ENGLISH LITERATURE AND SOCIETYIN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

FORD LECTURES, 1903

_By_ LESLIE STEPHEN

[Illustration]

LONDON

_DUCKWORTH and CO. _

3 HENRIETTA STREET, W. C. 

1904

TO HERBERT FISHER

NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD

My Dear Herbert, --I had prepared these Lectures for delivery, when aserious breakdown of health made it utterly impossible for me to appearin person. The University was then good enough to allow me to employ adeputy; and you kindly undertook to read the Lectures for me. I haveevery reason to believe that they lost nothing by the change. 

I need only explain that, although they had to be read in six sections, and are here divided into five chapters, no other change worth noticinghas been made. Other changes probably ought to have been made, but myhealth has been unequal to the task of serious correction. Thepublication has been delayed from the same cause. 

Meanwhile, I wish to express my gratitude for your services. I doubt, too, whether I should have ventured to republish them, had it not beenfor your assertion that they have some interest. I would adopt the goodold form of dedicating them to you, were it not that I can find noprecedent for a dedication by an uncle to a nephew--uncles having, Ifancy, certain opinions as to the light in which they are generallyregarded by nephews. I will not say what that is, nor mention anotherreason which has its weight. I will only say that, though this is not adedication, it is meant to express a very warm sense of gratitude due toyou upon many grounds. --Your affectionate LESLIE STEPHEN. 

_November 1903_. 

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

Owing to the ill-health of Sir Leslie Stephen the proofs have beenpassed for press by Mr. H. Fisher, Fellow of New College, who read theLectures at Oxford on behalf of the Author. 

ENGLISH LITERATURE AND SOCIETY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

I

When I was honoured by the invitation to deliver this course oflectures, I did not accept without some hesitation. I am not qualifiedto speak with authority upon such subjects as have been treated by mypredecessors--the course of political events or the growth of legalinstitutions. My attention has been chiefly paid to the history ofliterature, and it might be doubtful whether that study is properlyincluded in the phrase 'historical. ' Yet literature expresses men'sthoughts and passions, which have, after all, a considerable influenceupon their lives. The writer of a people's songs, as we are told, mayeven have a more powerful influence than the maker of their laws. Hecertainly reveals more directly the true springs of popular action. Thetruth has been admitted by many historians who are too much overwhelmedby state papers to find space for any extended application of themethod. No one, I think, has shown more clearly how much light could bederived from this source than your Oxford historian J. R. Green, in somebrilliant passages of his fascinating book. Moreover, if I may ventureto speak of myself, my own interest in literature has always beenclosely connected with its philosophical and social significance. Literature may of course be studied simply for its own intrinsic merits. But it may also be regarded as one manifestation of what is called 'thespirit of the age. ' I have, too, been much impressed by a furtherconclusion. No one doubts that the speculative movement affects thesocial and political--I think that less attention has been given to thereciprocal influence. The philosophy of a period is often treated asthough it were the product of impartial and abstractinvestigation--something worked out by the great thinker in his studyand developed by simple logical deductions from the positionsestablished by his predecessors. To my mind, though I cannot now dwellupon the point, the philosophy of an age is in itself determined to avery great extent by the social position. It gives the solutions of theproblems forced upon the reasoner by the practical conditions of histime. To understand why certain ideas become current, we have toconsider not merely the ostensible logic but all the motives which ledmen to investigate the most pressing difficulties suggested by thesocial development. Obvious principles are always ready, like germs, tocome to life when the congenial soil is provided. And what is true ofthe philosophy is equally, and perhaps more conspicuously, true of theartistic and literary embodiment of the dominant ideas which arecorrelated with the social movement. 

A recognition of the general principle is implied in the change whichhas come over the methods of criticism. It has more and more adopted thehistorical attitude. Critics in an earlier day conceived their functionto be judicial. They were administering a fixed code of laws applicablein all times and places. The true canons for dramatic or epic poetry, they held, had been laid down once for all by Aristotle or hiscommentators; and the duty of the critic was to consider whether theauthor had infringed or conformed to the established rules, and to passsentence accordingly. I will not say that the modern critic hasabandoned altogether that conception of his duty. He seems to me notinfrequently to place himself on the judgment-seat with a touch of hisold confidence, and to sentence poor authors with sufficient airs ofinfallibility. Sometimes, indeed, the reflection that he is representingnot an invariable tradition but the last new æsthetic doctrine, seemseven to give additional keenness to his opinions and to suggest nodoubts of his infallibility. And yet there is a change in his position. He admits, or at any rate is logically bound to admit, the code which headministers requires modification in different times and places. The oldcritic spoke like the organ of an infallible Church, regarding all formsof art except his own as simply heretical. The modern critic speaks likethe liberal theologian, who sees in heretical and heathen creeds anapproximation to the truth, and admits that they may have a relativevalue, and even be the best fitted for the existing conditions. Thereare, undoubtedly, some principles of universal application; and the oldcritics often expounded them with admirable common-sense and force. Butlike general tenets of morality, they are apt to be commonplaces, whosespecific application requires knowledge of concrete facts. When thecritics assumed that the forms familiar to themselves were the onlypossible embodiments of those principles, and condemned all others asbarbarous, they were led to pass judgments, such, for example, asVoltaire's view of Dante and Shakespeare, which strike us as strangelycrude and unappreciative. The change in this, as in other departments ofthought, means again that criticism, as Professor Courthope has said, must become thoroughly inductive. We must start from experience. We mustbegin by asking impartially what pleased men, and then inquire why itpleased them. We must not decide dogmatically that it ought to havepleased or displeased on the simple ground that it is or is notcongenial to ourselves. As historical methods extend, the same changetakes place in regard to political or economical or religious, as wellas in regard to literary investigations. We can then become catholicenough to appreciate varying forms; and recognise that each has its ownrules, right under certain conditions and appropriate within the givensphere. The great empire of literature, we may say, has many provinces. There is a 'law of nature' deducible from universal principles of reasonwhich is applicable throughout, and enforces what may be called thecardinal virtues common to all forms of human expression. Butsubordinate to this, there is also a municipal law, varying in everyprovince and determining the particular systems which are applicable tothe different state of things existing in each region. 

This method, again, when carried out, implies the necessary connectionbetween the social and literary departments of history. The adequatecriticism must be rooted in history. In some sense I am ready to admitthat all criticism is a nuisance and a parasitic growth upon literature. The most fruitful reading is that in which we are submitting to ateacher and asking no questions as to the secret of his influence. Bunyan had no knowledge of the 'higher criticism'; he read into theBible a great many dogmas which were not there, and accepted ratherquestionable historical data. But perhaps he felt some essentialcharacteristics of the book more thoroughly than far more cultivatedpeople. No critic can instil into a reader that spontaneous sympathywith the thoughts and emotions incarnated in the great masterpieceswithout which all reading is cold and valueless. In spite of alldifferences of dialect and costume, the great men can place themselvesin spiritual contact with men of most distant races and periods. Art, weare told, is immortal. In other words, is unprogressive. The greatimaginative creations have not been superseded. We go to the last newauthorities for our science and our history, but the essential thoughtsand emotions of human beings were incarnated long ago with unsurpassableclearness. When FitzGerald published his _Omar Khayyam_, readers weresurprised to find that an ancient Persian had given utterance tothoughts which we considered to be characteristic of our own day. Theyhad no call to be surprised. The writer of the Book of Job had longbefore given the most forcible expression to thought which still movesour deepest feelings; and Greek poets had created unsurpassableutterance for moods common to all men in all ages. 

 'Still green with bays each ancient altar stands Above the reach of sacrilegious hands, '

as Pope puts it; and when one remembers how through all the centuriesthe masters of thought and expression have appealed to men who knewnothing of criticism, higher or lower, one is tempted to doubt whetherthe critic be not an altogether superfluous phenomenon. 

