99. The Theologians.-From the many theologians of this epoch three names must be selected, viz., those of Atterbury, Butler and Warburton. The first, Francis Atterbury (1662-1732), Bishop of Rochester, was a brilliant and active controversialist (indeed he, too, was engaged on Boyle's side in that famous battle about the Letters of Phalaris-see p. 99, s. 69), and a kind and amiable man. The second Joseph Butler (1692–1752), Bishop of Bristol and Dean of St. Paul's, was author of the Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature, 1736, a work which Lord Brougham has styled the most argumentative and philosophical defence of Christianity ever submitted to the world,' and of which the excellent matter has overcome the abstruseness of the manner. William Warburton, the last (1698-1779), was Bishop of Gloucester, and author of the Divine Legation of Moses, 1738. But a more signal work (in the opinion of many) is his adroit apology for the Essay on Mun (see p. 120, s. 79), against the charges of Deism advanced by M. Crousaz in his Examen de l'Essai de M. Pope, 1737. For the Hoadleys and Lowths, Watts and Doddridges, Wesleys, Whitefields, and other theologians of this chapter, the reader is referred to our Dictionary Appendix.

100. The Dramatic Writers.-The list of dramatic writers of eminence during this period is not a long one. Authors there were in abundance, but masterpieces are few. Farquhar belong to the early part of the century by several works Vanbrugh and already enumerated (see p. 111, s. 77). The comedies of Goldsmith, still popular as ever, have also been mentioned (see p. 145, s. 93). Besides the unacted tragedy of the Regicide, 1749, Smollett wrote a play called the Reprisal, or the Tars of Old England, 1757,—of average excellence; and, of the many works of Fielding, but few deserve remembrance. Walpole, too, comes among the playwrights by the Mysterious Mother; which, however, was never acted. The chief tragic writers were-Nicholas Rowe (1673-1718), author of Jane Shore, 1714, the Fair Penitent, 1703, and other plays; and John Home (1724-1808), author of Douglas, 1757. Home wrote five other tragedies of indifferent merit. 1757), David Garrick (1716-79), Charles Macklin (1690– Colley Cibber (1671– 1797), Arthur Murphy (1730-1805), Richard Cumberland (1732-1811), and George Colman, the Elder (1733–94), also produced anumber of comedies and farces. But the plays of Samuel Foote (1720-77) and Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) deserve more than a passing mention. The comedies of the Minor,

1760; the Lyar, 1761; and the Mayor of Garrett, 1763, are the best of the twenty-four pieces of the former.* Sheridan's principal plays, all written before the date fixed for the conclusion of this chapter, were produced in the following order: the Rivals, St. Patrick's Day, and the Duenna, 1755; A Trip to Scarborough (altered from Vanbrugh's Relapse), and the School for Scandal, 1777; and the Critic, 1779. The remainder of the writer's life belongs to political history. That he has laid previous authorsFielding and Smollett for instance-under contribution for some of his characters has not been held to detract from the merit of his dramatic productions, of which the only fault is uniformity of brilliancy. There are no delicate touches, no hues imperceptibly fading into each other: the whole is lighted up with an universal glare. Every fop, every boor, every valet, is a man of wit. The very butts and dupes, Tattle, Witwould, Puff, Acres, outshine the whole Hotel of Rambouillet.' †

་

For a valuable essay on Foote, v. Forster's Biographical Essays, 1860. † Macaulay's Essays, 1860, i. 40: Machiavelli.

CHAPTER VII.

THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH, BYRON,

AND SCOTT.

1785-1835.

101. SUMMARY OF THE PERIOD.-102. THE POETS: COWPER.-103. CRABBE.104. DARWIN.-105. THE DELLA-CRUSCANS.-106. BURNS.-107. ROGERS, BOWLES. 108. WORDSWORTH.-109. SOUTHEY.-110. COLERIDGE. — 111. LAMB.-112. CAMPBELL. — -113. HOGG, BLOOMFIELD. 114. MOORE.—115, BYRON.-116. SHELLEY.-117. KEATS.-118. LEIGH HUNT, LANDOR. -119. OTHER POETS.-120. THE NOVELISTS: MRS. RADCLIFFE.—121. LEWIS, GODWIN. -122. MISS EDGEWORTH, MISS AUSTEN.-123. SCOTT.-124. OTHER NOVELISTS. -125. THE PHILOSOPHERS.-126. THE HISTORIANS.-127. THE THEOLOGIANS. -128. HAZLITT, COBBETT.-129. THE 'QUARTERLIES.'-130. THE DRAMATIC WRITERS.

101. Summary of the Period.—Within a short space of time from the date at which the foregoing chapter concluded, the destruction of the Bastille announced the upheaval of that great democratic volcano, whereof the premonitory rumblings and hoarse underground agitations had long been threatening on the Continent. That a social disturbance so widespread in its extent, however apparently confined and local in its issue, should be without its effect upon the minds and opinions of surrounding nations, is not to be expected; and it is accordingly to the increased mental activity brought about by the first French Revolution, and the simultaneous appearance in Germany of the transcendental philosophy, that we must look for two powerful influences over forthcoming English literature.

