makes me like him. ... I have 
 met with those who call the book tiresome : I never read 
 a book that was less so.' Of jjeculiar interest is the evid- 
 ently cjuite genuine enthusiasm with which he writes to 
 Dr. Burney about his daughter's novels, esj^ecially Cecilia. 
 Of Johnson's Lives he has much to say. The ' best 
 thing' in it is his 'critique upon Cowley, or rather upon 
 what I think he calls the metaphysical style of poetry. . . . 
 Johnson's mind is fettered with j^i'^judices, poetical, 
 political, religious, and even superstitious. As a reasoner 
 he is nothing. He has not the least tincture of the esprit
 
 THOMAS TWINING. G5 
 
 philosopliique vipou any subject. He is not a poet, nov has 
 he any taste for what is properly called poetry ; for im- 
 agination, enthusiasm, etc. His poetry — I mean what he 
 esteems such — is only good sense i^ut into good metre. 
 He sees no j^romise of Milton's genius in his juvenile 
 poems. He feels no beauties in Mr. Gray's Odes. Did 
 you ever see a more schoolboyish criticism than his upon 
 Gray? What he says about blank verse I abominate. . . .' 
 ' Poor Johnson is gone,' wrote Dr. Burney in reply, a few 
 months later (Christmas, '84). 'I truly reverenced his 
 genius, learning, and piety, without being blind to his pre- 
 judices. I think I know and could name them all.'
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 POLITICAL WRITERS. 
 
 If one were to be marooned upon au island with the works 
 of a single author of the Johnsonian epoch, one would 
 ]irol)ably ask for Fielding or Burns ; but if one had to 
 name the greatest genius of that age, one would confid- 
 ently answer Edmund Burke. ' Shakespeare and Burke,' 
 said Mackintosh with truth, ' are above talent.' As a prose- 
 writer Burke stands up with Swift and Scott, while for his 
 ample store of political and moral wisdom we can find but 
 one name to match him, that of Francis Bacon. His 
 works constitute an armoury for politicians and states- 
 men, just as those of Plato serve metaphysicians, Galen 
 physicians, Coke lawyers, Montesquieu and Adam Smith 
 economists. 
 
 There is, as has been remarked, a cei'tain unwillingness 
 in the world to admit that the same man has excelled in 
 various pursuits. Yet we find Erskine and Thurlow ad- 
 ]nitting that Burke had a profound knowledge of juris- 
 prudence, and when Adam Smith came to London he was 
 amazed to find to what extent Burke by sheer force of 
 deductive reasoning had anticipated his own carefully con- 
 structed economic hypotheses. 
 
 Johnson's generous testimony to Burke's powers as a 
 conversationalist is well known. ' Burke,' he said, ' is 
 such a man that if you met him for the first time in
 
 EDMUND BURKE. 67 
 
 the street, where you were stopped by a drove of oxen, and 
 you and he stepped aside to take shelter for five minutes, 
 he'd talk to you in such a manner that, when you parted, 
 you would say, " This is an extraordinary man." ' And he 
 appended to this — ' Why, sir, if he should go into a stable 
 and talk a few minutes with the ostlers about horses, 
 they would venerate him as the wisest of human lieings.' 
 He did not grudge Burke his pre-eminence in the Com- 
 mons ; Burke, he said, would be the first man anywhere. 
 But the most remarkable of his tributes to Burke's power 
 of speech was made when he was ill, and some one brought 
 up Burke's name : ' That fellow calls forth all my powers,' 
 cried Johnson ; ' were I to see Burke now it would kill 
 me.' His range and intensity were equally marvellous. 
 ' C'est le spectacle de la vie humaine sur le theatre de la 
 societe qu'il aimait a contempler." His method of 
 acquiring knowledge he has described in his own words. 
 He took up one subject at a time , and s tuck to it at a 
 white heai till Jie was satisfied. TTe was not. content to 
 give his Hearers tlie bare'results of his powerful investiga- 
 tions ; he took them rapidly over the field of exploration, 
 for the survey of which his brilliant metaphors served as 
 coigns of vantage. Who, asked Groldsmith, could expound 
 like Burke, ' who winds into his subject like a serpent I ' 
 The w<niderful persuasiveness, the glow of enthusiastic 
 
 ' TIuis it was veiy truly saiil of iJiiike, ' He cauiiot hear to blink 
 or narrow a (|iiestion, even when doing so may be supposed favour- 
 able to his views, but gives the hint of a difticulty in order to 
 show his skill in overcoming it. It is contrary to the nature of 
 the man to be pent up within a small compass : lie must have 
 room ; give him vent or he continually threatens to explode and 
 overwhelm yon. He can no more be thrust up into the straitened 
 corner of a subject — a trick which the practised debater and 
 reasoner plays oil' on the more inexperienced — than yon can squeeze 
 an elephant into tlie cage of a parrot ' (Prior).
 
 G8 THE A(;K of JOHNSON. 
 
 appreciation that ho excites preparatory to winning over 
 his reader, is well shown by a few words in one of Cowper's 
 letters. He wrote a satire upon Bnrke and his reforms 
 one morning early in 1780, and called it The Modern 
 Pairlnf. ' At night I read Mr. Burke's speech in a news- 
 paper, and was so well pleased Avith his proposals and the 
 temper in which he made them that I began to think 
 better of his cause and burned my verses . . . what was 
 just satire in the morning, in the evening becomes a libel !' 
 This is the power that the Due de Levis spoke of as resid- 
 ing in Burke when he first heard him speak in the Com- 
 mons. His auditors ])assed, he tells us, in an instant from 
 the tenderest emotions of feehng to bursts of laughter: 
 ' never was the electric power of eloquence more im- 
 periously felt ; this extraordinary man seemed to raise 
 and quell the passions of his auditors with as much ease, 
 and as rapidly, as a skilful musician passes into the various 
 modulations of his harpsichord.' ' 
 
 Born in January, 1729, the son of a solicitor in Dublin, 
 
 Edmund Burke was educated at Ballitore 
 
 E.bmuul Bnrko ^^^^^^^ (1741-3), under Abraham Shackle- 
 
 i 1 720- 1 / 9 / ) 
 
 ton, to whom he always professed deep 
 obligations. In 1743 he became a student at Trinity 
 College, Dublin ; but during the Avhole of his regular 
 education he was much less academic than excursive. 
 In 1747 he was entered at the Middle Temple, and he 
 proceeded to London to pursue his legal studies in 1750. 
 
 ' On the other hand, Burke must have often been far above the 
 heads of his auditory. The conimonplaceness of mind, whether 
 assumed or real, which seems a necessary adjunct of the successful 
 party politician, was beyond his compass ; the natural bent of a 
 lofty understanding to big conceptions and general views preckided 
 his attaining to the cunning indispensable in the manoeuvres of 
 debate.
 
 EDMUND BURKE. 69 
 
 Indifferent to law, he soon surrendered himself to a state 
 of dis])07iibilite universelle. This is often a phase iu 
 which, while waiting for something to turn up, men relapse 
 into idleness and sterility. But in Burke's case the pause 
 was fruitfully employed in preparation for the full life 
 that he was to lead. The i)eriodical press offered him 
 some outlet ; when a man of genius is young there are few 
 subjects upon which he has not some lesson to impart. 
 He filled up his time by frequenting the theatre, studying 
 logic and natural philosophy, and writing poetry. The 
 first literai'y production of Burke that is preserved is his 
 rediictio ad absurdum of Boliugbroke's plan for throwing 
 ridicule upon established religion. ' Show me,' he says, ' in 
 his Vindication of Natural Society (1756) one absurdity in 
 religion, and I will undertake to show you a hundred in 
 political institutions and laws.' His Philosophical Inquiry 
 into the Oriyin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beauti- 
 ful (1756) was more academic in tone, but is at least re- 
 markable for its daring ; for thei'e are few subjects, as 
 Tolstoi has shown, upon which ideas are more conflicting 
 than this one of aesthetics. Setting out from a certain 
 uniformity in the question of taste, the writer traces this 
 consensus back to a general curiosity, to the constant 
 operation of sensations of pleasure and j^ain, to the force of 
 passion which has for its object beauty, and to the love of 
 imitation. It showed at any rate that the principles of art 
 criticism must be based upon psychological truth, and it 
 stimulated its German translator, Lessing, in his great 
 contribution to aesthetic thought in the Laokoon of 1766. 
 
 In 1759, under the auspices of Dodsley, one of the chief 
 patrons of that Grub Street of which he was still to some 
 extent an inmate, Burke began a yearly chronicle of events 
 under the title of The Annual Register (which still sur- 
 vives as a most useful record of contemporary history), re-
 
 70 THE AGE OF JOlIiXSON. 
 
 ceiviiig ill payment one hundred guineas per annum to 
 supplement a meagi'e allowance from liis father, who was 
 dis])leased at his alienation from the law. 
 
 From 1761 to 1765 Burke was in the employ of William 
 Grerard Hamilton, known as Single-speech Hamilton ; he 
 accompanied him to Ireland, and was granted by him a 
 ])ension of <£300 a year from the Irish treasury. Hamil- 
 ton Avas egotistic and exacting. In return for this 
 pension he wanted to absorb the Avliole time and talent of 
 Burke. This was resented, and the connection was broken. 
 But a short time elapsed, however, before Burke was 
 ai)i:)ointed private secretary to Rockingham, upon his 
 taking office in 1765, and next year he entered Parliament 
 for Wendover, and at once made his mai-k as a debater. 
 In 1769, in his Observations on the Present State of the 
 Nation, he defended the conduct of the Rockingham 
 ministry during its one year of office, showing his remark- 
 able grasp of details. But it was not until 1770 that he 
 first showed his masterful understanding to the full in his 
 ThntKjhts OH the Cause of the Present Discontents, one of the 
 monumental pieces of political literature. The dissatisfac- 
 tion manifested by the people in the long conflict between 
 Parliament and public opinion, in the matter of Wilkes, 
 was here analyzed, and, to a certain extent, explained and 
 justified. As for the populace, he remarked, in referring 
 to the outbreaks which had been sternly quelled, it is 
 never for a passion for attack that it rebels, l>ut from im- 
 patience of suffering. It is, however, when he leaves the 
 purely temporary question, and goes on to explain the I'eal 
 substance of our constitution, and to defend on general 
 grounds the S2:»irit of party, that Burke gives evidence of 
 his full power, not merely as the refuter of Bolingbi'oke's 
 specious plea for the arbitrary suppression of parties by 
 a ' patriot king,' bvit also as the interpreter for the first
 
 EDMUND BURKE, 71 
 
 time of the greatest qualities iuliereut iu tlie English poli- 
 tical system. Iu the rolling periods, so peculiarly adapted 
 to a style dictated and not written, and owing much of its 
 effect to stately sound and rhetorical artifice, Burke clearly 
 shows his aflfinity to Dryden, the instaurator of modern 
 English prose, while the effect of his careful study of Bol- 
 ingbroke is constantly apparent iu the balance of the long 
 sentences. At the same time Burke's prose is thoroughly 
 individual and quite unmistakable — that of a man ' pouring 
 out his mind on paper.' After it, to Hazlitt, greatest of our 
 critics, other styles appeared pedantic or impertinent. 
 ' If there are greater prose-writers than Burke, they either 
 lie out of my course of study, or are beyond my sphere of 
 comprehension. ' 
 
 When the American difficulties commenced in 1775, 
 Burke, seeing the danger of English liberties being in- 
 volved in the threatened loss of independence by the 
 colonists, could never wish the Americans to be subdued 
 by force of arms. When, therefore, the mass of the people, 
 teaacious of their logical rights, as they deemed them, over 
 a country which the British arms had so recently secured 
 from the aggressive schemes of France, determined to de- 
 cide the matter by the sword, Burke could only protest 
 against a course which seemed to him so pregnant with 
 disaster. His three protests constitute what is perhaps his 
 most powerful claim to wisdom as a statesman — to a posi- 
 tion as a political Nestor, These three pieces, the Speech on 
 American Taxation {A\>v\\, 1774), the Speech on Concilia- 
 tion with America (March, 1775), and the Letter to the 
 Sheriffs of Bristol (April, 1777), form, says Mr. Morley, the 
 most perfect manual in our literature, or in any literature, 
 for one who approaches the study of public affairs. 
 
 ' If ever in the fullness of time, and surely the fates of 
 men and literature cannot have it otherwise, Burke be-
 
 72 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 comes one of the lialf-dozen uaiues of established and uni- 
 versal currency in education and in common books, rising 
 above the waywardness of literaiy caprice or intellectual 
 fashions, as Shakespeare and Milton and Bacon rise above 
 it, it will be the mastery, the elevation, the wisdom of these 
 fai'-shining discourses, in which the world will in a special 
 degree recognize the combination of sovereign gifts with 
 beneficent uses. In these pieces Burke, pleading an un- 
 popular cause, was aware that he could trust nothing to 
 the symjmthy or the pre230ssessions of his readers, and this 
 put him upon an unwonted j^ersuasiveness. But at the 
 same time he remonstrates against the " thriving sophisms 
 of barbarous national pi'ide, the eternal fallacies of war 
 and conquest," exposing with unanswerable force the deep- 
 lying faults of heart and temper, as well as of under- 
 standing, which move nations to haughty and violent 
 courses.' 
 
 ' The question with me,' he says in one of his deep 
 aphoristic ejaculations, 'is not whether you have a right 
 to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your 
 interest to make them hajipy.' ' Nobody shall persuade 
 me, when a whole people are concerned, that acts of lenity 
 are not means of conciliation.' ' I do not know the method 
 of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.' 
 
 In the forefront of Burke's writings stands, together 
 with his speeches on America, his Reflections on the French 
 Revolution (November, 1790), a book which made Burke 
 famous throughout Europe as the champion of the old 
 rrgime. Apart, however, from its temporary drift, this is 
 a ti'eatise upon the value of prescrij^tion based upon 
 historical continuity, and nearly every page contains a 
 rubric, Avhich the attentive reader will mark as of ])er- 
 manent and not merely ephemeral value. Much of the 
 declamation against the pioneers of the Revolution may
 
 EDMUND BURKE. 78 
 
 appear to be -windy, aud, accurate as many of Burke's im- 
 mediate predictions proved, it is evident that his mind was 
 in some degree prejudiced and his taste occasionally warped 
 when he speaks of the great upheaval, of which he was un- 
 able to take more than a very partial survey.^ He regarded 
 the movement almost exclusively from a governmental 
 point of view, and from that of an aristocrat who wishes to 
 govern for, but utterly ignores the possibility of governing 
 through, the people. The cruel unfairness and absurd 
 anomalies of the old system, the just aspirations of the 
 ty])ical peasant, as depicted so vividly in Erckmaun- 
 Chatrian's prose epic (Fie cl'imPaysan), the eventual benefits 
 conferred upon France at the price of revolution, terrible 
 though that revolution in certain of its j^hases might be 
 — all this was to a large extent concealed from Burke's 
 passionate gaze. From the first he saw ' the glare of hell 
 in the light A^hich others took to be the dawn of the 
 millennium.' His whole view, we must remember, was 
 coloured by antipathy to the a priori school of philoso- 
 phers who looked to Eousseau for a prescription that 
 should regenerate human nature — the rising swarm of 
 doctrinaires who thought to legislate mankind into para- 
 dise, and for whom Burke exhibited in anticipation all the 
 contempt that a great biologist can feel for a social demo- 
 crat. The spectacle of a deliberative body making a 
 tabula rasa before the world of all its ancient institu- 
 
 ' It is easy enough, of course, after the event to say that Burke 
 was prejudiced ; as a matter of fact, lie probably foresaw- the issue 
 more accurately than any other living statesman, except, perhaps, 
 (Justavus III. of Sweden. Pitt thought the rev(dution would 
 render France innocuous for twenty years. Prussia and Austria 
 both looked upon it as a providential arrangement by means of 
 M-hich they would l)e able without interference to partition the 
 smaller Uermau states between them.
 
 74 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 tious aud its historical organization excited to fury a man 
 who had appealed with such a passionate conviction to 
 history as the source of political wisdom. But great as 
 was the passion that stirred his depths, Burke remained 
 even to the end pre-eminently the philosopher and not 
 the ])artisan in politics. As a thinker he insists uj^on 
 the same j^riuciples, applies the same tests, and holds 
 the same essential truths. Only, as he gi'ows older, ' the 
 shadows cast by his genius grow longer, while the horizon 
 is lit up by a many-coloured rhetorical splendour.' 
 
 Burke wrote several treatises to supplement his Bejiec- 
 tio7is, notably his Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs 
 and his Thoughts on French Affairs in 1791 ; in the latter 
 he showed with great force of reasoning that the Eevoli;tion 
 signified not merely a scheme of political innovation (bad 
 though that would be in itself), but the propagation of a 
 new political and social doctrine. These and similar pieces 
 culminated in his fiery and powerful, but too imaginative 
 and declamatory, Thoughts on the Prospect of Peace with a 
 Kegicide Directory (1797), which was left in a fragmentary 
 state.^ 
 
 In 1795 Burke was granted a considerable pension for 
 his services to the country and to Pitt's government. The 
 Duke of Bedford in an unlucky hour assailed the grant of 
 the pension — the chief of the house of Russell was the 
 most unfit person in the world to protest against grants by 
 favour of the crown. Burke was a rhetorician, after all, 
 and although the eifort was unproductive, and lent itself 
 but little to his favoixrite theme — the inicjuitous Revolution 
 — yet the temptation to speak back was too strong for him . 
 His Letter to a Nolle Lord (February, 1796) is ' the most 
 splendid rejmrtee in the English language.' 
 
 ■ A full list of Burke's imnierons writings is prefixed to the still 
 uiisu|ierse(le<l Memoir liy Jiimes Prior (1824).
 
 EDMUND BURKE. 75 
 
 ' In one thing.' he says, ' I can excuse the Duke of 
 Bedford for his attack upon me and my mortuary pension. 
 He cannot readily comprehend the transaction he condemns. 
 What I have obtained was the fruit of no bargain ; the 
 ]>roduction of no intrigue ; the result of no compromise ; 
 the effect of no solicitation.' But such extenuation was 
 not to serve the ' poor rich man ' for long. ' The Duke of 
 Bedford conceives that he is obliged to call the attention 
 of the house of peers to his majesty's grant to me, which he 
 considers excessive and out of all bounds.' * Surely,' con- 
 cludes the tormentor, ' the noble duke must be in a dream. 
 Why, the crown grants to the house of Eussell 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 tumbles about 
 his unwieldy bulk ; he plays and frolics in the ocean of the 
 royal bounty. Huge as he is, and whilst 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 sjiouts 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. Is it for him to question the dis- 
 pensation of the royal favour ? ' 
 
 The passage well illustrates the eastern opulence of 
 imagery, disjtlayed in metaphor and simile, which Burke 
 had at the disposal of his profound knowledge and ex- 
 perienced judgment. Occasionally his Celtic wealth of 
 fancy got the better oC him, his metaphors became con- 
 fused, his invective became tumultuary; but he was 
 not without the saving grace of liuiiKmr, that rarest en- 
 dowment of the 2>erfervid rhetorician. Despite the griefs 
 and disillusionments of his later days, it is a dehghtful 
 picture we conjure up of Burlie in his retirement at 
 Beacousfield, amid a circle of friends and correspondents
 
 76 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 iiiL'ludiug- the purest and noblest-minded men of that 
 age. 
 
 After Stratford few shrines in England are more vener- 
 able than that at Beaconsfield, where a monument was 
 erected in 1898 as a memorial of the undying fame of the 
 man who died there on Jiily 9th, 1797. To the intellectual 
 (qualities, the exercise of which has made his name immortal, 
 he united great benevolence and a steady eagerness to help 
 others, especially his poorer friends and neighbours. Miss 
 Shackleton describes in a delightful passage how she came 
 to Beaconsfield to see ' farmer ' Burke, and how she found 
 him at Gregorie's, and how he presented her to Crabbe. 
 Burke took her into the grounds to see his dog swim, and 
 showed her his stables and animals, finishing up the day 
 by compounding pills for his poorer neighbours who were 
 ill. As he compounded the rhubarb he told his visitor a 
 story. ' I am like an Irish peer I used to know, who was 
 also fond of dealing out remedies to his neighbours. One 
 day he met a funeral. Whose funeral was it? " Oh, my 
 lord," was the answer, "that's Tady So-and-so, the man 
 whom your lordship cured three days ago." ' 
 
 Aj^art from his solitary eminence as a political seer, 
 Burke stands almost alone as a philosoj^her who is also 
 literary in the highest sense. The harmony of sense and 
 sound, outside supreme poetry, has seldom been attained 
 to such i^ei-fection as in his prose. Our emotions are 
 attuned to noble feeling, our ears to perfect utterance, and 
 our judgment at the same time is caj^tivated by the fairest 
 and most rational of appeals. Like Voltaire, Burke is one 
 of the writers who permeate modern thought, often where 
 we least suspect it ; but in Burke's case one is less moved 
 to exclaim, ' How clever ! ' or ' How original ! ' than ' Is 
 not this the quintessence of sound judgment and good 
 feeling V ' At its highest elevation this noble prose exhibits
 
 EDMUND BURKE— JUNIUS. 1*1 
 
 a wealth of imagery which the great poets might envy, and 
 a power of illusti'ation dazzling in its brilliance, and in 
 its fertility inexhaustible.^ ' Not to know Burke,' said 
 Matthew Arnold, ' is to be a very fragmentary English- 
 man.' To know him is at least a contribution towards 
 becoming a good and a liberal-minded one. The study of 
 Burke indeed refines the taste and exalts the imagination ; 
 * it edifies and stimulates the moral nature, and enlarges, 
 invigoi'ates, and ennobles the understanding.' 
 
 The series of seventy letters, signed by Junius, first 
 appeared in The Pitblic Advertiser between January 21st, 
 1769, and January 21st, 1772. They were revised by the 
 author and reprinted in March, 1772, in two small 
 volumes, by Henry Sampson Woodfall. A greatly am- 
 plified edition, with additional letters (some of which are 
 spurious), was issued in 1812, by George Woodfall. The 
 original letters attracted the universal attention of English 
 politicians, owing to the writer's apparent familiarity with 
 current political topics and personages, and his boldness 
 in commenting upon them. The climax was reached on 
 December 16th, 1769, when Junius, in a letter 'to the 
 king,' barbed a most indecent attack by an imputation of 
 personal cowardice, and reminded George III. that the 
 crown ' acquired by one revolution ' might be ' lost by 
 another.' "Woodfall was prosecuted for printing and pub- 
 lishing this in The PuhJic Advertiser, and acquitted on a 
 technical point, Avhile John Almon, who had issued and 
 
 ^ The variety in homogeneity of Burke is best indicated in the 
 fine phrase of i)e Quincey : ' Tlie splendours of Burke, yoked with 
 the very finest, subtlest, and inost combining intellect that has 
 ever yet been applied to political philosophy, awoke no sense of 
 disparity or false balance in his powers.' He had in a remarkable 
 degree the ([uality of 'elastic accommodation to the fluctuating 
 accidents of the occasion.'
 
 78 THE AOK OF JOHNSON. 
 
 sold several i-eprints of tlie letters, was punished by fine. 
 The origmal letters are now among the additional nianii- 
 scripts at the British Museum. There are, of course, 
 editions of the Letters without end : the most convenient 
 is Bohn's edition (1850, and reprinted), edited by John 
 Wade, being a reprint of Get»rge VVoodfall's issue of 1812, 
 with some additional notes. 
 
 To indicate any express conclusion as to the authorship 
 of the Junius Letters might probably need more space than 
 has yet been devoted to the subject. That space is already 
 enormous. Like Shakespeare's Sonnets, or the Man in tlie 
 Iron Mask, Hannibal's route over the Alps, or the explana- 
 tion of Napoleon's rout at Waterloo, the subject has begot 
 a literature to itself, bristling with technicalities and ex- 
 pert opinions ; but one opinion neutralizes another, and 
 the twilight is not penetrated. All that seems tolerably 
 certain is that the writer was one of a clique of dissident 
 Whigs — G-renvillites, Wilkites, and doctrinaires — of whom 
 Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818), a scheming politician of 
 the third rank, and a most prolific ptamphleteer — one 
 of the Eigbys of that genei'ation — was a more or less 
 prominent member. The writer may have been Francis 
 himself, but this is vehemently denied by some of the 
 ablest investigators, such as Charles Wentworth Dilke, 
 whom one would be glad to follow in this matter (so 
 minute is his knowledge both of the period as a whole 
 and of the intricacies of the special problem), were it 
 not that he is so agnostic as to be wellnigh incomprehen- 
 sible. ' The experience of a pretty long life has taught 
 me,' he says, in his Papers of a Critic (1875, vol. ii., p. 176), 
 ' never to believe a Junius " rumour," never to believe any 
 story of or concerning Junius, no matter how confidentially 
 or circumstantially told, which is not proved.'' The perusal 
 of the volume shows that he considers not one of the hypo-
 
 JUNIUS. 7v 
 
 theses advanced to be even plausil)le, and most of tliem are 
 riddled thi-oua^h and through hv liis acute destructive 
 criticism. 
 
 The short titles of a few of the books investigating the 
 authorship will serve to attest the invincible self-confidence 
 of Junius theorists : 
 
 1. Jimius ii!<cerf(ii)ied . . . io he Hinjli Buijd (h\ Gr. 
 Chalmers, 1800 and 1817). 
 
 2. A critical Enquiry . . . jji-oviiuj Junius to he Lord 
 Saclcville (by G. Coventry, 1825). 
 
 3. Junius compared [and identified with] Lord Chester- 
 field (by W. Cramp, 1850). 
 
 4. Junius, Lord Chatham (by John Swinden, 1830, and 
 by W. Dowe, 1857). 
 
 5. Facts. . .proving General Arthur Lee to be Junius 
 (by T. Girdlestone, 1813). 
 
 6. Home Tooke identified with Jwiitis (hv J. H. G-raham, 
 1828). 
 
 7. Junius discovered . . . in Governor Pownall (by F. 
 Griffin, 1854). 
 
 8. Letters on Junius [i.e., Earl Temple^ (by L. Newhall, 
 1831.) 
 
 9. Junius unmasTced [revealing Thos. Paine], 1872 ; cf . 
 with this Burr's Thomas Paine tvas Junius, 1880. 
 
 10. AnEnquirij . . . proving the Letters to hehy Ednnmd 
 Burke (by J. Roche, 1813). 
 
 11. William Burke, the author of Junius (by J. C. 
 Symons, 1859). 
 
 12. 'Junius,' hy J. Wade (by John Britton, 1851). 
 
 13. Junius unmasked [revealing Edmund Glbhon], 
 1819. 
 
 14. Lord George Sackville proved to be Junius (by J. B. 
 Manning, 1828).
 
 80 I'lIK AGK OF JOHNSON. 
 
 15. Letters . . . prmiiiuj \tlie Dule nf Portland to have 
 heen Jmiitis] (by A. CI. Johnson, 1816). 
 
 16. Arguments demonstrotiiKj the tetters to Tje In/ J. L. Be 
 Lot me (by T. Busby, 1816). 
 
 Among the numerous other supposed writers it is sufficient 
 to name Lord Shelburne, John Wilkes, Charles Lloyd, 
 Barrc, the second (' bad') Lord Lyttelton, and Lady Temple. 
 
 It is noteworthy that John Almon, who reprinted Juniiis 
 in the London Musenm, the factotum of the opposition 
 Whigs, and one of the best-informed political quidnuncs of 
 the day, never thought of connecting Francis with the 
 Letters, but always suspected Boyd of the authorship. Di . 
 Parr, who knew something of the character of Francis, 
 strongly deprecated the theory of his authorship (and, 
 indeed, if Francis were the author, he was morally one of 
 the vilest of men) ; but this was chiefly by way of preface 
 to an absurd theory of Parr's own. 
 
 The Franciscan theory was first fully set out in a work 
 entitled The Identity of Junius with a distinguished Living 
 Character [by John Taylor], 1818. So exhaustively is the 
 subject treated in this volume that but little has since been 
 added either to the arguments or the evidence originally 
 adduced. It was at once fiercely contested by G. Chalmers 
 and (in a series of letters, collected in 1828) by E. H. 
 Barker; and it has subsequently been subjected to very 
 damaging criticism by Dilke and by William James Smith, 
 who is said to have had the support of the judicious 
 Croker (in the third volume of The Grenville Papers, 
 1853). The Franciscan theory was, however, corroborated 
 by the investigations of Charles Chabot, an expert in 
 handwriting, and it has been accepted as a good working 
 hypothesis by such eminent historians as Lord Mahon, 
 Lord Macaulay, and Mr. Lecky, who, by his lucid manner
 
 JUNIUS. 81 
 
 of presentation, has robbed the subject of some of its 
 terrors. The pithiest summary of this view is given by 
 Mr. Leslie Stephen.' 
 
 Apart from difficulties in the details of the evidence 
 (divergences of opinion between Francis and Junius, etc.), 
 there is also this difficulty in accepting the Franciscan 
 theory, that, assuming the motives of the writer to have 
 been mainly selfish, one fails to understand why Francis 
 should have been so anxious for the vole of a political 
 Ishmael, and why he should have entertained so profound 
 a resentment against all the greatest personages of the 
 time, including several {e.g., the king) who had specially 
 benefited his family. The strain of personal bitterness 
 Avhich underlies all the polish would certainly seem to 
 suggest that, although Francis may have handwritten or 
 even been the literary instrument — the Busch — of the 
 letters, they were ultimately inspired by some much more 
 considerable personality behind the curtain (a double one 
 in this case), a real magnate, a principal in the transac- 
 tions involved.* No difficulty can be experienced in fitting 
 this part. The somewhat anomalous views (support of 
 Wilkes and firmness to America), the rare friendships, and 
 
 ' Article on Francis in Dictionary of National Biographij. 
 
 ^ The sudden extinction of ' Junius ' (after 1772) points to the 
 dissolution of a ])artnership presided over not by a literary n.an (who 
 would naturally be an.xious to pursue the triumphs that he had 
 won by means of a hiboiiously acquired mastery over a particular 
 kind of literary missile), but by a statesman wlio emjdoyed the 
 literary instrument merely as a means to an end, and wlien hope of 
 achieving tlie end by such means failed, abandoned the campaign 
 of anonymous invective without reluctance, and, possibly enough, 
 with disdain. It seems pretty ])lain that the Letters were a 
 (irenvillite manifesto, and it is significant that they ceased almost 
 simultaneously with the death of Charles Lloyd, George Orenville's 
 private secretary, on .January 22nd, 1773. Lloyd was probably a 
 go-between, if not a collaborator. 
 
 G
 
 J 
 
 82 TllH A(;E of JOHNSON. 
 
 the general, almost universal, antipathies of Junius, coincide 
 exactly with those of George Grenville and his brother 
 Richard, Earl Tenii^le — that ' malignant man, who worked 
 in the mines of successive factions for nearly thirty years ' 
 (Walpole), and of whom Macaulay says : ' Whenever a lieaj^ 
 of dirt was flung u|>, it might Avell be suspected that he was 
 at worlc in some foul, ci'ooked labyi-inth below.' 
 
 But for the present it is probably best to regard the 
 case as not proven (not even by the graphologists). A great 
 many letters and documents will have to come out of their 
 l»resent repositories before the secret history of the first 
 twenty yeai's of George III.'s reign can be written. In 
 the meantime, the fact that at any moment decisive evid- 
 ence as to the authorship may come to light serves only 
 to accentuate the proverbial danger of prophecy — and in 
 the present state of the evidence no statement, however 
 dogmatic in form, can be more. 
 
 Meanwhile the importance of Junius, whether from a 
 political or literary point of view, is not likely to increase. 
 It is, perhaps, to-day, no exaggeration to say that it has 
 decreased, is decreasing, yet ought still further to be 
 diminished. Junius, at his best, is hardly more than a 
 very effective and very luiscrupulous leader-writer. He 
 has, we believe, been termed a plaster image of Burke, but 
 this is a libel — upon the Italian modellers. Bred upon 
 Bolingbroke and Pulteney and Chesterfield (from whom 
 he derived a touch of Gallicism) and Johnson (from whom 
 he caught a few tricks most detrimental to a really good 
 style), he utterly lacked the force of a really great 
 jiamphleteer like Swift — still more utterly did he lack the 
 depth and sincerity of a political sage like Burke; in 
 finesse he is far beneath Halifax or Chesterfield, Avhile he 
 s})urned the plain and homely thrust of Defoe, and later 
 of Cobbett or Wakefield. He had only one key, that of
 
 JUNIUS. 83 
 
 studied insult and invective; Ijut invective loses all its 
 interest when a lively appreciation of the circumstances 
 and the characters is no more. What literary merit there 
 is in the invectives of Junius is not sustained bv our 
 interest in the personality of the man who launched them, 
 as in the case of Demosthenes or Cicero, or Milton or 
 Burke or Hazlitt. In other words, the value of Junius 
 tends to become more and more purely historical. The 
 direct literary iufluence that he wielded over a class of 
 political writers (best seen, perhaps, in the publicists of 
 the Edinburgh and Quarterly reviews of the early part of 
 this century, of whom Macaulay and Jeffrey are the most 
 brilliant examples) is certainly dwindling, if it be not 
 already extinct. Nor can the fact be regretted. With 
 abundance of hollow declamation and shalloAV aphorism, his 
 coinage is not deficieut in metallic lustre, but the metal 
 itself is not genuine. Charles Fox, Lord Brougham, Lord 
 John Russell, Lord Mahon, Sir Robert Peel, W. J. Smith, 
 De R;'musat (whose study of Junius is excellent), and many 
 others have stated, wdth perfect justice, that the reputation 
 of Junius is far superior to his merit. But then there is the 
 mystery — about which so many books are still to be written ! 
 Burke and Junius were the two great successors of 
 Bolingbroke in the eighteenth century as political writers. 
 One wrote for his countrymen, the other for his faction ; 
 but both alike eschewed absti-act political ideals and 
 theories, and sought rather to adapt existing machinery 
 than to model anew. Burke ahvavs sought the ri^ht 
 l)rinciples to guide the action of an actual existing govern- 
 ment, and ]>rovided he could get a liearing for tliis, ]u- 
 cared, perhaps too little, for the theory upon wliich such 
 action should logically be based. For the French philo- 
 sophers, with their schemes upon ])aper for the redress of 
 grievances and the equilibrium of forces and parts in the
 
 84 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 politiciil nuR-hiue, he liad an uuequivocal contempt. His 
 conception of the progress of English politics as a series 
 of false steps and blunders, culminating in a rude but 
 well-worn and practical path of working compromises and 
 illogical constitutional understandings, is a testimony to 
 his intuitive grasp of an idea which the labours of many 
 succeeding constitutional and historical students have 
 made familiar. 
 
 But even in empirical England it was only natural that 
 the opposite or theoretic school should have its exponents. 
 Literai-y intercourse between England and France Avas of 
 the most intimate kind, and it was to be expected that the 
 French physiocrats and political doctrinaii-es shoidd have 
 their counterparts in this country. Conspicuous among 
 these were men such as Home Tooke (1736-1812) ;^ Richard 
 Price (1723-1791) of the 'Revolution' Club, whose once 
 famous sermon, On the Love of our Coutitry (November 4th, 
 1789), was the red rag that drew Burke into the controver- 
 sial arena ; James Mackintosh," who answered Burke in 
 Vindiciee Gallicee, but who, like Walpole and many other 
 English admirers of Algernon Sidney, recanted their re- 
 publicanism when the guns began to shoot; the more no- 
 torious Tom Paine ; and last, but not least, ' Gunpowder 
 Priestley,' as he was nicknamed, who vindicated the French 
 Revolution in Letters to BtirJce (January, 1791), and paid for 
 his zeal by having his house burned by a loyalist mob. All 
 these idealists were swallowed up in the vast theoretic super- 
 ficies over which extended Jeremy Bentham,'-^ who from 
 Priestley's formula, ' the greatest happiness of the greatest 
 number,' evolved a system that was deliberately designed 
 to embi-ace the whole universe. In the application of this 
 princijile Bentham arrived at various conclusions, which 
 
 1 See Cliai.ter TV., p. lOO. 
 
 ■^ For Mackintosh and IJeutliaiii see The Age of WvrdturorlJi,
 
 THOMAS PAIXE. 85 
 
 he advocated irrespective of the conditions of society in 
 his day, and of the laws of social growth, which indeed 
 neither he nor his disciples understood. He demanded, 
 in fact, nothing less than the immediate remodelling of the 
 government and the reconstruction of the laws. 
 
 By far the most effective of the republican writers of his 
 day, as a much closer observer of the coarse texture of every- 
 day life than his fellows, and as the most forcible exjDonent 
 of the flagrant abuses of the time in language that could 
 be understanded of the vast majority of his fellow-country- 
 men, was Thomas Paine, who vindicated the revolution 
 bravely against Burke to the end, and who certainly did 
 not recant a single one of his intransigeant opinions.* 
 
 ' As an iUustratiou of thf. well-delined coiiiiiion-seuse style so 
 adiuinibly exeiiiplifieil in England l>y Defoe, by Paine, and 
 above all by Cobbett, we cannot omit a brief mention of the 
 Avorks of Benjamin Franklin, written in New England for the 
 most part between 1750 and 1770, though not iniblished in a com- 
 plete form nntil 1806 (London, three volumes). Franklin's early 
 leading consisted of little Quaker manuals and the still queerer 
 hygienic didacticism of the ' Pythagorean ' Thomas Tryon. His 
 style was modelled upon jilain, vigorous, pithy models — Swift, 
 Arbuthnot, Defoe. Writing for men as busy as himself, the honest 
 citizens of Boston, whose sobriety was as yet but little impaired 
 by the follies or elegances of polite life, he aimed at simidicity 
 and perspicuity rather than subtlety or refinement of style. His 
 homilies were directed to jiromote tlirift and independence rather 
 than to satirize the playful immoralities of fashion. Having regard 
 to these conditions and aims, Franklin's compositions are mcst 
 admirably adapted to their object. The t(me of familiarity, of 
 goodwill and homely jocularity, the plain and pointed illustra- 
 tions, the .short sentences made up of short words, and the strong- 
 vulgar sense, clear infoiination, and obvicms conviction of the 
 writer, render most of his moral e.xhortations perfect models of 
 popular expo.sition ; while hin Autobiogrttji/iy will always remain 
 (me of the most delightful documents of egoistic sincerity that 
 English literature can afiord.
 
 80 THE AGE OF .TOTTNSOX. 
 
 Thomas Paino, the sou of a small farmer at Tlietford in 
 
 Norfolk, was born in 1737, served in the 
 
 Tliomas Piiine t • i x- j.i ■ i 
 
 .._„ lonnv navy, was dismissed iroin the excise, and 
 
 migrated in 1774 to Philadelphia. Thence 
 ill 1776 he issued his short pamphlet entitled Common 
 Sense, addressed to the inhabitants of America. Few 
 pamphlets have had a career so triumphant. Written in 
 a trenchant style, and with remarkable vigour and clear- 
 ness, the brochure explains how America was going to 
 ruin because of her connection Avitli Britain. ' Our plan 
 is commerce. What advantages do we derive from the 
 connection ? 'Tis time to part ' — thus with breathless 
 liaste he argues, enforces, and concludes. His Rights of 
 Man (1791), in answer to Burke's Beflections, exhibits 
 no little controversial skill ; but there is in Paine's style 
 none of the organ's roll which hushes Burke's listeners 
 into a state of veneration and awe. At the same time 
 lie has a clear, practical manner of exposition, and he 
 develops the absurd sides of aristocracy, and monarchy, 
 and primogeniture, and other such archaic institutions, 
 with an acrid cleverness that is by no means destitute of 
 point or humour. He was a perfectly sincere believer in 
 the efficacy of theories about equality and fraternity. 
 Robespierre pleaded eloquently for the abolition of the 
 death penalty. Paine, as unscrupulous as William God- 
 win ^ in many of his private relations, was an enthusiastic 
 humanitarian and philanthropist. In January, 1793, being 
 then in Paris, he pleaded Avith a self-effacing warmth for 
 the life of Louis XVI., and made this practical proposal: 
 ' Let the United States of America be the safeguard and 
 asylum of Louis Capet. There, hereafter, far removed 
 from the miseries and crimes of royalty, he may learn 
 to appreciate a true system of government.' 
 
 Paine has little sense of continuity in history and 
 ^ See The Age of Wordsu-orth.
 
 THOMAS PAINK. 87 
 
 no historical seutinieut, but he doveh^ps his dootviues 
 with a logical precision which is indeed frequently su- 
 perior to that of Burke. He assumes that man is a 
 purely logical machine without a past and without a 
 future — entirely overlooking the complex processes by 
 which human society has been built up from element- 
 ary passions, which are indeed humoured and purged, 
 but never extinguished. Man, as we see him, is the 
 product of innumerable forces ; his character has been 
 inherited from a long line of ancestors ; his beliefs are a 
 tradition from remote ages, modified but superficially by 
 his own activity. This, the basis of Burke's optimistic 
 view of prescription and established usage, is the con- 
 ception to which all sensible men incline, but of which the 
 revolutionary optimists such as Paine and Grodwin were 
 wholly unconscious. Time, the stern summarist, tends to 
 show the shallowness of Paine's mathematical demonstra- 
 tions and the depth of Burke's apologies and suggestions. 
 Paine's health was rickety, and his last years appear to 
 have been spent under more or less deplorable conditions 
 in America, where he died in June, 1809. His views, like 
 those of not a few anarchists and insurgents, were in many 
 respects progressive and humane ; at the same time he 
 identified himself so completely with those whose life was 
 devoted to agitation against constitutional government, 
 and who aimed at the subversion in England of institu- 
 tions dear to the mass of the people, that he was ostra- 
 cised and long regarded as a pariah. His controversial 
 humour inclined him ever to the side of o]iposition, and 
 his epithets in addressing the crowned brigands of Europe 
 go far to justify such adjectives as crude and vitriolic. 
 Nodier sums him up, not inaptly, as good by nature and 
 a sophist by conviction. His life was the reverse of edifying ; 
 his writings cannot be overlooked bv anv serious student 
 of the period.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 STIJDT AND RESEARCH. 
 
 I. Economists mid Philosophers. 
 
 Adam Smith was born at Kirkcaldy, Fifesbire, on June 5th, 
 1723, thirty -fovir years after Montesquieu. 
 . '.^o i'-Q/)\ He was the son of Adam Smith, "Writer to 
 the Signet, Judge Advocate for Scotland, and 
 Comptroller of the Customs in the Kirkcaldy district, 
 by Margaret, the daughter of John Douglas, a landed 
 propi'ietor. The father died a few months before his 
 famous son was born. The mother la.vished the utmost 
 care on the upbringing of young Adam, who repaid her 
 affection with a beautiful devotion. From the Burgh 
 School the boy passed to Glasgow College, and then to 
 Balliol at Oxford. Like other students of the century 
 who were to achieve great eminence, he found the atmos- 
 phere of Oxford dull, heavy, and repressive. The Scots 
 scholars at Balliol were regarded as Galileans ; the au- 
 thorities devoted themselves to the fortunes of James III. ; 
 the one advantage of the place was the fine library (now 
 adorned by a statuette of Adam Smith), in which Smith 
 had a fi-ee range. Though sociably inclined, he seems to 
 have made no friends at Oxford, and suffered much from 
 lassitude and laziness, which he tried to cui-e with ' tar 
 water.' In 1746 he shook the dust of Oxford from his 
 feet, and after two years without regular occupation, he
 
 ADAM SMITH. 89 
 
 begau some public lectures in the college at Ediuburgli 
 upon the then novel siibject of ' English literature.' He 
 had a talent for quoting poetry, and dreamed of becoming 
 a poet himself. But he found rhyming beyond him, and 
 he had a contempt for blank verse (for which Johnson 
 ' could have hugged him ') : ' They do well to call it 
 blank, for blank it is.' It was in the following year, 
 1749, being then but twenty-six, that Adam Smith first 
 addressed himself to what is pre-eminently ' his own sub- 
 ject ' — economics ; and in this early course he already 
 adumbrates his great idea of natural liberty in industrial 
 affairs. 
 
 The Edinburgh lectures bore an immediate fruit. On 
 the death of Mr. Loudon, professor of logic in Grlasgow 
 College, in 1750, Smith was appointed to the vacant chair, 
 and so began that period of thirteen years of active 
 academic work which he always looked back upon ' as by far 
 the most useful, and therefore by far the happiest and 
 most honourable period ' of his life. His popularity as a 
 lecturer raj^idly grew, and he had practically converted his 
 fellow-citizens at Glasgow to free trade views long before 
 he expounded them in a great book. His first publication 
 of any importance, however, was not economic, but was 
 the fruit of his lectures as professor of moral philosophy 
 (he had been transferred to this chair from that of logic in 
 1752), and was called The Theory of Moral Sentiments. 
 (1759). It met with an unequivocal success when pub-' 
 lished in London by Millar, and received the approbation of 
 so good a judge as Burke. ' The author,' wrote Burke in 
 The Annual Register, ' seeks for the foundation of the just, 
 the fit, the proper, the decent, in most common and most 
 allowed passions, and making approbation and disapproba- 
 tion the tests of virtue and vice, and showing that these 
 are founded on sympathy, he raises from this simple truth
 
 00 TTiK a(;k of jottnsox, 
 
 (me of the most beautiful fabrics of moral theory that has 
 perhaps ever appeared. The illustrations are numerous 
 and happy, and show the author to be a man of uncommon 
 observation. His lant^-uage is easy and spirited, and puts 
 thint^-s before you in the fullest light ; it is rather painting 
 than writing.' David Hume also, who had become one 
 of Adam Smith's warmest friends, and with whom Smith 
 always stayed on his visits to Edinburgh, commended the 
 book highly. One of the indirect results was that, lai'gely 
 through Hume's influence, the author was selected, in the 
 autumn of 1763, to be travelling tutor to the young Duke 
 of Buccleuch, and set out in February, 1764, for Paris, 
 Toulouse, Geneva. He did not omit to pay a visit to 
 Voltaire, whom he held in profound veneration, and on his 
 return through Paris in 1766 he visited Quesnay. Upon 
 his return, Smith, whose pecuniary position was hence- 
 forward assured by a pension of ^6300 from the Duke of 
 Buccleuch, sjient some two years in retirement at Kirk- 
 caldy, and it was during the period 1767-70 that he was 
 perfecting the draft of his great book ; but, nevertheless, 
 between 1770 and 1776 the work was incessantly being 
 altered, modified, and improved. These revisions were 
 made for the most part in London, and the book also grew 
 in size by the natural process of accretion. In 1775, while 
 residing in London (where his headquarters were the 
 British Coffee House in Cockspur Street), Adam Smith 
 was admitted a member of the literary club — where the 
 general verdict seems to have been that his talk was rather 
 too professional — and, like Clibbon, he attended Hunter's 
 famous lectures on anatomy. 
 
 The Inqidry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of 
 Nations, promised as long ago as 1759, was at length 
 published on March 9th, 1776. The year 1776 is accord- 
 ingly an epoch. If Home's aphorism be true, and those
 
 ADAM SMITH. 01 
 
 liooks live tlie longest wliicli have been cai'i'ied. longest in 
 
 the wo mb of tLe pai'ent, the longevity of llie Wealth of 
 Nations is assured, for it toot twelve years to write and 
 was in contemplation for nearly thirty. Clibbon, within a,' 
 few weeks of its appearance, wrote with generosity and 
 also with justice : ' What an excellent work is that with 
 which our common friend, Mr. Adam Smith, has enriched,' 
 the public ! An extensive science in a single book, and ^ 
 the most profound ideas expressed in the most perspicuous 
 language.' Great, however, as Avas its reputation at the 
 outset, it rapidly grew until in 1857, in a moment of ex-^ 
 altation. Buckle wrote of it as in its ultimate results the 
 most important book that has ever l)een w^ritten. This 
 dictum was in no small measure anticipated by the German 
 professor, C. J. Kravis, who wrote, in 1796, that no book since 
 the New Testament was likely to produce more beneficial 
 results than The Wealth of Nations. In Spain, forward 
 as ever in reaction and repression, the work had the 
 honour of being suppressed by the Inquisition on ac- 
 count of ' the lowness of its style and the looseness of 
 its morals.' Its practical effects were seen in England 
 within a few mouths of its appearance ; for the budgets 
 both of 1777 and 1778 were reinforced by means of 
 new taxes based upon suggestions thrown out in The 
 Wealth of Nations. These practical effects have continued 
 ever since. 
 
 Great, however, as is the book's value as a mine of 
 practical suggestions, it is Adam Smith's contribution to 
 the theory of his subject — the vista that he opened of a 
 regular system of mensuration for human motive — which 
 gives him his rank among the greatest sages — Newton, 
 Hume, Burke, Darwin — that our country has produced. 
 He is entitled to such a p)lace not as ' the founder of politi- 
 cal economy,' as he is often and absurdly called. Montes.
 
 92 THE A(;K of JOHNSON. 
 
 quieii, who preceded Sniitli by many years, was the first to 
 combine liistory and philosophy to modern purposes, and 
 he was followed in France by a systematic, if eccentric 
 school of economic philosophers. Smith's own countryman. 
 Sir James Denham Stewart (1712-1780), had produced an 
 acute and well-reasoned scheme of jiolitical economy from a 
 strictly protectionist point of view. From 1760 onwards 
 free trade theories, often discrepant enough, it is true, and 
 lacking cohesion, were in the air, and many aspirations of 
 the liberal theorists were embodied in the scheme of reform 
 inaugurated by the great French minister Turs-ot in 
 1775. 
 
 To describe Adam Smith, therefore, as the founder of 
 political economy is just as reasonable as it would be to 
 describe Darwin as the founder of biology. The site on 
 which to lay his foundations was surveyed and chosen by 
 Smith himself ; but, as in the case of other great fabrics 
 of literature and philosophy, the ground had been pre- 
 pared and levelled by the process of the trituration of 
 great minds ^ for centuries beforehand. The distinctive 
 achievement of Adam Smith was to discover the principle 
 of rational connection between a vast assemblage of 
 disjected and incoordinate facts and theories, in which 
 what was sound and true was often linked to what was 
 false and contradictory. He was the enchanter who 
 educed order out of this chaos, and converted the study 
 of political economy into a progressive science. In many 
 respects his methods would seem to have resembled those 
 of Darwin. His intellectual proceedings were calm, patient, 
 and regular ; he mastered a subject slowly and circum- 
 spectly, and carried his principle with steady tenacity 
 
 ' .Such as Bacon, Spinoza, Descartes, Leibniz, Hobbes, Locke, 
 Montesqnien, Voltaire, Helvetins, Hume, and inrleed many 
 others.
 
 DAVJD HUME. 93 
 
 llirough multitudes of details that would have checked 
 many men who, with greater mental ardour, yet lacked 
 the same invincible persistence. Adam Smith survived 
 his great work for fourteen vears, and died on July 17th, 
 1790. 
 
 Into the majestic fabric of The Wealth of Nations he had 
 concentrated all that was most valuable of the liberal 
 thought of the day, and, like the great fabric reared by 
 Burke, which is in many respects the fitting comj^lement to 
 it, his great work continues to permeate our national life 
 and thought, often when we least suspect it. The main 
 tendency and object of Smith's book can scarcely be better 
 summarized than by Dugald Stewart, as demonstrating 
 that the most effectual plan for advancing a people to 
 greatness is to maintain that order of things which nature 
 has pointed out by allowing every man, as long as he 
 observes the rules of justice, to pursue his own interest 
 in his own way, and to bring both his interest and capital 
 into the freest competition with those of his fellow-citizens. 
 Kestrictive duties, prohibitions and bounties, by which 
 legislature have endeavoured to force industries into par- 
 ticular channels, are alike condemned, and the natural 
 effort of each man to improve his own position, when 
 exerted with freedom and security, is represented as the 
 mainspring of national progress. 
 
 David Hume, born in Edinburgh, in March, 1711, 
 . came of a good ancient Scottish house. His 
 
 (1711-177G) father, Joseph Hume or Home of Nine- 
 wells, a small border laird of Berwickshire, 
 died soon after his l)irth, and Hume, like Adam Smith, 
 was left to the charge of his mother, a good woman of 
 acute intellect. Like the greatest of his intellectual con- 
 temporaries, he owed little to academies, and practically 
 everything to self-education. His own choice, he savs in
 
 94 THE AGE OF .lOIINSON. 
 
 an iuterestiuy passage, iucliued hiin almost e(|ually to 
 reasoning and philosojiliy, on the one hand, and on tlie 
 other to poetry and the polite authors. When he came 
 of age he endeavoured to adapt himself to a practical 
 life, but his adventures in law a nd business nauseated 
 him. In 1736 he went over to France, as so many 
 Anglo-Saxons have done, with a view of readjusting his 
 scheme of existence. ' I went over to France with a 
 view of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat ; and 
 I there laid that i>lan of life which I have steadily and 
 successfully pursued. I resolved to make a very rigid 
 frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain mi- 
 impaired my independency, and to regard every object as 
 contemjitible, except the improvement of my talents in 
 literature.' After three years spent mostly at Rheims or 
 in AnjovT, Hume published his first work. The Treatise of 
 Human Nature, which for intellectual precocity is prob- 
 ably without a rival in our language. It contains the 
 germ of much of his later thought. In 1744 Hume failed 
 to obtain a chair that he sought at Edinburgh ; but a 
 little later he went as seci'etary to G-eneral St. Clair, des- 
 patched iipou a diplomatic errand to Turin. As Gibbon 
 gained experience, turned to such good historical purpose, 
 as a soldier in the militia, so Hume, with a like historical 
 object, took lessons in diplomacy. His Philosophical Essays 
 on Human Understanding, better known by its later title of 
 Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, appeared while 
 he was thus employed in 1748. At the close of 1751 was 
 published the famous Enquiry concerning the Prluciples of 
 Morals, followed at a short interval by Political Discourses 
 (1752). These books had a profound influence upon con- 
 temporary speculation, and especially upon the group 
 known as the physiocrats in France. The Political Dis- 
 courses, termed the ' cradle of political economy,' had the
 
 DAVID HUME. 95 
 
 more immediate effect upon English tliouolat, for in tiiem 
 were implicit a number of the doctrines which it fell to 
 Hume's friend, Adam Smith, fully and comprehensively to 
 develop. The iufiueuce of the Enquiry was even more far- 
 reaching. It first embodied the leading principles of the 
 utilitarian system in a definite and consistent form, and 
 from its impact with contemporary thought sprang both the 
 Scottish or common-sense school of philosophy and tlie 
 first speculations of Kant. In its general aspect Hume's 
 work was profoundly sceptical ; but his destructive criticism 
 l^repared the way in several important departments of 
 thought for more rational construction, as, for example, his 
 demolition of the original contract theory opened the way for 
 fruitful iuc^uiry into the historical origin of institutions. 
 
 It would be superfluous, however, to say more of these 
 remarkable essays here than just to indicate how well they 
 represent the good-humoured scepticism of the writer as 
 compared with the more acrid humours of the gx^eat con- 
 tinental critics of revealed religion. His aims consistently 
 were to delimit the field of profitable speculation to 
 matters in which we can proceed by means of experience 
 and experiment, in preference to such fathomless inquiries 
 as the origin of worlds. With regard to the special 
 question of miracles his position, which elicited so great 
 u storm of abuse, was simply that in projiortion as a 
 ])rodigy of any kind transcends or contradicts ordinary 
 exjjerience, so must the evidence for such a marvel surjjass 
 both in quality and in quantity that upon which we readily 
 accept as true a fact that does not conflict in any way witli 
 our ordinary experience, or our ideas as to the chain of 
 cause and effect." 
 
 ' For Iluinc's riiiloMijiliy sec tlic edition (tf liis works hy T. Jl. 
 (Jreeii, Huxley s Dm-Ul Jfione. and Coinpayre's r/ulo.wj>/tk de JJ. 
 11 lime, 1874.
 
 96 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 After 1752 Hume relinquished, his pliilosopliical studies. 
 He was in that year appointed librarian to the Faculty of 
 Advocates. Here, surrounded by books, he formed the 
 design of writing The History of England,'^ which he en- 
 deavoured especially to make ' interesting.' ' He wrote his 
 history,' said Home Tooke, ' as witches say their prayers, 
 backwards from Stuart to Tudor and so to Plantagenet.' 
 Hume had scant respect for dominant Whig prejudices, 
 but there was a vis vivida about his narrative which gradu- 
 ally won him readers even among his opponents. In 1763 
 Hume was appointed to a post in the British Embassy at 
 Paris, and in the French capital he was for the time being 
 the reigning sensation. His scepticism rendered him a la 
 mode to such an extent that great ladies were not content 
 unless the ' (jros David ' was to be seen at their receptions, 
 while at the opera ' his broad unmeaning face was usually 
 to be seen e7itre deux jolis minois.' He was much too 
 sensible to lose his head, but his Parisian sojourn brought 
 him into contact with the unfortunate Kousseau (already 
 an * out-pensioner of Bedlam '), who repaid much kindness 
 by the fixed malignity of the suspicious lunatic. He spent 
 the remainder of his da^'s at Edinburgh in peaceful 
 ' opulence,' sauntering agreeably and compiling the too 
 brief autobiographical memoir. My Own Life. There he 
 died on August 25th, 1776. A valuable addition was 
 made to our knowledge of Hume as recently as 1888, when 
 Dr. Birkbeck Hill published his Correspondence, mainly 
 with the publisher William Strahan. 
 
 ^Scotsmen were at the acme of their unpopularity in 
 England in Hume's time, and he liked to I'ail back at the 
 'depraved barbarians who inhabit the banks of the Thames.' 
 But, apart from this somewhat fictitious bitterness, no 
 more genial spirit could be found than David Hume. 
 
 ' See Chapter VI.
 
 DAVID HUME. 97 
 
 In his letters we fiud just the vein of quiet pleasantry, often 
 at his own expense, and sunny, amiable contentment, that 
 we expect from the writer of My Own Life and the chosen 
 ally and best friend of Adam Smith. Unless it were 
 among this same circle, which included, besides Smith, the 
 historian William Robertson, it would be difficult to find 
 so good an example of honoui'able independence and cheer- 
 ful self-reliance among the great writers of our country. 
 It is interesting for a moment to contemplate this Edin- 
 burgh group as typical of the intellectual aristocracy of the 
 eighteenth century. The serenity of their outlook ui^on 
 human life and their calm prospect of death, the amount 
 of wisdom and toleration which they combined with prin- 
 ciples liberal but in no wise subversive, and their union of 
 great intellectual industry with a mild and placid scepticism 
 conspire to give them an enviable place among great minds 
 who have found life emphatically worth living. 
 
 The acuteness and subtlety with which Hume, by pro- 
 longing Berkeley's contention that Matter was an abstrac- 
 tion, had shown that Mind was to be considered as an 
 abstraction also, led to a reaction of ' Common Sense,' as it 
 was called. The founder of this school was Thomas Reid 
 (1710-1796), a native of Kincardine, who occupied the 
 chair of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen from 1752, and in 
 1764 published his Inqtdry into the Human Mind on the 
 Principles of Common Sense. But this appeal to Common 
 Sense in philosophy, or, as Reid's disciples, Oswald, Beattie, 
 and Dugald Stewart put it, to external reality, as a funda- 
 mental law of hi;man l)elief, is now pretty well understood 
 to be on a par with Dr. Johnson's kicking a stone as a re- 
 futation of Berkeley. 
 
 Of more real interest in its consequences is the work of 
 David Hartley (1705-1757), a fellow of Jesus College, 
 Cambridge, who had scruples about signing the Thirty- 
 
 H
 
 98 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 nine Articles and gave iTp tlie Cliurch for medicine. In 
 1748 he puLlislied his Ohservations on Man, Ms Frame, hh 
 Duty, and Ms Expectations, which is historically curious as 
 the "first attempt to explain the physiological mechanism 
 of psychological i)heuomena. Linked with this was the 
 theory promulgated by Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) in his 
 Zoonomin. Hartley's theory was a combination of an idea 
 thrown out by Newton as to vibrations of the ether being 
 the cause of sensation with the doctrine of Locke respecting 
 association of ideas. Darwin substituted for vibrations 
 sensorial motions, and refined upon Hartley's theories in 
 directions which have not commended themselves to sub- 
 sequent thinkers. The same doctrine of association of 
 ideas was applied to morals by Abraham Tucker (1705- 
 1774) in his Light of Nature Pursued} Hartley's views 
 were also adopted with some modifications by Joseph 
 Priestley (1733-1804), who sought to detach his psycho- 
 logical doctrine from his physical hypothesis. 
 
 II. Naturalists and Geographers. 
 
 G-ilbert White was born on July 18th, 1720, in the 
 
 little Hampshire village which his writings 
 
 ^'"-''iS^^Q'lf *" lia^e rendered so familiar. Having obtained 
 
 (1/20-1/93). ^ fgiiowship at Oriel College, Oxford, he 
 returned to Selborne as a curate in 1747 ; ten years later 
 he accepted the living of Moreton-Pinkney in Northamp- 
 tonshire, but imposed the duty upon a curate, and took 
 up his permanent abode at his beloved* Selborne, where 
 he officiated as curate for many years and died, unmarried, 
 on June 26th, 1793. He was a marked contrast to his 
 self-complacent contemporary BufEon, but, like other great 
 proi)hetsof nature— Walton, Wordsworth, Darwin, Wallace, 
 
 1 Seep. 112.
 
 GILBERT WHITE. 99 
 
 Millet, Thoveaii, Jefferies — he was singularly iinworlclly 
 and essentially pure-minded and gentle-hearted. It is the 
 absence of pretension about his famous Natnrcd History of 
 Selborne (which was published in 1789 and well received 
 from the first) that gives to his unsystematic narrative the 
 artless yet fresh and graphic directness of a series of im- 
 promptu notes and letters. The keenness of observation Is 
 there of the man who grudged to spend the daylight in his 
 study ; yet when he does find time for expression, his style 
 is no less charming and unaffected than his interpretation 
 is shrewd or his curiosity well dii'ected. 
 
 The great majority of White's oliservatious were made in 
 an extremely small area. He did not go about seeking 
 rarities, but concentrated his attention upon the fauna of 
 his own parish and their habits ; and here it may be noted 
 that faithful and competent observers of the habits of 
 animals are very much smaller in number than the students 
 who are prepai^ed to classify and arrange and dissect and 
 anatomise them. Men like White and Waterton and 
 Frank Buckland form a very small jiercentage of learned 
 and accomplished ornithologists. 
 
 The letters which form the bulk of The Natural History 
 and Antiquities of Selborne (London, 1789, 4to) were writ- 
 ten apparently between 17G6 and 1788. Forty-four were 
 addressed to Thomas Pennant (apropos of the revised 
 edition of Pennant's British Zoology, 1768-70) and the 
 remaining sixty-six to the Hon. Daines Barrington. The 
 Antiquities are comj^rised in twenty-six additional and 
 unaddressed letters. The original edition, which was 
 published at a guinea, bears no name on the title-page, but 
 the Advertisement is signed ' Gil. White ' (his usual signa- 
 ture). Since then upwards of seventy different editions 
 have appeared, and among the numerous editors we find 
 Mitford, Markwick, Aikin, Jardine, Rennie, J. Gr. Wood,
 
 100 riii': AOK OF .tohnson, 
 
 Frank Bucklaud (1875), and Prof. Thomas Bell (1877)— 
 the last edition mentioned being the most desirable. 
 White did not in the least regard himself as independent 
 of books. His remarks show that he knew Eay well, 
 and was also familiar with the works of Derham and 
 Willughby, of Benj. Stillingfleet and G-eorge Edwards, 
 and even of the credulous Dr. Plot ; among the poets 
 he quotes Shakespeare, Thomson, Virgil, and Lucretius. 
 The disjointed character of his work is explained by 
 the fact that his book was not comi)Osed from notes, 
 but consists of the notes and observations themselves, 
 jotted down at first hand direct from nature in the even- 
 ings, after hours of patient study in the open air. 
 
 Apart from The Natural History, White left many other 
 notes and fragments of observations in manuscript, and 
 also A Naturalists' Calendar, with Observations in Va7'ious 
 Branches of Natural History, forming excerpts from much 
 fuller journals, published under this title by Aikin two 
 years after White's death. This Calendar is appended 
 to most of the later editions of The Natural History. 
 Some additional letters have also appeared in Buckland's 
 edition and elsewhere, as have about a dozen poems of 
 no great merit in the style of Somerville. 
 
 There is little piquancy in Grilbei-t White. One does 
 not read his Selborrie with excitement (like Burke), or with 
 avidity (like Fielding) : it is in a low key ; it touches only 
 ixpon minor matters ; it is not eloquent, or witty, or pro- 
 found ; it has only now and then a twinkle of humour or a 
 glint of fancy, and yet it has lived a hundred years and 
 promises to live hundreds more. Research and erudition are 
 only apparently just beginning to concentrate upon White's 
 life, and observations and the bibliography of his writings. 
 ' In the meantime, how many learned and elaborate 
 
 ^ Two elaborate editions have appeared quite recently (Nov, 1 899).
 
 GILBERT WHITE. 101 
 
 treatises have sunk beneath the waves upon which this 
 cockleshell of a book rides so safely and buoyantly ! ' 
 What is the secret of its longevity — of Selborne's perennial 
 charm ? It is not, as will have been seen, to be found in 
 the purely litei-ary qualities of the book, but to the fact 
 that in White (as in most of the men whom clubs and 
 societies of a later day commemorate) were implicit the 
 tastes and passions of an era or eras succeeding his own. 
 In venerating his work a later generation, amid influences 
 tending to centralization and aggregation, pays homage 
 to love of locality in parish and hundred and of simple 
 country life, to sympathy for all kinds of animals, and 
 to enthusiasm for observing birds and plants, and pre- 
 serving all manner of old fashions and folk-lore. Such 
 preoccupations as these — exceedingly rare, as i-are almost 
 as a love for mountaineering — in Gilbert White's day are 
 cherished more and more in our own, as each year addi- 
 tional thousands are immured in interminable streets ; and 
 to the numerous folk whom the conditions of constant city 
 life oppress The Natural History of Selborne, as the years 
 roll on, becomes more and more of a classic. 
 
 These are some of the merits and other reasons for the re- 
 markable and ever-growing vitality of White's book ; but 
 its endearing charm lies deeper in the sweet and kindly 
 personality of the author, who on his rambles gathers no 
 spoil, but watches the birds and field-mice without disturb- 
 ing them from their nests, and in the spirit of the Man of 
 IJoss (Kyrle), (juietlyplants an aconi where he thinks an oak- 
 is wanted or sows beech-nuts in what is now a statelv I'ow. 
 
 (lilbert Wliite is simply one observer, who, by reason of 
 au unaffected literary style and a great talent for sympa- 
 thetic interpretation of nature, is singled out by lovers of 
 literature to represent a small but rapidly increasing band 
 of workers in the tick! of natural history. Their work
 
 102 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 ])ossesses great interest, Lut au interest rather evolutionary 
 than literary, and appealing rather to the historian oi" 
 science than the historian of letters. Such woi'k, as it 
 progresses from the statement of first principles, and 
 addresses itself more and more to expei'ts upon selected 
 matters of detail, must simultaneously recede from the 
 fairer region of Belles-Lettres. It is perhaps enough, 
 therefore, in this connection, merely to mention the well- 
 known studies of Erasmus Darwin and of Priestley. 
 
 Less well known, though of primary interest as heralding 
 new chains of investigation, are such treatises as the 
 iL'ssays and Ohservations (1756) of Joseph Black (1728- 
 1799), the ' Nestor of the chemistry of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury ' ; the Experiments on Air (1783) of Henry Cavendish 
 (1731-1810) ; the Theory of Bain and Theory of the Earth 
 (1784-5) of James Button (1726-1797), one of the founders 
 of modern geology ; or the Meteorological Essays (1793) of 
 John Dalton (1766-1844), the mathematician and chemist. 
 
 A new constellation is formed by the explorers of the 
 dark continent, among whom is conjiicuous James Bruce 
 (1730-1794), known by his Travels to Discover the Sources 
 (f the Nile, between 1768 and 1772, published at Edin- 
 Ijurgh in 1788. Its appearance gave rise to a storm of 
 sce2:»tical squibs and pamphlets, though many subsequent 
 travellers, notably Leon Delaborde, have confirmed the 
 general veracity and even exactitude of Bruce' s descriptions, 
 lacking though they very often are in scientific form. The 
 great Mungo Park (1771-1806) commenced his astounding 
 journey up the Niger at the close of 1795, but his Travels, 
 first issued in 1798-9, barely come within our limits. 
 
 A good deal more important than these — they could 
 scarcely be more interesting — are the famous Travels of 
 Arthur Young. The ' Suffolk farmer,' as Young termed 
 himself, was born in London on September 11th, 1741,
 
 ARTHUR YOUNG — THOMAS PENNANT. 103 
 
 and showed early predilections for experimental farming 
 and an intuitive gift for agricultural journalizing. His 
 farming was neai-ly always conducted at a disastrous 
 loss, but whenever he put pen to paper — and he was 
 a prolific writer — he was successful. He had, together 
 with an acute power of observation, a happy gift of 
 selecting materials to interest his readers, and of giving 
 a friendly and familiar turn to the most instructive parts 
 of his narrative. The best known of his writings are the 
 Tour in Ireland, 1780, and the more celebrated Travels 
 during 1787, 1788, 1789, and 1790, undertaJcen with a vieio 
 of ascertaining the Cultivation, Wealth, Resotirces, and 
 National Prosperity of the Kingdom of France (1792-4). 
 Apart from the excellence of his diarizing style and the 
 pleasant candour of the writer, and apart also from the his- 
 torical interest of a survey of France when ujDon the very 
 eve of the great revolution, the wisdom of the economic 
 dicta and of the comparisons instituted between French and 
 English manners and customs (a topic since rendered so 
 fruitful by Taine and Hamerton, Betham-Edwards and 
 Bodley) give the book a i)ermanent value and render it one 
 of the most delightful of all books of reference. 
 
 Thomas Pennant (1726-1798), the descendant of an old 
 Welsh family, had his interest excited in natural history 
 by reading Willughby's Ornithology while at Oxford, and 
 in 1761 began his laborious British Zoology. He is best 
 remembered by his antiquarian tours, notably his Tour in 
 Scotland (1772), and his Tour in Wales (1778), and his very 
 popular Account of London (1790). Yet his Zoology,^ and 
 especially his History of Quadrupeds, is of some importance 
 as a pioneer effort at a systematic description of the mam- 
 malia based \\\)o\\ the classification of John Kay, for Avhom 
 Pennant had a just and enthusiastic admiration. 
 ' First puhlislied, 1706; revised etlitioii, 1708-70.
 
 l04 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 From emiueut travellers and tourists we coine to the 
 eompilers of travels, among whom there are several con- 
 siderable names. The General Collection of Voyages and 
 Travels executed by John Pinkerton (1758-1826) in seven- 
 teen volumes is still held in esteem, and entitles its com- 
 piler to be called an eighteenth-century Hakluyt. The 
 Voyages of Discovery in the Southern Hemisphere, drawn 
 uji by John Hawkesworth in 1773, excited an extra- 
 ordinary amount of strange criticism at the time of its 
 appearance, but is, nevertheless, a composition drawn up 
 with some literary skill to illustrate not unimportant 
 transactions.' 
 
 1 
 
 It Avould l)e a manifest omission to pass by the topography of 
 I lie period witliont reference to a class of literary and learned 
 compilations of which the later eighteenth centnry has Rnjiplied 
 a lion's share of the most splendid examples and models— to wit, 
 Coiiiitji Histories. Among those published within our limits 
 ■were : 
 
 Daniel Lysons'.s -Environs of Lomliui (179-2-6). 
 
 Nicolson's and Hutchinson's CmiiOcrland (1777 and 1794). 
 
 John Hutchins's Dorset (1774). 
 
 V. Morant's Essex (1768). 
 
 Edward Hasted's Kent (I77S-99). 
 
 John Nichols's Leiecstcrshirc (1790-1815). 
 
 Francis Blomefield's Norfolk (1781). 
 
 John Bridges' Northamptonshire, as remodelled by P. AVhalley 
 (1791). 
 
 John Collinson's Somerset (1791). 
 
 Micolson and P.nrn's Westmorland [ITil). 
 
 T. R. Nash's Worcestershire {11^1 -m). 
 To most of these books belongs the rare tjualily of maintaining 
 I heir oiiginal i)rice, Avliile some have more than maintained it. To 
 I hem should be added the 3liini/jienta Antiqua of Edward King 
 (173.')- 1807), containing jjlans of ancient British castles, a veritable 
 storehouse of arclncological lore ; and the monograph by Eobert 
 Adam (172S-1792) upon Diocletian's Palace at Spalato, published 
 in 1764, and highly commeutied by (ubbon.
 
 SAMUEL PARK. 105 
 
 III. Classical Scholars and Hinnanisfs. 
 
 In the vau of the scholars of Johusou's day, after 
 admitting the general superiority of Warburton and 
 Horsley, and possibly of Johnson himself and the Wartons, 
 a contemporary Avould probably have set the claims of 
 ' the famous Dr. Parr,' a pedagogue Avhose celebrity in his 
 
 dav was at least equal to that of Arnold, of 
 ^174718^^5)' Tliring, or of Jowett. As a scholar Parr 
 
 was certainly brilliant, but he consumed 
 his power in gladiatorial displays, and has left no ade- 
 quate monument of his powers. De Quincey has A\'ritten 
 a deliciously ironical survey of Parr's Oj^era Omnia, 
 and several passages in it are specially interesting be- 
 cause so much in them might be applied to Dr. Johnson 
 himself. The fame of Parr as an author is shown to be 
 largely a delusion, resting partly upon his fame as a 
 schoolmaster and partly upon that of an active Whig in 
 politics ; it is true that his fluttering pamphlets make up 
 in the aggregate a dense block of i)rinted matter, yet the 
 literary product is scarcely more digestible than ' a geo- 
 logical boulder.' Johnson's own literary position was 
 based to a certain extent upon books that he ought to have 
 written. Parr's pretensions were almost wholly of this 
 kind. 
 
 His admirers were anxiuus to set uj) Parr as in some 
 sort a rival to Johnson as colloquial dictator, but, says 
 De Quincey, liis fulininations were scarcely more than 
 Drury Lane counterfeits of the true Jovian thunderbolts. 
 In indolence alone can he be said to have a}>proached the 
 sage of Bolt Court. Johnson's dictatorship was at least 
 based upon some genuine critical aptitude. Parr's, uj^on 
 analysis, turns out to be little more than elfrontery, and
 
 106 THE AGE OF JOHIS'SON. 
 
 eveu this was always tainted by pedagogisni. His manners 
 and temper were sjjoiled, as he himself wrote of au 
 opponent, by ' the pedantries, the pomposities, and the 
 fooleries which accompany the long exercise of petty 
 archididascaliau authority.' The apologist of the uni- 
 versities against Gribbou, he left no monument of learned 
 industry commensurate in any way either with his own 
 powers or the Aveight of his opponent ; far inferior in 
 every respect is his defence to that of Lowth against the 
 ferocity of Warburton. Parr's claim to greatness is 
 finally restricted by his critic to this, that he was an ex- 
 cellent writer of epitaphs and the master of a Latin style 
 strong and not impure, as illustrated in his once famous 
 preface Ad Bellendemim. On neither ground can he be 
 adjudged to hold a high jjlace in English literature. 
 
 A scholar of much more originality was John Hoi'ne 
 
 Tooke,' son of a Westminster poulterer, the 
 (i"'^r isi-') supporter of Wilkes, and one of the earliest 
 
 English Radicals. His strictures upon Adam 
 Smith are typical explosions of Radical resentment against 
 ' inconvenient natural laws.' As a ]>hilologist Tooke de- 
 serves credit for seeing (on very different grounds, it is 
 true, from G-ray) the necessity of studying Anglo-Saxon 
 and the languages of northern Europe, and he himself 
 learned enough to laugh at Sam Johnson, though his 
 views are necessarily crude as judged by a later standard. 
 In his metaphysical views he was a thorough nominalist, 
 holding that every word meant a thing, and that reason- 
 ing was the art of putting words together. Some of his 
 definitions on this principle became famous, e.g., that 
 
 ' He was originally John Home, and was so known nntil 1782, 
 when he took the name of his political supporter and patron, 
 William Tooke, of Pnrley, near Croydon, as additional to his 
 own.
 
 HORXE TOOKE— GILBERT WAKEFIELD. 107 
 
 truth uieaus simply what a man ti'oweth, aud that right 
 means simply what is ruled. His philological and other 
 conclusions were embodied in the two volumes, "ILirta 
 nreputrTU, better known as The Diversions of Purley, the 
 first of which appeared in 1786, and the second in 1798. 
 The cai'eer of another prominent scholar of the pre- 
 
 Porsonian era forms a fitting pendant to 
 /i^-e loniv ' that of Home Tooke. Gilbert Wake- 
 
 held was born on February 22nd, 1756, 
 in the parsonage of St. Nicholas, Nottingham, and was 
 educated in his native town aud at Jesus College, 
 Cambridge. He I'ead widely in classical literature, and 
 with the heljj of a memory that was ' only too good ' he 
 retained much of his reading and developed an extra- 
 ordinary power of classical illustration. In 1778 he was 
 ordained deacon, but in less than a year from that date, 
 ' after reading the Old and New Testaments with all 
 possible attention and assiduity,' he found that his ob- 
 jections to the creed of his forefathers Avere daily multiply- 
 ing. He gradually became alienated from the Established 
 Church, and obtained appointments as classical tutor in 
 important dissenting academies, lirst at Warrington, after- 
 wards at Hackney. Though a most laborious worker and 
 a great economist of time by method, he was, as a scholar 
 and controversialist, extraordinarily impetuous, rash, and 
 splenetic. A most gentle and amiable creatui-(> in domestic 
 and private life, with the pale complexion and mild 
 features of a saint, when he took part in political, religious, 
 or even classical controversy, his pen was dipped in gall. 
 
 In January, 1 798, Dr. Watson,^ Bishop of Llandaff, wrote 
 a somewhat pharisaic defence of the prolonged war with 
 Fran<-e from the higli Tory point of view, which aroused 
 all the combustibility of Wakefield's nature. He pub- 
 
 ' Cf. Chapter V.
 
 108 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 lislied a reply so veliemeiit iu its passion that lie was 
 found guilty of seditious libel and sentenced to two years' 
 imprisonment. The persecution brought him in a sub- 
 scription of ,£5,000, but he died a few months after his 
 release from j^rison on September 9th, 1801. While in 
 prison he wrote some learned tracts, including his Nodes 
 Carcerarix, in which he imagined that he had discovered 
 a new canon of Grreek hexameter verse. His previous 
 classical work includes 8ilva Critlca (five parts, 1789-95), 
 a series of philological commentai'ies on the scriptures 
 and the classics, editions of Horace (1794), Bion and 
 Moschus (1795), Virgil (1796), Lucretius (1797), and the 
 Hecuba of Euripides (1797), in addition to several trans- 
 lations ; but his annotations are for the most part sum- 
 marily dismissed by Porson as prolix and injudicious. In 
 matters of scholarship his passions (and consequent lack 
 of discrimination) were almost as excessive as in other 
 matters, and he was as violent against Hebrew j^oints and 
 Greek accents as he was against the Trinity. Yet his 
 luxuriant fancy and j^ower of citation gained him many 
 admirers both among German and English scholars. 
 Richard Porson, a scholar of Eton and Trinity, with his 
 
 sparkling wit, with his extraordinary lin- 
 
 Kiclianl Porson •,• -n, ^ •,• . « ,,i 
 
 ,,_^Q isos^ guistic girt and jjositive genius tor textual 
 
 emendation, with his contempt, too, for 
 vague generalities and ' mere ' literary criticism and conjec- 
 ture, was the antithesis of a classicist such as Wakefield. 
 In one respect, at least, the dissimilarity was unfortunate. 
 Porson had a rooted dislike for composition. He edited 
 four plays of Euripides, but tlie great edition of Aristo- 
 phanes, whieh he Avas so pre-eminently qualified to under- 
 take on account of his racv humour and love of ironv, 
 Avas never completed. As a textual critic and emendator 
 of the old school Porson was probably without a rival.
 
 RICHARD rORSOX — .TONATIIAX TOUP. 100 
 
 He rai-ely comes into close quarters with Euglish litera- 
 ture, and this is the more to he deplored, as there is no 
 doubt that he was an excellent judge of English style. 
 His skit upon The Life of Johnson, by Sir John Hawkins, 
 an ironical panegyric in which the pompous manner of 
 Hawkins is parodied, enlivens three numbers of The 
 Gentleman's Magazine for 1787, and the 'fragment' in 
 which Sir John is supposed to relate what passed between 
 himself and Johnson's negro servant about the deceased 
 doctor's watch has rarely been surpassed. 
 