The critic, however, has become a necessity; and has, I fancy, hisjustification in his own sphere. Every great writer may be regarded invarious aspects. He is, of course, an individual, and the critic mayendeavour to give a psychological analysis of him; and to describe hisintellectual and moral constitution and detect the secrets of hispermanent influence without reference to the particular time and placeof his appearance. That is an interesting problem when the materials areaccessible. But every man is also an organ of the society in which hehas been brought up. The material upon which he works is the wholecomplex of conceptions, religious, imaginative and ethical, which formshis mental atmosphere. That suggests problems for the historian ofphilosophy. He is also dependent upon what in modern phrase we call his'environment'--the social structure of which he forms a part, and whichgives a special direction to his passions and aspirations. That suggestsproblems for the historian of political and social institutions. Fullyto appreciate any great writer, therefore, it is necessary todistinguish between the characteristics due to the individual withcertain idiosyncrasies and the characteristics due to his specialmodification by the existing stage of social and intellectualdevelopment. In the earliest period the discrimination is impossible. Nobody, I suppose, not even if he be Provost of Oriel, can tell us muchof the personal characteristics of the author--if there was anauthor--of the _Iliad_. He must remain for us a typical Greek of theheroic age; though even so, the attempt to realise the correspondingstate of society may be of high value to an appreciation of the poetry. In later times we suffer from the opposite difficulty. Our descendantswill be able to see the general characteristics of the Victorian agebetter than we, who unconsciously accept our own peculiarities, like theair we breathe, as mere matters of course. Meanwhile a Tennyson and aBrowning strike us less as the organs of a society than by theidiosyncrasies which belong to them as individuals. But in the normalcase, the relation of the two studies is obvious. Dante, for example, isprofoundly interesting to the psychologist, considered simply as a humanbeing. We are then interested by the astonishing imaginative intensityand intellectual power and the vivid personality of the man who stilllives for us as he lived in the Italy of six centuries ago. But as allcompetent critics tell us, the _Divina Commedia_ also reveals in thecompletest way the essential spirit of the Middle Ages. The two studiesreciprocally enlighten each other. We know Dante and understand hisposition the more thoroughly as we know better the history of thepolitical and ecclesiastical struggles in which he took part, and thephilosophical doctrines which he accepted and interpreted; andconversely, we understand the period the better when we see how itsbeliefs and passions affected a man of abnormal genius and markedidiosyncrasy of character. The historical revelation is the morecomplete, precisely because Dante was not a commonplace or averageperson but a man of unique force, mental and moral. The remark maysuggest what is the special value of the literary criticism or itsbearing upon history. We may learn from many sources what was thecurrent mythology of the day; and how ordinary people believed in devilsand in a material hell lying just beneath our feet. The vision probablystrikes us as repulsive and simply preposterous. If we proceed to askwhat it meant and why it had so powerful a hold upon the men of theday, we may perhaps be innocent enough to apply to the acceptedphilosophers, especially to Aquinas, whose thoughts had been sothoroughly assimilated by the poet. No doubt that may suggest veryinteresting inquiries for the metaphysician; but we should find not onlythat the philosophy is very tough and very obsolete, and therefore verywearisome for any but the strongest intellectual appetites, but alsothat it does not really answer our question. The philosopher does notgive us the reasons which determine men to believe, but the officialjustification of their beliefs which has been elaborated by the mostacute and laborious dialecticians. The inquiry shows how a philosophicalsystem can be hooked on to an imaginative conception of the universe;but it does not give the cause of the belief, only the way in which itcan be more or less favourably combined with abstract logicalprinciples. The great poet unconsciously reveals something more than themetaphysician. His poetry does not decay with the philosophy which ittook for granted. We do not ask whether his reasoning be sound or false, but whether the vision be sublime or repulsive. It may be a little ofboth; but at any rate it is undeniably fascinating. That, I take it, isbecause the imagery which he creates may still be a symbol of thoughtsand emotions which are as interesting now as they were six hundred yearsago. This man of first-rate power shows us, therefore, what was the realcharm of the accepted beliefs for him, and less consciously for others. He had no doubt that their truth could be proved by syllogising: butthey really laid so powerful a grasp upon him because they could be madeto express the hopes and fears, the loves and hatreds, the moral andpolitical convictions which were dearest to him. When we see how thesystem could be turned to account by the most powerful imagination, wecan understand better what it really meant for the commonplace andignorant monks who accepted it as a mere matter of course. We begin tosee what were the great forces really at work below the surface; and theissues which were being blindly worked out by the dumb agents who werequite unable to recognise their nature. If, in short, we wish todiscover the secret of the great ecclesiastical and political strugglesof the day, we should turn, not to the men in whose minds beliefs lieinert and instinctive, nor to the ostensible dialectics of theostensible apologists and assailants, but to the great poet who showshow they were associated with the strongest passions and the mostvehement convictions. 

We may hold that the historian should confine himself to giving a recordof the objective facts, which can be fully given in dates, statistics, and phenomena seen from outside. But if we allow ourselves tocontemplate a philosophical history, which shall deal with the causes ofevents and aim at exhibiting the evolution of human society--and perhapsI ought to apologise for even suggesting that such an ideal could everbe realised--we should also see that the history of literature would bea subordinate element of the whole structure. The political, social, ecclesiastical, and economical factors, and their complex actions andreactions, would all have to be taken into account, the literaryhistorian would be concerned with the ideas which find utterance throughthe poet and philosopher, and with the constitution of the class whichat any time forms the literary organ of the society. The critic whodeals with the individual work would find such knowledge necessary to afull appreciation of his subject; and, conversely, the appreciationwould in some degree help the labourer in other departments of historyto understand the nature of the forces which are governing the socialdevelopment. However far we may be from such a consummation, andreluctant to indulge in the magniloquent language which it suggests, Iimagine that a literary history is so far satisfactory as it takes thefacts into consideration and regards literature, in the perhaps toopretentious phrase, as a particular function of the whole socialorganism. But I gladly descend from such lofty speculations to come to afew relevant details; and especially, to notice some of the obviouslimitations which have in any case to be accepted. 

And in the first place, when we try to be philosophical, we have adifficulty which besets us in political history. How much influence isto be attributed to the individual? Carlyle used to tell us in my youththat everything was due to the hero; that the whole course of humanhistory depended upon your Cromwell or Frederick. Our scientificteachers are inclined to reply that no single person had muchimportance, and that an ideal history could omit all names ofindividuals. If, for example, Napoleon had been killed at the siege ofToulon, the only difference would have been that the dictator would havebeen called say Moreau. Possibly, but I cannot see that we can argue inthe same way in literature. I see no reason to suppose that ifShakespeare had died prematurely, anybody else would have written_Hamlet_. There was, it is true, a butcher's boy at Stratford, who wasthought by his townsmen to have been as clever a fellow as Shakespeare. We shall never know what we have lost by his premature death, and wecertainly cannot argue that if Shakespeare had died, the butcher wouldhave lived. It makes one tremble, says an ingenious critic, to reflectthat Shakespeare and Cervantes were both liable to the measles at thesame time. As we know they escaped, we need not make ourselves unhappyabout the might-have-been; but the remark suggests how much the literaryglory of any period depends upon one or two great names. Omit Cervantesand Shakespeare and Molière from Spanish, English, and Frenchliterature, and what a collapse of glory would follow! Had Shakespearedied, it is conceivable perhaps that some of the hyperboles which havebeen lavished upon him would have been bestowed on Marlowe and BenJonson. But, on the whole, I fancy that the minor lights of theElizabethan drama have owed more to their contemporary than he owed tothem; and that, if this central sun had been extinguished, the wholegalaxy would have remained in comparative obscurity. Now, as we areutterly unable to say what are the conditions which produce a genius, orto point to any automatic machinery which could replace him in case ofaccident, we must agree that this is an element in the problem which isaltogether beyond scientific investigation. The literary historian mustbe content with a humble position. Still, the Elizabethan stage wouldhave existed had Shakespeare never written; and, moreover, its mainoutline would have been the same. If any man ever imitated and gave fullutterance to the characteristic ideas of his contemporaries it wascertainly Shakespeare; and nobody ever accepted more thoroughly the formof art which they worked out. So far, therefore, as the generalconditions of the time led to the elaboration of this particular genus, we may study them independently and assign certain general causes. WhatShakespeare did was to show more fully the way in which that form couldbe turned to account; and, without him, it would have been a far lessinteresting phenomenon. Even the greatest man has to live in his owncentury. The deepest thinker is not really--though we often use thephrase--in advance of his day so much as in the line along which advancetakes place. The greatest poet does not write for a future generation inthe sense of not writing for his own; it is only that in giving thefullest utterance to its thoughts and showing the deepest insight intotheir significance, he is therefore the most perfect type of its generalmental attitude, and his work is an embodiment of the thoughts which arecommon to men of all generations. 

When the critic began to perceive that many forms of art might beequally legitimate under different conditions, his first proceeding wasto classify them in different schools. English poets, for example, werearranged by Pope and Gray as followers of Chaucer, Spenser, Donne, Dryden, and so forth; and, in later days, we have such literary generaas are indicated by the names classic and romantic or realist andidealist, covering characteristic tendencies of the various historicalgroups. The fact that literary productions fall into schools is ofcourse obvious, and suggests the problem as to the cause of their riseand decline. Bagehot treats the question in his _Physics and Politics_. Why, he asks, did there arise a special literary school in the reign ofQueen Anne--'a marked variety of human expression, producing what wasthen written and peculiar to it'? Some eminent writer, he replies, getsa start by a style congenial to the minds around him. Steele, a rough, vigorous, forward man, struck out the periodical essay; Addison, a wise, meditative man, improved and carried it to perfection. An unconsciousmimicry is always producing countless echoes of an original writer. That, I take it, is undeniably true. Nobody can doubt that all authorsare in some degree echoes, and that a vast majority are never anythingelse. But it does not answer why a particular form should be fruitful ofechoes or, in Bagehot's words, be 'more congenial to the minds around. 'Why did the _Spectator_ suit one generation and the _Rambler_ itssuccessors? Are we incapable of giving any answer? Are changes inliterary fashions enveloped in the same inscrutable mystery as changesin ladies' dresses? It is, and no doubt always will be, impossible tosay why at one period garments should spread over a hoop and at anothercling to the limbs. Is it equally impossible to say why the fashion ofPope should have been succeeded by the fashion of Wordsworth andColeridge? If we were prepared to admit the doctrine of which I havespoken--the supreme importance of the individual--that would of coursebe all that could be said. Shakespeare's successors are explained asimitators of Shakespeare, and Shakespeare is explained by his 'genius'or, in other words, is inexplicable. If, on the other hand, Shakespeare's originality, whatever it may have been, was shown by hispower of interpreting the thoughts of his own age, then we can learnsomething from studying the social and intellectual position of hiscontemporaries. Though the individual remains inexplicable, the generalcharacteristics of the school to which he belongs may be tolerablyintelligible; and some explanation is in fact suggested by suchepithets, for example, as romantic and classical. For, whateverprecisely they mean, --and I confess to my mind the question of what theymean is often a very difficult one, --they imply some general tendencywhich cannot be attributed to individual influence. When we endeavour toapproach this problem of the rise and fall of literary schools, we seethat it is a case of a phenomenon which is very often noticed and whichwe are more ready to explain in proportion to the share of youthfulaudacity which we are fortunate enough to possess. 