Yet to attribute the magnificent second-growth of English Poets belonging to the end of the eighteenth century and the first thirty years of the nineteenth, entirely to these two causes, as some have done, would be probably to unduly ignore other influences, not less potent, if more obscure. Thus much may be conceded-that the marked manifestation of poetical genius in the one case was deeply affected by the surging aspirations and enthusiasms set free by the great social outbreak in the other; and to this extent, if only to this

extent, there is a connection between them. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that new impulses had long been discernible in English poetry, against which the prestige of the old leaders had been powerless. Pope, and Johnson after him, had not been able wholly to detain the new thoughts in the orthodox channels, even when opposed by dissenters not more formidable than Thomson and Percy; and Pope and Johnson were now dead. If, among the later school of the next age, there were those who, like Byron, clung to their precepts, they devia.ed from them in their practice, like the rest of their contemporaries. The departure from the old traditions traceable in Gray and Collins, in Goldsmith and Beattie, was continued during the last years of the eighteenth century by Cowper and Burns. Following the recluse of Olney and the Ayrshire ploughman, come with the new century, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey,— Scott and Campbell,-Moore, Byron, Shelley, Keats, to say nothing of a crowd of minor poets,-who carried to further perfection the later tendencies of the century preceding, in simplicity of narrative, reverence for human Passion and Character in every sphere, and impassioned love of Nature.' The quotation may be still further extended, so apt is its conciseness: 'Whilst maintaining, on the whole, the advances in art made since the Restoration, they renewed the half-forgotten melody and depth of tone which marked the best Elizabethan writers,' and, lastly, to what was thus inherited they added a richness in language and a variety in metre, a force and fire in narrative, a tenderness and bloom in feeling, an insight into the finer passages of the Soul, and the inner meanings of the landscape, a larger and wiser Humanity,-hitherto hardly attained, and perhaps unattainable even by predecessors of not inferior individual genius.'*

In prose, too, a distinct revival is to be traced from the beginning of this period, although it was not until 1814 that the supreme taleteller of the nineteenth century-the 'Wizard of the North'turned from his poetical successes to earn new laurels in romance. But before Scott came Mrs. Radcliffe's supernatural fictions and Godwin's social studies, Miss Edgeworth's and Miss Austen's novels of manners, and with him and after him the throng of Galts and Hooks, of Marryats and Jameses, of Carletons and Wilsons. This is the age, besides, of Hallam and the elder Mill in History,-of Chalmers and Hall in Theology, of Cobbett, of Bentham,-of Jeffrey, Brougham, Sydney Smith, and the cluster of writers whose

The Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics. Ed. by F. T. Palgrave, 1861, 320; v. also Descriptive Poetry in England from Anne to Victoria, Fort. Rev., June, 1866.

brilliant abilities found their utterance in the newly-established critical organs, the Edinburgh and the Quarterly Reviews.

102. The Poets: Cowper.-Fifteen years only of the long life of William Cowper (1731-1800) belong to this period (1785–1835). But his first important volume of poems (if, for the moment, we set aside the earlier Olney Hymns) did not appear, and then but inconspicuously, until 1782, two years before Johnson's death, and it is to the last decade and a half of the eighteenth century that his literary influence and his masterpiece especially belong. For this reason, and also from the fact that he saliently marks the progress of the school which found its completest expression in the verse of Wordsworth, we place him in the forefront of the present chapter. Cowper was born at Great Berkhamstead, in Hertfordshire, of good family. His mother, upon whose portrait he wrote, in later years, some of his most beautiful lines, died when he was six years of age. A timid and sickly boy, he was sent early to a provincial school, and afterwards to Westminster. The tyrannical treatment to which he was subjected at the first of these places served further to aggravate his morbid sensibility. At Westminster he had for schoolfellows Churchill (see p. 124, s. 83), Lloyd, Cumberland (see p. 152, s. 100), and Colman (see p. 152, s. 100). The usher of his form was the gifted Vincent Bourne. In 1748 he left Westminster, entered the Middle Temple, and, in 1752, went into residence. He had already begun to be afflicted by appalling fits of depression, and already, as may be gathered from his Epistle to Robert Lloyd, Esq., had turned to verse for relief from the

'-fierce banditti

(Sworn foes to every-thing that's witty),

That, with a black infernal train,

Make cruel inroads in my brain.'

In 1756 his father died. The poet's means were small; and when, in 1763, it became in the power of a relative to offer him the appointment of Clerk of the Journals of the House of Lords, an easy competence appeared within his reach. But, at this time, his diseased fancies had increased to so great an extent, that, under nervous anticipation of the preliminary examination, he became insane, and was placed under control at St. Albans. Upon his recovery he went to live at Huntingdon. Here, after some time, he made the acquaintance of the Rev. Morley Unwin, into whose house he was received in 1765. At Mr. Unwin's death, in 1767, Cowper still continued to reside with the widow at Olney (to which place she