 Among the eminent textual scholars of the same school 
 as Poi-son may be named Jonathan Toup (1 713-1 78.'>), 
 whose fine edition of Longinus in Gi'eek and Latin ap- 
 peared in 1778. Among the most successful translators 
 may be named with Lowth, with Bounell Thornton, Sir 
 William Jones, Cowper, and Mickle (all spoken of else- 
 where), John Hoole (1727-1803), the translator of Tasso 
 and Ariosto (1763 and 1783), and John Langhorne, who 
 collaborated with his brother William in a well-known 
 version of The Lives of Plutarch, issued in six volumes 
 in 1770.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE THEOLOGIANS. 
 
 The writings of theologians till a comparatively small place 
 in the ' classic ' literature of the eighteenth century. If one 
 were writing the age of Thomas Aquinas or Anselm this 
 chapter would oecujiy more than half the book. But by 
 the eighteenth century the theologians no longer took up 
 the whole wide field of science, philosophy, and ethics. 
 They were for the most part occupied by worn-out contro- 
 versial issues, and keen though their polemical weapons 
 often were, they very rarely attain to the plateau of abiding 
 interest ; their disputes are now almost wholly forgotten, 
 but a curious dispensation has ordained that the technical 
 terms employed in them should still survive amongst us 
 * like fossils, just to show what strange monsters once 
 cumbei-ed the earth.' What the divines of this epoch 
 lack in cj^uality, they make up for in quantity. Their 
 very voluminosity causes the uncritical and the unleisured 
 to regard them all alike with the levelling eye of profound 
 repugnance. Were a poet of to-day to furnish a Castle of 
 Indolence with incentives to drowsiness, he Avould line its 
 walls with dusty tomes of eighteenth -century theology. 
 
 The particular controversies of our eighteenth- century 
 divines are, it must be admitted, scarcely more alluring 
 than those of the schoolmen of the twelfth century ; but it 
 would never do for the student to overlook the great
 
 THE THEOLOGIANS. Ill 
 
 literary qualities that are displayed by some few of the 
 combatants. Upon the general character and drift of the 
 polemic it is necessary to say very little. Until the 
 seventeenth century the Christian Church, leased securely 
 u])ou the substructure of the Mosaic cosmogony, had re- 
 niaiued a practically unassailable fortress. But towards 
 the end of this era the Copernicau theory, when brought 
 into contact with the laws discovered by Ke2:>ler and 
 Newton, had exploded like an enormous bomb, strangely 
 disturbing the centre of gravity of the whole structure. 
 The chief occupants of the citadel, far from changing their 
 ground, manifested extraordinarily little disturbance ; but 
 after a while a few busybodies, as they were generally 
 deemed (the Deists), thought fit to commence mining 
 operations among the foundations in order that they might 
 report upon their solidity or the reverse — these at any rate 
 were their alleged motives. In spite of Butler's de- 
 monstration in his famous Analogy that these ojDerations 
 were attended by a greater risk to the miners than to the 
 garrison, the defenders of the citadel persisted in regard- 
 ing the preparation of elaborate countermines as the best 
 means of safety. Dangers much more insidious were already 
 threatening the fortress, but it was to these obscure and 
 subterranean struggles that the controversialists with 
 whom we have to deal mainly confined their energies. 
 
 The Deists, beginning with Toland, had asked that re- 
 vealed truth should show indisputable signs of divine 
 wisdom and sound reason. Tindal had followed up this 
 general pro^josition by directing a battery of the same kind 
 as (though very different in calibre from) that subsequently 
 directed by Voltaire against the absurdities of Jewish 
 mythological legend. Toland and Tindal were followed 
 by Collins and by Woolston, who attacked respectively the 
 prophecies and the miracles. At the present day we ai'e
 
 112 THE AOK OF JOHNSON, 
 
 SO accustomed to regard the aifairs of Palestine tlirongli 
 the cTiltured spectacles of humanists like Renan or Matthew- 
 Arnold, or through the softening haze and chiaroscuro of 
 an artist-topographer such as Pierre Loti, that we can 
 scarcely conceive the hard, narrow, brutal ' common sense ' 
 (so called) with which the eighteenth century approached 
 these subjects. When in George II.'s time Woolston 
 maintained the difficulty of justifying, before a British 
 jury, the bewitching of another man's fig-tree or the de- 
 struction of another's swine, he was answered by, among 
 others, Thos. Sherlock, in his Trial of the Witnesses, in 
 which, after a trial for perjury, the apostles were brought 
 in ' not guilty.' 
 
 Very similar in kind (hard, matter-of-fact, almost 
 mathematical, and, it must be added, most 
 
 /i"l^"ioA^f'^ unconvincing) was the answer to Woolston 
 (1/43 I8O0). . . ^' 
 
 and his like, notably Thomas Morgan and 
 Peter Annet, given by William Paley in the reign of 
 George III. By his economy of materials, his clear per- 
 ception of what was necessary, his systematic treatment of 
 his subject, and, one might add, the antiquatedness of 
 his models, Paley might almost be called the Vauban of 
 Christian defence. His system is contained in three works : 
 his Horce PanlitUB (1790), Evidences of Christianity (1794), 
 and Natural Theology (1802). 
 
 Each is a marvel of skilful and lucid statement, not 
 original in substance, but cjuite new in method and in the 
 attractiveness that springs from clearness. His argument 
 as to ' natural theology ' is briefly this : from a watch we 
 infer a watchmaker (an illustration derived from Tucker ') ; 
 
 ' Abraham Tucker (1705-1774), of Betcliwortli, a luimoristic 
 philosopher, autlior of The Light of Nature Pursued (through 
 seven volumes), a book once well known, at least by name — a 
 fountain at whose springs have draAvii not only Paley, but also
 
 WILLIAM PALEV, 113 
 
 from a univei'se coiitrived like clockwork we must infer a 
 divine artificer. In the Evidences Paley, assuming good 
 grounds for belief in an intelligent creative Being wdtli a bene- 
 volent purpose (tlie very theorem that Hume denies), goes 
 on to argue that this creator may very conceivably wish to 
 communicate certain facts to his creatures. For this pur- 
 pose he sends to earth a miracle-working Christ. Quv^utu 
 fiwpoiQ is easily said ; but the miracles of Christ are attested 
 by twelve plain men who sacrificed all they had and finally 
 laid down their lives for the conviction that they were 
 genuine : they could not have been deceived ; they must 
 have known whether Christ was an impostor or not : they 
 must have known whether the miracles he did were real or 
 pretended : they had no intelligible purpose to serve by- 
 deception ; on the contrary, they had everything to lose by- 
 it. It is utterly opposed to the ordinary principles of 
 human action that men should set about propagating 
 what they know to be a lie, and yet not only gain nothing 
 by it, but expose themselves inevitably to such con- 
 sequences as enmity and hatred and a cruel death. Some- 
 what similar were the arguments in Hone Paulina', that 
 the ' undesigned coincidences ' of the Gospel narratives are 
 a complete disproof of the ' infidel hypothesis ' (long since 
 abandoned) that the New Testament was a cunningly 
 devised fable. As against one whole class of objectors, 
 Paley's works were truly a powerful engine ; but as against 
 Hume and the comparative or historical school, he was 
 merely beating the air. 
 
 AVJiateley, Coiilestone, iuid Fsaac; Taylor. Tuckor is liaiipy in 
 ilhi8tratin<^ the obscure by tlie familiar, in roi-onoilinf!; wordy dis- 
 imtants, and be executes Ids task with tbe sunsliine of a jilacid 
 and playfnl tenipei'. His book bas been termed one of tbe most 
 attractive in tlie language ; but so extreme is its clumsiness, and 
 so portentons its lengtli, tbat few men of a sn]ieilicial age can be 
 fouml to grai)plc with it. 
 
 I
 
 114 THE AGE OF JOHNSOK. 
 
 Whatever view may Le taken of tlie philosophical 
 weight of Paley, there is no question that his style is 
 one of the clearest and most sensible ever written ; his 
 method is no less admirable, and the lucidity and appo- 
 siteness of his illustrations beyond all praise. ' See him 
 how we Avill,' wrote a Quarterly Keviewer, ' we always find 
 the good sense of a plain, shi-ewd, practical Yorkshire- 
 man ' ; and so may Ave sum up, not inaccurately, the chief 
 attributes of this notable ' defender of the faith.' 
 
 In 1782 Joseph Priestley, scientific discoverer, mihtant 
 Dissenter, Radical and Unitarian, a man 
 
 ■ ,l'.,o ,„.* ' who approached Diderot in versatility, 
 published his History of the Correla- 
 tions of Christianity. He had been anticipated in his 
 general conception by Zwicker and others, but he en- 
 deavoured to narrow the limits of the supernatural 
 element in religion to a much greater extent than any 
 of his predecessors. All Protestants agreed that at some 
 early period, largely tlu'ough the agency of the papacy, 
 Christianity had been corrupted. Priestley boldly in- 
 cluded the Trinitarian doctrine among the early corrup- 
 tions. He continues the attack begun by Daille upon the 
 authority of the fathers, makes Christ a mere man, and 
 places the writers in the New Testament on the same 
 ground with Thucydides and Tacitus, while through the 
 Platonists he traces back much of the Christian dogma to 
 Egyptian sources. With a good deal of inconsistency, 
 however, he accepts the authority and reasoning of the 
 apostles and the authenticity of the Gospels for the purpose 
 of contorting them at every point into agreement with his 
 own peculiar Unitarian doctrine. His casual method of 
 citation, his weakness in clinching his arguments, based 
 though many of them are upon suggestive ideas, and 
 his slipshod English, rendered him an easier prey than
 
 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY — SAMUEL HORSLEY. 115 
 
 could possibly have been auticii^ated for Samuel Horsley, 
 
 a brilliant alumuus of Trinity Hall and 
 
 Samuel Horsley i ij.t>i t j-i i*^ ^ 
 
 ..„„., ,Qf^^^ chaplam to L>islioi) Lowth, a born contro- 
 
 versialist, with an admirable style. If the 
 Corrtiptions had no other good effect, they made a bishop 
 of Sam. Horsley, one of the best prose-writers of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 It is widely admitted now that in Horsley's Tracts in 
 Controversy ivith Dr. Priestley (1789) was administered 
 one of the ' severest castigations which a rash and arrogant 
 invader of another's province ever received.' Priestley was 
 rei>uted a giant in controversy, and it needed a giant to 
 cope with him. There was little absolutely new in his 
 attack ; but he came forward with a name of great celebrity 
 in philosophy, he had no common confidence in advancing 
 his assertions, he possessed much address in stating and 
 colouring his arguments, and he made an ostentatious dis- 
 play of ransacking antiquity for evidence. But when Hors- 
 ley came into the field, Priestley's learning was manifestly 
 surpassed. Trained in logical precision, acute to the last 
 degree in perceiving fallacies, and consummately skilful 
 and cutting in exposing them, Horsley carried the attack 
 boldly into the enemy's country. Astutely- limiting the 
 combat to a preliminary investigation of credentials and 
 qualifications, he demonstrated the deficiency of his adver- 
 sary as regards the higher erudition at almost every point. 
 It was a great literary trium])h, even if it did not place 
 Christian revelation upon a much securer basis than here- 
 tofore. 
 
 An attack upon Cliristianity of a rather different kind 
 to any that had j^receded it in England was that of the 
 able controversialist Thomas Paine, of whom we have 
 already spoken more fully. Previous assailants had gener- 
 ally argued in the pretended interests of Christianity
 
 IIG THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 itself, or they had sneered at orthodox religion obliquely, 
 after the manner of Gibbon. But if Gib- 
 Tom Paine ami ^^^ represents the dignity, Paine repre- 
 sents the impudence, of tree thought, in 
 his once famous Age of Reason (first part, 1793; second 
 part, 1795) he treats Christianity as a huge imposture, 
 disgusting to the common sense of ordinary mortals, and 
 only sustained by means of an army of interested charla- 
 tans, playing upon the weakness of the mass of mankind 
 for anything savouring of prophecy, mystery, or miracle. 
 His strength lay in the clearness with which he perceived 
 a weak point, and the vigour and jjersistency Avith which 
 he brought his weajjons to bear upon it. He wrote with 
 the striking unambiguous plainness of a Franklin or a 
 Oobbett ; there is no mistaking his meaning. He is 
 scurrilous often and inaccurate, but it must be remembered 
 that the first part of his Age of Reason was written in a 
 Paris pi-ison, where he had no recourse to books of any 
 kind. Paine was answered with admirable temper and in 
 excellent style by Richard Watson (1737-1816), a Trinity 
 man and Cambridge professor of divinity, who was shelved 
 as BishoiJ of Llandaft', to his bitterly-expressed mortifica- 
 tion. But if Watson clung like a limpet to Church emolu- 
 ments, he knew how to write, and his Apology for the Bible 
 in a Series of Letters, which apjjeared in 1796, and went 
 through eight editions in two years, is still well worth 
 reading as a model of controversial moderation and skill.' 
 
 ' Watson does not often, perhaps, meet Paine's general objec- 
 tions very squarely, but where he does join issue he is almost 
 always \ictorious, and he concludes Ids hook with some valedic- 
 tory remarks of great dignity. Paine has heen reprobated for 
 his ' ( )id Bailey ' coarseness, and his metliod of attack is now 
 (juito out of date ; but it nuist be remembered that the tolerance 
 whicli rei)roves liim on the score of taste is the i)roduct in some 
 measure of liis lu-utality. (See Sir J. P. Stephens excellent essay
 
 CONTERS MIDDLETON. 117 
 
 A much more interesting and a much more insidious at- 
 tack upon orthodox belief was that of Conyers Middleton 
 (1683-1750), a native of Eichmond and a fellow of Trinity 
 College, Cambridge. In his remarkable Letter from Borne, 
 showing an exact Conformity between Popery and Paganiam, 
 Middleton endeavoured to show that the old pagan rites 
 were a kind of clumsy rehearsal of the perfected Catholic 
 ritual. A work with a somewhat similar intention had 
 appeared at Leyden in the seventeenth century, and 
 Middleton may well have derived some hints from the 
 very curious Traitr des ci^rrmonies religiem^es de tontes tes 
 nations, with the admirable plates of Bernard Picart, whieli 
 was appearing in parts at Amsterdam at the very time 
 of his publication. Nevertheless, he may be deemed to 
 have first felt at its full weight the value of the historical 
 and comparative argument in dealing with questions of 
 religious evolution, and its great advantage as a lever of 
 opinion over the outworn dogmatic form of argument. 
 The new method was shown to best advantage in Middle- 
 ton's Free Enquiry into the Miracidovs Poivers v^hich, are 
 supposed to have existed in the Christian Church through 
 several successive ages, issued in 1748. In this work he 
 attacked the ecclesiastical miracles, pointing out that their 
 true source was in the general intellectual condition of the 
 age that produced them, without needing to postulate 
 either supernatural interference on the one hand or human 
 imposture on the other. It is true that the Protestant 
 divines had oft(>n already attacked the post-apostolic 
 miracles ; but Middleton's peculiar line of argument 
 against them tended to place the whole subject in a new 
 light. Why. he asked (not directly, indeed, but by irre- 
 
 on Tom Paine : ' With every respect for the Episcopal Bencli,' 
 says the writer, ' we know of no livinj;- hislmp wlio ran writo 
 like Watson.')
 
 118 THE AOE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 sistible insinuation), sliould you believe Moses or Matthew 
 if you won't believe Augustine? Why, if you believe 
 Augustine, do you disbelieve in Jane Wenham being a 
 witch, or refuse credence to the prodigies reported from 
 Grodalming ? 
 
 Taken as a whole the work of Middleton seemed cal- 
 culated to remove theological controversy to a somewhat 
 higher plane, and for the rude though adroit quarterstaff 
 play of such champions as Woolston and Paine, or Watson 
 and Paley, and the brilliant fencing of Horsley, to substi- 
 tute a rather more subtle system of attack and defence. 
 A similar tendency was manifested even earlier in the 
 ,„.„. ^„ , ^ works of Bishop Warburton, one of the 
 (1698-1779). '^^'^'^^^ remarkable literary figures of the 
 
 age. Born at Newark, where his father 
 was town clerk, in December, 1698, Warburton was ordained 
 deacon in 1723 ; he obtained a living in Lincolnshire, and, 
 l)uried quietly there for eighteen years, read widely, as was 
 truly said, with enormous appetite, but wretched powers of 
 digestion. The result was seen in his extraordinary work. 
 The Divine Legation of Moses (1738-40), the central posi- 
 tion of which is so singular as an argument as to appear 
 nothing short of whimsical. 
 
 The Deists had made capital out of the absence from the 
 Old Testament of any distinct reference to a future life ; 
 Warburton accentuates the fact of the omission, and takes 
 it as a proof of divine authenticity, for no mere human 
 legislator, he argues, would have omitted such a sanction, 
 and therefore the motive of Moses in leaving out so 
 necessary a condition of morality must needs have been 
 that he expected a further revelation. Obscuring this 
 central theory is a tangled growth of underplots, such as 
 that in which Virgil's descent of Jilneas into the shades is 
 explained as an allegorical version of a law-giver's initia-
 
 WILLIAM WARBURTOX. 119 
 
 tiou iuto the Eleusiniaii mysteries — an explanation which 
 elicited the Critical Observations from the pen of the 
 youthful Gibbon. Warburton's notes (almost as notorious 
 in their day as those of Gibbon) are a kind of literary 
 shambles — a place of torture and execution for the author's 
 predecessors in the paths of theological learning. He was 
 said, like Salmasins, to have erected his critical throne on 
 a heap of stones, so that he might have plenty of missiles 
 always at hand to throw at the heads of those who passed 
 l)y. A good example both of Warburton's vigorous in- 
 tolerance and of his period's preference for the rational as 
 opposed to the sacerdotal conception of religion is supplied 
 by the following extract from one of his letters : ' The 
 Church, like the ark of Noah, is worth saving : not for the 
 sake of the unclean beasts that almost filled it and probably 
 made most noise and clamour in it, but for the little corner 
 of rationality that was as much distressed by the stink with- 
 in as by the tempest without.' In his edition of Shake- 
 speare, which aj^peared in 1747, with a like arrogance (for 
 the performance was a miserable one), he spoke of having 
 evoked the name of Shakespeare from the rotten monument 
 of his former editions, only to arouse ' the envy of a crew 
 of strange and grotesque devils who come chattering, mew- 
 ing, and grinning about me.' Ainong the ' devils ' were 
 Thomas Edwards (1699-1757), author of the once cele- 
 brated Canons of Criticism; Zachary Grey (1687-1766), 
 the learned annotator of Hvdihras; and John Upton 
 (1707-1760), autlior of Critical Ohservations on Shal-e- 
 speare. 
 
 Warburton's advancement in life was due to a largely 
 accidental circumstance — a defence of the oi-thodoxy of 
 Pope's Essay on Man against the strictures contained in 
 the Examen (1737) of the Swiss philosopher, Jean Pierre 
 de Crousaz. He had formerly impaled Pope in one of liis
 
 120 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 slasliiug letters, but Pope remained in happj ignorance of 
 the fact, and when he died made Warbnrton his literary 
 executor. Through Pope he made a wealthy marriage, 
 and his father-in-law got him made a bishop. In the 
 pulpit, as in his books, he is often jiaradoxical, but some- 
 times very vigorous and not infrequently droll. Like 
 Daniel Burgess in Queen Anne's day,- he took rather a 
 pride in eliciting the loud laughter of his congregation. 
 By dint of steady self-assertion, he gradually attained to a 
 positicm of high critical authority (as of an English Scaliger), 
 and after the death of Pope it seemed, for a short time, as 
 if he might have aspired to a literary dictatorship. As a 
 scholar he was a ' sham giant,' but his individuality, in 
 which we can discern veins of Swift, of 'Anatomy ' Burton, 
 and of Isaac Vossius, was notable ; he was, in some respects, 
 a kind of theological Johnson, while in others he anticip- 
 ated Whewell, whose ' foible,' like his own, was omniscience. 
 The meeting between the two contemporary literary bullies 
 is realistically described by Boswell. Warburton began bv 
 looking surlily at Johnson, but ended by 'patting' him. 
 
 As Johnson had his Boswell, so Warburton had his 
 Dr. Hurd. Hurd was much more than Boswell, however, 
 a slave, a creature whom Warburton indulged as Swift did 
 Pilkington, at the price of unconditional submission to 
 every caprice of his contradictory mind. Warburton seems 
 to have persistently overread himself, in youth from 
 natural craving, in age as a refuge from the uneasiness of 
 tliought. In this he resembled Swift and Scott, but above 
 all Southey, and, like them, he survived his faculties some 
 years. He died in June, 1779, and was buried in his 
 cathedral at Gloucester. 
 
 Warburton provoked at least one worthy opponent in 
 Robert Lowth, the son of a bishop and professor of poetry 
 at Oxford, afterwards himself Bishop of Oxford and then of
 
 BISHOP LOWTH. 121 
 
 London, of which see he was one of the greatest ornaments. 
 „. , ^ . Warburton assailed Lowth upon the suhiect 
 
 (1710-17S7) his views respecting the Book of Job. 
 
 Lowth hinted remonstrance in A Letter to 
 the Bt. Rev. Dr. Warhnrton, Bisliop of Gloucester, a model 
 of urbane and polished sarcasm, Avhich not even Chester- 
 field could have excelled. The stroke was countered and 
 retorted, but Warburton for once had found his master. 
 The controversy excited so much interest that it was even 
 spoken of at our unliteraiy court. ' His majesty then 
 talked of the controversy between Warburton and Lowth, 
 which he seemed to have read, and asked Johnson what 
 he thought of it. Johnson answered, " Warburton has 
 most general, most scholastic learning ; Lowth is the more 
 correct scholar. I do not know which of them calls names 
 best." ' As Gibbon said, however, Lowth's victory was 
 clearly established by the silent confession of Warburton 
 and his slaA^es. Lowth's valuable work De Sacra Poe><i 
 Hehrceortim (Oxford, 1753), a masterly dissertation — which 
 evoked the warmest praise from the celebrated Jewish 
 rabbi Mendelssohn, to whom the Hebrew was almost 
 vernacular — was unfortunately written in Latin ; but his 
 last and greatest work, Isaiah : a New Translation with a 
 preliminary dissertation and notes (1778), called forth 
 eulogiums from the literati in every part of Europe, not 
 only in respect to the excellence of the version, but also 
 for the principles of criticism for the general guidance of 
 translators from the Hebrew which the writer lays down. 
 Both works have long been admitted to the rank of classics 
 in sacred literatiire. 
 
 The reputation of all these once famous names has very 
 much dwindled ; but the eighteenth century is represented 
 in England by a theologian far mightier than any of them, 
 and one that cannot altogether be excluded from the roll
 
 122 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 of literary men. Alike with the worldly and the sceptical, 
 or with the Christian jipologists with whom we have been 
 
 dealing, John Wesley had nothing in 
 1*1703^79)7 common. He believed in hell with the 
 
 intensity of a Luther. Like Newman at an 
 early date in life, he deliberately chose the narrow way. 
 His direct aim was to save his fellow-conntrymen from the 
 clutches of the devil l)y emancipating them in the first 
 instance from selfishness and vice. He deliberately refused 
 to study disturbing experimental sciences, disbelieved in 
 the Newtonian astronomy, but believed sincerely in witch- 
 craft and in demoniacal possession, and in the constant 
 miraculous interposition of the deity in answer to prayer. 
 The argument that miracles do not happen was to him 
 upon the face of it absurd. His frequent prayers were, 
 lie believed, answered every day by Grod's direct interposi- 
 tion. He had the faith that moves mountains, faith with 
 the exceptional accompaniment of extraordinary intel- 
 lectual vigour. 
 
 Few families are more remarkable than that of the 
 Wesleys. The father, Samuel Wesley, had formerly been 
 a Nonconformist, but in the course of a polemic against 
 Anglican principles he became convinced of their truth. 
 Impulsive, he became a pronounced churchman. He set off 
 on foot to Oxford, married a wife who, like himself, had 
 gone over from the Nonconformist camp, and gradually 
 overcame the dislike of his parishioners at Epworth. All 
 that he wrote, including an overpraised Heroic Poem on 
 the Life of Onr Blessed Lord, was in the service of religion 
 and virtue. But in the words of his great uncle, Thomas 
 Fuller, ' he had drunk more of Jordan than of Helicon.' 
 Among his children were John, the founder at Oxford of the 
 little band of Methodists, and Charles Wesley (1707-1788), 
 the great hymn-writer, perhaps the greatest in our language,
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 123 
 
 Charles Wesley is said to have written in all nearly seven 
 thousand hymns, among them that finest of all devotional 
 hymns, Jesu, Lover of my Soul. Charming bnt ill-authen- 
 ticated stories are told of its inception. All that we can 
 say is, that it was written shortly after the great spiritual 
 change which the writer underwent in 1738, and that it was 
 published within a few months of the official date of the 
 founding of Methodism in 1739. Few masterpieces have 
 been more grievously mutilated by the idiot hand of the 
 precisian. No less than twenty different readings have 
 been advanced for the first stanza alone. The following is 
 a representative attempt at 'emendation.' 
 
 Commentator'' s Version 
 
 Oriqinal. {dp- Urwick's Collection, 
 
 Dublin, 1829). 
 
 ' Jesu, Lover of my soul, ' Jesu, Kefuge of the soul, 
 
 Let nie to thy hosoni fly. We to thee for safety fly. 
 
 While the nearer waters roll, While the waters round us roll. 
 
 While the tempest still is While the tempest still is 
 
 high.' high.' 
 
 Few of John Wesley's hymns are worthy to stand beside 
 those of his brother, but his Journal (issued at irregular 
 intervals from 1739 onwards) is a worlc of literary power 
 inspired l)y religion and permeated by a force that is 
 almost superhuman. It is difficult to believe that two 
 men who were almost exactly contemporaries, should have 
 produced works so diametrically opposed to each other in 
 every tendency as the Journal of Wesley ^ and the diary 
 formed by the Correspondence of Horace Walpole. 
 
 To understand the apparition of a uian like John Wesley 
 
 ' The name of Wesley is venerated wherever English is spoken, 
 hut his Jut(r)ial is not enough read. It is a great hook in every 
 way, and one of the few 'hohhies' of, no mean judge, Edward 
 l''itzgeralrl.
 
 124 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 in the reign of George II. it is necessary to go "baclr 
 ■just a little and contemplate William Law (168G-1761), 
 that primitive Christian and quaint author (of a Serious 
 Call to a devout and holy life), who is brought into so 
 strange a juxtaposition to Gibbon in the cynical historian's 
 delightful Antohingrnjihy. If Gibbon be an incarnation of 
 the worldly thinkers of the eighteenth century, with their 
 placid contempt for all the higher spiritual infli;ences, Law 
 was ' the type of the counteracting forces that were stirring 
 beneath the surface.' At his native village of King's 
 Clift'e he led a tiny religious community in a lifelong 
 service of prayer and mystical meditation and works of 
 charity, carrying one back in imagination to the household 
 of Nicholas Ferrar at Little Gidding, Avhile King's Cliffe 
 itself was imitated years later by pious households at Olney 
 and at Ongar. 
 
 Like his spiritual ancestor, William Law, John Wesley 
 was content to appeal to the devotional feeling deep-seated 
 in the heart of man. Official Anglicanism, with its Whig- 
 gish abhorrence of enthusiasm, its multiplied proofs and 
 evidences, and appeals to reason, had failed to make 
 Christianity loved by a new generation. The curates who 
 did the work of the absentee beneficed clergy felt no call 
 to proselytize the increasing masses of industrial popula- 
 tion. After fruitlessly endeavouring for years to accom- 
 modate the new movement to the forms of the Establish- 
 ment, John Wesley organized an independent system of 
 ministerial work and government for the sect which he 
 called into existence. He thus became the greatest caiDtain 
 of men in his century, round whose standard to-day over 
 twenty millions of human beings are rallied. 
 
 As a leader of Englishmen in the last century his nearest 
 rival, perhaps, is Artliur Wellesley, and the names sug- 
 gest kinship, for Wellington's father sj^elt his name
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 125 
 
 Wesley ; the two families are indeed believed to liave 
 sprung from a common stock. Nor is the juxtaposition 
 of these two great names so entirely fanciful as might 
 at first appear. The two lueu resembled each other 
 strikingly in their wonderful physique, and in the extra- 
 ordinary faculty for hard work which enabled each of 
 them to labour without intermission or distraction to the 
 farthest limit of human activity. Wesley's writings, 
 moreover, are a close counterpart of the Despatches of 
 Wellington. Both show remarkable literary power ; both 
 go straight to the mark ; and both, as means to a direct 
 practical end, are striking less from their intrinsic interest 
 than as examples of heroic force of will. The talent of 
 both meu for business and command is stamped upon 
 every fragment that has come from their pens. The quality 
 of mind and intellect that Wellington put at the disposal 
 of his country is shown first and last in his Despatches. 
 Similarly, there are few more vivid porti'aits of personality 
 than that embodied in the Journal of John Wesley.' 
 
 ' Aiiiuii;^ the p<»imliuiser.s of Wesley'^ tlieulo.ny aiiunij^' the town 
 iiiieUlle cla«s, who were jiiist beyiuning to read liic-lianboii, was 
 James Hervey (1715-1758). His Meditatlviis was vastly admired ; 
 it was indeed one of the most popuUxr hooks of the eighteenth 
 century. It remains a strange compound of rehgion and rhetoric, 
 but the rhetoric is in reality of a pinchbeck order, as of a prose 
 Hubert Montgomery, and the religious sentiment luis a falsetto 
 ring — inseparable from tlie conjunction of elegance and evangelical 
 ideiis. 
 
 To those who would explore at greater length the controversial 
 issues, upon which we have scarcely liatl room to touch, a golden 
 Uey to the suliject is supplied in the standard KiKjlisk Thoitglit 
 in the E'Kjhtccnth Cfutanj of Mr. Leslie Stephen. With his judg- 
 ments .should be conqiared the views in Sir J. V . Stephen's Hone 
 Sahtjattico: and in the writings of Mark i'attison, especially his 
 Essaij OH Wurburion. There is barely room to mention here the 
 writers of one or tw(j additional Itooks that survive as 'standard'
 
 126 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 authorities. Tiie Dia^crfatioii on the Proji/tccicx (lloi) of Bishop 
 Thomas Xewtou (1704-17S2) enjoys a reputation in excess perhaps 
 of its merits. It was a last feeble echo of remonstrance against 
 the insinuations of the Deist Collins that the prophecies were best 
 left out of an argument for supernatural religion. Johnson's 
 comment upon the book is memorable : ' It is Tom's great work, 
 but hoAA- far it is great or how much of it is Tom's are other 
 questions." Bishop George Home (1730-1792) was likewise follow- 
 ing an old groove in his Defence of the Tliirty-nine Articles (1772) : 
 subsequently, in his if ^^e*-*" on Infidelity {\1S\), he specially assailed 
 Hume, in answer to whose great argument George Campbell (1719- 
 1796) issued his enormously popular Dissertation on Miracles in 
 1762. In 177S appeared the free-spoken Ojiinions of Christian 
 Writers of the first Three Ccntifrics concerning the Person of Christ, 
 by the Unitarian Gilbert Wakefield (1756-1801), and in 1773 the 
 last instalments of the able Bonarks on Ecclesiastical History of 
 John Jortin (169S-1770). The famous Concordance of Alexander 
 Cruden (1701-1770) bad appeared in 1731, but bis Scripture Dic- 
 tionary was not issued until 1770. The Lives of the Saints, by 
 Alban Butler (1710-1773), appeared in 17-10; while the famous 
 Bible Commentary of the saintlj' Thomas Scott (174^7-1821) was 
 publislied near the close of the century (1788-92). 
 
 We have drawn a charitalde veil over the sermons that Dr. John- 
 :?on read and listened to with such assiduity. How many of them 
 will be read, except by professional persons, in the twentieth cen- 
 tury ? Perhaps those who possess the handy one-volume Sterne 
 issued by Henry Bohn in 1865 Avill read the sermons at the end. 
 The first series of Sermons by Mr. Yorick (1760) are not exception- 
 ally lively, consisting merely of the early sermons which Sterne 
 published, by the sbrewd advice of a bookseller, to satisfy the curi" 
 osity of the i)ublic as to what manner of man the author of Tristram 
 might be. But with the second batch of Sermons (1766) the case is 
 altered. These were deliberately written to sustain the repute of 
 the author of ' Shandy," and are well worth examination : notably 
 the discourse on the prodigal son, in which the preacber dwells on 
 the need of sending yoimg men on the grand tour, not with ' a broken 
 Swiss valet.' but with a carefully selected tutor and proi)er introduc- 
 tions, or the sermon on Judges, xix. 1, or the still more extraordin- 
 ary one preached at Paris before a congregation of sceptics in 1763. 
 Here, as (iray said, you seethe preacher ' tottering on the verge of 
 laughter and ready to throw his periwig in the face of the audience.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE HISTORIANS. 
 
 The old Englisli historians, a prolific and in many respects 
 a notable group of writers, had been rather Eutropiau than 
 Tacitean in their methods ; such men as Hall and Holin- 
 shed, Camden, Speed and Stow and Strype, and the 
 industrious Huguenot compilers, Boyer and Eapin, had 
 restricted themselves largely to voluminous annaliziug. 
 Men of affairs with a faculty for writing, such as Claren- 
 don and Burnet, had produced graphic and humorous 
 jjolitical memoirs, to which they had giveu the name of 
 Histories, and these had provoked similar labours on the 
 part of their i^olitical adversaries. The value of general 
 judgments, of comparative studies in history, the influ- 
 ence of economic conditions, of ideas in relation to events 
 — such considerations as these were almost entirelv neg- 
 lected. Bolingbroke may be said to have had some 
 gUmpses of later historical method, but his conceptions of 
 history are still in a very crude and disorganized state. 
 He condemns the labours of erudite research as so much 
 learned lumber, and so begins by depriving himself of the 
 necessary materials for any sound process of historical 
 deduction. He adopts indeed the old saw that history 
 is ])hilosoi>hy teaching by examples, but he manages with 
 curious infelicity to repudiate the true historical method 
 before it had come into being, and thus condemns himself
 
 128 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 to a merely empirical system of guesswork. The attempt 
 to treat history iuductively upon a broad philosoj)hical 
 basis was reserved, iii fact, for the great genius of Montes- 
 quieu, as the first attempt to appeal widely to modern 
 comprehension by an attractive grouping of historical 
 facts was reserved to Montesquieu's even greater con- 
 temporary, Voltaire. While thus in France the finest 
 intellects of the age were engaged upon historical inter- 
 pretation, it seemed in our coiuitry as if men of the dullest 
 intellects and meanest acquirements were busying them- 
 selves with the subject. The histories of such men as 
 Eobert Brady, John Oldmixou, James Ralph, Laurence 
 Eachard, and Nicholas Tindal (1687-1774), the continu- 
 ator of Eapin, might well have been written by authors 
 who had failed at every other kind of literature. When 
 the Duchess of Marlborough wished for an historical 
 memoir of her husband, embodying the details of his 
 immortal victories, she had. to apply to David Mallet, a 
 man whom, as Buckle says, the French wovild have hardly 
 thought worthy of dusting the manuscripts of one of 
 their great historians. Men of this calibre despised the 
 Middle Ages Avith a wild and ignorant presumption, and 
 little or nothing was done in England by the generation 
 succeeding that of Dugdale, of Rymer, of Hearne, and of 
 Madox, corresponding to the great labours of Muratori, 
 Maifei, Ducange, Bouquet, and the Benedictines of France. 
 The contracted views that disfigured much of our old 
 
 historical work were manifested in Thomas 
 
 Tlioinas Carte n i. i-x-i -^ i? x ^• 
 
 /wo/. !--<> Carte, an historical writer ot great patience 
 (lbS(j-l/u4). _' " •^. 
 
 and industry. The son of a Jacobite an- 
 tiquary, Carte shared his father's tastes and prejudices. 
 Having gained some reputation as an historical investi- 
 gator, he obtained a good subscription for a History of 
 England on a large scale, the first volume of which ap-
 
 THOMAS OARTR — GEORGE LYTTELTOX. 129 
 
 peared in 1 747. The way in which new and origiual 
 materials were employed showed a great advance upon 
 previous works, and mark it out as the best history 
 of England in point of research previous to that of 
 Dr. Lingard. Yet so absurdly narrow and superstitious 
 was Carte's mind, that he thought it necessary to enter 
 into a long examination of the question of touching for 
 the King's Evil, a prerogative which he presumed to be 
 peculiar to the Lord's anointed. After gravely and at 
 great length considering this difficult Cjuestion, the historian 
 came to the conclusion that God had not granted to our 
 Hanoverian kings the power of miraculously ciu-ing the 
 scrofula, but that he had allowed that power to remain in 
 the hands of the Pretender. Between the political wrath 
 which this assertion provoked, and the ridicule which, in 
 full eighteenth century, it could hardly fail to elicit, Carte's 
 Histori/ fell into a largely \indeserved contem])t, followed 
 h\ an oblivion from Avhich it has never emery-ed. 
 
 Carte having been thus discredited, the writer who in 
 
 the earlv fifties was most respected as an 
 
 jT^ij^ ji„.^ historian was ' the good Lord Lyttelton, 
 
 whose Hidorii of Henry II. eventually 
 
 appeared in 17G7. To this work, which was the labour of 
 
 wellnigh thirty years, it would be unfair to deny the 
 
 merit of protracted research. But this is about all that 
 
 can possibly be said in its favour. It shows, said Walpole, 
 
 how dull one may be if one but take pains for seven and 
 
 twenty years. The materials are so ill-arranged and the 
 
 style so insuiferably prolix, that it has come to be regarded 
 
 as theEiiglish parallel of the Italian Historyoi Guicciardini, 
 
 to whi(;h (rather than read it) the man preferred the galleys. 
 
 David Hume,' wliose career as a whole belongs leather to 
 
 ' So.' ('Ii,i]il<'r \\.
 
 130 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 yihilosopliy than to liistorv, gives lis, with his own pen, a 
 
 brief account of the inception of his famous 
 
 ^^f}'} ,'^"!r History. ' In 1752 the Faculty of Advocates 
 (1/11-1// 6). ^ . . . •' 
 
 chose me their librarian, an office from which 
 I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the 
 command of a large library. I then formed the plan of 
 writing the history of Euglaud.' The opening portion of 
 his History, extending froin 1603 to 1649, was thus written 
 in two years — a period of time which can hardly be deemed 
 adequate for the examination of the materials then ac- 
 cessible. But Hume had in his great Treatise of Human 
 Nature come to the conclusion that, 'if truth be at all 
 within the reach of human capacity, it is certain it must 
 lie very deep and abstruse,' and he, perhaps, thought that 
 to protract the researcli after such a chimera was mere 
 waste of time. The result is that his History of England, 
 the first volume of which appeared in 1754, consists rather 
 of a series of brilliant illustrations of an a priori theory 
 than of a sei*ious inquiry into the facts, upon which alone 
 any inductive process can properly be based. From an 
 intense disgust at the pai*ty manoeuvres, misnamed politics, 
 of his own time, as exemplified by the narrow chicanery of 
 the dominant Whig party, Hume was disposed to exalt the 
 government of the Stuart kings, from whose tyranny the 
 Whigs were never tired of priding themselves that they had 
 emancipated the country. He Avent so far as to assert 
 that in all history it would be difficult to find a reign more 
 unspotted and unblemished than that of James I. The 
 paradox that the revolution of 1688, so much belauded 
 by Whig writers, was in reality a retrograde step, pleased 
 Hume more as he proceeded, and, in his last revision of his 
 work, he assiduously softened or expunged ' many villanous, 
 seiitious, Whig strokes which had crept into it,' being con- 
 vinced that he had not done enough to canonize Laud or
 
 ■DAVID HUME — TOBIAS SMOLLETT. 131 
 
 to whitewash Strafford. Having in his second volume 
 (1756) carried the work from 1649 to 1688, he determined, 
 as an answer to his numerous critics, to work backwards, 
 and show from a survey of the Tudor period that his 
 Tory views were based upon a study of the English con- 
 stitution as then settled. In 1759 this portion of the 
 work appeared, and in 1761 the History of England was 
 completed by the history of the pre-Tudor periods ; this 
 last part was deformed by Hume's carelessness and ignor- 
 ance, and is unworthy of the portions relating to Tudor 
 and Stuart times. These show Hume as a thorough 
 jjartisan of strong government, and as a very moderate 
 lover of the boasted ' liberty,' for which he deemed that 
 ' so rude a beast as an Englishman was unfitted ' ; yet 
 they place his work far above the narrow sectarian bigotry 
 of the memoir- writers, or the unmitigated dullness of the 
 chronological compilers who had hitherto done duty as 
 historians. In the literature of history Hume's book 
 must, as in many respects a pioneer work, always retain 
 a certain position, while, in the history of literature also, 
 his book has a distinct place. It was the first attempt 
 at a really comprehensive and thoughtful treatment of 
 historic fact, the first to introduce the social and literary 
 aspects of a nation's life in due subordination to its civil 
 and political history, and the first large piece of historical 
 writing in England to be graced Avith the polish and at 
 the same time with the vivacity of a modern style. 
 
 With the Hixfoyy of Hume is commonly associated the 
 
 very inferior compilation of the novelist 
 T<)l)ias ISiiiollot L m i* • o n j.^ a ii ±j.' tt- _< 
 
 p,,^ j__j. iobias bmollett. omolieit s Htstory yvsm 
 
 l^rimarily a bookseller's venture designed 
 to take the wind out of the sails of Hume. Commencinsr 
 in 1756, Smollett hurried through eighteen centuries be- 
 fore the close of 1757, and his Rii^fory, from Julius Caesar
 
 132 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, appeared in four 
 quarto volumes during 1757-8. Hume wrote ironically 
 of his rival as seated on the historical summit of Par- 
 nassus, and complained bitterly of the ' extraordinary run ' 
 upon the new History of England. Smollett states with 
 pride that he consulted more than three hundred books in 
 compiling the work, which was re-issued during 1758-9 
 in sixpenny parts, and had an enormous sale. A con- 
 tinuation (1763) brought Smollett's work down to 1760, 
 and the portion of the combined work, from 1688 to 1760, 
 was subsequently modified and slightly abbreviated in 
 order to form a continuation to Hume. Smollett had an 
 atelier of satellite scribes, something after the manner of 
 Alexandre Dumas pere, and it is probable that a consider- 
 able portion of the continuation was contrived by these 
 hacks ; but Smollett managed to infuse into the work a 
 characteristic vigour of style, which is the one merit that 
 it possesses. 
 
 William Robertson, born in a Midlothian manse on 
 September 19th, 1721, rivalled or sur- 
 ^^ ''^','^"\^n9r'''" passed his fellow-countrymen in his- 
 torical fame, and came level with Hume 
 also as a writer of English prose, an art which had never 
 hitherto flourished in Scotland. Buchanan, it will be re- 
 membered, wrote in Latin, and the learned Scots of the 
 sixteenth century, unless they wrote in the vernacular 
 dialect, generally preferred that medium or even French 
 to the unfamiliar language of Latimer and Sidney. 
 Eobertson was educated at Edinburgh University for the 
 Scots Kirk, and in 1743 obtained the living of Gladsmuir. 
 Both in his political and religious notions he was a staunch 
 Whig, and in almost every respect he was a typical product 
 of the eighteenth century at its best. He was also a 
 typical Scotsman. He combined great practical shrewd-
 
 •WILLIAM ROBERTSON. 138 
 
 uess with a keen literary ambition, backed up by a strong 
 leathery physique and an infinite capacity for sedentary 
 toil. With a hatred of zealots and enthusiasts he com- 
 bined a deep-seated optimism and a charming intimacy 
 with sceptics like Hume and Adam Smith. Of Liberal 
 ideas he was always a champion, but in a most discreet 
 and prudent fashion. Thus he supported his old friend 
 Home against the bigoted attack of the ministers who 
 wanted to deprive him for writing a play ; but while too 
 rational to condemn the stage, he carefully abstained from 
 ever visiting a theatre. Such prudence was fitly rewarded 
 by an accumulation of preferments and salaries, such as 
 had never before been heaped upon a presbyterian di- 
 vine. In 1762 Robertson became principal of Edinburgh 
 University, and next year he became Moderator of the 
 General Assembly. It was felt that such a man would 
 add dignity to the English episcopate, and some overtures 
 wei'e made, only to be rejected by Robertson, with his 
 usual prudence. 
 
 In 1759, after six years' labour, Robertson produced his 
 first large work, the History of Scotland during the Reigns 
 of Mary and James VI. down to 1603. Unlike Hume's, 
 Robertson's style was Johnsonian, and the sonorous cor- 
 rectitude of his periods created an extraordinaiy impres- 
 sion in England. People asked, as of Macaulay, ' where 
 did he get that style,' in which such an excellent judge 
 as Chesterfield professed to trace the elocjuence of Livy. 
 But with these Livian and declamatory qualities went a 
 lack of idiomatic vigour which is sensibly felt by the 
 modern reader, lending <o Roltertson's pages a mono- 
 tony that is absent from those of Hume or of Gibbon. 
 Gibbon frequently has a caustic phrase, siiort and sharp ; 
 but Robertson's sentences are almost invai'iably long, 
 terribly antithetic, laboriously balanced. The historian's
 
 134 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 next work, a History of the Emperor Charles V. (1769), 
 (in favour of which he had rejected plans of histories 
 of England, of Greece, of Learning, of Leo X.) is justly 
 regarded as his masterpiece and rendered his fame 
 European. The Introduction, forming a descriptive esti- 
 mate of the 'dark ages ' (700-1100 a.d.), was one of the 
 first successful attempts in England at historical gene- 
 ralization on the basis of large accumulations of fact. 
 Many of Robertson's conclusions are, of course, now quite 
 obsolete (many of them were, indeed, ably traversed by 
 Dr. Maitland) ; his data were necessarily very imperfect, 
 as was also his sympathy with mediseval history, in respect 
 to which he almost inevitably shared the Voltairean pre- 
 judices of Hume. Yet the suggest! veness of his method 
 has greatly impressed and not infrequently inspired succes- 
 sive generations of historical students, and the intrepidity 
 combined with shrewdness with which he grappled with 
 the most thorny subjects, such as Frankish land tenures, 
 seems to show that if he had, like Gibbon, been able to 
 soak himself in continental erudition and to concentrate 
 his whole attention upon historical work, he might have 
 attained a position in the very highest rank of his- 
 torians. Robertson's third work, the History of America 
 (1777), did not tend to increase his reputation, but some 
 of the episodes in it contain the best passages in point of 
 style that came from his pen. 
 
 Robertson retained his principalship until 1792, having 
 shown himself always a most capable administrator. He 
 retired to Grange House, near Edinburgh, and there, full 
 of years and honours, he died on June 11th, 1793. A 
 number of the great man's foibles are depicted in Alexander 
 Carlyle's Autohiograj'hy ; but it is plain that Carlyle had a 
 secret dislike of the worthy principal, so that everything 
 he says about him must be taken with reserve. Robertson
 
 EDWARD GIBBON. 135 
 
 is iutellectually, perhaps, the least of the group, but yet 
 
 upon the whole he is uot unworthy to rank with generalisers 
 
 and optimists of his day of such calibre as Hume, Gibbon, 
 
 and Adam Smith. 
 
 We are now come to the greatest of all our historians. 
 
 Edward Gribbon was born at Putney on 
 Edward Gibbon . .^ -,„,,,_.-,-,, . ,, , -, 
 
 .,„„_ ,^„,. April 2 <'th,l^d/',beuig the great-grandson 
 
 of a Leadenhall Street linendrajjer, whose 
 son made a large fortune by speculation in the reign of 
 Greorge I. His father was a member of White's Club, who 
 ' silently precipitated large sums of money into the bottom- 
 less pit ' which that institution provided for the chastening 
 of spendthrifts. In one of the sketches of his life. Gibbon 
 gave an account of the gay life led by his parents, and of 
 their consequent neglect of their sou, adding some Shandean 
 details about his birth and of the innumerable infantine 
 ailments to which he was a prey — details which were 
 ruthlessly excised under the decorous editorship of Lord 
 Sheffield and his daughter. From nine to eleven he was 
 at a boai'diug-school in Putney, where, ' at the expense of 
 many tears and some blood,' he purchased a knowledge of 
 the Latin syntax. Between 1749 and 1750, though 'still 
 interrupted by danger and debility,' he painfully climbed 
 into the third form at Westminster School. He agrees 
 with Cowper in describing the school of his day as ' a 
 cavern of fear and sorrow.' Leaving Westminster in 
 1 750, he spent in desultory reading some three years, 
 during which, he says, ' crude lumps of Speed, Rapin, 
 Mezeray, Davila, Machiavel, Father Paul, Bower, etc., 
 passed through me like so many novels.' Ockley opened 
 liis eyes to Eastern history, and he was led from one book 
 to another until he had 'ranged round the circle of 
 Oriental history.' 'The dynasties of Assyria and Egypt 
 were my top and cricket ball, and uiy sleep has been dis-
 
 136 THE Age of johnsoN. 
 
 turned by the difficulty of reeouciling the Septuagiut with 
 the Hebrew computation. I arrived at Oxford with a 
 stock of erudition that might have j^uzzled a doctor, and 
 a degree of ignorance of which a schoolboy would have 
 been ashamed.' He spent fourteen months at Magdalen 
 College, Oxford, months 'the most idle and unj)rofitable 
 of my whole life.' 
 
 Gibbon spent a large portion of his time rambling 
 through the mazes of theological controversy. The perusal 
 of Bossuet's Catholic Doctrine and Protestant Variations 
 achieved his conversion to popery. ' I read,' he says in 
 his affected way, ' I applauded, I believed,' and surely, he 
 adds, in reference to Bossuet. ' I fell by a noble hand.' 
 The consequence of his conversion, wdiich he reported in a 
 l»ompously self-important letter to his father, was his re- 
 moval from Oxford and his banishment to Lausanne (1753). 
 A meagre table, a narrow allowance, the dejirivation of a 
 man-servant and an open fire, had their due influence with 
 the ex-fellow-commoner of Magdalen. He was soon read- 
 ing Pascal's Lettres ProvineiaJes in place of Bossuet ; both 
 writers contributed in an important measure to the forma- 
 tion of his prose style. 
 
 Gibbon was lucky in the Protestant pastor to whom the 
 charge of his studies was inti'usted. M. Pavilliard was 
 one of those austere Huguenot ministers of broad views 
 and coral-insect kind of industry of whom the early 
 eighteenth century saw so many examples. Himself a 
 boi-n student, Gibbon soon adai)ted himself to the me- 
 Ihodical ways of his tutor. 'Such as I a,m,' he says, 'in 
 genius, in learning, or in manners, 1 owe my creation to 
 Lausanne. It was in that school that the statue was dis- 
 covered in the block of marble ; and my own religious 
 folly, my father's blind resolution, produced the effects 
 of the most deliberate wisdom.' His health and his person
 
 EDWARD GIBBON. 137 
 
 developed sinniltaueously "with his mind. Pavilliard tells 
 of his astonishment at the first view of a little monster of 
 dispiitative skill, with his minutely slender frame and huge 
 head. As the years rolled on, as numerous anecdotes 
 aver, Gibbon became grotesquely fat. The well-known 
 silhouette shows him preparing to take a pinch of snuft' — 
 the portly rov;ud body borne on two spindle legs, the little 
 face almost lost between the high forehead and the double 
 chin, the little nose almost obliterated by the prominent 
 cheeks. From this time he began habitually to speak 
 French. Suard informs us that he spolce with a marvel- 
 lous correctness, though his pronunciation was affected ; he 
 talked in a falsetto tone, and always ' like a book.' In 1758 
 he returned to England, and composed in French a some- 
 what stiff and formal Essai snr V Etude de la Litterature. 
 
 His complete Freuchification was prevented by an accid- 
 ental cii'cumstauce, the embodiment of the South Hamj:)- 
 shire Militia. Gil^bon and his father were committed to 
 take up commands without realizing very precisely what 
 their obligations would be. The result was that for three 
 years (1759-62) Gibbon led the life of an officer in a 
 marching regiment. He was ca])tain of the grenadier 
 company, a post in which one is constrained to reflect that 
 he must have cut a droll figure. At any rate, he put aside 
 learning and mingled with his fellow-eountrymen. ' With 
 my foreign education and reserved teuxper,' he says, 'I 
 might have remained a stranger in my own country'; as 
 it was, lie bccjiinc ' an Englishmnn and a soldier.' He had 
 earned, he lei Is us, (he right to talk aboni tiie Ronmn 
 legion, and, when lie returned lo Lausanne, he astcmished 
 liis sedate friends. After the militia was disbanded, at 
 the close of 1702, he started for the Continent, staying 
 some months at Paris and at Lausanne, and proceeding 
 to Florence, Home, and Na[)les. He had prepared him-
 
 138 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 self for these visits by a systematic course of topographical 
 study. ' It was at Eome,' he writes, in an ever-memor- 
 able passage, 'on the 15th October, 1764, as I sat musing 
 among the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted 
 friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Juj^iter, that 
 the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first 
 started to my mind.' 
 
 ^Nine or ten years elapsed before the idea was definitely 
 adopted, the important event of this period being the for- 
 mation of Gibbon's Library. He had taken charge of his 
 father's books upon his return to England in April, 1758, 
 and the purchase for twenty guineas of the Memoirs of the 
 Society of Inscriptions of Paris marks an important epoch. 
 It was to form the nucleus of the instrument of his life's 
 work — his select library. Within its walls he continued 
 all his life to make learned discoveries, and laid the 
 foundations of knowledge upon what he calls ' a modest 
 and learned ignorance.' The conception and the plan 
 alone of such a work as the Decline and Fall is 
 wonderful. The daring occupation of a summit from 
 which Christianity, Mahomedanism, Eoman Law, the 
 irruptions of the different hordes of barbarians, and the 
 politics of the Persian empire might all be regarded 
 as parts of one whole, is in itself a marvellous feat 
 of that high form of imagination which is indispensable 
 to the authors of scientific discoveries as much as to poets 
 and painters. Gibbon's History is a kind of historical 
 Everest ; it is interesting, however, to observe the lesser 
 peaks Avhich Gibbon scanned and thought of scaling, 
 before he resolved to risk the gi-eater ascent. The first sub- 
 ject that attracted him was the expedition of Charles VIII. 
 into Italy (and for this he read Commines and wrote some 
 preliminary dissertations). Successive ideas were The 
 Third Crusade, The Barons' War, The Black Prince, and
 
 EDWARD GIBBON. 139 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh. The last subject was long dallied 
 with, before he came to the conclusion that he must seek a 
 theme at once safer and more extensive. ' Raleigh is 
 interesting, but his character is ambiguous, his actions 
 obscure, his writings English, and his fame confined to 
 the narrow limits of our language and our island.' A much 
 better notion for a cosmopolitan, as Gibbon felt himself, 
 was the History of the Liberty of the SvAss. But ' the 
 materials are inaccessible to me, fast locked in the ob- 
 scurity of an old barbarous German dialect, of which I am 
 totally ignorant.' A truly splendid subject was the 
 History of the Uepiiblic of Florence under the House of 
 Medici. From this he was lured back to the Swiss 
 Eepublic by the solicitude of his Helvetian friend, Dey- 
 verdun, and he got as far as publishing an Introduction 
 in the French language ; but the plan was not applauded 
 by the foreign critics. Gibbon's first English publication 
 was Critical Observations on the Sixth Boole of the ^neid 
 (1770), an anonymous attack upon the ' Eleusinian theory ' 
 of Warbui'ton. His thoughts now at length became fixed 
 upon Latin literature, and from Tacitus, Pliny, and 
 Juvenal he ' plunged into the ocean of Augustan history,' 
 and investigated with pen almost always in hand the 
 original records of the history, both Greek and Latin, 
 from Dion Cassius to Ammianus Marcellinus. ' The 
 subsidiary rays of medals and inscrij^tions of geography 
 and chronology were thrown on their proper objects ; and 
 I applied the collections of Tillemont, whose inimitable 
 accuracy almost assumes the character of genius, to fix and 
 arrange within my rea(;h the loose and scattered atoms of 
 liistorical information.' These preliminary studies were 
 interrupted by the illness and death of his father in 
 November, 1770, and it was not until the end of 1772 that 
 he was able to disentangle the estate.
 
 140 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Gibbon now settled in London, aged thirty-five, inde- 
 pendent and free to concentrate his accumulated knowledge 
 and his consummate literary judgment upon the great work 
 of his life. It is true that he sought and obtained a seat at 
 Liskeard, by the favour of Lord Eliot ; but he was merely a 
 vote, not a voice in the House of Commons, which he fre- 
 quented chiefly in order to obtain the password to a good 
 sinecure (duly obtained in 1779, salary, ,£750). In 1776 
 was published the first volume of The History of the Decline 
 and Fall of the Roman Emjjire, which met with general 
 a])plause. He was specially gratified by the praise of 
 Hume and Robertson, who seemed to offer him a place 
 which he would never ' })resume ' to claim, as one of the 
 triumvirate of British historians. Volumes II. and III. 
 appeared in 1 781 . Two years later he removed to Lausanne 
 to finish his history at his leisure, and the three remaining 
 volumes were the work of just under four years. ' It was 
 on the day, or rather niglit, of the 27th June, 1787, 
 between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the 
 last line of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. 
 After laying down my ^)en I took several turns in a 
 herceau or covered walk of acacias, which commands a 
 prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. 
 The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb 
 of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature 
 was silent. I will not describe the first emotions of joy 
 on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establish- 
 ment of my fame ; but my pride was soon humliled, and a 
 s(»l)er mclandioly was spread over my mind by the idea 
 tliat I had taken my everlasting leave of an old and agree- 
 able companion, and that whatsoever might be the future 
 date of my History, the life of the historian must be short 
 and precarious.' Few j)assages in English prose are 
 more justly celebrated than this, which exhibits alike the
 
 EDWARD GIBBON, 141 
 
 enthusiasm of literary inspiration and tlie sobering pathos 
 of human achievement. Gibbon planned some further 
 historical works, but executed none. In the summer oi 
 1793 he returned to England to stay with his friend, Lord 
 Sheffield. His career was drawing to a close. ' Earthly 
 dignity has its limits even in an historian.' Symptoms of 
 dropsy began to appear, and he died in London on 16th 
 January, 1794. 
 
 At various periods of his life, probably between 1788 
 and 1793, he had been occupied with the composition of an 
 account of his own life and writings. Ho had written out 
 a large portion of this autobiography no less than seven 
 times, approaching the subject-matter each time from a 
 slightly different point of view, and there is little doubt 
 that he intended at some time to combine the different 
 versions into one connected whole. His sudden death threw 
 this task upon Lord Sheffield and his daughter, Lady Maria 
 Josepha Holroyd, who performed their task with diligence 
 and care. At the same time they cut out a good many 
 passages where Gibbon's candour got the better of his 
 sense of decorum, thus stultifying the comic flourish about 
 'Truth, naked unblushing truth,' with which the Memoir>^, 
 as published in 1796, are prefaced. The Aiilohio(jraj)hie><, 
 in the exact state in which they were left by Gibbon, were 
 ])ublished in 1896 ; the supplementary fragments afford 
 notes and sidehghts, but Sli*>ffield's combined version must 
 be the textus receptuH.^ 
 
 Gibbon's Memrnrs are a valuable addition to our litera- 
 ture, which is not rich in autobiogra[)hical works of the 
 kind. The Llvefs of Evelyn and Clarendon hai'dly come 
 into the same category ; those of Holcroft and Giftord, 
 Hume and Mackintosh, though all interesting in their way, 
 
 ' Tlie parallel versions have been oomliiiu'il in a n<ct'iil synopsis 
 bv Dr. (). I'. KnK'ison. I'.ostcin. 1S9S.
 
 142 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 are not coiuparaljle in importance. The Apolocjia of New- 
 man and the Memoirs of Mark Pattison are nearer to the 
 work of Gibbon in their endeavour to depict the influences 
 combining to produce ' life-work.' But GTibbon's Memoirs 
 are of special interest from the wonderful revelation they 
 afford us of the character, as well as the aspirations, of 
 the writer. Thej certainly do not convey the idea that 
 Gibbon was a great man ; they afford no glimpses what- 
 ever of the workings of a profound intellect or of the 
 warm impulses of a generous heart. There was a strong 
 taint of egotism in his treatment of Mile. Curchod, while 
 the ' pure and exalted sentiment ' with which he credits 
 himself is far from conspicuous. Wherever Gibbon thinks 
 that he ought to appear affected, his pathos comes in with 
 a stiffness which has a singularly grotesque effect. His 
 method of regarding the great springs of human action 
 denotes a mind the ordinary conceptions of which had 
 much in them that was commonplace and second-rate. 
 This is shown in the cynicism of his attitude towards 
 religion. He regarded the Church as a necessary but con- 
 temptible factor in modern society. Looking back into 
 tlie past, he found a golden age in the period immediately 
 preceding its rise, and his moral is briefly expressed in his 
 epigram, 'I have described the triumph of barbai'ism and 
 religion.' Johnson in caustic mood termed a ' 2>atriot ' 
 a scoundrel: Gibbon, a true child of his epoch, was 
 firmly convinced of the scoundrelism of a zealot of any 
 kind, but especially of the religious zealot. He felt no 
 l>itterness wdiatever against the clergy of England, sunk 
 in the fat slumbers of toleration and Whig-indifferentism ; 
 yet the semi-malicious idea of ' drawing ' the highly- 
 salaried dignitaries of the Anglican establishment must 
 have proved a most exhilarating stimulus to him. When 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters appeared, and there
 
 EDWARD GIBBON. 143 
 
 was a loud outcry, lie professed the astonishment of one 
 steeped in continental scepticism, to whom the most liber- 
 tine opinions were permitted, so long as the constituted 
 ecclesiastical authorities were not openly attacked. Ima- 
 gine the sardonic grimace with which he must have penned 
 the following passage in one of his sketches of his life : 
 
 ' Had I believed that the majority of English readers 
 were so fondly attached even to the name and shadow of 
 Christianity, had I foreseen that the pious, the timid and 
 the prudent would feel or affect to feel with such exquisite 
 sensibility, I might perhaps have softened the two in- 
 vidious chapters which w^ould create many enemies and 
 conciliate few fi-ieuds. But the shaft was shot, the alarm 
 sounded, and I could only rejoice that, if the voice of our 
 priests was clamorous and bitter, their hands were dis- 
 armed of the power of persecution. I adhered to the wise 
 resolution of trusting myself and my writings to the can- 
 dour of the Public, till Mr. Davies of Oxford presumed to 
 attack not the faith, but the good faith, of the historian. 
 My Vindication, expressive less of anger than of contempt, 
 amused for a moment the busy and idle metropolis ; and 
 the most rational part of the laity, and even of the clergy, 
 appears to have been satisfied of my innocence and accuracy. 
 My antagonists, however, were rewarded in this world : 
 ])oor Chelsum w^as neglected, and I dare not boast the 
 making Dr. Watson a bishop ; but I enjoyed the pleasure 
 of giving a Royal pension to Mr. Davies and of collating 
 Dr. Apthorpe to an archiepiscopal living. Their success 
 encouraged the zeal of Taylor the Arian and Milner 
 the Methodist, with many others whom it would be difficult 
 to remember and tedious to rehearse. . . .' 
 
 This passage is thoroughly representative — it is exjjres- 
 sive of the very essence of Gibbon. He was fond of insist- 
 ing that the style ought to l)e the image of the mind ; if
 
 144 THE AOE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 this were true of himself one can readily perceive that his 
 mind was not altogether a heautiful one ; and one can 
 understand better after reading such a passage as the 
 above how it came to be said that Gribbon might have 
 been cut out of an odd corner of Burke's mind without 
 being missed, or, again, how Bos well should have stig- 
 matized him as ' a venomous insect.' Defects inseparable 
 from an extraordinary self-com])lacency and a certain lack 
 of imagination ai'e inherent both in the man and his 
 literary manner. Gibbon's style, in short, like himself, 
 was pompous and formal, and constantly haunted by a 
 species of old-fashioned academic verbosity and an in- 
 veterate tendency to grandiloquent periphrasis.' The 
 regularity of the cadence is often singularly monotoiious. 
 Few styles lend themselves more easily to parody ; it lias, 
 indeed, lieen often parodied, and many of the parodies are 
 excellent. 
 
 Yet the style of CTibl)on, Avith certain obvious faults, was 
 marvellously adapted to his peculiar faculties and to the 
 special effects which he sought to produce. For the pur- 
 poses of antithesis, f\)i- the constant balancing of con- 
 siderations, for the critical reservations so necessary to the 
 historian and the archaeologist, and for the cynical inuu- 
 
 ' Porsoii lias some acute remarks iiimhi the ( iiltlioniau prose: 
 ' Though liis style is oeiierally correct and elegant, he sometimes 
 ilraws out the tliread of liis verliosity liner than the stajjle of his 
 argument. In endeavouring to avoid vulgar terms, he fretjuently 
 dignifies trifles, and clothes common tlioughts in a splendid dress 
 that would he rich enough for the noldest ideas. . . . Sometimes, 
 in his anxiety to vary the phrase, he becomes obscure, and, instead 
 of calling his personages l>y their names, defines them by their birth, 
 alliance, otiice or other circunl^tance of their history.' . . . The 
 great critic defended (iibbon against the attack of (;eorge Travis, 
 'and the wretched Travis still howls under liic lash of the mercy- 
 jess Corson ' (( lii'.iiox. Mi-iiiftir E).
 
 EDWARD GIBBOX. 145 
 
 eudoes which are the salt of the History, the style of 
 Gribbou is unsurpassed ; and as the reader progresses with 
 the Avork, he is more and more impressed by the long 
 roll of the sentences, in which the conclusions of learning 
 are enforced with all the arts of oratorical declamation. 
 The extent to which Gibbon's balancing style has influenced 
 the manner of later historians is marked, and many of 
 its features may be traced with great ease in the pages of 
 the most eminent of our living historians. 
 
 Gibbon may seem a small man compared with Burke, 
 nor was he endowed with the extraordinary faculties of a 
 Michelet or a Macaulay. But the book was greater by far 
 than the man. The enduring power of the Decline and 
 Fall is already proving itself greater than that of any 
 book by Macaulay or even by Burke. Nay, more, it is no 
 exaggeration to say that Gibbon's History is the greatest 
 book of the kind that ever was written — a testimony to the 
 wise subordination of a man to his work. 
 
 The pre-eminent greatness of Gibbon's History is due, in 
 the main, to three distinct causes. In the Jirst place, his 
 conception of history as a spacious panorama in which a 
 series of tableaux are made to pass before the reader's eye. 
 In despite of theorists, Gibbon's conception remains, and 
 will remain, in agreement with that of the vast mass of 
 mankind. Gibbon would have been fully in sympathy 
 with Beaconsfield's remark : ' What wonderful things are 
 events : the least are of greater importance than the most 
 sublime and comprehensive speculations ! ' The end of 
 the historian is the truthful narration of events. Abstract 
 truth may take care of itself. Gibbon is concerned to un- 
 fold the roll of the past. The evidence may be scanty, and 
 the facts, the raw material of the historian, hard to verify, 
 but some picture of the thing acted may at least be 
 attained and the gloom of the past sensibly relieved. It 
 
 L
 
 146 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 is iu this souse tliat Uibbuu is ' primitive ' — he cuuiiects 
 himself with the great historians of antiquity. 
 
 The success of the Decline and Fall is due, iu the 
 second place, to its erudition ; it is one of the few great 
 books to retain a literary reputation upon such a footing. 
 This is not because its erudition is unexampled ; his 
 niethod was not to collate with minute care facts that had 
 already been mobilized by competent observers. He used 
 monographs freely, which has been imputed to him as a 
 sin, though it is difficult to see what such books are for 
 uuless they are intended to be used in this manner. But 
 where the field was barren of such special studies, few 
 writers have surpassed Gibbon in the logical sagacity with 
 which he makes comparatively obscure details yield im- 
 portant inferences. With a remarkable gift for historical 
 divination, he combines a stern distrust of all fanciful 
 hypotheses. Having thoroughly mastered the i:>art of his 
 subject under his hand, he condenses and clarifies the select 
 materials into a broad, well-filled narrative. As he pro- 
 ceeds he attains greater freedom and a more just jjerspective, 
 until the acme of what has been styled his architectonic 
 power is reached in his magnificent record of the rise of 
 the Mahomedau empire.' 
 
 ' With this increase of power is observable a collateral increase 
 of candour. The equivocal position occupied by Christianity in 
 ( ribbon's own day, its tenacity of its privileges and emoluments, 
 combined with its supine abandonment of even a pretence of 
 endeavouring to realize Christian ideals, excited him irresistibly to 
 write the two polemical chapters at the end of the first volume, in 
 which he unjustly confuses the motives of the early Christians 
 with those of the least worthy of their successors. These chapters, 
 written doubtless with one eye fixed upon the continental Vol- 
 taireans and the other in malicious expectancy upon the wealthy 
 ecclesiastics of his native land, were, in fact, an aberration from 
 the strict historical justice which lie prized so highly. As he
 
 EDWARD GIBBON. 147 
 
 Gibbon retained to the last his general attitude of 
 scepticism — the third great bulwark of the uudjing fame 
 of his work. He Avas a much more profound sceptic 
 than Voltaire, who was rather like Isaac Vossius in that 
 you might easily persuade him of even an improbable 
 thing, if only it were not in the Bible. The distrust of 
 zeal, the conviction that enthusiasm is inconsistent with 
 intellectual balance, was ingrained in Gibbon's mental 
 constitution, and as time went on it was confirmed bv 
 study and experience. His cynicism supplied the ' antipathy 
 which he infused when he mixed his most effective colours ' ; 
 and with this cynicism went an invaluable placidity of 
 temperament. This cynical placidity was the historian's safe- 
 guard against the passion, the bigotry, the spiritual anxiety 
 and allied distempers by which many historical works, in 
 other respects great, have been so woefully disfigured . 
 
 In brief, then, the greatness of Gibbon was due to a com- 
 bination (an almost unique one) of good sense, sceptical 
 erudition, and exceptionally favourable external circum- 
 stances. The importance of the last condition Gibbon 
 himself would have been the last to undervalue. ' Few 
 works of merit and importance have been executed either 
 in a garret or a palace. A gentleman possessed of leisure 
 and independence, of books and talents, may be encouraged 
 to w^rite by the distant prospect of ht)uour and reward ; 
 l)ut wretched is the author, and wretched will be the work, 
 where daily diligence is stimulated by daily hunger.' 
 
 Hume, Eobertson, and Gibbon, though their merit varies 
 greatly in degree, were yet all of them in respect to a 
 certain largeness of conception historians of a high rank, 
 
 advanced he tlirew aside more completely (or at least relegated to 
 his notes, many of them masterpieces of subtle irony) his own 
 personal predilections. His erudition is distinctive, neither ' French ' 
 nor 'German,' but 'an entertainment to which the Muses came.'
 
 148 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 and with his large view of history, Gribbou, at least, eom- 
 biued a high European standard of workmanship and re- 
 search. With the exception of Bolingbroke, no Enghshman 
 had yet taken such comprehensive views of history as this 
 group. But after them there comes a disappointing gap 
 which is not altogether easy to understand. Historians 
 now had excellent models before them, and the enormous 
 advances made in critical and archaeological studies pro- 
 vided them with large and increasing funds of rich material. 
 The meagre results are due in some measure to the in- 
 sularity of our scholars and their tendency to recur to 
 well-worn grooves of investigation. 
 
 The narrowing influences of party politics and Protestant 
 Dissent upon historical writing are both 
 
 '^^^'""nll^^Sor''"*' «^emplified in the works of Thomas 
 Somerville, a native of Hawick, in Eox- 
 burghshire, who, like so many of his countrymen and con- 
 temporaries, owed inspiration to Robertson. His proposal 
 to write a large history was cordially received by William 
 Strahan, the great London publisher, and, after ten years 
 of moderate labour in collecting materials, Somerville pro- 
 duced his History 'from the Restoration of Charles II. to 
 the Death of William III.' (1792), which was followed in 
 1798 by the History of Great Britain during the Beigti of 
 Queen Anne. A more undisguised imitator (one might 
 almost say understudy) of Robertson is Robert Watsou, 
 professor of logic at St. Andrews, who wrote 
 
 ^^ITsO 1781)"" "" ^'^^""'^ ""^ ^^'^'1' ^^" ""^ ^^''''' '^"""^ '^ '^^'^''''^ 
 ill a History of the Beign of Philip III., 
 
 issued respectively in 1777 and 1781. They were honoured 
 
 by translation into French, and were praised by Horace 
 
 Walpole and less competent critics. The last is still of 
 
 some use as filling up a gap. Somerville and Watson 
 
 aimed, not without success, at a judicious historical syn-
 
 ROBERT ORME — OLIVER nOLDSMITH. 149 
 
 thesis ; but neither had much graphic power, and both are 
 inflated and prejudiced, though not more so, perhaps, than 
 the highly talented writers who have superseded them.^ 
 
 Another historian of the later portion of our period 
 whose work deserves, on literary and other 
 (r-'S-lSOl) grounds, to be distinguished from that of 
 mere liistorical compilers is Eobert Orme. 
 The son of an East India surgeon, educated at Harrow, 
 and an early friend of Clive, Orme resided at Calcutta from 
 1742 to 1753, and at Madras from 1754 to 1758. Then he 
 returned to England, settled in Harley Street, and began col- 
 lecting materials for a big histoiy, the first written in English 
 on a large scale, of The British Nation in Indostan,174<5-1778. 
 The minute detail in which Orme indulges is almost too 
 much for the narrative, and the book is further impaired by 
 the author's episodical treatment of the French operations 
 in India and by his ignorance of the language and classical 
 literature of that countrv. But in i)oint of style and ar- 
 rangemeut and as a i>ioneer woi'k it has substantial merits. 
 
 A very brief summary of the historical compilations will 
 suffice to afford a bii-d's-eye view of the range of historical 
 interest and curiosity during a period in which Gibbon is 
 supreme — a colossus among pigmies. Among the com- 
 pilers of ancient history (and modern) mention must 
 be made of Cloldsmith, whose ' Roman,' ' English,' and 
 
 ' G-recian ' histories appeared respectively 
 Oliver Goklsiiiitli ■ n ^^jo i -►7i i i>^^a -t, i. j.i 
 
 .j_.,^ j-._^ m l/b9, w/1, and l/r4. But there is 
 
 certainly no sixbject he touched that he 
 
 adorned so little. Goldsmith was acquainted with the 
 
 French books on Greek and Roman history that were 
 
 most in evidence in his day, but he was no scholar, and he 
 
 was as careless as Hume, without possessing anything like 
 
 his mental power, or a tithe of his interest in liis subject. 
 
 ' Macaulay, Prescott, Motley.
 
 150 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Adam Ferguson was a man of mnch c^voator seholai-ly 
 attainment and of scarcely less versatility 
 (172;M8r6) tlian Goldsmith. He fought at Tontenoy, 
 
 threw up his commission, became librarian 
 of tlie Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, in succession to 
 Hume, and was in turn professor of natural philosophy 
 and of pneumatics (i.e., moral pliilosophy) in Edin- 
 burgh. But our respect for his critical acumen is not en- 
 hanced by his unqualified adhesion to Macpherson (Ossian), 
 and his History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman 
 Bepnhlic (going down to the accession of Caligula), Avhen 
 it appeared in 1782, though it sujiplanted without difficulty 
 the compilations of Nathaniel Hooke {d. 1763), showed few 
 of the qualities that enable an historical work to withstand 
 the dissolvent of time. Mediocre as it is, however, it is 
 
 decidedly superior to the History of Philip 
 TT.\^ . of Macedon, published in 1758 by Thomas 
 
 Leland (1722-1785). From his vicarage at 
 Bray in co. Wicklow, Leland subsequently issued in 1773 
 a History of Ireland (from the invasion by Henry II. to 
 1691), but the book shows little local knowledge, less 
 research, and of power of historical synthesis and de- 
 duction none at all. Little more can be said for the 
 History of England from the Accession of James I. to thai of 
 the Brunswich Line (8 vols., 1763-83) of Mrs. Catharine 
 Macaulay (1731-I79I), who curiously anticipated the 
 great historian of the name l)oth in political prejudice 
 and in choice of period. 
 
 The careers of Williiini Mitforcl (1744-1827) and William Roscoe 
 (1753-1831) belong more particularly to the next age, though 
 Mitford coninienced his History of (hrece, which he employed as 
 an instrument of his own Tory j)rejudices, as early as 1784, and 
 although Roscoe's interesting Life of Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
 which comprises a sketch of Florentine history, was publislied in
 
 MTN'OR HISTORIAN'S. * 151 
 
 17%. In point (tf stvli' liotli Mitfunl and Koseoe are far in 
 advance of several of the writers we have been oonsiderinp;'. To 
 oonipilers sucli as ' lionest Cawniell," whose hooks 'no man can 
 number," and Henry, a still further descent is necessary, thou<;li 
 they are but types of the pedantic hacks wlio be<;an to abound as 
 the demand for lai\i;c woiks of leference came into bein.i^. Durinj;' 
 the eigiiteeuth century, at least, all tliis journeyman work of 
 literature was done vastly better in France. 
 
 John ("ampbell (1708-1773), who compiled untold volumes of 
 quasi-erudite character at the rate of two <;uineas a sheet, is chiefly 
 associated with the ancient and modern Unii'crsal Histories which 
 appeared at intervals between 1750 and 1765. Campbell was one 
 of the directors of the statt'of unmitigated pedants who conducted 
 this voluminous work— for many years the laughing-stock of 
 European scholars. A collateral compiler, Robert Henry (1718- 
 1790), in his once well-known Hisfori/ of England (1771-85) in 
 six volumes, was; one of the first to classify his work under such 
 headings as Learning, Arts, Planners, Religion, and so oti, in 
 ]»reference to the continuous chronological arrangement. 
 
 ( )f much more genuine interest to the scholar than any of these 
 perfunctory compilations are the antiquarian laljours of historical 
 students, who based annals upon a study of original documents, oi- 
 digested original materials, and manipulated them in such a 
 manner as to render new facts and results reailily available to the 
 liistorian pi-o[»er Such labours are only indirectly, perhaps, of 
 literary importance. i!ut it was only ujion such a suljstructure 
 tliat the Gothic or Koniiintic revival (and the renewed interest in 
 and the fairer ajjpreciation of tiie Middle Ages, which supplies one 
 of its chief stimuli) ccjuld pos.-il>ly be reared. Amrmg such works 
 observe the Mctnoirs of Qiifcn Elizttbeth (1751) of Thomas Birch; 
 the 3Ic)iioririls and Leffrra (of James I. and Charles I. in 1762 and 
 1766) and the Anna/s of Srofland (1776) of Sir David Dalryniple 
 (172(M792), known on the Scottish bench as ]>ord Hailes ; the 
 curir)us anti-Whig Memoirs of (Irrat /Iri/fiiii and Ireland (16S(t- 
 94), jiublished in three volumes in 1771 by Sir John Dalryniple 
 (1726-1810) ; the Original Papers, containing the Secret History of 
 C4reat Britain (1666-1714), brought out by James Macplierson, of 
 Ossian fame, in 1775; the liiograjdii<<tl Hlsfort/ of England 
 (1769) of James (Jranger (1723-1776), the famous print-collector and 
 book despoiler ; the Illustrations of British History (1791) of 
 Ivlnnuul Lodge; the Rrgal and Eerlesiastieal Antiquities of
 
 152 THE AOE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Einjhdid (177;^) of .lose[>li Siriitl ; llio Ecrlrsin.si ical Ilisfor// nj 
 Encfland {\~"t) of Ferdinand Warner (1703-1767); the Ilistorical 
 ami Critical Enqiiirij (1759) of William Tytler (1711-1792), and 
 the Mary Quccii of Scots Vindicated (1788) of John Whit taker 
 (1735-1808), the last two ^^orks having both been provoked by the 
 treatment accorded to Mary by llobertson in his Historij of 
 Scotland, a book of great impartiality, Avhicli was also attacked as 
 l)eing much too favourable to the unfortunate queen. Tiie Scottish 
 group Avould hardly be complete without mention of John Pinker- 
 ton (1758-1826), a collector of Scots songs, an early authority on 
 medals, and author of A Hi.story of Scotland under the Stuarts 
 down to 1542; this was puldished in 1797, in which year Pinkerton 
 also issued his Icotiographia Scotica. A brief reference is also due 
 to Jacol) Bryant (1715-1804), the distinguished classical antiquary, 
 a friend of Madame D'Arblay, and one of the first collectors of 
 t'axtons, who ^rote on Troy and was the author of learned but 
 much criticised Ohscrrations and Enquiries llelating to Ancient 
 Hist or u (1767). 
 