In every form of artistic production, in painting and architecture, forexample, schools arise; each of which seems to embody some kind ofprinciple, and develops and afterwards decays, according to somemysterious law. It may resemble the animal species which is, somehow orother, developed and then stamped out in the struggle of existence bythe growth of a form more appropriate to the new order. The epic poem, shall we say? is like the 'monstrous efts, ' as Tennyson unkindly callsthem, which were no doubt very estimable creatures in their day, buthave somehow been unable to adapt themselves to recent geologicalepochs. Why men could build cathedrals in the Middle Ages, and why theirpower was lost instead of steadily developing like the art ofengineering, is a problem which has occupied many writers, and of whichI shall not attempt to offer a solution. That is the difference betweenartistic and scientific progress. A truth once discovered remains trueand may form the nucleus of an independently interesting body of truths. But a special form of art flourishes only during a limited period, andwhen it decays and is succeeded by others, we cannot say that there isnecessarily progress, only that for some reason or other the environmenthas become uncongenial. It is, of course, tempting to infer from thedecay of an art that there must be a corresponding decay in the vitalityand morality of the race. Ruskin, for example, always assumed in hismost brilliant and incisive, but not very conclusive, arguments that menceased to paint good pictures simply because they ceased to be good men. He did not proceed to prove that the moral decline really took place, and still less to show why it took place. But, without attacking theselarge problems, I shall be content to say that I do not see that anysuch sweeping conclusions can be made as to the kind of changes inliterary forms with which we shall be concerned. That there is a closerelation between the literature and the general social condition of anation is my own contention. But the relation is hardly of this simplekind. Nations, it seems to me, have got on remarkably well, and made notonly material but political and moral progress in the periods when theyhave written few books, and those bad ones; and, conversely, haveproduced some admirable literature while they were developing some veryugly tendencies. To say the truth, literature seems to me to be a kindof by-product. It occupies far too small a part in the whole activity ofa nation, even of its intellectual activity, to serve as a completeindication of the many forces which are at work, or as an adequate moralbarometer of the general moral state. The attempt to establish such acondition too closely, seems to me to lead to a good many very edifyingbut not the less fallacious conclusions. 

The succession of literary species implies that some are always passinginto the stage of 'survivals': and the most obvious course is toendeavour to associate them with the general philosophical movement. That suggests one obvious explanation of many literary developments. Thegreat thriving times of literature have occurred when new intellectualhorizons seemed to be suddenly opening upon the human intelligence; aswhen Bacon was taking his Pisgah sight of the promised land of science, and Shakespeare and Spenser were making new conquests in the world ofthe poetic imagination. A great intellectual shock was stimulating theparallel, though independent, outbursts of activity. The remark maysuggest one reason for the decline as well as for the rise of the newgenus. If, on the one hand, the man of genius is especially sensitive tothe new ideas which are stirring the world, it is also necessary that heshould be in sympathy with his hearers--that he should talk the languagewhich they understand, and adopt the traditions, conventions, andsymbols with which they are already more or less familiar. A generallyaccepted tradition is as essential as the impulse which comes from theinflux of new ideas. But the happy balance which enables the new wine tobe put into the old bottles is precarious and transitory. The new ideasas they develop may become paralysing to the imagery which they began byutilising. The legends of chivalry which Spenser turned to accountbecame ridiculous in the next generation, and the mythology of Milton'sgreat poem was incredible or revolting to his successors. The machinery, in the old phrase, of a poet becomes obsolete, though when he used it, it had vitality enough to be a vehicle for his ideas. The imitativetendency described by Bagehot clearly tends to preserve the old, as muchas to facilitate the adoption of a new form. In fact, to create a reallyoriginal and new form seems to exceed the power of any individual, andthe greatest men must desire to speak to their own contemporaries. It isonly by degrees that the inadequacy of the traditional form makes itselffelt, and its successor has to be worked out by a series of tentativeexperiments. When a new style has established itself its representativeshold that the orthodoxy of the previous period was a gross superstition:and those who were condemned as heretics were really prophets of thetrue faith, not yet revealed. However that may be, I am content atpresent to say that in fact the development of new literary types isdiscontinuous, and implies a compromise between the two conditions whichin literature correspond to conservatism and radicalism. Theconservative work is apt to become a mere survival: while the radicalmay include much that has the crudity of an imperfect application of newprinciples. Another point may be briefly indicated. The growth of newforms is obviously connected not only with the intellectual developmentbut with the social and political state of the nation, and there comesinto close connection with other departments of history. Authors, so faras I have noticed, generally write with a view to being read. Moreover, the reading class is at most times a very small part of the population. A philosopher, I take it, might think himself unusually popular if hisname were known to a hundredth part of the population. But even poetsand novelists might sometimes be surprised if they could realise thesmall impression they make upon the mass of the population. There is, you know, a story of how Thackeray, when at the height of his reputationhe stood for Oxford, found that his name was unknown even to highlyrespectable constituents. The author of _Vanity Fair_ they observed, wasnamed John Bunyan. At the present day the number of readers has, Ipresume, enormously increased; but authors who can reach the lowerstrata of the great lower pyramid, which widens so rapidly at its base, are few indeed. The characteristics of a literature correspond to thenational characteristics, as embodied in the characteristics of a verysmall minority of the nation. Two centuries ago the reading part of thenation was mainly confined to London and to certain classes of society. The most important changes which have taken place have been closelyconnected with the social changes which have entirely altered the limitsof the reading class; and with the changes of belief which have beencause and effect of the most conspicuous political changes. That is tooobvious to require any further exposition. Briefly, in talking ofliterary changes, considered as implied in the whole social development, I shall have, first, to take note of the main intellectualcharacteristics of the period; and secondly, what changes took place inthe audience to which men of letters addressed themselves, and how thegradual extension of the reading class affected the development of theliterature addressed to them. 

I hope and believe that I have said nothing original. I have certainlyonly been attempting to express the views which are accepted, in theirgeneral outline at least, by historians, whether of the political orliterary kind. They have often been applied very forcibly to the variousliterary developments, and, by way of preface to my own special topic, Iwill venture to recall one chapter of literary history which may serveto illustrate what I have already said, and which has a bearing uponwhat I shall have to say hereafter. 

One of the topics upon which the newer methods of criticism firstdisplayed their power was the school of the Elizabethan dramatists. Manyof the earlier critics wrote like lovers or enthusiasts who exalted themerits of some of the old playwrights beyond our sober judgments, andwere inclined to ignore the merits of other forms of the art. But wehave come to recognise that the Elizabethans had their faults, and thatthe best apology for their weaknesses as well as the best explanation oftheir merits was to be found in a clearer appreciation of the wholeconditions. It is impossible of course to overlook the connectionbetween that great outburst of literary activity and the generalmovement of the time; of the period when many impulses were breaking upthe old intellectual stagnation, and when the national spirit which tookthe great Queen for its representative was finding leaders in theBurleighs and Raleighs and Drakes. The connection is emphasised by thesingular brevity of the literary efflorescence. Marlowe's _Tamburlaine_heralded its approach on the eve of the Spanish Armada: Shakespeare, towhom the lead speedily fell, had shown his highest power in _Henry IV. _and _Hamlet_ before the accession of James I. : his great tragedies_Othello_, _Macbeth_ and _Lear_ were produced in the next two or threeyears; and by that time, Ben Jonson had done his best work. WhenShakespeare retired in 1611, Chapman and Webster, two of the mostbrilliant of his rivals, had also done their best; and Fletcherinherited the dramatic throne. On his death in 1625, Massinger and Fordand other minor luminaries were still at work; but the great period hadpassed. It had begun with the repulse of the Armada and culminated somefifteen years later. If in some minor respects there may afterwards havebeen an advance, the spontaneous vigour had declined and deliberateattempts to be striking had taken the place of the old audacity. Therecan be no more remarkable instance of a curious phenomenon, of avolcanic outburst of literary energy which begins and reaches itshighest intensity while a man is passing from youth to middle age, andthen begins to decay and exhaust itself within a generation. 

