The earliest Scottish poem of the fifteenth century, "The King's Quair," or Book, in which James I. (d. 1437) celebrates the lady whom he afterwards married, presents no traces of a distinct Scottish dialect. But James was educated in England, and probably wrote there, and his pleasing poem exhibits the influence of those English writers whom he acknowledges as his masters. From this time, however, the development of the language of Scotland into a dialect went rapidly on. The "Wallace" of Henry the Minstrel, or Blind Harry, rivaled the "Bruce" in popularity, on account of the more picturesque character of the incidents, its passionate fervor, and the wildness of fancy by which it is distinguished.
Towards the close of this century, and in the beginning of the next,
Scottish poetry, now couched in a dialect decidedly peculiar, was
cultivated by men of high genius. Robert Henryson (d. 1400) wrote "The
Testament of the Faire Cresside," a continuation of Chaucer's poem, and
"Robin and Makyne," a beautiful pastoral, preserved in Percy's "Reliques."
More vigorous in thought and fancy, though inferior in skill and expression, was Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld (d. 1522). His "King Hart" and "Palace of Honor" are complex allegories; and his translation of the Aeneid is the earliest attempt to render classical poetry into the living language of the country.
William Dunbar (d. 1520), the best British poet of his age, exhibits a versatility of talent which has rarely been equaled; but in his comic and familiar pieces, the grossness of language and sentiment destroys the effect of their force and humor. Allegory is his favorite field. In his "Golden Terge," the target is Reason, a protection against the assaults of love. "The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins" is wonderfully striking; but the design even of this remarkable poem could not be decorously described.
While Scotland thus redeemed the poetical character of the fifteenth century, her living tongue was used only in versified compositions. Scottish prose does not appear in any literary shape until the first decade of the sixteenth century.
PERIOD THIRD.
FROM THE ACCESSION or HENRY VIII. TO THE PRESENT TIME (1509-1884).
1. AGE OF THE REFORMATION.—In the early part of the sixteenth century human intellect began to be stirred by impulses altogether new, while others, which had as yet been held in check, were allowed, one after another, to work freely. But there was no sudden or universal metamorphosis in literature, or in those phenomena by which its form and spirit were determined. It was not until 1568, when the reign of Elizabeth was within thirty years of its close, that English literature assumed a character separating it decisively from that of the ages which had gone before, and took its station as the worthy organ of a new epoch in the history of civilization. But the literary poverty of the age of the Reformation was the poverty which the settler in a new country experiences, while he fells the woods and sows his half-tilled fields; a poverty, in the bosom of which lay rich abundance.
The students of classical learning profited at first more than others by the diffusion of the art of printing, from the greater number of classical works which, were given to the press. Foreign men of letters visited England; Erasmus, especially, gave a strong impulse to study, and Greek and Latin were learned with an accuracy never before attained. Among the scholars of the time were Cardinals Pole and Wolsey, Ridley, Ascham, and Sir Thomas More, the author of the "Utopia," a romance in the scholastic garb. It describes an imaginary commonwealth, the chief feature of which is a community of property, on an imaginary island, from which the book takes its name. The epithet "Utopian" is still used as descriptive of chimerical schemes.
The most important works in the living tongue were those devoted to theology, and first among them were the translations of the Scriptures into English, none of which had been publicly attempted since that of Wickliffe. In 1526, William Tyndale (afterwards strangled and burnt for heresy, at Antwerp), translated the New Testament, and the five books of Moses. In 1537, after the final breach of Henry VIII. with Rome, there was published the first complete translation of the Bible, by Miles Coverdale. Many others followed until the accession of Mary, when the circulation of the translation was made in secrecy and fear. The theological writers of this period are chiefly controversial. Among them are Ridley, famous as a preacher; Cranmer, remarkable for his patronage of theological learning, and Latimer (d. 1555), whose sermons and letters are highly instructive and interesting. The "Book of Martyrs," by John Fox (d. 1527), was printed towards the close of this period.
The miscellaneous writings of this age in prose are most valuable as specimens of the language in its earliest maturity. None of them are entitled to high rank as monuments of English literature. The style of Sir Thomas More (1480-1535) had great excellence; but his works were only the recreation of an accomplished man in a learned age. The writings of the learned Ascham (1515-1565) have a value not to be measured by their inconsiderable bulk. Their language is pure, idiomatic, vigorous English; and they exhibit a great variety of knowledge, remarkable sagacity, and sound common sense. His most celebrated work, the "Schoolmaster," proposes improvements in education for which there is still both room and need. Thomas Wilson, who wrote a treatise on the "Art of Logic" and "Rhetoric," may be considered the first critical writer in the living tongue.
The poetry of England during the reigns of Henry VIII. and his immediate successors is like the prose, valuable for its relation to other things, rather than for its own merit. Yet it occupies a higher place than the prose; it exhibits a decided contrast to that of the times past, and in many points bears a close resemblance to the poetry of the energetic age that was soon to open.
The names of the poets of this age may be arrayed in three groups, headed by Skelton, Surrey, and Sackville. The poems of Skelton (d. 1529) are singularly though coarsely energetic. He was the tutor of Henry VIII., and during the greater part of the reign of his pupil he continued to satirize social and ecclesiastical abuses. His poems are exceedingly curious and grotesque, and the volubility with which he vents his acrid humors is truly surprising. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516-1547), opened a new era in English poetry, and by his foreign studies, and his refinement of taste and feeling, was enabled to turn poetical literature into a path as yet untrodden, although in vigor and originality this ill-fated poet was inferior to others who have been long forgotten. His works consist of sonnets and poems of a lyrical and amatory cast, and a translation of the Aeneid. He first introduced the sonnet, and the refined and sentimental turn of thought borrowed from Petrarch and the other Italian masters. In his Aeneid he introduced blank verse, a form of versification in which the noblest English poetry has since been couched. This was also taken from Italy, where it had appeared only in the century. Surrey's versions of some of the Psalms, and those of his contemporary, Sir Thomas Wyatt, are the most polished of the many similar attempts made at that time, among which was the collection of Sternhold and Hopkins.
Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst (1686-1608) wrote those portions most worthy of notice, of the "Mirror for Magistrates," a collection of poems celebrating illustrious but unfortunate personages who figure in the history of England. From his "Induction," or preparatory poem, later writers have drawn many suggestions.
The dramatic exhibitions of the Middle Ages, which originated in the church, or were soon appropriated by the clergy, were of a religious cast, often composed by priests and monks who were frequently the performers of them in the convents. All the old religious plays called Mysteries were divided into Miracles, or Miracle plays, founded on Bible narratives or legends of the saints; and Moralities or Moral plays, which arose out of the former by the introduction of imaginary features and allegorical personages, the story being so constructed as to convey an ethical or religious lesson. They became common in England about the time of the reign of Henry VI. (1422-1461). Some of the Miracle plays treated of all the events of Bible history, from the Creation to the Day of Judgment; they were acted on festivals, and the performance often lasted more than one day. The most sacred things are here treated with undue freedom, and the broadest and coarsest mirth is introduced to keep the attention of the rude audience. Many of them had a character called Iniquity, whose avowed function was that of buffoonery. The Mysteries were not entirely overthrown by the Reformation, the Protestant Bishop Bale having composed several, intended to instruct the people in the errors of popery. After the time of Henry VIII. these plays are known by the name of Interludes, the most celebrated of which are those by John Heywood (the epigrammatist). They deal largely in satire, and are not devoid of spirit and humor. But they have little skill in character- painting, and little interest in the story.
About the middle of the century (sixteenth) the drama extricated itself completely from its ancient fetters, and both comedy and tragedy began to exist in a rude reality. The oldest known comedy was written by Nicholas Udall (d. 1556); it has the title of "Ralph Roister Doister," a personage whose misadventures are represented with much comic force.