 Two more notal)le liotdcs of a semi-historical character come into 
 our period, though scarcely within our [irovince. The Co)istitutio)t 
 of England (in French 1771, in English 1775), by John Louis de 
 Lolme (1740-1807), and the comi)endious Connnentaries on the La us 
 of England (1765-9), by Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780), a 
 typical lawyer, Englishman, aiul Conservative.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE GREAT NOVELISTS. 
 
 The literary chronologer generally associates the year 1740 
 (in round figures) with his concise summary of the Origin 
 of the Novel. But novels are j^robably at least as old as 
 Greek vases. The ancients had their Milesian Tales aiid 
 their later fictions, after the pattern of The Golden Ass. 
 The medievals had their Acta Sanctorum and their tales of 
 Italian gallantry, not to speak of the rich oriental fiction 
 to which the Crusades had supplied a key. One of 
 Caxton's earliest ventures in England was his edition of 
 the Morte cV Arthur ; and from 1485 onwards prose fictions 
 of varying patterns had always floated uj)on the wayward 
 stream of popularity. The circulation of these fictions 
 must have been very large — no disproportionate ' tyranny,' 
 such as the novel of to-day exercises, but still very large. 
 They were, however, often circulated in an ephemeral 
 form ; neither antiquity nor the sixteenth century were 
 l>repared to regard novels as a dignified branch of litera- 
 ture, and the town populations, who were the great readers, 
 would not e:ive much for a novel, while thev could see a 
 play for a penny, and buy it in print for fivepence or six- 
 pence. The habitation of the novel had hitherto been in 
 the camp or the boudoir, the attic or the kitchen ; it was 
 the distinctive achievement of the eighteenth century to 
 earn for it a recognized and permanent position in the 
 library.
 
 154 THE AOK OF .TOHXSON. 
 
 Many forms of prose fiftion had secured their passing 
 vogue in Britain siuee the days of Caxton and the 
 Arthurian prose romance : such were the wearisome 
 Arcadian romance or pastoral heroic, the new centos of 
 tales of chivah'v like The Seven Champions of Christendom, 
 the Utopian or political or philosophical romances (like 
 Harington's Oceana or Bishop Godwin's 3Ian in the Moone). 
 
 Hard upon these came the grotesque and facetious 
 stories retailed from the Spanish or the French in dwarf 
 volumes or chap-books, the terribly prolix romance of 
 modernized classic heroism, like the Grand Cyrus of 1635 
 (interesting enough, perhaps, in its day, when you knew 
 that Cyrus was the Grand Condc), and then an allegory 
 of far other design — the unique romance of Bunyan. 
 With the Restoration came in the novel of French and 
 Italian gallantry, of which Aphra Behn supplies us with 
 examples. Finally, with the advent of the Brunswicks, 
 we are confronted with the development of the Utopian 
 or philosophical romance, by means of the wonderful 
 application of imaginary travel to purposes of satire by 
 Swift, and with the no less notable transformation of the 
 contemned picaresque novel of the rusty little duodecimos 
 into the minutely prosaic (-hronicle-novel of Daniel Defoe. 
 
 Tabooed though it was by the serious, the picaresque 
 romance (so called from the fact that the picai'o or scamp 
 is always the main character of the narrative) enjoyed a 
 popularity, from the close of the sixteenth century, which 
 destroyed the novelettes and the euphuistic tales, and 
 seriously menaced the long-winded ideal romances. The 
 arreat orierinal of this class of literatui-e was the LazariUo 
 de Tormes of Hurtado de Meudoza, published in 1553. 
 Imitations abounded, the most notable being Aleman's 
 Life of Guzman de Alfarache (1599) and Quevedo's more 
 humorous Life of Paul the Sharper. In Fi-ance, Charles
 
 THE GREAT NOVELISTS. 155 
 
 Sorel essayed a work of the same rjenrc in his Hi^fniro 
 Comiqne de Francion of 1622;' Nash had attempted an 
 imitation as early as 1594 ; even in Germany the inflvience 
 of the picaro was felt, as is witnessed by Grimmelshansen's 
 SimpJicissimus of 1068. Most of the imitations, however, 
 were sad failures, and Eni^land, at least, was better con- 
 tent with vei'sions from the original Spanish. The fiction 
 that was current in England during the seventeenth 
 century was thus almost wholly imported, and seems to 
 have lost none of its popularity by that fact. 
 
 The Age of Johnson changed all this. The old romance 
 had long been moribund, and the contemporaries of 
 Addison and of Jeremy Collier felt that the picaro was 
 luifit to mix Avith polite society. Then came Daniel Defoe, 
 who, by means of Bobinson Crusoe, threw a crowning 
 splendour over the novel of a past age. His other novels, 
 blending the memoir and the Bow Street chronicle with 
 the rambling story of intrigue which formed the staple of 
 English importation from abroad, show that he is to be 
 considered on the whole rather as afulfiller of old tradition 
 than a creator of new, though his masterpiece certainly 
 served as a bridge between the old realism and the new. 
 Of course, it had hosts of imitators and two score, at least, 
 of ' Robinsonaden ' appeared during the first half of the 
 eighteenth century." Shortly before this same half-century 
 closed, there began in England a stirring development, due 
 to the energies of a most remarkable group of writers, all 
 of whom come into our period. The tide of importation 
 ebbed and ebbed until, in 1755, we find Lady Mary 
 Wortley Montagu in Italy receiving boxes full of novels 
 from her daughter in England. This was pi*ophetic of the 
 great exi:)ort trade that England was to have in the redin- 
 
 See Le Breton, Le EoiiKm aii A'\'//""' /S'/WA'. 
 See Chapter A'lTI. 
 
 1
 
 156 THE AOE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 tograted ' novo!.' In England, indeed, tlie ' modem novel ' 
 was to find a home more congenial even than France, and 
 to enter more intimately into the national life than in any 
 country of the world. Almost simultaneously England 
 began to jjroduce her own painters and her own masters of 
 l^rose fiction. 
 
 Samuel Richardson's contribution to the development of 
 the novel was almost wliat Harvey's discovery of the heart's 
 action was to the study of medicine. There had, of course, 
 been ' Richardsonians before Richardson ' ; there had been 
 a natural reaction against the picaresque romance on the one 
 hand and the heroic romance on the other, and this mood 
 had found expression more especially in France. Of these 
 early novels of sentiment the most notable are the Princesse 
 de Cleves of Mme. de la Fayette, and the Memoires du comte 
 de Comminges of the Marquise de Tencin, the mother of 
 D'Alembert. Better known now, and a more immediate 
 predecessor of Richardson, wasMarivaux, whose unfinished 
 novel, Marianne, was published in 1731. The sentiment 
 and even the main idea of Marianne were similar to that 
 of Richardson's Pamela— n pi-oof of how similar conditions 
 produce like effects, for it is highly improbable that 
 Richardson knew anything of Marivaux. So inferior, 
 however, was Marianne in directness of appeal, in con- 
 centration and in intensity, that whereas Richardson 
 founded a school, Marianne had no imitators and few 
 enthusiasts. 
 
 In Samuel Richardson himself it is impossible to take 
 
 , „. , , much interest. One of the numerous 
 
 Sanuiel Kichanlsoii , ., i ^ , , n . . 
 
 (1689-17(il) cluldren ot a respectable joiner, he 
 
 was born in 1689, was pious and 
 
 assiduous in all his duties, the industrious apprentice first 
 
 of Fleet Street and then of Salisbury Court, where he 
 
 carried on business as a master-i>rinter down to his death
 
 SAMUEL RICHARDSON. 157 
 
 ill 1761. He had a country house at North Eud, Hammer- 
 smith, where he eudured with a perfect complacency the 
 flatteries of a circle of female adorers, and where he wrote 
 his novels — the novels of this demure little printer of 
 Salisbury Court, which thrilled all Europe. 
 
 In 1739 two booksellers (i.e., publishers), Kivingtou and 
 Osborne, urged Richardson to compile a small volume of 
 letters on the concerns of common life for the use of 
 people unfamiliar with ejjistolary forms — such a book, 
 they said, being greatly in demand. One of the first of 
 these exemplary letters which it occurred to Richardson to 
 write w^as one from a modest young lady's-maid to her 
 virtuous parents explaining the dangers to which she was 
 exposed (in an otherwise excellent situation) by the ad- 
 vances of the youthful master of the house. The subject 
 expanded under Richardson's manipulation ; he had, as a 
 youth, Avritten love-letters for young lady friends, and he 
 had a predilection for patiently developing a sentimental 
 situation and a feminine instinct for telling his hearers ' all 
 about it.' As he progressed he began to think, he tells us, 
 that the story, if written in an ' easy and natural manner, 
 suitable to the simplicity of it, might possibly introduce a 
 new species of writing.' In two months the two volumes 
 of the original Famela were finished. The book was pub- 
 lished at the close of 1740, and it very soon bore out the 
 author's prediction as to its being the forerunner of a new 
 species of writing. By blending with a curious art an air 
 of minute reality worth v of Defoe with a love intri<?ue of 
 interminable length, Richardson had evolved the new 
 species of sentimental romance, which immediately won 
 for itself between the picaresque and the old heroic romance 
 a place superior to either. Instead of the rogue, we now 
 have the designing villain ; instead of the incidents of 
 combat, there is analysis of character. We have noted the
 
 158 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 develoijiuent of the parallel ' novel of sensibility ' in France. 
 But Richardson was the first to trust entirely for his 
 fffects to the affections of home and to the accessories of 
 ordinary life. He first showed how the imagination could 
 be (captured without the extraneous aid of marvellous 
 • vents or racy narrative. By his manipulation of the 
 theme of Love he could renew the situations without 
 tiring his readers. His themes exactly suited the rapidly- 
 iucreasing middle class of readers, who were eager to hear 
 about themselves. The e^Hstolary form which Richardson 
 adopted (in preference to the direct narrative or the auto- 
 Inography) lent itself to the slow, minute development of 
 a few characters, for which he had such an extraordinary 
 faculty. Many subtle touches are added by the constant 
 ' repercussion ' of theme. Each writer is narrating not 
 events alone, but his or her reflections on previous narra- 
 tions of the same events. As when an important event 
 occurs to-day, one has first the home comments, then the 
 foreign comments, then the home comments upon the 
 foreign comments, and so ou, until a new event distracts 
 attention, so in Richardson, tipon the most trifling oc- 
 currence is superimposed, first a lengthy letter describing 
 it, then a letter of assent or approval of the manner in which 
 it is described, and then a letter appreciating the approval, 
 Avith additional reasons why it is just.' The method is 
 almost fatal to a story, but then, as Johnson remarked, 
 no one ever read Richardson for that ; few things in real 
 life are more revealing as far as character is concerned 
 than letters, and when new deposits of them are dis- 
 covered, as in the case of Mme. de Maintenon, Hume, 
 Cromwell, and Napoleon, they generally compel us to 
 reconstruct, or at least to modify, our conceptions. In 
 
 ' Cf. llaleigh, English Novel, 1894.
 
 SAMUEL RICHARDSOX. 159 
 
 the bauds, therefore, of a master of this sjiecies of writing 
 like Richardson, it was natural that, far from hampering, 
 they should even aid the process of minute delineation. 
 
 A poor sequel to Pamela was published by Richardson 
 in 1741. Soon afterwards ho began his masterpiece, 
 Clarissa, working at it deliberately imtil the eight volumes 
 were completed, and all i>ublished l)y the end of 1748. 
 Pamela is said to have absorbed Diderot to such an 
 I'xteut that, in answer to questions upou personal matters, 
 lie was wont to reply abstractedly, ' O ! mes amis, Pamela ! ' 
 But the European reputation of Pamela was far eclijjsed 
 by that of Clarissa. Richardson was classed with Shake- 
 speare and Homer, and Stendhal, many years later, spoke 
 of his work as an Iliad. Klopstock's enthusiasm was so 
 great that he sought a position in Loudon, so as to be 
 near the author. The English novel, as represented liy 
 Clarissa, gave in France, in Germany, in the north, and 
 even in Italy, the impression of a new species of literature 
 like no other, ' emancipated in its magnificent flight fi'om 
 antique models, perfectly free from traditional influence.' 
 All the novelists imitated, or at least were influenced by, 
 Richardson, from Rousseau and Marmontel right down 
 to the suicide of Werther. In Paul et Virginie we observe 
 a distinct combination of the influence of two very diverse 
 masterpieces of English fiction, Buhinson Crusoe and 
 Clarissa. Even more surprising, perhaj^s, than the in- 
 coherent rapture of Diderot and his friends, and the 
 ejaculations of ' Richardson ! Richardson ! ' is the ad- 
 mission of the contemptuous Lady Mai*y Wortley that she 
 liad sobbed scandalously over Clarissa, or the dictum of 
 Chesterfield that the little printer, though he lacked style, 
 understood the heart. 
 
 Clarissa Harloioe is one of the marvels of literature, 
 first by reason of its universal success among the best
 
 160 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 iiilrllccts of llir (lay, and 8t'(;ou<ll\ (»ii accouut of the ue^- 
 l<,(t into which it has fallen since. The a[t[jarent incun- 
 sisteucy will perhaps be settktd by Richardson, like Dr. 
 Johnson, retaining a great reputation without being much 
 rcjid. Yet a book which, like Clarisna, achieves the most 
 "iifiicult task in literature, that of painting a true woman, 
 should not l>e difficult to read, nor does it as a matter of 
 tact tax ll]<' patience of the reader t(j an extent that is 
 unfamiliar to the reader of Scott, of Balzac, or indeed many 
 other of the greatest romaucists. The reader finds in 
 Richardson no ingenious plot, no brilliant drnouemenf, but 
 he is nevertheless confronted by genuine human passion ; 
 and if he be studying the novel chronologically, he is 
 enabled for the first time to realize its potentiality as an 
 instrument of analysis, the analysis of the human heart. 
 The reader of Clarisna is as one who should find in a 
 forgotten drawer which he is ransacking a packet of old 
 letters, yellow with age. ' With a careless glance you skim 
 a page, then two pages, then three. Then in spite of 
 yourself your curiosity is piqued. The letters refer to an 
 old, a very old love-story, the actors in which are unknown; 
 the names convey nothing to you, the action passes in a 
 far-off land. Yet see what a mastery this history obtains 
 over you. Like a perfume half evaporated, a vibrating 
 human interest emanates still from these fading leaves, the 
 names begin to take colour, the shadows become animated, 
 these old memories live and move before one's eyes. The 
 hours glide by, and still one reads, with a gentle emotion 
 lulled by the rhythm of this life, so long a thing of the past. 
 On a sudden the story becomes intensely pathetic, the 
 anguish is poignant, a cry of despair goes up from the 
 depths of the past. " How this tale is affecting me!" one 
 exclaims half involuntarily, with eyes not perhaps of the 
 dryest.' Such is the experience of a Frenchman who reads
 
 SAMUKI, Hlf'HAHDSON. llH 
 
 CJariaso Harloirc today.' Tf. lio concludes, rciilisin is tlic 
 art of <,nviiio- porsons the imj)ivssion of life. IIkmi Kichanl- 
 soii is one of the LiTcatost of all V( a lists. 
 
 l«'i(lianlson livrd Id wrllra lliird iio\i'l. 7'//- (land .][,,,/. 
 or. as it was eveidiialh- outitled. Sir <'/n(r/r.< (1 nnnli.-'nii. 
 ]tnl)]islicd in 175o. In this work. ori>iiiially written, it is 
 said, ill l\vcuty-c'iL;lil \oluiiu's, hut iinally ((.ndciiscd to 
 twi'lvo. the todiuin of the portraiture is not to ho denied. 
 (Irandisoii liinisflf, tliouuh admirably drawn, siitfers from 
 the sann' drawbaek as a Virinliaii licio. He is so coni- 
 pletely ])rotected from ill by the unassailable armour of 
 his own virtue, that his triumph over every kind of difli- 
 riilty becomes a i)erfeetly fore<;one couelusit)n. and the 
 ii'cital loses interest. Thus Sir Charles is strouylv o]>- 
 posed to duellinl,^ AVheu, however, the villain, Sir Har- 
 i;rave, demands satisfaction, an<l he refuses to tii,dit, he 
 not only escapes insult, but i-onverts his opjionent and 
 friends to his views, which lu' ex])()unds at considerable 
 length. He had all the time, of course, great skill with 
 the sword, so that when he was once set upon by two 
 riitliatis in his own lu)nse, he disarmed them both and 
 turned them out of doors. The reHection that he had 
 i>een pre)Voked by two such men to violate the sanctitv of 
 his own house was afterwards a source of atHiction to 
 him ; in extenuation of this crime— the only one apparently 
 \>\ which his morbid conscience had ever been troubled — 
 he pleads that the assailants were two to one, and that 
 his hfe seemed in danger. He was foro-etting for the 
 moment that by mere force of rhetoric he had upon occa- 
 sion driven one of the wicked into a fit. The perfections 
 of the hero impart a sedative character to Ciraudisoii, but 
 it is very far from lieing a failure, and more tlian its 
 
 ' 'I'i'Nif, ('iis,iii)/ii>/i/i\iiir l.iffrnn'rr. IH!)."). p. 200, 
 
 M
 
 162 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 predecessors it abounds in picturesque detail, illustrating 
 with fidelity the manners and also the modes of thought 
 of the day. 
 
 With Thomson and Sterne and Byron and Scott (and, it 
 must be added, Ossian), Eichardson is one of the few 
 imaginative writers of Britain who have exerted a really 
 powerful influence upon the Continent ; and he still obtains 
 the most generous testimony as to his greatness from 
 Frenchmen. All nations, says M. Jusserand, have had 
 novels, several have had admirable ones earlier in point of 
 date than those of England ; it is none the less true that 
 the English have contributed more than any other people 
 to the formation of the contemporary novel. From the 
 time of Richardson and Fielding, when they first began 
 to apply to this style of literature the qualities they have 
 exhibited in other styles, combining the gift of observation 
 pecvxliar to their dramatists Avitli the atiaJijfic subtlety of 
 their philosophers and the passionate ethical sincerity of 
 their apostles, the English have become the great masters 
 of the novelist's art. ' Voltaire, thinking of Locke, re- 
 gretted that the philosophers of England were not the 
 preceptors of the human race. If they have finished by 
 becoming it, it is, above all, to the novelists of England 
 that the result is due." 
 
 It may be added that in Richardson's hands the novel 
 for the first time becomes a species of confessional. This 
 in the hands of its greatest masters — Balzac, Thackeray, 
 Greorge Eliot — it has since pre-eminently remained. Boileau 
 had scorned the novel as unworthy the serious attention 
 of men of talent; but henceforth one could open a novel 
 in the expectation of finding, not a playwright manqui', 
 but real men and women. No longer a poor dependent of 
 the literary family, the novel is admitted to the select 
 ' Jusserand, T.r TtoiiKni A)if/!ais, 1<SS6.
 
 SAMUDL RICHARDSON — HKXRY FTKLDINfi. 1 C3 
 
 partnership of imaginative literature, and it soon becomes 
 the predominant partner. ' The first-rate writers in this 
 class, of course, are few ; but these few we may reckon 
 among the greatest ornaments and best benefactors of our 
 kind.'^^ 
 
 Eichardson was the Eouudhead, Fielding the Cavalier, 
 of our present epoch — that of the genesis of the modern 
 English novel. One showed his descent from and affinity 
 with Bunyan,the other tracedaclear pedigree from Suckling 
 and Sedley, Walpole was mortally bored by Richardson ; 
 Fielding, on the other hand, jostled him so unpleasantly 
 
 that he called for an ounce of civet — a 
 "f'5;^;„^,l^^!"'" characteristic iudgment of the clever, l)ut 
 
 often superficial, Horace, it is true, liow- 
 ever, that the two writers are as antijoathetic the one to the 
 other as two contemporaries could well be. Eichardson had 
 a lai'ge portion of the intensity of genius, but he lacked both 
 the vigorous humour and the literary accomplishment of 
 his rival. Fielding, indeed, combined breadth and keen- 
 ness, classical culture and a delicate Gallic irony, to an 
 extent rare amoug English writers. Of the race of Cer- 
 vantes and of Molicre, he is uncjuestiouably the great 
 man of letters of the forties and fifties. If a man were 
 restricted to the writings of a single author of the Age of 
 Johnson, he would show both wisdom and taste in naming 
 those of Henry Fielding. Fielding lacks the subtle and 
 delicate intuition tliat Eichardson shows in the analysis of 
 his women characters, nor could he coin{)ass either the 
 farcical i)Ower of Smollett or the sombre colouriug by 
 which Smollett sometimes pi'oduces the most wonderful 
 effects of contrast. There was, in fact, no poeti-y in Field- 
 ing ; but there was practically every other ingredient of a 
 great prose-writer— taste, culture, order, vivacity, humour, 
 ' Hazlitt, Ediiiburijh licview, 1815
 
 l')4 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 and irony delicately blended, and, above all, a penetrating 
 common sense. As an artist his skill in literary design 
 sets his work far above the rude joineiy of his fellows and 
 contemporaries. 
 
 Fielding, whose grandfather was a cadet of a noble family, 
 and who was himself a cousin to Lady Mary Wortley Mon- 
 tagu, was born in Somerset on April 22nd, 1707. He was 
 schooled at Melcombe iii his native countv, and at Eton, 
 and he also went for a short while to study law at Ley den, 
 returning to London in 1728. He had little to depend on 
 but his wits, for the remittance from his father was small 
 and irregular, and the law, tlie profession of which he had 
 nominally embraced, was no great stay to him. Being 
 ' proffered the choice to tui-n hackney-coachman or hack- 
 ney-writer,' he chose the latter alternative. He turned to 
 the theatre for aid, and began a long dramatic career with 
 Love in Several Masques, played at Drury Lane in February, 
 1728. In the next few years he produced comedies and 
 farces (some given to the world anonymously) with great 
 rapidity. His plays are journeyman's work, a sort of 
 rough carpentry, for which his mocking humour and youth- 
 ful affectation of cynicism served him well. The model he 
 kept in view was the artificial comedy of Congreve, Imt it 
 was a Congreve depressed by duller audiences than those 
 of Queen Anne's day. He wrote with extravagant haste, 
 and as we read we can still hear him damning the man who 
 invented fifth acts. Nevertheless, his apprenticeship as a 
 playwright was of vakie to the novelist ; aiid Fielding, 
 though young and inexperienced, was a brilliant appren- 
 tice. His plays obtained no great dramatic success, but, 
 like Thackeray's early work, before he achieved real great- 
 ness with Vanity Fair, they are of considerable interest as 
 easel-pieces to the literary student ; they are, moreover, 
 bright and readable throughout. It is credibly reported
 
 HEXRV FIELDING. 165 
 
 of his capital burlesque Tom Thumb the Great, that it 
 evoked a laugh from Swift, who only laughed twice in his 
 life. In 1735 Fielding, having married, aspired to mana- 
 gerial honours ; he purchased the little French theatre in 
 the Haymarket and brought out Pasqvin, an amusing 
 dramatic squib, which had an enormous run, and was 
 followed by The Historical Register. The success un- 
 happily involved exasperating ' Old Bob ' (Sir Robert 
 Walpole), and the licensing act of June, 1737, put a term 
 to Fielding's dramatic labours. 
 
 A somewhat obscure interval in Fieldinsr's life follows, 
 and lasts down to February, 1742, which sa"w the aj)pear- 
 ance of The History of the Adveidures of Joseph Andrews 
 and of his friend Mr. Abraham Adams. The hero of this 
 remarkable parody was the brother of Richardson's Pamela, 
 whose experiences had been made known to the world in 
 1740. Joseph, like his sister, Avas tempted by a perscm 
 far above him in station, in this case a dissolute woman 
 of fashion, and some amusing passages in the first few 
 chapters ])urlesque the manoeuvres of the maid in her far 
 from artless resistance to the base designs of the squire 
 'Mr. B.,' whose real name Fielding discovered Avas Mr. 
 Booby. The extreme caution of the lieroine, and the revul- 
 sion bv which Pamela, from the stern assertor of chastitv, 
 becomes thegi'ateful adorerof therakethemomeuthe speaks 
 of the chaplain, t-onstitute genuinely assailable points in 
 Richardson's work, pu1)lished though it was 'to cultivate 
 the prim;iples of virtue ;ind religion.' Ri(-hardson not un- 
 naturally ascribeil thi' iiiotive of the burlesque to a, low 
 feeling of jealousy : but jealousy was not one of P^ielding's 
 failings. Fielding was, no doubt, jironipte(l iy much the 
 same feeling that S])urred Thackeray to burlesque liVtton, 
 a feeliut' of reactii>n aii^aiust the morbid tendencies of 
 Richardson's work. He was well read in French, and
 
 166 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 there is good, reason to suppose that lie may have been 
 acquainted with the Paysan Parvenu, the autobiography of 
 a footman who repels the advances of his master's wife 
 and eventually marries a wealthy ch'vote. If so, the circum- 
 stance forms another link between Marivaux and the genesis 
 of the modern English novel. 
 
 Fielding's genius for the development of character, hav- 
 ing once found scope, was not to be confined within the 
 bounds of a mere travesty. The story soon follows a free 
 course of development, the writer's art being lavished with 
 a free hand upon the character of Parson Adams — a noble 
 examj^le of primitive goodness and childlike Christian 
 altruism. Adams (whose original was a certain eccentric 
 William Young) is in many respects Fielding's finest and 
 most original conception, and the character seems to re]:»re- 
 sent in some measure Fielding's own free but generous 
 philosophy. It is worth while dwelling for a moment 
 upon Parson Adams, the prototype of such a host of 
 figures in fiction. The character could not be more happily 
 hit off in a few words than by Mr. Leslie Stephen : 
 
 ' He drinks beer and smokes a pipe, and when necessity 
 compels takes to the cudgels with a vigour which might 
 have excited the envy of Christoj^her North. He scorns the 
 unborn Maltlius, and is outrageously impecunious in his 
 habits. He is entirely free from worldliness, and is inno- 
 cent as a child in the arts of flattery and time-serving. 
 But it is not because he is an enthusiast after the fashion 
 of Whitefield, or has any high-flown views of the sacerdotal 
 office. Common sense is the rule of his life, or, in other 
 words, the views which commend themselves to the man 
 who sees the world as it is, who has no visionary dreams, 
 and who has a thoroughly generous nature.' 
 
 This admirable vignette is to be taken as the text to a 
 brief analytic summary of Fielding's idiosyncrasy, and the
 
 HENKY J-IELDING. 167 
 
 idiosyncrasy of his writings. They are almost the same 
 thing, for no man transpires, as one may say, in his works 
 with such a wholeness or completeness. Both are unerr- 
 ingly typical of the period, that of the second and third 
 quarters of the eighteenth century. Taine calls Fielding 
 an ' amiable buffalo,' a polite synonym, we may sup- 
 pose, for an amiable brute. The definition is acute, as 
 it could scarcely fail to be coming from Taine ; and it 
 is, pei'haps, not far wrong, if we understand the brute to 
 be highly intelligent, cheerful, and even optimistic in his 
 judgment of his fellow-brutes, essentially brutal though 
 he knows them to be. It is, in fine, the well-known 
 eighteenth century negation of spirituality, of awe and 
 mystery and pathos, that Fielding, with his roguish 
 humour and strong masculine common sense, so perfectly 
 represents. 
 
 It is enough to indicate the kind of reflections by which 
 the highest minds are preoccupied to see how entirely they 
 are alien to such a writer as Fielding. He has absolutely 
 nothing of the mystic about him ; he is a man amongst 
 ordinary men, occupied with the daily business of taverns 
 and courts of justice, and with such reflections as they 
 suofctest. He never retires to the desert or looks down 
 upon mankind from the lonely mountain-tops of thought. 
 ' He considers that theology and so forth is the proper 
 province of the clergy ; and they may talk about such 
 things as much as they like without bothering him until 
 they proceed to apply their principles to the business of 
 everyday life. Then, indeed, they require to be very care- 
 fully kept in order, lest they should fall out with the dic- 
 tates of plain common sense and try to put forward claims 
 to authority under some pretence of mysterious enlighten- 
 ment. Among divines he likes Barrow, South, Tillotsou, 
 Hoadly, men with " no humbug about them," who made no
 
 168 
 
 THE AGE OF .TOHN'SOX. 
 
 preleiisiuns to priestly authority, hut relied frankly upon 
 plain reason, and used religion simply as a support for 
 morality.'' He was equally a plain dealer in the matter 
 of practical morality. The worst sins in his eyes were 
 those involvino- crueltv and deceit. Sins of the senses 
 were comparatively venial in his view, and he allowed the 
 young- man to coinjiound u2>on singularly easy terms for 
 the moral and intellectual damages accruing from a harvest 
 of wild oats. 
 
 In the year after the appearance of Joseph Andreivs, the 
 three volumes of Fielding's miscellanies were published. 
 The tirst volume contained his quaint satirical jiieces (at a 
 distance after Swift these, as his comedies after Cougreve), 
 On Conversation and On Nothing ; the second had his 
 Journey from this World to the Next, a je'i d'esprit after 
 Lucian or Cyrano de Bergerac, in Avhicli is apparent that 
 acuteuess as a literary critic that he afterwards displayed 
 so consjjicuously in the prefatial chapters to Tom Jones, 
 but which, like much of Fielding's prose when he is not 
 depicting chai'acter, shows signs of haste and languor ; 
 the third volume is occupied by his strange History of the 
 Life of the late Mr. Jonatlian Wild t/ie Great, a subtle 
 prolonged satire ujion spurious greatness of all kinds, and 
 a model of sustained and sleepless irony. It is singular 
 that three such great masters of prose fiction as Fielding, 
 Smollett, and Thackeray, should have each attempted a 
 performance of this kind. Wild is rather too long, but 
 portions of it (especially the opening and closing chapters) 
 far surpass anything in Ferdinand Count Fathom or 
 Barry Lyndon, and place Fielding definitely second to 
 Swift in ironic power among English prose-writers. 
 
 In December, 1748, Fielding was appointed justice 
 of the peace for Westminster, and settled in Bow 
 ' Cf. Stephen, lulroductiuji to his edition of Fielding'.
 
 IIEXRY FIELDIXG. 165'' 
 
 Street. The post was a very important oue, involving the 
 poliee administration of practically the whole of the 
 rapidly-increasing West End, but it was underpaid and 
 ill-esteemed. The occupant was deemed but a degree 
 above an ordinary or a head jailer. From 1742 until after 
 his ajipointment Fielding made no sign to the world of 
 letters. His health was bad, and the bailiffs were probably 
 worse : Itut his natural buoyancy was enormous, and he 
 had during all this period been progressing slowly with his 
 great novel, The History of Taui Jones, a Foundling, which 
 appeared in February, 1749. 
 
 Fielding, who had made something under ^200 bv 
 Joseph Andrews, made at least JClOO by his new venture, 
 which was popular from the first, and was promptly trans- 
 lated and dramatized. And since its apipearance all the 
 very best judges have soimded its praise. Hazlitt and 
 Coleridge agree that the plot is ' almost unrivalled.' At 
 the same time the feeling of the general principles of 
 human nature op>eratiug in particular circumstances is 
 always intense, and incident and situation are used only to 
 l)riug out character. The epical quality of Totn Jones is 
 touched on by Byron when he calls its author ' our prose 
 Homer," its satirical energy by Hazlitt when he compares 
 Fielding with Hogarth, and its monumental character by 
 Gibbon when he speaks of it outliving the Escurial. 
 Thackeray's tribute to his great predecessor (in the preface 
 to Pendennis) as the depicter of 'a man,' is well known; 
 l)ut the gi'eatest compliment it ever received, perhaps, was 
 from the accomplished, clever, yet eminently wise Lady 
 Marv Wortlev Montagu, who inscribed in lier cdjty Ihe 
 words Ne jiIks n.Urn. 
 
 Amelia followed Tom Jones on Decenil)er 1 U{\\, 1 751, n]>on 
 which dav the first edition was exhausted.' It was dedicated 
 ' I'icl.liii- olplaiiit'<l n,()Wiin- tlic eoi«\ liglit.
 
 IJ'O THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 to Ralph Allen, the Squire Allworthy of his previous novel. 
 If the i^lot is inferior to that of Tom Jones, the descriptioas 
 and characters are second to none in prose fiction. Field- 
 ing's only literary performance after Amelia was a bi-weekly 
 critical j^aper called The Covent Garden Journal (1752). 
 He had long suffered from suppressed gout, and in 1754 
 he retired to a little house at Ealing, a place which he 
 holds to have the best air in the kingdom, far superior to 
 that of Kensington gravel-pits (which was, it will be re- 
 membered, one of the health-resorts of Swift). But he 
 dreaded another winter even in the climate of Ealing, and 
 decided on a voyage to Lisbon. There he died on October 
 8tli, 1754. Let travellers to Lisbon, says Borrow, in 
 the opening chapter of his delightful Bible in Spain, 
 repair 'to the English church and cemetery, Pere la 
 Chaise in miniature, where, if they be of England, they 
 may well be excused if they kiss the cold tomb, as I did, 
 of the author of Amelia, the most singular genius which 
 their island ever produced.' The sweet and long-suffering 
 character of Amelia is, indeed, one which the creator of 
 Hermione himself might be proud of having produced. 
 The year after his death appeared Fielding's Journal of a 
 Voyage to Lisbon, a charming piece of literature. The 
 incidents of the voyage were few, for the great writer had 
 no companion but a Portuguese priest, a rude boy of 
 fourteen, and the captain, who was as deaf as he was 
 dilatory and uncivil ; but such incidents as there were, eked 
 out with a delightfullv frank account of his own ailments 
 (worthy of an Aiibrey or an Ashmole) and of his wife's 
 toothache, make up a recital which proves, if proof were 
 wanted, that Fielding, like Goldsmith, could adorn what- 
 ever he touched. 
 
 Tobias Smollett completes the trio of our proto-novelists. 
 As a novelist pure and sim])le he is less than Richardson
 
 TOBIAS SMOLLETT, 171 
 
 or Fielding, but he is quite remarkable as one of the 
 earliest eminent men of letters of all 
 
 ^'"^^'if,^?"-,'')!''" work. Poet, playwright, historian, pub- 
 (172l-1771)» ' X *- <^ ^ ^ 
 
 licist, topographer, translator, satirist, 
 
 periodical eritic, lampooner, and novelist, he wrote skil- 
 fully and fluently on almost every conceivable subject, and 
 for a short period during the interregnum between Pope 
 and Johnson he was a kind of literary Protector. Tobias 
 G-eorge Smollett, to give him his full name, was born at 
 Dalquhurn, near Bonhill, Dumbartonshire, in 1721. He 
 was a cadet of an old Scots family, and had a fairly good 
 education at Dumbarton and Glasgow ; but he was thwarted 
 in his desire to enter the army, and was apprenticed to a 
 doctor of medicine. After three years of simmering dis- 
 content, he determined, in 1739, to seek his fortune in 
 London. His journey southwards with his tragedy, The 
 Regicide, in his pocket is described with infinite spirit in 
 the earlier chapters of Boderich Random, which are quite 
 among the best he ever wrote. How far these are auto- 
 biographic has been disputed, but each of four separate 
 claimants to the honour of being the original Strap vowed 
 that he had shared with Smollett the vicissitudes ascribed 
 in the novel to Eandom and his comrade. He lost no 
 time in submitting his play to Lord Lyttelton, the patron 
 of his countryman James Thomson, Months elapsed 
 before Lyttelton, with vague politeness, dej^recated the 
 honour of sponsorship for the play, which was indeed 
 exceptionally bad. Smollett retorted at once in his cross- 
 grained way by discarding his patron. Seven years later 
 he savagely parodied Lyttelton's Monody upon the death 
 of his wife. Despairing of success as a poet, he got a ])Ost 
 as surgeon on a king's ship, and was present off Cuba 
 during the operations of Admiral Vernon. We next find 
 him a surgeon in Downing Street, and in 1746 he wrote a
 
 172 THE AGE OF JOHNSON, 
 
 lament upon the vig'orous suppression of the Jacobite 
 I'ebellion entitled The Tears of Scotland. He had in a re- 
 markable degree the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum, but 
 he had none of the diijlomatie talent that has made eminent 
 doctors of so many of his countrymen. He would prob- 
 ably have become another Ralph — a competent hack- 
 writer and i^arty pamphleteer — had not the success of 
 Pamela and of Joseph Andrews (1740-41) impelled him 
 to try his hand at prose fiction/ Analytical methods had 
 no attraction for him, and he was not sti'ong at construct- 
 ing a plot. He fell back, therefore, upon the picaresque 
 romance as developed in Gil Bias. He admits that he 
 used the immortal novel of Le Sage as a model, but he 
 devoted much more attention than his master to the de- 
 velopment of eccentric character, and in his fondness for 
 rich grotesc^ue colouring he shoAvs the influence of Ben 
 Jonson and Shadwell, and also of the well-known class of 
 ' character ' writers of the seventeenth century. The two 
 small volumes of Bodericlc Bandoin appeared in 1748. The 
 author's name did not appear on the title, and the book 
 was by some attributed to Fielding ; but Smollett made no 
 further attempt to conceal the authorship, and he at once 
 became famous. He went over to Paris in quest of new 
 material for caricature, and in 1751, in four duodecimo 
 volumes, appeared Peregrine PicMe. Like its ^predecessor, 
 it is a loosely constructed series of adventures, in which even 
 greater scope is afforded to Smollett's remarkable power 
 of eccentric characterization. The chief centres of attrac- 
 tion are the grotesque misanthrope of Bath, Cadwallader 
 Orabtree, the burlesque scenes afforded l)y the physician 
 
 ' Mow many inferior w liter.s wore impelled in the same direction 
 is .-sliown l)y the cataract of lietitions ' Adventures,' 'Histories,' 
 and 'Memoirs ' which Hooded the hook-niarket between 1750 and 
 1770.
 
 TOBIAS SMOLLinT. 17:") 
 
 (a caricature of Akenside) and the painter of Paris, and 
 the so-called ' garrison ' witli its inhabitants, Hatchway, 
 and Pii)es, and the inimitable Trunnion, the prototype of so 
 many humorous figures, from Uncle Toby to Captain 
 Cuttle. 
 
 Trunnion's ride to ehureh reappears in John Gilpiti ; 
 the misanthrope practising satire under cover of a 
 feigned deafness reappears in the Sir Mungo Malagrowther 
 of Scott, who, indeed, acknowledges further debts to 
 Smollett in the preface to The Legend of Montrose. The 
 ' garrison ' unquestionably suggested to Sterne the ' castle ' 
 of Tristram Shandy. And indeed it is no exaggeration to 
 say that the tide of subsequent fiction is strewn on every 
 hand with the disjecta membra of Smollett's farcical in- 
 vention. Smollett's third novel, Ferdinand Count Fathom, 
 appeai-ed in 1753, by which time he was settled doAvn at 
 Chelsea, married, and a father. Fathom embodies the 
 much too protracted history of a swindler; but, as Hazlitt 
 says, there is more power of writing occasionally shown in 
 it than in anv of his works. He instances the fine and 
 bitter irony of the Count's address to the country of his 
 ancestors on landing in England, the robber scene in the 
 forest, and the sketch of the Parisian swindler who per- 
 sonates a raw English country squire (' Western is tame 
 in comparison '). Few novels have been more imitated; 
 
 as Fuseli said of Blake, Smollett was ' d d good to 
 
 steal from.' In spite of these successes, the novelist, 
 owing mainly to a jirofuse hospitality, was habitually in 
 pecuniary straits. From 1756 he conducted The Criticai 
 Review, set up in opposition to The Monthly Bevietv of 
 Griffiths. During 1756-7 he issued the hastily compiled 
 volumes of his History of England; in 1757 was pro- 
 duced at Drury Lane his patriotic piece. The Reprisal, 
 or the Tars of Old Fnglniid. In 1755 he had published
 
 174 THK AGE OF JOHNSOX. 
 
 a translation of Don Quixote; and in 1760 lie issued, 
 serially, his imitation of that masterpiece entitled Lannce- 
 lot Greaves, remarkable chiefly for the vivid openinc^ 
 chapter and the fact that it was the first novel to 
 run through the parts of a magazine (The British).^ In 
 1762, as a champion of Bute's un])opular ministry, he 
 undertook the editorship of The Briton, which elicited the 
 scurrilous issue called The Narfh Briton, run hy John 
 
 ' 'I'lie ;i(la|itati<>ns of Jlie ('('iitial idea of I)o>i Qni.iotr are lej^ion. 
 Two of the best 8])e('inioiis l)eloii;;iii^' t(j our period may well l>e 
 mentioned in this ])lace. Tlie lirst is Ttie Female Quixote (1752) of 
 Charlotte Tienox, a lady hi^lily esteemed by Riehardson and by 
 the ' yreat Cham " himself. Jolnison thus summarized the scheme 
 of the book in The GentleiiiKii'.s Magazine for March, 1752: 
 'Arabella [the Female (^uixotej is the dauf^hter of a statesman 
 born after his retirement in disj;Tace, and educated in solitude at 
 his castle in a remote province. The romances which she found in 
 the library after lier mother's deatli were almost the only books 
 she reail ; from tiie^e, tlierefore, she derived her ideas of life ; she 
 believeil tlie business of the Morld to be love, every incident " to 
 be the be.uinninj;- of an ail venture, and every stranger a knight in 
 disguise."" The idea, good enougji in itself, was worked out in a 
 saiUy monotonous manner, and the book is almost forgotten, 
 though .b)lnison wrote tlie dedication, Fielding prai-ed, and Mr. 
 Austin Dobson has devoted a 'vignette' to it. After a life of 
 scribbling poor Mrs. iicno-K died an almonej' of tiie Literary Fnml 
 in 1804. 
 
 The second is TIic Spiriidul Qairote (1772) of Ilicliaid (Jraves 
 (1715-180-4), a prolific novelist and versilier of the Prior Park coterie 
 at Bath. This is a book of greater calibre than the other, having 
 a skilfully devised ])lot, and containing many amusing incidents 
 narrated in a homely but effective style. The special purjiose, for 
 novels even tlien had ' a purpose,' Mas to ridicule the intrusion of 
 the laity into spiritual functions, and to satirize the 'enthusiasm ' 
 of the Methodists. This enthusiasm had come under (4raves's 
 observation in the obnoxious form of a shoemaker, who had started 
 a meeting-house in his parish within a stone's throw of the rectory. 
 The SptritiHil (>«/,/ry/c was reprinted, not undeservedly, in Walker's 
 excellent series of (mostly eighteenth-century) British Classies.
 
 TOBIAS SMOLLETT. 175 
 
 Wilkes, with the aid of Smollett's enemy, Charles Churchill. 
 His health broke down under these and other gigantic 
 tasks of compilation, translation, and abridgment, upon 
 which was super-added grief at the death of his daughter 
 Elizabeth, his 'little Bet,' at the age of fifteen. The 
 greater part of the next two years, 1763-5, he spent in 
 the south of France and in Italy, chiefly at Nice. In 
 1766 he ]niblished his Travels tliroufjii France and Italy. 
 Travelling seems to have put him in a specially bad humour, 
 and he took a jaundiced view of much that he saw abroad. 
 But no book of Smollett's shows an intellect more alert or 
 a power of observation more acute than his travelling 
 diary. A peevish humour (due in largo measure to ill- 
 health) frequently animates his notes ; but they are put 
 together with great literary skill, and there seems no doul)t 
 that as regards accuracy in matters of detail they attain a 
 very high level. On returning to England, Smollett revisited 
 Scotland and then proceeded to Bath, where, as a sequel 
 to a reperusal of Austey's New Bath Guide, he conceived 
 the framework of his last great novel. In December, 
 1769, he left England for good and settled near Leghorn. 
 There during the autumn of 1770 he penned his immortal 
 Humjihrey ClivJcer, a rare example of late maturity of 
 literary power and fecundity of humour. The topo- 
 graphical aptitude shown in the Travels is here combined 
 with the mellow contentment of the vovager who has for- 
 gotten the small worries of transj)ort, and with the en- 
 thusiasm of the veteran who revisits the scenes of his 
 youth. Smollett's descriptive faculty is never idle. The 
 handling of several of the incidents, notably the return 
 of the weaver to Lanark after eighteen years' absence 
 to find his aged father paving the street, bears distinct 
 traces of Sterne's influence; but Smollett's talent and 
 humour are most clearly perceived to have ripened when
 
 176 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 we turn to the cliavacters. Humphrey Clinker himself 
 is exquisite, and his sweetheart, Winifred Jenkins (the 
 l)rogeuitress of Mrs. Malaprop), not far behind him.' 
 Matthew Bramhle, irritable Imt o-ood-hearted (in whom 
 Smollett adumbrated his own temperament), is excellently 
 supj)orted, and seems to have been the prototype of Sir 
 Anthony Absolute in The Rivals. But tbe pedant Lisma- 
 hago is ' the flower of the flock. His tenaciousuess in 
 argument is not so delightful as the relaxation of his 
 logical severity when he finds his fortune mellowing in the 
 wintry smiles of Mrs. Tabitha Bramble. This is the best 
 jireserved and most severe of all Smollett's characters.' 
 We have advanced far beyond the crude brutality and 
 savage ferocity of such hei'oes as Kandom and Pickle, who 
 are, indeed, the chief blemishes in the books to which they 
 supply titles. Smollett died at Leghorn on September 1 7th, 
 1771, and was buried in the English cemetery of that 
 place. Beneath his riigged exterior and his sardonic 
 moodiness there was a fund of generous and even romantic 
 feeling. He was, probably, a better man than either 
 Fielding or Eichardson, Imt his career is less '.sympathetic' 
 In his youth there was too strong a vein of arrogance and 
 
 ' In the letters of Whiifred Jenkins to Mrs. [Nlary Jones, her 
 fellow-servant, we have the pathway clearly indicated to Mrs. 
 ^Ldaprop, Mrs. Raiushothani, ^Irs. Gamp, and a score of other 
 ' derangers of epitajihs.' We must not forget Dogberry, but 
 it is doubtful wliether Smollett has ever been surpassed as 
 an inventor of comic spelling. ' Mrs. Jones,' writes Winifred, 
 ' Providence has bin pleased to make great halteration in the 
 pasture of our affairs. We were yesterday three kijile chined by 
 the grease of God in the holy bonds of matternioney. . . . Your 
 liumble servant had on a plain pea green tabby sack, with my 
 iniuiela cap, ruft' tou))ee, and side cui-ls They said I was the very 
 moral of Lady R., and now Mrs. Maiy our satiety is to suppurate, 
 and we are coming home,'
 
 TOBIAS .SMOI.LKTT. 177 
 
 pride, and as lie grew old he got querulous through over- 
 work. 
 
 As a novelist pure and simple Smollett has been unduly 
 depreciated. The defects of Fielding, it has been said, 
 disa])pear when one compares them with those of Smollett ; 
 the former had the talent to compose, the second merely 
 the facility to improvise. Again, ' Le Sage laughs at vice, 
 Smollett paints her in all her naked coarseness.' This is 
 true as far as the coarseness is conccn*ned. Smollett him- 
 self admits his debt to Gil Bla.^ as a pattern ; but he lent 
 to the picaresque novel numy new effects. His interiors, 
 his descriptive jMissages, generally far surpass anything in 
 Le Sage ; and the novel of incident as he bequeathed it to 
 liis successors had, and still has, great things to achieve. 
 Smollett gave an increased ' actuality ' to the novel by 
 applying to the pui-poses of his narrative and characters 
 the special a)id professional knowledge of which he was 
 master. In Lismahago, a wonderful pedant, worthy to 
 .stand beside Dalgetty or Moniplies, Smollett turned to 
 good effect the statistical and other out-of-the-way know- 
 ledge he had acquired as a comj^iler ; he uses his medical 
 knowledge to draw the admirable sketch of Morgan, the 
 Welsh apothecary ; while his nautical experience aids him 
 in his inimitable, if overdrawn sailors, such as Trunnion, 
 Pipes, Hatchway, and Bowling. He is much too fond of 
 overdrawing — incarnating particular traits and converting 
 them into characters, and individualizing his actors by 
 their oddities. 
 
 The style of BodericJc Random is more easy and flowing 
 than that of Tom Jones, the humour broader and as 
 effectual, the incident even more lively. What gives the 
 superiority to Fielding V The answer is thus given by 
 Hazlitt : ' It is the superior insight into the springs of 
 human character and the constant development of that 
 
 N
 
 17S THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 character tlirougli every change of circumstance. Smollett's 
 humour often rises from the situation of the persons, or the 
 peculiarity of their external appearance, as from Roderick 
 Kandom's carrotv locks which huuy- down over his shoulders 
 like a pound of candles, or Strap's ignorance of London 
 and the blunders that arise from it. . . . He exhibits the 
 ridiculous accidents and reverses to which human life is 
 liable, not the stuff of which it is composed. We read 
 Roderick Bandoin as an entertaining story ; for the par- 
 ticular accidents ami modes of life which it describes have 
 ceased to exist ; but we regard Tom Jones as a real history, 
 because the author never stops short of those essential 
 principles which lie at the bottom of all our actions, and 
 in which w'e feel an immediate interest — intus et in cute.' 
 Smollett surpassed Fielding, first, as a powerful occasional 
 master of pathos — as in the death scene of Commodore 
 Trunnion, where, amid some exaggeration, there is a 
 thoroughly genuine pathetic force ; and, secondly, in his 
 emjiloyment of natural descrij^tiou as a background, as in 
 Count Fathom, where the j^icture of the storm coming on 
 at night in the depths of the forest, and of the terror that 
 constrains Fathom to leave the high road, reveals the 
 latent imaginative jjower that was in the author. But 
 between Smollett and Fielding there are perhaps really 
 more points of resemblance than contrast. Both are 
 vigorous painters of real life, and both increased the re- 
 sources of their art. Their broad, effective touches are in 
 strong contrast alike with Defoe's austere realism of in- 
 cident and with Richardson's minute realism of character. 
 More akin to Richardson than either Fielding or Smollett 
 is the fourth of our classical novelists, for in this class we 
 must put Sterne, though his earliest work is nearly a 
 dozen years later than either Random,, Clarissa, or Tom 
 Jones.
 
 LAURENCE STERNE. 170 
 
 Laurence Sterne, born at Clonmel on November 24th, 
 1713, was the son of Koger Sterne, 'a poor 
 ^TmT-lT^sT"^ ^evil of a lieutenant in a marching regi- 
 ment.' The father died in 1731, during 
 liis son's absence from home; but Laurence preserved a 
 lively i-emembrauce of a character which, as subsequently 
 idealized by him (in Uncle Toby), lives with Falstaff and 
 Mr. Micawber in the Elysium of fiction. He was a little 
 smart man, wrote Sterne, ' active to the last degree in all 
 exercises, most patient of fatigue and disappointments, of 
 which it pleased Grod to give him full measure. He was 
 in temper somewhat rapid and hasty, but of a kindly sweet 
 disposition, void of all design, and so innocent in his in- 
 tentions that he suspected no one, while you might have 
 cheated him ten times a day if nine had not been sufficient 
 for your purpose.' In 1733 Sterne went as a sizar to 
 Jesus College, Cambridge, where he met that gay spirited 
 youth, some five years his junior, John Hall Stevenson. 
 Stevenson may, in fact, be termed his college tutor, the 
 lessons that he imparted giving a bent to all Sterne's sub- 
 sequent life. Having been ordained and inducted (through 
 the kind offices of his uncle, a clerical personage at York) 
 into the living of Sutton,' near York, he settled down there, 
 'painting, fiddling, and shooting,' and often running into 
 York, where he held two prebends. On Easter Monday, 
 1741, he married Elizabeth, the daughter of a Yorkshire 
 parson named Lumley, and four years later was born his 
 daughter and correspondent, Lydia. But Sterne's greatest 
 resource, as middle life began to close in upon him, was 
 the renewal of his intimacy with Hall Stevenson, the 
 Eugenius of Tristram Shandy. Hall had been ripened in 
 the interval by foreign travel, by the society of Wilkes and 
 
 ' Sutton-in-the-Forest (of Galtres, i.e., ' Galtree Forest,' the 
 scene of tlje last two acts of Sliakes[ieare's Hoirt/ IV., pt. i.).
 
 180 THK A(;K of JOHNSON. 
 
 other of tlu' unliuly friars of Medmeuliain, and l)y that of 
 the French wits and satirists of tlie sixteenth century, of 
 whose -writings ho liad acenmnlated a choice and ciirious 
 collection at Skelton Hall, nicknamed Crazy Castle. It 
 was in the library at Crazy Castle that, brooding over his 
 Pantagruolian studies, Sterne evolved the Rabelaisian 
 fantasia to which he chose to give the name of Tristraiu 
 Shandy. His neglect, or worse, caused the estrangement 
 and removal of his wife, and, relieved rather than other- 
 wise by this riddance of domestic responsibility, Sterne 
 turned for diversion to composition. He was astonished 
 at his own facility, and produce<l in rapid succession the 
 chapters of the first two volumes of Trhtram Shandij. 
 These were published at Yorlc early in 1 760. A few months 
 later nothing else was talked of in Loudon. Few authors 
 have leapt so suddenly into a great and lasting reputation. 
 The novel was destined to become the vehicle for all 
 kiuds of eccentric writing, but in the role of nondescript 
 no novel has ever sur]>assed The. Life and Opinions of 
 Tristram Shandi/, Gent. Details about the said Tristram 
 are wellnigh the only things one cannot find amid the 
 maze of theology and medicine, of obscure French pleas- 
 antries and scholastic erudition, of poliorcetics, obstetrics 
 and asterisks, which fills up rather more than half the book. 
 There Avas undoubtedly excuse for the dull but deserving 
 Dr. Farmer, when he ])rophesied that by 1800 the man 
 who wished to I'efer to Tristram Shandy would have to ask 
 for it of an anticjuary. Much of the erudition, it must 
 Ije admitted, was terribly forced. S(-holastic learning of 
 archaic savour had been compressed into the brain of 
 Eabelais and liis felloAvs, and it came out as in a volcanic 
 eruption in the form of lava. Sterne's familiarity with 
 the subject was secouddmnd, even if his interest in it was 
 not for the most part specious and affected, mei-ely as the
 
 LAURENCE STERNE. 181 
 
 basis for a literary artifice. It is as if a novelist of to-day 
 were to drag into his narrative a disquisition upon tlie 
 Bangorian controversy, or a long citation with humorous 
 comments from The Divine Legation of Warburtou. 
 
 Few people are born with an intuitive knowledge of the 
 French humorists of the sixteenth century, and Sterne 
 was promptly suspected of plagiarism, though it was not 
 until much later that the extent to which he had emptied 
 his cahitrs hleus (filled at Crazy Castle) into Tristram, was 
 definitely ascertained.^ 
 
 The conclusion that the general reader may draw from 
 the investigations that have been made into the novelist's 
 obligations is that Sterne used Burton, Bruscambille, and 
 
 ' The full extent of Sterne's oblioations to Cervantes and tlie 
 iiKl French satirists, and in a less degree to Bnrton^ti Atiato/in/ of 
 Mfhiiirholij, to Arbuthnot's Martin us Scriblcrus, and to other out- 
 of-the-way volumes of satire, farctia', and classical coninionplaoes 
 was first definitely sliown in the III tintrat ions of Sterne (Man- 
 cliester, 1798) by Dr. John Ferriar. Ferriar, a native of I{ox- 
 Iturjilishire, wIki had settled at Manchester as a pliysician, and 
 become leader of tlie literati there, was an admirer of Sterne, and 
 a deej) student of French literature, making a sjiecial study of 
 Rabelais and liis imitators. As Tristram. Shaiidi/ proceeded, 
 Ferriar Ijecame convinced (and eventually demonstrated to the 
 world) tliat he liad been anticipated by tlie autlior of that woik in 
 ids study of Kalu'lais, of IJruscambille, of J>croal(k^ de Verviik', 
 of (iuillaume Houchet, and of otlier authors — 'wits' as obscxu'e 
 and as com]iletely forgotten as tliose from wliom Kaspe com- 
 ]»oundc'd the exploits of Baron Muncliausen. Instances of Sterne's 
 system have accumuhited, and Mr. Sidney Lee has shown that 
 even the originality of Sterne's general scheme is not iuiim))eacli- 
 alile, but owes much to Jolin Dunton's Voyage round the World 
 . . . or Hare Adrentures of Don Kalnophilus from /lis Cradle lo 
 his Fifteenth Year (1720) : see Diet, of^at. Biofj., vol. liv. There 
 also is develojied for the fust time the true story of Steiiie's Kllyi. 
 Foi' Sterne generally , see also Scherer and Montcgnt's Essai oi- 
 Stapler's L. Sterne, Paris. I.s7<t.
 
 182 THE Adv. OF JOHNSON. 
 
 the others, much as Shakespeare used Plutarch, as a lay 
 ficfure, by the skilful handling of which he obtains certain 
 effects. When he is at his best (and this is the important 
 ]ioint) he discards the borrower's art — does not use the 
 ti>4ure at all. 
 
 Sterne's att'ectatious and borrowings are indissolubly 
 blended, and were with him part of a deliberate method of 
 artifice, adopted because it suited the idiosyncrasy of his 
 style. The same applies to his indecent innuendoes. 
 Tristram, in truth, is fuller than anyone knows of indecent 
 Avinks and sniggers. Much of this leering is deemed by 
 all modern standards to be in bad taste ; but, as Scott re- 
 marks, Avith his usual j)erfect sense, it cannot be said that 
 the licentious humour of Sterne is of the kind which 
 applies itself to the passions, or is calculated to corrupt 
 society. After all, the amount of actual harm done by 
 Tristram Shandy — what is it? an infinitesimal quantity. 
 And when one reflects on the amount of delight which his 
 portraiture has given to thousands — and will give to 
 thousands more — it vanishes altogether. 
 
 Few peoj^le troubled about the indecency at the time of 
 the book's ajipearance. Bishop Warburton gave the for- 
 tunate author a purse of c£50, and for a short time Sterne 
 himself had hopes of becoming a bishop. Many people, on 
 the other hand, attacked Sterne's affectations, and one of 
 the severest of the critics was Oliver Goldsmith. ' There 
 are several very dull fellows,' he wrote,' ' who by a few 
 mechanical helps sometimes learn to become extremely 
 brilliant and pleasing ; with a little dexterity in the 
 management of the eyebrows, fingers, and nose. By imi- 
 tating a cat, a sow and pigs — by a loud laugh and a slap 
 on the shoulder — the most ignorant are furnished out 
 
 1 Citizen of ihr World, liii. ; cf. AValpole's epitome, ' tlie dregs 
 of nonsense.'
 
 LAURENCE STERNE. lRi> 
 
 for conversation. But the writer finds it impossible to 
 throw his winks, his shrugs or liis attitudes upon 
 paper. . . .' 
 
 It is not in the least extraordinary that the critics should 
 have been exercised about Sterne's style ; there is a strong 
 disturbing element in it, and a peculiar restlessness Avhich 
 to the older school of writers was fidgeting and exasperating. 
 Sterne was, in fact, the foremost of the impressionists in 
 Eusrlish stvle. Bv the constant use of vestures and short 
 dialogues, interjections and soliloquies, by his intent analysis 
 of fleeting human moods, he isolated the veriest trifles for 
 the i^urpose of enshrining them with unaccustomed honours 
 amidst his wonderful gallery of portraits. He carefully 
 sought a pathetic cadence for these exquisite little pieces 
 of prose genre, until such episodes (they can scarcely be 
 called incidents) as ' Tristram and the Ass ' or ' Uncle Toby 
 and the Fly ' attain to an unrivalled purity and perfection 
 of style — a style ' unstitched ' and conversational of its 
 essence, but full of happy turns and glancing expressions, 
 and as rapid and idiomatic as is to be found in oiir litera- 
 ture. With all Sterne's apparent caprice of manner, there 
 is usually not a touch in any of his pictures that could be 
 spared without marring the effect. 
 
 In his intimate manner of thought, as in his style of 
 expression, Sterne was the sport of his emotional impulses; 
 and he fell an easy victim to the rising tide of ' sentiment ' 
 or ' sensibility,' of which he was to be an apostle. Mari- 
 vaux and Richardson had already been left far behind, 
 and as the century advances the claims of sensibility get 
 more and more exacting, until it becomes necessary for 
 the hero continually to be in heroics, and the heroine 
 alwavs palpitating, while from every surrounding object 
 the same dangerous quality is extracting excess of misery 
 or delight. An emotion comes to be regarded as a thing
 
 184 THE AGK OF JOHNSON. 
 
 to be isolated, dandled and savoured deliberately, almost 
 scientifically. Sterne, with his demonstrations of ' moral 
 entomology,' and his floods of tears (where a discreet 
 quiver of the eyelid would be ample), thoroughly believed 
 in and recklessly indulged in this inexpensive pastime.' 
 Like all exaggerations, it is bad art (and in inferior hands 
 it becomes a source of inexpressible torment to the reader) ; 
 but we must remember that Sterne used it to conquer a 
 new domain for the novel — almost for literature. His 
 methods have descended to hundreds of imitators, and 
 when by imitators of discretion and genuine talent, such 
 as Saintine or Xavier de Maistre, always with success. 
 
 Like Eichardson's work, Tristram Shandy had a better 
 reception in the Fi'ench capital, where Eousseau had pre- 
 pared the public taste for it, than in London. Sterne 
 himself went to Paris to ' have his renown ratified,' as 
 English authors did in those days, and Garat gives us a 
 brief portrait of the man, ' always the same, never in- 
 fluenced by plans, but always carried away by impres- 
 sions,' at the theatre, in the salon, and on the Pont Neuf, 
 
 ' In its essence perhaps this 'sensibility so charniinf;'' was no 
 more tlian a revolt against tiie prevailing rationalism. In the 
 midst of a sceptical and sophisticated society which only believes, 
 M'ith Voltaire, in good sense, analysis and logic, there stands forth 
 a Rousseau, as head of a school which takes sensibility for the 
 sovereign rule of life. The dangers of such guidance are admiraljly 
 depicted by M. Caro (Ft'ji dti XVIII'"" Steele). The man of 
 sensibility, without sense of religion or duty or family or trusty 
 friend to advise him, is condemned to a life of exception. Sen- 
 sibility aspires high in its dreams, but it falls low indeed when it 
 comes to deeds. It is capable of line words, but not of fine 
 devotion. It is not even capable of recognizing or doing a simjile 
 duty, wlien that duty sIiom's itself in the form of an embarrassment 
 or a sacrifice. Tlie life of Sterne, like that of Rousseau, shows 
 very plainly the emiilincss jtiid tin' iiisiilllciency of this ' morale dc 
 c(eur, '
 
 LAURENCE STERNE. 185 
 
 where he prostrated himself, amid a crowd of admirers, 
 before the statue of Henri IV. Suard went to the length 
 of comparing his woi'k with the Bible. But his popularity 
 abroad reached its climax, not in Tristram (the ninth and 
 last volume of which appeared in 1764), but in his second 
 book, A Sentimental Journey in France and Italy, pub- 
 lished in two duodecimo volumes in February, 1768; it 
 was designed, he tells us, to teach us to love the world 
 and our fellow-creatures better than we do, and it contains 
 numerous references to his intrigue with Eliza Draper, the 
 fair Anglo-Indian coquette whose departure for India in 
 April, 1767, he had bewailed with all the resources of 
 sentimental art. Less than two months after its appear- 
 ance Sterne died in Bond Street, London (March 18th, 
 1768). 
 
 There are admirers of Sterne in England as well as in 
 France who prefer the Sentimental Journey to Tristram. 
 It certainly exhibits his style at its best, his literary egotism 
 even still further ma.tured ; sentiment or sensibility as one 
 of the fine arts carried to the farthest pitch of development, 
 and a possibly increased skill in the elaboration of the 
 Sternean vignette. A lambent satii-e upon the travellers 
 who went to Italy to verify Latin inscriptions and to pub- 
 lish their results plays over the whole. But there is one 
 cajiital omission in the Sentimental Journey. One misses 
 irremediably the Shandean group of portraits. It is, it 
 seems to us, in the marvellous distinctness with which 
 these creations detach themselves from his too besjiattered 
 and often confused canvas that Sterne's grandeur really 
 lies. Amid aifectatiou, tediousness, leering, and obscenity, 
 we come to passages relating to these remarkable figures 
 which stand out like chefs-cVcenvre in a large gallery of 
 uninspired re]»licas and otiier fifth-rate compositions. Tlie 
 characters of My Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim, of Mi-.
 
 186 TTTK AOi: OF JOHNSON. 
 
 and Mrs Shandy, of the Widow Wadmaii, of Dr. Slop, and 
 even minor persons such as Obadiah and Bridget, are dc- 
 l>icted with strokes of a masterly vigour.' A few of the 
 canvases of Jan Steen have something of the same power 
 to arrest one l)y their striking animation and fidelity to 
 the life. As a detached fragment fcAv ]>assages in our 
 literature are worthy to compare with the death of Le 
 K'vre. The effect is instantaneous. In one moment our 
 sympathy is irresistibly arrested. It is the magic of style. 
 As for Uncle Toby, we feel almost at once the desirability 
 of his friendship; we admire the good old soldier, sym- 
 pathize with his hobby, and take the keenest interest in 
 his campaign against the Widow Wadman, unworthy 
 though she be of his affections. My Uncly Toby, says 
 Hazlitt decisively, is one of the finest compliments ever 
 paid to human nature. 
 
 Sterne must rank with Fielding and Dickens in the van 
 of English humourists. Most humourists, like the two 
 just mentioned, can be distinguished as either Cervantic 
 or Eabelaisian ; but Sterne was neither. His humour is 
 Sternean. No book so destitute of literary form as 
 Tristram ShfDxhj could possibly be secured against neglect 
 save by humour of a supreme order. That is exactly 
 what Sterne's humour is. He has been somewhat unfor- 
 tunate in his critics, who have generally been of a nature 
 congruous with Johnson, stolidly refusing credit to the 
 suffering of a man so long as he is well fed. Thackeray 
 
 ' In the cliaracter of Parson Yorick, Sterne fnrnishes some 
 autobiographical details. Engenius, here and in the Journey, is 
 Hall Stevenson, founder of the Demoniack Clnl), and formerly one 
 of the celehraters of the 'mcs-sc iioirr at :Medmeidiam, along with 
 ("hurchill, Bob Lloyd, Paul Whitehead, and Thomas Potter, author 
 of the scandalous Essm/ on Woiita)i (176.S) which Wilkes had 
 privately printed (see Johnstone, C/iri/sal, Chapter XVI.).
 
 LAURENCE STERNE. 187 
 
 saAv in Sterne not the great humourist, but a jester; a 
 charlatan who Itrought out his bit of carpet to tumble on, 
 lieedless alike of the mirth of the crowd or the pity of the 
 graver bystander. Is Sterne pathetic in the presence of 
 suffering in the brute creation and at the same time guilty 
 of ill-ti'eating his nearest relatives ? — his pathos is obviously 
 assumed. Does he weep at the recital of woe by the lips 
 of a stranger, whilst his imprudence is the occasion of 
 deeper misfortune among members of his own family ? — be 
 assured that his tears aiT crocodile tears, springing from no 
 genuine feeling, but mechanically produced as a bit of 
 harlequinade for the delectation of the susceptible reader. 
 These are some of the results which a sentimental method 
 of criticism yields : conclusions which are based in reality 
 upon such fallacies as that conduct is an unfailing criterion 
 of good feeling, or that the man who writes al^out human 
 nature requires a double portion of human virtue. 
 
 Some of Sterne's failings are not, perhaps, of the order 
 to which it is easy to be a little blind ; but a perception of 
 them must not interfere with our recognition of his literary 
 greatness. Moral and political people as we are, it should 
 vet be possible for us not to confuse the attributes of a 
 founder of English prose fiction with those of a pioneer of 
 moral progress. 
 
 The books referred to in this chapter are ' the classics,' 
 and the four authors — Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and 
 Sterne — may be considered as the founders of the English 
 novel. Apart from the great figure of Swift and his pro- 
 digious legacy to readers of all nations, no literary product 
 of the eighteenth century in Britain has an equal claim to 
 rank as ' world literature ' with the English novel as shaped 
 by these four masters. Its great points obtained for it its 
 widespread influence ; the modern student is in little 
 danger of overlooking its bad ]>oints, which are upon the
 
 188 THE AOE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 surface. There is no denying that the ' classic ' novel takes 
 an exceedingly low view of human nature, and it has not 
 been ill described as attempting to play upon life as upon 
 a fiddle without a bridge in the deliberate endeavour to 
 get the most depressing tone possible from the instrument. 
 This is the refined view of the roguery and the exuberant 
 horseplay which abounds in the work of Fielding and 
 Smollett. There is certainly not to be found here either 
 the idealism of the Elizabethan dramatists or the benignity 
 of the great nineteenth-century group of English novelists. 
 The prevalent aim is to show us the seamy side of life, and 
 to ' expose ' vice, and there is much of the ironic spirit of 
 Jonathan Wild about the endeavour. In the later half of the 
 eighteenth century, unlike the j^resent day, the philosophers 
 were the optimists, and it was left to the novelists to pro- 
 ject the black shadows. Their objeet seems often to be to 
 show how bad man may be ; and in Fielding and Smollett, at 
 least, there is a refreshing absence of cant. Books which 
 conceal so little are necessarily not fit for the perusal of 
 babes and sucklings. They are eminently the books of 
 nien living in the world, thoroughly conversant with its 
 miry ways — the rough and tumble of the human comedy — 
 but saved by their manliness and their strong sense of 
 humour from the crude materialism and brutal nihilism of 
 some modem realists. The fact, important to the literary 
 inquirer, is that these four writers in England first 
 lli(»roughly fertilized the grand field of the modern novel.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MINOR NOVELISTS. 
 
 We have dealt willi Ihcuovi'ls of tlu'^reat masters, together 
 with Rasselas. wliich is less a novel than an excmrsion iu 
 iiuaginative ethics, ami llic dcliglitt'iil idyll of The Vicar of 
 Wal-efield. The latter, indeed, is a storv .sv// (jeiieris, which 
 has of neeessity had few close imitators, tlutngh its influence 
 has been profound an<l far-reaching-. English romance, as . 
 we have seen, has gone forth through Richardson, Sterne, 
 and Goldsmitli, 1o coiKjucr ihc woi-ld. 'I'lirough Rousseau, 
 Diderot, Marmontc], Bernardin de .St. Pierre, Goldoni, it 
 has sw^ayed the writers of the Latin speech ; while thro\igli 
 Wieland, Hermes, Nieolai, and Sebaldus, it has dominated 
 Grerinany. Goldsmith's direct influence on Herder and 
 Goethe, and later on Jean Paul, was very great, and lias 
 never perhaps yet been fully estimated. 
 
 We have now to treat briefly of the suboi'dinate fiction, 
 which for the most i)art is of interest rather to the literary 
 archaeologist than to the general reader, however catholic he 
 may be in his tastes.' The first work with wdiich w^e shall 
 
 ' bi tlie tiuiii Iff tlie ' iin)ti)-iu)\ ellNts ' came naturally a host of 
 imitators. Cliailes .Johnstone (1719-1800) inodm-ed 1700-5 iiis 
 Smollettiaii C7</-_y.'>Y</, or the Adrentiires of a (lidncu, and other 
 adaptive minds were soon converting to purposes of satire the 
 adventures of a fiank-note and a rujjee, of a lady's slipper, and 
 even of a cat and a tlea. Smollett was the regular stock-pot of 
 the amateur novelist ; V)ut Fielding and Richardson had numerous
 
 190 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 liave to deal, the John Bnncle (1756) of Thomas Aniory 
 (1691-1788), an eccentric recluse of Irish descent, though 
 very little known, has the recommendation of being one of 
 the most singular productions in the language. It is a 
 Unitarian romance by an ' English Rabelais.' Wisdom 
 and mirth take their turn, body and soul ai*e equally 
 attended to. The hero is a great j^hilosopher, mathe- 
 matician, anatomist, chemist, philologist, and divine, with 
 a good ai)petite, the best spirits, and an amorous constitu- 
 tion, who sets out on a series of strange adventures to pro- 
 ])agate his philosophy, his divinity, and his species, with a 
 charming impartiality, and encounters in the j)rocess a 
 succession of accomplished females, adorned with equal 
 wit, beauty, and virtue, who are always ready to discuss 
 all manner of theoretical and pi'actical points with him. 
 Hence a candour greater than the candour of Voltaire's 
 Candide and ' a modesty equal to that of Colley Cibber.' 
 
 From this naive and unclassifiable fantasia, which is an 
 indispensable adjunct of every book-lover's top shelf, we 
 must pass on to several ' Robin sonaden.' or varieties of the 
 type of voyage imaginaire, such as The Travels and Adven- 
 tures of William Bingfield, Esquire (1753), or The Life and 
 Adventures of John Daniel (1751), or the better known 
 Life and Adventures of Peter Wilhins (1751), by Robert 
 Paltock (1697-1767), an obscure London attorney. Paltock ' 
 
 imitators also, among tliem li. Cumberland, the dramatist, author 
 of Henry, and Robert Bage (1728-1801), author of Hermsprotig 
 (1796). Scott thought the two hist-mentioned woi'thy of a plaoe 
 in his Collection. Their relative position is much lower to-day. 
 Lack of originality and perversion to the baser i)urposes of the 
 pamphleteer lowered the status of the novel after 1768, until, as 
 Bage himself asserted, ' it was pretty generally considered as the 
 owest of all human productions.' 
 
 ' Paltock owed something to Tlie World in tlie Moon of John 
 ^Vilkins. See The Age of Milton, p. 236.
 
 FANNY BURNEY. 101 
 
 lias been highly praised for his iraagiuative power, and for 
 his creation of a new species of winged beings ; but he was 
 far eclipsed, in popularity at any rate, by the creator of 
 that curious little _/ett cV esprit, Baron Munchausen's Narra- 
 tive of his marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia 
 (1785). The author of this was a Hanoverian, Rudolf 
 Eric Easpe (1737-1794), who fled to England to escape the 
 police, mastered the language, and threw off Baron Mun- 
 chausen (1785) in the form of a shilling chapbook, in i-eturn, 
 no doubt, for a bookseller's dole in relief of his immediate 
 necessities. It was compiled from odds and ends of his 
 Qotes and recollections, but it crackles "with a dry humour 
 of its own, not unworthy of Lucian, the first master of the 
 genre. Imitations have abounded, both in England and 
 abroad, especially in America, and the genuine Munchausen 
 has been smothered by successive sequels. 
 
 The most interesting of later Johnsonian novelists is a 
 
 woman, Fanny Burney, the doyenne of an 
 ^M-'-^^^^l'nf^ unrivalled series of novelists of a sex to 
 
 which English imaginative literature had 
 (before her) owed remarkably little. Frances Burney 
 (afterwards Madame D'Arblay), the daughter of the well- 
 known historian of music, Dr. Charles Burney, was born 
 at King's Lynn on June 13th, 1752. Her work falls into 
 three classes — the novels, the memoirs of her father, her 
 Diary and Letters. Her first novel, Evelina, was published 
 anonymously in 1778, and created a sensation ; no story 
 since Clarissa had been so much cited, discussed, and be- 
 lauded. The plan of the novel was suggested, it would 
 appear, by Eliza Hey wood's History of Miss Betsy Thought- 
 less, a pioneer domestic novel of 1751 ; but it cannot be 
 said that any great merit resides in the plan. Evelina 
 caught the town rather as a clever and impertinent bit of 
 /o/i-painting. Its special charm was due to the novel vein
 
 192 'I'll!-; a(;k of .loirxsoN. 
 
 of liglit coniody that poi'ViKlod llu" (lialogne, and to the 
 spontaneity with whi(;h tlie impressions of a vivacious i^irl 
 just entering society are recorded. Its attempt at a 
 realistic; iiortraiture of ' society ' marks a distinct stasre in 
 the evolution of the modern novel, and the vouthf ul darinar 
 of tlie writer fi^lly justifies its fame, despite the incon- 
 gruities which startle even those who are best disposed to 
 acknowledge the novelist's wonderful powers of fresh 
 observation. In her next novel, Cecilia (1782), traces are 
 evident of labour and. indeed, of toilsome elaboration. 
 Four years lalei-, the ' little Burney,' as Johnson affection- 
 ately styled her, liccame assistant-keeper of the robes to 
 Queen Oharloite, and the frigidities and parsimonies of the 
 court are often said to have dried up the vein which had 
 proved so rich in I'JrrJii/a ; but if this appointment, as seems 
 ])robable, only postponed the appearance of later novels, 
 such as Caiuilla (1796) and The Wanderer (1814), there 
 seems little reason for harbouring resentment against Dr. 
 Buruey for inducing his daughter to accept it. One only re- 
 grets that such posts are not made available for all novelists 
 whose works increase in bullc as they decrease in interest. 
 Professor Saintsbury has a good formula for appraising 
 Miss Burney's novels: ^Evelina, delectable; Cecilia, ad- 
 mirable ; Camilla, estimable ; The Wanderer, imjiossible.' 
 
 Miss Buruey left court in July, 1791, with a pension of 
 ^100 a year ; married in 1793 General D'Arblay, a French 
 refugee; published in 1832 her stilted and magniloquent 
 Memoirs of Br. Buruey; and died as late as 1840, the 
 same year in which died another interesting link with the 
 past, Mrs. Gwynn, Goldsmith's ' Jessamy Bride.' In 1842 
 were j^ublished her interesting, though too voluminous, 
 Diaries and Letters. 
 
 Henry Brooke (1703-1783), an alumnus of Trinity Col- 
 lege, Dublin, a prolific poet and tragic writer (author of
 
 HENRY BROOKE — HENRY MACKENZIE. 193 
 
 Gustavus Vasa and of The Earl of Essex (1749), in which 
 the mouth-filling- line, ' Who I'ule o'er freemen should 
 themselves be free,' elicited Johnson's parody, ' Who drives 
 fat oxen should himself be fat'), commenced in 1766 the 
 publication of his remarkable novel The Fool of Quality, 
 which extended to five volumes. The book (the title of 
 which seems to have been suo^wested by a line in The 
 Dunciad) received the imprimatur of John Wesley as of 
 unimpeachable morality, and all his authority is needed to 
 procure it a constant supply of readers. It records the 
 education by an ideal merchant prince of an ideal noble, 
 Henry Moreland, who is a pattern of ' natural ' education 
 and simple virtue — a pattern too closely followed for a 
 long time to allow the heroes of English novels to be re- 
 garded as other than unmitigated bores. But the story 
 proper is overlaid by moral digressions of such intermin- 
 able length that, despite the great mental qualities of the 
 writer, the book is losing itself in the sands of oblivion. 
 ' Artistically it is a chaos, and such unity as it has is due 
 chiefly to the binder.' A better artist than Brooke, if not 
 a better writer, was Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831), who 
 published anonymously, in 1771, his Man of Feeling, so 
 well known by name. The Man of Feeling is a sentimental 
 novel, written under the influence of Sterne, but of a 
 Sterne singularly long-winded and lachrymose, and it cer- 
 tainly exhibits the sensibility morbus in a very aggra- 
 vated form. Mackenzie, it must be said to his credit, was 
 far from being the mawkish imbecile that he depicts 
 in Harley. He had something of ' the clever wicked 
 look of Voltaire,' and it is this aspect of him that we 
 catch from time to time in the acute and well-written 
 essays that he contributed to The Lounger and to The 
 Mirror. 
 
 Having regard to the high merit of some of Defoe's 
 

 
 194 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 works iu the jirevious cjiocli, especially in such a work as 
 the Memoirs of a Cavalier (which Pitt and readers generally 
 regarded as authentic as we now regard the Memoirs of 
 Colonel Hutchinson, or the Autobiography of Sir John Bram- 
 ston), one would have expected a corresponding develop- 
 ment in the historical novel during the last fifty years of the 
 eighteenth century. But, as a matter of fact, the conditions 
 necessary for the production of the historical novel are so 
 difficult to combine, are so subtle, that scarcely any literary 
 product, unless it be the historical play, is more delicate or 
 more difficult to rear. To analyze the pre-requisites were 
 a hoj^eless task, but it does at least seem certain that the 
 historical novelist should be a student and antiquary, and, 
 if possible, a book-collector; he no less requires great 
 common sense, topographical flair, and an exceptional gift 
 for dialogue. These gifts are, of course, but the mere 
 gi'oundwork for the higher imaginative qualifications which 
 go to the building up of a masterpiece like Old Mortality 
 or Qiientin Burward. Horace Walpole may have possessed 
 them all, or nearly all, but his attemj^t at an historical 
 novel — The Castle of Otranto — the most notable of the 
 epoch, is to the modern view a fairly complete failure. 
 The material was, in fact, to a great extent wanting. 
 