A popular view used to throw the responsibility upon the wicked Puritanswho used their power to close the theatres. We entered the'prison-house' of Puritanism says Matthew Arnold, I think, and stayedthere for a couple of centuries. If so, the gaolers must have had somedifficulty, for the Puritan (in the narrower sense, of course) hasalways been in a small and unpopular minority. But it is also plainthat the decay had begun when the Puritan was the victim instead of theinflictor of persecution. When we note the synchronism between thepolitical and the literary movement our conception of the true nature ofthe change has to be modified. The accession of James marks the time atwhich the struggle between the court and the popular party was beginningto develop itself: when the monarchy and its adherents cease torepresent the strongest current of national feeling, and the bulk of themost vigorous and progressive classes have become alienated and aredeveloping the conditions and passions which produced the civil war. Thegenuine Puritans are still an exception; they only form the left wing, the most thorough-going opponents of the court-policy; and their triumphafterwards is only due to the causes which in a revolution give theadvantage to the uncompromising partisans, though their special creed isalways regarded with aversion by a majority. But for the time, they arethe van of the party which, for whatever reason, is gathering strengthand embodying the main political and ecclesiastical impulses of thetime. The stage, again, had been from the first essentiallyaristocratic: it depended upon the court and the nobility and theiradherents, and was hostile both to the Puritans and to the whole classin which the Puritan found a congenial element. So long, as inElizabeth's time, as the class which supported the stage alsorepresented the strongest aspirations of the period, and a markednational sentiment, the drama could embody a marked national sentiment. When the unity was broken up and the court is opposed to the strongestcurrent of political sentiment, the players still adhere to theirpatron. The drama comes to represent a tone of thought, a socialstratum, which, instead of leading, is getting more and more opposed tothe great bulk of the most vigorous elements of the society. The stageis ceasing to be a truly national organ, and begins to suit itself tothe tastes of the unprincipled and servile courtiers, who, if they arenot more immoral than their predecessors, are without the old heroictouch which ennobled even the audacious and unscrupulous adventurers ofthe Armada period. That is to say, the change is beginning which becamepalpable in the Restoration time, when the stage became simply themelancholy dependent upon the court of Charles II. , and faithfullyreflected the peculiar morality of the small circle over which itpresided. Without taking into account this process by which the organ ofthe nation gradually became transformed into the organ of the classwhich was entirely alienated from the general body of the nation, it is, I think, impossible to understand clearly the transformation of thedrama. It illustrates the necessity of accounting for the literarymovement, not only by intellectual and general causes, but by noting howspecial social developments radically alter the relation of anyparticular literary genus to the general national movement. I shall soonhave to refer to the case again. 

I have now only to say briefly what I propose to attempt in theselectures. The literary history, as I conceive it, is an account of onestrand, so to speak, in a very complex tissue: it is connected with theintellectual and social development; it represents movements of thoughtwhich may sometimes check and be sometimes propitious to the existingforms of art; it is the utterance of a class which may represent, orfail to represent, the main national movement; it is affected more orless directly by all manner of religious, political, social, andeconomical changes; and it is dependent upon the occurrence ofindividual genius for which we cannot even profess to account. I proposeto take the history of English literature in the eighteenth century. Ido not aim at originality: I take for granted the ordinary criticaljudgments upon the great writers of whom so much has been said by judgescertainly more competent than myself, and shall recall the same factsboth of ordinary history and of the history of thought. What I hope is, that by bringing familiar facts together I may be able to bring out thenature of the connection between them; and, little as I can say thatwill be at all new, to illustrate one point of view, which, as Ibelieve, it is desirable that literary histories should take intoaccount more distinctly than they have generally done. 

II

The first period of which I am to speak represents to the politicalhistorian the Avatar of Whiggism. The glorious revolution has decidedthe long struggle of the previous century; the main outlines of theBritish Constitution are irrevocably determined; the political system isin harmony with the great political forces, and the nation has settled, as Carlyle is fond of saying, with the centre of gravity lowest, andtherefore in a position of stable equilibrium. For another century noorganic change was attempted or desired. Parliament has becomedefinitely the great driving-wheel of the political machinery; not, as acentury before, an intrusive body acting spasmodically and hamperinginstead of regulating the executive power of the Crown. The last Stuartkings had still fancied that it might be reduced to impotence, and theillusion had been fostered by the loyalty which meant at least a fairunequivocal desire to hold to the old monarchical traditions. But, infact, parliamentary control had been silently developing; the House ofCommons had been getting the power of the purse more distinctly into itshands, and had taken very good care not to trust the Crown with thepower of the sword. Charles II. Had been forced to depend on the help ofthe great French monarchy to maintain his authority at home; and whenhis successor turned out to be an anachronism, and found that theloyalty of the nation would not bear the strain of a policy hostile tothe strongest national impulses, he was thrown off as an intolerableincubus. The system which had been growing up beneath the surface wasnow definitely put into shape and its fundamental principles embodied inlegislation. The one thing still needed was to work out the system ofparty government, which meant that parliament should become an organisedbody with a corporate body, which the ministers of the Crown had firstto consult and then to obey. The essential parts of the system had, infact, been established by the end of Queen Anne's reign; though thechange which had taken place in the system was not fully recognisedbecause marked by the retention of the old forms. This, broadlyspeaking, meant the supremacy of the class which really controlledParliament: of the aristocratic class, led by the peers but includingthe body of squires and landed gentlemen, and including also a growinginfusion of 'moneyed' men, who represented the rising commercial andmanufacturing interests. The division between Whig and Tory correspondedmainly to the division between the men who inclined mainly to the Churchand squirearchy and those who inclined towards the mercantile and thedissenting interests. If the Tory professed zeal for the monarchy, hedid not mean a monarchy as opposed to Parliament and therefore to hisown dearest privileges. Even the Jacobite movement was in great partpersonal, or meant dislike to Hanover with no preference for arbitrarypower, while the actual monarchy was so far controlled by Parliamentthat the Whig had no desire to limit it further. It was a usefulinstrument, not an encumbrance. 

We have to ask how these conditions affect the literary position. Onepoint is clear. The relation between the political and the literaryclass was at this time closer than it had ever been. The alliancebetween them marks, in fact, a most conspicuous characteristic of thetime. It was the one period, as authors repeat with a fond regret, inwhich literary merit was recognised by the distributors of statepatronage. This gratifying phenomenon has, I think, been often a littlemisinterpreted, and I must consider briefly what it really meant. Andfirst let us note how exclusively the literary society of the time wasconfined to London. The great town--it would be even now a greattown--had half a million inhabitants. Macaulay, in his admirably graphicdescription of the England of the preceding period, points out what achasm divided it from country districts; what miserable roads had to betraversed by the nobleman's chariot and four, or by the ponderouswaggons or strings of pack-horses which supplied the wants of trade andof the humbler traveller; and how the squire only emerged at intervalsto be jeered and jostled as an uncouth rustic in the streets of London. He was not a great buyer of books. There were, of course, libraries atOxford and Cambridge, and here and there in the house of a rich prelateor of one of the great noblemen who were beginning to form some of thefamous collections; but the squire was more than usually cultivated ifBaker's _Chronicle_ and Gwillim's _Heraldry_ lay on the window-seat ofhis parlour, and one has often to wonder how the learned divines of theperiod managed to get the books from which they quote so freely in theirdiscourses. Anyhow the author of the day must have felt that thecirculation of his books must be mainly confined to London, andcertainly in London alone could he meet with anything that could passfor literary society or an appreciative audience. We have superabundantdescriptions of the audience and its meeting-places. One of the familiarfeatures of the day, we know, was the number of coffee-houses. In 1657, we are told, the first coffee-house had been prosecuted as a nuisance. In 1708 there were three thousand coffee-houses; and each coffee-househad its habitual circle. There were coffee-houses frequented bymerchants and stock-jobbers carrying on the game which suggested the newnickname bulls and bears: and coffee-houses where the talk was Whig andTory, of the last election and change of ministry: and literary resortssuch as the Grecian, where, as we are told, a fatal duel was provoked bya dispute over a Greek accent, in which, let us hope, it was the worstscholar who was killed; and Wills', where Pope as a boy went to lookreverently at Dryden; and Buttons', where, at a later period, Addisonmet his little senate. Addison, according to Pope, spent five or sixhours a day lounging at Buttons'; while Pope found the practice and theconsequent consumption of wine too much for his health. Thackeraynotices how the club and coffee-house 'boozing shortened the lives andenlarged the waistcoats of the men of those days. ' The coffee-houseimplied the club, while the club meant simply an association forperiodical gatherings. It was only by degrees that the body made apermanent lodgment in the house and became first the tenants of thelandlord and then themselves the proprietors. The most famous show theapproximation between the statesmen and the men of letters. There wasthe great Kit-cat Club, of which Tonson the bookseller was secretary; towhich belonged noble dukes and all the Whig aristocracy, besidesCongreve, Vanbrugh, Addison, Garth, and Steele. It not only broughtWhigs together but showed its taste by giving a prize for good comedies. Swift, when he came into favour, helped to form the Brothers' Club, which was especially intended to direct patronage towards promisingwriters of the Tory persuasion. The institution, in modern slang, differentiated as time went on. The more aristocratic clubs becameexclusive societies, occupying their own houses, more devoted togambling than to literature; while the older type, represented byJonson's famous club, were composed of literary and professionalclasses. 