Ten years later the earliest tragedy, known by two names, "Gorboduc" and "Ferrex and Porrex," was publicly played in the Lower Temple. It is founded on the traditions of fabulous British history, and is believed to have been written by Thomas Norton and Lord Buckhurst. The chief merit of this earliest English tragedy lies in its stately language and solemnly reflective tone of sentiment.
2. THE AGE OF SPENSER, SHAKSPEARE, BACON, AND MILTON (1558-1660).—The prose of this illustrious period is vast in amount and various in range. The study of the Oriental languages and other pursuits bearing on theology were prosecuted with success, and many of the philosophical and polemical writings were composed in Latin. A second series of translations of the Scriptures were among the most important works of the time. The first of the three versions which now appeared (1560), came from a knot of English and Scotch exiles who sought refuge in Geneva, and their work, known as the Geneva Bible, though not adopted by the Church of England, long continued in favor with the English Puritans and Scotch Presbyterians. Cranmer's version was next revised (1568) under the superintendence of Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, eminent among the fathers of the English church, and called the Bishops' Bible, a majority of fifteen translators having been selected from the bench. The Catholic version, known as the Douay Bible, appeared in 1610. Our current translation, which also appeared in 1610, during the reign of James I., occupied forty-seven learned men, assisted by other eminent scholars, for a period of three years.
Among theological writings, the "Ecclesiastical Polity" of Hooker (1553- 1600) is a striking effort of philosophical thinking, and in point of eloquence one of the noblest monuments of the language. More than Ciceronian in its fullness and dignity of style, it wears with all its richness a sober majesty which is equally admirable and rare. The sermons of Bishop Andrews (1565-1626), though corrupt as models of style, made an extraordinary impression, and contain more than any other works of the kind the inwrought materials of oratory. The sermons of Donne (1573-1631), while they are superior in style, are sometimes fantastic, like his poetry, but they are never coarse, and they derive a touching interest from his history.
But the most eloquent of all the old English divines are the two celebrated prelates of the reign of Charles I., Joseph Hall (1574-1656) and Jeremy Taylor (1613-1671), alike eminent for Christian piety and conscientious zeal. Besides his pulpit discourses, Bishop Hall has left a series of "Contemplations" on passages of the Bible, and "Meditations," which are particularly rich in beautiful descriptions. Among the most practical and popular of Taylor's works are his "Holy Living" and "Holy Dying," while his sermons distinguish him as one of the great ornaments of the English pulpit. The chief theologian of the close of the period was Richard Baxter (1615-1691). His works have great value for their originality and acuteness of thought, and for their vigorous and passionate though unpolished eloquence. His "Call to the Unconverted" and "The Saint's Everlasting Rest" deserve their wide popularity. Among the semi-theological writers of the time are Fuller, Cudworth, and Henry More, Fuller (1608-1661) is most widely known through his "Worthies of England," a book of lively and observant gossip. Cudworth and More, his contemporaries, deviated in their philosophical writings from the tendencies of Bacon and the sensualistlc doctrines of Hobbes, and regarded existence rather from the spiritual point of view of Plato; in the preceding generation, the skepticism of Lord Herbert of Cherbury taught a different lesson from theirs.
In this period we encounter in the philosophical field two of the strongest thinkers who have appeared in modern Europe, Bacon and Hobbes. Bacon (1561-1620) aimed at the solution of two great problems, the answers to which were intended to constitute the "Instauratio Magna," the great Restoration of Philosophy, that colossal work, towards which the chief writings of this illustrious author were contributions. The first problem was an Analytic Classification of all departments of Human Knowledge, which occupies a portion of his treatise "On the Advancement of Learning." Imperfect and erroneous as his scheme may be allowed to be, D'Alembert and his coadjutors in the last century were able to do no more than to copy and distort it. In his "Novum Organum" he undertakes to supply certain deficiencies of the Aristotelian system of logic, and expounds his mode of philosophizing; he was the first to unfold the inductive method, which he did in so masterly a way, that he has earned, with posterity, the title of the father of experimental science. His "Essays," from the excellence of their style and the interesting nature of the subjects, are the most generally read of all the author's productions. No English writer surpasses Bacon in fervor and brilliancy of style, in force of expression, or in richness and significance of imagery. His writings, though they received during his lifetime the neglect for which he had proudly prepared himself, gave a mighty impulse to scientific thought for at least a century after his time. In his will, the following strikingly prophetic passage is found: "My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to mine own country, after some time is passed over."
The influence of Hobbes on philosophy in England has been greater than that of Bacon. In politics, his theory is that of uncontrolled absolutism, subjecting religion and morality to the will of the sovereign; in ethics he resolves all our impulses regarding right and wrong into self-love. His reasoning is close and consistent, and if his premises are granted, it is hardly possible to avoid his conclusions. Other departments in the prose literature of this period were amply filled and richly adorned. Speculations upon the Theory of Society and Civil Polity were frequent. Among them are the Latin works of Bellenden "On the State," the "New Atlantis," a romance by Lord Bacon, the "Oceana" of Harrington, and the "Leviathan" of Hobbes.
In the collection of materials for national history the period was exceedingly active. Camden and Selden stand at the head of the band of antiquaries. Hobbes wrote in his old age "Behemoth, or a History of the Civil Wars," and the "Turkish History" of Knolles has been pronounced one of the most spirited narratives in the language.
Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), while lying in the Tower under sentence of death, wrote a "History of the World," from the Creation to the Republic of Rome. The narrative is spirited and pervaded by a tone of devout sentiment.
The accomplished Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), in his "Defense of Poesy," pays an eloquent tribute to the value of the most powerful of all the literary arts. His "Arcadia" is a ponderous combination of romantic and pastoral incidents, the unripe production of a young poet, but it abounds in isolated passages beautiful alike in sentiment and language.
Towards the close of the period, Milton manifested extraordinary power in prose writing; his defense of the "Liberty of Unlicensed Printing" is one of the most impressive pieces of eloquence in the English tongue. His style is more Latinized than that of most of his contemporaries, and this exotic infection pervades both his terms and his arrangement; yet he has passages marvelously sweet, and others in which the grand sweep of his sentences emulates the cathedral music of Hooker.
The press now began to pour forth shoals of short novels, romances, and essays, and pamphlets on various subjects. Among other productions is Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," a storehouse of odd learning and quaintly-original ideas; it is deficient, however, in style and power of consecutive reasoning. Far above Burton in eloquence and strength of thought is Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), whose writings have all the characteristics of the age in a state of extravagant exaggeration. The thoughtful melancholy, the singular mixture of skepticism and credulity, and the brilliancy of imaginative illustration, give his essays a peculiarity of character that renders them exceedingly fascinating. The poet Cowley, in his prose writings, is distinguished for his undeviating simplicity and perspicuity, and for smoothness and ease, of which hardly another instance could be produced from any other book written before the Restoration.
The English drama has been called Irregular in contrast to the Regular drama of Greece and that of modern France, founded upon the Greek, by the French critics of the age of Louis XIV. The principal law of this system, as we have seen, prescribed obedience to the Three Unities, of Time, of Place, and of Action; the two first being founded on the desire to imitate in the drama the series of events which it represents, the time of action was allowed to extend to twenty-four hours, and the scene to change from place to place in the same city. But by Shakspeare and his contemporaries no fixed limits were acknowledged in regard either of time or place, the action stretching through many years, and the scene changing to very wide distances. The rule prescribing unity of action, that everything shall be subordinate to the series of events which is taken as the guiding-thread, is a much more sound one; and in most of Shakspeare's works, as well as those of his contemporaries, this unity of impression, as it has been called, is fully preserved.