 History, rapidly striding though it was, was in those days 
 the equivalent of political history. It had not properly ab- 
 sorbed the important subsidiary or contiguous subjects, such 
 as anthropology, antiquities, topography, sociology, and the 
 like. The contemporaries of Walpole regarded everything 
 mediaeval in the half scared manner of the explorer of the 
 unknown, and with the same inclination to exaggerate the 
 landmarks of a territory so little known to the general 
 public. The forts occujjying and commanding these regions 
 will probably always be held exclusively by scholars ; but 
 nowadays a fair amount of familiarity with the general
 
 CLARA REEVE — MRS. RADCLIFFE. 195 
 
 aspect of tilings infiltrates easily enough into the mind of 
 everjcultivated man Avho reads at all widely. In Walpole's 
 day it was otherwise, and the result was a jiartial and 
 conventional view of the Middle Ages ; hence the mistake of 
 huddling together a lot of stage armour and quaint old 
 properties, and framing for them a scenario after the style 
 of Salvator Rosa. Dialogue was deemed entirely secondary 
 to a hollow and sepulchral voice and melodramatic pseudo- 
 supernatural plot, and indeed it is scarcely an exaggeration 
 to say that when the romantic spirit first touched our 
 prose literature, its sanity seemed to leave it. Walpole's 
 Grothicism was of such a spurious kind that we are left in 
 a pleasing uncertainty as to whether his Castle of Otranto 
 (1764) was really meant as a serious or as a satirical 
 effort. But there is no doubt as to the serious intention 
 of Clara Eeeve (1729-1807) when she wrote her Old 
 English Baron (1777), or that of Ann RadcHffe when she 
 penned her astonishing series of romances. A great 
 quantity of these inferior imaginative textiles were pro- 
 duced during the next half-century from Zelvco and The 
 Monk to Frankens-fein — most of them in one sense or 
 another the literary offspring of Otranto. 
 
 Mrs. Radcliffe (1764-1823) was the author of The Bo- 
 mance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of Udolpho 
 (1794), and The Italian, or Confessional of the Black Penit- 
 ents (1797), three romances, the nature of which is to some 
 extent indicated by the titles ; in these three novels the 
 most marvellous scaffoldings of crime and mystery and 
 horror are reared by the skill and ingenuity of their creator. 
 Few novelists better deserve that name. Mrs. Radcliffe's 
 ignorance of the world at the time when she wrote was 
 complete and many-sided. Human character she knew, 
 not from observation, but from dreams. The landscapes, 
 for which she is so justly famous, are pictures of countries
 
 196 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 she never saw. There is nothing in her books that she 
 did not create.' 
 
 To complete this exotic group, to which we owe what has 
 been fitly termed the ' Renaissance of Wonder,' we must 
 mention William Beckford, of Fonthill (1759-1844), the in- 
 heritor from his aldermanic parent of a million sterling, and 
 tlie author of the ' gorgeous ' romance of VatheTi, pub- 
 lished in French in Lausanne in 1787, and in English 
 shortly afterwards." A man of genuine mental gifts, 
 Beckford's wealth proved his undoing, and after a life 
 spent in chasing chimeras, he died at Bath in 1844. 
 
 Less wonderful, but of more enduring value and interest 
 as a fashioner of the historical novel as we have it, is 
 Joseph Strutt (1749-1802), author of the well-known 
 volumes on the ' Manners ' and ' Sports ' of the English 
 people, and of the antiquarian romance of Queenlioo Hall, 
 edited by Walter Scott, some six years after its author's 
 death. Strutt ignores the imaginative claims of historical 
 fiction. His idea was to convey antiquarian knowledge 
 through the medium of fiction, on the same principle that_ 
 any other wholesome though nauseous dose is com- 
 municated. 
 
 But apart from its own merit, which is considerable, 
 QueenJion HaJl is very intei-esting as the original matrix 
 
 ' See the amusing accomit of her by Professor Raleigh ; a liiglier 
 estimate is formed hy Dr. (Jarnett in Diet. Nat. Biog. 
 
 - Vathclc, route Arahc, is sai<l to liave been written by Beckford 
 when he was only twenty-one, and, fnrther, to liave been written 
 in French at one sittin<^- of tliree (hiys and two nights. Forgotten 
 in France during the revohitioiiaiy ty|(hoon and for a liundred 
 years after, its singuLar destiny was fulfilled when, in 1893, it was 
 ' reimprime sur I'original Francais,' with a i)reface by Stephane 
 Mallarme, who claims for it a jilaee ' parmi les chefs-dVeuvre des 
 Petits Maitres.' A suireptitious English version was printed in 
 1784.
 
 JOSEPH STRUTT — THOMAS DAY. 197 
 
 in which Scott cast the type of the Waverley Novel. The 
 antique dialogue, the setting of old customs and old 
 furniture, the introduction of old songs and scraps of folk- 
 lore (and also, it must be admitted, of a good deal of 
 Wardour Street) — all this is a direct legacy from Strutt's 
 curious and Balzacian methods of research. Queenhoo 
 opens with the description of a May game in the fifteenth 
 century, followed by Chapter II., a scene at a country 
 alehouse. Very tame this, in comparison with such o]>en- 
 ing scenes as those in Kenilworth or Niyel ; yet we shall 
 not be wrong in describing Queenhoo as the lodge to 
 Waverley Manor. Strutt introduces us ior the first time 
 to many of the choicest flowers of 'mediaeval' English, 
 Rowley-English, as we might call it : hight for called, 
 ween, benemped ft>r named, trow, yshent, carle, princox. 
 In spite, however, of some absurdities, Strutt's litei-ary 
 legacy is one for which we cannot be too grateful. 
 
 In the wake of the minor Johnsonian ])rose- writers was 
 a vast and nebulous tail of lady novelists and essayists 
 and writers for tlie young. The period saw the develop- 
 ment of a novel literature for the nursery, which we might 
 trace in a cliapter devoted to children's books, from 
 Goody Two Shoes and Tommy Trip to the Death and 
 Burial of Code Jioh'in. A mere list of the lady poets from 
 1750 to 1800 would fill a folio page, while the life-industry 
 of a Ballard might be taxed to fathom the learning of the 
 blue stockings who (.'onversed of Shakespeare and the 
 musical glasses with Mrs. Montagu. Tt is perhaps to be 
 deplored, but it is inevitable that from all these galaxies 
 and coteries we should be al»le to select but two names, 
 and only one that of a lady. 
 
 Thomas Day (1 748-1 78i(j was a perl'eet tyi)e (»f the mad 
 Englishman with whom foreign caricatures have familiar- 
 ized us, and a })hilanthro[iist of th(.' most bigoted sincerity.
 
 198 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 In his search for a |)ractieal guide he wavei'ed between Cato 
 the Censor and Rousseau. But his amusing eccentricity 
 entirely failed to subdue the native worth of his character, 
 aud his quaintly didactic History of Sandford and Merton 
 (3 vols., 1783, 1787, and 1789) expresses at bottom a very 
 noble ideal of manliness and independence. His kindness 
 to animals and to the poor did not absorb, as in the case 
 of some well-known philanthropists, the affection that was 
 due to his own family. 
 
 Hannah More (1745-1833), one of the last survivors in 
 the nineteenth century of the Johnsonian coterie, was the 
 descendant of a Puritan family. She was gifted as a girl, 
 a good linguist, vivacious, aud amusing. Introduced to 
 Johnson at Reynolds's, she pleased the great doctor by her 
 not too artless flattery and her sprightly verses, such as 
 the Bas Bleu, which Johnson was permitted to see in 
 manuscript. She developed into a good woman, Avith a 
 vigorous understanding and a strong tui'n for benevolence 
 aud the reclaiming of the young person. Her views of 
 education were not quite of the modern type. She taught 
 the Bible and the Catechism, together with such coarse 
 work as might fit her pupils to become good servants. 
 She discouraged writing in the poor, and protested against 
 too much book-learning. Her own literary pi'oduction 
 Avas extensive, and she perpetually kept up a didactic 
 dribble-scribble of tracts and booklets, all of them ex- 
 tremely edifying and written in an ostentatiously plain 
 Franklin-Cobbett kind of style. Her Village Politics, hy 
 Will Chip (1792), had an enormous sale, only to be 
 exceeded by that of Coilehs in Search of a Wife. Her 
 success ' shows the advantage from a worldly point of view 
 of writing orthodox didactic works.'
 
 CHAPTER ]X. 
 
 THE DRAMA. 
 
 Apart from Golclsuiitli and Sheridan, there are few if any 
 dramatists of this ])eviod who are read by other than 
 dramatic students. The best phxys of Fielding, of Foote, 
 of Colman and Macklin differ only in degree, and perhaps 
 not quite so much as is supposed in this respect, from The 
 Rivals and The Good- Nat ured Mem ; but the characters are 
 not quite strong enough or broad enough to ari-est atten- 
 tion. The writers worked on the lines of Vanbrugh and 
 Farquhar, but with less wit, for a jjublic considerably 
 narrowed both iu numbers and also in taste. The pious 
 agencies of Queen Anne's reign, especially the formation of 
 societies for the reformation of manners, did much to restrict 
 not only the licence of the stage, but the popularity of the 
 theatre as a whole. These tendencies were naturally very 
 much streugtheued by the growth of evangelicalism as the 
 century proceeded. But, long before the Wesleys had made 
 themselves felt, the declining vigour of stage influence was 
 shown by the feeble opposition made to the licensing act 
 of 1737 — the result of which was to restrict legitimate 
 drama in the metropolis to the two licensed houses, Covent 
 Garden and Drury Lane, and, further, to submit every 
 play produced to the censorship of the government. 
 Literary tendencies (such as were expressed iu the Strat- 
 ford Jubilee of 1769), no less than dramatic necessity,
 
 200 THE AGE OF JOHNSON, 
 
 turned tlie tlioiig'lits of theatrical managers forcibly to- 
 wards the untrammelled drama of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury : the efforts of both the licensed houses were thus 
 concentrated less upon securing good new pieces than upon 
 attaining the highest pitch of histrionic excellence in the 
 pei'formauce of repertoire. Take the two houses in the 
 season 1769-70, in the very middle of our period, as an 
 example of what was done in this direction. We find that 
 at Drui-y Lane were played (each for one or two nights 
 only) : Handet, Romeo and Jul let, Lear, Temj)esf, Van- 
 brugh's Provohed Wife, As You Like It, Wycherley's Plain 
 Dealer, New Way to Pay Old Behts, Henry IV., Merchant 
 of Venice, Congreve's Mourning Bride, Vanln'ugh's Pro- 
 vo¥d Husband, Steele's ConscloKs Lovers. Much Ado, Rowe's 
 Fair Penitent, Centlivre's Wonder, Cymheline, Othello, 
 Alchemist, Every Man in his Humour, Vanbrugh's Con- 
 federacy, Merry Wives, Dryden's Love for Love, Macbeth, 
 Beggar's Opera, Oibber's Double Gallant, Moore's Found- 
 ling, Otway's Venice Preserved and Orphan. 
 
 The programme of the season at Covent Garden was 
 framed upon much the same lines : Henry V., Farquhar's 
 Recruiting Officer, C'ibbcr's She voud and she wotCd not, 
 Richard III., Romeo and Juliet, Busy Body, Fletcher's 
 Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, Hamlet, Provolc'd Husband, 
 Macbeth, Gymbeline, Relapse, Lee's Rival Queens, Merchant 
 of Venice, Crowne's Sir Courtly Nice, Addison's Cato, and 
 Southern's Oroonoho. 
 
 In addition to all this repertoire each house ]»roduced 
 ])erhaps half-a-dozen new ]>hxys, and some dozen recent 
 plays, by favourite authors of the day. Like tlie plays, 
 the audiences were recruited from old stagers. Habitual 
 playgoers for the most part, they were naturally exacting 
 judges both of tlio acting and dramatic workmanship. 
 Conservatism in both Avas an all-jmwerful force. A high
 
 SAMUlil, JOHNSOK. 201 
 
 standard of literary excellence was in the main sub- 
 ordinated to compliance with the traditional r-ules of the 
 English stage, and with tlie momentary caprices of the small 
 section of the town population who formed the playgoing 
 pviblic. With a few brilliant exceptions, therefore, it can 
 scarcely be denied that the general tendency of the period 
 Avas not of a character to arrest the decay of dramatic 
 literature, but rather upon the whole to widen the much 
 spoken of breach between literature and the stage. Success 
 in dramatic authorshij) was most readily obtained either 
 by men of fashion, intimately acquainted with the theatre, 
 the players, and the town — such were Fielding, Cumber- 
 land, Colman, Sheridan — or by men who had served a life- 
 apprenticeshi]> to stagecraft, such as Garrick, Foote, 
 Murphy, Macklin, Eeynolds, and Kenrick. Gifted out- 
 siders, like Goldsmith, Townley, and Tobin, whose as- 
 pirations were more distinctly literary, found it very much 
 more difficult to get anything accepted. 
 
 The tragic dramatists of the second half of the eight- 
 eenth century can be dismissed in a very few sentences. 
 Under the auspices of Garrick the l)est tragedies of a past 
 age were ]>layed with greater dignity and power than ever 
 before, while the stage texts were to a lai*ge extent purified 
 and restored. Of original tragedy there was little worthy 
 of even a small place in the annals of eighteenth-ceutui'v 
 
 literatuiv Itarrcn in this respect as those 
 S.uniK'l Joluisoii ,. , . , ^ , , . 
 
 ._ ( ._ (i| t he iiintlcciil li. J olmsun s own tragedy 
 
 Iri'iK- (1741') was a ]i('rfrct sj)ecini('ii of 
 
 conveulioiial classic strudui'i', Iml utterly frigid aixl 
 
 deficient in dramatic iiiteivst. N'astly superioi- in llicse 
 
 respects, and pi'obably the bcsl tragedy of ihc ]Fcrio(l, 
 
 was a domestic drama, intended as ' a caustic lor the follv 
 
 of gaming,' and a[ipr()priately (though in bold defiance of 
 
 dramatic convention) written in prose. This was The
 
 202 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Gameder of EJwcard Moore, ca liueudraper turned play- 
 
 , , , , ,^ Wright, better known as the editor of The 
 
 rAXwara .Moore Tjr ? t mi , -. , -, ^ 
 
 (1712-1707). World, i he tragedy was produced at Drury 
 
 Lane on February 7th, 1753, when Garrick 
 
 (Avlio is supposed to have supplied some of the dialogue) 
 
 contrived to give a lasting vitality to the somewhat 
 
 lugubrious part of Beverley. The last act of the play, in 
 
 which Beverley, in ignorance of a legacy that has just 
 
 devolved upon him. and of the strenuous efforts on the 
 
 part of his faithful wife to save him from the effects of 
 
 his folly, takes poison and dies, is written with undoubted 
 
 feeling and power, and in the hands of a good actor can 
 
 hardly fail of intense effect upon its audience. Passing 
 
 by Mason's tragedies as negligible, we are confronted by 
 
 just one other tragedy of our period which cannot be 
 
 neglected, though it is great only in re]>utation— to wit 
 
 , , „ Home's Douglas. John Home, a native of 
 
 John Home t •+! i ■ ■ j. • t-i x t ^i • 
 
 (1722-1808). ^^-'itli and a muiister m iiiast Lothian, scan- 
 dalized his kirk greatly when he successfully 
 ]iroduced his tragedy at the Cauongate theatre on De- 
 cember 14tli, 1756. The play, the story of which was 
 founded upon the ballad of ChUde Maurice, was as in- 
 nocuous as a play could be ; but the touch of the theatre 
 was held to defile, and Home, after an angry paper war, 
 had to anticipate excommunication by withdrawal. In the 
 meantime Douglas had been produced with success at 
 Ooveut Garden,^ and had covered Home with glory. The 
 dramatist's friend, Hume, announced that Douglas showed 
 ' the true theatric genius of Shakespeare and Otway, refined 
 from the unhappy barbarism of the one and licentiousness 
 of the other.' Johnson went to the other extreme when he 
 said there were not ten good lines in the play. There is a 
 
 1 On March 14th, 1757.
 
 JOHX HOME— SAMUEL FOOTE. 203 
 
 fine quantity of good florid rhetoric expressed iu smooth 
 blank verse, the best example being the passage begin- 
 ning ' My name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills.' Even 
 this passage (so long assigned the place of honour in the 
 repetition class) is likely ere long to be forgotten ; so utterly 
 deficient, indeed, is Douglas in every important qiiality 
 that a good play should have, so utterly wooden are the 
 dramatis persona', that one is left to marvel that such a play 
 should have ever won the suffrages of a London audience. 
 
 The comedy of the period is a much more fruitful theme, 
 though few critics of to-day would probably go as far as 
 Hazlitt in their admiration of it. Fielding^ is an excellent 
 link between the light comedy of Vanbrugh and that of 
 Goldsmith and Sheridan. In Fielding's dramatic ' utility' 
 school graduated a number of 2>laywrights who were also 
 players, whose works, popular enough in their day, belong 
 rather to the sphere of dramatic than literary history. 
 The first j^lace among these witty but ephemeral compilers 
 belongs of right to Samuel Foote, ' a fine fellow in his way.' 
 
 Excessive facetiousness is often a stumbling-block to 
 vaulting ambition. George Savile, the witty Marquis of 
 Halifax, found his quips at the council board remembered 
 against him. Swift, with his eye U2K>n the top rung of 
 preferment, trij^ped for good and all over The Tale of a Tub. 
 It is still more often an extinguisher to permanent fame. 
 Jokers outlive liking, and their grinning visages come to 
 look like death's-heads through their horse-collars. Bussy 
 Kabutin returned to the court after a long interval only to 
 be laughed at for his senility by the wits of a younger 
 geoeration, like the popular wit of the reign of Charles I., 
 who (as Sir William Temple relates) appeared a mere 
 pantaloon to the court of Charles II. So with Foote, the 
 
 ' See Chapter VII., |). 164.
 
 204 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 most entei'taiuiug companion Garrick evei' knew ; a man 
 feared alike bj those who dreaded his ridicule and those 
 who were apprehensive of the effects of uncontrollable 
 convulsions of laughter at seeing their friends taken off ; 
 his powers were visibly declining in the last year of his 
 life ; in a very few years his caricatures lost their point, 
 and generations arose, who made light of his amazing 
 wit, and perverted his best jokes, or attributed them to 
 
 Jerrold or Hook. Born at Truro in 1720, 
 
 .Samuel Foote -r\ • .^ c r^ • ^ • x i. 
 
 ,,^.-,„ ,^^,-, i^oote w^as the son or a Cornish magistrate, 
 
 and it IS clear that there was a strong ad- 
 mixture of Celtic blood in his veins. It is related how at 
 Worcester College, Oxford, when he was summoned to be 
 admonished by the provost — the most pompous of his kind 
 —he took a folio dictionary under his arm, under the pre- 
 text of looking out the hard words. In 1744 he appeared 
 on the stage in the curiously selected part of Othello. He 
 then Avent off' to Ireland, and gained a considerable reputa- 
 tion as a comedian at Dublin. Upon his once j^i'^iising 
 Irish hospitality, he was reproaclied with not having tested 
 that of the south of Ireland. ' Well,' said Foote, ' I have 
 as good as seen Cork ; I've seen so many drawings of it.' 
 At Dublin lie first introduced caricatures of poets and 
 other celebrities into the part of Eaves in The Behearsal. 
 This mimetic display revealed to him his true means of 
 gaining a firm hold upon the play going public. At the 
 Haymarket, in an entertainment called Diversions of the 
 Morning, he mimicked the London actors with such merci- 
 less spite that they invoked the licensing act against him. 
 But Foote circumvented them by his adroitness. He cir- 
 culated widely an advertisement — ' On Saturday noon, 
 exactly at 12 o'clock at the new theatre in the Haymarket 
 Mr. Foote betjs the favour of his friends to come and 
 drink a dish of chocolate with him ... he will endeavour to
 
 SAMUEL FOOTE. 20,') 
 
 make the morning as diverting as possible. Tickets to be 
 had at St. George's Coffee House, Temple Bar. N.B.— Sir 
 Dilbury Diddle will be there, and Lady Betty Frisk has 
 absolutely promised.' Transparent as such an artifice was, 
 the London magristrates never issued another wan-ant 
 against him i'or illegitimate performances. Foote and his 
 impersonations became an institution of the day about 
 which people were ashamed of appearing over- sensitive. 
 For a time his caricatures enjoyed an almost complete 
 immunity, and most of his plays, some of which are very 
 cleverly constructed, and all of which are full of amusing 
 patter, were written as vehicles for pei-soual satire. In 
 two absurd farces, The Englishman in Paris (1753) and 
 The Englishman returned from Paris (1756), he satirized 
 the foibles of the French character in such a way as to 
 appeal most strongly to English prejudice at a moment 
 when relations between the two countries were anything 
 but friendly. In Thr Author (1757) he glanced at the 
 absurdity of sham-patrons, while mimicking a former 
 friend of his own, a Welshman named A]) Rice, who 
 managed eventually to get the Lord Chamberlain to 
 interfere. In his best comedy. The Minor (1760), he not 
 only satirized Whitefield and the Methodists, but also 
 caricatured his old associate Tate Wilkinson. In the pai't 
 of Peter Paragraph, in The Orators, he took off George 
 Faulkner, the well-known Dublin printer, with a fidelity 
 which was once more flattered by legal proceedings. His 
 Nabob (1772) brought two infuriated East India pro- 
 prietors, armed with bludgeons, round to his lodgings; but 
 Foote managed to disarm them by a fusillade of jokes. 
 Much greater breadth of satire is shown in his sardonic 
 two-act farce The Mayor of Garratt (1763), upon which 
 Hazlitt confers the very high praise of calling it ' a comedy 
 in little.' In his once notorious comic sketch the Trij) to
 
 206 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Calais, Foote desigued, in the cliaracter of Lady Crocodile, 
 to show up the celebrated Duchess of Kingston ; hut this 
 had to be relinquished, as had previously his intention of 
 caricaturing Dr. Johnson. That muscular Christian had 
 sent word to Toote that if anything of the kind were 
 attempted he would go from the boxes on to the stage, and 
 correct the actor before the audience. ' Did he not think 
 of exhibiting you, sir 'r ' said Boswell to the sage, si:)eaking 
 of Foote a year or so later. ' Sir,' replied Johnson grimly, 
 ' fear restrained him ; he knew I would have broken his 
 bones.' Johnson was rather fond of moralizing about his 
 merry namesake ; but he could afford to be generous, and 
 he was. * He is the most incomjiressible fellow I ever knew. 
 When you have driven him into a corner, and think you 
 are sure of him, he runs through between your legs, or 
 jumps over your head, and makes his escaj)e.' ' The first 
 time I met him, having no good opinion of the fellow, I was 
 resolved not to be pleased, and it is very difficult to please 
 a man against his will. 1 went on eating my dinner pretty 
 sullenly, affecting not to mind him. But the dog was so 
 very comical that I was obliged to lay down my knife and 
 fork, throw myself back upon my chair, and fairly laugh 
 it out. No, sir, he was irresistible ! ' But it is genei'ally 
 admitted that there was too much of the viper about 
 Foote. He had much more in common with Theodore 
 Hook than with the sunny, genial Tom Hood. He died 
 worn out, at fifty-five, in October, 1777. 
 
 His admirer and follower, and should-have-been bio- 
 grapher, Arthur Murphy, son of a Dublin 
 Arthur Murphv ^ • i ^ • ^^ r- -, e ■ j 
 
 (1727 180n merchant, had a very similar fund of gaiety. 
 
 In his comedy. The Way to Keep Him 
 (1760), he depicts with considerable cleverness, and with a 
 good part, Lovemore, for Garrick, those women who after 
 marriage are at no pains to retain their husbands. But
 
 JAMES TO^YNLEY — DAVID GARRICK. 207 
 
 an excellent farce is better than an indifferent good comedy; 
 and l)etter remembered than any single production of the 
 prolific Murphy is the droll High Life Below Stairs of 
 James Townley, head master of Merchant Taylors' School 
 and a friend of David Garrick. It hit oft" 
 •^^/ll^' '^^^i-'Z"!"'^' the insolence and presumi)tion of flunkey- 
 dom with a cleverness which was ascribed 
 to Foote or Garrick (for it never would have done for a 
 resjjectable clergyman to produce such a farce under his 
 own name), and coming just before Jonas Hanway's 
 famous tract against ' vails-giving,' when the abuses of 
 livery were at their height, it floated securely into popular 
 favour. Upon its appearance in 1759 the footmen on 
 several occasions showed their resentment by creating an 
 uproar. Townley was less successful with his next farce, 
 False Concord, which nevertheless contains the germ of a 
 very successful comedy. This was no other than The 
 Clandestine Marriage of 1767, the joint work of two of the 
 most conspicuous playwrights of the day, 
 ^''j'_\'!.^!^I™^ David Garrick and George Colman. Gar- 
 rick had managed to transfer a measure of 
 his vivacity to paper when he wrote The Lying Valet, a 
 farce produced but a few months before High Life, and 
 described in performance as one general i-oar from be- 
 ginning to end. Tt is not very easy to apportion Garrick's 
 part in the joint production ; the idea of The Clandestine 
 Marriage originated with Colman, as he was looking at 
 the first plate of Hogarth's Marriage a la Mode; but 
 Garrick seems to have first definitely outlined the plot, 
 and to have grafted upon Lord Lavender, in False Concord, 
 that amiable old ruin of a fop, Lord Ogleby, a lineal 
 descendant of Sir Fopliug Flutter, Sir Novelty Fashion, 
 and Lord Foppington. Hazlitt's notion is that Garrick 
 supplied most of the sauce piqnante ; the lion's share of the
 
 208 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 collaboration iu this excellent stage-play is uevertlieless 
 still conceded to Colman.^ 
 
 Born at Florence, where his father was envoy, George 
 Colman, called the elder, to distinguish 
 
 ^'aiSni'ir'' ^^'"^ ^^"^"^ ^^^^^ ^^"^*^ "^^ eminent comic 
 writer his son, followed the primrose path 
 
 of the professional wit at Westminster School and Christ 
 Church, Oxford. He soon began scribbling for the maga- 
 zines, with Bonuell Thornton and with Lloyd. He joined 
 with the latter in parodying Gray and Mason's ' Odes ' in 
 the cleverly framed Odes to Obscurity and Ohlivion. In 
 1760 appeared Colnian's successful farce Polly Honeycomhe, 
 and early in 1761 his Jealous Wife, which remained a 
 po])ular comedy for the remainder of the century, but has 
 little vitality for the reader of to-day. In 1763 appeared 
 his clever patter-comedy, The Deuce is in him; and on 
 February 20th, 1766, was produced at Drury Lane his one 
 play of lasting note (of which he shares the credit with 
 Garrick), The Clandestine Marriage, still occasionally seen 
 on the London boards. 
 
 Foote and Colman were to the Eestoration dramatists 
 what Shirley and Heywood were to the school of Marlowe- 
 They carried on the tradition of the comedy of manners, 
 weakened by circumstance and continuity, but still the 
 same. Against the licence of the Restoration drama there 
 arose in the second generation a very strong feeling of 
 protest. Such plays as Vanbrugh's Relapse and Con- 
 federacy, witty though they were, disgusted a large section 
 of i^laygoers, influenced, on the one hand, by the energetic 
 remonstrance of the high churchmen, on the other, by the 
 
 ^ One of the most snceessfnl stage-plays of the century, contain- 
 iiigone of Edinuiul Kean's very greatest ]iarts, was The Iron Chest 
 (1796), by George Colman the younger; l»ut its literary merit is 
 nit, and it reads almost like a hurh'sipie.
 
 HUGH KELLY. 209 
 
 efforts of Addison to reduce the coarseness of middle-class 
 manners. From tliis reaction sprang a new style of 
 comedy, at once sentimental and edifying, sententious, and 
 to the modern reader extremely soporific. Steele's Con- 
 scioiis Lovers may be regarded as the type of this style of 
 prodttction. Parson Adams remarks slily that such a 
 play was as good as a sermon ; but the comparison is 
 unfair to a good sermon. Everything was sentiment in 
 these plays. ' If a man was to be hanged or married, out 
 came a sentiment. If the butler was drunk or the cham- 
 bermaid impudent, listen to a sentiment.' The catastrophe 
 arrived at, ' forward came every individual actor and 
 actress, and suspended the fall of the curtain with a senti- 
 ment,' Yet, mawkish and insipid as the display upon the 
 stage of so much moral sensibility now appears, it had 
 plenty of admirers during the eighteenth century, and well 
 on into the nineteenth, as the comedies of Lord Lytton 
 and Robertson bear sufficient witness. Chief among the 
 practitioners of this artificial style in our period were 
 Hugh Kelly and Richard Cumberland. 
 
 Hugh Kelly, the sou of a Dublin tavern-keeper, won 
 the suffrages of all the sentimentalists by 
 
 ,ln'in^^^■'^^ his couiedy produced at Covent Garden in 
 (17.59-1/ It). • -^ 
 
 January, 1768, and most fitly entitled False 
 Delicacy. There is a distinct aroma of literary elegance 
 about the dialogue, but hardly a glimmering of common 
 sense. Three separate lovers are severally beguiled by the 
 false point of honour which is so often the mainspring of 
 action upon the stage into paying their addresses to the 
 wrong ladies, and no amount of literary cleverness can 
 make interesting complications which are so utterly point- 
 less in their origin. The success, if not the merit, of False 
 Delicacy inspired a much more accomplished man than 
 Kelly in the person of Richard Cumberland, 'The Tei'cuce 
 
 p
 
 ^lO The age of Johnson. 
 
 of England, the mender of Hearts,' as Groldsmitli called him. 
 
 A native of Cambridge, a grandson of 
 uiclianl Cuinberlaiid • , , » t i , i 
 
 (1"S2-1811) most famous scholar, and a nepheAv 
 
 of Dr. Richard Bentley, Cumberland 
 
 had the advantage of a Westminster and Trinity College 
 
 education ; and he studied comedy, as Goldsmith probably 
 
 meant to imply, before he began to write it. Four at least 
 
 of his comedies were highly successful : The Brothers (1769), 
 
 The West Indian (1771), The Fashionable Lovers, and The 
 
 Wheel of Fortune (1779). In The West Indian, in the 
 
 character of Major Flaherty, a gallant Irishman in the 
 
 service of Austria, he drew attention to the impolicy of 
 
 driving such men from the British service, a comment 
 
 pertinent enough in the days of General Browne. It had 
 
 a great success ; ' the snarlers snapped at it, but they never 
 
 set their teeth in the right place,' and it ran twenty-eight 
 
 nights 'without the buttress of an after-piece.' At the 
 
 pi'esent day Cumberland's plays, without exception, are 
 
 far less readable than his Memoirs, which are full of 
 
 amusing stories of his contemporaries. But in their day 
 
 they came as a powerful reinforcement to the sentimental 
 
 school. Of this school Cumberland, with characteristic 
 
 complacency, came to regard himself as the creator. He 
 
 was by no means deficient in satirical power himself, but, 
 
 like other humorous caricaturists, notably his fellows 
 
 Garrick and Foote, he was extremely sensitive in regard to 
 
 a jest directed against himself. Sheridan hit oft" this 
 
 weakness in his immortal character of Sir Fretful Plagiary 
 
 in The Critic. 
 
 Such plays as False Delicacy were a direct challenge to 
 a concejition of broadly humorous comedy 
 
 n'2S i"!)' upon the old lines such as that formed by 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. So strongly did public 
 
 opinion incline to Kelly that poor Goldsmith had the
 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 211 
 
 greatest difficulty in g-etting a hearing for his Good-Natured 
 Man, the best comedy that had appeared since The Pro- 
 vok'd Husband, as Johnson justly described it. The run of 
 the professional critics deplored the low taste shown in the 
 bailiifs' scene, and were almost solid in favour of the other 
 play of the year. It is difficult now to believe that such a 
 play as False Delicacy could ever have been pitted against 
 The Good-Natnred Man, the bailiffs' scene in which is so 
 exceptionally rich in stage possil»ilitics. It must be said, 
 in extenuation of the first-night audience at Covent 
 Garden on January 29th, 17(58, that the bailiifs were very 
 poorly acted. The ]>arts of Croaker and Lofty are 
 both first-rate, and the former, as a character- sketch, 
 second to none in modern comedy. Honeywood, it is 
 true, though an excellent stage-figure, can scarcely be 
 claimed as a character ; but, this one concession made to 
 stage convention, the play may be freely commended for 
 its truth to nature, its wealth abounding of comic pose 
 and dialogue. Goldsmith's gay, plausible, thoroughly 
 Irish luimour is nowhere seen to better advantage. The 
 superiority of Goldsmith's next play consists not only in 
 the greater variety of the plot and the more effective 
 scenario, but in the higher level of workmanship through- 
 out. 
 
 On Monday, March 15th, 1773, appeared this second 
 piece of Goldsmith's. It had been a long time in Colman's 
 hands, and the manager thoiight extremely poorly of it ; so 
 much so, that he keenly regretted having promised in a 
 weak moment to produce it. The Mistakes of a Niijht, as it 
 had been named, was held, apparently, to be quite too 
 destitute of sentiment for the Covent Garden boards. The 
 very title was thought to be undignified for a comedy. 
 Eeynolds suggested The Belles Stratagem, anticipating 
 Mrs. Cowley. Goldsmith at the last moment had a hapi)y
 
 212 TlIK AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 iuspivatiou, and uaiiied liis ])lay She Sfooj)s to Conquer} 
 • She does, indeed,' was tlie fastidious Walpole's comment. 
 Johnson took a prominent seat in a box to lead the 
 ap2)lause, but the claque had a sinecure, for the house was 
 uproarious with merriment. There are few premieres one 
 would rather liave attended. The stratagem is good, the 
 dialogue quick and gay, the humour In-oad and genial, the 
 language I'acy and idiomatic to the lust degree. Tony 
 Lumpkin has become a stage tyjje, and remains the first of 
 his class. The scene between Hardcastle and the servants 
 is another rich stroke of humorous litei'ature, which, de- 
 s})ite imitations without number, will always hold its own. 
 The hujli-comedy passages between Marlow and Miss Hard- 
 castle are somewhat inferior ; but it is much better to regard 
 She Stoops less as competing for a place beside the comedies 
 of Molicre, or The School for Scandal, or Congreve's Way 
 of the World, than as ranking, near The Critic, as one 
 of the half-dozen best farces in existence. It shows its 
 versatile and accomplished writer at his best, for it has 
 many of the qualities of The Vicar of Wakefield, and is not 
 disfigured by a weak plot. In the mistake of the manor- 
 house for the village inn, the author is said to have retraced 
 an incident of his own youth, in which an involuntary im- 
 pertinence was humoured by a good-natured Irish squire. 
 Goldsmith dedicated his play to one of its staimchest 
 admirers. Dr. Johnson. ' It may do me some honour to 
 inform the public that I have lived many years in intimacy 
 with you.' His prefaces and dedications are always perfect 
 models of their kind. The play had such a good effect 
 that in it human nature may be said to have won a 
 momentary victory over affectation on the stage. 
 
 Of the dramatists who came in the wake of Goldsmith 
 
 ' Cf. Drydeii's ' But kneels to coiK^uer, and but stoops to rise.'
 
 JOTTX O'KEEFFK — CHARLES MAf'KLIX. 213 
 
 a brief notice must be accorded to thi-ee, John O'Keeffc, 
 Charles Macklin, and Frederic Reynolds. O'Keefte (1747- 
 1833), a native of Dublin, inspired by Faivjuluir and Gold- 
 smith, became an actor, and was, with Frederic Reynolds, 
 the most systematic and industrious of the staficewriyhts 
 of the day. He had the necessary gifts of receptivity and 
 facility amply develo]>ed, and among the dramas and 
 comic operas that he scattered lu-oadcast, it is not sur- 
 prising that one of his comedies. Wild Oafs (Ajjril, 1791), 
 should have fixed its tentacles firmly upon the stage. Not 
 many farces are more provocative of light, careless laughter 
 than his Agree^ihle Suiyrisc ; nor have eitlier of these works 
 been yet finally ejected from the i>romj>ter's cupboard. 
 Ten years before Wild Oats had ap]ieared at Co vent 
 Grarden (May, 1781) one of the best comedies of the time, 
 The Man of the World of Charles Ma(-klin (d. 1797), a 
 native of the north of Ireland, born in 1696, a veritable 
 link Avitli the Bettertonian tradition. Written about 1771, 
 the play is truly wonderful as the work of a man of 
 seventv-five. It is also an admirable staije-plav of the 
 one-man genus, the part of Sir Pertinax Macsycophant, as 
 played by Macklin himself, being one of the great impei-- 
 sonations of English stage tradition. Nor is the written 
 pai't a merely coarse or gross caricature. It is a legitimate 
 satire, packed close with sardonic humour, upon the dip- 
 lomatic pursuit of siller by an o'er-canny North Briton. 
 There is, it is true, a certain savagery about it acquired 
 in tlie school of Hogarth and Smollett, which appeared 
 belated in 1781. But for this, the comedy would have 
 retained a stronger hold over both jjlaygoers and readers. 
 Frederic Reynolds (1764-1841), son of a well-known Whig 
 attorney, was unrivalled in his day as a i^rolific play- 
 wright. His innumerable dramas were machine-made, 
 but without the mechanical skill of a Scribe or Sardou, or
 
 214 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 even of our own Alberv or Tom Taylor. His first 
 comedy, The Dramatist, given at Covent Garden in Octo- 
 ber, 1789, was pei'baps the best. The Caravan survives 
 on account of the jest of Sheridan. This play was con- 
 structed on what Mr. Crummies calls ' the London plan,' 
 revolving about a dog who plunged into real water on the 
 stage to rescue a juvenile heroine. When the applause 
 subsided Sheridan rushed into the green-room and asked 
 for his saviour — not the author, but the dog. Decidedlv 
 more popular and amusing than anything Reynolds ever 
 wrote, though not pei'haps rising to a very high literary 
 level, was the once favourite farcical operetta Caleb Quotem, 
 written by Henry Lee (1765-1886) in 1789, and given at 
 the Haymarket in 1800. 
 
 The two plays of Goldsmith, admirable as they ai'e for 
 their genial humour, are hardly sufficient to confer positive 
 dramatic lusti'e upon the Age of Johnson ; but this is 
 amply performed by the work of Richard 
 ii""] isir\' Brinsley Sheridan, 'the Hesperus among 
 the lesser lights ' of Johnsonian drama. 
 It would be a manifest absurdity to endeavour to estimate 
 Sheridan in a comparison with the great dramatists of the 
 Elizabethan period; yet it can be said, with something 
 approaching certainty, that after the creator of Falstaff, 
 not one of our dramatists has conferred such benefits upon 
 his countrymen at large. Sheridan was no innovator. 
 Eschewing the sentimental variety, he took the Vanbrugh- 
 descended comedy of his day pretty much as he found it ; 
 but he had innately, like Moliere, the true spirit of high 
 (comedy, the best comedy, in him, and when he descended 
 to farce or burlesque, as in The Critic, he made his 
 audience laugh as one laughs at the Medecin malgrr lui. 
 
 An Irishman (like Goldsmith, O'Keeffe, Murphy, Bicker- 
 staffe, Kelly, and Mackliu), Sheridan was born at Dublin in
 
 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 215 
 
 October, 1751, being the third son of Thomas Sheridan, 
 the bntt of Johnson, the preternaturally dull ' Sherry,' who 
 bvirned a candle at Dover to show a light at Calais. 
 Frances Sheridan, the dramatist's mother, made herself a 
 name by her Memoirs of Miss Sydney Biddulph, extracted 
 from her own Journal (1761). Fox praised the book 
 highly ; but Johnson, who loved a straightforward 
 scheme of piinishments and rewai'ds, remai'ked to the 
 writer, ' I know not, madam, that you have a right upon 
 moral principles to make your readers suffer so much.' 
 Eichard Brinsley was at school at Harrow (under the 
 gi-eat Dr. Parr), and just kept himself free fro in castiga- 
 tion. Recalled to Bath, he entered upon that romantic 
 championship of Eliza Linley (a beautiful girl with un- 
 acceptable admirers) which, after several escapades, was con- 
 cluded by his marriage with that young lady in April, 1773. 
 The anxieties of their early married life were re- 
 lieved to some extent by the eventual success of The 
 Rivals, produced at Covent Garden on January 17th, 1775. 
 The plot of his famous comedy is of the mystification 
 order, though the misunderstanding here is slender 
 euough. The rivals, of course, are one and the same 
 person. The gallant young lover has introduced him- 
 self to the romantic heroine iu the character of Ensign 
 Beverley, a poor young subaltern, in preference to his 
 own more eligible personality as the heir of Sir Anthony 
 Absolute, a baronet with d£4,000 a year, and has gained 
 the heart of the sentimental Lydia, who prefers love in a 
 cottage to the finest settlements, and looks forward to an 
 elopement and the loss of a great part of her fortune with 
 delight ; but the young man's plans are confounded by 
 the sudden arrival upon the scene of his father, bent upon 
 marrying him forthwith iu his own person to the aforesaid 
 Tivdia. Thus he is at the same time in her eves the
 
 216 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 romantic and adored Beverley and the detested Captain 
 Absolute, the wealthy suitor to whom she has been bartered 
 l)y her guardians. Such is the airy complication upon 
 which this famous comedy is hung. Yet so completely do 
 the broad but amusing character-slcetches, Sir Anthony 
 with his fits of temper, Mrs. Malaprop with her ingenious 
 derangement of epitaphs, Bob Acres with his swaggering 
 poltroonery — so completely do these occupy and divert us, 
 that a realization of the story is by no means essential to 
 the complete enjoyment of the piece ; the brisk movement 
 and the unfailing sparkle of the dialogue are in themselves 
 sufficient to sustain it in popular favour by the side of 
 She Stoops to Co7iquer and beneath The School for ScmulaJ, 
 alone among the comedies of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Having thus entered upon his career as a dramatist, 
 Sheridan wrote also in the year of his first success the 
 farce called St. Patricks Day ; or, the Scheming Lieidenant, 
 written, it is said, at the request of Clinch, out of gratitude 
 to that actor for taking the part of Sir Lucius O'Trigger 
 in default of Lee, who had nearly wrecked the piece by 
 his miserable performance. This is a slight and wholly 
 uninspired little jiroduction, showing but few touches of 
 Sheridan's magic wit. More successful for the time even 
 than The Rivals was Sheridan's sparkling libretto of an 
 opera called The Duenna (November, 1775), which was 
 held to have eclipsed The Beggar's Opera, and certainly 
 does so in merit, if not in fame.' 
 
 Garrick, rendered uneasy by these successes at the rival 
 house of Covent Garden, revenged himself effectually in 
 1775 by parting with his half share of the patent of Drury 
 Lane to a syndicate, at the head of which was Sheridan. 
 The latter commenced his reign at the historic house by 
 
 ' The songs in Thr Thinuia are Slieridan's hest, notably Oh, 
 the days vJten I was young.
 
 RICHARD BRIXSLEY SHERIDAN. 217 
 
 reinudelliug Vaubrugh's famous Behqise under tlio uew 
 title of A Trip to Scarhnroucfl}, first given at Drury Lane 
 oil February 24tli, 1777. The critics came to the con- 
 clusion that the ' modern Congrevc' had somehow rather 
 ' bungled ' the ' reformation ' of the licentious original.^ 
 
 With a public with the songs of The Dnenna still 
 ringing in its ears, and expecting great things from the 
 author of The Rivnh, such a poor rechauffe must have 
 fallen flat indeed. A great effort was required to repair 
 the loss of Garrick's withdrawal from Drury Lane. 
 Sheridan I'ose to the occasion. He laboured hai'd while 
 more than a year elapsed, but when in May, 1777, The 
 School for Scandal was produced, the success was con- 
 vincing. The momentary effect was enhanced l)y the 
 circulation of the legend, which the author himself en- 
 couraged, that the most sparkling scenes were dashed oft" 
 l)y the most indolent of men with a reckless haste and a 
 sublime ease. Men have produced astonishing literary 
 effects by work done at a white heat, but the rapid pro- 
 duction of exquisite work of art in filigree, after the 
 pattern of Pope's Epistles or The School for Scandal is 
 simply contra naturam. The workmanship of the comedy 
 was not only highly elaborate, but extremely laboi'ious ; 
 and we know from Moore how the work was issued forth 
 to the actors (after distractingly long intervals) in shreds 
 and patches upon detached slips of paper, upon the last of 
 which was scrawled in the author's autograph, ' Finished 
 at last ; thank God ! ' 
 
 Few writers of English have had a more fluent literary 
 faculty than Oliver Goldsmith, yet we know that he con- 
 sidered six lines of one of his poems a hard day's work ; 
 and beautifully ])olished as the rhetoric of liis verse is, it can 
 
 ' For aiintlier view, see CJenest, \. o.Vi.
 
 218 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 seldom bear comparison with the exquisite finish of Sheridan's 
 prose dialogue. The studied malignity of Sir Benjamin 
 Backbite is not to be ' done in the smack of a whip ' : 
 
 '■Sir Pctrr : Ah, madam, true wit is more nearly allied to good 
 nature than your ladyship is aware of. 
 
 Lfulj/ Tcazh: : True, Sir Peter ; 1 lielieve they are so near akin 
 that they can never be united. 
 
 Sir Ben: Or rather suppose tliem man an<l wife, liecause one 
 seldom sees them together. ' 
 
 Sheridan had no new ideas ; lie was not a Mercier or a 
 Sedaine, still less a Diderot ; his glance reverted always 
 to the artificial comedy of Wycherley and Vanbrugh as 
 the model. But i\\ The SchooJ he thoroughly modernized 
 the setting, and he showed a most wonderful instinct for a 
 striking situation. That evolved in the famous screen scene 
 has seldom been surpassed on the stage, or indeed in fiction. 
 
 In another famous scene, again, that in which Charles 
 sells the family portraits, Sheridan is far from original. 
 He has recourse to a very familiar type of hero — the reck- 
 less, warm-hearted, impressionable, Avell-meaning profligate 
 and spendthrift, busily employed in sowing his wild oats, 
 vet easily touched and full of kind impulses. The moralist 
 — nay, the man of common sense — is fully aware that in real 
 life dissipation cannot possibly keep the heart soft or promote 
 a single fine sentiment, still less a noble generosity ; but 
 an audience is all on Charles's side from the first, and 
 when he proposes to a boon companion to knock down his 
 ancestors with their own pedigree, it votes him the most 
 delightful of good fellows. 
 
 And that brings us to Sheridan's capacity, scarcely 
 less, if it be not indeed greater, than his knack of stage- 
 craft and instinct for situation, namely, his capacity to 
 provoke mirth — mirth without malice or arrU're pevsre, 
 which exjjresses itself in peals of laughter. His endow-
 
 RICHARD B. SHERIDAN — THOMAS HOLCROFT. 219 
 
 ment with this rich and rare compelling power, which leads 
 us to associate him with men of far greater genius than 
 himself (Shakespeare, Burns, Dickens), is strikingly mani- 
 fested in his next production. The Critic,^ given at Drury 
 Lane on October 29th, 1779. It had been said of Sheridan 
 that he would be afraid to write any more — afraid of the 
 author of The School for Scandal. If the stoi-y be true, 
 the manner in which Sheridan eluded comparison with 
 himself was a stroke of genius. No farce so ludicrous as 
 The Critic has probably ever held the stage, while in 
 genuine vis comica there is nothing certainly in The School 
 for Scandal to sui'pass Sir Fretful Plagiary. When, after 
 the production of one more piece (the patriotic melodrama 
 Pizarro, adapted from Kotzebue many years later, in 1 799), 
 the dramatic career of the author of The Critic ended, it 
 might be said with more truth than of the death of Garrick 
 that the event eclipsed the gaiety of nations." 
 
 One of the most prolific playwrights among' Sheridan's con- 
 temporaries was Thomas Holcroft.^ A Lon- 
 Tliomas Holeroft (h)ner l»y birth, Holcroft's youth was spent 
 (174.5-1809). literally on the highway, in the gutter, and 
 
 (as a promotion) in the stable. He started 
 theatrical life as a ](rompter at Dublin, and it was not until 177S 
 
 ' In pointing out the antiquity of satirizing upon the stage 
 tilings connecteil with the theatre, the infirmities of players and 
 authors, it is necessary to go back no further than Hamlrt. The 
 chain of connection may easily be diawn from TIic Jichrarsa/. 
 through Carey's Chrononhotontliologos (1734) and Fielding's Tout 
 Tliiiinh, to Tfir Criflr and its latest successor, .1 I'tnifdininiv lU- 
 lirarsal. 
 
 - ' Poor Brinsley 1" wrote JJynm. ' lie has written t he 6t's^ comedy, 
 the hrst comK o|iera, thei'.v/ faice, and the /yr.v/ address [Moii<ilo<iiii' 
 till Gt(rrifL), anil, to ciown all, delivered the hfsf oration (the 
 famous Begum speech) ever conceived or lieard in this country." 
 
 ' See also Chapter I!.. ]>. (»(t.
 
 220 
 
 THE AGE OF JOIIXSON. 
 
 tliat he ivachcd the boards^ of Diury Lane and a salary of a jiound 
 a week. Tliree years later his first comedy, DuplicHj/, was pre- 
 sented at Covent (Jarden, and obtained a qualified success. In 
 1784 he went over to Paris to hatch an English version of the sue 
 cess of the time, llie Mariagr dr Fhjani of JJeauniarcliais. Jk'in;;- 
 unable to |.roenre a eo])y of the |>lay, and afraid of taking notes 
 during tlie perf(uniauee, Holeroft nightly attended the theatre 
 until the whoh» ])ioee had been coniniitted to lut'iuory. He then 
 returned to England, and swiftly jModuoed The FnUicft nf the Daij 
 (December 14th. 1784). which met with an ovation from the 
 Knglish iiublic. There followed Scihtrtion and The Sehuul fur 
 Arroc/ancc, two unimportant comedies, and then at Covent Garden, 
 on February ISth, 1702. The Ihiciel to Rviii, his most poimlar iday, 
 an.l one that still holds tiie boards. The dog-eared role of (Jold- 
 linch lent itself surprisingly to the cravings of histrionic ambition, 
 and many are the trinmi>hs that have been Avon over it. liut the 
 play is intolerably artificial, a collection of sententious rhymed 
 tags and stage conventi(malities, with a minimum of literary merit. 
 And, though it has been galvanized into life from time to time by 
 the exertions of a cajjable actor, it is clearly doomed to follow the 
 remainder of its prolific writer's dramas into oblivion. 
 
 The tale of the dramatists may be fitly concluded with the name 
 of John Tobin, who wrote at the very end of our 
 John Tobin i)eriod, and whose work forms a good link between 
 (1770-1804). the .sentimentalists of the ])ast and the i»resent 
 century. Tobin, if remembered at all, is remem- 
 bered by one piece, The Honciimoon, which was inspired to some 
 extent by The Taming of the Shrew, and modelled with more taste 
 than might be expected into a semblance of the Elizabethan 
 manner ; it was, in fact, a curious out-of-the-way expression in 
 that most conservative place, the stage, of the dawn of ' Gothic ' 
 revival. Tobin was a solicitor's clerk, whose ambition through life 
 was to get himself acted. What was more unusual was the mis- 
 taken idea, which he cherished with something of the passion of 
 Charles Lamb, that the drama of Shakespeare and of Fletcher was 
 a thing for lal)orious imitation after the lapse of two centuries. 
 I'nfortunately, Tobin had no influence with a manager, and never 
 iiad the encouragement of success ; he sent play after play to 
 Drnry Lane, only to be rejected or lost. At last, in tlie autumn 
 of 1804, Wroughton the stage-manager was rummaging the 
 prompter's room when he came upon Toliin's Honeyinoon, and,
 
 AV. IL IRELAND. 221 
 
 lieing (le^iperately in need of a comedy by a new name, deeided to 
 produce it. The Hoite>jinonii rivalled Venire Preserved in popu- 
 larity for about thirty j'ears, and then flickered out of public 
 notice a?( suddeidj^ as it had leajit into it. It is now gathered to 
 rest along Avitli Talfourd's Ion and Knowles'.s Virgiiiixs. 
 
 When taste for literary exhumation is strong and critical acumen 
 ^\•eak — what happens '! The closing years of the century that wit- 
 nessed the forgeries of Chatterton, and the 'restorations' of Mac- 
 pheison and Percy, had also to put up with the palpably sham 
 ' Shakespearean ' ti'agedy of Vortlger)). Its author, William Henry 
 Ireland (1777-1835), a barrister's clerk, had already, w ith the aid of 
 his father, a skilful engraver, produced a volume of fcn-ged pajiers 
 claiming to relate to Shakespeare's career, Avhen, on April "ind, 
 1796, Sheridan and Kemlile produced at Drury Lane the boml)astic 
 'ancient IJritish ' drama called Vortigerii, which Avas stated to 
 have been discovered by Ireland among the other Sliakesi)eare 
 papers. Kenible, as was usual with him in new tragic parts, ' did 
 not try ' ; but the jiiece, though it imjjosed upon a section of the 
 literary public, wcmld ])robably not have succeeded in any case, 
 and the fraud was linally traced to young Ireland in .Maloncs able 
 Eiiqiiirij into the authcnticifij of the IreUuul Maiuisrripts. 
 
 Incitement to literary forgery was happily but one side of the 
 Shakespearean revival. Apart from the valuable illustrations of 
 Shakespeare attbrded liy critics such as .Steevens and Malone, the 
 movement led to the i)urilication of the stage-te.xts and, gradually, 
 to the complete banishment from the boards of the travesties l)y 
 Davenant, Otway, Shadwell, Durfey, Dennis, Lansdowne, Cibber, 
 Colman, ami Nahum Tate, whoso version of Lear is generally con- 
 tjidered to ha\ e established a record for bad taste.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE POETS. 
 
 I. The Tradition of Pope. 
 
 The middle of the eigliteetith century, wliicli lias been 
 too often denounced for its deficiency in jjoetry, literally 
 abounded in poets. The wit of the day was expected to 
 establish his standing, if not by a tragedy, then by a poem 
 in the heroic measure. This imderstanding gave rise to 
 the performance upon the instrument of Pope of a crowd 
 of rhymesters — a poetical mol). Versifying became, in the 
 Avords of Lady Mary Montagu, as common as taking snuff 
 (the usual practice of the great ladies of that age). Others 
 compared it with an epidemical distemper — a kind of mur- 
 rain. The result was the conversion into metrical form of a 
 quantity of raw material, which should have been shaped 
 into periodical essays. In this shape it would have been 
 perfectly innocuous, happily forgotten ; as it is, a large 
 l>roportion of this perfunctory verse constitutes a literary 
 nuisance, like lumber which has gone astray and got into 
 the wrong department of a warehouse. The fact was that 
 Pope had familiarized the heroic couplet to a dangerous 
 extent. The initial difficulty of instruments like the violin 
 •n- the flute operates to keep sciolists away from the mani- 
 ]ndatiou of them ; the comparative simplicity of the jiiano 
 allures would-be performers, and leads those who are often 
 the merest tyros to imagine they are achieving results.
 
 WILLIAM WHITEHEAD — HENRY JAMES PYE. 223 
 
 Similarly, the ease aud aclai)tability of the couplet inveigled 
 a large number of versifiers into imagining that poetry was 
 their appropriate form of expression. 
 
 At the head of the performers of this class, room may be 
 
 fittinyiv found for the official versifiers, or 
 Poets Laureate. poets laureate. The first of these during 
 
 the Johnsonian epoch, Colley Gibber, is 
 much more intimately connected with the Age of Pope, if 
 only on account of his pre-eminent part in Tlie Dimciad. 
 He was, upon his death on December r2tli, 1757, succeeded 
 by William Whitehead.' 
 
 ' Next Whitehead ciuiie, his wurth a pinch of siiutf, 
 But for a Laureate, lie was good enough.' 
 
 His indifferent Eoiiian Father, a play in the manner of 
 Rowe, appeared in 1750, and his collected Poems in 1754. 
 At his best he approaches Namby-pamby Philips. White- 
 head, who had long been ;i,u inmate of Lord Jersey's 
 family, died in April, 1784. An epitaph in the style of 
 ' Prince Fred's ' does him substantial justice : 
 
 ' Beneath tliis stone a Poet Laureate lies, 
 Nor good, nor great, nor foolish, nor yet wise. 
 Not meanly humble, nor yet swelled with pride, 
 He simply liv'd — and just as simply died.' 
 
 He was succeeded by Thomas Warton, who died in 1790, 
 and was in turn succeeded by Henry 
 
 "'''?i'^,-'','ofo/'^'' James Pye, a country gentleman, whose 
 (1/40-1813). 1 • X • 1-A- 4- w ■ 
 
 mam object ui hie was to obtain recog- 
 nition as a poet. He Avas fitted to shine as a police 
 
 ' The laureate must he distinguislied t'nun Paul \Vhitehea<l (1710- 
 1774), a clever hut disreputable indlator of i'o[)e, whotsc J'ocms, 
 containing The Htutc Dunces (written in 1733) were edited in 1777 
 by Captain Edward 'PlinmitsDU, author of some sea-songs and 
 ' shady " light verse.
 
 224 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Miag'istrate, and lie did, in fact, write au admii-able com- 
 pendium of the duties of a justice of the peace. If while 
 still of tender years he could have been induced, like 
 Blackstone, to utter a Lawijers FareweU to Ms Muse, we 
 should have been spared many examples of 'tlie art of 
 sinldug ill poetry.' Asa poet Pye sank below Whitehead. 
 His reputed magnmii opus was a lengthy epic called Alfred, 
 but the chief event of his laureateshij) was the commuta- 
 tion of the annual perquisite of a tierce of canary for an 
 annual payment of =£27. The appearance of one of his 
 ' birthday odes,' always punctual, patriotic, and crowded 
 with allusions to vocal groves and feathered choirs, is said 
 to Jiave evoked from George Steevens the impromjjtu — 
 
 ' When the Ftjc was opened 
 Tlie Hiids 1jej;an to sing : 
 ^^'ilsll"t that a dainty Dish 
 To set before a Kino- ? ' 
 
 'o 
 
 The priority given to these laureated scholars in the 
 
 school of Pope is accorded to their ofhcial 
 Samuel Jolmson -j^- t i • n -, • 
 
 (l'U9-l"S4) position, in general intluence and import- 
 
 ance, if not in actual merit, the first place 
 among the transmitters of the tradition of Pope must be 
 assigned to Johnson. But the difference between the 
 metrical utterance of a Gibber or a Whitehead and that of 
 Johnson is one of degree only, not of kind. Expression in 
 verse was not thoroughly congenial to Johnson. He is 
 conventional without escaping his own particular weakness 
 for 2)onderous verbiage ; and he is often scarcely more 
 sincere in thought than in manner. In his first poem, 
 London, an imitation of the third satire of Juvenal, pub- 
 lished in May, 1738, we find the avowed devotee of Fleet 
 Street eagerly adopting hollow sentimental denunciations 
 of the corrujjtioii of towns, and singing the j)raise of ar.
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON, 225 
 
 innocent country life. More sincere was his second 
 poem, The Vanity of Human Wishes, published in 1749, 
 the same year in which Gray completed his Elegy. Here 
 he gives classical and memorable expression to some of 
 his profoundest convictions. ' Infelicity is involved in 
 corporeal nature and interwoven with our being.' 'The 
 cure for the greatest part of human miseries is not radical, 
 but palliative.' Such maxims as these from The Rambler 
 form the subject-matter of the poem, which, as an exercise 
 in Pope's most sententious manner, could perhaps hardly 
 be surpassed. The passage in which he exposes the vanity 
 of the hopes of the young scholar is thoroughly typical : 
 
 ' Should Reason guide thee with her 1 (lightest ray, 
 And pour on misty Doubt resistless day ; 
 Should no false kindness lure to loose delight, 
 Nor praise relax, nor difficulty fright ; 
 Should tempting Novelty thy cell refrain, 
 And Sloth ett'use her opiate fumes in vain ; 
 Should Beauty lilunt on fops her fatal dart, 
 Nor claim the triumph of a letter'd heart ; 
 Should no Disease thy torpid veins invade, 
 Nor Melancholy's phantoms haunt thy shade, — 
 Yet hope not life from grief or danger free, 
 Nor think the doom of man revers'd for tliee : 
 Deign on the passing Avorld to turn tliine eyes. 
 And pause awhile from learning, to be wise ; 
 There mark Mhat ills the scholar's life assail, — 
 Toil, envy, want, tlie patron, and the jail.' 
 
 We perceive at once that Johnson is more of a rhetorician 
 than a poet, and even as a rhetorician he lacks the ex- 
 quisite jjoint and tact of Pope, and still more the gi'aceful 
 ease and delicacy of sentiment that pervade G-oldsmith, 
 Figures of speech are strewn around with profusion, yet his 
 verse is not free from glaring technical defects. The pass- 
 age above is one huge sentence, half protasis, haK apodosis.
 
 226 THli: AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 The symmetry of this balanced coustructiou and of the end- 
 stopt coujilets, with the chiming antithesis of verbs and 
 epithets is terribly monotonous. The rhyming is generally 
 accurate, yet this very poem is disfigured by God being 
 made to rhyme with bestow'' d. The slurring of syllables is 
 often no less violent (thus venturous is in Johnsonese a 
 dissyllable). In the third couplet above we have an ex- 
 ample of Johnson at his worst. The rhyme to refrain, the 
 sense of which is forced, is vain, and in the next couplet 
 but one we have veins invade, a disagreeable assonance- 
 The merit of the intermediate couplet is sensibly weakened 
 by fatal dart. Yet here, as elsewhere throughout John- 
 son's poetry, faults of clumsiness are redeemed by the 
 vigour of the thought. 
 
 The Johnsonian melancholy is tempered in the poems by 
 an occasional epigram. Generally speaking, however, it is 
 exclusively the sententious and didactic side of Pope that 
 Johnson, with a certain massive achievement not far from 
 success, strained to imitate. Pope's pre-eminence as a 
 lampooner, one may add as a veritable literary wasjD, was 
 the heritage, not of Johnson, but of a man whom he de- 
 spised, Charles Churchill, the great satirical poet of his age. 
 
 Born in Vine Street, in February, 1731, the son of a 
 Westminster parson, Churchill was sent 
 
 ^^tmlSe^f "" ^^ 1^^^' ^^^'^ ^^^^'* y^^^' ""^^^ ^" ^^'*' 
 
 minster, where there was just then a re- 
 markable group of boys. Bonnell Thornton was in the 
 upper forms; George Colman, Robert Lloyd, Eichard 
 Cumberland, and Warren Hastings were almost contem- 
 l)oraries ; and just of Churchill's own age was William 
 Cowper, who always looked up to the satii-ist as his school 
 l)rotector. In 1 758, having taken orders, but not a degree, 
 Churchill settled as his father's successor as lecturer and 
 curate of St. John the Evangelist's, Westminster. Churchill
 
 CHARLES CHURCHILL. 227 
 
 admits himself that he was a drowsy preacher aud an idle 
 pastor ; it was not likely that a man of his coarse grain 
 would make a pattern divine. The admirable portrait 
 prefixed to the edition of Churchill's Bosciad, edited in 
 1891 by Mr. R. Lowe, gives one a better insight into the 
 man than can be obtained from a great quantity of 
 criticism. Having made an imprudent marriage and got 
 heavily into debt, Churchill resolved to try his fate as a 
 poet. His first attempt. The Bard, a satire in Hudi- 
 brastic verse, was contemptuously rejected. His second 
 attempt, a libel v;pon the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, 
 would have been published eagerly but for a legal opinion 
 of the danger involved. He determined, accordingly, to 
 libel the defenceless actors on the London stage. From 
 the front row of the pit, which then ran right up to the 
 orchesti-a, he watched closely ' to discern the real working 
 of the passions of the actors, or what they substituted in 
 place of them.' The players must have often wondered 
 who the ungainly parson was who would sit — 
 
 ' In foremost row before the astonished pit, 
 
 And grin dislike. 
 
 And kiss the spike. 
 And twist liis mouth, and roll his head awry.' 
 
 They soon had their doubts resolved. The Bosciad was 
 finished, and Churchill hied to the booksellers. ' A trade 
 more remarkable for misvaluation of its raw inaterial than 
 any other in existence ' was alarmed by the price (five 
 guineas, says Southey) that he asked. But Churchill was 
 not to be baffled this time. On March 14th, 1761, appeared 
 The Bosciad (' by the author '), printed and published at his 
 own expense. Instead of five, he cleared nearly a thousand 
 guineas by the production. 
 
 The lampoon achieved a success not equalled by that of
 
 228 THE AGE OF JOHNSON^. 
 
 auy satire between The Diinciad and Byron's English 
 Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Tlie strong and easy verse, 
 wliicli showed Churchill to he no unworthy follower of 
 Dryden, the rude wit, and above all the daring personalities, 
 made The Bosciad the talk of the clubs and coffee-houses. 
 Everyone was asking, who is the author? The Critical 
 Review answered that it was by Lloyd and Colman. This 
 led to Churchill claiming the satire, and preparing another 
 in the form of An Apology, addressed to the ' Critical 
 Reviewers,' in which Smollett was roughly attacked. In 
 the meantime there had been a panic among the players. 
 It was the remark of one of themselves that they ran about 
 the town like stricken deer. They cared little on their 
 own account, they said ; but they grieved so very much for 
 their friends. ' I am not at all concerned for myself,' said 
 one, ' but what has poor Billy Havard done that he should 
 be treated so cruelly ? ' Davies, well known afterwards as 
 the bookseller who introduced Boswell to Johnson, was 
 driven from the stage by the verse : 
 
 ' He months a sentence as curs mouth a bone.' 
 
 Churchill was still to be seen near the spikes dividing the 
 orchestra from the pit, and he now came provided with a 
 cudgel. The expression of his face was anxiously Avatched 
 by the disconcerted actors. He discarded his black gown, 
 and appeared in a blue coat with metal buttons. The dean, 
 whom he was to have libelled, and his parishioners, were 
 shocked at his improprieties. He accordingly resigned his 
 lectureship and plunged frankly into a life of jollity and 
 dissipation. He published little further until 1762, but 
 from that date until his death he poured forth satires 
 with great rapidity, and on the whole fairly sustained his 
 reputation. 
 
 Night (1762), an attack upon the Day of John Arm-
 
 CHARLES CHURCHILL. 229 
 
 strong,^ was followed by The Prophecy of Famine, an 
 ouslaiiglit vigorous to tlie point of grotesque extravagance 
 upon the unpopular Scotch. This was published early in 
 1768, and henceforth Churchill was labelled as a partisan 
 of John Wilkes, whose tastes and animosities the poet 
 freely adopted. He helped ^^'ilkes in The North Briton ; 
 and when Hogarth caricatured the patriot, Churchill 
 retorted with his savage Epistle to Ho(jorth. He next pub- 
 lished two poems in octosyllabic metre. The Dtiellist, a 
 satire on Wilkes's assailants. Sandwich, Warburton, and 
 Mansfield ; and The Ghost, in Avhich Johnson is ridiculed 
 as 'Pomi)oso.' But Churchill was stronger in rhetoric 
 than in versecraft, and he is much happier when imitating 
 Dryden than when cramping his periods into the tricky 
 measure of Butler. The Conference and The Author com- 
 pleted the tale of the satires produced in 1763. The next 
 year saw no abatement of his energy. Gotham (the work- 
 manship of which was over-j)raised by Cow])er) was rapidly 
 followed l)y The Candidate, The Fareirell, The Times, Inde- 
 pendence, and the unfinished Journey. In the autumn of 
 1764 the satirist went to France to meet his friend Wilkes, 
 and he died at Boulogne on November 4th. 
 
 For four years Churchill had been a genuine force in 
 England, felt and feared in the same kind of way, but with 
 more intensity, than the early Edinburgh Reviewers. 
 Prominent people, who imagined they might come within 
 range of his lash, were extremely careful as to what they 
 said about him. ' Such talent, with prudence, had com- 
 manded the nation,' wrote Garrick, but to administer even 
 such a cjualified rebuke as this he waited prudently until 
 Churchill was known to be dying. The immediate reputa- 
 tion of Churchill was very great indeed. A common steel 
 j^en that he had used fetched the then unheard-of price of 
 
 ' See The Age uf I'upe.
 
 230 THE AGE OF JOHNSON, 
 
 five pounds ; his spurs were sold for sixteen guineas. To 
 satisfy the ]>ublic curiosity, vulgar letters were forged in 
 his name, and Colmau went so far as to devise a patriotic 
 death-bed scene for the edification of the public. ' Churchill 
 the poet is dead,' wrote Walpole, ' to the great joy of the 
 ministry and of the Scotch.' ' The meteor blazed scarce 
 four years.' During these years he had been wonderfully 
 prolific. ' He has shown more fertility than I expected,' 
 said Johnson. ' To be sure he is a tree that cannot produce 
 good fruit : he only bears crabs. But, sir, a tree that 
 produces a great many crabs is better than a tree which 
 produces only a few.' The lampoon has become almost a 
 fossil, and Byron, Avhose lines on Churchill's grave are 
 well known, was j^erhaps one of the last sincere admirers 
 of Churchill's methods. Much of his work appears to us 
 to-day almost unaccountably rough and. coarse, like that of 
 the caricaturists to whose limning his lines seem so well 
 adapted. Sach work was, of course, struck off very rapidly, 
 and we must judge it to some extent by its effectiveness. 
 In this respect, during the century 2'*^"" excellence of political 
 satire, Churchill was never surpassed. As a literary artist 
 there seems little reason why he should be ranked much 
 higher than Hanbury-Williams or Cifford ; but, as illus- 
 trating the history and manner of his period, his satirical 
 sketches, like those of Gilray and Kowlandson, are of 
 the utmost interest, and will, no doubt, continue to be 
 highly valued. Churchill's own estimate of his ' muse ' 
 would appear to be a much more accurate one than that of 
 some of his too ardent admirers : 
 
 ' Me w hoiii no .Miif~c of heavenly birth inspires, 
 No judgment tempers when rash genius fires : 
 Who boast no merit but mere knack of rliynie, 
 Sliort gleams of sense, and satire <mt of time ; 
 Who cannot follow where trun Fancy leads
 
 JOHN WOLCOT. 231 
 
 By prattling streams o'er tlo\\er-enipurpled meads ; 
 
 Who often, Lut without success, liave jirayed 
 
 For apt alliteration's artful aid ; 
 
 Who would, but cannot, with a master's skill 
 
 Coin tine new epithets, which mean no ill — 
 
 Me thus uncouth, thus every way unfit 
 
 For pacing poesy and ambling wit. 
 
 Taste with contempt beholds, nor deigns to place 
 
 Among the lowest of her favoured race ! ' 
 
 Prophecy of Famine. 
 
 Chm-chill's mantle fell unmistakably upon ' Peter 
 Pindar,' who, if more genial, was scarcely 
 
 ''petL^PhiTar ' ^^^^ ^'^^^ *^^^^ ^^^^ master. ' Peter Pindar,' 
 (1738-1819). whose real name was Dr. John Wolcot, was 
 born at Dodbroolce, near Kingsbridge in 
 Devonshire, in May, 1738. After medical experience as 
 physician-general at Jamaica, Wolcot returned to Eng- 
 land, and after some years of practice at Truro came 
 up to London in 1780 with a sheaf of audacious squibs 
 aud lampoons. These he launched literally by the score 
 during the next twenty years. The ministers are said to 
 have tried to bribe him into silence ; but he was conteiit 
 with an annuity of j£250 from his booksellers, which he 
 enjoyed down to his death, in January, 1819. Wolcot, 
 with his coarse good nature, would have been an ideal 
 librettist for Eowlandson. His favourite instrument was 
 the ode, and his chosen tai'get for satire was His Majesty 
 George III. That monarch's primitive tastes, his WMinder 
 at the obvious, his fondness for rej^eating stale questions 
 and eliciting truisms in reply, are reflected with ludicrous 
 exaggeration in a number of Peter's productions, among 
 which the earliest in point of date are the most vigorous 
 and the best. Aii alleged order that all the cooks in the 
 ])alace should have their heads shaved uj^n the discovery 
 of a parasite in the royal soup occasioned The Louslad, a
 
 232 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 burlesque of the heroic ode, iu 1786. George's famous 
 inquiry as to how the apples got into the housewife's apple 
 dumplings, the economies of the queen at Frogmore, such 
 themes kept honest Wolcot busy, making the town laugh. 
 Neither Charles II. at the hands of Marvell, nor George IV. 
 at the hands of Moore or Thackeray, had to stand such 
 a steady tire of lampoon as that which ' Pindar ' levelled 
 against the irreproachable George III. Other butts were 
 Whitehead, Bruce, Banks, but above all * Bozzy.' When 
 Boswell brought out his Journal of a Tour to fJie Hebrides, 
 Wolcot was ])rompt with a witty epistle in which the 
 eminent cicerone was compared with ' a tomtit twittering 
 on an eagle's back.' Better still (iu conception, at any 
 rate) was Bozzy and Piozzi, or the British Biographers, a 
 Town Eclogue, iu which the competition between Boswell 
 and Mrs. Thrale as souix-es of Johnsonian revelation is 
 thi-own into effective humorous relief. In his Lyric Odes, 
 in which the chief Royal Academicians of the day are 
 mercilessly satirized, Wolcot makes the nearest approach 
 to the author of The Rose I ad. 
 
 After speaking of Churchill and Wolcot, the remainder 
 
 of the light verse of the Age of John- 
 Chnstoplier Aiistev ' ^ ^,,. , ,• ^ , -,. 
 
 (P24-1805) ' ^^^^ ^"^-^ iittingly noticed and dis- 
 missed ; but in order to do this one 
 must go back in point of time from ' Peter Pindar,' the 
 continuator of Churchill, to Christopher Anstey, who was 
 not a continuator at all, but was in a small way a literary 
 [tioneer. The son of a Cambridgeshire rector, Anstey was 
 educated at Eton, the alma mater of occasional poets, and 
 at Cambridge, whence he was rusticated for a literary im- 
 pertinence. He settled down as a country gentleman upon 
 competent means and obtained a seat in parliament through 
 his father-in-law. Like the rest of the fashionable world, 
 he paid periodical visits to Bath ; and on the humours of
 
 CHRISTOPHER ANSTEY — 'THE ROLLIAD.' 233 
 
 that jjlace he indited from time to time a series of light 
 satirical epistles iii charming light verse.^ These he 
 collected and issued anonymously in 1766 under the title 
 of The New Bath Guide. The letters are supposed to be 
 written by the different members of a family staying in 
 Bath to their mother in the country. It was a happy in- 
 spiration, and Anstey had many imitators ; his book 
 became a * standard pattern.' From it Smollett is said to 
 have got the idea which inspired him to describe the tour 
 of the Brambles in his immortal Humphrey Clinker. 
 
 Anstey was a good versifier, and he tried several measures 
 in his epistles, octosyllabic, heroic, anapaestic, and amphi- 
 braehic, all with success. He is shrewd as well as diverting ; 
 but the textui'e of the epistles is very slight, and it will 
 generally be admitted that he was fairly eclipsed in his 
 own manner by Praed. 
 
 From Anstey we come by an easy transition to another 
 .<,'roup of satirists, who combined his lightness of touch and 
 metrical skill with some of the polemical ferocity of 
 Churchill. In 1784 a group of high-spirited and ingenious 
 Whig ' forwards ' combined to produce an amusing series 
 of papers, in which objectionable books and hostile jjoli- 
 ticians were attacked from behind a buckler of parody. 
 The papers wei'e collected in 1 785 under the 
 The RuUiad. title The Rolliad (aimed chiefly at Pitt, 
 but named after one of the less formidable 
 Ijutts, Lord Rolle), forming a curious amalgam of literary 
 and political satire." A coterie of scheming politicians is 
 
 ' He einpluyeil the anapjestic tetiaineter of Prior. 
 
 - For details as to the authorsliip of the several pieces in 'J'hr 
 ]lolli((d, see Nnfr.s <nid Qitrrics, First Series, A'ols. II. anil III. 
 The idea of the burlesque I'robutioitiirif Odetifor the l.indTitUshlp, 
 attributed to the Kev. Dudley Date, was evidently the germ of 
 Rejected Addreisen.
 
 234 THE AOK OF JOHNSON. 
 
 well exposed, and there is a good, deal of fuu, sometimes 
 coarse, but an improvement upon the State Poems of a 
 century back. The book contains some novel verse forms, 
 such as rondeaux and madrigals, rarely to be seen in the 
 eighteenth century. Among the contributors were Dr. 
 French Laurence (1757-1809), General Richard Fitz- 
 patrick (1747-1813), Richard Tickell (1751-1793), and 
 George Ellis (1753-1815), better known as the editor of 
 Specimens of the Early Emjlish Poets (1790). Ellis is 
 remarkable, however, as a link between The Eolliad 
 and its far more brilliant Tory successor. The Anti- 
 Jacobin, which he helped Canning to found in November, 
 1797. Canning's career belongs to politics. It is enough 
 to say that when at Eton he won distinction by his con- 
 tributions to The Microcosm. In a lucky hour he conceived 
 
 the idea of The Anti-Jacobin, a weekly news- 
 TlicAnti- pg^pg^, interspersed with poetry, the avowed 
 
 object of which was to expose the viciousness 
 of the doctrines of the French Revolution, and to serve 
 as a weapon of offence against the extreme reformers 
 and French sympathizers of the o^jposition to Pitt. The 
 opposition had hitherto rather prided itself on having all 
 the young literary talent of the day upon its side. Canning's 
 light skirmishers, including, besides Ellis, John Hookham 
 Frere, Jenkinson (afterwards Earl of Liverpool), and Lord 
 Morpeth, soon dispelled this illusion. Canning himself 
 wrote the prospectus to the first number (Nov. 20th, 1797), 
 but the editing was intrusted to the vigorous and un- 
 scrupixlous pen of William Gifford. So vigorous, indeed, 
 were his onslaughts that Wilberforce and other moderate 
 supporters of the government were alarmed ; Pitt was in- 
 duced to interfere, and after coruscating for eight months 
 The Anii- Jacobin, in its original form, ceased to exist. 
 The portion of The Anti- Jacobin which retains literary
 
 'THE anti-jacobin' — WILLIAM GIFFORD. 235 
 
 interest is, of course, exclusively the i^oetrj. This consists 
 for the most part of extremely clever parodies, some of 
 them almost entirely of political, but others of literary 
 intei-est, and not altogether unlike those which Isaac Haw- 
 kins Browne had strung together much earlier in the cen- 
 tury in his Tobacco Pipe. Some of the most noted of the 
 pai'odies are : Inscription on Mrs. Brownrigg's Cell, by 
 Canning and Frere, after Southey's sonnet on Henry 
 Marten ; The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder 
 (aimed at the ' cosmopolitan ' sentiment of George Tierney), 
 by the same, after Southey's Sapphic stanzas commencing 
 ' Cold was the night wind ; drifting fast the snow fell ' ; 
 The Soldier's Friend, in dactylic metre, by the same, after 
 The Soldier's Wife of Southey ; The Progress of Man, a 
 jmrody of Richard Payne Knight's Progress of Civil Society, 
 liy Canning, Gifford, and Frere ; The Loves of the Triangles, 
 a parody of Darwin's Loves of the Plants, by Frere ; Brissot's 
 Ghost, in the metre of Glover's ballad, Admiral Hosier's 
 Ghost, by Frere ; The Rovers, a parody on Schiller's Bobbers, 
 by Canning, Frere, Ellis, and Gifford ; The New Morality, 
 a trenchant valedictory address in heroic couplets, by the 
 same four collaboi'ators. 
 
 William Giffoi'd, who devoted such energy to correcting 
 ' Jacobin Lies,' was well ciualified for putting down im- 
 jiostors, as he had shown by the drastic vigour with which, 
 in his Baviad and its sequel The Mwviad (1789), he had 
 pulverized the group of poetasters, headed by Robert 
 Merry (1755-1798), and styled Delia Cruscans, from the 
 domestication of a section of the precious coterie (whicli 
 included Parsons, Greathead, Mrs. Piozzi, and Hannah 
 Cowley) at Florence. The Delia Cruscau effusions aji- 
 peared in The Oracle and The World during 1786-8, 
 
 ^ For interesting Anti-Jacobiniana, see Edmonds's Poetry of tlie 
 Anti-Jacobin, 18U0, and Festiny's /. Hookhain Frcrc, 1899.
 