The characteristic fraternisation of the politicians and the authorsfacilitated by this system leads to the critical point. When we speak ofthe nobility patronising literature, a reserve must be made. A list ofsome twenty or thirty names has been made out, including all the chiefauthors of the time, who received appointments of various kinds. But Ican only find two, Congreve and Rowe, upon whom offices were bestowedsimply as rewards for literary distinction; and both of them were soundWhigs, rewarded by their party, though not for party services. Thetypical patron of the day was Charles Montagu, Lord Halifax. As memberof a noble family he came into Parliament, where he distinguishedhimself by his financial achievements in founding the Bank of Englandand reforming the currency, and became a peer and a member of the greatWhig junto. At college he had been a chum of Prior, who joined him in aliterary squib directed against Dryden, and, as he rose, he employedhis friend in diplomacy. But the poetry by which Prior is known to uswas of a later growth, and was clearly not the cause but the consequenceof his preferment. At a later time, Halifax sent Addison abroad with theintention of employing him in a similar way; and it is plain thatAddison was not--as the familiar but obviously distorted anecdote tellsus--preferred on account of his brilliant Gazette in rhyme, but reallyin fulfilment of his patron's virtual pledge. Halifax has also thecredit of bestowing office upon Newton and patronising Congreve. As poetand patron Halifax was carrying on a tradition. The aristocracy inCharles's days had been under the impression that poetry, or at leastverse writing, was becoming an accomplishment for a nobleman. Pope's'mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease, ' Rochester and Buckingham, Dorsetand Sedley, and the like, managed some very clever, if not very exalted, performances and were courted by the men of letters represented byButler, Dryden, and Otway. As, indeed, the patrons were themselveshangers-on of a thoroughly corrupt court, seeking to rise by courtintrigues, their patronage was apt to be degrading and involved themean flattery of personal dependence. The change at the Revolution meantthat the court no longer overshadowed society. The court, that is, wasbeginning to be superseded by the town. The new race of statesmen werecoming to depend upon parliamentary influence instead of court favour. They were comparatively, therefore, shining by their own light. Theywere able to dispose of public appointments; places on the variouscommissions which had been founded as parliament took control of thefinancial system--such as commissions for the wine-duties, for licensinghackney coaches, excise duties, and so forth--besides some of the otherplaces which had formerly been the perquisites of the courtier. Theycould reward personal dependants at the cost of the public; which wasconvenient for both parties. Promising university students, like Priorand Addison, might be brought out under the wing of the statesman, andno doubt literary merit, especially in conjunction with the rightpolitics, might recommend them to such men as Halifax or Somers. Thepolitical power of the press was meanwhile rapidly developing. Harley, Lord Oxford, was one of the first to appreciate its importance. Heemployed Defoe and other humble writers who belonged to GrubStreet--that is, to professional journalism in its infancy--as well asSwift, whose pamphlets struck the heaviest blow at the Whigs in the lastyears of that period. Swift's first writings, we may notice, were not ahelp but the main hindrance to his preferment. The patronage ofliterature was thus in great part political in its character. Itrepresents the first scheme by which the new class of parliamentarystatesmen recruited their party from the rising talent, or rewarded menfor active or effective service. The speedy decay of the system followedfor obvious reasons. As party government became organised, the patronagewas used in a different spirit. Offices had to be given to gratifymembers of parliament and their constituents, not to scholars who couldwrite odes on victories or epistles to secretaries of state. It was themachinery for controlling votes. Meanwhile we need only notice that thepatronage of authors did not mean the patronage of learned divines orhistorians, but merely the patronage of men who could use their pens inpolitical warfare, or at most of men who produced the kind of literarywork appreciated in good society. 

The 'town' was the environment of the wits who produced the literaturegenerally called after Queen Anne. We may call it the literary organ ofthe society. It was the society of London, or of the region served bythe new penny-post, which included such remote villages as Paddingtonand Brompton. The city was large enough, as Addison observes, to includenumerous 'nations, ' each of them meeting at the various coffee-houses. The clubs at which the politicians and authors met each otherrepresented the critical tribunals, when no such things as literaryjournals existed. It was at these that judgment was passed upon the lastnew poem or pamphlet, and the writer sought for their good opinion as henow desires a favourable review. The tribunal included the rewarders aswell as the judges of merit; and there was plenty of temptation tostimulate their generosity by flattery. Still the relation means a greatimprovement on the preceding state of things. The aristocrat was nodoubt conscious of his inherent dignity, but he was ready on occasion tohail Swift as 'Jonathan' and, in the case of so highly cultivated aspecimen as Addison, to accept an author's marriage to a countess. Thepatrons did not exact the personal subservience of the precedingperiod; and there was a real recognition by the more powerful class ofliterary merit of a certain order. Such a method, however, had obviousdefects. Men of the world have their characteristic weaknesses; and one, to go no further, is significant. The Club in England corresponded moreor less to the Salon which at different times had had so great aninfluence upon French literature. It differed in the marked absence offeminine elements. The clubs meant essentially a society of bachelors, and the conversation, one infers, was not especially suited for ladies. The Englishman, gentle or simple, enjoyed himself over his pipe and hisbottle and dismissed his womenkind to their bed. The one author of thetime who speaks of the influence of women with really chivalrousappreciation is the generous Steele, with his famous phrase about LadyElizabeth Hastings and a liberal education. The Clubs did not foster theaffectation of Molière's _Précieuses_; but the general tone had acoarseness and occasional brutality which shows too clearly that theydid not enter into the full meaning of Steele's most admirable saying. 

To appreciate the spirit of this society we must take into account thepolitical situation and the intellectual implication. The parliamentarystatesman, no longer dependent upon court favour, had a more independentspirit and personal self-respect. He was fully aware of the fact that herepresented a distinct step in political progress. His class had won agreat struggle against arbitrary power and bigotry. England had becomethe land of free speech, of religious toleration, impartial justice, andconstitutional order. It had shown its power by taking its place amongthe leading European states. The great monarchy before which the Englishcourt had trembled, and from which even patriots had taken bribes in theRestoration period, was met face to face in a long and doubtful struggleand thoroughly humbled in a war, in which an English General, in commandof an English contingent, had won victories unprecedented in our historysince the Middle Ages. Patriotic pride received a stimulus such as thatwhich followed the defeat of the Armada and preceded the outburst of theElizabethan literature. Those successes, too, had been won in the nameof 'liberty'--a vague if magical word which I shall not seek to defineat present. England, so sound Whigs at least sincerely believed, hadbecome great because it had adopted and carried out the true Whigprinciples. The most intelligent Frenchmen of the coming generationadmitted the claim; they looked upon England as the land both of libertyand philosophy, and tried to adopt for themselves the creed which hadled to such triumphant results. One great name may tell us sufficientlywhat the principles were in the eyes of the cultivated classes, whoregarded themselves and their own opinions with that complacency inwhich we are happily never deficient. Locke had laid down thefundamental outlines of the creed, philosophical, religious, andpolitical, which was to dominate English thought for the next century. Locke was one of the most honourable, candid, and amiable of men, ifmetaphysicians have sometimes wondered at the success of his teaching. He had not the logical thoroughness and consistency which marks aDescartes or Spinoza, nor the singular subtlety which distinguishesBerkeley and Hume; nor the eloquence and imaginative power which gave toBacon an authority greater than was due to his scientific requirements. He was a thoroughly modest, prosaic, tentative, and sometimes clumsywriter, who raises great questions without solving them or fully seeingthe consequences of his own position. Leaving any explanation of hispower to metaphysicians, I need only note the most conspicuouscondition. Locke ruled the thought of his own and the coming periodbecause he interpreted so completely the fundamental beliefs which hadbeen worked out at his time. He ruled, that is, by obeying. Lockerepresents the very essence of the common sense of the intelligentclasses. I do not ask whether his simplicity covered really profoundthought or embodied superficial crudities; but it was most admirablyadapted to the society of which I have been speaking. The excellentAddison, for example, who was no metaphysician, can adopt Locke when hewishes to give a philosophical air to his amiable lectures upon arts andmorals. Locke's philosophy, that is, blends spontaneously with theordinary language of all educated men. To the historian of philosophythe period is marked by the final disappearance of scholasticism. Thescholastic philosophy had of course been challenged generations before. Bacon, Descartes, and Hobbes, however, in the preceding century hadstill treated it as the great incubus upon intellectual progress, and itwas not yet exorcised from the universities. It had, however, passedfrom the sphere of living thought. This implies a series of correlativechanges in the social and intellectual which are equally conspicuous inthe literary order, and which I must note without attempting to inquirewhich are the ultimate or most fundamental causes of reciprocallyrelated developments. The changed position of the Anglican church issufficiently significant. In the time of Laud, the bishops in alliancewith the Crown endeavoured to enforce the jurisdiction of theecclesiastical courts upon the nation at large, and to suppress allnonconformity by law. Every subject of the king is also amenable tochurch discipline. By the Revolution any attempt to enforce suchdiscipline had become hopeless. The existence of nonconformist churcheshas to be recognised as a fact, though perhaps an unpleasant fact. TheDissenters can be worried by disqualifications of various kinds; but theclaim to toleration, of Protestant sects at least, is admitted; and thepersecution is political rather than ecclesiastical. They are notregarded as heretics, but as representing an interest which is opposedto the dominant class of the landed gentry. The Church as such has lostthe power of discipline and is gradually falling under the power of thedominant aristocratic class. When Convocation tries to make itselftroublesome, in a few years, it will be silenced and drop intoimpotence. Church-feeling indeed, is still strong, but the clergy havebecome thoroughly subservient, and during the century will be mereappendages to the nobility and squirearchy. The intellectual change isparallel. The great divines of the seventeenth century speak as membersof a learned corporation condescending to instruct the laity. Thehearers are supposed to listen to the voice (as Donne puts it) as from'angels in the clouds. ' They are experts, steeped in a special science, above the comprehension of the vulgar. They have been trained in theschools of theology and have been thoroughly drilled in the art of'syllogising. ' They are walking libraries with the ancient fathers attheir finger-ends; they have studied Aquinas and Duns Scotus, and haveshown their technical knowledge in controversies with the great Jesuits, Suarez and Bellarmine. They speak frankly, if not ostentatiously, as menof learning, and their sermons are overweighted with quotations, showingfamiliarity with the classics, and with the whole range of theologicalliterature. Obviously the hearers are to be passive recipients notjudges of the doctrine. But by the end of the century Tillotson hasbecome the typical divine, whose authority was to be as marked intheology as that of Locke in philosophy. Tillotson has entirelyabandoned any ostentatious show of learning. He addresses his hearers inlanguage on a level with their capabilities, and assumes that they arenot 'passive buckets to be pumped into' but reasonable men who have aright to be critics as well as disciples. It is taken for granted thatthe appeal must be to reason, and to the reason which has not gonethrough any special professional training. The audience, that is, towhich the divine must address himself is one composed of the averagelaity who are quite competent to judge for themselves. That is thechange that is meant when we are told that this was the period of thedevelopment of English prose. Dryden, one of its great masters, professed to have learned his style from Tillotson. The writer, that is, has to suit himself to the new audience which has grown up. He has tothrow aside all the panoply of scholastic logic, the vast apparatus ofprofessional learning, and the complex Latinised constructions, which, however admirable some of the effects produced, shows that the writer isthinking of well-read scholars, not of the ordinary man of the world. He has learned from Bacon and Descartes, perhaps, that his supposedscience was useless lumber; and he has to speak to men who not only wantplain language but are quite convinced that the pretensions of the oldauthority have been thoroughly exploded. 