Before the year 1585 no perceptible advance had been made in the drama, and for the period of sixty years, from that date to the closing of the theatres in 1645, on the breaking out of the Civil War, the history of Shakspeare's works forms the leading thread. Men of eminent genius lived around and after him, but there were none who do not derive much of their importance from the relation in which they stand to him, and hardly any whose works do not owe much of their excellence to the influence of his.
Thus considered, the stages through which the drama now passed may be said to have been four, three of which occurred chiefly during the life of the poet, the fourth after his death. The first of these periods witnessed the early manhood of Shakspeare, and closes about 1593. Among his immediate predecessors and coadjutors were Marlowe and Greene. The plays of Marlowe (1562-1593) are stately tragedies, serious in purpose, energetic and often extravagant in passion and in language, and richly and pompously imaginative. His "Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" is one of the finest poems in the language. The productions of Greene are loose, legendary plays of a form exemplified in Cymbeline.
To the first period of the dramatic life of Shakspeare (1564-1616) belong the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," the "Comedy of Errors," and "Love's Labor's Lost," which show that the mighty master, even in these juvenile essays, had taken a wide step beyond the dramas of the time. Pure comedy had no existence in England until he created it, and in these comedies it is evident that everything is juvenile, unripe, and marvelously unlike the grand pictures of life which he soon afterwards began to paint. But if he was more than a student in this first stage of his progress, he was a teacher and model ever after. The second period for Shakspeare and the drama closes with the year 1600. During this most active part of his literary life, he produced eight comedies, and re-wrote "Romeo and Juliet." But the most elevated works of these six years were his magnificent series of historical plays. The series after 1600 began with the great tragedies, Othello, Hamlet (recomposed), Macbeth, and Lear, followed by Henry VIII., the three tragedies on Roman subjects, and the three singular pieces, "Timon of Athens," "Troilus and Cressida," and "Measure for Measure," apparently of the same date. "Cymbeline" and the "Winter's Tale" were probably composed after he had retired from the turmoil of his profession to the repose of his early home. In the "Tempest." doubtless his last work, he peopled his haunted island with a group of beings whose conception indicates a greater variety of imagination, and in some points a greater depth of thought than any others which he has bequeathed to us.
The name of Shakspeare is the greatest in all literature. No man ever came near him in creative power—no man had ever such strength combined with such variety of imagination. Of all authors, he is the most natural in his style, and yet there is none whose words are so musical in arrangement, so striking and picturesque in themselves, or contain so many thoughts. Every page furnishes instances of that intensifying of expression, where some happy word conveys a whole train of ideas condensed into a single luminous point—words so new, so full of meaning, yet so unforced and natural, that the rudest mind intuitively perceives their meaning, and yet which no study could improve or imitate. This constitutes the most striking peculiarity of the Shakspearean language, and while it justifies the almost idolatrous veneration of his countrymen, renders him, of all writers, the most untranslatable. Of all authors, Shakspeare has least imitated or repeated himself. While he gives us, in many places, portraits of the same passion, the delineations are as distinct and dissimilar as they are in nature; all his personages involuntarily, and in spite of themselves, express their own characters. From his works may be gleaned a complete collection of precepts adapted to every condition of life and every conceivable circumstance of human affairs. His wit is unbounded, his passion inimitable, and over all he has thrown a halo of human sympathy no less tender than his genius was immeasurable and profound.
The effect of Shakspeare's influence on his contemporaries was predominating in everything but the moral aspect of his plays. The licentiousness, begun in the earlier years of the seventeenth century, increased with accelerated speed down to the closing of the theatres by the Civil War.
Highest by far, in poetical and dramatic value, stand the works of Beaumont (1586-1615) and Fletcher (1576-1625). Many of them are said to have been written by the two jointly, a few by the former alone, and a large number by the latter after he had lost his friend; such alliances in dramatic poetry were common in England at this period. But the looseness of fancy which deformed the drama, and which degenerated at last into deliberate licentiousness, is nowhere so glaring as in these finest and most imaginative productions of their day, and which are poetically superior to all of the kind in the language, except those of Shakspeare.
The classical model was closely approached by Ben Jonson (1574-1637) in both tragedy and comedy, and he deserves immortality for other reasons than his comparative purity of morals. He was the one man of his time besides Shakspeare who deserves to be called a reflective artist, who perceived the rules of art and worked in obedience to them. His tragedies are stately, eloquent, and poetical; his comedies are more faithful poetic portraits of contemporary English life than those of any other dramatist, Shakspeare excepted.
Jonson wrote for men of sense and knowledge; Beaumont and Fletcher for men of fashion and the world. A similar audience to that of Jonson may have been aimed at in the stately tragedies of Chapman, and the other class would have relished the plays of Middleton and Webster.
Among the dramatists of the commonalty may be named Thomas Heywood, one of the most moral play writers of his time, who has sometimes been called the prose Shakspeare, and Decker, a voluminous writer, who cooperated in several plays of more celebrated men, especially those of Massinger.
The closing period of the old English drama is represented by Massinger, Ford, and Shirley. Massinger (1584-1640) is by some critics ranked next to Shakspeare. The theatres have retained unaltered his "New Way to Pay Old Debts," and his "Fatal Dowry" is preserved in Rowe's plagiarism from it, in the "Fair Penitent." But the low moral tone of the time is indicated in all these works, in which heroic sentiments, rising often even to religious rapture, are mingled with scenes of the grossest ribaldry.
By Ford, incidents of the most revolting kind are laid down as the foundation of his plots, upon which he wastes a pathos and tenderness deeper than is elsewhere found in the drama; and with Shirley vice is no longer held up as a mere picture, but it is indicated, and sometimes directly recommended, as a fit example. When the drama was at length suppressed, the act destroyed a moral nuisance.
Spenser (1553-1599), among the English poets, stands lower only than Shakspeare, Chaucer, and Milton. His works unite rare genius with moral purity, exquisite sweetness of language, luxuriant beauty of imagination, and a tenderness of feeling rarely surpassed, and never elsewhere conjoined with an imagination so vivid. His magnificent poem, the "Faerie Queene," though it contains many thousand lines, is yet incomplete, no more than half of the original design being executed. The diction is studded purposely with forms of expression already become antiquated, and many peculiarities are forced upon the author from the difficulties of the complex measure which he was the first to adopt, and which still bears his name.
The Fairy Land of Spenser is rather the Land of Chivalry than the region we are accustomed to understand by that term; a scene in which heroic daring and ideal purity are the objects chiefly presented to our imagination, in which the principal personages are knights achieving perilous adventures, ladies rescued from frightful miseries, and good and evil enchanters, whose spells affect the destiny of those human persons. Spenser would probably not have written precisely as he did, if Ariosto had not written before him; nor is it unlikely that he was also guided by the later example of Tasso; but his design was in many features nobler and more arduous than that of either. His deep seriousness is unlike the mocking tone of the "Orlando Furioso," and in his moral enthusiasm he rises higher than the "Jerusalem;" although the poetic effect of his work is marred by his design of producing a series of ethical allegories.