 236 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 and many of them were collected in The British Album of 
 1789. Their verses, said Giffoi'd, opened the sluice- 
 ,H-ates of sentimental slush, and everyone who could fit 
 rhymes now longed to commit suicide in verse, or to drop 
 a poetic tear upon a suicide's grave. Similar mutual ad- 
 miration societies were presided over by Lady Miller at 
 Batheaston, and at Lichfield by Darwin and the Sewards. 
 
 Among the lesser lampooners and skir- 
 ]Minor Satirists. misliers in light verse were Richard Owen 
 
 Cambridge (1717-1802), a couversational 
 wit of literary tastes who published, in 1751, The Scrib- 
 leriad, an attack upon false taste; Francis Fawkes (1721- 
 1777), a translator whose ' principal defects' are 'want of 
 judgment aud good taste,' but whose song in Poems and 
 Translations (1761) describing how the clay of that jolly 
 toper, Toby Fillpot, was transmuted into a Brown Jug is 
 not yet forgotten ; Bonnell Thornton (1724-1768), author 
 of a burlesque. Ode on Saint Ca'cilia's Day (1763) and The 
 Battle of the Wig.^ ; Arthur Murphy (1727-1805), the assail- 
 ant of Churchill iu The Naiads of the Fleet Ditch (1761) 
 and similar Grub Street odes; Robert Lloyd (1733-1764), 
 author of The Actor (1760), a satire which stimulated 
 Churchill to write The Bosciad; and John Hall Steven- 
 son (1718-1785), the unworthy continuator of the Senti- 
 viental Journey, who obtained a secluded success of scandal 
 for his Crazy Tales (1762), but is better known as the initi- 
 ator of Sterne into some of the mysteries of Medmenham.^ 
 
 From the satirists we may return to the legitimate heirs 
 
 of Pope, as represented by one of the 
 Oliver (loUIsinitli , , j. ^ xi i • i - 
 
 ,-,-c>Q i"^4\ greatest exponents oi the heroic couplet, 
 
 Oliver Groldsmith, When The Traveller 
 
 appeared in December, 1764, Johnson remarked with 
 
 1 See p. 186.
 
 OLITER GOLDSMITH. 237 
 
 prompt good judgment that there had not been so fine a 
 poem since Mr. Pope's time. Goldsmith lacks the exquisite 
 point and the intellectual subtlety of Pope, no doubt ; but 
 lie inherits Pope's lucidity, he shares his masteiy over the 
 couplet, and he is more than his equal in the poetical 
 subtlety that s^jrings from genuine sentiment. As for the 
 polite savagery of Pope, it is replaced in hiin by a kindly 
 and serene urbanity, and a playfulness which is remin- 
 iscent rather of Addison and of Gray. Boswell made 
 the absurd suggestion that The Traveller derived its 
 charm from the conversation of Johnson, to whom Gold- 
 smith had acted as a kind of poetical reporter. It is 
 possible, certainly, that Johnson may have suggested the 
 theme of the meditation and the conclusion that hap- 
 piness depends little on political institutions, and much 
 upon the temper and regulation of our own minds ; but, 
 beyond this, he did little more than add a few stops to the 
 poem, and suggest some four couplets at the end (which 
 Goldsmith did adopt), and the cumbrous title The Philo- 
 sophic Wanderer (which he happily did not). In neatness, 
 grace, and graphic power, not to speak of bonhomie and 
 humour. Goldsmith was, indeed, greatly the superior of 
 his powerful mentor. 
 
 All these qualities, together with some passages of 
 Thomsonian delineation, and an idiomatic vigour which, 
 as it approaches Swift, is more i-emote from Johnson 
 than anything in The Traveller, are best displayed in 
 Goldsmith's second and most elaborate poem. The De- 
 ><erted Village appeared in May, 1770, and not only stirred 
 the youthful enthusiasm of Goethe, but, what is more 
 remarkable, elicited from Gray, in his critical old age, 
 the exclamation, 'This man is a poet.' As evidence of 
 Goldsmith's accomplishment as an artist such a testimony 
 is supreme. Goldsmith, whose quality is so excellent
 
 238 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 throughout, is oue of the few poets whose quantity is 
 felt to be much too small. The tenderness of his heart, 
 the sweetness and finish of his versification, the strength 
 of his visualizing faculty more than compensate for his 
 lack of spontaneity. Unfortunately, apart from The 
 Traveller and The Deserted Village, we have extremely 
 little from the hand of this exquisite poetical essayist. 
 Two bright and stirring pieces in the anapaestic measure, 
 both exceedingly well known. Thanks, my Lord, for your 
 venison, for filter and fatter, and Retaliation, in playful 
 revenge for a clever skit upon the author by David 
 Garrick,^ these, the somewhat mawkish ballad of Edwin 
 and Angelina and a few scraps and jeux d'esprit such as 
 The Description of an Author's Bedchamher, in the manner 
 of Dryden, are practically all that we have.' Those who 
 look to poets for a ' message ' would probably not rate Gold- 
 smith very high. Like the novels of Scott, his poems were 
 designed merely to please, and, like them, they succeeded. 
 A precipice separates G-oldsmith from the remaining 
 meti-ists of the Popean school, such as William Falconer, 
 
 the son of a poor Edinburgh barber, 
 \V ilham Falconer , --1711 i froo v, i 
 
 a73'^-17691 born m February, 17o2, who became 
 
 the mate of a ship and was shipwrecked 
 
 in the Levant. In 1762 he published his experiences in 
 
 florid heroics. Like Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health 
 
 (or, to take a more modern instance, one of Mr. Kipling's 
 
 ^ The weU-known distich : 
 
 ' Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness call'd Noll, 
 Who wrote like an angel, but talk'd like poor Poll.' 
 
 - Chronology of Goldsmith's Poems : Elegy on Mrs. Mary 
 Blaize (1759), Author's Bedchamber (1760), Traveller (1764), Edwin 
 and Angelina or The Hermit (1765), Elegy on Mad Dog (1766), 
 Deserted Village (1770), Hmith-h of Venison (-written 1771), Re- 
 t-cdiat ion (1773-!). ,_-- . . ^ •• - ;
 
 RICHARD GLOVER— JATVIES GRAINGER. 239 
 
 tales), The ShipivrecJc abounds in highly abstruse technical 
 terms ; but the temperature of the poem is frigid, and such 
 fidelity of colouring as it possesses is insufficient to pre- 
 serve it asrainst the ravages of time. Falconer's iambics 
 are impeccable, he describes with conviction and fluency, 
 and, when he ^juts aside the fashionable classical diction and 
 uses the language of real life, his vigour is unmistakable ; 
 but he has little style and very little poetic feeling. 
 
 Richard Glover, born in London in 1712, is a poet who 
 
 belongs to the same category as Falconer. 
 
 ^PIS T'S'^ He has got his name indissolubly linked 
 
 with a poem, Leonidas, which is never read, 
 
 but as an epic poem, in blank verse and in nine books, is 
 
 vaguely supposed to be worthy of respect. When literary 
 
 chroniclers have the courage entirely to ignore such shadowy 
 
 poets as Falconer and Glover and Grainger, the poetic 
 
 character of the period they are svipposed to illustrate will 
 
 be the gainer. Leonidas appeared in 1737, and two years 
 
 later, upon the capture of Porto Bello by Vernon, Glover 
 
 made an effective attack on Walpole's reputed lack of 
 
 patriotism in his ballad, Admiral Hosier's Ghost, a fine 
 
 example of the trochaic measure. The first two verses 
 
 form a sjjlendid opening to a ballad : 
 
 ' When at Porto liello lying 
 
 On the gently swelling tlooil.' . . . 
 
 Glover died in London on November 25th, 1785, a second 
 ponderous epic, The Athenaid, being published posthum- 
 ously in 1787. 
 
 Another of these verse-tract writers was James Grainger, 
 
 the son of an exciseman in co. Berwick, 
 
 /i-.oi i-i-cf a,nd born there in 1721. Having taken 
 
 his M.D. degree at Edinburgh, Grainger 
 
 •went as an army surgeon, wrote as a critic for The Monthly
 
 240 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Beview, and was well trouuced by Smollett in its rival, 
 The Critical, for a metrical Translation of the Elegifs of 
 TibvUtis. Ill 1759 he set out for St. Kits in the West 
 Indies, and while there superintended an estate, doctored 
 the planters, speculated in negro slaves, and studied 
 botany. On his return he put forth an unhappy poem in 
 four books on the cultivation of The Sugar Cane (1764, 4to). 
 Johnson was horrified at the bald reference to such un- 
 poetic creatures as rats, and when at a public reading of the 
 poem the author asks in mock-heroic vein, ' Say, shall I sing 
 of rats? ' Johnson is said to have caused consternation by 
 the vehemence wdth which he exclaimed ' No ! ' Grainger 
 returned to St. Kits and died there on December 16th, 1766. 
 Among the diminutive poets of this age whose writings 
 are preserved in the collections which 
 Minor Bards. marked the early years of this present cen- 
 tury (notably the English Poets from Chaucer 
 to Cowper, edited in twenty-one volumes by Alexander 
 Chalmers in 1810, and embodying the critical prefaces of 
 Johnson), a few only can be selected for the briefest pos- 
 sible mention. Priority may be given on chronological 
 grounds to Robert Dodsley (1703-1764), originally a foot- 
 man, and best known for his edition of Old Plays (1744) 
 and his typical eighteenth-century anthology, the Collection 
 of Poems by Several Hands (1748-58). His Muse in 
 Livery first saw the light in 1732, but his Miscellanies did 
 not appear until eight years after his death, in 1772 ; they 
 contain some pleasing songs, such as One kind kiss before 
 we part. William Thompson (1712-1766) published in 
 1757 two 'tomes,' as he called them, of verse, afford- 
 ing a high idea of the author's piety. His lugubrious 
 poem in heroic verse called Sickness was suggested, per- 
 haps by the popularity of Young and Armstrong, or, pos- 
 sibly, by The Spleen of Matthew G-reen. William Wilkie
 
 MINOR BARDS. 241 
 
 (1721-1772) wrote a poem in nine books describing the 
 sacking of Thebes by the Epigoni, called The Epigoniad 
 (1757). The work, despite its lack of competent scholar- 
 ship, was described bv Smollett as conferring a lustre upon 
 the reign of George II. Other Scots formed a ring of 
 defence around their compatriot, on whom the title of 
 * Scottish Homer ' was bestowed by friends as indiscreet as 
 those who compared Home with Shakespeare. It seems 
 likely that Wilkie would have been better employed in his 
 former occupation as scarecrow on his father's farm in 
 Linlithgowshire. Edward Lovibond (1724-1775) wrote 
 some pretty sentimental verses, The Tears of Old May 
 Day, which inspii'ed better poets than himself, such as 
 Fergusson and Bruce. Having originally appeared in The 
 World, his Poems on Several Occasions were collected in 
 1785. Richard Jago (1715-1781), a poet of the fellow- 
 ship of Denham and Dyer, or still more, perhaps, Pastoral 
 Philips, published a pleasing elegy, The BlacJcbirds, in 
 1753, and a pastoral in four books, or cantos, called Edge- 
 Hill, in 1767. A poetaster of a similar type was John 
 Langhorne (1735-1779), better remembered as the trans- 
 lator of Plutarch.' He was a prolific writer of sentimental 
 verse, pastoral elegies. Visions of Fancy, Tears of Mvsic, 
 and many such elegant inanities, collected in 1804. Then 
 there was Henry Brooke (1703-1783;, author of The Fool of 
 Quality, who wrote a consistently dull philosophical poem 
 in six books, entitled Universal Beauty, the reputed original 
 of Darwin's Botanic Garden, and published in 1738 a 
 metrical translation of Tasso's Jernsalem Delivered (Books 
 I. and II.). More interesting is Thomas Blacklock (1721- 
 
 ' ban<>liorne wrote at least one line that will live : 
 
 ' Cold on Canadian Hills or Minden's plain,' 
 
 on'^liriiKMl in Smtt's memorable arfoiuit of his nieetiiij;' with JJurns. 
 
 K
 
 242 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 1791), who issued a volume of Poems in 1754, iuoltiding 
 pastorals and epistles, not at all below the standard of 
 early Georgian elegance. His distinction is that he was 
 born blind, and he certainly combines images that must 
 have been second-hand with a remarkable skill. He wrote 
 a long article on Blindness in the Ejicyclopcedia Bri- 
 tannica. Sir William Jones (1746-1794), the great scholar, 
 published The Game of Chess, adapted from the poem by 
 Vida (oft translated by English pens) with no little 
 metrical dexterity. He also issued translations from 
 Petrarch, and from Latin, Turkish, Persian, and Sanskrit. 
 Many of his Indian verses, too, are beautiful, full of 
 Oriental colour and imagery, but employing a large number 
 of exotic words in a somewhat indiscriminate manner. 
 Another writer who combined Indian antiquities and 
 English poesy was Thomas Maurice (1754-1824), for whose 
 version of OEdipns Tyranmis Johnson wrote a preface ; but 
 he is best remembered on account of Byron's allusion to 
 ' tlie petrifactions of his plodding brain.' Thomas Moss 
 {d. 1808), a Staffordshire parson, published at Wolver- 
 liampton in 1769 his Poems on Several Occasions, the 
 first of which is the well-known and truly pathetic Pity 
 the Sorrows of a poor old, man, of which there are many 
 versions — one in Latin, as Mevdici Svpplicaiio — and 
 parodies. A fitting place may be found at the end of a 
 tail of poetasters for the dilettante William Hayley (1745- 
 1820), a sort of diminutive of John Byrom.^ Erom Eton, 
 where he imbibed his unfortunate passion for versifying, 
 he proceeded to Trinity, and then to the Temple. As a 
 matter of course he learnt Spanish, wrote for the magazines, 
 and composed a tragedy. His Trittmp)hs of Temper and 
 Triumphs of Music (1781 and 1784) have been deservedly 
 
 ' For Byrom and liis coiitciniiorarii's Sliciistonc ami Armstrong, 
 see The A<jr nf I'aiii'.
 
 ERASMUS DARWIN^. 24l3 
 
 ridiculed hy Byron. His Life of Milton, in 1794, was a 
 failure, and he is chiefly remembered on account of his 
 attempt to befriend Blake, and his more successful relations 
 with Cowper, Eomney, Flaxman, and Southey, who wrote 
 that everything was good about him except his poetry. 
 
 A worthier continuator of the poetical tradition of Pojie 
 was Dr. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), a man of such 
 remarkable intellectual and scientific ability that it is 
 somewhat curious he should have devoted so persistent 
 an energy to probing the possibilities (and impossibilities) 
 of the couplet of Pope. Extraordinary in many respects, 
 Darwin was not least so in the fact that in Johnson's 
 native Lichfield he held a kind of court as a rival dictator 
 of letters, whose sympathies were not merely Whig, but 
 free thinking, Radical, and almost Jacobin. He Avas a 
 clever jjhysician, an enthusiastic botanist, and a prolific 
 theorist. To the characteristics proper to these parts he 
 added a finished skill in smooth and sonorous versification, 
 as he showed iu his poem The Botanic Garden (1789-92), 
 the scheme of which was suggested first by some lines of 
 Miss Seward's, and secondly, it woiild appear, by Brooke's 
 Universal Beauty. There is no doubt that Darwin, with 
 intuitive genius, antici[)ate<l Lamarck in some of his 
 luckiest speculations, and caught glimpses of principles 
 and doctrines expounded some sixty years later by his 
 grandson, Charles Darwin, and by Herbert Spencer, in their 
 evolution hypothesis. The following passage is certainly 
 not deficient in rhetorical grandeur: 
 
 ' Moll nil, yu stars, l-miU iu yi)Utlifiil prime; 
 Mark with liriiflit ciirvL's the iirintless steps of Time ; 
 Near aiul more near your beamy cars a[)proac]i, 
 And lessening orl)s on lessening orbs encroach. 
 Flowers of the sky ! ye too to age must yield, 
 Frail as vour .silken sisters of the HeM ;
 
 244 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Star after star from heaven's high arcli shall rush, 
 Suns sink on suns and systems systems crush ; 
 Headlon};-, extinct to one dark centre fall, 
 And death and night and chaos mingle all : 
 Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, 
 Immortal nature lifts her changeful form. 
 Mounts from her funeral pyre on A\'ings of flame, 
 And soars and shines, another and the same ! ' 
 
 It cannot be denied that there is something exquisitely 
 ludicrous about many episodes in The Loves of the Plants, 
 as one of the sections of The Botanic Garden is styled. 
 Of this Darwin himself was probably fully aware, for he 
 was by no means devoid of humour. The general public 
 ignored this absurd side until the appearance of Frere's 
 irresistible parody in The Anti-Jacohin, The Loves of the 
 Triangles, in which 
 
 ' Fair Hydrostatics, simpering as they go. 
 Lead the light Naiads on Fantastic toe ; 
 Th' ohedient pulley strong Mechanics ply. 
 And wanton Optics roll the melting eye.' 
 
 Darwin was delighted with the parody, not foreseeing 
 that his poem would live, not in spite of, but in conse- 
 quence of, the ridicule. His reputation, sanctioned by 
 Walpole, Cowper, and Coleridge, was destined, perhaps 
 unjustly, to be preserved only by the Attic salt of his 
 political foes. 
 
 II. The Transition. 
 
 In his poetical prelections, to which he gives the title 
 Imagination and Fancy, Leigh Hunt leaves a complete 
 gap between Milton and Coleridge, thus excluding from 
 his English Helicon not only Dryden and Pope, but also 
 the initiators of the romantic movement in English Poetry, 
 such as Thomson and Collins, the Wartons and Beattie, 
 Crray and Cowper. We must perhaps make some allow-
 
 THE TRANSITION. 245 
 
 ance for tlie inevitable bias of critics against the genera- 
 tion penultimate to their own, and tlie strong partiality of 
 the circle of Lamb for the Elizabethan manner ; yet may M'e 
 recognize the substantial justice of the rescript which ex- 
 cludes Gray and Cowper from a place between Milton and 
 Coleridge on the highest plane of imaginative poetry. What 
 might in Amiel's words be said of the Slielleyan group of 
 poets, that imagination was their intellectual axis, that 
 passion stirred their imagination and ruled supreme over 
 their reason, was the reverse of truth i-egarding the two 
 most accomplished poets of our epoch. The greatness of 
 both consisted in the expression of universal sentiments 
 and emotions in supremely fitting language ; and a good 
 deal may be forgiven even by a romanticist to a poet, 
 like Grray, who devotes a lifetime to stringing together a 
 few melodious jjhrases as a perpetual utterance of our 
 better moods. Among poets of this order, a very high 
 one, if not the highest. Gray and Cowper have seldom 
 been surpassed. Their manner was elaborated to the 
 simplicity and ease which marks the attainment of the 
 highest point of literary skill. Both have achieved a 
 permanent home in our English tongue, have moulded to 
 some extent the very tone of English sentiment. In this 
 they were re^jresentative of their age, a very formative 
 one as regards national character ; and it is characteristic, 
 too, that in the Elizabethan or early nineteenth-century 
 qualities of imaginative insight and intensity they are in- 
 ferior to two emphatically minor i>oets, William Collins 
 and Christopher Smart. 
 
 The negative side of Johnson's ]Jower of ajtpreciation is 
 well illustrated by his remarks upon Collins. ' His diction,' 
 says the doctor, ' was often harsh, uuskilfully labouivd, and 
 injudiciously selected. He att'ccted the obsolete when it 
 was not worthy of revival ; and he puts his words out of
 
 246 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 the coinuiuu order, seemiui,^ to tliiuk, with some later 
 (•audidates for fame [this was a hit at Gray], that not to 
 write prose is cei'tainly to write poetry. His lines com- 
 monly are of slow motion, clogged and impeded with 
 clusters of consonants. As men who are often esteemed 
 who cannot be loved, so the jioetry of Collins may some- 
 times extort praise when it gives little pleasure.' Johnson's 
 sympathies, one may say his prejudices, were, of course, 
 always strongly enlisted on the side of Dryden, whose 
 methods had been brought to such perfection by Pope. 
 The ei^och of the latter had been one of connoisseurs and 
 critics, and among these Pope had been accepted sovereign. 
 The range of subjects, vmder his sway, came to be strictly 
 defined by convention, and within the sphere thus delimited 
 jjoetical production became a labour of application and 
 intelligence, increasingly devoid of warmth of feeling and 
 sj^ontaneity of utterance, more and more deliberately 
 calculated.^ What was needed was a new field of observa- 
 tion, a new method of introspection : an apjieal to the 
 human heart through nature. 
 
 Of this new mode of appeal Collins was undoubtedly 
 
 .a pioneer. Montcgut has shown how in 
 "^^ illiain Collins n n- • < i i; t ,i r. ,i 
 
 ,,_,-,, ,_-^. Collins IS to be found the germ of the 
 (J/zl-l/o9). _ _ ^ 
 
 romantic movement which blossomed in 
 Christabel. The new sounds which he uttered reverberated 
 
 ' From an endeavour such as this to estimate the general or pre- 
 dominant tendency of a period the student will ahvays make large 
 deductions. The chosen literature of an age does not express its 
 entire, but only its prevailing spirit. Pope himself read Spenser 
 with delight. Then, not less than now, writers were not im2)er- 
 vious to the beauties of an ojiposing school. Pope may have heen 
 incapable of making romantic jioetry, but was not, therefore, 
 incapable of appreciating it. So, side by side Avith those who 
 accepted his doctrines, there grew up a race of insurgents — the two 
 tendencies are subsisting side by side during the whole of our period.
 
 WILLIAM COLLINS. 247 
 
 distinctly througli the successive appeals from the classical 
 school madeby the Wartous andGrayaud Chattertou, Percy, 
 Russell, and Bowles. How far he was really an initiator 
 is a point much more difl&cult to determine, or again how 
 far his influence was effectual. There seems little doubt of 
 the debt incurred to Collins by Gray, though Gray rebukes 
 without ceremony the minor poet's incorrectness and his 
 lack of ear. Collins's beautiful Ode to Evening commences 
 by appealing to a mood or phasis of sentiment closely 
 akin to that of the Elegy, and some lines ^ are suggestive 
 of familiar verses of the elegist. 
 
 The sou of a hatter at Chichester, where he was born 
 on Christmas Day, 1721, William Collins was educated at 
 Winchester and at Magdalen College, Oxford. Precocious 
 as a youth, he composed at seventeen the Persian Eclogues 
 (1742) which open the slender volume of his verse; and 
 he seems to have read widely and with judgment, if we 
 may go by the ' epistle ' which he addressed to Sir Thomas 
 Hanmer in 1743, and which contains a noteworthy if iso- 
 lated fragment of criticism. As a career he contemplated 
 vaguely the church, the army, letters. As a first experi- 
 ment he came to London, having many projects in his 
 head. At the close of 1746 he printed his Odes, a thin 
 jjamphlet of three and a half sheets, but including the 
 Ode to Evening, The Passions, and the flute-like Ode to 
 Pity. Its ill-success vexed him so acutely that he threw 
 on the fire a number of the unsold copies to which he 
 had access. Rarely after this did he break silence ; but 
 on Thomson's death, in 1748, he wrote the pathetic ode. In 
 
 ' Take the third stanza for example : 
 
 ' Now air is liuslied save where tlie weak-eyed bat, 
 With short, .siirill slirick, Hits l)y on leatiicrn wing ; 
 
 Or where the beetle winds 
 
 His small but sullen lioni."
 
 24^ THE AGE Ot JOHNSON. 
 
 yonder Grave a Druid lies, and in 1749 he addressed his Ode 
 on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands, his last-surviv- 
 ing work, to Home, the author of Donglas. This beautiful 
 ode, prophetic of so much that has since come to pass in the 
 sphere of imaginative poetry, sliovps that up to 1749 the poet 
 was in full enjoyment of his jjowers. In the same year 
 he inherited a small fortune from his uncle and retired to 
 Chichester. But, says his first biographer, ' Man is not born 
 for hapjiiness. Collins, who while he studied to live felt no 
 evil but poverty, no sooner lived to study, than his life was 
 assailed by more dreadful calamities, disease and insanity.' 
 He gradually subsided into habitual melancholia, and had to 
 be confined temporarily in an asylum, though he returned to 
 die in his sister's house at Chichester on June 12th, 1759. 
 Essentially a lyric poet, Collins shows a harmonious 
 smoothness and felicity in almost all he wrote, a good 
 deal less than two thousand verses in all. Montegut claims 
 for him that since Ariel's ' Full fathom five ' (1612) nothing 
 had appeared compai'able in its kind to the elfin music of 
 the stanza written early in 1746 : 
 
 ' ]}y fairy haiuls their knell is luuj^' ; 
 J{y forms unseen their dirge is sung ; 
 There honour comes, a ]>il.i;rim gii'N , 
 To hless the turf that wraps their clay ; 
 And freedom shall awliile repair, 
 'I'o dwell, a weeping hermit, there ! ' 
 
 His fondness for the pastoral idyll, and his skill in con- 
 veying the charm and the nuances of his conception by 
 delicate impressionist touches, have gained for Collins a de- 
 served comparison with the great painter of the Cnpuscule. 
 It was in the same year that Collins put forth his 
 Persian Eclogues (1742) that Thomas Gray,' having returned 
 
 ' The son, like Milton, of a city scrivener, (Iray was horn at his 
 father's house in Cornliill, on Decenihcr "itith, 1711).
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 249 
 
 to Cambridge, entered the noble ranks of tlie English 
 Poets, for to that year are referred his Odes 
 (rifi^^""lT^ To Spring, On a distant Prospect of Eton 
 College, On Adversity, and the Sonnet upon 
 the Death of Richard West. During the next five years, 
 a victim to dejection, Gray buried himself at Cambridge 
 among the classics. Then he wrote the delicious trifle 
 On the Death of Mr. Walpole's Cat. Next year a new 
 friend, William Mason, found the means of enticing the 
 solitary recluse from his hermitage. Three odes printed 
 in Dodsley's 3IisceJlany during 1748 introduced his work 
 to the public. In the summer of 1 750, after two or 
 three years' elaboration, he finished the Elegy, which was 
 published by Dodsley as An Elegy wrote in a Country 
 Churchyard in February, 1751. The Elegy (like Shake- 
 speare's ' sugred sonets,' like Coleridge's Christahel) had 
 circulated for some months as an ingenious fragment 
 among Gray's friends. At the last it was printed rather 
 hurriedly in order to anticipate unauthorized publication 
 in a magazine, and ' Nurse Dodsley gave it a pinch or two 
 in its cradle,' the sensitive author complains to Walpole. 
 Several supplementary or alternative stanzas were written 
 by Gray at various times for the purpose of being fitted 
 into the poem, but were eventually suppressed. The best 
 of them is one designed for insertion immediately before 
 the Ejataph : 
 
 ' There scattered tjlt, tlic earliest of the year, 
 ]iy hands uii-eeii are sliowers of \ iolets foiiml ; 
 
 The redbreast h)ves to huihl and warlde tliere, 
 And little footsteps liglitly print tlie ;,'r»iuinl.' 
 
 This appears in the thinl and other editions, luit Grav 
 struck it out, disliking, no doubt, the length (d' sucli a 
 parenthesis between 'Aj)proacli and read (for thou eansi 
 read) the lay' and the Epitaph itself; perhaps, too, he
 
 250 THE AGE OF JOHNSON, 
 
 sliimued the strong resemblauce to the stanzas in Collins's 
 Dinje} 
 
 It seems a pity that Gray did not devote some of the 
 energy he expended on these extra stanzas to perfecting 
 the Epitaph, Avhich remains the weakest j^art of the poem. 
 Apart from the bad rhyme in the last stanza, one fails to 
 see why the frailties of a man should either dwell in the 
 place or behave in the manner ascribed to them. Upon 
 the whole, however, few poems are more faultless than the 
 Elegy. It has inspired innumerable translations, and 
 many of the versions are exceptionally good. Most Eng- 
 lishmen carry through life a favourite stanza, and it is well 
 known how one of our national heroes repeated a number 
 of the verses as he floated down the St. Lawrence on the 
 eve of his ci'owuing victory. 
 
 The Elegy was Gray's Penseroso. The sonibres plaisirs 
 d'un coem' melancoliqiie were well adajited to his idio- 
 syncrasy. But his attempt at a L' Allegro in The Lo7ig 
 Story, written apparently in 1750 after the manner of 
 Prior, though pleasing enough, is quite lacking in distinc- 
 tion. In 1753 Six Poems hy Mr. T. Gray were published 
 in a luxurious folio. Next year he wrote two elaborate 
 Pindaric Odes, which, were privately printed by his friend 
 Horace Walpole in 1757. Their publication pointed de- 
 cisively to Gray as the most accomjjlished poet of the day 
 (Goldsmith and Cowper were still mute), and he was 
 
 ' ' To fair Fidele's grashiy tomb 
 
 Soft maids and village hinds shall bring 
 Each opening sweet of earliest bloom, 
 And rifle all the breathing spring. 
 
 ' The redbreast oft, at evening hours. 
 Shall kindly lend his little aid, 
 With hoary moss, and gathered flowers. 
 To deck the ground where thou art laid.'
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 251 
 
 offered, but did not accept, the laureateship upon the death 
 of Colley Gibber. In 1759 he published The Progress of 
 Poesy and The Bard (' Some that tried them confessed 
 their inability to understand them . . . many were content 
 to be shown beauties they could not see,' commented 
 Johnson), and his studies of early English poetry, lead- 
 ing him to the analogous study of Icelandic and Runic 
 verse, he essayed the Eddaic poems. The Descent of Odin 
 and The Fatal Sisters.^ lu 1768 he collected his Poems, 
 after which appeared his ' Installation Ode ' and a very 
 few fragments. He died at Pembroke College on July 
 30th, 1771, and was buried in Stoke Pogis chui'chyard.' 
 
 When all Gray's poetry is taken into account, the sum 
 total scarcely exceeds the output of Collins. The spon- 
 taneity was much less. Gray was a scholar-poet like 
 Spenser, like Milton, and like Tennyson, and in elaborating 
 liis work as he wrote, he seems to have far surpassed them 
 all. His epithets are often far-sought, his atmosphere 
 
 ' Cf. p. 34. How far Gray knew Runic or 01<l Norse it is im- 
 possilile to saj". Besides Mallett, he seems to have studied the 
 Orcades of Torfaeus, the Literatura llunica of Glaus Worniius, and 
 the Avell-known Thesaurus (1705) of iJr. George Hickes. See the 
 admirable History of Emjlish Romanticism, by Henry A. Beers, 
 1899, Chapter V. 
 
 - It is wortli noting that the quatrain of iambic pentameters, 
 with alternate rhymes, as used by Gray, and now called the 
 'elegiac,' was the same 'noble measure' employed by Davenant 
 (Gondiberi) and by Dryden in his Annus Mirabilis (1666) : 
 
 ' It seems as every ship tlieir Sovereign knows, 
 
 His awful summons they so soon obey ; 
 So hear the scaly herd when Proteus blows, 
 
 And so to pasture follow through the sea.' 
 
 Two results of the Elcgjj were that the ten-syllabled quatrain be- 
 came consecrated to elegiac uses, and that for a time it became 
 almost indispensable for a budding poet to try his hand at a night- 
 piece or a, churcliyard soliloquy (see GoldMiiith's Life of Parnell).
 
 252 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 and his landscape seem derived to a large extent from 
 Thomson, from Collins and the Wartons. At other times 
 he is counting the syllables of his Pindaric strophes, and 
 polishing them into perfect symmetry. There is, indeed, 
 an artificiality (if not a turgidity) about even The Progress 
 of Poesy which goes far to justify Johnson's dislike of Gray's 
 Odes. Like Collins, Gray invokes the passions with fervour ; 
 but he treats them as abstractions, he does not fulfil the 
 jjoet's highest function, that of exhibiting them in action. 
 ' Ce n'est pas tout de concevoir des caracteres en poete ; il 
 faut concevoir aussi en poiite Taction qui les manifesto.' 
 
 Carlyle is exaggerating less, perhaps, than usual when 
 he writes of the bulk of Gray's work as ' laborious mosaic, 
 through the hard stiff lineaments of which little grace or 
 true life could be expected to look : real feeling, and all 
 freedom of expressing it, are sacrificed to pomp, to cold 
 splendour ; for vigour we have a certain mouthing vehem- 
 ence, too elegant indeed to be tumid, yet essentially foreign 
 to the heart and seen to extend no deeper than the mere 
 voice and gestures. Were it not for his Letters, which are 
 full of warm exuberant power, we might almost doubt 
 whether Gray was a man of genius, nay, was a living man 
 at all, and not rather some thousand times more cunningly 
 devised poetical turning-loom than that of Swift's Philo- 
 sophers in Lajjuta.' 
 
 The poetical sterility of Gray has proved a stumbling- 
 block to some critics, who have claimed the highest honours 
 for him upon the quality of his poetry; and they have 
 attributed it either to a genuine lack of the important 
 poetical quality of spontaneity, or to the poet's lack of 
 sym^jathy with the canons of taste predominant at the 
 time. But most great poets are in advance of their con- 
 temporaries, whom, through the medium of a chosen band 
 of young enthusiasts, they are usually content to permeate
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 253 
 
 slowly and gradually with their own ideas ; and, on the 
 other hand, a veritable lack of inspiration wonld seem to 
 condemn Grray to rank as one of the feeblest of faculty 
 among our poets, instead of as the wielder of the strongest 
 poetical influence of the day. As in the case of Matthew 
 Arnold, the truth would seem that his muse was reserved 
 and shy. He was above all extremely fastidious. He was 
 apt to spend disproportionate energy upon preliminary or 
 parallel investigations, to elaborate academical parerga, 
 such as those he made over to Warton. His temperament 
 resembled in more than one respect that of the desultory 
 John Aubrey, of the vainly systematizing ' Mr. Casaubon,' 
 of Philoxene Boyer, whose interminable course of prepara- 
 tions for a sketch of the Bound Table led to another clief- 
 d'oeuvre inconnu, or that of ' the M. Clogenson,' notorious 
 for many years as the collector on a colossal scale for a life 
 of Voltaire which he was always upon the very eve of 
 publishing.^ At the same time it is unfair with Carlyle to 
 reproach Gray's poetry with a deficiency of emotion. The 
 emotion is there. The reason that Gray was not fluent in 
 its utterance was because he cherished the highest possible 
 ideal of style, expression, and accuracy. To him is largely due 
 the fact that these qualities came to be regarded as essential 
 in our nature poetry, and a return to the careless profusion 
 of epithets of the post-Elizabethan school became impossible. 
 
 ' Since writing I .im glad to find that tliis view, as opposed to 
 the paralyzing inHuence of the period, is held by Mr. Tovey, and 
 thus ex]iressed : ' His impedinients to ])roduction were first 
 feeble health, next his boundless and discursive ouriositv, and 
 next the extensive scale on which. like a man who has abundant 
 knowledge, an<l seems to have abundant time before him, he 
 f<n-med his ])lans, ever delaying until the consciousness that the 
 day is far spent makes him sad and silent about them.' Combine 
 this with the fact that (hay wrote to please himself, and that 
 public fame was a matter of very secondary interest to him.
 
 254 THE AGE OF JOHNSOX. 
 
 As among the satellites of Grray must just be mentioned 
 Richard West, who corresponded learnedly with the poet 
 from 1736 down to his (West's) early death in 1742. West 
 often broke into verse, one of his best-intentioned efforts 
 being a Monody on the Death of Queen Caroline (1737), in 
 which he writes himself down : 
 
 ' No sensual bosom, no unjienerous mind . . . 
 And, tlio' not virtuous, virtuously inclin'd." 
 
 He made versions from Catullus, rendered Greek epigrams, 
 and performed other trifles in which he showed a certain 
 capacity, more, probably, than the adviser and attendant 
 biographer of Gray's later life, William Mason (1724-1797). 
 
 The son of the vicar of Hull, where he was born in 1724, 
 Mason began his pseudo-poetical cai-eer by a Monody upon 
 Pope's death. In 1757, after Gray's refusal, he was spoken 
 of as laureate, but Whitehead was ultimately pi-eferred. 
 Two years later he produced a dramatic poem, Caradacus, 
 with odes and choruses after the manner of Gray. The 
 originals were not ])opular, the imitations spurred Colman 
 and Lloyd to the amusing travesties which they styled 
 Odes to Obscurity and Ohiivion. He published Gray's Life 
 and Letters in 1774, the now familiar plan of printing 
 the letters as part of the Life having api^areutly been sug- 
 gested by Conyers Middleton's Life of Cicero. The Life 
 was certainly well done on the whole, though Mason takes 
 some liberties with his documents, and exasj^erates by his 
 endeavour to pose as the poetical i:»rovideuce of his friend. 
 
 Upon the death of his early friend West, Gray wrote 
 some lines in which he showed his command over the 
 old sonnet form, which since the death of Milton had been 
 almost entirely neglected. But the credit of the revival of 
 the sonnet must remain very largely with the Wartons. 
 In poijit of date the sonnets of Thomas Warton were pre-
 
 THE WARTONS — THOMAS RUSSEI.L. 25.') 
 
 ceded by single sonnets by Thomas Edwards (1699-1757), 
 a critical student of Milton and a disciple of Hurd, and by 
 the dilettante Benjamin Stillingfleet (1702-1771), as well as 
 by Gray's On the Death of Mr. Eichard West. But in these 
 three sonnets the falsetto note is strong. The writers 
 seem conscious of the discredit that long attached to 
 the sonnet as a kind of Italian ' foible,' and alarmed lest 
 effeminacy might be imputed to them for ' stooping ' to 
 models which Waller and Dryden and Pope had ignored. 
 The Wartons were thus, it may be said, the first writers 
 of the century to devote express cultivation to the sonnet. 
 Those by Thomas on Winslade, Milton, The Biver Lodon, 
 Bathing, and Dugdale's Monasticon won the praise of 
 Hazlitt and Lamb ; and Coleridge also praised them, 
 though he regarded them rather as masterly likenesses of 
 the Greek tTnypn/^/iinra than sonnets in the strictest sense. 
 The Wartons handed on the torch to Thomas Eussell 
 (1762-1788), a scholar of Winchester, Avho studied our 
 earlier poetry with an enthusiasm inspired by his master 
 (Joseph Warton), and gave promise of an exquisite talent, 
 as is sufficiently demonstrated by his sonnet Lemnos, the 
 subject being of course Philoctetes : 
 
 ' On tliis lone islo, wliose in^'<;'c<l rocks aHViglit 
 
 The cautious pilot, ten icvolvinj; years 
 
 (jJreat I'iuan's son, unwonted erst to tears, 
 
 "NV(')it o"er liis wountl : alike t'acli rollin;; li^lit 
 
 i)i heaven he watehed, and 1. lamed its lingering Might ; 
 
 By day the sea-mew, screaming round his cave, 
 
 Drove sluniher from his eyes ; the chilling wave 
 
 And savage howlings chased his dreams hy night. 
 
 Hope still was his : in each low breeze that sighed 
 
 Through his rude grot he heard a coming oar, 
 
 In each white cloud a coming sail he spied ; 
 
 Nor seldom listen'd to the fancied roar 
 
 < )f (Eta's torrents, or the hoarser tide 
 
 'J'li;it ]>arts fam'd Trachi-< fmm tlie KulM)ic ^liore.'
 
 256 THE AGR OF JOHNSON. 
 
 This was written about 1785, and three years later 
 Russell's career was cut short at Bristol, where he died of 
 ])hthisis on July 31st, 1788, his Sonnets and Miscellaneous 
 Poems being published posthumously at Oxford in 1789. 
 Amono- Russell's admirers were Landor and Wordsworth, 
 whose own sonnet on Philoctetes does not compare too 
 favourably with the above. Russell forms an interesting- 
 link between the Wartons and William Lisle Bowles, who 
 was born in the same year (1762) and began sonnet- writing 
 about the same time. 
 
 A fitting place may be found between Gray and Cowj^er 
 for Christopher Smart (1722-1771), as 
 Christopher Smart exponent of metrical technique in 
 
 (1722-1771). , '■ .^. ^, 
 
 whose composition there were some 
 
 elements of poetical genius. Born near Tunbridge on 
 April 11th, 1722, the son of a land steward, Smart as a lad 
 gained the patronage of the Duchess of Cleveland, and was 
 sent to Pembroke College, Cambridge, of which society he 
 became a fellow in 1745. He took part in founding a 
 university magazine. The Student, and rubbed shoulders 
 with sucii wits and clever craftsmen in verse as Thomas 
 Warton, Bonnell Thornton, and George Colman. Forfeiting 
 his fellowship by marriage, he was allured to London and 
 became ' a hackney ' in the employ of the bookseller, John 
 Newbery. For him he did a lot of loose and contempt- 
 ible magazine work, in which, however, Smart's neatness 
 and deftness of workmanship is constantly revealed. In 
 1752 he brought out a volume of Poems on Several Oc- 
 casions, containing a georgic. The Hop Garden, in which he 
 describes the beauties of his native county of Kent. The 
 next ten vears were spent miserably in compilation for 
 Newbery, Rolt, Gardener, and other booksellers, and, in 
 1763, for the second time in his life Smart was shut up in 
 Bedlam, where his grand poem called Somj to David was
 
 CHRISTOPHER SMART. 257 
 
 written. Johnson visited Smart in the asylnni and gave a 
 pithy account of the poet's condition. He concluded that 
 he ought never to have been sliut up. ' His infirmities were 
 not noxious to society. He insisted ui^on people praying 
 with him, and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as with any- 
 one else. Another charge was that he did not love clean 
 linen ; and I have no passion for it.' That same autumn 
 his Song to David was published in a thin cpiarto (1763). 
 Smart died in the ' Rules ' of the King's Bench Prison in 
 May, 1771, Avithout producing anything approaching in 
 excellence the ' gloi'ious,' im2)etuous stanzas which close 
 that poem : 
 
 * Glorious tlie sun in mid career : 
 C41orious tli' assembled lires appear ; 
 
 Glorious the comet's train : 
 Glorious the trumpet and alarm ; 
 Glorious th' almighty stretclied-out arm ; 
 
 Cilorious til' enraptured main : 
 
 ' Glorious the northern lights astream ; 
 ( florious the song, when God 's the tlieme ; 
 
 Glorious the thunder's roar : 
 Glorious liosanna from the den ; 
 Glorious the catholic amen ; 
 
 Glorious the martvr's gore. ' 
 
 Smart seems to have been afflicted with religious mania, 
 and he developed a strong evangelical, if not a method- 
 istical strain. His profound feeling for the beauty of the 
 poems of the Hebrew psalmist is combined in the Song 
 with an intense fervour and a tendency to mystical en- 
 thusiasm in which he now and again appears to anticipate 
 Blake ; his poem is at the same time marred by the obtru- 
 sion from time to time (as in Blake) of a suggestion of the 
 grotesque, and also by the somewhat forced introduction of 
 Christian colouring. This defect is exaggerated to such 
 an extent in the version of the Paalms of David which he
 
 258 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 published in 1765 that the significance of the Hebrew 
 psahns is bhirred by the prominence given to the New 
 Testament matter. In his metrical psalmody Smart fre- 
 quently recurs to the metre of the Song to David, which is 
 indeed a favourite one among the old psalmodists ; but he 
 has recourse to all kinds of measures, iambic, trochaic, and 
 even anapaestic — his Psalm cocmv. being in the metre of 
 Cowper's Selkirk. Smart also wrote a number of hymns, 
 some of which are fine examples of devotional feeling, 
 touched but rarely, however, with the note, almost of 
 sublimity, which leaps from stanza to stanza of the Song 
 to David. This poem has elements of real greatness, but 
 it has been absurdly described as a portent, or extravag- 
 antly praised as ' the only great accomplished poem of the 
 eighteenth century.' ^ Every great poem is necessarily 
 ' accomplished' — does not the word noiTjf^ia imply the accom- 
 plishment of the best words in the best order? To say 
 that this result is achieved more completely in the Song to 
 David than in The Castle of Indolence, or Gray's Elegy, or 
 Yardley Oak, or The Cotter's Saturday Night, or Tiger, Tiger 
 burning bright, all of which are poems of the eighteenth 
 centui-y, is an injustice both to students of the eighteenth 
 century and to Smart himself, for in the end no greater 
 disservice can be rendered to a reputation than by exag- 
 gerated over-praise. To call the Sovg to David a ' portent 
 of originality ' is equally misleading. 
 
 From Addison's The Spacious Firmament on. High (1712), 
 through Watts's Onr God, ovr Help in Ages Past,- and 
 
 ^ The opinion of D. G. Rossetti : there are ' few episodes in onr 
 literary history more interesting tlian this of tlie wretched hook- 
 seller's hack, with his mind thrown oft' its l)alance by drink and 
 poverty,' rising from the de2)ths of his misery to such a lofty pitch 
 of poetic excellence. 
 
 ^ Modified by Wesley to God, our Help.
 
 CHRISTOPHER SMART — WILLIAM COWPER. 259 
 
 Jesus shall reign where'er the Sun (1719), down to Sir 
 Robert Grant's Worship the Kuifj, the eighteenth century 
 was constantly occupied with the study of and versifica- 
 tion of the psalms. Vigour of rhythm and true poetical 
 sympathy and feeliug were frequently imparted to these 
 versions ; and when we reflect how these equalities must 
 have been intensified by the religious fervour which 
 culminated about the middle of the century, and which 
 produced hymns so rich in devotional beauty as Jesu, Lover 
 of my Sold (1740), and the later masteqiieces of Cowper 
 and of Toplady, we shall have no difficulty whatever in 
 tracing the different elements which went to the comi^osi- 
 tion of the Somj to David, justly characterized as a grand 
 outburst of devotional feeling. 
 
 William Cowper, the best of English letter-writers and 
 the most important poet in England be- 
 
 ^^ aSl'-S/' ' ^^^^^^ ^^1'® ^""^ ^^'® illustrious group 
 headed bv Wo I'ds worth, was born at 
 Berkhampstead in November, 1731, being the sou of the 
 rector, John Cowper (chaplain of George II. and nephew 
 of Earl Cowper J.' His mother, the daughter of a good 
 Norfolk family, died when he was six : her memory some 
 forty years later was embalmed in one of the most affect- 
 inof tributes that ever came from the heart of a son. At a 
 school in Bedfordshire the boy was cruelly bullied. ' I 
 well remember,' he relates of his particular tyrant, 'being 
 afraid to lift my eyes upon him higher than his knees, and 
 I knew him better by his shoe-buckles than by any other 
 part of his dress.' At ten he was placed at Westminster, 
 where Warren Hastings, Lloyd, Churchill, and Colman 
 were among his schoolfellows. With the three last and 
 Bonnell Thornton he afterwards joined in the frolics of the 
 'Nonsense Club.' The members piqued themselves upon 
 ' The name was pronounced as Cooper.
 
 260 THE AGE OF JOHNSON'. 
 
 their clevei-ness at impromptus, crambo-verses, and the 
 like ; these exercises may have aided Cowper in acquiring 
 that elegant neatness and dexterity in 'refractory rhyming' 
 which is so distinctive of his work. In the execution of 
 the difficult trifles called ' occasional verse ' he came to excel 
 all his contemporaries, and, indeed, he forms an important 
 link in this class of literature between Swift and Prior and 
 Praed and Thackeray. More than a dozen of his pieces 
 figure in the Lyra Elegantianim. 
 
 But at the best the rough life at Westminster ill-suited 
 Cowper's timid, sensitive disposition, and he left the place 
 with a rooted horror of the jniblic school system. To this 
 feeling he was in 1784 to give forcible expression in his 
 metrical indictment of the public school system entitled 
 Tirocinia in, or a Review of Schools. His plea for the private 
 tutor is vigorous and far-seeing, but one-sided. Of the 
 public school he sees only the perils, emulation ' engen- 
 dering hate,' brutal manners, the loss of the sacred inti- 
 macies of home. Posterity has not paid much heed to his 
 warnings, but every passage in this poem deserves weighing, 
 and wise men will especially regard the couplet : 
 
 ' Tlie iiule will «cuttie through -with ease enough, 
 (h-eat schools suit hest the sturily and the rough.' 
 
 CowjK'r was articled to an attorney in 1752 and called to 
 the bar two years later ; but he never practised. For a 
 time he plunged into gaiety and frivolity, wrote clever 
 essays for the magazines, and qualified himself by London 
 experience as a clubbable man. In the meantime he im- 
 proved himself as a scholar, especially by the study of 
 Homer and Horace. Moreover, under the influence of a 
 pretty cousin, the daughter of his uncle Ashley Cowper, 
 he became for the moment a fop : the lady's father, how- 
 ever, frowned upon the notion of such a match, and Cowper
 
 WILLIAM COWPER. 261 
 
 submitted with meekness. His relatives were by this time 
 anxious to make him some provision, and they succeeded 
 in procuring him a nomination to the post of Clerk of the 
 Journals of the House of Lords ; but the ordeal of qualify- 
 ing by examination proved more than his mistrustful spirit 
 could stand, and after fiitile attempts at suicide, the 
 sequel of a return in redoubled force of morbid images to 
 his mind, he was placed in a mad-house at St. Albans, 
 whence he emerged after eighteen months' sojourn in 1765, 
 for the time at least completely cured. During his delirium 
 he had been haunted by a sense of sin and visions of the 
 wrath to come. The experience tinctured his mind with a 
 profound religious melancholy, from which he could rarely 
 altogether escape ; and the impressions of the next few 
 vears, spent among the pastures and willows of the Ouse 
 valley, tended to deepen rather than to mitigate the ultra- 
 puritanic gloom of a too-despairing creed. Just at first, 
 however, a bright gleam is cast upon his existence. On 
 leaving St. Albans, he proceeded to Cambridge, and thence, 
 with a view to strictly economic living, to Huntingdon ; 
 there he met a local clergyman, the Eev. Morley Uuwin, 
 and his wife, Mary. ' Their name is Unwin,' he writes in 
 October, 1765, 'the most agreeable people imaginable; 
 quite sociable and as free from the ceremonious civility of 
 country gentlefolks as any I ever met with. They treat 
 me more like a near relation than a stranger, and their 
 house is always open to me. The old gentleman carries 
 me to Cambridge in his chaise. He is a man of learning 
 and good sense, and as simple as parson Adams. His wife 
 has a very uncommon understanding, has read much to 
 excellent purpose, and is more polite than a duchess.' He 
 was so charmed with their society that he became after a 
 short interval the inmate of their house — to the expenses 
 of which he thenceforth contributed at a moderate rate.
 
 262 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 His spirits revived under their influence and that of the 
 peaceful life with which they encompassed him. The 
 manner is best delineated in his own self-revealing words. 
 'Huntingdon, Oct. 20, 1766. ... As to amusements, I 
 mean what the Avorld calls such, we have none. The place, 
 indeed, swarms with them, and cards and dancing are the 
 professional business of almost all the gentle inhabitants 
 of Huntingdon. We refuse to take part in them or to be 
 accessories to this way of murdering our time, and by so 
 doing have acquired the name of Methodists. Having told 
 you how we do not spend our time, I will next say how we 
 do. We breakfast commonly between eight and nine ; till 
 eleven we read either the Scripture or the sermons of some 
 faithful preacher of those holy mysteries ; at eleven we 
 attend divine service, which is performed here twice every 
 day ; and from twelve to three we separate and amuse our- 
 selves as we please. During that interval I either read in 
 my own aj^artment or walk or ride or work in the garden. 
 We seldom sit an hour after dinner, but if the weather 
 permits adjourn to the garden, where, with Mrs. Unwin 
 and her son, I generally have the pleasure of religious 
 conversation till tea-time. If it rains or is too windy for 
 walking, we either converse within doors or sing some 
 hymns of Martin's collection, and by the help of Mrs. 
 Unwin's harpsichord make up a tolerable concert in which 
 our hearts, I hope, are the best and most musical per- 
 formers. After tea we sally forth to walk in good earnest. 
 Mrs. Unwin is a good walker, and we have generally 
 travelled about four miles before we see home again. 
 When the days are short we make this excursion in the 
 former part of the day between church-time and dinner. 
 At night we read and converge as before till supj^er, and 
 commonly finish the evening either with hymns or a sermon; 
 and last of all the family are called to prayer. I need not
 
 WILLIAM COWPEK- 26'S 
 
 tell you that sucli a life as this is cousistent with the 
 utmost cheerfulness ; accordingly we are all hap])y, and 
 dwell together in unity as brethren. Mrs. Unwiu has 
 almost a maternal affection for me, and I have something 
 very like a filial one for her, and her son and I are brothers.' 
 The little hermitage of pious souls is depicted with a 
 loving fidelity, and lingers in the memory like the sanctu- 
 aries of Little Gridding or Chevreuse. But under the 
 most i^romising conditions it is doubtful if Cowper's 
 cheerfulness could have been very long maintained. He 
 had been growing morbidly introspective and suspicious 
 of base motives. ' Mv dear cousin,' he wrote to Mrs. 
 Cowper, April 8rd, 1767, 'You sent my friend Unwin 
 home to us charmed with your kind reception of him, 
 and with evei'ything he saw at the Park. Shall I 
 once more give you a peep into my vile and deceitful 
 heart ? What motive do you think lay at the bottom 
 of my conduct, when I desired him to call upon you ? I 
 did not suspect at first that pride and vainglory had any 
 share in it, but quickly after I had recommended the visit 
 to him, I discovered in that fruitful soil the very root of 
 the matter. You know I am a stranger here ; all such are 
 susjDected characters ; unless they bring their credentials 
 with them. To this moment, I believe, it is matter of 
 speculation in the jilace, whence 1 came and to whom I 
 belong. Though my friend, you may suppose, before I was 
 admitted an inmate here was satisfied that T was not a 
 mere vagabond, and has since that time received moi'e 
 convincing proofs of my xitii)isihilli\j, yet I could not resist 
 the opportunity of furnishing him with ocular demonstra- 
 tion of it by introducing him to one of my most splendid 
 connections ; that when he hears me called " That fellow 
 Cowper," which has happened heretofore, he may be able 
 upon unquestionable evidence to assei't my gentlemanhood
 
 264 THE AGE OF JOHNSON, 
 
 aud relieve me from the weight of that opprobrious appella- 
 tion. O Pride, Pride ! it deceives with the subtlety of a 
 serpent, aud seems to walk erect, though it crawls upon 
 the earth.' 
 
 Unhai^pily, Mr. Uuwiu died in 1767, and Cowper ac- 
 companied Mrs. Unv/in from Huntingdon to the ueigh- 
 Ijouring Olney, where he became subjected to the master 
 influence of a good-hearted but stern and somewhat in- 
 quisitorial Puritan, John Newton, who gradually acquired 
 over him all the ascendency of a spiritual director. This 
 influence, too, surely tended to darken Cowjier's horizon, for 
 Newton was a Calvinist of the self-accusing type. With 
 a mind that turned lightly under congenial influence to all 
 innocent aspects of things mundane, the poet was fully 
 capable of deriving a gentle and tranquil happiness from 
 the passing hour, from the minutiae of ordinary English 
 home life ; but he was also deplorably prone to moods of 
 depression, in which, by the prolonged contemplation of 
 the unseen world and the infinite, he suffered great mental 
 anguish. Newton valued and exploited this side of the 
 man to the infinite loss of the poet. Cowper began by 
 endeavouring to respond in full to Newton's demands, and 
 he wrote the series of Olney Hymns,^ including the well- 
 
 ' Cowper is, perliajjis, the most considerable poet who lias written 
 hymns. He did little to develop hymn-structnre, adopting the 
 forms current in his day (most of his hymns are in CM.) and the 
 severe canons of Newton ; but if his mode is not distinctive, the 
 plaintive tenderness and rehnement of the hymns are all his own. 
 The spiritual ideas of the Olncij Hi/Dins (1779) are similar to 
 Newton's— ])eace and thankful contemplation of an assured faith : 
 
 ' God is His own inteipreter, 
 And He will make it jdain ; ' 
 
 though a few are informed with sad yearning and questioning (1, 9', 
 34, 45), or dark spiritual conHict (37, 39). Harl; imj Soul! it is: 
 the Lord (18), is perlia])s the best known, thongh it has a rival in
 
 AAILLIAM COWPER. '265 
 
 known God muvts in a )iiyf<feri>iiix Way. But his system 
 had not the vigour to react against the sense of doom with 
 which Newton had momentarily infected him. His 
 malady became worse than ever, and, but for the maternal 
 care of Mrs. Unwiu, whom Cowper for a brief period 
 during 1772 contemplated marrying, the complaint would 
 probably have proved fatal to him. 
 
 While still very weak and mentally ailing, literary 
 occupation, in which the Unwins encouraged him, gradually 
 induced a happier frame of mind. His correspondence 
 was for a time the staple of his production. Here he 
 avoids the deep wounds which religious gloom had inflicted, 
 and reveals himself again, rather on the bright, clever, 
 affectionate, and merry side. ' While I am in pursuit of 
 pretty images, or a pretty way of expressing them, I forget 
 everything that is irksome, and, like a boy that plays 
 truant, determine to avail myself of the present oppor- 
 tunity to be amused and to put by the disagreeable 
 recollection that after all I must go home and be whipped.' 
 Apart from religion he is fondest perhaps of writing about 
 the country and his diversions, his friends and his pets : 
 but he often shows himself an admirable critic, as where 
 he expresses the desire to dust old Johnson's jacket for 
 his treatment of Milton until his pension jingled in his 
 pocket (Johnson, he said, had plucked one or two of the 
 most beautiful feathers out of his muse's wing and 
 trampled them under his great foot); and he loves to 
 enliven a friend wdtli a jeu d' esprit in verse, such as the 
 trial between the eyes and nose for the proprietorship of 
 the spectacles, and the verdict to the eifect that when the 
 nose put his sj)ectacles on the eyes should be kept shut. 
 He seems to possess all the characteristics of supreme 
 
 Oh ! for a closer walk tvith <loil (1), a purely Englisli liynm o 
 deep beauty, perfect structure and streiun-like cadeucc.
 
 266 JHE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 epistolary art — a peculiar, uucuuscious egotism, to which is 
 yet linked a distinct personal charm, an exceptional gift of 
 improvisation, together with a ready flow and spontaneity 
 of phrase — and to possess these qualities so happily blended 
 as to elevate him with little question to a sphere where he 
 shines as a letter-writer with scarcely less lustre than a 
 Cicero or a Mme. de Scviguc. In these charming letters 
 of Cowper, moreover, are undoubtedly to be sought the 
 true sources of his poetic endowment — the affectionate 
 rallying, the gentle mischievousness, the familiarity which 
 despises nothing of any interest as too humble and too 
 little, side by side with a quiet pathos and with a moral 
 purport deep and strong. 
 
 From his letters and his horticultural diversions Cowper 
 gradually betook himself to verse. For subjects he was 
 content with the life that surrounded him, with its round 
 of small pleasures, surprises, and homely details. The 
 postboy, the newspaper, the feeding of cattle, the winter 
 morning's walk, the shower, the nightingale, the knitting- 
 needles or the stockings, the toast and the tea urn : these 
 are his themes.' What Poj^e is to our fashionable town 
 
 ' He utilizes for his verse any occurrence, however trivial. He 
 inadvertently snaps i)^ the head of a rose, liea\y with rain-drops, 
 and the outcome is 'I'/tr Rose. A cat is accidentally shut up in a 
 drawer, and we get the delightful and humorous Retired Cat. A 
 viper is found in his garden ; puss and her kittens inspect him, 
 and Cow[)er kills liini ; there is nothing else to tell, but the result 
 is the inimitable Cohihriad. Prose versions of most of these 
 incidents appear in the letters, that of the Cohihriad, for example, 
 in a letter to Unwin, dated ^Vugust 3rd, 1782. As regards skill in 
 adapting his metre to his theme, Cowper has rarely been surpassed ; 
 and one knows not whether to admire most his handling of the 
 trochaics in Boadieca, of the anapa'sts in The Poplars are Fcll'd, 
 or / am Monarch of all I Survey, or the iambics in Toll for the 
 Brave, or The Nightingale and the Glow-ivorni. He wrote few 
 sonnets, but one To Mrs. Univin is an acknowledged masterpiece,
 
 WILLIAM COWPER. 267 
 
 life, that to a great extent is Cowper to our domestic aud 
 social life. At first his poems were short pieces, frequently 
 fables, in which his robins and goldfinches played a part, 
 nor did lie ever stray very far beyond such themes. He 
 was a quick and skilful versifier and a very keen observer, 
 so that it is truly said that there is more genuine observa- 
 tion in Cowper than in all the fables of Glay.^ At the same 
 time he worked at these ' diversions ' with a minute care, 
 and was not satisfied until he had brought them the 
 nearest possible to perfection. To touch and retouch, he 
 says, ' though some writers boast of negligence, is the secret 
 of almost all good writing, especially verse. Whatever is 
 short should be nervous, masculine, and compact. Little 
 men are so, and little poems should be so.' In this gift of 
 refinement, as in the unaffected grace of his letters and his 
 feminine, if not quasi-morbid, sensitiveness and delicacy, 
 Cowper shows a very remarkable affinity to, or what Leigh 
 Hunt would call a kind of identity with, his greatest rival, 
 perhaps, as an English letter- writer, Edward Fitzgerald. 
 
 aud is inchided in The Golden Treasury as an unrivalled example 
 of intensity of i)athetic tenderness. Cowper's blank verse is 
 frequently mannered, l)ut he rose at times to comidete mastery. 
 
 ^ In the peculiarly difficult art of the fabulist, it will probably 
 be conceded that Cowper has never been rivalled — at least in 
 England. Besides The Kigldhiejule and the Gloic-wcrni he con- 
 trived such excellent fables as The Ravcv, The Poet, the Oyster 
 and the Soisitire Plant, and Pairitiff Time Antiripated. Kobert 
 Dodsley (1703-1764) compiled a volume of fables in 1761, the third 
 section of which is devoted to ' Fables Newly Invented.' A few of 
 these, in prose, such as The Toad and the Ejthemrron (which is 
 almost in the vein of Hans Andersen), are ^■ery good, but the 
 authorship is unknown. James Northcote (1746-1831), the painter, 
 who wrote some good fables, both in prose and verse, did not 
 publish until quite the close of his long life. Beattie and Wm. 
 Wilkie attempted a few fables in verse. Ed. Moore's Fables for 
 the Female Sex, in sprightly octo.syllabics, came out in 1744.
 
 w68 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 (Jowper's first jmblislied volume of verse appeared iu 
 1782. It contaiued Tah/c Talk, Conversafiov, Truth, E.r- 
 posiidatioti, Wqx', Charity, Bet ire lueiit, and The Progress of 
 Error. It atti'aeted little attention, for the poetry was of 
 too new a kind to be appreciated at once. Had it depended 
 upon his own initiative, the absence of encouragement 
 might have proved fatal to further production. His verses, 
 like those of La Fontaine, had to be bespoke. Happily, at 
 this juncture a charming fairy crossed his shadow in the 
 person of Lady Austen, and the charm of poetry had entire 
 possession of him during the next two years, 1783 and 1784.' 
 
 Lady Austen's lively sjiirits drove away the spirit of 
 melancholy. Cowper wrote songs which she set to music 
 and sung to the harpsichord. One evening in October, 
 1782, when he seemed depressed, she told him the story of 
 John Gilpin, as her nurse had related it to her ; next 
 morning at breakfast Cowjjer read them the legend in 
 versified form. In November it appeared in The Public 
 Advertiser. A well-known popular reciter saw its possibili- 
 ties ; it became ' town talk,' the general favourite it has 
 ever since remained. Cowper's ordinary humour is less 
 broad, but in Giljjin for once he lets himself go, and the 
 verses seem an echo of the peals of laughter that were 
 heard issuing from his bedroom on the night of its com- 
 position. He was urged and urged to write a sequel, but 
 wisely, most wisely abstained. The Task- (which is emin- 
 
 ' Tlie order of coinposition of Cowper's minor masterpieces was 
 a))proximately as follow: Boadicea, 1780; Goldfinch, 1780; Ad- 
 judged Case, 1780; Selkirk, 1781; Royal George, 1782; Gilpin, 
 October, 1782; Poplars, 1784; Ode to Apollo, 1787; Needless 
 Alarm, 1788: Dog and Water-Lily,!!^^ ; Receipt of ^[other's Pic- 
 ture, 1790; Yardley Oak, 1791; To Mary, 1793; Ca.^tarvay, 1799. 
 
 ■^ ' You can Avrite on anything,' said Lady Austen, when Cowper 
 asked her for a suljject for a blank-verse poem, 'take the sofa.' 
 Hence—' I sing the Sofa ' {The Tas-k, bk. i., 1. 1).
 
 WILLIAM rOWPKR. 269 
 
 eiitly readable, despite its prolixity, for it contains some of 
 Cowper's finest and most sensitive descTiptive passages), 
 imposed upon the poet bv Lady Austen in 1783, was pub- 
 lished in 1785, along with Tirocinium. Its success was 
 complete, and Cowper's reputation was established. Un- 
 happily a certain tension between Lady Austen and Mrs. 
 Unwin led to Cowper severing the tie with his Egeria. She 
 was saci-ificed on the altar of his old friendship. Cowper, 
 nevertheless, continued working hard at his version of the 
 Iliad, which finally appeared in 1791. In the meantime 
 he renewed frieudshi]i with his cousin, Lady Hesketh, who 
 furnished a comfortuble house for him and Mrs. Unwin at 
 Weston, near Olney. He was again attacked by liis malady, 
 and, after 1793, the dejection which came in its train be- 
 came almost habitual. Yet in flashes, lighting uj) this de- 
 plorable gloom, he produced some exquisite poems, among 
 them the 'tender incomparable lament To Mary^ (which 
 Tennyson eotild never trust himself to read aloud) and 
 YarcUeij Oali, a poem Avith passages of almost Miltonic 
 grandeur and of Wordsworthian intimacy and charm. The 
 oak was described some fifty years later by Hugh Miller, 
 who makes this suggestive stroke of critical illustration : 
 ' If asked to illustrate that peculiar power which Cowper 
 possessed above all modern poets, of taking the most 
 stubborn and intractable words in tlie language, and 
 bending them with all ease round his thinking, so as to 
 fit its every indentation and irregularity of outline (as the 
 ship carpenter adjusts the stubborn planking grown flex- 
 ible in his hand to the exact mould of the vessel), I would 
 at once instance some parts of Yardley Oak.' The under 
 side to this wonderful skill in phrase-moulding was 
 Cowper's fondness for long Latin derivatives, polysyllables 
 such as vortiginous or stercoraceous, excoriate or incom- 
 patible, which few poets would think of introducing into
 
 270 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 verse, and his occasional weakness for ornate periphrases, 
 ' levelled tube ' for gun and ' fragrant lymph ' for tea, 
 which is almost worthy of Armstrong's ' gelid cistern ' 
 (meaning ' cold tub '). 
 
 One of Cowper's last pieces. The Castaway (written the 
 year before his death), describes a seaman who has fallen 
 overboard in the course of Anson's voyage ; he struggles 
 to swim after the vessel, his comrades vainly throw ropes 
 to him, and the storm sweeps him away. In this the poet 
 sees a melancholy image of his own spiritual destiny. 
 Sainte-Beuve compares his malady justly with the vein of 
 insanity which existed in Rousseau,^ eternal reprobation 
 taking the place of the universal conspiracy by the fear of 
 which Rousseau was haunted. Mary Unwin died on 
 December 17th, 1796. He had nursed her tenderly, and 
 after her death he relapsed into a kind of wretched apathy, 
 from which he was released by death on Ajjril 25tli, 1800. 
 
 The liberal and humanitarian tendency which dis- 
 tinguished the last cjuarter of the eighteenth century 
 manifested itself in Cowper long before it reached the 
 episcopal benches of the House of Lords. Tenderness 
 for the unhappy rendered Cowj^er's shrinking spirit 
 bold. Slavery, oppression, war, injustice in all its forms 
 were his abhorrence. He preached emancipation before 
 Wilberforce. In 1783 he wrote the grand passage of 
 aspiration in which he predicted the fall of the Bastille 
 as symbolizing the tyranny of the ancien regime. His 
 verses mark the commencement of j)olitical poetry in 
 England, and in the cause which inspired "Wordsworth, 
 
 ' Rousseau himself, after reading a Jaiisenist book, was rendered 
 miserable by tlie tbought of hell. His life, like Cowper's, was sur- 
 rounded by gentle companionship. Cowper had his hares. Rousseau 
 spent hours at tiie Charmettes taming pigeons. The feeling of 
 both for landscape was s»6-Alpine.
 
 WILLIAM COWPER. 271 
 
 Coleridge, and Shelley ; and similarly he is the first modern 
 poet of fraternity, a harbinger in a measure of Burns, of 
 Whitman, and of Tolstoi. But Cowper is still more in- 
 teresting, perhaps, not as an initiator at all, but as con- 
 tinuing the work of Thomson and expressing with more 
 art, if less original vigour, the feeling for nature whicli 
 was to become the distinctive mark of English poetry. He 
 envisaged the beauty of the fields and woodland in a 
 manner veiy different from Thomson. He lacked the 
 vivid touch of Burns, he was not a botanist like Gray ; he 
 was a stranger to the rapture of Wordsworth, to th« 
 ecstasy of Keats. There is something of the rusticating 
 city scholar about his aspect. Hazlitt characterizes it 
 rather harshly as the finicalness of the private gentleman, 
 who looks at nature over clipped hedges from well- swept 
 garden walks. Delicate to fastidiousness, he is glad to get 
 back after a romantic adventure with crazy Kate, a party 
 of gipsies, or a little child on the common, to the drawing'- 
 room and the ladies again, to the sofa and the tea-kettle. 
 As with Eichardson, the society of sympathetic ladies 
 became a necessary stimulus to him. But Hazlitt's ap- 
 preciation, searching though it could not fail to be, is 
 tinged with just a little malice, such as the lettered Bohe- 
 mian would be apt to harbour against the pious recluse. 
 Cowper would certainly have never preferred a claim to be 
 ranked as a romanticist, a poet of the wilderness. His 
 appeal was, and will be, most direct to the increasing class 
 of bourgeois that is refined by poetry and elevated by 
 liberal and humanitarian feeling. 
 
 As to the poet's character, it is traceable in his poems, but 
 is more clearly defined in his letters. There we perceive the 
 fair outline of a good man and a sincere, remarkably free 
 from any form of cant or affectation, deeply religious, de- 
 signing to do good by his verse and devoted to his craft.
 
 2^2 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Great as was his power as an observer of external nature, 
 liis insight into the liuman heart was even more pene- 
 trating ; and akin to this was his morbid power of self- 
 reproach, which reminds the student of Eacine, or more 
 particularly perhaps of G-resset, whose light vein in his 
 famous Vert Vert has so close an affinity with Cowper's 
 own. The pitiful view that he took of his own spiritual 
 misery is described with a passion that is of the nature of 
 the intenser school of poetry in the following passage, 
 which is also an example of the eloquent use which he 
 could make of blank verse as employed in his longer 
 poems : 
 
 ' I was a stricken deer that left tlie lierd 
 liOiig since : witli many an arrow dee]> infixed 
 oNIy panting side was charged, \\lien I with(hxn\ 
 To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. 
 Tlieie was I found l)y one who Imd Himself 
 J>een hurt hy the archers. In His side He hore, 
 And in His hands and feet, tlie cruel scars.' ^ 
 
 The same intense feeling is perceptible in his beautiful 
 liymn, Harh, my Soul ! it is the Lord. The j)athos of his 
 declining years, his devotion to poesy, the peculiar tender- 
 ness of much of his verse could not fail to appeal to the 
 Brownings as strongly as to Tennyson, and the affection 
 that he inspired (and is always inspiring) is exquisitely 
 rendered in Mrs. Browning's Cowper's Grave : 
 
 ' He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's high vocation. 
 And bow the meekest Christian down in meeker adoration ; 
 Nor ever shall he be, in praise, by wise or good forsaken ; 
 Named softly as the household name of one whom God hath 
 taken.' 
 
 The calm process of transition in English poetry, which 
 the scholarly deliberation of Gray might have matured in 
 
 ' The rff.?/.-, iii., ' The (iarden,' line 108. A first-rate C'o»corffo/;ce 
 to Coivjicr by John Neve appeared in 1887.
 
 JAMES MACPHERSON. 273 
 
 about a ceutury aud a luilf, was strangely hastened and 
 
 complicated, and on the whole no doubt intensified, by two 
 
 strange jjheuomena — the Ossianie compilations of James 
 
 Macphersou, otherwise known as an 
 James Macphersou i---i -i ■, ,^ n 
 
 ,p„^ .Jq„ historical comi^iler, and the marvellous 
 
 fifteenth-century forgeries of Chatter- 
 ton. Between the publication of Clarissa and the ap^^ear- 
 ance of Scott and Byron, our sympathetic critics abroad 
 discovered no event in our literary annals commensurate' 
 in importance with the apparition of Fitnjal in 1762, fol- 
 lowed by that of Temora in 1768. The ground had been 
 prepared to some extent by the publication of Kousseau's 
 Nonvelle Helo'ise early in 1761 ; from whatever cause the 
 enthusiasm for the Ossianie poems in Western Eurojie was 
 intense.' 
 
 Well-disposed critics were ready to acquiesce in Mac- 
 phersou's claim that he Avas doing for the Celtic oral and 
 written legendary ballads aud songs what Percy was doing 
 for the old English. Just in the same way, it was main- 
 tained, the traditional poetry of the Finns, the Icelanders, 
 aud the Germans had been fused into the Kalevala, the 
 Eddas, and the Niebelungenlied. Scholars of a more 
 sceptical turn refused to believe that, except in the possible 
 case of a few fragmentary lyrics, Macphersou had used 
 any really ancient material at all. 
 
 ' Onfikoi, was translated into Italian hy Cesarotti, and also into 
 Sjianisli, rare honours for English 1)ooks. In (Jerniany there was 
 an (Jssianic delirium, O.s.siaii being rankeil with Shakespeare and 
 Homer. Os-siaii, it will he remembered, drove Homer from Werther's 
 heart. In France the poems were studied and translated by no 
 less a man than Turgot. Napoleon himself shared the rage for the 
 Poesie dii Nord, and stamped imaginative work with his appi'Dval 
 as onsianlqiic. The shaping influence of the ' Celtic Homer' upon 
 Herder, upon Byron, but above all upon Chateaubriand, is well 
 established. There are several English metrical versions. 
 
 T
 
 274 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 The violent clamour of contemporary scepticism, the 
 outrageous contempt for everything Ossianic expressed by 
 Johnson, seem to have been occasioned by Macpherson's 
 vaulting ambition. When he began in 1760 by merely 
 publishing a few random Fragments, few denied that the 
 pieces might be genuine versions (more or less) of rude 
 Graelic poetry. When he collected a large number of these 
 waifs and strays of Highland poetry and, under the notion 
 that he was dealing with fragments of a regular epic, 
 assigned to them a like antiquity and gave them a unity 
 which was not implicit in them ; when he gave these a 
 regular order and, rendering them into a free and polished 
 paraphrase, presented the six books of Flngal and the eight 
 books of Temora as the substance (in prose) of an authentic 
 epic poem composed by Ossian about a.d. 250, and handed 
 down from mouth to mouth for fifty generations : then 
 there burst forth (especially from London, where Scots 
 were at the lowest ebb of poi^ularity) a ferocious and in- 
 flamed attack upon the translator's honesty, in the course 
 of which, as scholar after scholar imbrued, it became more 
 and more difficult to discern the truth. 
 
 It can scarcely be denied by anyone that such genuine 
 Ossianic verse as existed was unfortunate in the epoch of 
 its translation. The prose of Macpherson's rendering is 
 tumid, his language vague, and his imagery (drawn from 
 the elementary forces of nature) inexpressibly monoton- 
 ous. He not only makes absurd blunders in his chrono- 
 logy, but indulges in speculation and in poetic licence 
 to an extravagant extent. On the other hand, he 
 emerges from the investigations instituted by the Highland 
 Society in 1805, not as an impostor, like Psalmanazar 
 or Ireland, but merely as a careless, complacent, and 
 irresponsible editor. His knowledge of Erse was super- 
 ficial, and his attempts, like those of Pope at editing
 
 JAMES MACPHEESON. 275 
 
 Sbakesj^eare, or those of some of tlie early Irish and 
 dialect scholars, have been largely discredited by more 
 thorough and accurate work. Little doubt remains, how- 
 ever, that his work embodied as a nucleus at least some of 
 those ancient ballads, ' the vain, tempting, lying worldly 
 histories concerning the Tuatha de Danaun, and warriors, 
 and champions, and Fingal, the sou of Cumhall, with his 
 heroes,' which a bishop of the sixteenth century lamented 
 that the superstitious Highlanders preferred to their Kirk 
 books. Such a conclusion as this relieves one of the 
 necessity of regarding the poems in their entirety as the 
 work of one man such as Macpherson, whose capacity is 
 open to test in the light of his accredited productions both 
 in prose and verse. More probable in almost every respect 
 is the theory that Macpherson worked up into form, and a 
 certain coherency of arrangement, fragments already in 
 existence, some of which may have been very old. A 
 valuable commentary upon the poems as a whole is sup- 
 l^lied by Wordsworth, who says : ' Whatever men may now 
 think of them, there cannot be a doubt that these mountain 
 monotones took the heart of Europe with a new emotion 
 and prepared it for that passion for mountains which has 
 since possessed it.' ^ 
 
 From about 1760 to 1765 and onward (it is well to bear 
 in mind the date of the Beliques, 1765, as a mnemonic 
 point, though its publication was quite as much the resv/t 
 as the cause of the renewed interest in old ballads and 
 songs) a passion set in for the exhumation of all kinds of 
 old metrical literature. The corollary of this passion for 
 archaic poetry was a mania for forging. The literary 
 forger has little to fear save from scholars at once 
 eminent and thoroughly expert; and the rarity of such 
 specialists was taken advantage of to the full by Chattertou 
 
 ^ Poetic Interpretation of Nature, p. 223.
 
 276 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 aud Ireland, as it had beeu already (to a mueli milder 
 extent) by Kamsay, Maqjliersou, aud Percy.' From this 
 point of view, then, there is nothing so very remarkable 
 in the appearance of a series of forgeries such as the 
 Rowley Poems ; nor is it difficult to understand that ' Thos. 
 Rowley ' should have imposed upon contemporary critics. 
 Philologists who have made special study of the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth century English have not abounded either 
 before or since Chattertou's time. In the case of these 
 particular forgeries the quality of the poetry is to be 
 admired. But the chronology of Chattertou's career con- 
 stitutes the marvel which time aud the perspective of 
 things seem only to increase. 
 
 Thomas Chatterton, the posthumous son of a jjoor school- 
 master, was born at Bristol on November 
 
 Thomas Chatterton oaj-i i^reo a i. • i i i 
 
 ,,_„., ,^^„, 20th, 1752. At SIX he was regarded as 
 
 backward, at seven he went to the Blue- 
 coat School at Bristol, but was there only taught the rudi- 
 ments. At ten he read a number of historical folios, but 
 his favourite diversion was to pore over heraldry and old 
 writing in a solitary atti(i. There, too, while still eleven, 
 he would seem to have invented the glossary of obsolete 
 (and heterogeneous) words with which he bestrewed the 
 pretended ancient poems. In this same year 1764 some 
 satiric poems by him appeared in Bristol journals. In 
 1765 he first conceived the Rowley romance — a cycle of 
 poems (in a novel ten-line stanza) illustrating the Norman 
 Conquest. He wrote these in a quaint, disgiusiug jargon 
 of his own, but in order to excite more interest in them 
 he claimed them as the work of Thomas Rowlie, a con- 
 
 ' The succession of exposures made people so incredulous that, 
 when Sir John Fenn pubhshed the tifteenth-century Paston Letters 
 from authentic MSS. , few people Avere convinced of their genuine- 
 ness.
 
 THOMAS CIIATTERTOX. 277 
 
 tcmporarv of Lydgate. In July, 1767, he left school 
 aud was apprenticed to an attorney, his hours being 
 from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. all the year round. For the 
 next fifteen mouths, notwithstanding, he pursued his 
 study of antiquities and of old English poetry with 
 passionate ardour. Towards the close of 1768 he showed 
 to George Catcott, a Bristol tradesman of antiquarian 
 tastes, several of the ' Rowley parchments,' containing 
 ' antique ' poems, among them the noble Song to JEUa. 
 In March, 1769, Chatterton wrote to the author of the 
 Anecdotes of Painting, Horace Walpole, inclosing among 
 other curious manuscripts The Byse of Peyncteynge y» 
 Etujlande. The author of this woi'k he described as 
 ' T. Eowlie ... a secular priest of St. John's [Bristol | ; 
 his merit as a biographer aud historiographer is great, as a 
 poet still greater . . . the person under whose patronage 
 they may appear to the world wiU lay the Englishman, the 
 antiquary, and the poet imder an eternal obligation.' 
 Walpole answered almost effusively, but when he learned 
 that his correspondent was a struggling attorney's clerk 
 he thought less of his find. He therefore sent Chatterton 
 some prudent advice, and after considerable delays, during 
 which the sensitive boy suffered anguish, he returned him 
 all his impers (August, 1769). Early in 1770 Chatter ton's 
 indenture Avas cancelled and a number of his poems were 
 Ijurned as trash by his master, the attorney. In April the 
 youthful poet set out for London with about five guineas 
 in his pocket. There, after writing for four months for the 
 leading magazines with varying but apparently diminish- 
 ing success, he began to lose heai't. He was especially 
 depressed when his Excelente Balade of Charitie was refused 
 by the Town and Country Magazine. His pride in refusing 
 help of every kind led to actual starvation, and during the 
 night of August 24th, 1770, having torn to atoms a large
 
 278 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 quantity of inainiscript, he poisoned himself in his Holborn 
 garret. His age was 17^ years. ' This is the most extra- 
 ordinary young man,' wrote the familiar biographer of 
 Parnassians, ' that has encountered my knowledge.' 
 