Politically, the change means toleration, for it is assumed that thevulgar can judge for themselves; intellectually, it means rationalism, that is, an appeal to the reason common to all men; and, in literatureit means the hatred of pedantry and the acceptance of such literaryforms as are thoroughly congenial and intelligible to the common senseof the new audience. The hatred of the pedantic is the characteristicsentiment of the time. When Berkeley looked forward to a new world inAmerica, he described it as the Utopia

 'Where men shall not impose for truth and sense The pedantry of Courts and Schools. '

When he announced a metaphysical discovery he showed his understandingof the principle by making his exposition--strange as the proceedingappears to us--as short and as clear as the most admirable literaryskill could contrive. That eccentric ambition dominates the writings ofthe times. In a purely literary direction it is illustrated by thefamous but curiously rambling and equivocal controversy about theAncients and Moderns begun in France by Perrault and Boileau. In Englandthe most familiar outcome was Swift's _Battle of the Books_, in which hestruck out the famous phrase about sweetness and light, 'the two noblestof things'; which he illustrated by ridiculing Bentley's criticism andDryden's poetry. I may take for granted the motives which induced thatgeneration to accept as their models the great classical masterpieces, the study of which had played so important a part in the revival ofletters and the new philosophy. I may perhaps note, in passing, that wedo not always remember what classical literature meant to thatgeneration. In the first place, the education of a gentleman meantnothing then except a certain drill in Greek and Latin--whereas now itincludes a little dabbling in other branches of knowledge. In the nextplace, if a man had an appetite for literature, what else was he toread? Imagine every novel, poem, and essay written during the last twocenturies to be obliterated and further, the literature of the earlyseventeenth century and all that went before to be regarded as pedanticand obsolete, the field of study would be so limited that a man would beforced in spite of himself to read his _Homer_ and _Virgil_. The vice ofpedantry was not very accurately defined--sometimes it is the ancient, sometimes the modern, who appears to be pedantic. Still, as in the_Battle of the Books_ controversy, the general opinion seems to be thatthe critic should have before him the great classical models, and regardthe English literature of the seventeenth century as a collection of allpossible errors of taste. When, at the end of this period, Swift withPope formed the project of the Scriblerus Club, its aim was to be ajoint-stock satire against all 'false tastes' in learning, art, andscience. That was the characteristic conception of the most brilliantmen of letters of the time. 

Here, then, we have the general indication of the composition of theliterary organ. It is made up of men of the world--'Wits' is theirfavourite self-designation, scholars and gentlemen, with rather more ofthe gentlemen than the scholars--living in the capital, which forms akind of island of illumination amid the surrounding darkness of theagricultural country--including men of rank and others of sufficientsocial standing to receive them on friendly terms--meeting atcoffee-houses and in a kind of tacit confederation of clubs to comparenotes and form the whole public opinion of the day. They are consciousthat in them is concentrated the enlightenment of the period. The classto which they belong is socially and politically dominant--the advanceguard of national progress. It has finally cast off the incubus of aretrograde political system; it has placed the nation in a position ofunprecedented importance in Europe; and it is setting an example ofordered liberty to the whole civilised world. It has forced the Churchand the priesthood to abandon the old claim to spiritual supremacy. Ithas, in the intellectual sphere, crushed the old authority whichembodied superstition, antiquated prejudice, and a sham system ofprofessional knowledge, which was upheld by a close corporation. Itbelieves in reason--meaning the principles which are evident to theordinary common sense of men at its own level. It believes in what itcalls the Religion of Nature--the plain demonstrable truths obvious toevery intelligent person. With Locke for its spokesman, and Newton as aliving proof of its scientific capacity, it holds that England is thefavoured nation marked out as the land of liberty, philosophy, commonsense, toleration, and intellectual excellence. And with certainreserves, it will be taken at its own valuation by foreigners who arestill in darkness and deplorably given to slavery, to say nothing ofwooden shoes and the consumption of frogs. Let us now consider theliterary result. 

I may begin by recalling a famous controversy which seems to illustratevery significantly some of the characteristic tendencies of the day. Thestage, when really flourishing, might be expected to show mostconspicuously the relations between authors and the society. Thedramatist may be writing for all time; but if he is to fill a theatre, he must clearly adapt himself to the tastes of the living and thepresent. During the first half of the period of which I am now speaking, Dryden was still the dictator of the literary world; and Dryden hadadopted Congreve as his heir, and abandoned to him the province of thedrama--Congreve, though he ceased to write, was recognised during hislife as the great man of letters to whom Addison, Swift, and Pope agreedin paying respect, and indisputably the leading writer of EnglishComedy. When the comic drama was unsparingly denounced by Collier, Congreve defended himself and his friends. In the judgment ofcontemporaries the pedantic parson won a complete triumph over the mostbrilliant of wits. Although Congreve's early abandonment of his careerwas not caused by Collier's attack alone, it was probably due in part tothe general sentiment to which Collier gave utterance. I will ask whatis implied as a matter of fact in regard to the social and literarycharacteristics of the time. The Shakespearian drama had behind it ageneral national impulse. With Fletcher, it began to represent a courtalready out of harmony with the strongest currents of national feeling. Dryden, in a familiar passage, gives the reason of the change from hisown point of view. Two plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, he says in anoften quoted passage, were acted (about 1668) for one of Shakespeare orJonson. His explanation is remarkable. It was because the laterdramatists 'understood the conversation of gentlemen much better, ' whosewild 'debaucheries and quickness of wit no poet can ever paint as theyhave done. ' In a later essay he explains that the greater refinementwas due to the influence of the court. Charles II. , familiar with themost brilliant courts of Europe, had roused us from barbarism andrebellion, and taught us to 'mix our solidity' with 'the air and gaietyof our neighbours'! I need not cavil at the phrases 'refinement' and'gentleman. ' If those words can be fairly applied to the courtiers whose'wild debaucheries' disgusted Evelyn and startled even the respectablePepys, they may no doubt be applied to the stage and the dramaticpersons. The rake, or 'wild gallant, ' had made his first appearance inFletcher, and had shown himself more nakedly after the Restoration. Thisis the so-called reaction so often set down to the account of theunlucky Puritans. The degradation, says Macaulay, was the 'effect of theprevalence of Puritanism under the Commonwealth. ' The attempt to make a'nation of saints' inevitably produced a nation of scoffers. In whatsense, in the first place, was there a 'reaction' at all? The Puritanshad suppressed the stage when it was already far gone in decay becauseit no longer satisfied the great bulk of the nation. The reaction doesnot imply that the drama regained its old position. When the rule of thesaints or pharisees was broken down, the stage did not become again anational organ. A very small minority of the people can ever have seen aperformance. There were, we must remember, only two theatres underCharles II. , and there was a difficulty in supporting even two. Bothdepended almost exclusively on the patronage of the court and thecourtiers. From the theatre, therefore, we can only argue directly tothe small circle of the rowdy debauchees who gathered round the newking. It certainly may be true, but it was not proved from theirbehaviour, that the national morality deteriorated, and in fact I thinknothing is more difficult than to form any trustworthy estimate of thestate of morality in a whole nation, confidently as such estimates areoften put forward. What may be fairly inferred, is that a certain class, who had got from under the rule of the Puritan, was now free from legalrestraint and took advantage of the odium excited by pharisaicalstrictness, to indulge in the greater license which suited the taste oftheir patrons. The result is sufficiently shown when we see so great aman as Dryden pander to the lowest tastes, and guilty of obscenities ofwhich he was himself ashamed, which would be now inexcusable in thelowest public haunts. The comedy, as it appears to us, must have beenwritten by blackguards for blackguards. When Congreve became Dryden'sheir he inherited the established tradition. Under the new order the'town' had become supreme; and Congreve wrote to meet the taste of theclass which was gaining in self-respect and independence. He tells us inthe dedication of his best play, _The Way of the World_, that his tastehad been refined in the company of the Earl of Montagu. The claim is nodoubt justifiable. So Horace Walpole remarks that Vanbrugh wrote so wellbecause he was familiar with the conversation of the best circles. Thesocial influences were favourable to the undeniable literary merits, tothe force and point in which Congreve's dialogue is still superior tothat of any English rival, the vigour of Vanbrugh and the vivacity oftheir chief ally, Farquhar. Moreover, although their moral code isanything but strict, these writers did not descend to some of the depthsoften sounded by Dryden and Wycherly. The new spirit might seem to bepassing on with more literary vitality into the old forms. And yet theconsequence, or certainly the sequel to Collier's attack, was the decayof the stage in every sense, from which there was no recovery till thetime of Goldsmith and Sheridan. 