The hero is the chivalrous Arthur of the British legends, but wrapt in a cloud of symbols. Gloriana, the Faërie Queene, who was to be the object of the prince's warmest love, was herself an emblem of Virtuous Renown, and designed also to represent the poet's queen, Elizabeth. All the incidents are significant of moral truth, and all the personages are allegorical. The adventures of the characters, connected by no tie, except the occasional interposition of Arthur, form really six independent poetic tales. The First Book, by far the finest of all, relates the Legend of the Red Cross Knight, who is a type of Holiness, and who shadows forth the history of the Church of England. In the second, which abounds in exquisite painting of picturesque landscapes, we have the Legend of Sir Guyon, illustrating the virtue of Temperance. The theme of the Third Book is the Legend of Britomart, or of Chastity, in which we are introduced to Belphoebe and Amoret, two of those beautiful female characters which the poet takes such pleasure in delineating. Next comes the Legend of Friendship, personified in the knights Cambel and Triamond. In the Fifth Book, containing the Legends of Sir Artegal, the emblem of Justice, there is a perceptible falling off. The Sixth Book, the Legend of Sir Calidore, or Courtesy, though it lacks unity, is in some scenes inspired with the warmest glow of fancy.
The mind of Spenser embraced a vast range of imaginary creation, but the interest of real life is wanting. His world is ideal, abstract, and remote, yet affording in its multiplied scenes ample scope for those nobler feelings and heroic virtues which we love to see even in transient connection with human nature.
The non-dramatic poets of this time begin with Spenser and end with Milton, and between these two there were writers of great excellence. The vice of the age was a laboring after conceits or novel turns of thought, usually false, and resting upon some equivocation of language or remote analogy. No poet of the time was free from it; Shakspeare indulged in it occasionally, others incessantly, holding its manifestations to be their finest strokes of art.
The poetical works of this age were metrical translations from the classics—narrative, historical, descriptive, didactic, pastoral, and lyrical poems. One of the most beautiful religious poems in any language is "Christ's Victory and Triumph," by Giles Fletcher (d. 1623): it is animated in narrative, lively in fancy, and touching in feeling. Drayton (d. 1631) was the author of the "Poly-Olbion," a topographical description of England, and a signal instance of fine fancy and great command of language, almost thrown away from its prosaic design. Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke), the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, exhibits great powers of philosophical thought, in pointed and energetic diction, in his poem on "Human Learning." Among the religious poets are "Holy George Herbert" (d. 1632), who, by his life and writings, presented the belief and offices of the church in their most amiable aspect, and Quarles (d. 1644), best known by his "Divine Emblems," which abound in quaint and grotesque illustrations.
The lyrical poems of the time were numerous, and were written by almost all the poets eminent in other departments. In those of Donne, in spite of their conceits and affectations, are many passages wonderfully fine. Those of Herrick (b. 1591), in graceful fancy and delicate expression, are many of them unsurpassed; in subject and tone they vary from grossly licentious expression to the utmost warmth of devout aspiration. Cowley (1618-1667), the latest and most celebrated of the lyric poets, was gifted with extraordinary poetic sensibility and fancy, but he was prone to strained analogies and unreal refinements. Among the minor lyrical poets are Carew, Ayton, Habington, Suckling, and Lovelace. Denham (1615-1668) and Waller (1605-1687) form a sort of link between the time before the Restoration and that which followed. The "Cooper's Hill" of the first is a reflective and descriptive poem in heroic verse, and the diversified poems of the last were remarkable advances in ease and correctness of diction and versification.
The poetry of that imaginative period which began with Spenser closes yet more nobly with Milton (1608-1674). He, standing in some respects apart from his stern contemporaries of the Commonwealth as from those who debased literature in the age of the Restoration, yet belongs rather to the older than the newer period. In the midst of evil men and the gloom of evil days the brooding thought of a great poetical work was at length matured, and the Christian epic, chanted at first when there were few disposed to hear, became an enduring monument of genius, learning, and art. His early poems alone would indicate his superiority to all the poets of the period, except Shakspeare and Spenser. The most popular of them, "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," are the best of their kind in any language. In the "Comus" there are passages exquisite for imagination, for sentiment, and for the musical flow of the rhythm, in which the majestic swell of the poet's later blank verse begins to be heard. The "Paradise Regained" abounds with passages in themselves beautiful, but the plan is poorly conceived, and the didactic tendency prevails to weariness as the work proceeds. The theme of the "Paradise Lost" is the noblest of any ever chosen. The stately march of its diction; the organ peal with which its versification rolls on; the continual overflowing of beautiful illustrations; the brightly-colored pictures of human happiness and innocence; the melancholy grandeur with which angelic natures are clothed in their fall, are features which give the mind images and feelings not soon or easily effaced.
3. THE AGE OF THE RESTORATION AND THE REVOLUTION (1660-1702).—Among the able churchmen who passed from the troubles of the Commonwealth and Protectorate to the Restoration were Jeremy Taylor, Archbishop Leighton, and others of eminence. South, Tillotson, and Barrow were more able theologians, but their writings lack the charm of sentiment which Leighton's warmth of heart diffuses over all his works. South (d. 1716) was a man of remarkable oratorical endowments, sarcastic, intolerant, and fierce in polemical attacks. The writings of Tillotson (d. 1694) are pervaded by a higher and better spirit, and the sermons of Barrow (d. 1677) combine comprehensiveness, sagacity, and clearness. Other divines, such as Stillingfleet, Pearson, Burnet, Bull, hold a more prominent place in the history of the church than in that of letters. But all the writers of this age are wanting in that impressiveness and force of undisciplined eloquence which distinguished the first half of the seventeenth century. Among the nonconformist clergy, Howe (d. 1715) wrote the "Living Temple," which is ranked among the religious classics.
The great though untrained genius of John Bunyan (1628-1688) produced the
"Pilgrim's Progress," which holds a distinguished place in permanent
English literature.
John Locke (1632-1704) may be taken as the representative of the English Philosophy of the time, and his influence on the speculative opinions of his day was second only to that of Hobbes. His "Essay on the Understanding" contains the germ of utter skepticism and was the ground on which Berkeley denied the existence of the material world, and Hume involved all human knowledge in doubt.
In classical learning the greatest of the scholars of this period was
Bentley (1662-1742).
In history Lord Clarendon (1608-1774) wrote the "History of the Rebellion," and Burnet (1643-1715) his "History of the Reformation," one of the most thoroughly digested works of the century. His "History of his own Times" is valuable for its facts, and for the shrewdness with which he describes the state of things around him.
In miscellaneous prose, John Evelyn wrote several useful and tasteful works, and Izaak Walton (1593-1688), a London tradesman, wrote his interesting Biographies and the quaint treatise "On Angling." Both in diction and sentiment these works remind us of the preceding age; and Walton, surviving Milton, closes the series of old English prose writers.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680), the unfortunate, ill-requited laureate of the Royalists, who satirized the Puritans and Republicans in his celebrated "Hudibras," left some exceedingly witty and vigorous prose writings; and Andrew Marvell (1620-1678), the friend and protector of Milton, was most successful in sarcastic irony, and in his attacks on the High Church opinions and doings.
John Dryden (1631-1700) was the literary chief of the interval between Cromwell and Queen Anne. His prose writings, besides comedies, are few, but in these he taught principles of poetical art previously unknown to his countrymen, and showed the capabilities of the tongue in a new light. Inferior to Dryden in vigor of thought was Sir William Temple (1628-1698), who may yet share with him the merit of having founded regular English prose. His literary character rests chiefly on his "Miscellaneous Essays."
The symmetrical structure and artificial polish of contemporaneous French literature, while it was not without some good influence on English prose, was less beneficial to poetry, and its worst effect was on the drama, which soon ceased to be pictures of human beings in action and became only descriptive of such pictures. In this walk as in others Dryden was the literary chief, and of his plays it can truly be said that the serious ones contain many striking and poetical pieces of declamation, finely versified. His comedies are bad morally, and as dramas even worse than those of his rival Shadwell. Lee was only a poor likeness of Dryden.
In the "Orphan" and "Venice Preserved" of Otway we have southing of the revival of the ancient strength of feeling though alloyed by false sentiment and poetic poverty.