 Chatterton had read widely in Dryden, Pope, Goldsmith, 
 had studied Geoffrev of Monmouth and Holinshed, and 
 dipped fruitfully if not very deeply into Chaucer and 
 Spenser. From these he gleaned words and phrases ; but 
 the romantic vigour at which he aspired was all his own, 
 and by mei-ely transcribing the curious Rowley language 
 that he invented into the decent English tongue in which 
 he conceived his verse, Ave shall realize at once its modernity 
 and its claim to rank as poetry, immature and sufficiently 
 rude, but the rapid, spontaneous growth of a soil rich 
 in aesthetic impulse. lu his use of proper names and his 
 power of metric modulation Chatterton may well claim to 
 have been a pioneer who suggested much that Coleridge 
 only brought to a full fruition. Nor can it be denied that 
 there is a genuine lyric fire, a poetic energy, and above all 
 an intensity, remote from his contemporaries and suggestive 
 (as Cimabue in his antique and primitive manner is sug- 
 gestive of Giotto and Angelico) of Shelley^ and Keats. 
 A typical example of the wonderful appeal of Chatterton's 
 rhythm is in the fine song addressed to William the Con- 
 queror by the minstrel, invoking his mercy : 
 
 ' With pacing step tlic lion moves along, 
 William liis iron-Moven l)ow lie l)en(ls; 
 Witli might like to the rolling tlninder strong, 
 The lion in a roar his sprite fortlisends : 
 (!o slay the lion in his hlood-stained den, 
 15nt he thy arrow dry from blood of other men. 
 
 ' Chatterton's Prophecy contrasts well as regards sanity and 
 maturity with much of Shelley's rather childish political raving. 
 His letters, like his i)oetry, astound one hy their precocity.
 
 THOMAS CHATTERTON. 279 
 
 ' Swift from the thicket starts the stag away, 
 
 The couraciers as swift do after fly. 
 
 He leapeth high, he stands, he keeps at bay, 
 
 Bat meets the arrow, and eftsoons doth die. 
 
 Forslayen at thy feet let wikl beasts die. 
 
 Let tliy shafts drink their blood, yet do not brethren slay.' 
 
 Chatterton's verse seldom rises to this point of intrinsic 
 excellence ; the high, abiding quality in his poetry is much 
 rarer than some j^erfervid enthusiasts would have us believe.^ 
 Yet it is difficult to over-estimate the promise that was 
 blighted when this ' prodigy of genius ' was cut oft" in his 
 eighteenth year. The series of operations by which a boy 
 of fifteen gradually shaped the romance groi;ped about the 
 battle of Hastings, which he attributed to ' Thomas Rowlie,' 
 adding figure to figure and poem to poem, constitute a 
 marvel which it is almost impossible to exaggerate. As 
 forgeries the Rowley Poems have little to commend them, 
 for they abound iu anachronisms, some of which were 
 pointed out after a very cursory inspection by the scholar- 
 ship of Gray : as creative woi-ks of the youthful imagina- 
 tion, the poems are iu many respects quite unique. 
 
 An Elegy on William BecJcford (1770) was the only work 
 of Chatterton that appeared separately in his lifetime. 
 The Boivley Poems were collected and published by Thomas 
 Tyrwhitt in 1777, and Chatterton's Miscellanies in the 
 following year ; but it was not until 1875, in the Aldine 
 edition under the care of Skeat and Bell, that the poems of 
 Chatterton were adequately presented to the student. 
 
 The very name of Chatterton (as of a boy-martyr in the 
 
 1 The ciiief obstacle to the sustained reading of Chatterton is 
 due to tlie monotony of his images and his fondness for grandiose 
 terms and ejathets — Avhat Scott calls his ' tendency to mount the 
 fatal and easily recognized car of the son of Fingal.' But tlie 
 general dullness is unexpectedly relieved every now and again by 
 a phrase or a line of wihl, rare, lialf-artless beauty.
 
 280 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 sacred cause of Romance) excited intense enthusiasm in 
 Keats and afterwards in Rossetti. He also, to some ex- 
 tent, as we have seen, influenced Coleridge, who compares 
 with a February blossom : 
 
 ' Dristowa's bard, the Avondroiis boy. 
 
 An amaranth, which earth seemed scarce to own, 
 
 Blooming 'mid i)Overty's drear wintry waste.' 
 
 But of more immediate interest to us is the spell that 
 he cast upon the singular visionary (the 
 ^Vr^Tlsr/''' '''''^* original poet of 'our epoch) William 
 ''" ■ Blalve. That Blake's Poetical Sl-etches 
 should have appeared in 1783, and that his Somjs of 
 Innocence should have been written during 1787-9, is 
 perhaps one of the greatest anomalies in literary history. 
 The time seemed consecrated to Blair on Bhetoric, to 
 Darwin's Loves of the Plants, and to Glover and his 
 Athenaid. The influence of Pope and his Ars Poetica 
 was still outwardly supreme, and yet in 1783 (two years 
 before Cowper published his Tasli or Burns the Kilmarnock 
 edition of his Poems), at what seems a clearly impossible 
 date, appeared this privately-printed little volume of 
 Blake's Juvenilia, containing lyrics of such untrammelled 
 beauty as Whether on Idas shady Broir, the song How sweet 
 I roamed, written, it is said, in 1772, and not quite free 
 from blemish, but yet already suggesting fellowship with 
 Fletcher, and other numbers of almost ec^ual lyrical charm. 
 Suggestive as they were, however, of high poetic beauties, 
 the Poetic Sl-etches of 1 783 were completely eclipsed by the 
 'miraculous' Httle collection of 1789, the Songs of Inno- 
 cence. Some of these have the primitive sincerity of old 
 folk ditties ; others recall the bird-like melodies, the fresh 
 and delicious aubades of the Elizabethan lyrists ; while 
 others, again, reach a fuller note, grave and earnest, with a
 
 WILLIAM BLAKK. 2fil 
 
 grouudswell of sound that lias a large anticipation of 
 Wordsworth about it/ All of them are distinguished by 
 an entire simplicity of utterance and by a strangely com- 
 plete absence of the conventional and artificial ring of 
 Johnsonian verse. Blake's poetry was indeed a peai of 
 fairy bells from a lonely tower in a strange land. 
 
 The poet who produced this elfin music was a man 
 amazing in his genius and no less so in his total unlike- 
 ness to his contemporaries. William Blake (the grandson 
 of a John O'Neil, who changed his name for prudential 
 reasons upon marrying a shebeen-keeper at Eathmines 
 named Ellen Blake) was born near Golden Square, London, 
 on November 28th, 1757. This was the year of the new 
 era, according to Swedeuborg, in whose revelations Blake's 
 father, a poor hosier, implicitly believed. William, after 
 a very scanty education, was bound aj^preutice in 1771 to 
 an engraver called Basire. As in the case of Turner, his 
 whole life practically was spent within the dusky recesses 
 of the town, and many of his hours as a young man were 
 passed in Westminster Abbey or amid the gloom of 
 London churches, sketching the sepulchral monuments. 
 After 1778, when his indenture came to an end, he studied 
 for a short while at the Royal Academy (l)ut was too 
 eclectic for his teachers), and tlien set up as an engraver. 
 He made some good friends among artists, notably Flax- 
 man and Stothard, and obtained good work, for it was a 
 prosperous season for line-engravers. In 1782 he married 
 
 ' Tliis s(>eins iiir\ital>ly ii fragment from an l'",lizal>etliaii song- 
 bo* tk : 
 
 ' Tretty joy I 
 
 Sweet joy, but two days oM. 
 Sweet joy I call tliee. 
 Thou (lost smile, 
 I sing the while ; 
 Sweet joy befall thee I '
 
 282 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 his idolized Kate, the daugliter of a market-gardener, 
 whom he taught to read, to colour engravings, and even- 
 tually to see visions ; she repaid him with the devoted 
 affection of a lifetime. But the imaginative life pre- 
 dominated so completely with Blake that the ordinary 
 realities of the world hardly seemed to exist for him, and 
 he admitted always that external nature rather perplexed 
 than exhilarated his mind. He lived and worked without 
 intermission in a world of dreams, and the idea of what is 
 called ' a holiday ' was repugnant to him. His visions 
 dated back as far as he could remember. When a child of 
 four he saw Grod at a window and screamed with terror. 
 At Peckham once in youth he saw a tree on which angels 
 were clustered as thickly as leaves. He saw prophets and 
 angelic forms, and in 1787, after the death of his brother 
 Robert, he saw his soul ascend through the ceiling, clap- 
 ping its hands with joy. Robert's spirit now revealed 
 to him a plan for issuing his Songs of Innocence. The 
 plan was a method of engraving the songs upon copper, 
 together with a decorative margin of arabesque design. 
 The pages were tinted different colours, but for the letter- 
 press Blake always used red. He mixed his colours with 
 diluted glue, a process revealed to him by St. Joseph. 
 
 The volume produced in this singular manner, and 
 circulated among a small circle of friends during 1789, 
 as Songs of Innocence, was thus a kind of illuminated 
 missal, ' in which every page is a window open in heaven.' 
 It is impossible to look upon this singular book without 
 emotion — the lofty isolation of Blake's ideals, the un- 
 mistakable character of his poetical vocation, the mystical 
 form of faith, which he seemed to have derived less from 
 Boehmen and Swedenborg than from one of the Hebrew 
 seers of the Old Testament— all these considerations com- 
 bine to inspire the reader with a certain feeling of awe,
 
 WILLIAM BLAKE. 283 
 
 which is indeed the right spirit to approach a genius of 
 such character. There are only some twenty short poems 
 in the book, but of these fifteen attain an extremely high 
 standard of poetic beauty, and all of the songs, while ab- 
 solutely free from imitation, recall the manner of Crashaw 
 or Vauo'han at their best infinitely more than that of any 
 of the poets of the eighteenth century. Blake's reading 
 cannot have been at all wide, but he had studied Shake- 
 speare, Dante, and Milton with enthusiasm, the Bible was 
 ever in his thoughts ; the classical poets and the philo- 
 sophers he seems alike to have eschewed. Many of these 
 songs are well known, such as the 02:)ening Piping down 
 the valleys wild, or again. Little Lanih, who made thee ^ The 
 Chimney Sweeper, A Cradle Song, Holy Thursday, Night, 
 Infant Joy, and Nnrse's Song, this last a most exquisite 
 piece of sunset melody. 
 
 But Blake's strangely exceptional cjuality among the 
 poets of his time is nowhere better illustrated than in 
 the pei'haps less frecpiently cited A Dream : 
 
 ' Once a dreain did wea\e a shade 
 O'er my angel-guarded bed, 
 Tliat an emmet lost its way, 
 Where on grass methought I hiy. 
 
 ' Tronhlcd, Avildered, and forlorn, 
 Dark, benighted, travel-worn, 
 Over many a tangled spray. 
 All heart-broke, I heard her say : 
 
 ' "Oil my children ! do they cry, 
 Do they hear their father sigh '.' 
 Now they look abroail to see. 
 Now return and weej) for mo."' 
 
 ' I'ityiiig, I drojiped a tear: 
 J]ut 1 saw a glow-M'orm near. 
 Who rejdied, " What wailing wight 
 Calls the watchman of the night '!
 
 284 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 ' " I am set to light the ground, 
 While the heetle goes his round : 
 Follow now the beetle's hum ; 
 Little wanderer, hie thee home ! " ' 
 
 The surpassing fitness and beauty of the diction (with its 
 instinctive avoidance of all Latinized forms) might have 
 been Webster's, the sentiment might owe something to 
 Sterne or Rousseau, but the originality and imaginative 
 power is Blake's before all the world; the rhythm and 
 metre, too, are singularly appropriate, the same, it will be 
 noted, as Hood adopted for his beautiful Bidh? In the 
 two dozen or so of poems of tliis stamp that Blake wrote, 
 the ripple is distinctly heard of the identical stream which 
 gushed forth so abundantly in the j^oetry of the next 
 generation. England had to wait many years for her 
 jiolitical revolution, but with 1789 the signal for poetic 
 revolution had duly arrived. After the completion of 
 his Songs of Iimocence the mystical side of Blake de- 
 veloped continually at the expense of the normal in- 
 telligence. In 1789 appeared the first of his prophetic 
 writings, The Bool- of Tliel. In 1794, as a kind of sup- 
 plement to Songs of Innocence, was engraved Songs of 
 Experience, containing a few poems, such as the well- 
 known Tiger, Tiger hurning bright, that in lyric intensity 
 and power probably surpass anything he ever wrote. For 
 the imagery of others it is evident that he exj^lored 
 chambers of the brain stored with writings produced in 
 ages of eternity (as he exjjlained to Flaxman), for the 
 delight and study of archangels rather than of men. 
 Henceforth he winged his flight farther and farther into 
 strange and unknown regions. Practically none of his 
 later prophetic works concern the literary student. He 
 remained to the end a visionary and mystic of the in- 
 
 ' Cf. Milton's L Allegro.
 
 ALLAN Ramsay's school. 285 
 
 tensest convictions, a universalist api)arently in religion, 
 communing habitually (like Swedenborg) with sages and 
 projihets of past ages, entirely free in his life from self- 
 seeking, and of a childlike simplicity of character; with 
 this last trait went, however, unfortunately, a semi- 
 infantine irritability and suspicion, recalling in one or 
 two points the like infirmity in Rousseau. He died in 
 Fountain Court, Strand, in August, 1827, maintaining a 
 happy serenity to the very end, remaining to the last in 
 poverty, if not in positive neglect, his genius disregarded 
 by all but a small and narrowing circle of friends. 
 
 III. Allan Ramsay's School. 
 
 From the outworn tradition of the school of Pope, by 
 which the southron poets were ti'ammelled, it is a relief to 
 turn to the poets and balladists of Northern Britain, where 
 continuity with the pre-Augustan school had never been 
 so completely severed. The revival, which may be said to 
 have commenced in England with Percy's Beliques of 
 1765, took its rise much less abruptly in Scotland in the 
 life-work of Allan Eamsay (1686-1758). His various 
 Miscellany collections I'anging from 1716 to 1736 in- 
 augurated a spirit of keen emulation in the setting, 
 adapting, and imitation of old vernacular song. Kamsay 
 was followed by David Herd with his Ancient and Modern 
 Scottish Songs in 1769. Then came Evans's Old Ballads 
 of 1777, Pinkerton's Scottish Trarjic Ballads, 1781, and 
 his Select Scottish Ballads of 178o. Josej)!! Kitson, a 
 pedant without peer, 'a spider ' with a huge gall-bag and 
 his lair in the British Museum, who decried the efforts of 
 all his fellow-workers, must yet be allowed an honourable 
 place in the literatux-e of his generation as au illustrator 
 of ballad literature, folk-song, and ancient minstrelsy, and
 
 286 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 as one of the earliest and most scrupulous collectors of 
 local verse. His Northeru Garlands appeared between 
 1788 aud 1793, liis Select Collection of English Songs in 
 1783, his Bohin Hood Ballads in 1795, and his Scottish 
 Song in 1 794. These and similar compilations culminated 
 in James Johnson's Scot's Musical Museum, commenced in 
 1787, to which Burns contributed many new songs, and 
 in Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, the two first 
 volumes of which appeared in 1802. A link between 
 Allan Ramsay, whose Evergreen and Tea-Tahle Miscellany 
 did so much to stimulate this kind of literature, and the 
 age of Fergusson and Burns, is afforded by the two William 
 Hamiltons. 
 
 William Hamilton of Gilberttield (1665-1751) hardly 
 comes into the Age of Johnson, for he was 
 The Hamiltons. a close associate of Ramsay, to whose 
 miscellanies he contributed, and he died 
 in Lanarkshire in May, 1751 ; but he is indissolubly con- 
 nected with the poets of a later generation. His Willie 
 vjas a Wanton Wag was an unrivalled model for the 
 festive verse of his countrymen ; his Bonny Heck was the 
 recognized prototype of one of Burns' s masterpieces, The 
 Dying Speech of Poor Mailie. But, above all, his Familiar 
 Epistles marked out the classic stanza (derived originally 
 from Robert Semple or Sempill),^ adopted by Fergusson 
 aud Burns for their ever-memorable work in this literary 
 genre ; and the perfect fitness of this stanza for its burden 
 entitles ' Gilbertfield ' (as Burns fondly calls him) to a 
 distinguished place as a metrist. 
 
 William Hamilton of Bangour (1704-1754), the volun- 
 teer laureate of the Jacobites, was of Linlithgowshire, of a 
 good family, from which he inherited perhaps the tradition 
 of Caroline love-poetry. He fought at Pi'estonpans, and 
 ^ Cf. Morel, Thomson : sa Vic ct scs CEuvres, 1895, p. 253.
 
 THE HAMILTONS — JEAN ELLIOT. 287 
 
 after the suppression of the rebellion of 1745 migrated to 
 France, dying at Lyons on March 25th, 1754. Like his 
 namesake, he was an enthusiastic admirer of The Gentle 
 Shepherd, and contributed to The Tea-Table Miscellany of 
 1 724. His Poems on Several Occasions first saw the hght 
 at Glasgow in 1749. In The Boole of Scottish Song there 
 is the same mutual inspiration and homogeneity that there 
 is in The Book of Fsalms. The spirit of one age is trans- 
 fused into that of another. The immemorial Bowie Bens 
 of Yarrow was evidently breathing the charm of an ancient 
 strain upon Hamilton when he composed his ' exquisite 
 ballad' (as Wordsworth, in his Yarrow JJnvisited, justly 
 calls it) : 
 
 ' Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny bonny bride, 
 Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome marrow ! 
 
 Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny bonny bride. 
 And think nae mair on the Braes of Yarrow. ' 
 
 Other permanent contributions to our treasury of national 
 song were the natural products of a countryside in which 
 half the inhabitants were real connoisseurs of a song, and 
 where a large section of the population had a tincture of 
 literary culture. 
 
 Thus, in 1756, while driving home after nightfall, as 
 her contribution to some talk about Flodden Field and 
 the cruelty of the loss sustained in half the homes of 
 the Lowlands, Jean Elliot of Minto (1727-1805) composed 
 a ballad, justly admired as one of the most perfect we 
 possess. The old refrain of The Flowers of the Forest 
 was sounding in the writer's ears and helped to shape the 
 moving lyric : 
 
 ' I've heard them liltin' at our yowe milkin', 
 Lasses a liltin' before the dawn of day ; 
 
 But now they are moanin' on ilka green loanin'. 
 The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.
 
 288 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 ' At e'eii in the gloaiiiiu' ime youiikeih are roamin', 
 Bout stacks with tlie lasses at bogle to play ; 
 
 But ilk maid sits ilrearie, lanientin' her dearie — 
 The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.' 
 
 lu 1772, in the room of some trivial words that accom- 
 panied a plaintive old melody that she loved, Lady Anne 
 Lindsay (Lady Barnard, as she became), little more than 
 a girl at the time, composed the immortal ballad of 
 Auld Bobin Gray, the name 'Robin Gray' being taken 
 from that of the old herd at her native Balcarres. Four 
 years later, in 1776, was published that ' grand Scots song,' 
 a mighty favourite with Burns, the Tullachgorum of John 
 Skinner (1721-1807), an Aberdeenshire parson.^ 
 
 The same ' spirit of eld ' that inspired these beautiful 
 songs helped to preserve the minor poets of the north 
 from the banality of the successors of Pope in the south 
 of the island. 
 
 In the vau of unmistakably minor poets stands another 
 Aberdeenshire bard, James Beattie, who by 
 "^a"? fsojr*^ ^^^^ various Avritings came to occupy a posi- 
 tion of great influence among his contem- 
 poraries, but who is remembered now by one poem only, 
 The Minstrel. He was, it is true, scarcely a follower of 
 Ramsay, and ought perhaps of right to have a place to 
 himself as a link of a modest sort between Thomson and 
 Wordsworth. Born at Laurencekirk on October 25th, 1735, 
 Beattie's father, a small farmer and shopkeeper, died when 
 
 ' Fergussoii was no less appreciative of its jovial numbers : 
 
 ' Fidlers, your pins in temper fix. 
 And rozet well your tiddle-sticks. 
 But banish vile Italian tricks 
 
 Frae out your quorum, 
 Nor fortes wi' pianos mix — 
 
 Gie's Ttdlochf/onou.' 
 
 The Daft Day>;.
 
 JAMES BEATTIE. 289 
 
 lie was very yoimg ; hut an elder brother took charge of 
 the boy, and, observiug his aptitude for learning, sent him 
 to Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he gained a bursary. 
 In 1753 he was appointed schoolmaster at Fordoun, at the 
 foot of the Grampian Hills, amidst splendid scenery, which 
 impressed itself deeply upon Beattie's mind. In 1758 he 
 obtained a situation as under-master in the grammar 
 school, Abex'deen, and two years later he was made pro- 
 fessor of moral philosophy at Marischal College. In this 
 capacity he produced some very indifferent works, criticis- 
 ing the philosophical theories of Locke, of Berkeley, of 
 Helvctius and Hume, and advocating the doctrine after- 
 wai'ds familiarly known as that of Common Sense. lu 
 treating of such themes Beattie was hopelessly out of his 
 depth. Nemesis has overtaken the once amazingly popular 
 Essay on the Nature and Immutabiliti/ of Truth, published 
 iu 1770. But Beattie's Minstrel, the two parts of Avhich 
 were published in 1771 and 1774, deserves a much better 
 fate. It is mainly an autobiographical account of the 
 progress and development of the j^oet's mind and imagina- 
 tion while in process of formation. It is, in fact, a humble 
 ancestor of Wordsworth's Prelude. There is admittedly 
 little of Wordsworth's original simplicity, or of his keen 
 insight into the moral and spiritual problems that weigh 
 upon the young reflective spirit. Beattie is far more 
 artificial, his lights are for the most part reflected from 
 Spenser and Thomson, or from Virgil ; his diction is 
 acquired and lacks spontaneity ; yet there is in his melo- 
 dious verse a fund of poetic imagination and of sensi- 
 bility to the manifold aspects of nature : 
 
 ' Tlience musing onward to the sounding shore, 
 The lone entliusiast oft would take his way, 
 Listening with pleasing dread to the deep roar ' 
 
 Of the wide weltering waves. In black array, 
 
 u
 
 290 THE AGE OF JOHNSON, 
 
 When sulphurous clouds rolled on the autumnal day, 
 Even then he hastened from the haunt of man, 
 Along the trembling wilderness to stray. 
 What time the lightning's fierce career began. 
 And o'er heaven's rending arch tlie rattling thunder ran.' 
 
 Though languid at tiiues, the true pulse of nature may 
 generally be felt throughout his verse. Like some of the 
 eai'ly landscape-painters, there is often too much of the 
 composition about his pictures, which thus lack unity ; 
 this is specially to be noted in his well-known But who the 
 melodies of morn can tell '! (Stanzas 38 and 39 of The 
 Minstrel, Book I.) which has suggested to the irreverent 
 mind a working model of a Swiss village ; yet it contains 
 some memorable lines, such as ' Down the rough slope the 
 ponderous waggon rings.' In his own style four lines of 
 Beattie's, such as these, would be hai'd to surpass : 
 
 ' Now beam'd the evening star ; 
 And from embattled clouds emerging slow 
 Cynthia came riding on her silver ear ; 
 And hoary mountain-cliff's shone faintly from afar.' ^ 
 
 But for its eighteenth-century origin Leigh Hunt might 
 have well printed the last line in italics. Beattie managed 
 these Alexandrines of Spenser's with skill. '^ It has been 
 regretted with justice that he did not more frequently use 
 the Scot's vernacular,^ which would have corrected a some- 
 what marked tendency to sentimental posing. 
 
 ' The Minstrel, Book II., stanza 12. 
 
 '■' As a whole, however, Beattie lacked finish. His essays as a 
 fabulist in The Hares Siud Wolf and Sheplierds were not successful. 
 Cf. note on p. 267. 
 
 ^ This vernacular was not restricted to writers of Scottish birth, 
 for it was employed with success by (Susanna Blamire (1747-1794) 
 of Carlisle, whose Poems, including The Siller Croivn and What ails 
 this Heart of Mine, were first published many years, after her death, 
 in 1842. She also wrote in the Cumberland dialect.
 
 ALEXANDER ROSS — WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE. 291 
 
 Beattiewas sjjousor for a Kincardineshire poet, Alexander 
 
 Ross, who occasionally rose to the level of 
 Alexander Ross j tt- ti- 7 n -n 
 
 Q69Q 1"84) ^ good song. Jdis Helenore, or the ±or- 
 
 huiate Shepherdess, ' to which are added a 
 few Songs,' appeared at Aberdeen in 1768, and brought 
 the author, a poor schoolmaster at Lochlee, d£20 profit, ' a 
 much larger sum than he had hoped for.' The long poem 
 modelled on The Gentle Shepherd, though written in the un- 
 familiar Buchan dialect, is still popular in Scotland. The 
 ' wild warlock,' as Burns called 'brother Eoss,' is happiest in 
 Woo'd and Married, and a.\ But the dialect is as rich and 
 there is a racy Scots humour (not without a touch of Burns's 
 own quality) in Ross's The Rock and the ivee Pickle Tow : 
 
 ' There v.as an old wife and a wee pickle tow, 
 But she wad gae try tlie si)inniiig o't, 
 She louted her down, and her rock took a low 
 And that was a bad beginning o't . . .' 
 
 A contemporary and countryman of Beattie and Ross, 
 though he spent most of his time in Eng- 
 ^^ '"m" ki^^"'"" land, was William Julius Mickle, the son 
 (l''35-l'"88) ^^ Alexander Meikle, minister of Lang- 
 
 holm, Dumfriesshire. The successful trans- 
 lator of the Laslad of Camoens (1775), he is also re- 
 membered as the author of Cutnnor Hall (contributed to 
 'Evsins's Old Ballads . . . ivith some of Modern Date, 1777- 
 84). The haunting beauty of the first stanza, which is 
 indeed worthy of Coleridge, fascinated Sir "Walter Scott : 
 
 ' The dews of summer night did fall, 
 The moon, sweet regent of tlie sky, 
 
 Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall 
 And many an oak that grew thereby." 
 
 A special charm is lent by the irregular substitution of a 
 dactyl for an iamb in the first foot of the last tetrameter.
 
 '•^!^2 THE AGK OF JOHNSON. 
 
 There are lines iu Mickle's later poem of Eshdale Braes 
 whicli likewise suggest a power in delineating nature 
 greater than he ever actually displayed on other than a 
 homoeopathic scale. To Mickle, too, has been attributed 
 the Scottish song, There's nae luck about the hoose, suf- 
 ficient in itself to establish a reputation ; internal evidence 
 is rather against the likelihood of his authorship, and in 
 favour of that of Jean Adams (1710-1765), but there is no 
 definite external evidence forthcoming, and the case must 
 be held to be not proven. 
 
 John Logan was a contemporary of Mickle, and his equal 
 
 in rising occasionally to a high standard of 
 (1748-1788) excellence. He was born at Soutra, in the 
 
 parish of Fala, on the southern extremity of 
 Midlothian, in 1748. He was one of the ministers of Leith 
 from 1773 to 1786, when he resigned his charge and settled 
 in London. In 1770 appeared Poems on Several Occasions, 
 by Michael Bruce, under the editorship of Logan, though 
 his name was not given. Of the poems in this volume 
 Logan ultimately claimed as his own the Levina episode, in 
 Lochleven, the Ode to Paoli, and The Cuckoo. The author- 
 ship of this last poem, long claimed by the friends of Bruce, 
 has been virtually decided in Logan's favour by Mr. Small.' 
 Freer from conventionalism than The Cuckoo, admirable 
 though it is, are some of Logan's other verses." Like Hamil- 
 ton of Bangour, he caught inspiration from the Yarrow. It 
 is the same strain of disappointed love. The loss of the 
 lover in Logan's version of the old ballad Braes of 
 Yarrow is touched with the simplest, most impressive 
 }>athos : 
 
 ' In his able article in the British and Foreign Evangelical 
 Bevieiv, July, 1877. See, however, Grosart's Works of Bruce, 1865. 
 
 - Logan's Poems were published separately by T. Cailell iu quarto, 
 1781.
 
 JOHN LOGAN — ^MICHAEL BRUCE. 293 
 
 ' His mother from the window look VI, 
 
 With all the longiii;;' of a motlier ; 
 His little sister Aveeping walkd 
 
 The preen-wooil path to meet her hrotlier ; 
 They sought him east, they sought him west, 
 
 They sought him all the forest thorough, 
 Tliey only saw tlie oloud of night. 
 
 They only henrd the roar of Yarrow 1 " 
 
 111 many of these beautiful liallacl passages the fusion of 
 human emotion and the genius of nature is clearly aduni- 
 l)rated. The spirit of Tannahill and the Ettrielc Shepherd 
 is constantlv recognized. Logan had some fine qualities 
 as a poet, but he gave almost universal dissatisfaction by 
 the careless and indefinite manner in Avhicli he edited the 
 poetical remains of his friend Michael 
 '^^/fi';T',-!'-l'''' Bruce. The son of a poor weaver, Bruce 
 was born in Kiuross-shue, on the l)anks ot 
 Lochleveu. on March 27tli, 1740. With the help of a 
 legacy of dfill.his fatlier sent him to Edinburgh University, 
 and then he became a schoolmaster, receiving two shillings 
 a quarter from each of the twenty-eight i>u]>ils, and free- 
 board with their parents in rotation. He contemplated a 
 volume of verse, for which he wrote a long imitative de- 
 scriptive poem called LocJiJeren ; but, unhap])ily, he was a 
 victim to consumption, and died prematurely at his father's 
 cottage in July, 1767. With death full in vieAv he penned 
 his elegiac verses on Sprimj, the finest of liis productions, 
 and beautiful in itself, though full of borrowed turns and 
 ideas. Thomson and Gray were continually dragging at 
 his muse, and he never outgrew the imitative phase. His 
 student's zeal aided him in attaining some superb rhythm it- 
 effects : 
 
 ' Soon as oi-r eastern hills the morning jx-i-rs, 
 From her low nest the tufted lark npsprings ;
 
 294 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 And, cheerful singing, up the air she steers, 
 Still liigh she mounts, still loud and sweet she sings.' 
 
 It was not until 1770 that Logan issued at Edinburgh, in 
 a thin quarto, Bruce's Poems on Several Occasiom^, and it 
 was commonly (though probably quite unjustly) believed 
 )iy Bruce's partisans that the editor had lost some of Bruce's 
 poems, suppressed others, and borrowed and adapted one 
 or two for his own ends. Friends, and relatives especially, 
 are apt to over-estimate the value of the fragmentary re- 
 mains of an immature minor poet. 
 
 Robert Pergusson (1750-1774), 'precentor' of the con- 
 vivial coterie of Avid Reihie, owes much 
 Kobert Fergusson c -i- a • .^ c • .^ j_ ^ 
 
 ,,„.„ ,_;.,, or his tame to the tact tliat he was, m 
 
 a special sense, the precursor of Burns, 
 though some of his own verses well deserve to live on their 
 own merits. Burns, the soul of generositv, was not slow to 
 recognize either Fergusson 's merits or his own debt to one 
 whom he calls ' By far my elder brother in the muses ' : 
 
 ' My senses wad he in a creel, 
 Should I hut dare a liope to speel, 
 Wi" Alhiu, or wi" (lilhertfield, 
 
 The braes of fame ; 
 Or Fergusson, tlie writtn- cliiel, 
 
 A deathless name. 
 
 ' Fergusson ! thy glorious parts 
 
 111 suited laAv's dry musty arts ! 
 
 My curse upon your whnnstane liearts. 
 
 Ye Enlniigli gentry ! 
 The tythe of what ye waste .at cartes 
 
 Wail stowM liis jiantry I ' 
 
 To Williani Sh)tps-oti. 
 
 Fergusson himself, however, was merely a transmitter 
 of tradition, and he speaks with equal veneration of poeti- 
 cal ancestors. Speaking of his muse in vein and in metre 
 carefully observed by his great successor, Fergusson says :
 
 ROBERT FERGUSSON^. 295 
 
 ' I'll grant that she can find a knack 
 To gar auld warrld wordies clack 
 
 In hamespun rhime, 
 While ilkane at his billie's back 
 
 Keeps gude Scots time. 
 
 But she maun e'en he glad to jook 
 An' play teet-bo frae nook to nook, 
 Or blush as gin she had the yook 
 
 Upo' her skin, 
 AVhan Bamsay, or whan PcnnlniiJ:, 
 
 Their lilts begin.' 
 
 Born at Edinburgh on September 5th, 1750, Fergusson 
 was a fragile voiith, endowed with a delicate sensibility 
 and a quickness with Avhich went an impulsive fickleness, 
 not infrequently characteristic of the poetic temjierament. 
 After four years at St. Andrews, his father having died 
 during his college course, he returned to Edinburgh and 
 obtained employment as copying clerk in a lawyer's office. 
 In the night clubs, of which he was an ornament in his 
 time among the ' bucks of Edinburgh,' he was distin- 
 guished by his vivacity and humour, his power of mimicry, 
 and his gift of Scots song. In j^erson he is desci'ibed as 
 of a slender, handsome figure, his forehead high, his coun- 
 tenance open and pleasing, though somewhat efPeminate 
 and characterized by extreme pallor, but kindled into life 
 bv the animation of his large black eves, whenever he be- 
 came interested in the conversation. 
 
 At 'nine years less than thirty, sweet aue an' twenty,' 
 Fergusson began contributing pieces, both grave and 
 humorous, in English and in vernacular, to B,vd(lhnaiiii 
 Weekly Magazine.^ Few are distinguished by any depth 
 of poetic feeling, but the dialect pieces show graphic 
 
 ' T. Kiiddiniaii oditf^d lii> I'ornin (ni Vnn»ii.s Siili/crfs with a 
 memoir, 1779,
 
 29(j THE A(iE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 humour and a descriptive power ricli with promise. He 
 excelled in descriptive pieces, modelled on those of Swift 
 and Gay, and in poetic epistles, garnished with strong 
 pronunciations and in the ' Scotish metre' : 
 
 ' Could lavrocks, at tlie dawniii" day, 
 Could linties, cliirniin' frae the spray. 
 Or todlin' burus that smootlily ])lay 
 
 Ow'r j^owden l)ed, 
 Compare wi' BirLs o' Iiivcnnay ? — 
 
 But now they're dead.' 
 
 His fear that the songs of Scotia were dying was hap- 
 jnly without foundation. In 1773, when he was but 
 twenty-three, Fergusson's songs were collected and pub- 
 lished in a volume. Burns was fifteen at the time, and 
 we may be sure that a copy soon found its way to Manch- 
 line. With Chatterton and Keats, and Chcnier and Ler- 
 montoft:, Fergusson was luihappily to be one of the great 
 potentialities of literature. Before he completed his twenty- 
 fourth year he died in a mad-house at Edinburgh, October 
 16th, 1774 In 1787 Robert Burns sought out Fergusson's 
 grave in the Canongate cemetery, and ]mt up a cut stone 
 at his own cost.^ 
 
 Fergusson's Leith lUices supplied the model for Burns's 
 Holy Fair, The MiifnaJ Complaint of Plainstanes ami 
 Causey, probably suggested The Brigs of Ayr, nor will a 
 comparison of The Farmer's Ingle of Fergusson with The 
 Cotter s Saturday Night admit of a doul)t as to the iutlu- 
 ence of the city-l)red over the country-bred muse. One 
 can still read, with a glow of genuine appreciation, the 
 elder poet's Hallow Fair, and Anhl B.eikie, his Epistles, 
 and his odes to the Bee and the Gowdspink, or his deli- 
 cately-touched lines On seeing a Bntterfy in the Street : 
 
 ' Cf. Stevenson's Lrttcrs, 1899, ii. 330.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 297 
 
 ' Now ishouM our sclates Avi" hailstones" ring, 
 What cabbage-fauld wad .screen your win.u, 
 Say, fluttering fairy I wert thy hap 
 To light lieneath hraw Nanny's caji, 
 Wad she, proud hutterlly oi May, 
 In pity lat you skaithless stay ? " 
 
 To turu from such pieces as these, good as they are, to the 
 consummate workmanship of poems which they seem to 
 have inspired or suggested (the Epistles to Simpson and 
 Lapraik, To a Mouse, and others), assists one to evaluate 
 the incandescence of great genius. The fable lav com- 
 pai'atively inert under -3]sop and his imitators ; then came 
 La Fontaine and vitalized it in every part. 
 
 IV. Boheii Burns. 
 
 Kobert Burns was the son of William Burnes, who 
 married in 1757 Agnes Brown, the daughter of a Carrick 
 farmer. The Burneses had long been small farmers in the 
 uplands of Kincardineshire. The poet, who was the eldest 
 son, was born at Alloway, Ayrshire, on January 25th, 
 1759, and he had two and a half years' schooling there 
 between the ages of six and nine, under John Murdoch. 
 His father then left the small clay cottage which he had 
 occupied as a gardener, and set uj) upon a small farm of 
 c£40 rental at Mount Oliphant. William Burnes was now 
 what his ancestors had been, a yeoman farmer, and one of 
 the martyrs of la petHe cnltiire. The farm was small, the 
 soil not rich, the living very rude; and it was only by un- 
 ceasing toil that the wolf could be kept from the door. 
 At fifteen Robert became chief farm-hand to his father. 
 The latter, ha])pily, was not rendered morose by the grind 
 of toil and poverty ; he was of strong sense and lively 
 affection, and he gave the best of his min*! to his sons.
 
 298 THE AGE OF JOHXSON. 
 
 In 1777 the family moved to Loehlie, a 130 acre farm in 
 the parish of Tarboltoii, which pi'oved rather more easy to 
 work. There Robert learned to fill his glass, and fell in 
 love with a charming ' fillette,' who ' overset his trigo- 
 nometry ' when he was but sixteen. Thus began a series 
 of amours which appear only to have concluded with his 
 life. A period of comparative ease came to an end in 
 1784, when William Bui-nes died. Robert and his brother 
 Gilbert managed to get a small farm at Mossgiel in 
 Mauchline, where, amidst the press of uphill work to make 
 ends meet, most of his best poetry was written as he cut 
 the furrows at the tail of the plough. The enumeration 
 merely of these mastei'pieces in vernacular verse is a 
 source of pleasure; among them were Poor Mailie (1782), 
 Green Grov the Rashes 0, Corn Bigs, Mary Morison, To a 
 Mouse, To a Mountain Daisy, To a Lotise, Epistle to 
 WiUiam Simpson, Jolly Beggars, Hallowe'en, Holy Willie, 
 Holy Fair, Address to the Unco' Guid, The Cotter s Satnr- 
 day Night, and The Twa Dogs (1786). 
 
 The endowments of Burns as he grew up were not 
 hidden under a bushel. There was a quick responsive- 
 ness in him to every human aspiration ; he seemed indeed 
 the favourite of nature, so gifted was he with strength 
 and beauty, with vitality and humour. Quite apart from 
 the aureole that surrounded the young poet, there were 
 few that could resist the magnetism of his personal charm. 
 The poet, on his ])art, was ' constantly the victim of some 
 fair enslaver.' In the course of 1788 he was married 
 to Jean Armour, the daughter of a Mauchline mason, but 
 he was incoi'rigibly unfaithful ; one of his nameless 
 children was nursed by the devoted Jean along with her 
 own. Meanwhile, in the summer of 1786, a volume of 
 The Poetical Worls of Robert Bnrtis had been printed by 
 Wilson of Kilmarnock, and the poet cleared about d620 by
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 299 
 
 the subscription. During this year he was much unsettled 
 (the farm at Mossgiel not proving successful), and dallied 
 with a project of emigrating to Jamaica ; but while he was 
 meditating this step he received convincing evidence that 
 his genius had created an impression upon the gi*eat world. 
 Influential people came forAvard and pressed the publica- 
 tion of his poems in Edinburgh. Henry Mackenzie, in 
 The Lounger for December, 1786, wrote an enthusiastic I'e- 
 view of the first issue with illustrative extracts. The second 
 edition of the Poems, with additions, appeared at Edin- 
 burgh in 1787.^ Burns had already become a lion in 
 Edinburgh, and amid conditions and surroundings so 
 strangely altered, it would have needed a power of resist- 
 ance to extraneous influence much stronger than the poet 
 possessed to have kept him altogether unspoiled by success, 
 and to have prevented or even sensibly postponed the 
 inevitable decadence. He was in many respects a typical 
 rustic, and had the foibles and the strong points of his 
 class (a chivalric self-restraint not consjiicuous among the 
 latter) . The peasant is in many respects more nearly akin 
 to the aristocrat born than to the burgess, and there have 
 been men of discernment to hold, with Lady Hester Stan- 
 hope, that the foibles of the well-born are preferable to the 
 nail-pared virtues of the middle class. Unhappily, it is from 
 among the last class (where the Nonconformist conscience 
 resides) that Burns' s critics have come, and have sought 
 with a crazy persistency to suppress or to explain away the 
 poet's foibles altogether. There was nothing of the con- 
 ventional bourgeois image about Burns at all, but a 
 strong and lusty flesh-and-blood man, not deficient in 
 noble and even heroic impulse, but possessed by masterful 
 passions — passions which an artificial environment aggra- 
 
 ' Eiilarj^ptl oflitinns apiif.arcil at E<liiilmi'j:li iIiii'iiiL;' tlic popt's 
 lifptinip in ITfl.S and 17(14.
 
 300 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 vated in such wise as to undermine the primitive strength 
 that was in the poet. Had lie, like Millet, remained 
 amidst the environment of his j^outh, he would never have 
 been spoiled in any such manner. As it was, he remained 
 to the end an idealist in conduct, but 
 
 ' Thouglitless follies laid him low.' 
 
 Early in 1788 Burns took a lease of a farm at Ellisland 
 in Nithsdale, and about the same time he had the oj^tion 
 of a gaugership in the excise at a salary of d£50 and some 
 perquisites, a post which he decided to take np in 1789. 
 Two years later he gave tip the farm at Ellisland, and 
 moved into Dumfi'ies, ujion a salary of ^70 yearly as 
 exciseman. Before he left Ellisland in one day of Novem- 
 ber, 1790, he wrote his own favourite Tarn o' Shatder, his 
 ■' first essay in the way of tales.' On Fel)ruary 27tli, 1792, 
 Burns was despatched to watch an armed smuggler which 
 had got into shallow water in the Solway Eirth. He was 
 left on guard while his superior officer went to Dumfries 
 for some dragoons. While watching he composed the 
 
 song : 
 
 ' Tiie <le"il cam tiddliug thro' the town, 
 
 And danc'd awa v>V th' exciseman, 
 And ilka wife eiies .Vuld ]\rahonn, 
 
 1 wish you luck of the prize man ! ' 
 
 "When the soldiers came he led them to the assault of the 
 lugger, and was the first on board. Personages or incidents 
 supplied the sj^ark to his genius more often than mood or 
 reverie ; but the echo from an old .song was most fre- 
 quently of all the source of inspiration, and while he was 
 at Dumfries, though the rate of production Avas less than 
 at Mauchline, he wrote some of his finest songs. Some 
 184 of these in all were written for the later volumes of 
 Johnson's Mtmcal Museum, among them Ye Banks and 
 Braes of Bonnie Boon (1791), Of n' the Airts, Willie
 
 ROBERT BURXS. 301 
 
 hreiv'd a Peck of Maid, What can a Youtuj Lassie do ivi\ 
 an Aiild Man, Bonnie wee Thing, Ae Fond Kiss, The Birks 
 of Abeifeldie, My Wife's a winsome wee Thinij, Anld Lany 
 Syne, Coniin' thro' the Bye, Scots wha hae, made while 
 riding in a snowstorm across the wilds of Kenmure in 
 1793, and Is there for honest Poverty (1794). He felt 
 that he would be humiliated by writing these songs — 
 many of them patriotic songs — to order for money, and 
 consequently would not receive a penny piece for any of 
 them. He was no less proudly independent in regard to 
 personal offers of money. 
 
 His pride of independence took other forms, and he was 
 very nearly getting into trouble with his official superiors 
 on account of his Jacobinical ebullitions.^ His salary 
 enabled him to live in tolerable comfort, his income 
 amounting to a little under ^£100 a year. But his in- 
 dulgence in hard drinking, and the constant excitement 
 of various kinds to which his life was now subject, began to 
 tell upon his powerful frame. Early in 1796 he fell asleep 
 in the open air after returning from a carouse, and caught 
 rheumatic fever ; he rallied several times, but sank very 
 rapidly in July, and died on July 21st, 1796, at the age of 
 thirty-seven. ' His true life began with his death ; with the 
 body passed all that was gross and impure ; the clear spirit 
 stood revealed, and soared at once to its accepted place among 
 the fixed stai's in the firmament of the rare immortals.' ' 
 
 In his satire and descriptive vein Biu-ns is racy to the 
 last degree of the poets of North Britain for at least three 
 centuries before his advent. The appearance of strange 
 isolation which is sometimes assigned to his poetry and its 
 
 ^ On one occasion, when Pitt's health was pioijosed at dinner, the 
 y)oet gave as an improved toast — 'A better man — George Wash- 
 ington.' 
 
 - Lord Rosebeiy on Burns.
 
 302 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 ideals is dissipated when we examine its antecedents. 
 From the influences that had gone to mould the English 
 poetry of the century — Pope, Thomson, G-ray, Cowper — he 
 stood aloof.' In this respect it is almost impossible to 
 over-emphasize his isolation. It is like that which dis- 
 tinguished from the French classics of the Boileau period 
 the honhomme, as the French love to call him, na'if et 
 iimnortel, whose work supplies such a remarkable link in 
 the chain of French tradition, Avhich the brilliant but 
 disdainful literature of the Grand Siccle had broken. 
 
 So Burns, like La Fontaine, like Sterne, like Turner, 
 like many men of genius whose native faculty has 
 been richest, had forerunners to wlioni, as far as themes 
 and models and dialect went, he owed an incalculable 
 amount. Like Scott, he grew up in an atmosphere of 
 Scots ballads, ballads often of great merit, which Percy, 
 and Mickle, and Ritson did their best to render as 
 popular as they deserved to be in England. But Burns 
 owed scarcely anything to the ballad, and for the ballad 
 form throughout his work it is remarkable how little 
 regard is shown. The fountain of his literary activity 
 was his fondness for Scottish songs, and his special pre- 
 decessor in the vernacular poetry of the keenly observant 
 and gi'imly humorous tyi>e, to which he was specially 
 addicted, was Robert Fergusson, the Teniers of Scots song." 
 
 ' Such English puetry as he did read was iiuiiuly of the early 
 eighteenth century — Poiie, Tlionison, Shenstone, and Bhiir ; but he 
 came unscathed out of the ordeal as far as his best or vernacular 
 verse was concerned. Several references show that he knew his 
 Ossian. It is plain from many passages in his work that the old 
 song-makers, with Penicuik and Fergusson, were the gods of his 
 idolatry, 
 
 ■^ Compare and contrast Farmer'^- Iiujlc (Fergusson), Cotter'ts 
 Saturdaij Night (Burns) ; A uld Eeikie (F.), Edina, Scotia^a darling 
 Seat (B. ); Leith Races (F.), Holy Fair (B.) ; Elegy on Death of
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 303 
 
 Some of his finest efforts, such as his Hallowe'en and his 
 Mailie, were produced in direct and keen emulation of 
 Fergusson and of William Hamilton of Gilbertfield, whose 
 Dying Words of Bonny Heck is to Mailie as the old play is 
 to Shakespeare's Lear. 
 
 He kept Fergusson before his eyes just as Turner kept 
 Claude, or Wilkie the real Teniers, before his. Fergusson, 
 in turn, had before him Allan Ramsay, Alexander Mout- 
 gomerie, and Lyndsay in a long perspective. The forms 
 employed by these writers with familiar names were 
 traditional in Scottish poetry. The old Scots staves, 
 which they revived, were not only the appropriate, but 
 the inevitable foi'ms for vernacular verse. Thus the 
 familiar ej^istle which Burns used with such marvellous 
 effect was adapted from Hamilton of Gilbertfield, and 
 had been developed by him from the humorous address 
 which had been handed down by the Semples.^ And 
 Burns was a conscientious follower of Allan Ramsay in 
 his devotion to the collection and inscription of Scottish 
 songs. Descriptive pieces in vernacular verse, lyrics to 
 traditional tunes, were continually being ' collected ' and 
 ' edited,' both in the most liberal interpretation of the 
 words. Between 1706 and 1711 appeared Watson's famous 
 Choice Collection of Comic and Serious Scottish Poems. 
 This was followed by Ramsay's Evergreen and Tea-Table 
 
 ticots Music (V.), Ekyu on LkqA. M. Jlctiderson (li.) ; Uainc Con- 
 tent (F.), Tira iJogs (15,). 
 
 ^ Notably llobert temple or Seinpill (1590-1660), author ol 
 Habbie Simnon, known to Raiusay and other halladi^its and song- 
 writers as ' Standard Habbie,' the model for all humorous epistles 
 in the vernacular. Another favourite stave of Burns (Halloicc'en, 
 Holy Fair) is the ballad or octave on U\o rhymes, with a four- 
 syllable refrain, as employed by Fergusson in Lcith Eacct). Another 
 is the Cherry and the Slac stave (which lianisay took from Alex. 
 Montgomerie), adopted in The Jolly Beggars.
 
 304 THE AGli OF JOHNSON. 
 
 MlscellaHij (17'J4-7j, by Lord Hailes's Ancient Srottix/i 
 Poems (1770), by Pinkertou's Ancient Scottish Poems 
 (1786), aud in Burns's own day it was Johnson's Musical 
 Mnsenni. He studied all this jjopiilar poetry of his 
 country, to which, as supreme editor, he was to give the 
 tiuishing and master strokes. As for the ballads, he 
 neglected them, because, although fascinating as literature, 
 they represented life other than as he saw it. With regard 
 to the residue, consisting of songs and dialect poems, shoi't, 
 colloquial, racy of the soil — of both these forms of popular 
 literature alike Burns is unique in his mastery. Burns is 
 thus in the maiu a fulfiller of a great tradition ; ' but in 
 one sphere, comprising much of his intensest poetry, he is 
 strikingly original. 
 
 Burns is the poet of i^assiou. His love of woman in- 
 spired him with songs which rank with those of Shake- 
 speare aud Shelley as the most perfect and the most 
 inspired of all English lyrics— the finest in the world. 
 Burns's poetic ardoui" is not of the intellectual type. His 
 emotion is not reflected or remembered, it is directly 
 
 ^ For the continuity of tlie Scots Epistle and Song from before 
 the ' Avinsonie days of Habby ' see the verses to Alex. Ross of 
 boclilee, prefixed to his Fortunate Shepherdess : 
 
 ' I here might gie a skreed of names, 
 
 Dawties of Heliconian Dames ! 
 
 The foremost place Gavin Douglas claims, 
 
 That pawky priest. 
 And -rtha can match the first King James 
 
 For sang or jest ".' 
 
 Montgomerie grave and Ramsay gay, 
 Dunbar, Scott, Hawthornden, and mac 
 Than I can tell, for o' my say, 
 " I riiaun brak att ; 
 
 ■ 'Twould take a live-lang summer day 
 
 To name the half. '
 
 KOBERT BURNS. 305 
 
 heartfelt. Few poets have felt each verse in their veins 
 to the extent that Burns felt it. His passions were short- 
 lived but intense, and for him to be in love and to write 
 love-songs were one and the same thing. Hence the 
 many-sided and exquisite naivete of his love-verses ; hence 
 his unique position as the laureate of youthful ardour and 
 heai'tache, of April sweet-heai*tiug and harvest weddings. 
 We may ignore the foibles of chai'acter that these qualities 
 imply, or we may regai'd them from an Arcadian point of 
 view ; but this we do at the risk of missing the intimate 
 warm breath of love-poetry as passionate in its sincerity 
 as it is exquisite in its beauty. 
 
 Yet his love-poetry is but one element, though an all- 
 important one in any attempt at an estimate of Bums. 
 After Shakespeare and Woi'dsworth it would be diificult 
 to name any poet, the value of whose legacy seems more 
 general or universal in the interest that it excites. He 
 stands among the strongest and keenest observers of 
 human nature that the Anglo-Saxon world has produced, 
 while adding of his own a rare savour of race patriotism 
 and local feeling. 
 
 Of his chai'acteristics as a poet, one of the first to attract 
 us is patriotism. From the time of the earliest ' makares ' 
 the poetry the Scots loved had glowed with it — devotional 
 and intense. Compare Dunbar's apostrophe to the thistle^ 
 and Bums's own : 
 
 ' The rough bur-thistle, spreading wide 
 
 Amang the hearded liear,^ 
 I turn'd tlie weeding-heuk aside 
 
 An' spar'd the symbol dear. ' 
 
 To the Guidwifc of Wanchopc House. 
 
 The traditional nationality was the happy instrument of 
 
 ' J]arley. 
 X
 
 306 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 keeping him almost Avholly to Scottish subjects, to Scottish 
 scenery, and to the vernacular — 
 
 ' I kittle ujD my rustic reed , 
 It gies me ease.' 
 
 Like himself (he but once crossed the Tweed, and then for 
 only a few minutes) , his muse is uutra veiled. When the 
 Muse of Scotland apj^eared to him, she bade him sing his 
 own people, the land and water of his own country. One 
 of the most delightful of his early epistles expresses the 
 determination that the streams of Ayrshire should obtain 
 their due meed of celebration : 
 
 ' Ramsay an' famous Fergusson ^ 
 Gied Forth an' Tay a lift aboon ; 
 Yarrow an' Tweed to monie a tune 
 Owre Scotland rings. 
 
 ' With this {To William Simpson) should be compared the lines 
 in Hame Content, by Robert Fergusson, to whose clever rhymes 
 and ' racy Doric ' Burns was proud to admit obligation. 
 
 ' The Arno and the Tiber lang 
 
 Hae run full clear in Roman sang ; 
 
 But, save the reverence of schools, 
 
 They're baith but lifeless, dowie pools. 
 
 Bought they compare wi' bonnie Tweed, 
 
 As clear as ony lammer-bead ? 
 
 Or are their shores mair sweet and gay 
 
 Than Fortha's haughs or banks o' Tay ? 
 
 Though there the herds can jink the show'rs, 
 
 'Mang thriving vines an' myrtle liow"rs, 
 
 And blaw the reed to kittle strains. 
 
 While Echo's tongue commends their pains ; 
 
 Like ours, they canna warm the heart 
 
 Wi' simple, saft, bewitching art. 
 
 On Leader haughs an' Yarrow braes 
 
 Arcadian herds wad tyne their lays, 
 
 To hear the mair melodious sounds 
 
 That live on our poetic grounds,'
 
 ROBERT BURXS. 307 
 
 While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an' Doon 
 Naebody sings. 
 
 ' The Ilissns, Tiber, Tlianies an' Seine 
 Glide sweet in nionie a tunefu' line ! 
 But, Willie, set your fit to mine 
 
 An' cock your crest : 
 We'll gar our streams an' burnies shine 
 
 Up Avi' the best, 
 
 ' We'll sing Auld Coila's plains and fells. 
 Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells. 
 Her banks an' braes, lier dens an' dells, 
 
 Where glorious Wallace 
 Aft bure the gree, as story tells, 
 
 Frae southron billies. 
 
 'At Wallace' name, what Scottish blood 
 But boils up in a spring-tide Hood ! 
 Oft have our fearless fathers strode 
 
 By Wallace' side. 
 Still pressing onward red-wat shod, 
 
 Or glorious died.' 
 
 Burns's next couspicuous cliaracteristic is liis great power 
 as an observer of actual life and manners, witli its fre- 
 quent corollary in the profouncler mind of our English folk 
 — humour. This found expression mainly in Burns's 
 satirical verse, and in his lashing of hypocrisy ; but it is 
 present throughout every portion of his writiugs. Direct 
 observation takes in Burns the place of descriptions 
 derived from reading ; his metaphors are the result of 
 working exj^erieuce, and he seldom reflects the pale con- 
 ventions of the printed page. His illustrations, his homely 
 images, are drawn from the life of every day, and how exact 
 his portraiture is ! He is not preoccupied with the beautiful. 
 He gives no idealistic portraits of the peasants around 
 him — quite the contrary. He depicts them as they are, 
 the lumbering figures of Teniers or of Wilkie, wlio seek
 
 n08 THE AOE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 relaxation from rough toil in drink and scandal. The 
 foibles of his people, whether they are satirized or con- 
 doned, form a very prominent part in his poems. How 
 often is he laughing or slashing at the alcoholism, the 
 hypocrisy, or the vii'tue-proof respectability of his neigh- 
 bours ! But these vices, if specially rank in Britain, are 
 in no fear of extinction elsewhere. Burns is eminently 
 national, as we have seen, yet few poets can appeal to so 
 wide a range of individuals, quite apart from nationality. 
 He has a large measure of the ex-territoriality of Shake- 
 speare, of Heine, of Moliere. Almost every grade of intel- 
 lect can unite to admire and enjoy the poetry of Eobert 
 Burns. 
 
 He was specially endowed, it is true, as the poet of the 
 Scottish Lowlands, where the common folk (whom he 
 best understood) had always a certain literary taste and 
 sympathy, and of a countryside in which all alike were 
 judges of a song ; yet so universal, so direct and so con- 
 centrated is he, that he stands apart more and more as 
 he recedes into the past, and we contemplate him appeal- 
 ing to no special period, but to Time, representing no 
 phase, no class, no school, no literary movement, but 
 mankind. 
 
 A third important characteristic of Burns is his love of 
 the poor and of popular freedom. For philosophical notions 
 about the state of nature and the rights of man, for the 
 abstract ideas of 1789, he showed no great fervour. The 
 deep enthusiasm manifested by Wordsworth and Coleridge 
 for the conceptions of the early revolutionaries was foreign 
 to him. But with the popular side of the great upheaval he 
 was at heart thoroughly sympathetic. He cared little for 
 the lofty dreams of fraternity and social regeneration, biat 
 he believed in equality of opportunity, and in revolt when- 
 ever the weakness of the oppressor might render it feasible.
 
 ROBERT BURyS. 309 
 
 Both by nature aud coudition he was an insurgent, a hater 
 of social distinction and of the rich. He regarded the 
 latter mainly as do-nothings, for whose futile luxury he 
 expressed in The Twa Dogs his hearty contempt : 
 
 ' A country fellow at the pleugh, 
 His acres till'd, he 's right eneugh ; 
 A country lassie at her wheel, 
 Her dizzen s done, she 's unco' weel : 
 But Gentlemen, an' Ladies warst, 
 Wi' ev'ndown want o' wark are curst. 
 They loiter, lounging, lank and lazj' ; 
 Tho' de'il haet ails 'em, yet uneasy : 
 Their days insipid, dull an' tasteless, 
 Their nights unquiet, lang an' restless.' 
 
 In his easy descripliuii to his friend Thomson in January, 
 1795, of the verses headed Is there for honest Poverty, as a 
 mere ' bagatelle,' we discern the attempt of genius to dis- 
 guise the intensity of conviction conveyed in the famous 
 lines : 
 
 ' Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord , 
 
 AVha struts and stares, and a' that, 
 Tho' hundreds worship at his word. 
 
 He 's but a coof for a' that. 
 For a' that, and a' that. 
 
 His riband, star, and a' that. 
 Tiie man of indei^endent mind. 
 He looks and laughs at a' that. 
 
 ' A king can mak a belted knight, 
 
 A marquis, duke, and a' that. 
 But an honest man 's aboon his might, 
 
 Guid faith he mauna fa' that.' 
 
 ' Claim that. The translator rather misses the point when he 
 
 writes : 
 
 ' La bonne foi, on ne saurait toucher a ca 
 
 Pour tout 9a et tout ca.'
 
 310 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 
 Their dignities, and a' that. 
 The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, 
 
 Are higher rank than a' that ! ' 
 
 The sentiment, exj^ressed with all the epigrammatic 
 neatness of Pope ' in the couplet 
 
 ' Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow ; 
 The rest is all but leather or prunella.' 
 
 assumes in Burns likewise a thoroughly charactei'istic 
 form, in this generous and heartfelt outburst against the 
 rising tide of subservience to wealth, ancient or modern. 
 
 A fourth very distinctive feature of Bums, as a poet, is 
 not so much his love of nature and animals as the genuine 
 animation of his pictures of outdoor doings — the keen 
 and spai-kling impressionism of his homely yet vivid 
 touches of rural life. He is the poet of things seen and 
 constantly recognized. The fastnesses of the Highlands 
 supply the grandest scenery in Britain, much of which was 
 ready to his hand. But the lands which he depicts are 
 the pleasant uplands of Ayrshire, bearing something of the 
 same relation to the Highlands as the Wiltshire downs to 
 Dartmoor ; and he represents the busy life of the fields as 
 Mr. Blackmore, in his most happily inspired moments, has 
 depicted it. A busy place is assigned to animals, for 
 Nature is to him no silent, no scenic pageant, Comj)are 
 his animated picture of autumn-time in The Brigs of Ayr 
 with Keats's inspired rhapsody To Autnmn. The brisk 
 air of country life pervades the one, the other is a dream 
 of beauty and regret. As in Tolstoi's famous description 
 of a day's reaping, there are vivid touches abounding in 
 Burns which sum up an infinite amount of generalized 
 experience. Such are his descriptions of harvesters, of the 
 
 ' Essay on Man, iv. 204.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 31 1 
 
 gardener slioulderiug his spade to Avork in the purple May 
 morning. He has expressed with conscious power and 
 precision that which thousands of men who labour and 
 delve the earth have felt obscurely and confusedly for 
 centuries past. Contrast his ploughman Avith Thomson's, 
 his woodman with Cowper's, his blacksmith with Long- 
 fellow's, and we realize how distinct his intimate know- 
 ledge is from the sympathetic imagination of the enlight- 
 ened and cultured burgess. Beautiful though the reapers' 
 scene in The Seasons is, one realizes once and for all after 
 reading Burns that Jemmy Thomson never straddled for 
 ten hours a day for a month in a harvest field carrying 
 forward his ridge. 
 
 Of abstract sentiment for Nature Burns had little, nor 
 was he in tlie full sense of the word, like Wordsworth, or 
 Keats, or Tennyson, a jDoet of Nature. He had little or 
 none of that divining power whereby the genius of a spot 
 is ascertained, and its moral influence gauged.' Shelley, 
 with his extraordinarily intense and penetrative imagina- 
 tion, reveals, as it were, the psychology of Nature. In 
 Tennyson's la Menioriani a philoso})hy of Nature is 
 mingled intimately with the mystical feeling of confidence 
 that underlies the poem. Wordsworth walks through 
 Nature as if he were in a cathedral, where religious cere- 
 monies are to be seen, of which he cannot indeed penetrate 
 the full meaning, but of which the solemn character calms 
 liis s])irit and profoundly affects his whole moral nature. 
 
 With Burns it was utterly different. Nature had not 
 the same mystic balm for him. He was comparatively 
 indifferent or impervious to its healing power. The inter- 
 pretation of Nature's subtler moods and phases was to him 
 
 ' See the splendid nionogiupli i>v Eohcrl Dimis (189.3), by Pro- 
 fessor Angellier, of Lille. An ext'cUent Concordance in Burns, by 
 J, 13. Held, appeared in 1889.
 
 312 THE AGK OF JOHiNSON. 
 
 uo sacred task. Nature was to liim, as to Komney or 
 Gainsborough, primarily material for au elt'ective back- 
 ground, to be powerfully if summarily stippled into the 
 portrait group, rather than, as to a Turner or a Ruskin, a 
 theme for indej^endent poetic treatment. Magician as he 
 was, of the calibre of Gerard Dow in his mastery of 
 candlelight effects, he often dispensed with the adjunct 
 of backgi'ound altogether. He was not, in short, occupied 
 by Nature for its own sake. It is this indifference to the 
 religion of Nature that distinguishes him most from the 
 poets of this century ; but he also stands apart from them 
 in that he is rarely meditative, still less metaphysical or 
 religious, and wholly ignorant of the pathways of philo- 
 sophic doubt. 
 
 A good illustration of the manner in which Burns 
 
 ' . . . made a clearer faitli and manhood shine 
 In the untutored heart ' 
 
 is afforded by the heartfelt ejaculation of a jwor shoe- 
 maker of Longnewton,^ of the generation that followed 
 the poet's own, upon acquiring a copy of Burns at 
 St. Boswell's Fair in 1803. ' These poems brought not 
 so much the idea of a new creation into my mind, as 
 a new illustration of that world I had seen. Here I 
 perceived many of the scenes of outward nature as if 
 set in a more rainbow point of view. Common sense 
 seemed also to have taken uj) a proper position, while 
 superstition and hyj^ocrisy were turned out in nudity to 
 be ashamed of the light, or to clothe themselves in fig- 
 leaves or in fustian in the best way they could. The 
 poems appeai-ed to me as having given our old-fashioned 
 everyday life a new clearing up, a general repair. The 
 springs of motion seemed to have acquired a new impulse. 
 
 ' John Younger.
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 313 
 
 . . . Burns taught me to respect myself, and, iu addition, 
 all human worth, under whatever garb I should meet with 
 it. He confirmed my former suspicion that the world was 
 made for me as well as for Caesar. The servilely acknow- 
 ledged dignitaries of the day and hour seemed to sink into 
 petty insignificance, and my formerly repressed idea that 
 the mind alone made the man was now positively estab- 
 lished. I began also to conceive the moral mind and 
 genius of Scotland to be more obliged to Burns than to all 
 her other authors taken together. . . . He seemed to have 
 discovered the true link of sympathy between his own soul 
 and the souls of others, and the sublime art of passing 
 that fine subtle influence, like electric fluid, through every 
 sensitive nerve of feeling with which he could possibly 
 come in contact.' 
 
 As in the case of Goldsmith and Sheridan, of Shelley 
 and Victor Hugo, an injudicious attemj^t has been made 
 on behalf of Burns to explain away the petty failings 
 of a great genius. Whatever were Bvirns's indiAddual 
 failings or follies, they were his own. It is absurd for us 
 to canonize his weaknesses because they were Burns's. 
 Let us reserve the enthusiasm for his poems, from the 
 study of which there are few men but have risen up better. 
 A regret may have lurked behind the poet's contemptuous 
 astonishment at that wonderful self-restraint exlubited by 
 the middle class : 
 
 ' O ye douce folk, that live by rule, 
 Crave, tideleSs-blooded, calm aud cool, 
 ComparM Avi' you — U fool I fool ! foul ! 
 
 How much unlike I 
 Your hearts are just a standing pool, 
 
 Your lives, a <lyke I ' 
 
 But could an insui-geut genius such as Burns have really 
 subsisted amid the dams and the drains, the prim barriers.
 
 314 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 the rectangular flats and middle levels of such a fenland 
 of the emotions? The answer is as inevitable as his 
 poetry : 
 
 ' An anxious e'e I never throws 
 Behint my hig, or by my nose ; 
 I jouk beneath Misfortune's blows 
 
 As weel 's I may ; 
 Sworn foe to Sorrow, Care, and Prose, 
 I rliyme away.'
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 Works Published. 
 1748 (21 and 22 Geo. II.). Thos. 
 Edwards : Canons of 
 Criticism. 
 
 Hume : Inquinj Concern- 
 ing Human Understand- 
 ing. 
 
 Ed. Moore: The Foiind- 
 ling. 
 
 S. Richardson : Clarissa 
 Harlou-c. 
 
 Smollett : L'odi'ricl- Jlnn- 
 dom. 
 
 Tanner : Bihliotheca. 
 
 Thomson : Castle of In- 
 dolence. 
 
 John and Charles Wes- 
 ley : Hymns for the 
 Lord's Supijer. 
 
 17-19. Lord Bolingbroke : Let- 
 ters on Fatriotisrn. 
 
 Fielding : Tom Jones. 
 
 Johnson : Irene and 
 Vanity of Human 
 WisJies. 
 
 Conyers Middleton : Free 
 Inquiry into Miraculous 
 Poivera. 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 
 Dodsley's Collection of Poems 
 
 (in 3 vols.). 
 Mably : Droit imhlic de I'Europe. 
 Lord Anson i)resented to the 
 Eoyal Society an account of 
 his voyage round the world 
 (June 30th). 
 Klopstock's Messias. 
 
 Dr. Isaac Watts (lie<l. 
 
 Thomson died. 
 
 Eeuthaiu born. 
 
 Cluirles .James Fox born. 
 
 JJerthoUet (the great chemist) 
 
 born. 
 HiirKer born. 
 
 Munthly liccicic begins. 
 ]\Iuratori commences last vol. of 
 
 his Uerimi Ifalicorum Scriji- 
 
 iores. 
 Montes(juieu : TJsprit (/cs Lois. 
 La Chauseee : Ecole de la Jcun- 
 
 essc. 
 
 Freret died. 
 
 Mme. de Tcncin died.
 
 ;i6 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Works Published. 
 
 1749. Wesley: Plain Account 
 
 of People called Method- 
 ists. 
 J. Ames : Typographical 
 Antiquities. 
 
 1750. Johnson : The Rambler 
 
 begins. 
 W. Wliistou : Memoirs. 
 
 1751. Fielding : Amelia. 
 Gray : Elegy. 
 
 Hume : Inquiry concern- 
 ing the Principles of 
 Morals. 
 
 Jortin : Eemarhs on Ec- 
 clesiast. History. 
 
 Paltock : Peter Wilhins. 
 
 Smollett : Peregrine 
 
 Piclde. 
 
 1752. Bolingbroke: On Study 
 
 of History. 
 
 Dr. W. Dodd : Beauties 
 of Shakespeare. 
 
 Hawkeswortli : The Ad- 
 venturer begins. 
 
 Hume : Political Dis- 
 courses. 
 
 Charlotte Lenox : Female 
 Quixote. 
 
 Christ. Smart : Hop-gar- 
 den and other Poems. 
 
 1753. Chesterfield begins writ- 
 ing in World. 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 
 Goethe born. 
 Alfieri born. 
 
 Laplace (the great astronomer) 
 born. 
 
 Dr. Conyers Middleton died. 
 Sir Charles Wilkins (the great 
 "•'■ orientalist) born. 
 Robert Fergusson born. 
 
 French Encyclopedie begins. 
 Duclos: Considerations sur les 
 mosurs de ce siecle. 
 Bolingbroke died. 
 "Will. Hamilton of Gilbertfield 
 
 died. 
 Dr. Philip Doddridge died. 
 D'Aguesseau died. 
 Sheridan born. 
 
 The New Style Calendar was 
 adopted in Great Britain from 
 September 14th, 1752. Eleven 
 days (September 3rd to 13th) 
 had to be omitted to rectify 
 the Calendar. Henceforth the 
 Civil and Legal year began, 
 not on March 25th, but on 
 January 1st. 
 
 Bp. Butler died. 
 
 William Whiston died. 
 
 W. Cheselden died. 
 
 Frances Burney born. 
 
 Chatterton born. 
 
 Handel's Messiah performed at 
 Foundling Hosintal.
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 317 
 
 Works Published. 
 
 1753. Foote : Englishman in 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Hume : Essays and Trea- 
 tises. 
 
 Lowtb : Prcehdiones de 
 Sacri Foesi ITehrw- 
 orum. 
 
 Gray : Sio- Poems. 
 
 Ed. Moore : The Game- 
 sfer. 
 
 Eichardson : Sir Charles 
 Grandison. 
 
 Smollett : Ferdinand 
 Count Fathom. 
 
 Thos. Warton : Observa- 
 tions on Faerie Queene. 
 
 1754. Bolingbroke : Philosophi- 
 
 cal Writings (ed. Mal- 
 lett). 
 
 Colmau and Thornton : 
 The Connoisseur. 
 
 Glover : Boadicea. 
 
 Hume : History of Eng- 
 land (vol. i.). 
 
 Bp. Newton : On tJie 
 Propliecies. 
 
 Thos. Birch : Memoirs of 
 Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 1755. Fielding : Voyage to Lis- 
 
 bon (posthumous). 
 
 Carte : Hisfory of Eng- 
 land (completed). 
 
 Hutcheson : System of 
 Moral Philosophy. 
 
 Johnson : Dictionary of 
 English Langvngo. 
 
 COMPARATrV'E CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 In his preface to Grandison 
 Eichardson protests against 
 the piracies of the Dublin pub- 
 lishers. 
 Establishment of British Mu- 
 seum by Act of Parliament. 
 
 Death of Sir Hans Sloane. 
 
 Bp. Berkeley died. 
 
 Dugald Stewart born. 
 
 Thomas Bewick born. 
 
 Pigault-Lebnin born. 
 
 Rivarol born. 
 
 Annual Register begins. 
 Society of Arts founded. 
 
 Ed. Cave (founder of Gcittlr- 
 mfin'.i Magazine) died. 
 
 Fielding died. 
 
 Wni. Hamilton of Bangonr 
 died. 
 
 Tho.s. Carte died. 
 
 Crabbe born. 
 
 .Toubert born. 
 
 .Joseph de Maistre born. 
 
 Parliament votes ^100,000 for 
 sufferers by Lisbon eartli- 
 quake. 
 •Tohnson wrote his ' civil letter ' 
 to Chesterfield (7 Feb.). 
 Due de St. Simon dicil. 
 Montesquieu died. 
 Maffei died.
 
 318 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Works Published. 
 
 1755. Deane Swift: Life of 
 
 Swift. 
 
 1756. Allan Butler : Lives of 
 
 the Saints (completed 
 
 1759). 
 Burke : Vindication of 
 
 Natural Society and 
 
 Ideas of Suhlime and 
 
 Beantiful. 
 Home : Douglas. 
 Thos. Amory : John 
 
 Buncle (vol. i.). 
 
 1757. Dyer: The Fleece. 
 Gray : Pindaric Odes. 
 Smollett: Hist, of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 J. Brown : Estimate of 
 
 the Times. 
 Wilkie : Epigoniad. 
 Joseph Warton : Essay 
 
 on Pope (vol. i.). 
 
 1758. Johnson : The Idler. 
 Leland : Philip of Mace- 
 
 d07l. 
 
 Price : Principal Ques- 
 tions in Morals. 
 
 H. Walpole : Gatalogtie 
 of Royal and Nohle 
 Authors. 
 
 1759. Goldsmith : Enquiry into 
 Present State of Polite 
 Learning in Europe 
 and The Bee. 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 
 John Flaxmau born. 
 Sarah Siddons born. 
 
 Literary Magazine and Critical 
 
 Review established. 
 Gessner: Idyllen. 
 Goldsmith arrived in London. 
 
 Gilbert West died. 
 
 George Vertue died. 
 
 Gifford born. 
 
 Godwin born. 
 
 Gilbert Wakefield born. 
 
 Raeburn born. 
 
 Mozart born. 
 
 Strawberry Hill Press set up. 
 Voltaire : Candide. 
 
 Gibber died. 
 
 Edward Moore died. 
 
 David Hartley died. 
 
 Fontenelle died. 
 
 D'Argenson died. 
 
 Blake born. 
 
 James Gillray born 
 
 Romilly born.. 
 
 re- 
 
 Isla : Historia del famoso 
 dicador Fray Gertmdio. 
 Allan Ramsay died. 
 Dyer died. 
 James Ilervey died. 
 .Jonathan Edwards died. 
 Dr. Shebbeare pilloried. 
 John Pinkertoii born 
 Noah Webster born. 
 Dr. Gall born. 
 Nelson born. 
 
 Dodsley's Annu^al Register 
 begins. 
 
 W. Collins died.
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 319 
 
 Works Published. 
 1759. Johnson: Basselas. 
 
 Macklin : Love a la Mode. 
 
 Robertson : History of 
 Scotland. 
 
 Adam Smith : Moral Sen- 
 timents. 
 
 Sterne : Tristram Shandy 
 (vols. i. and ii.). 
 
 Townley: High Life Be- 
 low Stairs. 
 
 1760 (34 Geo. II., 1 Geo. III.). 
 Goldsmith : Citizen of 
 
 the World. 
 Hanway : Letters on Vails 
 
 Giving. 
 E. Capell: Prolusions. 
 Macpherson : Fragments 
 
 of Ancient Poetry. 
 Sterne : Sermons. 
 
 1761. Churchill: The Posciad 
 
 and Night. 
 R. Dodsley : Select Fables. 
 Gibbon: FssaisurV Etude 
 
 de la Litterattire. 
 Goldsmith : Memoirs of 
 
 Voltaire. 
 Smollett : Version of Gil 
 
 Bias. 
 Sterne : Tristram Shandij 
 
 (vols, iii. and iv.). 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 
 Sir Charles Hanbury Williams 
 
 died. 
 Maupertuis died. 
 Handel died and buried in the 
 
 Abbey. 
 Burns born. 
 Schiller born. 
 Richard Porson born. 
 "W. AVilberforce born. 
 Friedrich August Wolf (the 
 
 great scholar) born. 
 P. Etienne Dumont (the 
 
 ' Apostle of Bentham ') born. 
 
 George III. succeeds George II. 
 (October 25th). 
 
 Public Ledger started by New- 
 bery (this and the Ptiblic 
 Advertiser two of the best 
 newspapers). 
 
 Biog. Britannica (finished). 
 
 Rousseau : NouveUe Helo'ise. 
 
 The Universal History (com- 
 pleted). 
 
 Browne Willis died. 
 William Beckford born. 
 
 Neiu and General Biograiyhical 
 Dictionary (11 vols, expanded 
 into 32, by A. Chalmers, 
 1812-14). 
 Marmontel : Gontes Morales. 
 
 Richardson died. 
 
 William Law died. 
 
 John DoUond died. 
 
 Bishop Hoadly died. 
 
 ']{eau ' Nash dicil. 
 
 Kotzebue born,
 
 320 
 
 THE AGK OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Works Published. 
 1762. Falconer: Shijnvrech. 
 
 Hurd : Letters on Ghivalry 
 and Romance. 
 
 Lord Karnes : Elements 
 of Criticism. 
 
 Macpherson : Poems of 
 Ossian. 
 
 Sterne : Tristram Bitavdy 
 (vols. V. and vi.). 
 
 Stuart and Eevett : An- 
 tiquities of Athens. 
 
 Walpole : Anecdotes of 
 Fainting in England. 
 
 Thos. Leland : Long- 
 sivord, Earl of Salis- 
 bury. 
 
 1763. R. Chandler: Marmora 
 
 Oxoniensia. 
 Churchill: The Author. 
 Hoole : Version of Tasso. 
 Smart : Song to David. 
 Lady M. W. Montagu's 
 
 Letters (posthiimously 
 
 luiblished). 
 
 Foote : The Mayor of 
 
 Oarratt. 
 Goldsmith: The Traveller. 
 Grainger : The Sugar 
 
 Cane. 
 Hooka : Roman History. 
 Reid : Inquiry into the 
 
 Human Mind. 
 Psalmanazar : Memoirs. 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 The Briton started under Smol- 
 lett in May, and The North 
 Briton by Wilkes in June. 
 Johnson granted a pension of 
 
 ^:'!00. 
 Cock Lane ghost exposed. 
 Wedgwood ware patented. 
 Peter Annet imprisoned one 
 month for writing The Free 
 Enquirer. 
 Rousseau :. Gontrat Social. 
 Wieland begins his version of 
 
 Shalcespeare. 
 Romney came to London. 
 
 Lady Mary AVortley Montagu 
 
 died. 
 Marivaux died. 
 Andre Chenier born. 
 
 Johnson meets Boswell. 
 The scandalous Essay on Woman 
 printed privately by Wilkes, 
 but written mainly by Thos. 
 Potter. 
 
 Shenstone died. 
 
 ]iyrom died. 
 
 Rogers born. 
 
 Jean Paul Richter born. 
 
 Abbe Prevost died. 
 