This is the phenomenon which we have to consider;--let us listen for amoment to the 'distinguished critics' who have denounced or defended thecomedy of the time. Macaulay gives as a test of the morality of theRestoration stage that on it, for the first time, marriage becomes thetopic of ridicule. We are supposed to sympathise with the adulterer, notwith the deceived husband--a fault, he says, which stains no playwritten before the Civil War. Addison had already suggested this test inthe _Spectator_, and proceeds to lament that 'the multitudes are shutout from this noble "diversion" by the immorality of the lessonsinculcated. ' Lamb, indulging in ingenious paradox, admires Congreve for'excluding from his scenes (with one exception) any pretensions togoodness or good feeling whatever. ' Congreve, he says, spreads a'privation of moral light' over his characters, and therefore we canadmire them without compunction. We are in an artificial world where wecan drop our moral prejudices for the time being. Hazlitt more daringlytakes a different position and asserts that one of Wycherly's coarsestplays is 'worth ten sermons'--which perhaps does not imply with him anyhigh estimate of moral efficacy. There is, however, this much of truth, I take it, in Hazlitt's contention. Lamb's theory of the non-morality ofthe dramatic world will not stand examination. The comedy was in onesense thoroughly 'realistic'; and I am inclined to say, that in that layits chief merit. There is some value in any truthful representation, even of vice and brutality. There would certainly be no difficulty infinding flesh and blood originals for the rakes and the fine ladies inthe memoirs of Grammont or the diaries of Pepys. The moral atmosphere isprecisely that of the dissolute court of Charles II. , and the 'privationof moral light' required is a delicate way of expressing itscharacteristic feeling. In the worst performances we have not got to anyunreal region, but are breathing for the time the atmosphere of thelowest resorts, where reference to pure or generous sentiment wouldundoubtedly have been received with a guffaw, and coarse cynicism beregarded as the only form of comic insight. At any rate the audiencesfor which Congreve wrote had just so much of the old leaven that we canquite understand why they were regarded as wicked by a majority of themiddle classes. The doctrine that all playgoing was wicked was naturallyconfirmed, and the dramatists retorted by ridiculing all that theirenemies thought respectable. Congreve was, I fancy, a man of bettermorality than his characters, only forced to pander to the tastes of therake who had composed the dominant element of his audience. He writesnot for mere blackguards, but for the fine gentleman, who affectspremature knowledge of the world, professes to be more cynical than hereally is, and shows his acuteness by deriding hypocrisy and pharisaichumbug in every claim to virtue. He dwells upon the seamy side of life, and if critics, attracted by his undeniable brilliance, have found hisheroines charming, to me it seems that they are the kind of young womenwhom, if I adopted his moral code, I should think most desirablewives--for my friends. 

Though realistic in one sense, we may grant to Lamb that such comedybecomes 'artificial, ' and so far Lamb is right, because it supposes astate of things such as happily was abnormal except in a small circle. The plots have to be made up of impossible intrigues, and imply adistorted theory of life. Marriage after all is not really ridiculous, and to see it continuously from this point of view is to have a falsepicture of realities. Life is not made up of dodges worthy ofcardsharpers--and the whole mechanism becomes silly and disgusting. Ifcomedy is to represent a full and fair portrait of life, the dramatistought surely, in spite of Lamb, to find some space for generous andrefined feeling. There, indeed, is a difficulty. The easiest way to bewitty is to be cynical. It is difficult, though desirable, to combinegood feeling with the comic spirit. The humourist has to expose thecontrasts of life, to unmask hypocrisy, and to show selfishness lurkingunder multitudinous disguises. That, on Hazlitt's showing, was thepreaching of Wycherly. I can't think that it was the impression madeupon Wycherly's readers. Such comedy may be taken as satire; which wasthe excuse that Fielding afterwards made for his own performances. But Icannot believe that the actual audiences went to see vice exposed, orused Lamb's ingenious device of disbelieving in the reality. They simplyliked brutal and immoral sentiment, spiced, if possible, with art. Wemay inquire whether there may not be a comedy which is enjoyable by therefined and virtuous, and in which the intrusion of good feeling doesnot jar upon us as a discord. An answer may be suggested by pointing toMolière, and has been admirably set forth in Mr. George Meredith's essayon the 'Comic Spirit. ' There are, after all, ridiculous things in theworld, even from the refined and virtuous point of view. The saint, itis true, is apt to lose his temper and become too serious for such atreatment of life-problems. Still the sane intellect which sees thingsas they are can find a sphere within which it is fair and possible toapply ridicule to affectation and even to vice, and without simplytaking the seat of the scorner or substituting a coarse laugh for adelicate smile. A hearty laugh, let us hope, is possible even for afairly good man. Mr. Meredith's essay indicates the conditions underwhich the artist may appeal to such a cultivated and refined humour. Thehigher comedy, he says, can only be the fruit of a polished societywhich can supply both the model and the audience. Where the art ofsocial intercourse has been carried to a high pitch, where men havelearned to be at once courteous and incisive, to admire urbanity, andtherefore really good feeling, and to take a true estimate of the realvalues of life, a high comedy which can produce irony withoutcoarseness, expose shams without advocating brutality, becomes for thefirst time possible. It must be admitted that the condition is also veryrarely fulfilled. 

This, I take it, is the real difficulty. The desirable thing, one maysay, would have been to introduce a more refined and human art and toget rid of the coarser elements. The excellent Steele tried theexperiment. But he had still to work upon the old lines, which would notlend themselves to the new purpose. His passages of moral exhortationwould not supply the salt of the old cynical brutalities; they had apainful tendency to become insipid and sentimental, if not maudlin; andonly illustrated the difficulty of using a literary tradition whichdeveloped spontaneously for one purpose to adapt itself to a whollydifferent aim. He produced at best not a new genus but an awkwardhybrid. But behind this was the greater difficulty that a superiorliterature would have required a social elaboration, the growth of aclass which could appreciate and present appropriate types. Now even thegood society for which Congreve wrote had its merits, but certainly itsrefinement left much to be desired. One condition, as Mr. Meredith againremarks, of the finer comedy is such an equality of the sexes as mayadmit the refining influence of women. The women of the Restoration timehardly exerted a refining influence. They adopted the ingeniouscompromise of going to the play, but going in masks. That is, theytacitly implied that the brutality was necessary, and they submitted towhat they could not openly approve. Throughout the eighteenth century acontempt for women was still too characteristic of the aristocraticcharacter. Nor was there any marked improvement in the tastes of theplaygoing classes. The plays denounced by Collier continued to hold thestage, though more or less expurgated, throughout the century. Comedydid not become decent. In 1729 Arthur Bedford carried on Collier'sassault in a 'Remonstrance against the horrid blasphemies andimproprieties which are still used in the English playhouses, ' andcollected seven thousand immoral sentiments from the plays (chiefly) ofthe last four years. I have not verified his statements. The inference, however, seems to be clear. Collier's attack could not reform thestage. The evolution took the form of degeneration. He could, indeed, give utterance to the disapproval of the stage in general, which we callPuritanical, though it was by no means confined to Puritans or even toProtestants. Bossuet could denounce the stage as well as Collier. Collier was himself a Tory and a High Churchman, as was William Law, ofthe _Serious Call_, who also denounced the stage. The sentiment was, infact, that of the respectable middle classes in general. The effect wasto strengthen the prejudice which held that playgoing was immoral initself, and that an actor deserved to be treated as a 'vagrant'--theclass to which he legally belonged. During the next half-century, atleast, that was the prevailing opinion among the solid middle-classsection of society. 

The denunciations of Collier and his allies certainly effected a reform, but at a heavy price. They did not elevate the stage or create a bettertype, but encouraged old prejudices against the theatre generally; thetheatre was left more and more to a section of the 'town, ' and to thesection which was not too particular about decency. When Congreveretired, and Vanbrugh took to architecture, and Farquhar died, noadequate successors appeared. The production of comedies was left toinferior writers, to Mrs. Centlivre, and Colley Cibber, and Fielding inhis unripe days, and they were forced by the disfavour into which theirart had fallen to become less forcible rather than to become morerefined. When a preacher denounces the wicked, his sermons seem to bethrown away because the wicked don't come to church. Collier could notconvert his antagonists; he could only make them more timid and carefulto avoid giving palpable offence. But he could express the growingsentiment which made the drama an object of general suspicion anddislike, and induced the ablest writers to turn to other methods forwinning the favour of a larger public. 