Congreve showed great power of language in tragedy, and Southerne not a little nature and pathos.
In comedy the fame of these writers was eclipsed by a knot of dramatists who adopted prose, but whose works are the foulest that ever disgraced the literature of a nation. They are excellent specimens of that which has been called the comedy of manners; vice is inextricably interwoven in the texture of all alike, in the broad humor of Wycherly (the most vigorous of the set), in the wit of Congreve, in the character painting of Vanbrugh, and the lively invention of Farquhar.
In other kinds of poetry we find similar changes of taste which affected the art injuriously, although the increased attention paid to correctness and refinement was a step in improvement. These mischievous changes related both to the themes and forms of poetry, and in neither can the true functions of art be forgotten without injury to the work. An age must be held unpoetical, and cannot produce great poetical works, if its poetry chooses insufficient topics; and the aims of the age of the Restoration were low, producing only a constant crop of poems celebrating contemporary events or incidents in the lives of individuals. The dramatic and narrative forms of poetry are undoubtedly those in which that imaginative excitement of pleasing emotion, which is the immediate and characteristic end of the art, may be most powerfully worked out, and to one of these forms all the greatest poems have belonged. But in the age of the Restoration the drama had lost its elevation and poetic significance, and original narrative poetry was hardly known. Almost all the poems of the day were didactic, and the prevalence of this style of poetry is a palpable symptom of an unpoetical age. The verse-making of these forty years, after setting aside a very few works, maintains a dead level. Among the dwarfish rhymers of the day there lingered some of the august shapes of a former age. Milton still walked his solitary course, and Waller wrote his occasional odes and verses, but of names not already given there are no more than two or three that require commemoration. One of the famous poems of the day was an "Essay on Translated Verse," by Lord Roscommon; and the smaller poems of Marvell are felicitous in feeling and diction; both writers are distinguished for their moral purity.
The "Hudibras" of Butler, which properly belongs to the age before, is a phenomenon in the history of English literature. His pungent wit, his extraordinary ingenuity, and his command of words are rare endowments, but he has no poetic vein that yields jewels of the first water, and his place is not a high one in the path which leads upward to the ethereal regions of the imagination.
Pryor (1661-1721) in his lighter pieces shows wit of a less manly kind.
His serious poems have great facility of phrase and melody.
Dryden was a man of high endowments as a poet and thinker, condemned to labor for a corrupt generation, and he has received from posterity no higher fame than that of having improved English prose style and versification. His poems are rather essays couched in vigorous verse, with here and there passages of great poetical beauty. His "Annus Mirabilis," celebrating with great animation the year 1666, is an effusion of historical panegyric. The "Absalom and Achitophel" is a satire on the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth and his adviser Shaftesbury. "The Hind and Panther," full of poetical and satirical force, was an argument to justify the author's recent change of religion. One of the most thoroughly sustained poems is the "Ode on Alexander's Feast." His translation of the Aeneid, as imperfect a picture of the original as Pope's translation of the Iliad, is yet full of vigor and one of his best specimens of the heroic couplet, a measure never so well written in English as by Dryden.
4. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.—The influence of the eighteenth century on prose style has been great and permanent, and the two dissimilar manners of writing which were then formed, have contributed to all that is distinctive in our modern form of expression. The earlier of these is found in the language of Addison and Swift, the later in that of Johnson. The style of Addison and his friends reproduced those genuine idiomatic peculiarities of our speech which had been received into the conversation of intelligent men. The style of which Johnson was the characteristic example abandons in part the native and familiar characteristics of the Saxon for those expressions and forms common to the modern European tongues. Large use was made of words derived from the Latin, which, in addition to the effect of novelty, gave greater impressiveness and pomp to the style.
In the First Generation, named from Queen Anne, but including also the reign of George I. (d. 1727), the drama scarcely deserves more than a parenthesis. Although the moral tone had improved, it was still not high, when Gray's "Beggar's Opera" and Cibber's "Careless Husband" were the most famous works. The "Fair Penitent" has been noticed as a clever plagiarism from Massinger; in Addison's "Cato" the strict rules of the French stage were preserved, but its stately and impressive speeches cannot be called dramatic. The "Revenge" of Young had more of tragic passion; but it wanted the force of characterization which seemed to have been buried with the old dramatists.
The heroic measure, as it was now used, aimed at smoothness of melody and pointedness of expression, and in this the great master was Pope.
In the poems of Pope (1688-1744), we find passages beautifully poetical, exquisite thoughts, vigorous portraits of character, shrewd observation, and reflective good sense, but we are wafted into no bright world of imagination, rapt in no dream of strong passion, and seldom raised into any high region of moral thought. Like all the poets of his day, he set a higher value on skill of execution than on originality of conception, and systematically abstained from all attempts to excite imagination or feeling. The taste of the poet and of his times is most clearly shown in his "Essay on Criticism," published before his twenty-first year. None of his works unites more happily, regularity of plan, shrewdness of thought, and beauty of verse. His most successful effort, the "Rape of the Lock," assumed its complete shape in his twenty-sixth year, and is the best of all mock-heroic poems. The sharpest wit, the keenest dissection of the follies of fashionable life, the finest grace of diction, and the softest flow of melody, come appropriately to adorn a tale in which we learn how a fine gentleman stole a lock of a lady's hair. In the "Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard," and in the "Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady," he attempted the pathetic not altogether in vain. The last work of his best years was his "Translation of the Iliad;" of the Odyssey he translated only half. Both misrepresent the natural and simple majesty of manner which the ancient poet never lost; yet if we could forget Homer, we might be proud of them. In the "Dunciad" he threw away an infinity of wit upon writers who would not otherwise have been remembered. His "Essay on Man" contains much exquisite poetry and finely solemn thought; it abounds in striking passages which, by their felicities of fancy, good sense, music, and extraordinary terseness of diction, have gained a place in the memory of every one.
Among the philosophical writers none holds so prominent a place as Bishop Berkeley (1684-1753), whose refinement of style and subtlety of thought have seldom been equaled. His philosophical Idealism exercised much influence on the course of metaphysical inquiry.
Lord Shaftesbury's brilliant but indistinct treatises have also been the germ of many discussions in ethics.
Bolingbroke wrote with great liveliness, but with equal shallowness of thought and knowledge.
Daniel Defoe (1661-1731) is not likely to be forgotten on account of one of his many novels, "Robinson Crusoe." His idiomatic English style is not one of the least of his merits.
Among the prose writings of Swift (1667-1745) there is none that is not a masterpiece of strong Saxon-English, and none quite destitute of his keen wit or cutting sarcasm. His satirical romances are most pungent when human nature is his victim, as in "Gulliver's Travels;" and not less amusing in "The Battle of the Books," or where he treats of church disputes in the "Tale of a Tub." The burlesque memoir of "Martinus Scriblerus" was the joint production of Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot.
It contains more good criticism than any of the serious writings of the generation, and it abounds in the most biting strokes of wit. Arbuthnot is supposed to have been the sole author of the whimsical, national satire called the "History of John Bull," the best work of the class produced in that day. The "Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu" belong to this age.
Of all the popular writers, however, that adorned the reign of Queen Anne and her successor, those whose influence has been the greatest and most salutary are the Essayists, among whom Joseph Addison and Richard Steele are preeminently distinguished.
"The Tatler," begun in Ireland by Steele, aided first by Swift, and afterwards by Addison, appeared three times a week from 1709 to 1711; "The Spectator," in which Addison took the lead, from 1711 to 1712; and "The Guardian," a part of the next year. Steele (1676-1729) had his merits somewhat unfairly clouded by the fame of his coadjutor. The extraordinary popularity of those periodicals, especially "The Spectator," was creditable to the reading persons of the community, then much fewer than now. The writers discarded from their papers all party-spirit, and designed to make them the vehicle of judicious teaching in morals, manners, and literary criticism. Thus they widened the circle of readers, and raised the standard of taste and thinking.