 Johnson's Literary Club 
 
 founded. 
 Rousseau : Emile. 
 Winckelmann : Geschichte dcr 
 
 Kunst des Alterthums. 
 F. Bartolozzi settled in London. 
 Gibbon at Rome conceives his 
 
 History. 
 
 Churchill died.
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 321 
 
 Works Published. 
 
 1764. Shenstone: Works (ed. 
 
 Dodsley, issued com- 
 plete). 
 Walpole : Castle of 
 
 Otranto. 
 
 1765. SirW. Blackstone: Com- 
 
 mentaries. 
 
 Johnson : Edition of 
 Shalcespeare. 
 
 Percy : Eeliques of An- 
 cient Poetry. 
 
 Tucker : Light of Nature 
 Pursued. 
 
 Hawkes worth : Edition 
 of Sivift. 
 
 17G6. Anstey : JSfeiv Bath Gtiide. 
 
 Brooke : Fool of Quality. 
 
 Colman and Garrick : 
 Clandestine Marriage. 
 
 Goldsmitli : Vicar of 
 Walcefield. 
 
 Pennant : British Zoology, 
 
 Daines Barrington : Na- 
 turalisfs Calendar. 
 
 Eich. Farmer : Essay on 
 the Learning of Shalce- 
 speare. 
 
 1707, Lyttelton : History of 
 TIenry II. 
 Sterne : Tristram Shandy 
 (vol. ix. and last). 
 
 1768. Boswell: Account of Cor- 
 sica. 
 
 COMPAEATIVE CHRONOLOGy. 
 Nathaniel Hooke died. 
 Hogarth died. 
 Algarotti died. 
 Ann Radcliffe born. 
 Legouve born. 
 
 Williams the bookseller pilloried 
 for publishing No, 45 of The 
 North Briton (February 14th), 
 Ed. Young died. 
 David Mallett died. 
 Mackintosh born. 
 William Taylor of Norwich 
 
 born. 
 Karamsin (the great Russian 
 historian) boi-n. 
 
 Turgot : Distrihntion dps Bich- 
 
 esses. 
 Lessing : Laokoun. 
 Wieland : Komische ErzUhl- 
 
 v.ngen. 
 Lessing : Minna von Barnhelm. 
 Winckelmann : Monumenti An- 
 tichi. 
 
 Thomas J5irch died. 
 ISIalthus born. 
 Lady Nairne born. 
 W. H. Wollaston born. 
 N. Drake born. 
 INrmc. dc 8tael boin. 
 
 Culmination of the movement 
 against the Jesuits. 
 .Tames Grainger died. 
 JIaria Edgewortli born. 
 Scldegol burn. 
 
 Royal Academy founded. 
 Circulating libraries established.
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Works Published. 
 17ns. Chattertoii: .TJUa. 
 
 Goldsmith : Good - Na- 
 
 itircd Man. 
 Gray : Poems. 
 Hawkesworth : Vcnelon^s 
 
 Tclcmaclius. 
 Hugh Kelly : False Dell- 
 
 cacy. 
 Alex. Eoss : Forhtnaie 
 
 She^iherdess. 
 Sterne : Sentimental 
 
 Journey, 
 Walpole : Mystermis 
 
 Mother. 
 
 17G9. Cumberland : The Bro- 
 thers. 
 
 Burke : Observations on 
 Present State of the 
 Nation. 
 
 Granger : Biographical 
 History of England. 
 
 Junius : First Letter in 
 Ptihlic Advertiser (Jan. 
 21st). 
 
 Robertson : History of 
 Charles V. 
 
 Elizabeth Montagu : Es- 
 say on the Genius of 
 Shali'espeare. 
 
 1770. Bannatyne : Ancient 
 
 Scottish Poems. 
 Beattie : Essay on Trnth. 
 Michael Bruce : Poems- 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 Jovellanos : Del'mquentc Honor- 
 ado. 
 S. A. Tissot's curious Essay on 
 Diseases incidental to Literary 
 Persons, published at Laus- 
 anne, translated into English. 
 Louis Dutens published at 
 Geneva his great edition of 
 Leibnitz. 
 
 Sterne died. 
 
 Died, Joseph tSpcnce, whose 
 famous Anecdotes of Pope 
 and his Circle were pub- 
 lished in 1820. 
 Chateaubriand bom. 
 Krilof ('the La Fontaine of 
 Russia ') born. 
 
 Klopstock : Hermanns Schlacht. 
 Nautical Almanach established. 
 James Watt obtains the first 
 
 patent for his steam engine. 
 Shakespeare Jubilee. 
 Robertson received ^4,500 for 
 
 his History. 
 French version of Hamlet by 
 Duels, 
 
 Falconer died. 
 
 "Wellington born. 
 
 Napoleon born. 
 
 Cuvier born. 
 
 Picard born. 
 
 Humboldt born. 
 
 Holbach : Systeme de la Nature. 
 Cbamfort : Marchand de Smyrne. 
 
 Akenside died. 
 
 Chatterton died,
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 323 
 
 Works Published. 
 
 1770. Goldsmith: Deserted Vill- 
 
 agp. 
 Hume : Collected Essays 
 
 and Treatises. 
 Langliorne : Version of 
 
 Plutarch. 
 Pilkington : Dictionary 
 
 of Painters. 
 Thos. Warton : Edition 
 
 of Theocritus. 
 
 1771. Beattie: 3Iinstrel{hk.l). 
 Lady Anne Barnard : 
 
 Auld Pohin Gray. 
 
 Cumberland : West In- 
 dian. 
 
 Bp. Home : Commentary 
 on the Psalms. 
 
 Mackenzie: Man of Feel- 
 ing. 
 
 Lord Monboddo : Origin 
 and Progress of Lan- 
 guage. 
 
 Smollett : Hum^ohrey 
 
 Clinker. 
 
 1772. Cumberland : Fashion- 
 able Lover. 
 
 Foote: The Nahoh. 
 
 Hurd : Study of the Pro- 
 phecies. 
 
 Sir W. Jones : Poems. 
 
 Junius : Letters (in col- 
 lective form). 
 
 Pennant : Torir in Scot- 
 land. 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 Isaac Hawkins Browne iIumI. 
 Baclianmout died. 
 Bamfylde Moore Carew died. 
 C'liristoplier Smart died. 
 James Hogg born. 
 Wordsworth born. 
 Canning born. 
 Senancour born. 
 Hegel born. 
 Beethoven born. 
 
 First edition of Fncyclop. Bri- 
 
 tannica (in 3 vols.). 
 Kiniber and Wotton's Baronet- 
 age. 
 Suard : Charles- Quint (after 
 
 Robertson). 
 Captain Cook returns from his 
 circumnavigation. 
 Gray died. 
 Smollett died. 
 William Wilkie died. 
 Helvetius died. 
 Sir W. Scott born. 
 Sydney Smith born. 
 Mungo Park born. 
 Lingard born. 
 
 Lessing : Emilia Galotti. 
 Favart : Theatre. 
 Morning Post started. 
 
 Swedenborg died. 
 
 Duclos died. 
 
 Coleridge born. 
 
 Ricardo born. 
 
 F. Schlegel born. 
 
 Fauriel born. 
 
 Fourier born.
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Works Published. 
 Robert Fergusson: Poems. 
 Byrom : Poems. 
 Goldsmitli : She Sfooi^s 
 
 to Conquer. 
 Mackenzie : Man of the 
 
 World. 
 Pennant: ToiwinWales. 
 FrancisGrose: Antiquities 
 
 of England and Wales. 
 
 Anna Barbauld : Early 
 Lessons for Children. 
 
 Burke : Speech on Ame- 
 rican Taxation. 
 
 Chesterfield: (Posthum- 
 ous) Letters to his Son. 
 
 Goldsmith : Betaliation. 
 
 Mason : Life of Gray. 
 
 Priestley : Experimeoits 
 on Air. 
 
 Thos. Warton: Hist, of 
 English Poetry (vol. i. 
 finished in 1781). 
 
 1775. Burke: Speech on Con- 
 ciliation with America. 
 
 Johnson : Journey to the 
 Western Islands of 
 Scotland. 
 
 Mickle : Version of Ca- 
 moens' Lusiad. 
 
 Sheridan : The Rivals 
 and Duenna. 
 
 Macpherson : Hist, and 
 Orig, Papers. 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 
 Goethe : Goetz von Berlichingcn. 
 BUrger : Lenore. 
 Johnson visited Hebrides vi^ith 
 Boswell. 
 
 Chesterfield died. 
 
 Lord Lyttelton died. 
 
 Hawkesworth died. 
 
 Piron died. 
 
 James Mill born. 
 
 Herder: Aeltesto TJrhunde. 
 In a decision upon appeal in the 
 case of Donaldsons v. Beckett, 
 the House of Lords rejected 
 the doctrine of an author's 
 right to perpetual copyright, 
 but affirmed his claim to a 
 copyright for twenty- one 
 years under the Act of April, 
 1710(8 Anne). 
 
 Goldsmith died. 
 
 R. Fergusson died. 
 
 Quesnay died. 
 
 Abraham Tucker died. 
 
 Soutliey born. 
 
 Johnson wrote his ' fierce ' letter 
 
 to Macpherson. 
 Beaumarchais : Barhier de Se- 
 ville. 
 Toplady : Boch of Ages. 
 
 Lamb born. 
 
 Landor born. 
 
 •Jane Austen born. 
 
 Turner born. 
 
 Schelling born. 
 
 M. G. Lewis born.
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 325 
 
 Works Published. 
 177G. Bentliam : Fragment on 
 
 Government. 
 Burney : Hist, of Miisic, 
 Gibbon : Decline and 
 
 Fall. 
 Goldsmith : Haunch of 
 
 Venison. 
 T. Paiue : Common Sense. 
 Adam Smith : Wealth of 
 
 Naiio7is. 
 Sir John Hawkins : Hist. 
 
 of Ihisic. 
 
 1777. Brooke: Fool of Quality. 
 Hannah More : Percy. 
 Clara Reeve : Old Fnglish 
 
 Baron, 
 
 Robertson : Hist, of Ame- 
 rica. 
 
 Sheridan : School for 
 Scandal. 
 
 1778. Frances Burney : Eve- 
 
 lina. 
 Foote : Trip to Calais. 
 Lowth : Isaiah. 
 V. Knox: Essays Moral 
 
 and Literary. 
 Orme : Indostan (last 
 
 vol.). 
 Sir J. Reynolds : Seven 
 
 Biscoiirses. 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 American Independence de- 
 clared. 
 Garrick quits the stage. 
 Retif de la Bretonne : Paysun 
 lierverti. 
 
 Hume tlifd. 
 
 James Granger dietl. 
 
 Freroii died. 
 
 Robert Foulis (the celeliiated 
 
 Scots printer) died. 
 Jane Porter born. 
 Constable born. 
 Niebuhv born. 
 
 Lavater completes his work on 
 Physiognomy. 
 Foote died. 
 Hugh Kelly died. 
 Mme. Geoffrin died. 
 Gresset died. 
 
 Dr. William Dodd hanged. 
 Campbell born. 
 Hallam born. 
 
 John Nichols took over 
 
 Gentleman's Magazine. 
 Sir J. Banks elected P.R.S, 
 
 Rousseau died. 
 
 Voltaire died. 
 
 Chatham dieil. 
 
 Linnaeus died. 
 
 Hazlitt boni. 
 
 Ugo Fo.scolo born. 
 
 IJelzoni born. 
 
 Candolle born. 
 
 The 
 
 1 
 
 77'J, Cumberland: Whvrl of Leasing: Nathan dcr Wvlse. 
 
 Fortune. Ulncy Hynms issued. 
 
 Hume: Natural History Crompton invents spinning 
 
 oflteligion. 'mule'
 
 326 
 
 T[IK a(;k of .TOUNSON. 
 
 Works Published. 
 
 1 779. Johnson : Lives of the 
 
 rods. 
 Benj. Franklin : Worlcs 
 
 (in collective form). 
 Monboddo: AncicntMefa- 
 
 physics. 
 Sheridan : The Grific. 
 
 1780. Bentham : Trinciplcs of 
 
 Morals and Legislation. 
 
 Grabber The Candidate. 
 
 IMartin Madan : Thclyph- 
 thora (advocating poly- 
 gamy as sanctioned by 
 Mosaic law). 
 
 1781. Hayley: Triumphs of 
 
 Temper. 
 
 Karnes : Hints on Educa- 
 tion. 
 
 Logan : Poems. 
 
 Macklin : Man of the 
 World. 
 
 Martin Sherlock : Letters 
 on Various Subjects. 
 
 J. Nichols : Anecdotes of 
 Hogarth. 
 
 1782. Burney: Cecilia. 
 Hannah Cowley : Belle's 
 
 Stratagem. 
 
 Cowper : Table Talk. 
 
 William Gilpin : Observa- 
 tions on River Wye. 
 
 Pennant : Journey from 
 Chester to London. 
 
 Priestley : Corruptions of 
 Christianity. 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 Giarrick died. 
 
 Dr. John Langliovnc died. 
 Warburton died. 
 Armstrong died. 
 John Gait born. 
 Thomas Moore born. 
 Berzelius born. 
 
 The Encyclopedic finished. 
 Wieland : Oberon. 
 
 Blackstone died. 
 
 C'ondillac died. 
 
 Mme. du Deffand died. 
 
 John Wilson C'roker burn. 
 
 J. J. Morier born. 
 
 Beranger born. 
 
 Oxford, 
 
 leason. 
 
 London Magazine ends 
 Clarendon Press, 
 
 founded. 
 Kant: Gritigue of Pure 1 
 Schiller : Die Biiuber. 
 
 Lessiiig died. 
 
 Turgot died. 
 
 Henry Thrale died. 
 
 Geo. Stephenson born. 
 
 Chamisso born. 
 
 Frocbel born. 
 
 European Magazine established. 
 
 Musiius : VolJcsmdrchen. 
 
 Pestalozzi : Christoph und Else. 
 
 Letourneur: Theatre de Shake- 
 speare (fin.). 
 
 Independence of United States 
 of America acknowledged by 
 Great Britain. 
 
 Lord Karnes died. 
 Metastasio died.
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABI.K. 
 
 327 
 
 Works Published. 
 
 1782. Baker and Keecl: Bio- 
 
 grapliia Dramaika. 
 Wolcot (Peter Pindar): 
 Lyrical Odes. 
 
 1783. Hugli Blair : Bhctoric. 
 Blake : Poetical Slcetchcs. 
 Ferguson : History of the 
 
 Roman Hepuhlic- 
 Ritson: Collection of Eng- 
 lish Songs. 
 Crabbe : The Village. 
 
 1784. Thomas Astle : Origin 
 
 and Progress of Writ- 
 ing. 
 Beckford : Vatlielc, 
 Mitford: Hist, of Greece 
 
 (vol. i.). 
 Wakefield : Oioinions con- 
 cerning Person of Christ. 
 
 1785. Boswell: Journal of a 
 
 Tour to the Hehrides. 
 
 Cowper : Tirocinium and 
 The Tash. 
 
 Laurence and Fitzpat- 
 rick : llolliad. 
 
 Paley : Moral and Politi- 
 cal Economy. 
 
 Easpe: Baron ihinchau- 
 sen's Travels. 
 
 Keid : Essays on the, In- 
 tellectualPoiversofMan. 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 
 Dr. Solandei- died. 
 Richard Wilson died. 
 Charles Robert Maturiii born. 
 Tegner (the Swedish poet)born. 
 Lamennais born. 
 
 Mably : Meniere d'ecrire VHis- 
 
 toire. 
 Robertson, Adam Smith, and 
 others founded Royal Society 
 of Edinburgh. 
 
 D'Alembert died. 
 
 Euler died. 
 
 INIme. d'E])inay died. 
 
 Henry Brooke died. 
 
 Washington Irving born. 
 
 Beaumarchais : Mariage de 
 
 Figaro. 
 Pitt's long ministry begins. 
 First balloon ascent in England 
 by V. Lunardi. 
 
 Dr. Johnson died. 
 Diderot died. 
 Allan Cunningham born, 
 Leigh Hunt born. 
 
 Daily Universal liegister begins, 
 
 renamed The Times in 1788. 
 Thos. Warton succeeds White- 
 head as laureate. 
 
 Clover died. 
 
 RLibly died. 
 
 Thomas Leland died. 
 
 Wm. Whitehead died. 
 
 AVm. Woollett died. 
 
 De Quincey born. 
 
 Thos. Love Peacock born. 
 
 Manzoni born. 
 
 Varnhagen von Ense born. 
 
 Grimm born.
 
 328 
 
 iiii'; a(;h of .tohnsox. 
 
 Works Published. 
 1785. Sir Charles Wilkins: 
 Trav slat ions from 3Ia- 
 habharafa. 
 
 178G. Burns : Foems, chiefly in 
 iJieScoitishBialecti'Kil- 
 marnock '). 
 
 Pinkerton : Ancient Scot- 
 fis]i> Foems. 
 
 Hester Thrale Piozzi : 
 Anecdotes of Br. John- 
 son. 
 
 Rogers : Ode to Supersti- 
 tion. 
 
 Home Tooke : Diversions 
 of Furleij. 
 
 Moore : Zeluco. 
 
 Wolcot (Peter Pindar) : 
 The Lousiad. 
 
 1787. Bentham : Defence of 
 
 Usury. 
 BurES : Songs in Scots 
 
 Musical Museum. 
 John Wesley : Sermons. 
 British Mtiseum Catalogue 
 
 (first issue in two folio 
 
 volumes). 
 
 1788. Gibbon : Decline a^id 
 Fall (last three vols.). 
 
 Glover : Athenaid. 
 
 Hester Thralo Piozzi : 
 Letters from Dr. John- 
 aon , 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 "William »Stralian (the eminent 
 ]irintei) died. 
 
 Burke exhibited nine articles of 
 impeachment against Warren 
 Hastings (February). 
 
 Frederick the (ireat died. 
 
 Thomas Tyrwhitt died. 
 
 Cliarlotte Smith died. 
 
 Jonas Hanway died. 
 
 Gilbert Stuart died. 
 Both George Crabbe (born 1754), 
 whose verse tales began in 
 1783, and Samuel Eogers 
 (born 1763), whose Fleasures 
 of Memory appeared in 1792, 
 belonging more intimately to 
 The Age of Wordsworth, are 
 treated in Professor Herford's 
 volume. 
 
 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre : Faul 
 
 et Virginie. 
 Goethe : Iphigenia. 
 Schiller : Don Carlos. 
 
 lip. Lowth died. 
 
 Soame Jenyns died. 
 
 Galiani died. 
 
 Whateley born. 
 
 Uhland born. 
 
 Guizot born. 
 
 Goethe : Egmont. 
 
 Gaiusborougli died (his eulogy 
 
 2)ronounced by Reynolds in 
 
 his 14th Discourse). 
 James ( ' Atlieuiau ") Stuart 
 
 died. 
 John Logan died.
 
 CllRONOLOGIf'AL TABLE. 
 
 320 
 
 Works Published. 
 
 1788. Thos. Holcrofc: Life of 
 
 Baron TrencJc. 
 Thomas Eeid : Essays on 
 the Active Poivcrs of 
 Man (a sequel to the 
 Essays of 1785). 
 
 1789. Blake : Songs of Inno- 
 
 cence and Booh of Thel. 
 Bowles : Sonnets. 
 Erasmus Darwin : Loves 
 
 of the Plants, 
 Gilbert White: Natiwal 
 
 History of Selhorne. 
 Thomas Kussell : Sonnets 
 
 and Miscellaneous 
 
 Poems. 
 Thos. Twining : Treatise 
 
 on Poetry (after Aris- 
 totle). 
 
 1790. Alison : Essay on Taste. 
 Burke : Reflections on the 
 
 Revolution in France. 
 Bruce : Travels. 
 Ellis : Specimens of the 
 
 Early English Poets. 
 Malone: Edition of /S7iaA;e- 
 
 speare. 
 Paley : Hone Paulinoi. 
 Ritson : Ancient Songs. 
 Topham : Life of John 
 
 Elwes. 
 
 1791. Boswell : L!fo of Lr. 
 
 Johnson. 
 Burke : Thoughts on 
 French A^'airs. 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 
 liiiffoii died. 
 
 Thomas Amoiy died. 
 
 Byron bom. 
 
 Silvio Pellico born. 
 
 Sir Will. Hamilton boru. 
 
 R. H. liarham born. 
 
 Sir F. Palgrave born. 
 
 Meeting of the States General 
 
 at Versailles. 
 Jownal des Behats founded. 
 Herschel discovered the planet 
 
 named after him. 
 Literary Fund instituted by 
 David Williams. 
 D'Holbacli died. 
 Sir John Hawkins died. 
 Thomas Day died, 
 liaretti died. 
 Michael Scott born 
 Fenimore Cooper born. 
 
 Goethe : Faust. 
 Moratin : El Viejo y la Niiia. 
 Kant : Kritih der Urtheilshraft. 
 Sieyes : Tracts on ecclesiastical 
 property, justice, and educa- 
 tion. 
 
 Adam Smith died. 
 John Howard died. 
 ]3enj. Franklin died. 
 Thos. Walton died, and wa.s 
 succeeded as laureate by I'yc. 
 Dr. Robert Henry died. 
 Lamartine born. 
 
 Beoj. West succeeds Eeynolds 
 
 as r.K.A. 
 Priestley's house destroyed in 
 
 the Birmingham riots.
 
 830 
 
 'nil-: .\(;i': oi' .loiixsox. 
 
 AVoRKs Published. 
 
 1791. Cowper: Vprsionof Homer. 
 Darwin : Botanic Garden 
 
 (completed). 
 I. Disraeli: Cnrioaifies 
 
 of Liferahire. 
 O'Keeffe : Wild Oats. 
 Mackintosh : Vindtcico 
 
 GaJllcoi. 
 Thos. Paine : livjhis of 
 
 Man. 
 Ann lladcliffe : liomance 
 
 of the Forest. 
 Lodge : Illustrations of 
 
 British History. 
 
 1792. Burdy : Life of Thllip 
 
 Skelton. 
 
 Burke : Appeal from the 
 Neiv to the Old Whigs. 
 
 Holcroft : Road to Ituin. 
 
 T. Paine : Age of licason. 
 
 Rogers : Pleasures of Me- 
 mory. 
 
 A. Young : Travels in 
 France. 
 
 1793. Burns: Poems (2 vols.). 
 Godwin : Inquiry con- 
 cerning PoliticalJustice. 
 
 Hannah More : Village 
 Politics. 
 
 Diigald Stewart : Out- 
 lines of Moral Philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 Wordsworth : An Evening 
 Wedh. 
 
 G. Steevens and Reed's 
 edition of Shakespeare. 
 
 Coiir.AR.vTivE Chronology. 
 Schiller : Hrcissigjahrige Kricg. 
 Volney : Les Buines. 
 
 AYesley died. 
 
 Mirabeau died. 
 
 ]\Iozart died. 
 
 Thos. Blacklock died. 
 
 AVilliam Williams (the great 
 Welsh hymn -writer) died. 
 
 Francis Grose (the great anti- 
 quary) died. 
 
 Charles Knight born. 
 
 C'liampollion born. 
 
 Koerner born. 
 
 Scribe born. 
 
 Libel Act passed. 
 
 Kcynolils died (Lawrence ap- 
 pointed Royal Painter in his 
 stead). 
 
 AVilliam Tytkr died. 
 
 jNInie. Riccoboni died. 
 
 Shelley born. 
 
 John Keble born. 
 
 Samuel Roffey Maitland born. 
 
 ('apt. Marryat born. 
 
 F. V. Baur born. 
 
 British Critic begins. 
 Booksellers imprisoned and 
 heavily fined for selling Tom 
 Paine's works. 
 Monument erected to Milton in 
 Cripplegate Church (Sep- 
 tember 1st). 
 
 Gilbert White died. 
 Robertson died. 
 Goldoni died. 
 Lord Mansfield died. 
 John Hvmter died. 
 Maginn born.
 
 ri[RONOLO(;KAL TAHLK. 
 
 331 
 
 Works Published. 
 1794. Giflford: Baviad. 
 
 Godwin : Galeh Williiiinti. 
 Paley : Evidences ofClirls- 
 
 tianit]j. 
 A. Radcliffe : Mysteries of 
 
 UdolpJio. 
 Kitson : Collection of 
 
 Scottish Songs. 
 Blake : Songs of Exi^eri- 
 
 ence. 
 Thomas J. Mathias: I'^tr- 
 
 suits of Literature (first 
 
 dialogue). 
 
 1795. Giflord: }Lmuml. 
 
 M. G. Lewis : The Monk. 
 
 Eitson : Ilohin JTood 
 Poems. 
 
 Gilbert White : Natural- 
 ist's Calendar. 
 
 Nichols : History of Lei- 
 csforshire. 
 
 Lindley Murray ; English 
 Grammar. 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 Goethe : Beineclce Fuchs. 
 Fichte : Wissenschaffslehre. 
 Xavier de Maistre : Vogage 
 autour de ma chamhre. 
 
 Gibbon died. 
 
 .Sir "W. Jones died. 
 
 James Bruce died. 
 
 I'ondorcet died. 
 
 licccaria died. 
 
 Tiraboschi died. 
 
 Florian (the fabulist) died. 
 
 Lavoi.sier guillotined. 
 
 A. C'henier guillotined. 
 
 George Colman the elder died. 
 
 G. Grote born. 
 
 J. G. Lockhart born. 
 
 ■Whewell born. 
 
 Goethe : Wilhehn Mfister, 
 J. i'. lUchter : Hesperus. 
 
 IJoswell died. 
 
 Dr. Andrew Kipiiis (editor of 
 the Jji(Mtrfij)fiin Jirituniiico, 
 new edition unfinished) died. 
 
 I'hilidor died. 
 
 Kanke bom. 
 
 Carlyle born. 
 
 Keats Ijorn. 
 
 1796. Burke: Letter to a Nolle i Goethe aud Schiller : Xenicn. 
 
 Lord. 
 
 Barney : Camilla. 
 
 Eobt. Bage : Hermsprong. 
 
 Ed. King : Mutiinienta 
 Antigua. 
 
 Koscoe : Life of Lorenzo 
 de Medici. 
 
 Lysons : Environs of Lon- 
 don (completed). 
 
 Kemble produced Ireland's Vor- 
 tigern. 
 
 lUuns died. 
 
 Jlacpherson died. 
 
 Reid died. 
 
 Abbe Raynal died. 
 
 Samuel I'egge (the antiquary) 
 died. 
 
 Gerard ( 'Single-Siicech ") Ham- 
 ilton died.
 
 832 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON, 
 
 Works Published. 
 796. Soutbey : Joan of Arc. 
 
 1797. Burke : Letters on a lie- 
 gicide Peace. 
 
 G. Colman the younger : 
 Heir-at-Law. 
 
 Pinkertou : Hist, of Scot- 
 land. 
 
 A. Radcliffe : The Italian. 
 
 Wilberforce : Practical 
 Vieiv of Ghristianity. 
 
 1798. Coleridge : France. 
 
 Cowper: Poems. 
 
 Lamb : Rosamund Grey. 
 
 Landor : Gehir. 
 
 Maltbus : PrinciiAes of 
 Poindation. 
 
 Somerville : Hist, of 
 Great Britain under 
 Anne. 
 
 Wolfe Tone : Autobio- 
 graphy (finished writ- 
 ing). 
 
 Wordsworth and Cole- 
 ridge : Lyrical Ballads. 
 
 1799. (39 and 40 Geo. III.). 
 Campbell : Pleasures of 
 
 Hope. 
 M. G. Lewis: Talcs of 
 
 Terror. 
 Mungo Park : Travels. 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 Monthly Mugazine begins. 
 W. H. I'lescott born. 
 Miguet born. 
 Jouffioy born. 
 
 Carlo Gozzi : Memorie inutili. 
 The Anti-Jacohin. 
 
 Burke died. 
 
 Horace WaliJole died. 
 
 Macklin died. 
 
 Mason died. 
 
 John "Wilkes died. 
 
 Sedaine died. 
 
 Lover born. 
 
 Rosmini born. 
 
 Alfred de Vigny born. 
 
 De Remusat born. 
 
 Goethe : Hermann und Dorothea. 
 Firmin Didot introduced stereo- 
 type printing. 
 
 Pennant died. 
 
 Wolfe Tone died. 
 
 Vancouver died. 
 
 Robert Merry (the Delia Crus- 
 can) died. 
 
 Casanova died. 
 
 Alexander Dyce born, 
 
 Auguste C'omte born. 
 
 Michelet born. 
 
 Leojiardi born. 
 
 Hoffmann born. 
 
 Schiller: Piccolomini. 
 
 Lord Mouboddo died. 
 Beauinarchais died. 
 Marmontcl die<l. 
 Cialvaui died. 
 
 AVilliam Seward (of Tlit Anec- 
 dotes) died.
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 883 
 
 Works Published. 
 1799. Scott: Version of Goethe's 
 Goetz von Berlichingen. 
 
 Sheridan : Pizarro. 
 
 Sinclair : Statistical Ac- 
 count of Scotland. 
 
 Sharon Turner: History 
 of Anglo-Saxons (vol.i.). 
 
 Strutt : Qucenhoo Hall 
 (begun). 
 
 Comparative Chronology. 
 
 Montgolfier died, 
 (ieorge Washington died. 
 Craclierode (the great book and 
 
 print collector) died. 
 Spallanzani died. 
 Vassili Petrof died. 
 I'arini died, 
 lialzac born. 
 Pushkin l)()rn. 
 Thos. Hood born. 
 Heine born.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 [Initials and dates are given in the ease of a number of eiglifecnth- 
 centiiry writers but cursorily alluded to in the text.] 
 
 Absolute, Sir Anthony, 176, 215. 
 
 Account of London, 103. 
 
 Acta Sanctorum, 153. 
 
 Acton, Lord, 13. 
 
 Actor, The, 2.36. 
 
 Adam, Robert, 104. 
 
 Adams, Dr., 7. 
 
 Adams, Jean, 292. 
 
 Adam.s, Parson, 166, 208, 261. 
 
 Ad Bellendenum, 106 
 
 Addison, xvii, 8, 155, 200, 208, 
 
 237, 258. 
 Address to the Unco' Guid, 298. 
 Adjudged Case, The, 268. 
 Admiral Hosier's Ghost, 235, 
 
 239. 
 Adventurers, The, 8, 27. 
 Ac Fond Kiss, 300. 
 j'Eschylus, 32. 
 Age of Pope, 228. 
 Age of Reason, 116. 
 Age of Wordsujorlh, 84. 
 Agreeable Surprise, An, 213. 
 Akcnside, 173. Sec The Age of 
 
 Pope. 
 Aikin, 99, 100. 
 Albery, .James, 214. 
 Alchemist, The, 200. 
 Aleman, Mateo (d. 1610), 154. 
 
 Alfred, 224. 
 
 Almon, John, 80, 81. 
 
 Amelia, 169, 170. 
 
 Amnuanus Marcellinus, 1.39. 
 
 Amiel, H. Y. (his Journal In- 
 time cited), 245. 
 
 Amory, Tliomas, 190. 
 
 Analogy, Butler's, 111. 
 
 Anatomy of Mclajtcholy, 181. 
 
 Ancient and Modern Scottish 
 Songs, 285. 
 
 Andersen, Hans, 267. 
 
 Anecdotes of Painting in Eng- 
 land, 50, 277. 
 
 Anecdotes of the late Dr. Johnson 
 during the last twenty years of 
 his life (ed. Hester Thrale 
 Piozzi, 1786), 56. 6.3. 
 
 Animated Nature, 23. 
 
 Anj;ellier, Professor, xxxvii, 311. 
 
 Annet, Peter, 112. 
 
 Annual Register, The, 69, 89. 
 
 Aniuds of Scotland, 151. 
 
 Annus Mirabilis, 251. 
 
 Anson, Lord, 270. 
 
 Anselm, 110. 
 
 Anstey, Cliristojilier, 175, 2.32-2.3,3. 
 
 Anti-Jarohiu, The, 2.34-235, 244. 
 
 Antiquities of Athens, 34,
 
 330 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Antiquities of Scotland, 35. 
 
 Apology, An, 228. 
 
 Apology for the Bible, in a Series 
 
 of Letters, 116. 
 Apologia, Newman's, 142. 
 Appeal from the New to the Old 
 
 Whigs, 74. 
 Aptliorpe, Dr., 143. 
 Aquinas, Thomas, 110. 
 Arbuthnot, Dr. John (d. 1735), 
 
 32, 85, 181. 
 Arguments demonstrating the Let- 
 ters (ofJunii(s) to be by J. L. de 
 
 Lolmc, 80. 
 Arian, 141. 
 Ariel, 248. 
 Ariosto, 109. 
 Aristotle, 43. 
 Aristojihanes, 108. 
 Armour, Jean, 298. 
 Armstrong, John, 228, 238, 270. 
 
 See The Age of Prjpe. 
 Arnold, Mattliew, xi, 33, 44, 77, 
 
 105, 112, 253. 
 Art of Preserving Hecdth, 238. 
 Ars Poctica, 280. 
 Ashburton, Lord, 13. 
 Ashmole, 170. 
 Astle, Thomas, 35. 
 As Yoii Like It, 200. 
 Athenaius, 32. 
 Athenaid, The, 239, 280. 
 Aubrey, John, 59, 170, 253. 
 A tdd Lang Syne, 301. 
 AiddBeikic, 294, 296, 302. 
 A uld Eobin Gray, 288. 
 Austen, Lady, 2(38, 269. 
 Author, The, Foote's, 205, 229. 
 Atitobiograjjhy, Carlyle's, 1,34. 
 Autobiography, Franklin's, 85. 
 Autobiography, Gibbon's, 141. 
 
 Aidobiography, Law's, 124. 
 Autobiography, Sir John Brain- 
 ston's, 194. 
 
 Bacon, Francis, 43, 66, 72, 92. 
 
 Bage, Robert, 190. 
 
 Bailey, Nathan, 10. 
 
 Balfour, Mr., 13, 19. 
 
 Balzac, 160, 162. 
 
 Banks, Sir Joseph, 13, 232. 
 
 Barre, 80. 
 
 Barrington, Hon. Daines, 99. 
 
 Barrow, Isaac, 167. 
 
 Barry Lyndon, 168. 
 
 Bard, The, 227, 251. 
 
 Barker, E. H., 80. 
 
 Barnard, Lady, 288. 
 
 Baron Munchansen, 181, 191. 
 
 Baron's War, The, 138. 
 
 Bas Bleu, Hannah Mora's, 198. 
 
 Basire, 281. 
 
 Bate, Dr. Dudley (1745-1824), 233. 
 
 Bathing, 255. 
 
 Bat hurst, Richard, 8. 
 
 Bcdtle of the Wigs, 236. 
 
 Baviad, The, 235. 
 
 Bayes, 204. 
 
 Beaconsheld, Lord, 145. 
 
 Beattie, James, 97, 244, 267 ; life 
 
 and works of, 288-291. 
 Beauclerk, 5. 
 Befiumarchais, 220. 
 Beckford, William, 196. 
 Bedford, Duke of, 74, 75. 
 Bee, The, 8. 
 Beers, Henry A., 251. 
 Beggar's Opera, 200, 216. 
 Begum Sjieeeh (Sheridan's), 229. 
 Behn, Aphra, 154. 
 Bell, Prof. Thomas, 100,279. 
 Belles Lcttres, 102,
 
 INDEX. 
 
 337 
 
 Belle's Stmtarf em, 211. 
 Benthaui, Jeremy, 84. Sec The 
 
 ^i/e of Wordsworth. 
 Bentley, Dr. Kichard, 210. 
 Bergerae, Cyrano de, 168. 
 Berkeley, 97, 289. 
 Berry, ]Mis8, .50. 
 Betham-Edwardsi, Miss, 103. 
 Beverley, 202, 215. 
 Bible in Spain, 170. 
 Bickerstaffe, Isaac (d. 1813), 214. 
 Biographical History of England, 
 
 151. 
 Bion, 108. 
 
 Birch, Thomas, 151. 
 Birks of Abcrfeldie, 301. 
 Birthday Odes, 30. 
 Black, Joseph, 102. 
 Black Prince, The, 13S. 
 Blackbirds, The, 241. 
 Blacklock, Thomas, 241. 
 Blackraore, Sir Kichard, 15. 
 Blackstone, Sir William, 152, 223. 
 Blair, 280, 302. 
 Blake, Ellen, 281. 
 Blake, Kate, 282. 
 Blake, Bol)ert, 173, 282. 
 Blake, William, 242, 257; life 
 
 and works of, 280-285. 
 Blamire, Susanna, 290. 
 Bloraefield, Francis, 104. 
 Boadicea, Cowper's, 266, 268. 
 Bodley, Mr. J. E. C, 103. 
 Boehmen, 282. 
 Bohn, Henry, 126. 
 Boileau, 2, 28, 36, 162, 302. 
 Boliugbroke, 32, 46, 69, 70, 71, 
 
 82, 83, 127, 148. 
 Bolton, Duke of, 27. 
 Bonnie luee Tiling, 301. 
 Bonny Heck, 286. 
 
 Booby, Mr., 165. 
 
 Book of Pscdtas, 287. 
 
 Book of Scottish Song, 287. 
 
 Book of Thcl, 284. 
 
 Borrow, 170. 
 
 Bossuet, 136. 
 
 Botanic Garden, 241, 243, 244. 
 
 Boswell, James, 3, 13, 14, 24, 39, 
 
 46, 47, 48, ; life and works of, 
 
 51-60, 64, 120, 144, 206, 228; 
 
 lampooned by Wolcot, 232, 237. 
 Boswell, Mrs., 54. 
 Bouchet, Guillaume, 181. 
 Bouquet, 128. 
 Bower, 135. 
 Bowles, William Lisle, 30, 246, 
 
 256. See The Age of Wordsworth . 
 Boyd, 80. 
 
 Boyer, Philoxene, 253. 
 Bozzy and Piozzi, or the British 
 
 Biograjihers, a Town Eclogue, 
 
 232. 
 Brady, Robert, 128. 
 Braes of Yarrow, 292. 
 Brantome, 46. 
 
 Bridges, John (1666-1724), 104. 
 Brigs of Ayr, The, 296, 310. 
 British, The, 174. 
 British Album, The, 236. 
 British and Foreign Evangelical 
 
 Eevietv, 292. 
 British Classics, 174. 
 British Action in Industan, 149. 
 British Zoology, 99. 
 Briton, The, 8, 174. 
 Britton, John, 79. 
 Brissot's Ghost, 235. 
 Brooke, Henry, 192-193, 241, 243. 
 Brothers, 210. 
 Brougham, 83. 
 Brown, Agnes, 297.
 
 338 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Brown, John, xxiii ; his Estimate, 
 
 summary of, xxiv. 
 Browne, General, 210. 
 Browne, Isaac Hawkins, 234. 
 Browning, Mrs., 272. 
 Bruce, James, 102, 232, 241. 
 Bruce, Michael, 292 ; works of, 
 
 293-294. 
 Bruscambille, 181. 
 Bryant, Jacob (1715-1804), 152. 
 Buccleuch, Duke of, 90. 
 Buchanan, George (d. 1582), 132. 
 Buckland, Frank, 99, 100. 
 Buckle, H. T., 91, 128. 
 Buffon, 23, 32, 98. 
 Bunyan, 154, 163. 
 Burdy, Samuel, 60 ; life of, 61. 
 Burgess, Daniel (d. 1713), 120. 
 Burke, Edmund, xiii, xiv, 2, 11 ; 
 
 at Johnson's death-bed, 17, 19, 
 
 23, 24, 66, 67, 68; life and 
 
 works of, 68-77, 82, 83, 84, 85, 
 
 86, 89, 91, 100, 144, 145. 
 Burn, Richard (1709-1785), 104. 
 Burnet, Bishop, his history, 38, 
 
 127. 
 Burney, Dr. Charles, 64, 65, 191, 
 
 192. 
 Burney, Fanny, 17, 26, 191, 192. 
 
 See also D'Arblay, Mme. 
 Burnes, William, 297, 298. 
 Burns, Gilbert, 298. 
 Burns, Robert, xiv, 66, 219, 271, 
 
 280, 286, 288, 291, 294, 296 ; life 
 
 and works of, 297-313. 
 Burr, 79. 
 
 Burton, Robert, 120, 181. 
 Bury, Prof., xxxvii, 18. 
 Busby, T., 80. 
 Busch, M., 81. 
 Busy Body, 200. 
 
 Bute, 12, 174. 
 
 Butler, Alban, 15, 111, 126, 229. 
 
 Button's, 15. 
 
 Byrom, John, 242 ; and see The 
 
 Age of Pope. 
 Byron, Lord, 37, 162, 169, 219, 
 
 228, 242, 273. 
 
 Calebs in Search of a Wife, 198. 
 Caleb Quotcm, Lee's, 214. 
 Cambridge, Richard Owen, 236. 
 Camden, 127. 
 Camilla, 192. 
 Camoens, 291. 
 Campbell, George, 126. 
 Campbell, John, 151. 
 Candidate, The, 229. 
 Candide, Voltaire's, 12, 190. 
 Canning, 234, 235. 
 Canons of Criticisms, 119. 
 Capell, Edward, 2, 14, 34. 
 Caractacus, 254. 
 Caravan, Reynolds's, 213. 
 Carey, Henry (d. 1743), 219. 
 Carlyle, 18, 42, 57, 58, 134, 252, 
 
 253. 
 Caro, M., 184. 
 
 Carte, Thomas, works of , 128- 129. 
 Casaubon, Isaac, 10, 253. 
 Castaway, Cowper's, 268, 270. 
 Castle of Indolence, 32, 110, 258. 
 Castle ofOtranto, 49, 194, 195. 
 Catalogue of the Boycd and Noble 
 
 Authors of England, 50. 
 Catcott, George, 277. 
 Catholic Docti'ine, 136. 
 Cato, 197. 
 
 Cato, Addison's, 200. 
 Catullus, 254. 
 
 Cave, Edward (1691-1754), 6. 
 Cavendish, Henry, 102.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 339 
 
 Cawmell, John Campbell, lol. 
 Caxton, 152, 153, 154. 
 Cecilia, 62, 64, 192. 
 Centlivre, 200. 
 Cervantes, 163, 181, 186. 
 Cesarotti, Melchiore (cl. 1808), 273. 
 Chabot, Charles, SO. 
 Chalmers, Alexander, 31, 79, 80, 
 
 240. 
 Chamberlain, Foote and the Lord, 
 
 205. 
 Charittf, Cowper's, 268. 
 Charles I., 203. 
 Charles II., 203, 232. 
 Charles VIII., 138. 
 Chasles, Philarete, xxv, 42. 
 Chateaubriand, 273. 
 Chatham, Lord, 53. 
 Chatterton, Thomas, xix, 221, 
 
 246, 273, 275, 296; works of, 
 
 276-280. 
 Chaucer, 32, 278. 
 Chaucer, Tyrwhitt's edition of, 
 
 .34. 
 Chelsum, 143. 
 Chcnier, A., 296. 
 Chcrrij and the Slac, 303. 
 Chesterfield, Lord, .xviii, xix, 2, 
 
 7, 8, 10, 18, 39, 40, 45, 49, 82, 
 
 133, 159 ; his connection with 
 
 Johnson's Dictionary, 9, 10, 11 ; 
 
 life and works of, 40-46. Sec 
 
 also Philip Dormer Stanhope. 
 Clicvrillon, Andre, his Sydncij 
 
 Smith (1894) cited, xv, xvi, 
 
 xx.xvii. 
 Chevy Chase, .35, 37. 
 Churchill, Charles, 2, 175, 232, 
 
 2.33, 236, 259 ; life and works of, 
 
 226-231. 
 Churchill, John, 14. 
 
 Childe Maurice, 202. 
 Chimney Siveeper, The, 283. 
 Chinese Letters, Goldsndth's, 22. 
 Christahel, 246, 249. 
 Chrononhotontholoyos, Carey's, 
 
 219. 
 Chrysal, or tlic Adventures of a 
 
 Guinea, 186, 189. 
 Cibber, Colley, 15, 30, 190, 223, 
 
 224, 250, 260. 
 Cicero, 44, 48, 83, 266. 
 Cimabue, 278. 
 
 Citizen of the World, 22, 182. 
 Clandestitic Marriage, 207, 208. 
 Clarendon, 32, 40, 59, 127, 141. 
 Clarissa Harloux, 159-161, 178, 
 
 191, 273. 
 Claude, 303. 
 
 Cleveland, Duchess of, 256. 
 Clinch, 216. 
 
 Clinker, Humjihrey, 175, 176. 
 Clive, Lord, 149. 
 Clogenson, 253. 
 
 Club, The, Johnson's, 13, 22, 90. 
 Cobbett, 82, 85, 116, 198. 
 Cocker, Edward, 10. 
 Coke, 66. 
 
 Colutjriad, Cowper's, 266. 
 Coleridge, 32, 244, 249, 255, 271, 
 
 278,280,291, .308. 
 Collection of Poems by Several 
 
 Hands, 240. 
 Collier, Jeremy, 27, 155. 
 Collins, William, 31, 56, 111, 12(1, 
 
 244, 245, 249, 251, 252; life and 
 
 works of, 246-248. 
 Collinson, John, 104. 
 Colman, Ceorye, 8, 37, 199, 201, 
 
 211, 226, 228, 229, 254, 256, 
 
 2.59 ; life and works of, 207- 
 
 209.
 
 340 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Cviniit tlcru the liijc, 3U1. 
 Commentaries on the La as of 
 
 England, 152. 
 Conimcntanj, Scott's, 126. 
 Comuiine.s, 32. 
 Common Sense, 86. 
 ( 'oinpayre,on Hniiie'spliilosopliy, 
 
 64. 
 Concordance, Cruden's, 126. 
 Concordances to Cowper, and to 
 
 Burns, 272, 311. 
 Conde, 154. 
 Confcdcrac]j, V.-uibrugh's, 200, 
 
 208. 
 Conference, The, 229. 
 Congreve, 15, 164, 168, 200, 212, 
 
 217. 
 Connaught, people of, 45. 
 Connoisseur, The, 8. 
 Conscious Lovers, >Steele's, 200, 
 
 209. 
 Constitution of England, 152. 
 Contarine, rector of Kilmore, 20. 
 Continuation, .32. 
 Conversation, Cowper's, 268. 
 Conway, Henry Seymonr, 46. 
 CooJSs Voyages, 8. 
 Copleston, Bp. Edward, 113. 
 Corn Rigs, 298. 
 Correspondence, Hume's, 96. 
 Correspondence of Horace Wal- 
 
 pole, 47, 48, 123. 
 Cosi)ioj)olitisme Litteraire, 161. 
 Cotter's Saturday Night, 258, 
 
 296, 298, 302. 
 County Histories, 104. 
 Covent Garden Journal, 170. 
 Coventry, G., 79. 
 Cowley, 64. 
 Cowley, Hannah, 235. 
 Coioley, Johnson's Life of, 15, 211. 
 
 Cowper, Ashley, 260. 
 
 Cowper, Earl, 259. 
 
 Cowper, John, 259. 
 
 Cowper, Mrs. , 263. 
 
 Cowper, William, xxix, 4, 8, 16, 18, 
 28, 31, 33, 38, 39, 42, 48, 68, 109, 
 135, 226, 229, 243, 244, 245, 250, 
 256, 258, 259, 280, 302, 310 ; 
 life and works of, 259-273. 
 
 Cowper's Grave, 272. 
 
 Crabbe, George, xxviii, 76. See 
 The Age of Wordsivorth. 
 
 Crabtree, Cadwallader, 172. 
 
 Cradle Song, A, 283. 
 
 Craik, G. L., 25. 
 
 Cramp, W. , 79. 
 
 Crashaw, Richard, 283. 
 
 Crazy Tales, 236. 
 
 Crebilion, 49. 
 
 Crepuscule, 248. 
 
 Critic, The, Slieridan's, 210, 212, 
 214, 219. 
 
 Critical, The, 22, 240. 
 
 Criticcd Enquiry proving Junius 
 to he Lord Saekville, 79. 
 
 Critical Observations on Shake- 
 speare, 119. 
 
 Critical Observations on the Sixth 
 Book of the jEneid, 139. 
 
 Critical Observations, Gibbon's, 
 119. 
 
 Criticcd Review, 173, 228. 
 
 Croaker, 211. 
 
 Croft, Sir Herbert, 16. 
 
 Croker, 80. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 19, 158. 
 
 Crowne, 200. 
 
 Cruden, Alexander, 126. 
 
 Crummies, Mr., 214. 
 
 Cuckoo, The, 292. 
 
 Cumberland, Richard, 8, 104,
 
 INDEX. 
 
 341 
 
 190, 201, 226, ; life and works 
 
 of, 209, 210. 
 Cumnor Hnll, 291. 
 Cunningham, Peter, 48. 
 Cnrchod, Mile., 142. 
 C'Hriositks of Litcratiirr, 10. 
 Cuttle, Captain, 173. 
 C>/i)ibcfi)ir, 200. 
 
 Daft Dinjs, The, 288. 
 
 Daille, Jean, 114. 
 
 DAlenibert, 156. 
 
 Dalgetty, 177. 
 
 Dalryniple, Sir Daviil, Ml. 
 
 Dalrymple, Sir John, I.'jI. 
 
 Dalton, John, 102. 
 
 I )aute, 283. 
 
 D'Arhlay, General, 192. 
 
 1 )'Arl)lay, Mnie. , Efn-ly Diarij of, 
 
 62 ; life and works of, 62-63. 
 
 See oho Frances Burney. 
 Darwin, P:ra8nius, 91, 92, 98, 102, 
 
 236, 235, 241, 280 ; i.oetioal 
 
 works of, 243-244. 
 Darw in, Charles, 243. 
 Davies, Mr., of Oxford, 143. 
 Davies, Mrs., 52. 
 Davies, Tom (d. 1785). .-)2. 228. 
 Pavila, 135. 
 Day, 228. 
 Dayrolles, 41. 
 Day, Thomas, 197. 
 Dicith and Burial of Cock llobin, 
 
 197. 
 I)e Crousaz, Jean Pierre, 120. 
 Defence of the Thirtij - nine 
 
 Articles, 126. 
 Defoe, Daniel, 10, 40, 82, 85, 193, 
 
 154, 155, 157, 178. 
 De ( Iraniinont, 42, 47. 
 Delaborde, Leon, 102. 
 
 De Levis, Duke, 68. 
 
 Delia Crttscans, 235. 
 
 De Lolme, John Lonis, 80, 1.52. 
 
 De Mendoza, Hnrtado. 154. 
 
 Demosthenes, SO. 
 
 Dennis, 31. 
 
 Denham, 15, 100, 241. 
 
 De (^uincey, 1, 4, 77, 105. 
 
 De Remusat, 51 , 83. 
 
 Derham, 100. 
 
 l)r Sacra I'ocfsi Hcbra-omrn, 121. 
 
 Descartes, 92. 
 
 Descent of Oclin, 251. 
 
 Jh'scription of an Author's Bcd- 
 
 chcunber, 238. 
 Deserted Villarfe, The, 20, 23, 237, 
 
 238. 
 Desitliw ndedi.ii, 4. 
 Despatches of thr Dnlc of Wei- 
 
 lineiton, 125. 
 De Sevigne, Mme., 39, 47. 
 Deuce is in Him, The, ('(diiian's, 
 
 208. 
 Diarij and Letters, Frances Bur- 
 ney 's, 191, 192. 
 Diai-y, T. Wolfe Tone's, 61, 62. 
 Dickens, Charles, 24, 186, 219. 
 Dictio)iary, Johnson's, 6, 7, 10. 
 Dictionary of Natiomd Jiio- 
 
 fjrnphy, 81, 181, 196. 
 Diddle, Sir Didbury, 204. 
 Diderot, 1.59, 189, 218. 
 Dilke, Charles Wentwortli, 7^, 
 
 80. 
 Dilly, Mr., 55, 57. 
 Dirye, Collins's, 249. 
 Disraeli, Isaac, 46. 
 Dissertation on, Miracles, 12(). 
 Dissertation on the I'ro//heeies, 
 
 126. 
 Diversion of the Morning, 204.
 
 342 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Diversions of Parley, 107. 
 Divine Legation, The, 29, 118, 
 
 181. 
 Dion Cassiiis, 139. 
 Dobson, Austin, xxxvii, 1, IS, 22, 
 
 50, 51, 174. 
 Dodtl, Dr. William, 8. 
 Dodsley, Robert, 6, 69, 240, 249, 
 
 267. " 
 Dog and Watcr-Lilg, 268. 
 Don Quixote, 174. 
 Dorset, 104. 
 Doiihlc Gallant, The, Gibber's, 
 
 200. 
 Douglas, Home's, 202, 203, 247. 
 Doiif,4as, John, 88. 
 Dow, Gerard, 312. 
 Dowe, W., 79. 
 Dou-ie Dens of Yarrow, 287. 
 Drake, Dr. Nathan, 8. 
 Dramatist, Reynolds's, 213. 
 Draper, Eliza, 185. 
 Dream, Blake's, 283. 
 Dreamer, The, 8. 
 Dryden, 15, 16, 18, 32, 34, 71, 
 
 200, 211, 227, 229, 238, 244, 251, 
 
 255, 278. 
 Dryden, Johnson's Life of, 15. 
 Dunbar, 305. 
 Ducange, 128. 
 Duellist, The, 229. 
 Duenna, Sheridan's, 216, 217. 
 Diift'erin, Lord, 13. 
 Dugdale, 30, 128. 
 DugdaWs Monasticon, 255. 
 Dumas, Alexandre, 132. 
 Dunciad, The, 193, 223, 228. 
 Duncombe, Mr., 8. 
 Dunton, John, 181. 
 DujAicity, Holcroft's, 220. 
 Dyer, 241. See The Age of Pope. 
 
 Dying Speech of Poor Mailie, 
 
 286. 
 Dying Words of Bonny Heck, 
 
 303. 
 
 Eachard, Laurence, 128. 
 
 Early Diary of Frances Burney, 
 
 62. 
 Earl of Essex, 193. 
 Ecclesiastical History of England, 
 
 152. 
 Eddas, 273. 
 
 Edina, Scotia's darling Seat, 302. 
 Edinburgh Review, 13, 83, 163. 
 Edge-Hill, 241. 
 Edmonds, 235. 
 Edwards, George, 100. 
 Edwards, Thomas, 119, 255. 
 Edioin and Angelina {The Her- 
 mit), 238. 
 Eighteenth Century Vignettes, 22. 
 Elegy, Collins's, 247. 
 Elegy, Gray's, 224, 249, 250, 251, 
 
 258. 
 Elegy on a Mad Dog, 238. 
 Elegy on Capt. M. Henderson, 
 
 302. 
 Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize, 238. 
 Elegy on the Death of Scots 
 
 Music, 302. 
 Elegy on William Beekford, 279. 
 ' Eleusinian theory,' Warbur- 
 
 ton's, 139. 
 Eliot, George, 162. 
 Eliot, Lord, 140. 
 Elliot, Jean, works of, 287-288. 
 Ellis, George, 234, 235. 
 Eliza, 181. 
 
 Emerson, Dr. 0. F., 141. 
 Emile, 32. 
 Encyclopcedia Britannica, 241.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 343 
 
 English Bards and Scotch Ec- 
 
 rirwrrs, 228. 
 Englishman in Pains, 205. 
 English Novel, 158. 
 English Poems, Chalmers's, 31. 
 English Poets from Chaucer to 
 
 Coioper, 240. 
 Englishman returned from Paris, 
 
 205. 
 English Thought in the Eighteenth 
 
 Century, liy Leslie Stephen, 
 
 125. 
 Enquiry concerning Human Un- 
 derstanding, 94. 
 Enquiry concerning Principles of 
 
 Morals, 94. 
 Enquiry into the Authenticity of 
 
 the Ireland BISS., 221. 
 Enquiry into the Present State of 
 
 Polite Learning, 36. 
 Enquiry proving the Letters (of 
 
 Junius) to be hy Edmund Burke, 
 
 79. 
 Environs of London, 104. 
 "Ema nTtpuefTfi, 107. 
 Epigoniad, The, 241. 
 Epistle to Hogarth, 229. 
 Epistle to Wm. Simpson, 298. 
 Epistles, Biirns's, 296. 
 Eickniann-Chatrian, 73. 
 Erskine, 54, 66. 
 Esblalc Braes, 292. 
 Essai snr VEtude de la Littera- 
 
 ture, 137. 
 Essays, Drake's, 8. 
 Essay on Man, Pope's, 119, 309. 
 Essay on Mirarles, 35. 
 Essay on the Genius and Writings 
 
 of Pope, 27. 
 Essay on the Omius of Homer, 
 
 Essay on the Nature and Im- 
 
 mutahiiiiy of Truth, 289. 
 Essays ami dltsirvations, Black's, 
 
 102. 
 Essay on Wurburton, 126. 
 Essex, 104. 
 Estimate of the Times (1757), by 
 
 John Brown, xxiii. 
 Etymologicon, 10. 
 Eugeniiis, 179, 186. 
 Euripides, 108. 
 Evans, Evan, 34, 285. 
 Evelina, 191. 
 Evelyn, John, xxxiii, 141. 
 Eoer green. The, 286. 
 Every Man in his Humour, 200. 
 Evidences of Christianity, 112, 
 
 113. 
 Examen, by Crousaz, 119. 
 Excelente Bcdade of Cheer itie, 277. 
 Experiments on Air, 102. 
 Expostulation, Cowper's, 268. 
 
 Fables Newly Invented, 267. 
 Facts proving General Lee to be 
 
 Junius, 79. 
 Fair Penitent, 200. 
 Ealconer, William, 238, 2.39. 
 False Delicacy, 209, 211. 
 False Concord, 207. 
 Falstaff, 58, 179, 214. 
 Familiar Epistles, 280. 
 Farewell, The, 229. 
 Farmer, Dr. Bit-hard (1735-1797), 
 
 180. 
 Farmer's Ingle, 296, .302. 
 Faninhar, 199, 200, 212. 
 Fashion, Sir N(jveUy, 207. 
 Fashionable Lovers, 210. 
 Fii/al h'is'<,hyT. W'halh'V, wvii. 
 Fatal Sisters, 251.
 
 344 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 raiilkuer, Ueorge, 205. 
 Fawkes, Frances (1720-1777), 
 
 wrote the words of Incledon's 
 
 famous sons', The Brnmu Jug, 
 
 236. 
 Fayette, Mine, de la, 1 .")(>. 
 Female Quixote, 174. 
 Fenelon, 42, 44. 
 Fenn, Sir John, 276. 
 Ferdinand Count Fatlunn, 16S, 
 
 173, 178. 
 Ferguson, Adam, life and works 
 
 of, 150, 241. 
 Fergusson, Robert, 286, 288 ; 
 
 works of, 294-296, 302, 303. 305. 
 Ferrar, Nicholas, 124. 
 Ferriar, Dr. John, 181. 
 Festing, Gabrielle, 235. 
 Fevre, Le, 186. 
 Fielding, Henry, 2, 25, 64, 66, 
 
 66, 100, 162 ; life and Avorks of, 
 
 163-170, 172, 174, 176, 177, 178, 
 
 186, 187, 188, 189, 199, 201, 
 
 203, 219. 
 Fin dit XVIII'"" Sicrle, 184. 
 Fingal, 273, 274. 
 Fitzgerald, Edwanl, 48, 123, 267. 
 Fitzpatrick, General Richard, 234. 
 Flaherty, Major, 210. 
 Flaxman, 243, 281, 284. 
 Fletcher, 200, 220, 280. 
 Flowers of the Forest, 287. 
 1' lutter. Sir Fopling, 207. 
 Follies of the Day, 220. 
 Fool ofQualitij, 193, 241. 
 Foote, Samuel, 2, 199, 201 ; works 
 
 of, 203, 206, 208, 210. 
 Foppington, Lord, 207. 
 Fortunes of Niijel, 197. 
 Foundling, 200. 
 i'"o.\, Charles, 13, 83, 215. 
 
 Fragments, Macpherson's, 275. 
 
 Francis, Sir Philip, 78, 80, 81. 
 
 Frauhcnstein, 195. 
 
 Franklin, Renjamin, 85, 116. 
 
 Frederick the Great, 53. 
 
 Free Enquir]i into the Bliraeulous 
 
 Powers . . . inChristianCliureJi, 
 
 117. 
 Frere, Jolin Hookham, 234-235, 
 
 244. 
 Friend of Huinaniti/ and the 
 
 Knife-Grinder, 235. 
 Fiisk,' Lady Betty, 204. 
 Froissart, 32. 
 Fronde, J. A., xii, 56. 
 Fuller, Thomas, 16, 122. 
 Fuseli, 173. 
 
 Gainsliorough, 311. 
 
 Galen, 66. 
 
 Game of Chess, 242. 
 
 Gamester, 202. 
 
 Garat, D. J. (1749-1833), 184. 
 
 Gardener, 256. 
 
 Gai'ihaldi, Pascal Paoli compared 
 
 with, 53. 
 Garrick, David, 5, 7, 23, 201, 202, 
 
 203; plays of, 207, 208, 210, 
 
 217, 219, 229, 238, 267. 
 Garrick, George, 5. 
 Gay, John (d. 1732), 237, 296. 
 Genercd, Colleetion (f Voyages and 
 
 Travels, 104. 
 Gentle Shepherd, The, 287, 291. 
 Gentleman's Magazine, The, 6, 
 
 109, 174. 
 Geoft'rey of Monmouth, 278. 
 (Jeorge I., 135. 
 
 George II., 45, 112, 124, 241, 259. 
 George III.. 27, 45, 62, 77, 112, 
 
 231, 232.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 345 
 
 (ieoi-oe IV., 232. 
 
 Gcorgics, Wartons traii^ilatioii, 
 
 27. 
 Ghost, The, 229. 
 (Gibbon, Edward, 2, 4, i;^, 18, 23, 
 
 39, 59, 90, 91, 94, 106, ll(j, 119, 
 
 121, 133, 134, 135, 149 ; life and 
 
 works of, 135-148, 230. 
 (Jifibrd, William, 11, ,30, 141, 234, 
 
 235. See The Age of I Vorrhvnrth . 
 Gil Bias, 172, 177. 
 Girdlestone, T., 79 
 Gladstone, Mr., 1. 
 Glover Kichard, 235, 239, 280. 
 God mores in a iiii/sfcrioiis Wci/, 
 
 265. 
 ( iodwin. nislio]), 154. 
 Godwin, William, 86-87. See The 
 
 Age of Wordsieovth. 
 Goetlie, 26, 189, 237. 
 Golden Ass, Thr, 153. 
 Golden Treasiirg, The, 267. 
 Goldfiirh, The, Gowper's, 268. 
 (Joldoni, 189. 
 ( ioldMiiitli, ()li\ei', (i, 8; life and 
 
 works of, 19-26, 36, 39, 46, 59, 
 
 67; as an liistoriaii, 149, 170, 
 
 182, 189, 199, 203, 209 ; plays 
 
 of, 210-212, 213, 214, 217, 225; 
 
 poetical Morks of, 236-238, 2.50, 
 
 278, 312. 
 (rondibert, Davenants, 251. 
 Good J\f(fn, The, 161. 
 Good-Ncdttrcd Man, The, 23, 199, 
 
 210,211. 
 Good]! '^^''^ Shoes, 197. 
 (Josse, Mr., 18. 
 Gotham, 229. 
 Graham, J. H., 79. 
 Grainier, James, 239, 240. 
 Grand Cgrus, 154. | 
 
 Granj:er, James, 151. 
 
 Grant, Sir liobert ( 1785- 1838). 259. 
 
 Graves, liichanl, 174. 
 
 (hay, Thomas, 2, 18, 28 ; literary 
 
 works of, 31-34, 37, 39, 46, 
 
 54, 65, 106; Odes, 208, 224, 
 
 237, 244, 245, 246, 247 ; poems, 
 
 248-2,55, 2.50. 271. 272. 279. 293, 
 
 302. 
 Greatliead, 235. 
 Green Grov the L'ashes, 298. 
 Green, MatthcM , 240. 
 Green, T. H., 95. 
 Gregorie, Mr., 76. 
 Grenviile, George, 81. 
 Gvenvillc Papers, 80. 
 ( Ifciiviile, liiciiard, 81. 
 Grenvillites and Junius, 78. 
 Gresset, J. B. L. (1709-1777), 32, 
 
 272. 
 Greville, 46. 
 
 Grey, Zacliary (d. 1766). 119. 
 GriHin, F.,79. 
 GriHiths, Dr. Kaljili (1720-1803), 
 
 founder of Monlhlg Herieic, 22, 
 
 17.3. 
 ( Irimmcl-liauseii, Hans Jacol) 
 
 Clirist.ifl'el von (1625-1676), l.">5. 
 Grose, Francis (1731-1791), 35. 
 Gi'otc, (Jcorge, 13. 
 • Gunpowder Priestley,' 84. 
 Guicciardini, 129. 
 {Justavns 111. of Sweden, 73. 
 Gtistara Vasa, 193. 
 Gwynn, Mrs. (the ' Jessamy 
 
 Ihide"), 192. 
 
 Jlidihie Simson, .303. 
 lliiiles, l.onl, 8, 151. 
 Hakluyt, 104. 
 Hales,' Prof. J. W ., 16.
 
 346 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Halifax, Marquis of, 40, 82, 203. 
 Hall, 127. 
 
 Hallam, Henry, 13. 
 Hallowe'en, 298, 303. 
 Hallow Fair, 296. 
 Hall Stevenson, 179, 1S6, 236. 
 Hamc Content, 302, ,30o. 
 Hamerton, Philip G., 103. 
 Hamilton, William, of Bangour, 
 
 286-287, 292. 
 Hamilton, William, of (iilbert- 
 
 llel.l, 286, 303. 
 Hamilton, Single-Speech, 70. 
 Hamlet, 52, 199, 200, 219. 
 Hanbury- Williams, Sir Charles 
 
 (d. 1759), 230. 
 Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 14, 247. 
 Hannibal, 61. 
 
 Hanway, Jonas (1712-1786), 207. 
 Harilcastle, ^Nliss, 212. 
 Hardeastle, Mr., 212. 
 Hares, The, 290. 
 Harington, or Harrington, James 
 
 (1611-1677), 154. 
 Hark, my Soul! it is the Lord, 
 
 264, 272. 
 Harley, 193. 
 Harrington, 154. 
 Hartley, David, 97, 98. 
 Harvey, 156. 
 Hasted, Edward, 104. 
 Hastings, Warren, 226, 259. 
 Haunch of Venison, 24, 238. 
 Havard, Billy, 228. 
 Hawkesworth, Dr. John, 8, 27, 
 
 104. 
 Hawkins, Sir John, 56, 109. 
 Hayley, William, 242. 
 Hazlitt, William, 11, 25, 60, 71, 
 
 83, 163, 169, 173, 177, 186, 20,3, 
 
 205, 207, 255, 271. 
 
 Hearne, Thomas (d. 1735), 128. 
 
 Hecuba, 108. 
 
 Heine, 308. 
 
 Helvetius, 92, 289. 
 
 Helenorc, or The Fortunate Shep- 
 herdess, 291. 
 
 Henri IV. of France, 185. 
 
 Henry II., 150. 
 
 Henry IV., 179, 200. 
 
 Henry V., 200. 
 
 Henry, by R. Cumberland, 190. 
 
 Henley, Orator, 8. 
 
 Henry, Robert, 150. 
 
 Herd, David (d. 1810), 285. 
 
 Herder, 273. 
 
 Hermes, 189. 
 
 Hermione, 170. 
 
 Hermit, The, 238. 
 
 Hcrmsj)ronf/, 190. 
 
 Hervey, Lord, 38. 
 
 Hervey, James, 125. 
 
 Heroic Poem on the Life of our 
 Blessed Lord, by Sam. Wesley, 
 122. 
 
 Hey wood, Eliza, 191. 
 
 Hickes, Dr. George, 251. 
 
 High Life, 207. 
 
 High Life Below Stairs, 206. 
 
 Hill, Dr. Birkbeck, xxxvii, 96. 
 
 Histoire Comiqiie dc Francion, 
 155. 
 
 Historic Doubts on the Life and 
 Reign of Itichard II., 50, 
 
 Historiccd and Critical Enquiry, 
 152. 
 
 Historical Eegister, 165. 
 
 History, Gibbon's, 145. 
 
 History, Soinerville's, 148. 
 
 History of America, 1.34. 
 
 History of England, Carte's, 128- 
 129.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 347 
 
 History of England from the Ac- 
 cession of James I. to that of 
 the Brunswick Line, 150. 
 
 Historij of England, Gibbon's, 
 138. 
 
 History of England, 151. 
 
 History of England, Hume's, 96, 
 
 130, 131. 
 
 History of England, Smollett's, 
 
 131, 132, 173. 
 
 History of English Poetry, 29. 
 History of English Romanticism, 
 
 251. 
 History of Great Britain during 
 
 the Itcign of Queen Anne, 
 
 148. 
 History of Greece, 150. 
 History of Henry 11. , 129. 
 History of Ids Own Times, 38. 
 History of Ireland, 150. 
 History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless, 
 
 191.' 
 History of Philip of Macedon, 
 
 150. 
 History of Quadrupeds, 103. 
 History of the Adventures of 
 
 Joseph Andrews and his friend 
 
 Mr. Abraham Adams, 165, 168, 
 
 169, 172. 
 History of the Corruption of 
 
 Christianity, 114. 
 History of the Decline and Fall of 
 
 the Roman Empire, 138, 140, 
 
 145, 146. 
 History of the Emperor Charles V., 
 
 134. 
 History if the Liberty of the Swiss, 
 
 139. 
 History of the Life of the late Mr. 
 
 Jonathan Wdd, 168. 
 History of the Progress and Ter- 
 
 mination of the Roman Re- 
 
 JJufJir, 1,")0. 
 History of the Reignof Philip IIL , 
 
 148. 
 HistoryoftheRepublicof Florence, 
 
 139. 
 History of Tom Jones, a Found- 
 ling, 168-169, 177, 178. 
 History of Sand ford and Merton, 
 
 198.' 
 History of Scotland during the 
 
 Reigns of Mary and James VI., 
 
 133. 
 History of Scotland, Robertson's, 
 
 152. 
 History of Mrs. Stanton, 25. 
 Hoadly, Benjamin, 167. 
 Hobbes, 92. 
 
 Ho-arth, 169, 207, 213, 229. 
 Holcroft, Thomas, 60 ; life and 
 
 work-; of, 60-61, 141, 219, 220. 
 liolin^lied, 127, 278. 
 Holroycl, Lady Maria Josepha, 
 
 141.' 
 Holy Fair, 296, 298, 302, 303. 
 Holy Thursday, 283. 
 Home, Jobn, 202, 243, 247. 
 Homer, 159, 169, 241, 260, 273. 
 Honeymoon, Tobin's, 220, 221. 
 Hop Garden, 2.56. 
 Ho2)e, Cowi)er's, 268. 
 Hood, Tom, 206, 284. 
 Hook, Theodore, 203, 204, 206. 
 Hooke, Natlianiid, 150. 
 Hoole, John, 109. 
 Horace, 44, 108, 260. 
 Horace Walpole, a Memoir, 50. 
 Horw Paulinrr, 112, 113. 
 Hone Sabbatiea', 125. 
 Home, 15isbo|) (leorjje, 90. 12(1. 
 Horne, John, 96. Sec Tooke, J. J I.
 
 348 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Home Tooke identified with 
 Jiuiius, 79. 
 
 Horsley, Samuel, 105, 11.'), IIS. 
 
 Ifow sweet T roenued, 2S(). 
 
 Hndihras, 119. 
 
 Hugo, Victor, 1, 31-2. 
 
 Hume, David, 2, ;^9, 41), !)0, 91- 
 92; life and Avorks of, 93-97, 
 113; Avorks of, 1,30-131, 132, 
 133, 134, 13.5, 140, 141, 147, 
 149, 158, 202, 203, 289. 
 
 Hume, or Home, Josepli, 93. 
 
 Iltimplireji Cliiilrr, 2.33. 
 
 Hunt, Leigii, 244, 267, 290. 
 
 Hunter, I)j'. John. 90. 
 
 Hurd, Kiehard, 32, 34, 120, 2."i5. 
 
 Hutcliins, John, 104. 
 
 Hutchinson, 104. 
 
 Hutton, James, 102. 
 
 Huxley, Prof., 05. 
 
 / (fiti DfoiKirrh (if ^[11 1 Sifrrei/, 
 
 260. 
 Lhiitifii of J II II IKS iritli II Din- 
 
 tiiigtiiahcd Llring ('hanicfrr, 
 
 SO. 
 Idler, The, S, 11. 
 Ili((d, 159 ; ('owjier's, 269. 
 Illustrationa of British Hi.ston/, 
 
 151. 
 Illustrations of Sterne, 181. 
 Imagination and Faurif, 244. 
 Imlac, 12. 
 
 1)1 Mcmoriam, Tenny.son's, 311. 
 In yonder Grave a Druid lies, 
 
 247. 
 Indeiicndcnce, Churchiirfti, 229. 
 Inrpiirjf into the Human Mind 
 
 on. the Prineijilcs of Common 
 
 Sense, 97. 
 Inquiry into the Nature and 
 
 Causes ef the Wealth of Na- 
 tions, 90. 
 Inseription on Mrs. Brou-nrir/r/'s 
 
 Cell, 235. 
 Introduetion a VJiistoire de Daiiur- 
 
 nairel:, 34. 
 Introduetion to the French Lan- 
 
 (jnage, 139. 
 Introduetion, liobertson's, 134. 
 Ion, Talfonrd's, 221. 
 Ireland, William Henry, 221, 
 
 274. 
 Irene, 5, 7, 201. 
 Iron Chest, 208. 
 Irving, Wa.shington, 21. 
 Is there for Honest I'overti/, 301, 
 
 308. 
 'Isaiah,' a nrir Tretnslation, ivith 
 
 a Preli iniua 1-1/ Dissertation and 
 
 Notes, 121. 
 Italian Historif, ( Juicciardini's, 
 
 129. 
 Italian, or Confessions offJieBha-l,- 
 Penitents, 195. 
 
 •Jack Ketch," alias Jack Wilkes, 
 
 55. 
 Jago, Richard, 241. 
 James I., 130. 
 James III., 88. 
 Jardine, Sir William, 99. 
 Jarvis, Elizabeth, 5. 
 Jecdous Wife, Colman's, 208. 
 Jebb, Professor, 13. 
 Jetteries, Kiehard, 33, 98. 
 Jeffrey, 83. 
 
 Jenkins, Winifred, 176. 
 Jenkinson (Lord Liverpool), 234. 
 Jenyns, Soame, 8. 
 Jen-old, 204.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 349 
 
 Jersey, Lord, 223. 
 
 Jerusalem Delivered, 241. 
 
 JesK, lover of my soul, 123, 259. 
 
 Jesus shall reign where'er the 
 sun, 259. 
 
 J. Hookham Frere, 235. 
 
 John Bunch: , 190. 
 
 John Gilpin, 173, 268. 
 
 Johnson, A. G., 80. 
 
 Johnson, Michael, 3. 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, life of, 
 1-19, 23 ; acquaintance with 
 Goldsmith, 22 ; his epitajili on 
 Goldsiiiith, 24; 28, 29, 31, 32, 
 34, 3o, 36, 37 ; and Lord Ches- 
 terfield, 43, 45, 46 ; 49, 52, 53, 
 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 62, 63, 
 64, 65, 66, 82, 89, 97; com- 
 pared with Dr. Parr, 105, 106, 
 109; with AVarlnirton, 120, 
 121 ; 126, 142, 155, 158, 160, 
 163, 171, 172, 174, 186, 192, 
 198 ; his tragedy of Irene, 201, 
 202 ; his relations with Foote, 
 206; 210, 212, 215; poetical 
 works of, 224-220, 228; 229, 
 236, 237, 240, 241, 242, 243, 
 245, 251, 252, 257, 265 ; his 
 contempt for Ossian, 274 ; 275, 
 286, 300, 303. 
 
 Johnstone, Charles, 189. 
 
 Jolly Beggars, 298, 303. 
 
 Jonathan Wild, 168, 188. 
 
 Jones, Mrs. Mary, 176. 
 
 Jones, Sir William, 23, 109. 
 
 Jortin, J., 126. 
 
 Journal and Letters, Trench's, 
 63. 
 
 Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides 
 u:itk Samuel Johnson, LL.D., 
 56, 232. 
 
 Journal of a Voyaije to Lisbon, 
 269. 
 
 Journal, Wesley's, 123, 125. 
 
 Journal of the Reign of King 
 George III. (1771-1783), 49. 
 
 Journey from this World to the 
 Next, 168, 229. 
 
 Jowett, Benj., Master of Balliol, 
 57, 105. 
 
 Julius Casar, 131, 312. 
 
 Junius, Francis, 10, 77-84 ; ascer- 
 tained to be Hugh Boyd, 79 ; 
 compared [and identifed ivitli'] 
 Lord Chesterfield, 79 ; discovered 
 in Governor Poivnall, Lord 
 Chatham, 79 ; Unynasked, re- 
 vealing Edmund Gibbon, 79 ; 
 Unmasked, revecding I'hos. 
 Paine, 79. 
 
 Junius, by J. Wade, 79. 
 
 Junius Letters, 78. 
 
 Jusserand, M., 162. 
 
 Juvenal, 139, 224. 
 
 Juvenilia, Blake's, 280. 
 
 Kant, 95. 
 
 Kean, Edmund, 208. 
 
 Keats, 271, 278, 280, 296, 310. 
 
 Kelly, Hugh, play of, 209, 210, 
 
 214. 
 Kemble, 221. 
 Kenilivorth, 197. 
 Kenrick, W. (d. 1779), 201. 
 Kent, 104. 
 Kepler, 111. 
 King, Dr. William, 8. 
 King, Edward, 104. 
 King Lear, 200, 303. 
 Kingston, Duche.ss of, 205. 
 Kipling, Rudyard, 238 
 Klopstock, 159.
 
 350 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON, 
 
 Knight, Richard Payne, 235. 
 
 Knox, Vicesinuis, 35. 
 
 Kotzebue, A. F. von (1761-1819), 
 
 219. 
 Kraus, Professor, 91. 
 Kyrle, John (il. 1724), 101. 
 
 'Lady Betty Frisk,' 204. 
 
 La Fontaine, 268, 297, 302. 
 
 Lake School, 33. 
 
 V Allegro, 250 ; metre to be com- 
 pared with that of Blake's 
 Dream, 284. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 19, 30, 220, 244, 
 255. 
 
 Lamarck, 243. 
 
 Landor, 42, 256. 
 
 Lang'horne, John, 109, 241. 
 
 Langhorne, William, 109. 
 
 Langton, Bennet, 17. 
 
 Laokoon, 69. 
 
 Lapraik, John (1727 - 1807), 
 Epistles to, 297, 303. 
 
 La Kochefoucanld, 42, 44. 
 
 Latimer, 132. 
 
 Laud, 130. 
 
 Launcelot Greaven, 174. 
 
 LaAvrence, Dr. French, 234. 
 
 Lavender, Lord, 207. 
 
 Law, AVilliam, 4, 124. 
 
 Lawyers Farewell to hla Muse, 
 223. 
 
 Lazarillo de Tonnes, 154. 
 
 Lecky, Mr., xxxvi, 1, 13, 80. 
 
 Lee, Henry, 200, 214, 216. 
 
 Lee, Nat., 49. 
 
 Lee, Sidney, 181. 
 
 Le Fevre, 186. 
 
 Legend of Montrose, 173. 
 
 Leibniz, 92. 
 
 L c iecstcrsh ire, 1 04. 
 
 Leith Races, 294, 302, 303. 
 
 Leland, Thomas, xx, 150. 
 
 Leninos, 255. 
 
 Lennox or Lenox, Charlotte, 174. 
 
 Leo X., 134. 
 
 Leonideis, 239. 
 
 Lermontoff, Mikhail (1814-1841), 
 poet of the Caucasus, 296. 
 
 Le Roman Anglais, 162. 
 
 Le Sage, 172, 177. 
 
 Lessing, 69. 
 
 Letter from Rome, 117. 
 
 Letter from, Xo Ho, 22. 
 
 Letter to a Noble Lord, 11, 74. 
 
 Letter to the Right Rev. Dr. War- 
 burton, Bishop of Gloiieester, 
 121. 
 
 Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, 71. 
 
 Letters and LJiaries of Mme. 
 D'Arblay, 62. 
 
 Letters, Chesterfield's, 64. 
 
 Letters, Gray's, 252. 
 
 Letters of Junius, 78, 80. 
 
 Letters, Lady Mary Wortley 
 Montagu's, 38. 
 
 Letters on Chivedrij and Roma nee, 
 34. 
 
 Letters on Infielelity, 126. 
 