Of some of the more serious papers of the "Spectator," those of Addison (1672-1719) on the "Immortality of the Soul" and the "Pleasures of the Imagination" may be cited.
Among the theological writers of the Second Generation of the eighteenth century (the reign of George II., 1726-1760), one of the most famous in his day, though not the most meritorious, was Bishop Warburton; Bishop Butler (d. 1752), wrote his "Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature," a work of extraordinary force of thought; and there is much literary merit in the writings of the pious Watts and the devout Doddridge. The increasing zeal both in the Church of England and among the Dissenters, and the more cordial recognition of the importance of religion, greatly affected the literature of the times.
Philosophy had also its distinguished votaries. The philosophical works of Hume (1711-1776) are allowed by those who dissent most strenuously from their results to have constituted an epoch in the history of the science. In accepting the principles which had been received before him, and showing that they led to no conclusion but universal doubt, he laid bare the flaws in the system, and prepared the way for the subtle speculations of Kant and the more cautious systems of Reid and the Scottish school.
The miscellaneous literature of this, the age of Johnson, cannot stand comparison with that of the preceding, which was headed by Addison.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), one of the most celebrated of the professional authors of the eighteenth century, however, belongs to this period. Compelled by poverty to leave his education uncompleted, he sought the means of living in London, where, for a long time, unpatronized and obscure, he labored with dogged perseverance, until at length he won a fame which must have satisfied the most grasping ambition, but when, as he says, "most of those whom he had wished to please had sunk into the grave, and he had little to fear from censure or praise." That the reputation of his writings was above their deserts, cannot be denied, though it must also be admitted that the literature of our time is deficient in many of their excellences, both of thought and expression. They are the fruit of a strong and original mind, working with imperfect knowledge and an inadequate scope for activity. The language of Johnson is superior to his matter; he has striking force of diction, and many of his sentences roll on the ear like the sound of the distant sea, while the thoughts they convey impress us so vividly that we are slow to scrutinize them. His great merit lies in the two departments of morals and criticism, but everywhere he is inconsistent and unequal. His Dictionary occupied him for eight years, but it is of little value now to the student of language, being poor and incorrect in etymology and unsatisfactory though acute in definition. His poems, which are of Pope's school, would scarcely have preserved his name. The "Rambler," and "Rasselas," are characteristic of his merits and defects. The "Tour to the Hebrides" is one of the most pleasant and easy of his writings. His "Lives of the Poets" is admirable for its skill of narration, but it is alternately enlightened and unsound in criticism, and frequently marred by political prejudices and personal jealousies.
Of the novels of the time, the series begun by Richardson's (1689-1761) "Pamela," "Clarissa Harlowe," and "Sir Charles Grandison" have a virtuous aim, but they err by the plainness with which they describe vice. The tediousness and overwrought sentimentality of these works go far towards disqualifying the reader from appreciating their extraordinary skill in invention and in the portraiture of character.
Fielding (1707-1757) unites these qualities with greater knowledge of the world, pungent wit, and idiomatic strength of style. His mastery in the art of fictitious narrative has never been excelled; but his living pictures of familiar life, as well as the whimsical caricatures of Smollett and the humorous fantasies of Sterne, are disfigured by faults of which the very smallest are coarseness of language and bareness of licentious description, in which they outdid Richardson. Not only is their standard of morality low, but they display indifference to the essential distinctions of right and wrong, in regard to some of the cardinal relations of society.
The drama of the period has little literary importance. In non-dramatic poetry, several men of distinguished genius appeared, and changes occurred which indicated more just and comprehensive views of the art than those that had been prevalent in the last generation.
Young (1681-1765), in his "Night Thoughts," produced a work eloquent rather than poetical, dissertative when true poetry would have been imaginative, but suggesting much of imagery and feeling as well as religious reflection.
Resembling it in some points, but with more force of imagination, is the train of gloomy scenes which appears in Blair's "Grave." In Akenside's "Pleasures of Imagination," a vivid fancy and an alluring pomp of language are lavished on a series of pictures illustrating the feelings of beauty and sublimity; but, theorizing and poetizing by turns, the poet loses his hold of the reader.
The more direct and effective forms of poetry now came again into favor, such as the Scottish pastoral drama of Ramsay, and Falconer's "Shipwreck." But the most decisive instance of the growing insight into the true functions of poetry is furnished by Thomson's (1700-1748) "Seasons." No poet has ever been more inspired by the love of external nature, or felt with more keenness and delicacy those analogies between the mind and the things it looks upon, which are the fountains of poetic feeling. The faults of Thomson are triteness of thought when he becomes argumentative and a prevalent pomposity and pedantry of diction; though his later work, "The Castle of Indolence," is surprisingly free from these blemishes.
But the age was an unpoetical one, and two of the finest poetical minds of the nation were so dwarfed and weakened by the ungenial atmosphere as to bequeath to posterity nothing more than a few lyrical fragments. In the age which admired the smooth feebleness of Shenstone's pastorals and elegies, and which closed when the libels of Churchill were held to be good examples of poetical satire, Gray turned aside from the unrequited labors of verse to idle in his study, and Collins lived and died almost unknown. Gray (1716-1771) was as consummate a poetical artist as Pope. His fancy was less lively, but his sympathies were warmer and more expanded, though the polished aptness of language and symmetry of construction which give so classical an aspect to his Odes bring with them a tinge of classical coldness. The "Ode on Eton College" is more genuinely lyrical than "The Bards," and the "Elegy In a Country Churchyard" is perhaps faultless.
The Odes of Collins (1720-1759) have more of the fine and spontaneous enthusiasm of genius than any other poems ever written by one who wrote so little. We close his tiny volume with the same disappointed surprise which overcomes us when a harmonious piece of music suddenly ceases unfinished. His range of tones is very wide, and the delicacy of gradation with which he passes from thought to thought has an indescribable charm. His most popular poem, "The Passions," conveys no adequate idea of some of his most marked characteristics. All can understand the beauty and simplicity of his odes "To Pity," "To Simplicity," "To Mercy;" and the finely woven harmonies and the sweetly romantic pictures in the "Ode to Evening" recall the youthful poems of Milton.
Between the period just reviewed and the reign of George III., or the Third Generation of the eighteenth century, there were several connecting links, one of which was formed by a group of historians whose works are classical monuments of English literature. The publication of Hume's "History of England" began in 1754. Robertson's "History of Scotland" appeared in 1759, followed by his "Reign of Charles V." and his "History of America;" Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" was completed in twelve years from 1776. The narrative of Hume is told with great clearness, good sense, and quiet force of representation, and if his matter had been as carefully studied as his manner, if his social and religious theories had been as sound as his theory of literary art, his history would still hold a place from which no rival could hope to degrade it.
The style of Robertson and Gibbon is totally unlike that of Hume. They want his seemingly unconscious ease, his delicate tact, and his calm yet lively simplicity. Hume tells his tale to us as a friend to friends; his successors always seem to hold that they are teachers and we pupils. This change of tone had long been coming on, and was now very general in all departments of prose. Very few writers of the last thirty years of Johnson's life escaped this epidemic desire of dictatorship. Robertson (1722-1793) is an excellent story-teller, perspicuous, lively, and interesting. His opinions are wisely formed and temperately expressed, his disquisitions able and instructive, and his research so accurate that he is still a valuable historical authority.
The learning of Gibbon (1737-1794), though not always exact, was remarkably extensive, and sufficient to make him a trustworthy guide, unless in those points where he was inclined to lead astray. There is a patrician haughtiness in the stately march of his narrative and in the air of careless superiority with which he treats his heroes and his audience. He is a master in the art of painting and narration, nor is he less skillful in indirect insinuation, which is, indeed, his favorite mode of communicating his own opinions, but he is most striking in those passages in his history of the church, where he covertly attacks a religion which he neither believed nor understood.
Other historians produced works useful in their day, but now, for the most part, superseded; and in various other departments men of letters actively exerted themselves.
Johnson, seated at last in his easy-chair, talked for twenty years, the oracle of the literary world, and Boswell, soon after his death, gave to the world the clever record of these conversations, which has aided to secure the place in literature he had obtained by his writings. Goldsmith (1728-1774), had he never written poems, would stand among the classic writers of English prose from the few trifles on which he was able, in the intervals of literary drudgery, to exercise his powers of observation and invention, and to exhibit his warm affections and purity of moral sentiment. Such is his inimitable little novel, "The Vicar of Wakefield," and that good-natured satire on society, the "Citizen of the World."
Among the novelists, Mackenzie (1745-1831) wrote his "Man of Peeling," not unworthy of the companionship of Goldsmith's masterpiece; and among later novelists, Walpole, Moore, Cumberland, Mrs. Inchbald, and Charlotte Smith, Miss Burney and Mrs. Radcliffe may also be named.
In literary criticism, the authoritative book of the day was Johnson's "Lives of the Poets." Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry" (1765) was a delightful compilation, which, after being quite neglected for many years, became the poetical text-book of Sir Walter Scott and the poets of his time. A more scientific and ambitious effort was Warton's (1729-1790) "History of English Poetry," which has so much of antiquarian learning, poetical taste, and spirited writing, that it is not only an indispensable and valuable authority, but an interesting book to the mere amateur. With many errors and deficiencies, it has yet little chance of being ever entirely superseded.
In parliamentary eloquence, before the middle of the eighteenth century, we have the commanding addresses of the elder Pitt (Lord Chatham), and at the close, still leading the senate, are the younger Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, and Burke. Burke (1730-1797) must be remembered not only for his speeches but for his writing on political and social questions, as a great thinker of comprehensive and versatile intellect, and extraordinary power of eloquence.
The letters of "Junius," a remarkable series of papers, the authorship of which is still involved in mystery, appeared in a London daily journal from 1769 to 1772. They were remarkable for the audacity of their attacks upon the government, the court, and persons high in power, and from their extraordinary ability and point they produced an indelible impression on the public mind. The "Letters" of Walpole are poignantly satirical; those of Cowper are models of easy writing, and lessons of rare dignity and purity of sentiment.
In the history of philosophy, the middle of the eighteenth century was a very important epoch; before the close of the century, almost all of those works had appeared which have had the greatest influence on more recent thinking. These works may be divided into four classes. Under the first, Philosophical Criticism, may be classed Burke's treatise "On the Sublime and Beautiful," Sir Joshua Reynolds's "Discourse on Painting," Campbell's "Philosophy of Rhetoric," Kames's "Elements of Criticism," Blair's "Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres," and Horne Tooke's "Philosophy of Language."
In the second department, Political Economy, Adam Smith's great work, "The Wealth of Nations," stands alone, and is still acknowledged as the standard text-book of this science.
In the third department, Ethics, are Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiment,"
Tucker's "Light of Nature," and Paley's "Moral and Political Philosophy."
In the fourth or Metaphysical department, we have only to note the rise of the Scottish School, under Thomas Reid (1710-1796), who combats each of the three schools, the Sensualistic evolved from Locke, holding that our ideas are all derived from sensation; the Idealistic, as proposed by Berkeley, which, allowing the existence of mind, denies that of matter; and the Skeptical, headed by Hume, which denies that we can know anything at all. Reid is a bold, dry, but very clear and logical writer, a sincere lover of truth, and a candid and honorable disputant; his system is original and important in the history of philosophy.
In the theological literature of this time are found Campbell's "Essay on
Miracles," Paley's "Evidences of Christianity" and "Natural Theology," and
Bishop Watson's "Apology for Christianity."
Among the devout teachers of religion was John Newton of Olney, the spiritual guide of Cowper; and of the moral writers, Hannah More and Wilberforce may be mentioned.
The only tragedy that has survived from these last forty years of the eighteenth century is the "Douglas" of Home, whose melody and romantic pathos lose much of their effect from its monotony of tone and feebleness in the representation of character. Comedy was oftener successful. There was little merit in the plays of the elder Colman or those of Mrs. Cowley, or of Cumberland. The comedies of Goldsmith abound in humor and gayety, and those of Sheridan have an unintermitted fire of epigrams, a keen insight into the follies and weaknesses of society, and great ingenuity in inventing whimsical situations. Of the verse-writers in the time of Johnson's old age, Goldsmith has alone achieved immortality. "The Traveller" and "The Deserted Village" cannot be forgotten while the English tongue is remembered.
The foundations of a new school of poetry were already laid. Percy's "Reliques" and Macpherson's "Fingal" attracted great attention, and many minor poets followed.
The short career of the unhappy Chatterton (1752-1770) held out wonderful promise of genius.
Darwin, in his "Botanic Garden," went back to the mazes of didactic verse. Seattle's (1735-1803) "Minstrel" is the outpouring of a mind exquisitely poetical in feeling; it is a kind of autobiography or analytic narrative of the early growth of a poet's mind and heart, and is one of the most delightful poems in our language.
Opening with Goldsmith, our period closes with Cowper and Burns. The unequaled popularity of Cowper's (1731-1800) poems is owing, in part, to the rarity of good religious poetry, and also to their genuine force and originality. He unhesitatingly made poetry use, always when it was convenient, the familiar forms of common conversation, and he showed yet greater boldness by seeking to interest his readers in the scenes of everyday life. In spite of great faults, the effect of his works is such as only a genuine poet could have produced. His translation of the Iliad has the simplicity of the original, though wanting its warlike fervor, and portions of the Odyssey are rendered with exceeding felicity of poetic effect.
Our estimate of Cowper's poems is heightened by our love and pity for the poet, writing not for fame but for consolation, and uttering from the depths of a half-broken heart his reverent homage to the power of religious truth. Our affection is not colder, and our compassion is more profound, when we contemplate the agitated and erring life of Robert Burns (1759-1796), the Scottish peasant, who has given to the literature of the Anglo-Saxon race some of its most precious jewels, although all which this extraordinary man achieved was inadequate to the power and the vast variety of his endowments. It is on his songs that his fame rests most firmly, and no lyrics in any tongue have a more wonderful union of thrilling passion, melting tenderness, concentrated expressiveness of language, and apt and natural poetic fancy. But neither the song nor the higher kinds of lyrical verse could give scope to the qualities he has elsewhere shown; his aptness in representing the phases of human character, his genial breadth and keenness of humor, and his strength of creative imagination, indicate that if born under a more benignant star he might have been a second Chaucer.
5. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.—In the illustrious band of poets who enriched the literature of England during the first generation of the present century, there are four who have gained greater fame than any others, and exercised greater influence on their contemporaries. These are Coleridge, Wordsworth, Scott, and Byron, who, though unlike, yet in respect of their ruling spirit and tendencies may be classed in pairs as they have been named; and all whose works call for exact scrutiny may be distributed into four groups. In the first of them stand Thomas Campbell and Robert Southey, dissimilar to each other, and differing as widely from their contemporaries. Campbell (1777-1844) employed an unusually delicate taste in elaborating his verses both in diction and melody. His "Pleasures of Hope" was written between youth and manhood, and "Gertrude of Wyoming," the latest of his productions worthy of him, appeared soon after his thirtieth year. His mind, deficient in manly vigor of thought, had worked itself out in the few first bursts of youthful emotion, but no one has clothed with more of romantic sweetness the feelings and fancies which people the fairy-land of early dreams, or thrown around the enchanted region a purer atmosphere of moral contemplation.