 Letters on Junius, 79. 
 
 Letters proving the Duke of Port- 
 land to be Junius, 80. 
 
 Letters, Thomas Twining's, 64. 
 
 Letters to and from Dr. Johnson, 
 Mrs. Thrale's, 63. 
 
 Letters to Burke, 84. 
 
 Lettres Persanes, 22. 
 
 Lettres Provinciales, 136. 
 
 Life and Adventures of John 
 Daniel, 190. 
 
 Life and Adventures of P-eter Wil- 
 kins, 190.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 351 
 
 Life and Letters of Gruy, 254. 
 Life and Opinions of Tristram 
 
 Shandy, Gent., ISO, 181, 182, 
 
 185, 186. 
 Life, Boswell's, 52. 
 Life of Cicero, 254. 
 Life of Couicy, 15. 
 Life of Dr. Biirney, 62. 
 Life of Drydcn, 15. 
 Life of Guzman dcAlfarachc, 154. 
 Life of Sir John Hau-Jcuis, 56. 
 Life of Johnson, xxvii, 57, 109. 
 Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 
 
 ivrittcii by himself, 50. 
 Life of Lorenzo the Magnificent 
 
 150. 
 Life of Milton, 243. 
 Life of Parnell, 251. 
 Life of Paid the Sharper, 151. 
 Life of Philip Skelton, 61. 
 Life of Pope, 16. 
 Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., 
 
 56. 
 Life of Young, 16. 
 Light of Nature Pursued, 98, 112. 
 Lindsay, Lady Anne, 288. 
 Lingaiil, Dr., 129. 
 Linley, Eliza, 215. 
 LiniKcus, 33. 
 Lisiiialiago, 176, 177. 
 Literatura Bunica, 251. 
 Literary Chili, 2S. 
 Little Lamb, vluj nunh: thee, 283. 
 Liverpool, Earl of, 234. 
 Lives, Clarendon's, 141. 
 Lives, Evelyn's, 141. 
 Lives, Dr. Johnson's, 64. 
 Lives of Plutarch, 109. 
 Lives of the Poets, 14-15, 29. 
 Lives of the Saints, 126. 
 Livy, 133. 
 
 Lloyd, Charles, 8, 81, 208. 
 
 Lloyd, Robert, 225, 228, 236, 254, 
 259. 
 
 Loho, Jeroninio (d. 1678), of Lis- 
 bon, Jesuit missionarj', 5. 
 
 Loehleven, 293. 
 
 Locke, 92, 98, 162, 289. 
 
 Lockhart, 59. 
 
 Lodge, Edmund, 151. 
 
 Lofty, 211. 
 
 Logan, John, works of, 292-293. 
 
 London, the gardener, xviii. 
 
 London, 6, 224. 
 
 Longinus, 109. 
 
 Long Story, 250. 
 
 Longsword, Leland's, xx. 
 
 Lord George SackviUe 2}roccd to be 
 Junius, 79. 
 
 Loti, Pierre, 112. 
 
 Loudon, Mr., 89. 
 
 Louis XVI., 86. 
 
 Lounger, The, 8, 193, 299. 
 
 Lousiad, 231. 
 
 Love for Love, 200. 
 
 Love in Several Masques, 164. 
 
 Loveniore, CJarrick as, 206. 
 
 Loves of the Plants, 235, 243, 244, 
 280. 
 
 Loves of the Trinnglcs, 235, 244. 
 
 Lovibond, Ethvanl, 241. 
 
 Lowth, Hubert, 106, 109, 121, 
 122. 
 
 Lowe, Ml. K., 227. 
 
 Lyeidas, 16. 
 
 Lydgate, 32, 277. 
 
 Lying Valet, 207. 
 
 Lyra Elegantiarum, 260. 
 
 Lyric Odes, 232. 
 
 Lysons, Daniel, 104. 
 
 Lyttelton, George, Lord, the first 
 or 'good,' 129; 171.
 
 352 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Lyttelton, TiOrd, the second and 
 
 ' bad,' 80. 
 Lytton, Lord, 165, 209. 
 Lucretius, 100, 108. 
 Lumley, Elizabeth (INIrs. Sterne), 
 
 179. 
 Lnsiad of Camoens, 291. 
 
 }klacaulay, Lord, 2, 12, 13, 24, 42, 
 
 50, 57, 61, 62, 80, 82, 83, 1.33, 
 
 145, 149. 
 Macaulay, Mrs. Catherine, 150. 
 Macbeth, 200. 
 Machiavelli, 43, 135. 
 Mackenzie, Henry, 8, 193, 299 
 
 (Scott dedicated Wavrrlcy to 
 
 him in 1814). 
 Mackintosh, Sir James (1765- 
 
 1832), 39. 
 Mackintosh, Lord, 84, 141. 
 Macklin, Cliarles, 199, 201, 212- 
 
 213, 214. 
 Macpherson, James, 34, 150, 151 ; 
 
 Avorks of, 221, 273-276, 
 Macsycophant, Sir Pertinax, 213. 
 Mado.x, Thomas, legal antiquary, 
 
 128. 
 Maecenas, 7. 
 Mceviad, The, 235. 
 Maffei, Francesco (d. 1755), 128. 
 Mahon, Lord, 80, 83. 
 Maintenon, Mme. de, 158. 
 Maistre, Xavier de, 184. 
 Maitland, Dr., 134. 
 Malagi'owther, Sir Mungo, 173. 
 Malaprop, Mrs., 176, 216. 
 Mallarme, Stephane, 196. 
 Mallett, David (1705-1765), 128, 
 
 251. 
 Mallett, Paul Henri, 34. 
 
 Malone, Edmund (1741-1812), 14, 
 
 34, 221. 
 Malone, Boswell's, 14. 
 Mc^i in the Iron Mask, 18. 
 Man in the Moon, 154. 
 Manners of the English People, 
 
 Strutt's, 196. 
 Manning, J. B., 79. 
 Mann, Sir Horace (d. 1786), 46. 
 Man of Feeling, 193. 
 3fan of Boss, 101. 
 Man of the World, 213. 
 Mansfield, Lord, 229. 
 Mar, House of, 51. 
 Mariage de Figaro, 220. 
 Marianne, 156. 
 Marivaux, 49, 156, 166, 183. 
 Markwick, 99. 
 Marlborough, Duke of, 40. 
 Marlborough, Duchess of, 40, 128. 
 Marlow, 212. 
 Marmontel, 159, 189. 
 Marriage a, la Mode, 207. 
 Marten, Henry, 235. 
 Martin (his collection of Hymns), 
 
 262. 
 Martinus Scriblerns, 181, 236. 
 Marvell, 232, 298. 
 Mary Morison, 298. 
 Mary Queen of Scots vindicated, 
 
 152. 
 Massinger, 181. 
 
 Mason, William, 202, 208, 249, 254. 
 Maurice, Thomas, 242. 
 Mayor of Garratt, 205. 
 Medmenham, 236. 
 Meikle, Alexander, 291. 
 Melanchthon's tomb, 53, 54. 
 Memoires dii Comte de Comminges, 
 
 156. 
 Memo-ires, Gramniout's, 42, 47.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 353 
 
 MiiHoira -sxr I'micieiuic Cheva- 
 
 lerlr, 34. 
 Mrnioir-s, Cuiaberlancrtj, 210. 
 Mriitoirs uf f( CaraUcr, 1!)3. 
 JMemoir.-i of Echvarcl Gibbon, 141, 
 
 142. 
 Memorials and Letters, 151. 
 Mcmcivs of Colonel Hutchinson, 
 
 194. 
 Memoirs of Dr. Biirnr;/, 192. 
 Memoirs of Great Britain and 
 
 Ireland, 151. 
 Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of 
 
 the Reign of King George II. , 
 
 49. 
 Memoirs, Mark Pattison's, 142. 
 Memoirsqf Miss Sydney Biddnlph, 
 
 extracted from her own Journal, 
 
 215. 
 Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth, 151. 
 Memoirs of the Reign of George 
 
 II., 38. 
 Memoirs of the Reiffn of George 
 
 III., 49.' 
 Memoir of Richard Nash, 39. 
 Memoirs, Ly Thomas Holcroft, 
 
 60. 
 Memoirs of the Society of Inscrip- 
 tions of Paris, 138. 
 Memorial de Saint HeUne, 57. 
 Mendelssohn, 121. 
 Mendici Supplieatio, 242. 
 Merchant of Venice, 200. 
 Meicier, 218. 
 
 Merry, Robert (1755-1798), 235. 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, 200. 
 Messiah, Pope's, 4. 
 Meteorological Essays, 102. 
 Mezeray, 135. 
 Micawher, 179. 
 Michelet, 145. 
 
 Mickle, William Julius, 37, 109; 
 works of, 291-292, 302. 
 
 Microcosm, The, 8, 234. 
 
 -Mieris, 26. 
 
 Middleton, Conyers, 35; lito and 
 works of, 117-118, 254. 
 
 Milesian I'ales, 153. 
 
 Millar, 89. 
 
 Miller, Hugh, 169, 269. 
 
 Miller, Lady, 236. 
 
 Millet, 98, 299. 
 
 Milman, 13. 
 
 Milner, Dr. Joseph (1744-1797), 
 22, 143. 
 
 Milton, 15, 31, 36, 65, 72, 83, 244, 
 248, 251,254, 265, 283. 
 
 Milton, sonnet l)y Thomas War- 
 ton on, 255. 
 
 Minim, Dick, 9. 
 
 Minor, The, 205. 
 
 Minstrel, The, 280, 289, 290. 
 
 Mirror, The, 8. 
 
 Miscellanies, 240. 
 
 Miscellanies, Chatterton's, 279. 
 
 Miscellany, Dod.sley's, 249. 
 
 Miscellany, Ramsay's, 285. 
 
 Mistakes of a Aight, 211. 
 
 Mitford, 99. 
 
 Modern Patriot, 68. 
 
 xMoliere, 163, 212, 214, 308. 
 
 Monastieon, 30. 
 
 Monboddo, 2. 
 
 Monk, The, 195. 
 
 Monody, Lyttelton's, 171. 
 
 Monody on the Death of Pope, 254. 
 
 Monologue on Garrirk, 219. 
 
 Montagu, Elizabeth (1720-1800), 
 197. 
 
 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortlcy, 
 Letters of, 38, 46, 155, 164, 169, 
 222. See The Age of Pope: 
 A
 
 354 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Montegut, xxxvii, 246, 248. 
 Montesquieu, 22, 32, 66, 88, 92, 
 
 128. 
 Montgomerie, Alex. (d. 1610?), 
 
 ' inventor ' of the 14-line Cherrie 
 
 and Slae stanza, 303. 
 Montgomery, Robert, 125. 
 Monthly Review, The, 22, 173, 
 
 239. 
 Moore, Edward (1712-1757), 8, 
 
 200, 202, 217, 232, 267. 
 Morant, Philip (1700-1770), 104. 
 More, Hannah, 198. 
 Morel, L^on, xxxvii, 286. 
 Moreland, Henry, 193. 
 Morgan, Tlios. (d. 1743), 112. 
 Morley, Mr. John, xxxvii, 19, 71. 
 Morpetli, Lord, 234. 
 Moschu'^, 108. 
 Moss, Thomas, 242. 
 Morte cV Arthur, 153. 
 Motley, 149. 
 
 Mourning Bride, Congreve's, 200. 
 Muninienta Antiqua, 104. 
 Muratori, Ludovico Ant. (d. 
 
 1750), 128. 
 Murdoch, John, 297. 
 Murphy, Arthur, 201 ; works of, 
 
 206-207, 214, 236. 
 Muse in Livery, 240. 
 Musical 3Iuseu)n, Johnson's, 300, 
 
 304. 
 Mutual Complaint of Plainstanes 
 
 and Causey, 296. 
 My own Life, Humes, 96, 97. 
 Mysterious Mother, 49. 
 Mysteries of Udolpho, 195. 
 My Wife^s a winsome wee Thiny, 
 
 301. 
 
 Xnhoh, Foote's, 205. 
 
 Naiads of the Fleet Ditch, 236, 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, 158, 273. 
 
 Nash, 'Beau,' Goldsmith's bio- 
 graphy of, 23. 
 
 Nash, T. R. (1725-1811), 104, 155, 
 
 Naturcd History and Antiquities 
 ofSelborne, 99, 101. 
 
 Naturalist's Calendar, 100. 
 
 Natural Theology, 112. 
 
 Needless Alarm, 268. 
 
 New Bath Guide, 175, 233. 
 
 Newbery, John (1713-1767), 22, 
 256. 
 
 Newhall, L., 79. 
 
 Newman, 122. 
 
 Nexo Blorcdity, 235. 
 
 New Testament, The, 114. 
 
 Newton, Bishop Thomas, 126. 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 91, 98, 111. 
 
 Newton, John, 262, 265. 
 
 New Way to Pay Old Debts, 200. 
 
 Nichols, John, 104. 
 
 Nicolai, 189. 
 
 Nicolson, William, 104. 
 
 Niebelnngenlied, 273. 
 
 Night, Blake's, 283. 
 
 Night, Churchill's, 228. 
 
 Nightingale and the Glow-worm,, 
 266, 267. 
 
 Night Thoughts, 240. 
 
 Noctes Carcerarice, 108. 
 
 Nodier, 87. 
 
 Norfolk, 104. 
 
 Northamptonshire, 104. 
 
 North Briton, The, 8, 174, 229". 
 
 North, Christoijher, 166. 
 
 Northcote, James, 267. 
 
 Northern Antiquities, 34. 
 ! Northern Garland, 286. 
 
 Norval, 203. 
 
 Notes and Queries, 233..
 
 INDEX. 
 
 355 
 
 Nouvelle Hdoise, 273. 
 Nurse's Song, 283. 
 
 Obscuritjj and Oblivion, Odes to, 
 
 208, 254. 
 Observations in Various Brunches 
 
 of Natural History, 100. 
 Observation on Man, his Frame, 
 
 his Duty, and liis Expertations, 
 
 98. 
 Observations on the Faery Queene, 
 
 28. 
 Observations on the Present State 
 
 of the Nation, 70. 
 Observer, The, 8. 
 Oceana, 154. 
 
 Ockley, Simon (1678-1720), 1.35. 
 Ode on Saint Cceciiia's Day, 236. 
 Ode on the Superstitioiis of the 
 
 Highlands, 248. 
 Odes, Collins"s, 247. 
 Odes, by Gray, 50, Go, 208. 
 Odes, Mason's, 208. 
 Ode to Apollo, 268. 
 Ode to Evening, 247. 
 Ode to Faoli, 292. 
 Ode to Pity, 247. 
 CEdipus Tyrannus, 242. 
 Of a: the Air ts, 300. 
 Ogleby, Lord, 207. 
 Oh ! for a closer walk v:ith God, 
 
 265. 
 O'Keeffe, John, works of, 212-213, 
 
 214. 
 Old Ballads, 285. 
 Old Ballads ivith some of Modern 
 
 Date, 291. 
 Old English Baron, ClAm Reeve's, 
 
 195. 
 Oldmixon, John (1673-1742), 12S. 
 Old Mortality, 194. 
 
 Old Plays, 240. 
 
 Olney Hymns, 264. 
 
 On a Distant' Prospect of Eton 
 
 College, 249. 
 On Adversity, 249. 
 On Conversation, 168. 
 O'Neil, John, 281. 
 One kind kiss before we part, 
 
 240. 
 0)1 Nothing, 168. 
 On seeing a Butterfly in the Street, 
 
 296. 
 On the Death of Mr. Richard 
 
 West, 255. 
 On the Death of Mr. Walpob's 
 
 Cat, 249. 
 On the Love of our Country, 84. 
 Opera Omnia of J'arr, 105. 
 Ojnnions of Christian Writers uf 
 
 the first Three Centuries con- 
 cerning the Person of Christ, 
 
 126. 
 Oracle, The, 235. 
 Orators, The, Foote's, 205. 
 Orcades, 251. 
 Organon, Gray's, 31. 
 Orford, Earl of. See Horace Wal- 
 
 l>ole. 
 Original Pap)ers, 151. 
 Origin and Progress of Writing, 
 
 35. 
 Origin of the Novel, 153. 
 Onne, Robert, life and works of, 
 
 149. 
 Ornithology, 103. 
 Oroonoko, Soutliern's, 200. 
 Orphans, The, 200. 
 Orrery, 15. 
 Osborne, 6, 157. 
 Obtsian, 1.30-151. See also Mac- 
 
 plierson, 162, 273.
 
 356 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Ossianic Poems, The, 273. 
 
 Oswald, James (1715-176!)), !I7. 
 
 Othello, 200, 204. 
 
 O'Tiigger, Sir Luuius, 216. 
 
 Otway, 200, 202. 
 
 Oitr God, our Help in Ages Pa-il, 
 
 258. 
 Oxford, Robert Lowth, Bishop of, 
 
 121. 
 IVorship the King, 259. 
 
 Taine, Thomas, 84; life of, 85-87, 
 
 115, 116, 118. 
 Pciiring Time A)itieiputed, 267. 
 l*aley, William, life and works 
 
 of, 112-114, 118. 
 Paltock, Robert, 190. 
 Pamela, 156, 157, 159, 165, 172. 
 Pantomime Rehearsal, 219. 
 Papers of ct Critic, 78. 
 Paoli, Pascal (1725-1807), 53. 
 Park, Mungo, 102. 
 Parr, Samuel, Dr., 1, 64, 80; life 
 
 and works of, 105-106, 215. 
 Parsons, William, the poetaster, 
 
 235. 
 Pascal, 136. 
 Pasqnin, 165. 
 Passions, The, 247. 
 Paston Letters, 276. 
 Pattison, Mark, 125. 
 Paul et Virginie, 159. 
 Paul, Father, 135. 
 Paul, Jean {i.e., Richter), 189. 
 Pausanias, 32. 
 Pavilliard, M., 136. 
 Paysan Parvenu, 166. 
 Peel, Sir Robert, S3. 
 Pelhams, The, 40. 
 Pendennis, 169. 
 
 Penicuik or Pennecuik, tlie name 
 of two Scots dialect poets 
 much admired by Rurns, Alex- 
 ander P. (1652-1722), and his 
 nephew, also Alexander (d. 
 1730), 302. 
 
 l*ennant, Thomas, 99 ; life and 
 works of, 103-104. 
 
 Pcnseroso, 250. 
 
 Percy, Bishop, Dr. Thomas (1729- 
 1811), 34, 35, 221, 246, 273, 276, 
 285, 302. 
 
 Peregrine Piekle, 172. 
 
 Pcre la Chaise, 170. 
 
 Persian Eclogues, 247, 248. 
 
 Petrarch, 242. 
 
 Philip II. of Spain, 148. 
 
 Philips, Ambrose (d. 1749), called 
 ' Pastoral Philips,' 223, 241. 
 
 Philosophiccd Essay on, Human 
 Understanding, 94. 
 
 Philosojyhical Inquiry into the Ori- 
 gin of our Ideas on the Sublime 
 and Beccutiful, 69. 
 
 Philosophic Wanderer, 237. 
 
 Philosophic de D. Hiimc, 95. 
 
 Philoctetes, 255, 256. 
 
 Picart, Bernard, 117. 
 
 Pickwick, Mr., 58. 
 
 Pilkington, Matthew, 120. 
 
 Pindar, Peter, 32, 56, 231. See 
 Wolcot, John. 
 
 Pindaric Odes, 250. 
 
 Pinkerton, John, 104, 152, 285. 
 
 Piozzi, Mrs., 6 ; Anecdotes of, 56, 
 60 ; Mrs. Thrale becomes Mrs. 
 P., 6.3. 
 
 Pijiing elown the valleys wild, 
 283. 
 
 Pitt, 53, 73, 74, 193, 233, 236, 
 301.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 357 
 
 Pity the sorrovs of a poor old 
 
 man, 242. 
 Pizarro, Sheriilan's, 219. 
 I'lagiary, Sir Fretful, 210. 
 r/ain Dealer. AVyrluMlev's. '200. 
 I'lato, 43, 66. 
 I'liny, 139. 
 riot, Dr., 100. 
 Plutarch, ISl, 241. 
 Poems, Blacklock".'^, 261. 
 Poems, AVhiteheadV, 223. 
 Poems on Seceral Orrrf.sions, 241, 
 
 242, 256 ; Hamilton';*, 287 ; 
 
 IJruce's, 292, 294. 
 I'ocsic da Nord, 273. 
 Poet, The, the Oyster, and ///<■ 
 
 Sensitive Phoit, 267. 
 Poetic laterpretatiDii af Xafiire, 
 
 275. 
 Poetv: Sketehes, DlakeV, 2S0. 
 I'octieal Works of llol)irt Ihwns 
 
 ('Kilmarnock'), 298. 
 Poetical Discourses, 94. 
 Poetry of TJa; Anti-Jaiohin, 23.>. 
 Polly Honeycomhc, 208. 
 Poplars, The, are FeWd. 2(i6, 268. 
 Poly met is, S| pence's, .34. 
 Pomfret, John (16()7-1702i. 1.1. 
 Poor Mailie, 298. 
 Pope, 2, 4, 6, 14, 1.5, 16, 18, 10, 
 
 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 34, 36, 40, 119, 
 
 120, 171, 217, 222, 224, 225, 
 
 226, 236, 242, 244, 246, 255, 
 
 259, 266, 274, 278, 2S0, 285, 
 
 288, 302, 309. 
 Porson, llichard, life ami works 
 
 of, 108-109, 144. 
 Porter, Elizalieth, 5. 
 Porter, Lucy, 12. 
 Potter, Thomas, 1S4. 
 Praed, 233, 200. 
 
 Prcliale, Wordsworth, 289. 
 Prescott, 149. 
 
 Price, Richanl (1723-1791), 84. 
 Priestley, Joseph (1733-1804), 84, 
 
 98, 102; works of, 114. 
 Primrose, Dr., 25, 61. 
 Princesse de Clcves, 156. 
 Prior, 67, 260. 
 Probationary Odes for the Laitre- 
 
 at ■■ship, 23.3. 
 Proyress, The, of Error, 268. 
 Proyress of Cicil Soeiety, 235. 
 Proyrc-fs of Man, 235. 
 Proyress of Poesy, 251, 2.52. 
 Prophecy, Chatterton's, 278. 
 Proiiheey of Famine, 229. 
 Protestant Variations, 136. 
 ProrolSd Husband, Vanl)ruj;h"s 
 
 (comiileted hy Cihber), 200, 210. 
 Proeohcd Wife, Vanbrughs, 200. 
 i'salmanazar, George (d. 1763), 
 
 the literary impostor, 274. 
 Psadinsof Ihii-id, Smart's version, 
 
 258. 
 Pidilic Adrcrtiscr and Jnnius, 
 
 77, 268. 
 Pnblic Lcdyer, 22. 
 i'nlteiiey, 82. 
 Pnttenham, .32. 
 Pye, Henry James, .'{0 ; life and 
 
 \vorks of, 223-224. 
 Pythayorean, 85. 
 
 Qiiarti rly llcricn-, 83. 
 
 <}ncrn Anne, 4, 37, 120. 164, 199. 
 
 (^neen Charlotte, 192. 
 
 Qiieenhoo Hall, 196, 197. 
 
 Qitrntin, Diirward, 194. 
 
 (^nevedo, 154. 
 
 C^ucsnay, 90.
 
 358 
 
 THE AOE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 IJabelais, 180, 181, 186. 
 llal)utin, Biissy, 203. 
 Racine, 32, 272. 
 Kadcliffe, Ann, J9.5. 
 IJaleiftli, Prof., 9, loS. I'.Hi. 
 llalph, James (d. 17H2), 12s, 172. 
 Ilamhlcr, The, 8, 9, 12, 22j. 
 Ramsay, 276, 28o, 286, 288, 303. 
 Ramsbotham, Mrs., 176. 
 Rapin, Paul de (1661-172.-)), 127, 
 
 128, 135. 
 Hasselas, VI, 189. 
 Itaspe, Rudolidi Eri<'. ISI. l!)l. 
 Raven, The, 267. 
 Ray, John, 100, 104. 
 J'eccipt of 3Iofher'.s I'ii-dtrr, -JiiS. 
 Recruiting Officer, 200. 
 Reed, Isaac (1742-1807). 14. 
 Reeve, Clara (1729-1807), 19.-). 
 Heflectlonf:, Burke's, 86. 
 /'eflcetirj)t.f on the Frriidi R< rain- 
 
 Hon, 72, 74. 
 Regal and Ecclesiaslii-a! Anii- 
 
 ejuities of England, 1 ."> 1 . 
 Ji'egicide, The, 171. 
 Rehearsal, Foote's, 204, 219. 
 Reid, Thomas (1710-1796), 97. 
 Rejected Addresses, 233. 
 Relapse, ^'anl»rugl^s, 200, 20S, 
 
 216. 
 Reliqnes of Ancient Poctrg, 3.i, 
 
 •^/o, 
 
 285. 
 
 Remarks on Ecclesiasti<-al His- 
 
 torg, 126. 
 Reminisrenccs, Frondes, oQ. 
 Renan, 112. 
 Rennie, 99. 
 Reprisal ; or, the Tars <f Old 
 
 England, 173. 
 RctaUation, 24, 238. 
 Retired Cat, The, 266. 
 
 Retirement, The, 260. 
 
 Pu'ynolds, Frederic, 201 , 211; 
 
 works of, 212-223. 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 23. .15, 19S. 
 Rhetoric, Blair's. 280. 
 Rice, Ap, 205. 
 Richard III., 200. 
 Richard Savage, Life if, (i. 
 Richardson, Samuel, 11, 49, 125; 
 
 life and works of, 156-163, 165, 
 
 170, 174, 176, 178, 183, 184, 
 
 187, 189, 278. 
 Rigbys, The, 78. 
 Rights of Man, S(). 
 Ritson, Joseph, 30, 34, 285-286.302. 
 Riml Qneois, Lee's, 200. 
 Rimds, The, 17<). 199. 215. 216, 
 
 217. 
 Rivarol, xxxi. 
 Rirer Lodon, 255. 
 Rivington, 157. 
 Road to Ruin, Holcrcjft's, 220. 
 RfMers, The, 235. 
 Robert Burns, Angellier's, 310. 
 Rol>ertson, AVilliam, 97 ; works 
 
 of, 132-135, 140, 147, 148, 152, 
 
 209. 
 Robesjuerre, 86. 
 Robinson Crusoe, 155, 159. 
 Robin Hood Ballads, 286. 
 Roche, J., 79. 
 Rockingham, 70. 
 Roderick Ran don, 171. 172. 177, 
 
 178. 
 Rolle, Lord, 233. 
 Rolliad, The, 233-234. 
 Rolt, 256. 
 
 Roniaiu-e of the Forest, 195. 
 Roman Father, 223. 
 Romeo and Juliet, 200. 
 Romney, 243, 311.
 
 IXDEX. 
 
 359 
 
 Rose lad, The, 226, 227, 232, 236. 
 Roscoe, William, 150, 151. 
 Rose, Dr. William (1719-1786), 4. 
 Rose, The, 266. 
 
 Rosebeiy, Lord, on Biirn.s, 301. 
 Ross, Alexander, works of, 291, 
 
 304. 
 Kossetti, D. G., 2.58, 280. 
 Rousseau, 6, .32, 53, .59, 73, 96, 
 159, 184, 189, 197, 270, 273, 
 284, 285. 
 Rovers, The, 235. 
 Rowe, Nicholas, 14, 200, 223. 
 Rowlandson, xiv, 56, 2.30, 231. 
 Rowley Poems, 276, 279. 
 Rowley, or Rowlie, Thomas, 276, 
 
 278. 
 Eoijal George, 268. 
 Ruddlmans Weekly Magazine, 
 
 295. 
 Ride a Wife and hare a Wife, 
 
 200. 
 Ruskiii, 311. 
 Russell, Lord .John, 83. 
 Russell, Thomas, 30, 240, 255, 
 
 256. 
 Russell, The House ol, 74, 75. 
 Ruth, Hood's, 284. 
 Rymer, Thomas, 128. 
 Ryse, The, ofPeynrteyngeyti E»'f- 
 landc, 277. 
 
 Saint-Chiir, General, 94. 
 
 Saint Joseph, 282. 
 
 Saint Fatrlek's Day, or tin- Srhnn- 
 
 inrj Lieittrnant, 216. 
 Saint Pierre, Bernanlin d<>. IS!). 
 Saint Simon, .39, 46, 57. 
 Sainte -Reuve, xx.wii, 42. 270. 
 Saintshnry, Professur, 192. 
 Sialmasius, 1 19. 
 
 Salusburj^, Helen Lynch. See 
 
 Mrs. Thrale. 
 Salvator Rosa, 195. 
 Sancho Panza, 57. 
 Sandeau, Jules, 26. 
 Sandwich, 229. 
 Sardou, 213. 
 
 Savage, Richard (d. 1743), 15, 10. 
 Savile, George (Maniuis of Hali- 
 fax), 203. 
 Schiller, 2.35. 
 
 School for Arrogance, 220. 
 School for Scandal, 212, 216, 217, 
 
 218. 
 Scotia's darling Seat, 302. 
 Scot's Musical Museum, 286. 
 Scots u-ha hae, 301. 
 Scott, Thomas, 126. 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 17, 37, 66, 160, 
 162, 17.3, 182, 190, 196, 241, 
 273, 279, 291, 302. 
 Scottish Song, 286. 
 Scottish Tragic- Bcdlails, 285. 
 
 Scrihe, 21.3." 
 
 Scribleriad, The, 236. 
 
 Scripture Dictionary. 12(1. 
 
 Seasons, The, 310. 
 
 Sehaldns. ISO. 
 
 Sedaine, .Mi-'lid-l. (1719-1707), 
 218. 
 
 Sedley, 1()3. 
 
 Seduction, Htdcrolfs, 220. 
 
 Selborne, 100. 
 
 Selert I 'of/erf inns ofh'ia/lish Saiig^-, 
 286. 
 
 Select Scottish Bidhnis, 2S5. 
 
 Selkirk, f 'owper's, 258, 2<)S. 
 
 Selwyn, Georye (1719-1791), 40. 
 
 Sonii»ill. |i'r Spniph'. HoIhtI, 2S(; 
 30.3'. 
 
 Sfniiinent"! Journey. 22, V85,2.3(i
 
 360 
 
 THE AOE OF .TOTTKSON. 
 
 Serious Call, 4. 
 So'ijwiis by Mr. Yoricl-, 126. 
 Sermons, Johnson's, 126. 
 Seward, Anna (1747-1S09), 286, 
 
 243. 
 Seven CIudiijiioKs of Clu'iste)i(Jom, 
 
 60, 154. 
 Sevignd, Mme. de, 266. 
 Shackleton, Miss, 76. 
 Sliackleton, Abraliain, 68. 
 Sliathvell, 172. 
 Sliake.-peare, 1, .S, 11: Joluison's 
 
 edition, 14-15, 17, 10, 34, 66, 
 
 72, 78, 100, 119, 159, 179, 181, 
 
 197, 202, 219, 220, 241, 249, 
 
 273, 274, 304, 307. 
 SIic Stoops to Conquer, 23, 211. 
 She u-ou\l and she irou'd unf, 200. 
 Sheffield, Lord, 141. 
 Shelbmne, Lord, SO. 
 Shelley, 37, 271, 278, 304,310,312. 
 Shenstone, 32, 37, 48, 302. See 
 
 The Age uf Fope. 
 Shepherd, The Ettrick (Hoiin). 
 
 293. 
 Sheridan, Frances, 215. 
 Sheridan, liichard Brinsley, 13, 
 
 199, 200, 203, 210; ].lays of, 
 
 214-219, 221, 312. 
 Slieridan, Thomas, 215. 
 Slierlock, Tlionias (d. 1761), 112. 
 Shqnereeh, Tl,r, 239. 
 Shirley, 208. 
 Sieloiess, 240. 
 Sidney, Algernon, 32, 84. 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 35, 132. 
 >SV7/-:'r Crou-n, The, 290. 
 Silca Critiea, 108. 
 Simplicissimus, 155. 
 Simpson, ^Yi]lianl, 297. 
 Six Poems tjij Mr. T. Crai/, 250. 
 
 Sir Charles Grandison, 161. 
 
 Sir Conrtly Nice, 200. 
 
 Sir Walter Iledeigh, 139. 
 
 Skeat, Professor, 279. 
 
 Skelton, Philip, 61. 
 
 Skinner, John, 288. 
 
 Slop, Dr., 185. 
 
 Small, Mr. , 292. 
 
 Smart, Christoplier, 8, 245; life 
 
 and works of, 256-259. 
 Smith, Adam, sen., 88. 
 Smith, Adam, 2, 13, 66; life an<l 
 works of, 88-93, 95, 97, 106, 133, 
 135. 
 Smith, Mr. Goldwin, 61. 
 Smith, Margaret, 88. 
 Smith, Sydney, 13. 
 Smith, Wm. James, 80, 83. 
 Smollett, Elizabeth, 175. 
 Smollett, Tobias, 8, 22, 26, 131- 
 132, 168; life and works of, 
 170-178, 187, 188, 189, 213, 228, 
 233, 239, 240. 
 Socrates, 3. 
 
 Soldieys Friend, The, 235. 
 Soldiers Wife, The, 235. 
 Somerset, 104. 
 Somerville, Thomas, life and 
 
 M'orks, 148. 
 Soiaj to Dacid, 256, 257, 258, 259. 
 SoiKjs of E.rperirnce, 284. 
 Soiujs of Innoecnec, 280, 282, 284. 
 Song to /Ella, Til. 
 Sounet upon the Deafli of Fichard 
 
 West, 248. 
 Sonnets and Miseellaneons Foems, 
 
 256. 
 Sonnets, Shakespeare's, 78. 
 Sorel, Charles, 155. 
 Sorfes W(dpolian(c, 48. 
 South, Kobert, 167.
 
 INDEK. 
 
 361 
 
 SontliPin. 200. 
 
 Southey, 120, 227, 23."), 243. 
 
 Spacious Firmament on Hit)}!, 
 
 258. 
 Spectator, The, 8, 12. 
 Specimens of the Eartij Enqlisli 
 
 Poets, 234. 
 Specimens of the I'oetrji of tin 
 
 Antient Welsh, 34. 
 Speech on Coneiliatioi) irlth Amrr- 
 
 iea, 71. 
 Speech on Amerii-an Taydfinn, 71. 
 Speed, John, 127, 137. 
 Spence, Joseph, 34, 4(i. 
 Spencer, Herhert, 243. 
 Spencer, Lord, 13. 
 Spt-nser, 37,246,251,278, 280. 200. 
 Spinoza, 92. 
 Spiritual Quixote, 174. 
 Spleen, The, 240. 
 Sports of the E),<,r,sh I'r^ph. I '.Hi. 
 Sprinfj, 293. 
 
 Stanhope Letters, 41, 42, 43, 4J. 
 Sttinhope, Lady Hester, 299. 
 Stanhope, Philip Dormer, Earl of 
 
 (.'hesterlield, life and works of, 
 
 40-40. -S'.'- also Cliesterlield. 
 Stanlioiie, I'hilip, ille;iiliiiiate mmi 
 
 of Lord Chesterlield, 41. 
 Stanho2)e, Philip, Liodson of l.-ml 
 
 CiiesterlieM, 41. 
 Stapfer, Panl, .\.\.\\ii, isl. 
 State Poems, 234. 
 Steele, 8, 200, 209. 
 Steen, Jan, 18(j. 
 Steevens, (leorj^e, 14, 34. 224. 
 Stendhal, 159. 
 Stejilien, Leslie, xwv. Nxxvii. 17, 
 
 57, 81, 125, 1()(). 
 Steidien, Sir J. P., 117, 125. 
 Sterne, Lanrence, 2, 22, 20 ; iiis 
 
 two volnmes of Sermons, 120 ; 
 
 102, 168, 173, 175; life and 
 
 Avorks of, 179-188, 189, 193, 236, 
 
 284, 302. 
 Sterne, Lydia, 179. 
 Sterne, Roger, 179. 
 Stewart, Du-ald, 93. 97. 
 Stewart , Si r .1 ai i los T )onhain (171 2- 
 
 1780), 92. 
 Stevenson, .lolm Hall, 179, 180, 
 
 236. 
 Stevenson, Pi. L, . wwi, 29(>. 
 Stillinglleet, neiij.. 1(»0. 2.")."). 
 Stothard, 281, 
 Stow, 127. 
 Stowell, Lord, 13. 
 St ra fiord, 131. 
 Straliau. William, 9(i, 148. 
 Stratford Jnhiiee, 54, 197. 
 Strawberry Hill, xv, 48, 50. 
 Stiutt, Joseph (1749-1802). 1.V2, 
 
 196, 197. 
 Strype, 127. 
 Student, Smart's, 250. 
 Studies in English Literature, 31. 
 Stuart, .lames (1713-1788), \\.\iv, 
 
 34. 
 Snard, .1. P., ( 1733-ls.S()K 137. 
 Sn(d<linjj;, 103. 
 Suifi't' Cane, The, 240. 
 Swedenhor-,', 281, 282, 285. 
 Swift, Dean, 1, S, 15, 17, 18, 19. 
 
 32, 40, 64, 6(5, 82, 85, 120, 105, 
 
 168, 170, 187, 237. 2.52. 2(i0. 295. 
 Symoiis, .1. ('., 79. 
 
 Tatjle Tall., 2()8. 
 
 Tacitus, 114, 139. 
 
 Taiue, HiiMiolyt.-, 20. in:!, 107. 
 
 Tale i,fa Tul,, 203, 
 
 Taui U'Shanter, 300.
 
 362 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Taming of the Shrcn-, 220. 
 
 Tannaiiill, 29.3. 
 
 Task, The, 268, 272, 280. 
 
 Tasso, 109, 2-41. 
 
 Tate, Naluim (1652-1715). .30. 
 
 Tat let; The, 7. 
 
 Taylor, Isaac, 113. 
 
 Taj'lor, .lolin, 80, 143. 
 
 Taylor, Tom, 214. 
 
 Tea Table Miseellanij, 286, 287. 
 
 Tears of 31>(sie. 241. 
 
 Tears of Old May Da>i, 241. 
 
 Tears of Scotland, 172. 
 
 Teazle, Ladj% 218. 
 
 Teleinachiis, 42. 
 
 TcDiora, 273, 274. 
 
 Tempest, The, 200. 
 
 Temple, Earl, 40, 44, 81. 
 
 Temple, Lady, 80. 
 
 Temple, Sir William, 203. 
 
 Tencin, Marquise de, 156. 
 
 Teniers, 302, 303, 307. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 13, 33, 
 25l', 269, 272, 310. 
 
 'Terence of England,' Cumber- 
 land, 209. 
 
 Texte, Joseph, xxxvii, 161. 
 
 Thackeray, 162, 164, 165,168,232, 
 260. 
 
 T'hanks, mil Lord, for i/oin- 
 Venison, 238. 
 
 Theohald, Lewis (d. 1744), 14. 
 
 Theory of Moral Sentiment, Thi\ 
 89.' 
 
 Theory of liain, 102. 
 
 Theory of the Earth, 102. 
 
 There's nac hick cthout the hoose, 
 292. 
 
 Thesaurus, Hickes's, 251. 
 
 Third Crusade, The, 138, 
 
 Third Satire of J.nventd, ^,, 
 
 Thompson, Capt. Edward (d. 
 
 1786), 22.3. 
 Thompson, William, 240, 244. 
 Thomson, James, 37, 49, 100, 162, 
 
 171, 251, 271, 288, 289, 293, 302, 
 
 308, 310. 
 Thomson : sa vie et ses (Eiivrcs, 286. 
 Thoreau, xxx, 98. 
 Thornton, Bonnell (1724-1768), 8, 
 
 109, 208, 226, 236, 256, 259. 
 Thoughts on French Affairs, 74. 
 Thoughts on the Cause of the Pre- 
 sent Discontents, 70. 
 Thoughts on the Prospect rjf Peace 
 
 v:ith a Regicide Directory, 74. 
 Thrale, Mrs., 14, 16, 17, 54 ; life 
 
 of, 63, 232, 2.35. 
 Thring, 105. 
 Thucydides, 114. 
 Thuriow, 66. 
 Tibbs, Beau, 22. 
 Tickell, Richard, 234. 
 Tierney, Geox-ge, 235. 
 Tiger, Tiger burning bright, 258, 
 
 284. 
 Tillemont, L. Sebastien (d. 1698), 
 
 139. 
 Tillotson, John, 167. 
 Times, The, 229. 
 Tindal, Nicholas (1687-1774), 111, 
 
 128. 
 Tirocin ium , or a Review of Schools, 
 
 260, 269. 
 To a Louse, 298. 
 To a Mountain. Daisy, 298. 
 To a Mouse, 298. 
 To Autumn, ^\0. 
 To Mary, 268, 269. 
 To Mrs. Unrein, 266. 
 To Spring, 248. 
 To Wdliani Simpson, 294.^
 
 IXDEX. 
 
 363 
 
 \\oiks 
 
 2.-)9. 
 
 Toad and the Ephcmcron, 267. 
 
 Tobacco Pipe, 235. 
 
 Tobin, John, 201, 220. 
 
 Toland, John (1670-I722i, HI. 
 
 Toll for the Brave, 266. 
 
 Tolstoi, 69, 271, .310. 
 
 Tom Jones, 168, 160. 
 
 Tom Thumb, 219. 
 
 Tom Thumb the Great, 1 ().">. 
 
 Tomm]i Trip, 197. 
 
 Tone, TlieobaM Wolfe, 60; work 
 
 61-62. 
 Tooke, John Home, 84 : 
 
 of, 106-107. 
 Tooke, William, 106. 
 Toi.lady, A. :\I. (1740-1778 
 Torfaeus, 2.51. 
 Tonp, .Jonathan, 109. 
 Tour in Corsica, 54. 
 Tour in Ireland, 103. 
 Tour in Scotland, 103. 
 Tour in Wales, 103. 
 Tour to the Hebrides, 14. 
 Tovey, Mr., 253. 
 Townley, James, 201, 207. 
 Town and Count ri/ 3Iaf/azinc, 277. 
 Tracts in Cont rovers jf irith Dr. 
 
 Priestley, 115. 
 Traites des ceremonies relii/icuses 
 
 dc toutes les nations, 117. i 
 
 Treinslation of the Elegies of I 
 
 Tibullus, 240. I 
 
 Traveller, The, 23, 2.30, 237, 2.38. 
 Travels and Adventures of Wil- [ 
 
 Hani Binff field, Esq., 190. 
 Travels, Arthur Young's, 102-103. 
 Travels, Mungo Park's, 102. 
 Travels through France and Italif, 
 
 175. 
 'Trarels to Discover thr Sources of 
 
 the Nile (1790), 102. 
 
 Travis, George, 144. 
 
 Treatise of Human Nature, 94, 
 
 130. 
 Trelawuy, Echvard John (1792- 
 
 1881), 59. 
 Trencli, Archbishop, 63. 
 Trencli, Melesina, works of, 63-64. 
 Tritdofthe Witnesses, 112. 
 Trij) to Ccdais, 205. 
 Trip to Scarborough, 216. 
 Tristram Shandg, 126, 173. 
 Triumphs of Music, 242. 
 Triunijdis of Temper, 242. 
 Truth, ("owper's, 268. 
 Tryon, Thomas (16.34-1703), 85. 
 Tucker, Alirahani, 98, 112 
 Tulloehgorum, 288. 
 Turgot, 92, 273. 
 Turk's He.afl Tavern, 13. 
 Turner, 281, 302, 303, 311. 
 Twa Dogs, 298, 302, 308. 
 Twining, Thomas, 60 ; life of, (II 
 
 65. 
 Tyrawly, 41. 
 TyrwhiU, Tliomas (17.30-1786), 
 
 •28, ,34, 279. 
 Tytler, William, 1.52. 
 
 Universal Beautg, 241, 243. 
 Universal Histories, 151. 
 Universcd Visitor, 8. 
 Unwin, Mrs. Mary (1724-1796), 
 
 261, 262, 265, 209, 270. 
 Unwin, Rev. Morley (<l. 1767), 
 
 261, 264, 266. 
 Upton, Joiin (<1. 1760), 119. 
 Urwick's Collection, 123. 
 
 Valedirtion, ("uwper's, 11. 
 Vanhrugii, 199, 200, 203, 208, 214, 
 216, 218.
 
 364 
 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 Vanitii'i Vmutdfinii, 12. 
 
 Infill if// Firir, 164. 
 
 Vmiitji of Hiniuoi WisJte.s. The, 
 
 7, 225.' 
 Vathcl;, Beckfcn-dV, 196. 
 Vaubaii, 112. 
 Van.uhan, Tlioinas (1622-l(i66), 
 
 •:8:]. 
 
 Vcukc Pi-cscn-cd., 200, 221. 
 
 Vernon, Admiral, 171. 
 
 Vcvt Vrrf, 272. 
 
 \'erville, Beroalde de, 181. 
 
 V/rar i,f Wol-rfrld. 2.S, 2.-), 26, 
 
 IS!). 212. 
 ^■ida, 242. 
 
 Vie d'ini Paijuan, 7.S. 
 VHhnje Politics, h;j Will I 'h 7/, 1 !IS. 
 MUcharduuiii, 32. 
 Vindication of Xnt/ffd Soci-iji. 
 
 m. 
 
 Viiidiciir (iidllcic, 84. 
 
 \'ii',uil, Warton'w edition of, 27, 
 
 100, 108, 119, 289. 
 Vli-(finiiis, Kno^vle^^'s, 221. 
 Visions of Fdncjj, 241, 
 Visitor, Tltc^ 8. 
 Voltaire, 1, 2, 12; (.Joldsnutlis 
 
 l.iograpliy of, 23, '2d, 2S, 42, 48, 
 
 53, 76 ; Adam Sniitir^ vi^sit to, 
 
 90; 92, 111, 128, 147, 162. 184, 
 
 190, 193, 253. 
 Vortlgcfii, Ireland's, 221. 
 Vossins, Isaac, 120, 147. 
 Voyage ronnd the ]Vorld, or Hare 
 
 Adventnrcs of Don Kainophllns 
 from his Cradle to his Vlfteenth 
 
 Year, 181. 
 Voi/age to Abyssinia, 5. 
 Voyages Unaglnaires, 12. 
 Voyages of Discovery in the 
 
 Sonthcrn Hemisphere, 104. 
 
 Wadnian, Widow, 185. 
 Wakefield, (;ill»ert, 82; works of, 
 
 107-108. 
 Walker, 174. 
 Wallace, A. llnssel, 98. 
 Waller, 255. 
 
 Walmesley, Gilbert (d. 1751), 15. 
 Walpole, Horace, ix, 2, 8, 9, 18, 
 
 22, 34, 37, 38, 39, 45 ; life and 
 
 works of, 46-51, 54, 56, 82, 84, 
 
 123, 129, 148, 163, 194, 195, 212, 
 
 230, 239, 246, 249, 250, 277. 
 Walpole, Sir Kobert, 46, 165. 
 Walton, Izaak, 98. 
 Wanderer, The, 192. 
 Warbnrton, 14, 35, 105, 106; li'fe 
 
 and works of, 118-121, 1.39, 
 
 181, 182, 229. 
 Ward, E. M., 21. 
 Warner, Ferdinand, 152. 
 Warton, Josepli, 8 ; life and works 
 
 of, 27-28, 36, 105, 2-16, 251, 254, 
 
 255, 256. 
 Warton, Thomas, 2; life and works 
 
 of, 28-31, 36, 105, 223, 244, 246, 
 
 251, 253, 254, 255, 256. 
 Washington, Cleorge, 301. 
 Waterton, Charles (1782-1865), 
 
 99. 
 Watson, Bishop, 107, 116. 118, 
 
 143. 
 Watts, Dr. Isaac, 15, 258. 
 AVatts, Thomas, xxxi. 
 Watson, Robert, works of, 148. 
 Way of the World, 212. 
 Way to Keep Him, 206. 
 Wekster, John, 284. 
 AVebster, Noah, xxix. 
 Wellington, Duke of, 19, 124, 125. 
 Wenham, Jane (reputed witch), 
 
 118.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 }65 
 
 Wertliei-, 159. 
 
 \Vc.sley, Cliiiilcs, works of, \2:i- 
 
 126.' 
 We^iley, John, 10; works of, l-j:>- 
 
 126, 193, 199, 210. 
 Wesley, John, jun., 122. 
 ^^'esley, Samuel, 122. 
 West, Richard, 254, 256. 
 ^Vestern, 8(|uire, 173. 
 West Indian, The, 210. 
 Westmorlcind, 104. 
 Whalley, Peter (1722-1791), 104. 
 Whalley, Thomas, x.vvii. 
 JVhat can a Yointg Lassie do ici' 
 
 an Aiild Man, 300. 
 What ails this Heart of Mine, 
 
 290. 
 Whateley, 113. 
 Wheel of Fortune, 210. 
 Whether on Ida's sliadij Brow, 
 
 280. 
 Whewell, 120. 
 Whigs, Junius and the, 78. 
 Wliiston, William, 25. 
 Whitefield, George (1714-1770), 
 
 the preacher, 166, 205. 
 White, Gilbert, life and works 
 
 of, 98-102. 
 Whitehead, Paul (1710-1744), 223. 
 Wliitehead, William, 30, 223, 
 
 224, 232. 
 Whitman, Walt, 271. 
 Whitney, Thomas Dwiglit, x.xi.x. 
 Whittaker, Joiin (1735-1808), 152. 
 Wieland, 189. 
 Willjerforce, 236, 270. 
 Wild Oats, 21.3. 
 Wilkes, John, 8, 52, 53, 55, 57, 
 
 70, 80, 81, 106, 174, 179, 229. 
 Wilkie, William, 240, 241, 267, 
 
 303, 307. 
 
 Wilkinson, Tate, 205. 
 \\'ilkitcs, Junius and the, 78. 
 Windham, William, 13, 17. 
 Williams, Gilly, 49. 
 Willie brnrd\' Perk of Mm,/, 
 
 300. 
 Willie icas a Wanton Wag, 286. 
 Willnghl)y, Francis, 100, 103. 
 Winslade, sonnet, 255. 
 Wil.son, of Kilmarnock, 298. 
 Wolcot, Dr. John, life and works 
 
 of, 231-2.32. 
 Wolf and Shepherds, 290. 
 Wonder, Centlivre's, 200. 
 Wood, J. (i., 99. 
 Wood, Kobert, his I'alnujra, 
 
 xxxiv, 34. 
 Woo'd and Married and a' , 291. 
 Woodfall, George (1767-1844), 77, 
 
 78. 
 Woodfall, Henry Sampson, 77. 
 Woolston, ^Thomas (1669-1731), 
 
 111, 112, 118. 
 Worcestershire, 104. 
 Wordsworth, 33, 37, 42, oii, 98, 
 
 256, 270, 271, 274, 281, 287, 288, 
 
 289, 303, 308, 310, 311. 
 World, The, 8, 11 ; E.l. Moore, 
 
 editor of, 202, 235, 241. 
 Wormius, Olaus (Ole Worm), 251. 
 Wyeherley, 200, 218. 
 Wroughton, manager of Drury 
 
 Lane Tlieatre, 220. 
 
 Xenophon, 3. 
 
 Yalden, Thomas (1670- 1736), 15. 
 Yardley Oak, 258, 268, 269. 
 Yarrow Un visited, 2S7. 
 Ye Banks and Braes of Bonnie 
 Doon, 300.
 
 366 
 
 THE AGE OF .TOHNSOX. 
 
 Yorick, Sermons by Mr., 126. 
 Young, Johnson's Life of, 16. 
 Young, Arthur, 103, 240. 
 Young, Edward (d. 1765), 28. 
 Young, ^Yillianl, 166. 
 
 Younger, John, 312. 
 
 Zoology, Pennant's, 103. 
 Zoonoinia, 98. 
 Zwicker, 114. 
 
 CHI.SWICK press: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. 
 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCEKV LANE, LONDON.
 
 HANDBOOKS 
 
 OK 
 
 ENGLISH LITERATUEE. 
 
 Edited by Professor Hales. 
 
 In this series of Haudbooks, the chief epochs of English Litera- 
 ture are dealt with in separate volumes of moderate length, but 
 in such a manner that, taken together, they will ultimately form 
 a consecutive history. 
 
 The folloiving Volumes are already jjubliahed: 
 
 Croivn 8vo, 3s. 6d. each. 
 THE AGE OF MILTON (1G32-1660). By the Kev. J. H. B. Master- 
 
 MAN, M.A. With an Introduction, etc., by J. Bass Mullikgeb, 
 
 M.A. 
 THE AGE OF DRYDEN (1660-1700). By Richakd Gaunett, C.B., 
 
 LL.D. Second Edition. 
 THE AGE OF POPE (1700-1748). By John Denxis. Third Edition. 
 THE AGE OF JOHNSON (1748-1798). By Tuomas Seccomhe. 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1798-1832). By Professor C. H, 
 
 Hekford, Litt.D. Third Edition. 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON (18:30- 1870). By Professor Hrcu Walkei;, 
 
 M.A. Second Edition. 
 
 The following Volumes are in preparation : 
 
 THE AGE OF ALFRED. By H. Frank Heath, Ph.D. 
 THE AGE OF CHAUCER. By Professor Hales. 
 THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE. By Professor Hales. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 THE AGE OF POPE. 
 
 " The special purpose of Mr. Dennis's book is to form one of a serief; of 
 handbooks edited by Professor Hales, which it is to be lioped, he tells u> 
 in his preface, wUl be of servic-e to students who ' love literature for it^ 
 own sake instead of regarding it merely as a branch of knowledge recjuired 
 Ity examiners.' A 'handbook,' indeed, is scarcely a fair description of 
 so readable and companionable a volume, which aims not only at ;;iving 
 accurate information, but at directing the reader's steps ' through a 
 country exhaustless in variety and interest.'" — Spectator.
 
 "The division l)y personally-titled ' Ages ' was a favourite plan some 
 years ago in regard to history jjrojier, and it has heen adopted as tlie 
 priiiciiilc ol a new series on the liistoiy of ^h^gli^h Literature, the general 
 editor whereof is Professor Hales. There liave heen, and are heiug, pro- 
 duced so many series of this kind, that it is no douht necessary at least to 
 put forward some special aim ; and this is not worse than another, if it he 
 not taken too literally. It is exceedingly seldom that an age in literatuie 
 can be called the age of a single person in any other sense than that th;it 
 person was the most prominent single figure in it ; and there is just a 
 slight danger, perhaps, that writing under such a title may lead the writers 
 to exaggerate l^oth the intinence of the age on the writer and the influence 
 of tlie writer on the age. In such practised hands, however, as those to 
 M'hicli the volumes of Professor Hales's series seem to liave been so far 
 committed, this danger cannot be very great, and in Mr. Dennis's parti- 
 cular division it is reduced almost to a minimuni." — Sattirdaii llcvku-. 
 
 " The biographical portion of Mr. Dennis's book is really admirable. 
 Tlie accuracy of the details and the knowledge exhibited liy tlie author 
 of the social and political life of the period show how thoroughly he has 
 mastered his subject." — Westminster Review. 
 
 "Tliis, the first of a new series of literary handbooks, augurs well for 
 its successors. Mr. Dennis writes freely and simply, and with a thorough 
 knowledge of the period with which he deals, and goes straight to the 
 point without revelling in circumambient fancies. The result of this is 
 that in 250 pages of good print we have as concise a history of Queen 
 Anne literature as we could wish." — Cambridge Bevieiv. 
 
 "An excellent little volume." — Athcncciim. 
 
 "A new series of liand!)Ooks of English literature under the general direc- 
 tion of Professor Hales cannot but promise well, and it performs very well 
 indeed in its first volume, ' The Age of Pope.'" — Manchester Guardian. 
 
 " A very attractive first instalment of a series edited hy Professor Hales, 
 ' which it is hoped A\ill be of service to students who love literature for its 
 own sake, instead of regarding it merely as a branch of knowledge re- 
 quired by examiners,' a hope which well deserves to be fulfilled if the 
 succeeding volumes are equal in merit to the present." — Times. 
 
 "If we may take this as a specimen of the Handbooks of English 
 Literature which Professor Hales has undertaken to edit, it will be safe 
 to predict for the series a notable success. . . . We can hardly imagine a 
 critical and biographical handbook of the period better executed. " — Dr. 
 Baync in the " Literarjj World.''' 
 
 THE AGE OF DRYDEN. 
 
 " This scholarly little volume from the learned pen of Dr. Garnett is one 
 of a series of ' Handbooks to English Literature,' edited by Professor 
 Hales. . . . Within the limits of his space Dr. Garnett surveys the several 
 departments of literature in this period with singular comprehensiveness, 
 broad sympathy, and fine critical sagacity. . . . We have no great love 
 for handbooks of literature, but perhaps they are a necessity of an age of 
 examinations and university extensions. If so, it is as well that the task 
 of writing them should be intrusted to such competent hands and judicious 
 pens as those of Dr. Garnett." — Times. 
 
 " The series which Professor Hales is editing, and of which this is the 
 second volume, aims at being that very difficult and important "something 
 between the text-book for schools and the gracefully allusive literary essay. 
 Dr. Garnett has done his part of the work admirably. Most readable is 
 his book, written with a fine sense of proportion, and containing many 
 independent judgments, yet even, so far as minor names and dates and
 
 acts are concerned, complete enough for all save a searcher after 
 mnnhie. '—Boo/:maii . 
 
 ,'.' ■^'■- p.<:)'raett has succeeded in presenting its more notable character- 
 stics, while rnai)pino- out a course of study for those m-Iio are bent on 
 Liaking themselves accjuainted with those writers at first liand "—Daifi/ 
 
 " Tliough planned on the scale of the manual, tliis book is actually the 
 irst attempt M-orth naming to grasp in one sej.arate review tlie literatui<- 
 if the last forty years of tlie seventeenth century, a time Avhicli, as Di- 
 Tarnett Avell says, 'with all its defects, had a faculty for producing mas- 
 ei-pieces.' Dr. Garnett s name is a warrant for his acquaintance not only 
 nth the masterpieces but with much besi<les, and Avitli more than all 
 hat need be named in the kin<l of survey he undertakes."— 7l/«//.V(r,v^r 
 Tiiardian. 
 
 " It is an ably-written ami interesting sketch of the literary history of 
 ts period, Avhich reviews the literature of the time so as to make 'the 
 ,cademic tradition of the subject so interesting that readers of the book 
 rill be stimulated to read in the originals Un- themselves.''— .SVy?;',^-,;,^^/,. 
 
 THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 "It is an admirable little work all the way through and one which 
 lie ripest >tudents of the period may read wi'th interest and lu-olit."^ 
 TuardkuK 
 
 "A full index and a chronological table add value to the book, wliich 
 ■i both handy and accurate as a text-book and readable as a contriliution 
 o the literature of criticism. ]Mr. Herford has thrown lii,dit on his period 
 ly considering mainly its relation to 'the far-reaching and many-sided 
 evival of imaginative power commonly known as Komanticisui,' ;ind his 
 i-ork is not only informing but suggestive. "—.lAo^t/^r.vi'fj' Giairdidii. 
 
 "It is an eminently stimulating and penetrative piece of work, and 
 ts style throughout is a model of vigorous and incisive English." — 
 ^ducotional Brricw. 
 
 "The introductory es-^ay on Romanticism in our literature is an ad- 
 iiirable piece of work, full of suggestive tlnrnght, but Professor Herford 
 s at his best — and a very fine best it is — in his brief suminarics of the 
 ives and works of individual writers. His Cobbctt, his T.iinib. ;md others 
 hat might be instanced, are veritable gems of biognxphicjij innl critical 
 ompression presented with true literary linish. . . . For the student 
 'rofessor Herford has provided a rich and suggestive collection of facts ; 
 lut he has also done something more, for he has presented them in so 
 ble a manner aiid with such literary llavour as to make liis history 
 hoioughly readable." — Litirdri/ World. 
 
 " The growth of the new impulse of Komanticism, nnd the manner in 
 thieh it asserted itself in imaginative literature at the dawn of the present 
 entury, is admiialtly traced in a Itook which is remarkable for freshness 
 ,nd distinction of style, jihilosophic grasp of first i)rinciples, and critical 
 nsight. . . . When we add that the book is also cons]iipuous for delicacy 
 f literary appreciation and ri]>c judgment, both of men and movements, 
 re have said enough to show that we consider its claims arc unusual." — 
 Ipeaker. 
 
 " One of the soundest ami most suggestive manuals of a memorable 
 leriod of our literature." — Glfisf/ovj Hcrahl. 
 
 " The desiderated text-book of tlie period 1798 to 1830 A.D. is no longer 
 o seek. ]\lore than that, it has been written by tin; one I'mrlishman 
 iiost com])etent to deal with it. Whatexer Professor Herford does he 
 loes well ; but he has given us nothing at once .so good and so helpful as 
 his book." — Universitij Corrcspondoit.
 
 "Quite worthy of I lie lii^li litt'iary ie|)iitatioii of its accomj)lislie(l 
 author." — Daily News. 
 
 " The order and unity of treatment observable throughout these pa^es 
 is in a great measure due to the basis whereon the writer lias wrought, 
 namely^ Romanticism, Avhich he lias treated in its various phases and 
 from its be^ninning, in so many distinct spheres of literature, both of 
 prose and verse. He has enriched his work with much that is valuable 
 in the ripest literary judgments of Continental critics, and he has en- 
 larged the limits of criticism by original observations of his own, by 
 comparisons, and by contrasts, as remarkable for their novelty as for i\w 
 justice of their appraisements." — Morning Post. 
 
 THE AGE OF MILTON. 
 
 " A very readable and serviceable manual of English literature during 
 the central years of the seventeenth century." — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 "A carefully and, in general, a clearly written account of an important 
 period of English literary activity." — Leeds 3Icrcunj. 
 
 "A very excellent little text-book full of concise and well-digested 
 learning." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " This scholarly and suggestive manual." — Speaker. 
 
 "Mr. Masterman has written a book which combines the i>reciseness 
 of a text-book with the fulness of thought of a monograph. Indeed, this 
 compact little work will be studied with as much earnestness by the 
 student as it will be read with pleasure by the lover of belles lettres. . . . 
 We lay down the book delighted with what we have read." — Birmingham 
 Daily Gazette. 
 
 " A work which reflects the utmost credit on its author . . . luminous 
 and at the same time impartial." — Westminster Bcvieic. 
 
 " This excellent ejntome . . . very happily indicates tiie g(dden after- 
 glow of the Elizabethan sun." — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 "An excellent sketch. . . . Mr. ^lasterman seems to write from his 
 own knowledge ; his judgments are sound and his style is agreeable. " — 
 Times. 
 
 THE AGE OF TENNYSON. 
 
 "A capital little handbook of modern English literature." — Times. 
 
 "An instructive and readable manual ... an admirable first text- 
 book on the subject." — Scotsman. 
 
 " A good book for intellectual readers." — Birmingham Daily Gazette. 
 
 " Professor Walker has done his allotted task with singular skill, won- 
 derful judiciousness, critical insight, adequate knowledge and mastery 
 of facts, keen discernment of qualities and effectiveness of grouping. . . . 
 AVe have read no review of the whole of the Tennysonian age so genuinely 
 fresh in matter, method, style, critical canons, and selectedness of phrase. 
 As a small book on a great subject, it is a special treasure." — Educational 
 Neivs. 
 
 " It is altogether difficult to imagine how, within the space at disposal, 
 a better work could have been produced. Its continuity is no less notice- 
 able than its unity, and its proportion and perspective are Avell-nigh 
 perfect. " — Methodist Times. 
 
 " So convenient and so accurate a survey." — Bookman. 
 
 LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, 
 
 COVENT GARDEN.
 
 LITEEATURE OF THE AGE OF 
 JOHNSON 
 
 PIBLISHKD BV 
 
 GEOKGE BELL AND SONS. 
 
 BEATTIE'S POETICAL WORKS. Etlited, with a Memoir, 
 liy tlie Itev. A. Dycc, ami I'ortiait. Fcap. Svo. 2s. dd. net. 
 
 [Aldine Edition. 
 BLAKE'S POETICAL WORKS. Edited, Mith a Memoir, by 
 N\'. ^L Rossetti, and Portrait. Fcai). Svo. l^.v. ijd. net. 
 
 [Ah/iiic Edition. 
 
 BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON, Avitli the Tour in thk 
 lli:i!i;ii>K.s and JoHNSOXIANA. New Edition, with Notes and 
 Appendices by the Rev. A. Najjier, M.A., Trinity College, 
 Cambridge. With Frontispiece to each vol. 6 vols. Small 
 post Svo. 3.V. ad. each. [Bo/ni's ^Standard Library. 
 
 BURKE'S WORKS. Ovols. Small post Svo. 3*. 6rf. each. 
 
 [lio/ui's Standard Library. 
 \'(j1. 1. — Vindication of Natural Societj' — Essay on the Sub- 
 lime and Beautiful, and various Political Mis- 
 cellanies. 
 il. — Reilections on the French Revolution — Letters re- 
 lating to the Bristol Election — Speech on Fox's 
 East India Bill, etc. 
 III. — Appeal fiom the New to the Old Whigs — On the 
 Naijob of Arcots Debts — The Catholic Claims, etc. 
 IV. — Report on tlie Affairs of India, and Articles of 
 Charge against Warren Hastings. 
 V. — Conclusion of the Articles of Charge against Warren 
 Ha-tings — Political Letters on the American War, 
 on a Regicide Peace, to the Empress of Russia. 
 VI. — Miscellaneous Speeches — Letters and Fiagnients — 
 Abridgn)cnts of English History, etc. W ith a 
 Oeneral Index. 
 
 SPEECHES ON THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN 
 
 HASTIN(;S ; and Letters. Witli Iiidc\. -J v.ds. Siinill jiost 
 Svo. 3y. Qd. each. 
 
 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE. I. and II. Edited 
 
 by II. G. Keene, M.A., C.I.L. Crown Svo. 3v. Sewed, 2s. 
 
 [Bell's EiKjlish Classics.
 
 BURKE'S LIFE, ijy Sii- J. ^iior. With a Portrait after 
 Keynokls. Small post 8vo. 3s. 60^. 
 
 E8.SAY OX THE SUBLIME AND llEAUTIFUL; 
 
 With short Memoir. Crown Svo. Is^ 6il. Sewed, l.v. 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 Crown Svo. Is. Gf/. Served, Is. 
 
 BURNEY'S EVELINA ; or, The History of A Yoilng Lftdys 
 Entrance into the World; By Fiances Burney (Mme. D'Arhlay), 
 With an Introduction and Notes hy A. R. Ellis. Small post 
 
 8V0; 3s. 6f/; 
 
 CECILIA. AVith an Introduction and Notes liy A. R. Ellis. 
 
 2 vols. Small post Svo. 3s. Qd. each. 
 
 — — THE EARLY DIARY OF FRANCES BURNEY, 17GS- 
 177s. Now first published, with a Selection from her Corre- 
 spondence and from the Journals of her histers, Susan and 
 Charlotte Burney. Edited by Annie Raine Ellis. 2 vols. 
 Demy Svo. 32s. 
 
 THE DIARY AND LETTERS OF MADAME 
 
 D'ARBLAY. As edited by her Niece, Charlotte Barrett. 
 With Portraits. 4 vols. Demy Svo. 30s. 
 
 BURNS (ROBERT), LIFE OF. By J. G. Lockhart, D.C.L. 
 A new and enlar,iied Eilition. Revised and corrected from the 
 latest texts of tlie Author, with new Annotations and Aj)- 
 pendices by William Scott Douglas. With Portrait. Small 
 post Svo. 3s. GcL [Boh lis Standard Library. 
 
 POETICAL W^ORKS. Edited, with INIemoir, by G. A. 
 
 Aitken. 3 vols. 2s. 60?. net. each. [Aldinc Edition. 
 
 CAMPBELL'S POETICAL WORKS. Edited by his Nephew 
 in-law, tlic Rev. A. W. Hill. With a Memoir, by W, AUinghiua 
 an,d Portrait. Fcap. Svo. 2s. Qd. net. [Aldinc Edition, 
 
 CHATTERTON'S POETICAL WORKS. Edited liy the Rev 
 \V. W. Skeat, M. A., late Fellow of Christ College, Cambridge, 
 Including the acknowledged Poeius and Satires, the Rowley 
 Poems, Avitii an Essay pro\ ing their authorship, a Memoir of 
 the Poet, and Selections from his Prose "Writings. 2 vols, 
 Fcap. Svo. 2s. Orf. net each. [Aldiuc Edition, 
 
 CHURCHILL'S POETICAL AN'ORKS. Edited, with Memoir, 
 by James Hannay. With Portrait. 2 vols. Fcap. Svo. 2s. Qd, 
 net each. [Aldiue Edition; 
 
 COLLINS'S POETICAL WORKS. Edited, with Memoir, by 
 W. Moy Thomas. With Portrait, I'"cap. Svo. 2s.. 6d. net.. 
 
 [Aldinc Edition!.- 
 
 COWPER'S POETICAL WORKS. Edited, with Memoir, by- 
 John Bruce, F.S. A. 3 vols. Fcap. Svo. 2s. 6f/. net each. 
 
 [A/ dine Edition.- 
 
 THE TASK. Fcap. Svo. 2s. Qd. [Chiswick Series,
 
 COWPER'S COMPLETE WORKS. comi,nM'no InsPoein^ Cnr- 
 respondeiice, and Translations. Edited, witii Memoir of tlie 
 Autiior, Ity Roliert Soirtliey. Illustrated with 4.') Engravinus. 
 8 vols. Small post 8vo. 's.v. Or/, eaeii. 
 
 {lioltti's StidHhtrd Lihtar)/. 
 Vols. I. to IV. — ^lemoir and Correspondence. AVitli 'II 
 Engravings. 
 V. and VI. — Poetical Works. With Ki Engravings. 
 VII. and A'lII. — Translation of Homer's Iliad and ()tly.S!<ej'. 
 AVith 8 Engravings. 
 
 DE LOLME oil tlie C(JX,STITUTI()X OE ENCILANI). or an 
 
 Account of the English Government, in which it is compared 
 lioth with the Kepnblican form of (iovernment and the otiier 
 Monarchies of Europe. Edited, with Life of tiie Author and 
 Note.?, by John Macgregor. Small post 8vo. 3.s\ 6f/. 
 
 [lUjJdi's Standard Ldiranj. 
 
 FALCONER'S POETICAL WUPKS. E.liled, with Memoir, 
 l>y Ke\. .(. .Mitford. Ecap 8vo. 2.y. C</. net. [Aid inc Edition. 
 
 FRANKLIN (BENJAMIN). AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Pub- 
 lished verbatim from the Original MS. by his tJrandson, W. T. 
 Eranklin. Edited by .Jared Si)arks. Small post 8vo. l.v. 
 
 FIELDING S ADVENTURES OF JOSEPH ANDREWS 
 AND HIS ERIEND MR. ABRAHAM ADAMS. With 
 Thomas Roscoe's Biography and George Cruikshank's Illus- 
 trations. Small post 8vo. 3s-. 6rf. 
 
 HISTORY OE TOM JONES, A FOUNDLING. Roscoes; 
 
 JLdition, with George ('ruii<shank"s Illustrations. 2 \()ls. 
 Small post 8vo. 7v. 
 
 AMP.LIA. Roscoe's Edition revised. With 8 lllu>tnaions 
 
 Ity (leorge Cruikshank. Small jiost 8vo. ")*•. 
 
 GIBBON'S DECLINE AND lALL OE THE ROMAN 
 
 EMI'IKE. Comiib'tc and Unabridged, with Variorum Nolew ; 
 including, in addition to the Author's own, those of (;uizot, 
 \Venck, Niebuiir, Hugo, Neander, and other Scliolars. Efiitecl 
 I)y an Englinh Chuichman. With cojiious Inde.x and 2 Maps 
 and a Portrait of Gibbon. 7 vols. Small post Svo. 3*-. 6f/. 
 each. [Ijulin'.s Standard Libra ri/. 
 
 GOLDSMITHS N\o|;Ks. a im x\ E.litinn, containing pieces 
 hitherto uncollected and a Life of the Autiior, m itli Notes from 
 various sources by .1. W. M. iwbbs. ,"> vols. Sm;ill post 8vo. 
 3a'. 6f/. each. [Jto/m'.s Standard Ldirari/. 
 
 Vol. I. — Life, \'i<-ar of Wakdicld, Essays and Letters. 
 II. — Poems, Plays, Bee, Cock Lane (ihost. 
 III.— The Citizen of tlie World, Polite Learning in 
 Europe.
 
 GOLDSMITH'S W'01lK^-Co,>fhnfc(L 
 
 T\'. - r>io:4ra]ilii('s, ('riticisins, Essayts. 
 \. — I'lefaces, Kxtnicts from Xatnial History, Letters 
 from a Nobleman, CJoody Two-shoes, Index to 
 the whole. 
 
 PLAYS. Crown Svo. 1*. 6(/. Sewed, Is. 
 
 VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. Crown Svo. l.v. «(/. Sewed, Lv. 
 
 POETICAL WOKKS. Kevised PMition, by Austin 
 
 Dobson. With Portrait. Fcap. Svo. 2s. 6(7. net. 
 
 [Alditie Edition. 
 
 (lOOD-NATURED MAN. Edited by K. Deighton. 2.y. 
 
 Sewed, Is. M. 
 
 SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER. Edited by K. Deighton 
 
 2s. ScM-ed, \s. Q(l 
 
 %* The Good-Natired Man and She Stoops to Conquer may also 
 be had bound together in one vohime. Sewed, 2s. 6ri. 
 
 TRAVELLER and DESERTED VILLAGE. Edited by 
 
 The Rev. A. E. Woodward, M. A., Assistant Master at Christ's 
 
 Hospital. 2s. [Bell's English Classics. 
 
 *,f* The Traveller and The Deserted Village separately. Sewed, 
 lii(?. each. 
 
 GRAY'S POETICAL WORKS. With Memoir, Notes, and 
 Rililiography by J. Bradshaw, M.A., LL.D., Chief Inspector 
 of Schools, ^Iadras, and Portrait. Fcap Svo. 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 [Aldine Edition. 
 
 LETTERS. Edited by the Rev. D. C. Tovey, M.A., 
 
 Author of "Gray and his Friends." In 3 vols. Small post 
 S\(). 3.V. Gd. each. [Vol. I. shortlij. 
 
 JOHNSON'S LIVES OF THE POETS. Edited with Notes 
 by Mrs. Alexander Napier, and an Introduction by .1. W. Hales, 
 M.A., Professor of Englisji Literature in King's College, 
 London. 3 vols. Small post Svo. 3.v. iSd. each. 
 
 [Bohiis Standard Lihranj. 
 
 LIFE OF ADDISON. Edited, with Introduction and 
 
 Notes, by F. Ryland, M.A. 2s. Gd. 
 
 LIFE OF SWIFT. Edite.l by F. Ryland, M.A. 2*. 
 
 LIFE OF POPE. E.lited by F. Ryland, M.xV 2s. M. 
 
 *^ Johnson's Lives of Swift and Pope together. Sewed, Is. Od. 
 
 LIFE OF 3IILTON. Edited by F. Ryland, M.A. 2.y. Qd. 
 
 LIFE OF DRYDEN. Edited by F. Ryland, M.A. 2s.6d. 
 
 %* Johnson's Lives of .Milton and Dryden together. Sewed, 2s. 6d. 
 
 — LIVES OF PRIOR AND CONGREVE. Edited by 
 
 F. Ryland, M.A. 2s. [Bell's Enylisli Classics.
 
 JUNIUS'S LETTERS. Witli all the Notes of Woodfall's 
 Edition, and important Additions. Also, an E.ssay on tlie 
 Aiiihorship, Eaesiniiles of Jiinius's Handwritinjj;-, and an elalHn- 
 ate Index. - vols. Small |io>t S\o. '2s. (nl. each. 
 
 [Bo/iii's Stmidiird Lihrnnj. 
 
 MICKLE (W. J.>- ( AMOENS' LUSJ AD, or the Discovery of 
 India. An E[)ic Poem. Translated from the Portn^esL', with 
 a Dissertation, Introdnclory Sketch of tiic Histi>ry of tlie 
 Discovery of India, and ]>ife of the Poet, hy ^^'. J. Mirkle. 
 5th Edition, revised hy E. R. Hodges, M.C.P. Small jiost !Svo. 
 Zs. 6d. [Bohn'a Standard Librartj. 
 
 PERCY'S l!KLl(,trES OF ANCIENT ENCi.TSH POETP.V. 
 
 consisiiiij; (dil Hf-roic ll.iihuls, Son;;s. and otln'r Pieces of onr 
 earlier I'oets, together with some few of later date Collected 
 by Thomas Percy, Lord Bishop of Dronn)re. With an Essay 
 r)n Ancient Minstrels, and a (Jlossarv. A new editicm hv 
 .1. V. Prielmni. A.M. '_> vols. Small jiost 8vo. ;iv. 6r/. each". 
 
 \Boli)i's Standarii Lihmni. 
 
 SMITH'S (ADAM) THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS ; 
 
 with his Essay on the First F'ormation of r,angnages ; towlii<'h 
 is addeil a 15iographicul and Critical ]\Ienioir of tin' Antlior hy 
 Dugald Stewart. Small jiost Svo. o.v. Of/. 
 
 [Bo/ui\s Slinidiird Lilimrii. 
 
 THE WEALTH OF NATIONS, AN IN(>1 IK^■ IN Id 
 
 THE NATCRE AND CAUSES OF. Eilited hy E. ];ell<.rt 
 Rax. 2 vols. Small post Svo. Is. [Bohn'.s Eronoittir Lifiran/. 
 
 SHERIDAN'S DRAMATIC WORKS. C(.m])lete. TheRivals 
 — St. Patrick's Day — Tiie Dnenna— The School for Scandal — 
 The Critic — Trip to Scarhorongh — Pizarro— Verses to the 
 Memory of Oarrick. With Life by G. G. S., and Portrait. 
 Small post Svo. ,3s. 6r/. [Bohn's Standard Ldirarif. 
 
 INLAYS. Crown Svo. \s. iid. Sewed, 1. v. 
 
 SMOLLETT'S ADVENTURES OF RODERICK R.\N I m iM. 
 With short Memoir and Bibliography, and Cruikshank's 
 Illustrations. Small post Svo. 'is. <6d. 
 
 ADVENTURES OF PEREGRINE PICKLE, in wlii. h 
 
 are included the Memoirs of a [>ady of (\Mialitv. ^^'illl 
 Bibliography and Cruikshnnks Illustrations. 2 vols. Small 
 post Svo. 7*. 
 
 THE EXPEDITION OF HUMPHREY CLINKER. 
 
 With Bibliography and Cruik.shank's Illustrations. Small 
 post Svo. 3.y. 6^^/. 
 
 C;iL BLAS, THE ADVENTURES OF. Translated from 
 
 the French of Lesage by Smollett. 24 F^ngravings on Steel, 
 after Smirke, and 10 Etchings by George Cruikshank. Small. 
 
 post H\(i. fiv. \ tio/iii's lUiistnitrd LUtrarji
 
 WESLEY, THE TJFK OF, and the Rise and Prooress of 
 .Methodism. Hy ]vol)ert Southey. Witli Index and Portraits 
 of Wesley. Small post 8vo. 5s. [Bo/in's Standard Library. 
 
 WHITE'S. NATURAL HISTORY OF SELP.ORNE, with 
 ( >l)-;('rvations on various Parts of Nature, and the Naturalist's 
 Calendar. With Notes hy Sir William Jardine Edited, with 
 further Notes, a l?ioj;rai)hieal Sketcdi, and complete Index, hy 
 Edward Jesse. With 40 Portraits and coloured Plates. Small 
 ])ost 8\o. ,5.v. [BoJnis ninstratrd Lihrarxj. 
 
 YOUNG (A.RTHUR). TRAVELS IN FRANCE DURING 
 THE YEARS 1787, 1788. and 1780. With an Introduction, 
 BionTaphical Sketcdi, and Notes hy M. Iietham-Edwards. 
 With a Portrait. Small post 8vo. .S.«. 6r/. 
 
 [Bohn's Standard lAhrary. 
 
 — • TOUR IN IRELAND, with (General Oliservations on the 
 
 State of the Country during the years 1770-9. Edited hy 
 A. W. Hutton, Lihrarian National Liheral Club. With Com- 
 plete Bihlioyra]>hy hy J. P. Anderson, of the British Museum ; 
 Index and ^lap. 2 vols. Small post 8vo. 'M. 6d. each. 
 
 [Bohn's Standard Lihrari/. 
 
 LONDON: OEORGE BELL AND SONS, 
 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 n
 
 "h 
 
 / 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 273 295 6