Southey (1774-1843), with an ethical tone higher and sterner than Campbell's, offers in other features a marked contrast to him. He is careless in details, and indulges no poetical reveries; he scorns sentimentalism, and throws off rapid sketches of human action with great pomp of imagery, but he seldom touches the key of the pathetic. In much of this he is the man of his age, but in other respects he is above it. He is the only poet of his clay who strove to emulate the great masters of epic song, and to give his works external symmetry of plan. He alone attempted to give poetry internal union, by making it the representation of one leading idea; a loftier theory of poetic art than that which ruled the irregular outbursts of Scott and Byron. But the aspiration was above the competency of the aspirer. He wanted spontaneous depth of sympathy; his emotion has the measured flow of the artificial canal, not the leaping gush of the river in its self-worn channel. In two of the three best poems he has founded the interest on supernatural agency of a kind which cannot command even momentary belief and the splendid panoramas of "Thalaba the Destroyer" pass away like the shadows of a magic lantern. In the "Curse of Kehama," he strives to interest us in the monstrous fables of the Hindoo mythology, and in "Roderick, the Last of the Goths," the story contains circumstances that deform the fairest proof the author gave of the practicability of his poetic theory.
The second group of poets, unless Moore find a place in it, will contain only Scott and Byron, who were in succession the most popular of all, and owed their popularity mainly to characteristics which they had in common. They are distinctively the poets of active life. They portray idealized resemblances of the scenes of reality, events which arise out of the universal relations of society, hopes, fears, and wishes which are open to the consciousness of all mankind. The originals of Scott were the romances of chivalry, and this example was applied by Byron to the construction of narratives founded on a different kind of sentiment. Scott, wearying of the narrow round that afforded him no scope for some of his best and strongest powers, turned aside to lavish them on his prose romances, and Byron, as his knowledge grew and his meditations became deeper, rose from Turkish tales to the later cantos of "Childe Harold."
Scott (1771-1832), in his poetical narratives, appealed to national sympathies through ennobling historic recollections. He painted the externals of scenery and manners with unrivaled picturesqueness, and embellished all that was generous and brave in the world of chivalry with an infectious enthusiasm. "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," a romance of border chivalry, has a more consistent unity than its successors, and is more faithful to the ancient models. "Marmion" seeks to combine the chivalrous romance with the metrical chronicle. "The Lady of the Lake" is a kind of romantic pastoral, and "Rokeby" is a Waverley novel in verse.
The moral faults of the poetry of Byron (1788-1824) became more glaring as he grew older. Starting with the carelessness of ill-trained youth in regard to most serious truths, he provoked censure without scruple, and was censured not without caprice; thus placed in a dangerous and false position, he hardened himself into a contempt for the most sacred laws of society, and although the closing scenes of his life give reason for a belief that purer and more elevated views were beginning to dawn upon his mind, he died before the amendment had found its way into his writings. He endeavored to inculcate lessons that are positively bad; his delinquency did not consist in choosing for representation scenes of violent passion and guilty horror, it lay deeper than in his theatrical fondness for identifying himself with his misanthropes, pirates, and seducers. He sinned more grievously still, against morality as against possibility, by mixing up, in one and the same character, the utmost extremes of vice and virtue, generosity and vindictiveness, of lofty heroism and actual grossness. But with other and great faults, he far excelled all the poets of his time in impassioned strength, varying from vehemence to pathos. He was excelled by few of them in his fine sense of the beautiful, and his combination of passion with beauty, standing unapproachable in his own day, has hardly ever been surpassed.
His tales, except "Parisina" and the "Prisoner of Chillon," rise less often than his other poems into that flow of poetic imagery, prompted by the loveliness of nature, which he had attempted in the two first cantos of "Childe Harold," and poured forth with added fullness of thought and emotion in the last two. "Manfred," with all its shortcomings, shows perhaps most adequately his poetic temperament; and his tragedies, though not worthy of the poet, are of all his works those which do most honor to the man.
The third section of this honored file of poets contains the names of Coleridge and Wordsworth; they are characteristically the poets of imagination, of reflection, and of a tone of sentiment that owes its attraction to its ideal elevation. Admired and emulated by a few zealous students, Coleridge became the poetical leader from the very beginning of his age, and effects yet wider have since been worked by the extended study of Wordsworth.
Coleridge (1772-1834) is the most original of the poets of his very original time, and among the most original of its thinkers. His most frequent tone of feeling is a kind of romantic tenderness or melancholy, often solemnized by an intense access of religious awe. This fine passion is breathed out most finely when it is associated with some of his airy glimpses of external nature, and his power of suggestive sketching is not more extraordinary than his immaculate taste and nervous precision of language. His images may be obscure, from the moonlight haze in which they float, but they are rarely so through faults of diction. It is disappointing to remember that this gifted man executed little more than fragments; his life ebbed away in the contemplation of undertakings still to be achieved, the result of weakness of will rather than of indolence. The romance of "Christabel," the most powerful of all his works, and the prompter of Scott and Byron, was thrown aside when scarce begun, and stands as an interrupted vision of mysterious adventures clothed in the most exquisite fancies. His tragedy of "Remorse" is full of poetic pictures; the "Ode to the Departing Year" shows his force of thought and moral earnestness; "Khubla Khan" represents in its gorgeous incoherence his singular power of lighting up landscapes with thrilling fancies; and "The Dark Ladye" is one of the most tender and romantic love-poems ever written.
The most obvious feature of Wordsworth (1770-1850) is the intense and unwearied delight which he takes in all the shapes and appearances of rural and mountain scenery. He is carried away by an almost passionate rapture when he broods over the grandeur and loveliness of the earth and air; his verse lingers with fond reluctance to depart on the wild flowers, the misty lake, the sound of the wailing blast, or the gleam of sunshine breaking through the passes among the hills, and the thoughts and feelings these objects suggest flow forth with an enthusiasm of expression which in a man less pious and rational might be interpreted as a raising of the inanimate world to a level with human dignity and intelligence. The tone which prevails in his contemplation of mortal act and suffering is a serene seriousness, on which there never breaks in anything rightly to be called passion; yet it often rises to an intensely solemn awe, and is not less often relieved by touches of a quiet pathos. Almost all his poems may be called poems of sentiment and reflection, and his own ambition was that of being worthy to be honored as a philosophical poet. His theory that the poet's function is limited to an exact representation of the real and the natural, a heresy which his own best poems triumphantly refute, often led him to triviality and meanness in the choice both of subjects and diction, and marred the beauty of many otherwise fine poems. A fascinating airiness and delicacy of conception prevail in these poems, and the tender sweetness of expression is often wonderfully touching. They were the effusions of early manhood, and the imperfect embodiments of a strength which found a freer outlet in prose. "Laodamia" and "Dion" are classical gems without a flaw; many of the sonnets unite original thought and poetic vividness with a perfection hardly to be surpassed; above all, "The Excursion" rolls on its thousands of blank verse lines with the soul-felt harmony of a divine hymn pealed forth from a cathedral organ. We forget the insignificance characterizing the plan, which embraces nothing but a three days' walk among the mountains, and we refuse to be aroused from our trance of meditative pleasure by the occasional tediousness of dissertation. "The Excursion" abounds in verses and phrases once heard never to be forgotten, and it contains trains of poetical musing through which the poet moves with a majestic fullness of reflection and imagination not paralleled, by very far, in anything else of which our century can boast.