The natural result, in fact, was the development of a new kind ofliterature, which was the most characteristic innovation of the period. The literary class of which I have hitherto spoken reflected theopinions of the upper social stratum. Beneath it was the class generallyknown as Grub Street. Grub Street had arisen at the time of the greatcivil struggle. War naturally generates journalism; it had struggled onthrough the Restoration and taken a fresh start at the Revolution andthe final disappearance of the licensing system. The dailynewspaper--meaning a small sheet written by a single author (editors asyet were not)--appeared at the opening of the eighteenth century. Nowfor Grub Street the wit of the higher class had nothing but dislike. The'hackney author, ' as Dunton called him, in his curious _Life andErrors_, was a mere huckster, who could scarcely be said as yet tobelong to a profession. A Tutchin or Defoe might be pilloried, orflogged, or lose his ears, without causing a touch of compassion frommen like Swift, who would have disdained to call themselves brotherauthors. Yet politicians were finding him useful. He was the victim ofone party, and might be bribed or employed as a spy by the other. Thehistory of Defoe and his painful struggles between his conscience andhis need of living, sufficiently indicates the result; Charles Leslie, the gallant nonjuror, for example, or Abel Boyer, the industriousannalist, or the laborious but cantankerous Oldmixon, were keeping theirheads above water by journalism, almost exclusively, of course, political. Defoe showed a genius for the art, and his mastery ofvigorous vernacular was hardly rivalled until the time of Paine andCobbett. At any rate, it was plain that a market was now arising forperiodical literature which might give a scanty support to a class belowthe seat of patrons. It was at this point that the versatile, speculative, and impecunious Steele hit upon his famous discovery. Theaim of the _Tatler_, started in April 1709, was marked out with greataccuracy from the first. Its purpose is to contain discourses upon allmanner of topics--_quicquid agunt homines_, as his first motto putit--which had been inadequately treated in the daily papers. It issupposed to be written in the various coffee-houses, and it is suited toall classes, even including women, whose taste, he observes, is to becaught by the title. The _Tatler_, as we know, led to the _Spectator_, and Addison's co-operation, cordially acknowledged by his friend, was amain cause of its unprecedented success. The _Spectator_ became themodel for at least three generations of writers. The number ofimitations is countless: Fielding, Johnson, Goldsmith, and many men ofless fame tried to repeat the success; persons of quality, such asChesterfield and Horace Walpole, condescended to write papers for the_World_--the 'Bow of Ulysses, ' as it was called, in which they couldtest their strength. Even in the nineteenth century Hazlitt and LeighHunt carried on the form; as indeed, in a modified shape, many lateressayists have aimed at a substantially similar achievement. To havecontributed three or four articles was, as in the case of the excellentHenry Grove (a name, of course, familiar to all of you), to havegraduated with honours in literature. Johnson exhorted the literaryaspirant to give his days and nights to the study of Addison; and the_Spectator_ was the most indispensable set of volumes upon the shelvesof every library where the young ladies described by Miss Burney andMiss Austen were permitted to indulge a growing taste for literature. Ifear that young people of the present day discover, if they try theexperiment, that their curiosity is easily satisfied. This singularsuccess, however, shows that the new form satisfied a real need. Addison's genius must, of course, count for much in the immediateresult; but it was plainly a case where genius takes up the function forwhich it is best suited, and in which it is most fully recognised. Whenwe read him now we are struck by one fact. He claims in the name of the_Spectator_ to be a censor of manners and morals; and though he veilshis pretensions under delicate irony, the claim is perfectly serious atbottom. He is really seeking to improve and educate his readers. Heaims his gentle ridicule at social affectations and frivolities; andsometimes, though avoiding ponderous satire, at the grosser forms ofvice. He is not afraid of laying down an æsthetic theory. In a oncefamous series of papers on the Imagination, he speaks with all theauthority of a recognised critic in discussing the merits of Chevy Chaseor of _Paradise Lost_; and in a series of Saturday papers he preacheslay-sermons--which were probably preferred by many readers to theofficial discourses of the following day. They contain those strikingpoems (too few) which led Thackeray to say that he could hardly fancy a'human intellect thrilling with a purer love and admiration than JosephAddison's. ' Now, spite of the real charm which every lover of delicatehumour and exquisite urbanity must find in Addison, I fancy that the_Spectator_ has come to mean for us chiefly Sir Roger de Coverley. It iscurious, and perhaps painful, to note how very small a proportion of thewhole is devoted to that most admirable achievement; and to reflect howlittle life there is in much that in kindness of feeling and grace ofstyle is equally charming. One cause is obvious. When Addison talks ofpsychology or æsthetics or ethics (not to speak of his criticism ofepic poetry or the drama), he must of course be obsolete in substance;but, moreover, he is obviously superficial. A man who would speak uponsuch topics now must be a grave philosopher, who has digested librariesof philosophy. Addison, of course, is the most modest of men; he has notthe slightest suspicion that he is going beyond his tether; and that isjust what makes his unconscious audacity remarkable. He fully shares thecharacteristic belief of the day, that the abstract problems are solubleby common sense, when polished by academic culture and aided by a finetaste. It is a case of _sancta simplicitas_; of the charming, becauseperfectly unconscious, self-sufficiency with which the Wit, rejectingpedantry as the source of all evil, thinks himself obviously entitled tolay down the law as theologian, politician, and philosopher. Hisaudience are evidently ready to accept him as an authority, and areflattered by being treated as capable of reason, not offended by anyassumption of their intellectual inferiority. 

With whatever shortcomings, Addison, and in their degree Steele and hisother followers, represent the stage at which the literary organ beginsto be influenced by the demands of a new class of readers. Addisonfeels the dignity of his vocation and has a certain air of gentlecondescension, especially when addressing ladies who cannot eventranslate his mottoes. He is a genuine prophet of what we now describeas Culture, and his exquisite urbanity and delicacy qualify him to be aworthy expositor of the doctrines, though his outlook is necessarilylimited. He is therefore implicitly trying to solve the problem whichcould not be adequately dealt with on the stage; to set forth a view ofthe world and human nature which shall be thoroughly refined and noble, and yet imply a full appreciation of the humorous aspects of life. Theinimitable Sir Roger embodies the true comic spirit; though Addison'sown attempt at comedy was not successful. 

One obvious characteristic of this generation is the didacticism whichis apt to worry us. Poets, as well as philosophers and preachers, areterribly argumentative. Fielding's remark (through Parson Adams), thatsome things in Steele's comedies are almost as good as a sermon, appliesto a much wider range of literature. One is tempted by way ofexplanation to ascribe this to a primitive and ultimate instinct of therace. Englishmen--including of course Scotsmen--have a passion forsermons, even when they are half ashamed of it; and the British Essay, which flourished so long, was in fact a lay sermon. We must brieflynotice that the particular form of this didactic tendency is a naturalexpression of the contemporary rationalism. The metaphysician of thetime identifies emotions and passions with intellectual affirmations, and all action is a product of logic. In any case we have to do with aperiod in which the old concrete imagery has lost its hold upon the moreintelligent classes, and instead of an imaginative symbolism we have asystem of abstract reasoning. Diagrams take the place of concretepictures: and instead of a Milton justifying the ways of Providence bythe revealed history, we have a Blackmore arguing with Lucretius, andare soon to have a Pope expounding a metaphysical system in the _Essayon Man_. Sir Roger represents a happy exception to this method andpoints to the new development. Addison is anticipating the method oflater novelists, who incarnate their ideals in flesh and blood. This, and the minor character sketches which are introduced incidentally, imply a feeling after a less didactic method. As yet the sermon is inthe foreground, and the characters are dismissed as soon as they haveillustrated the preacher's doctrine. Such a method was congenial to theWit. He was, or aspired to be, a keen man of the world; deeplyinterested in the characteristics of the new social order; in theeccentricities displayed at clubs, or on the Stock Exchange, or in thepolitical struggles; he is putting in shape the practical philosophyimplied in the conversations at clubs and coffee-houses; he delights indiscussing such psychological problems as were suggested by the worldlywisdom of Rochefoucauld, and he appreciates clever character sketchessuch as those of La Bruyére. Both writers were favourites in England. But he has become heartily tired of the old romance, and has not yetdiscovered how to combine the interest of direct observation of man witha thoroughly concrete form of presentation. 

The periodical essay represents the most successful innovation of theday; and, as I have suggested, because it represents the mode by whichthe most cultivated writer could be brought into effective relation withthe genuine interests of the largest audience. Other writers used itless skilfully, or had other ways of delivering their message tomankind. Swift, for example, had already shown his peculiar vein. Hegives a different, though equally characteristic, side of theintellectual attitude of the Wit. In the _Battle of the Books_ he hadassumed the pedantry of the scholar; in the _Tale of a Tub_ with amazingaudacity he fell foul of the pedantry of divines. His blows, as itseemed to the Archbishops, struck theology in general; he put that rightby pouring out scorn upon Deists and all who were silly enough tobelieve that the vulgar could reason; and then in his first politicalwritings began to expose the corrupt and selfish nature ofpoliticians--though at present only of Whig politicians. Swift is one ofthe most impressive of all literary figures, and I will not even touchupon his personal peculiarities. I will only remark that in one respecthe agrees with his friend Addison. He emphasises, of course, the aspectover which Addison passes lightly; he scorns fools too heartily to treatthem tenderly and do justice to the pathetic side of even human folly. But he too believes in culture--though he may despair of itsdissemination. He did his best, during his brief period of power, todirect patronage towards men of letters, even to Whigs; and tried, happily without success, to found an English Academy. His zeal wasgenuine, though it expressed itself by scorn for dunces and hostility toGrub Street. He illustrates one little peculiarity of the Wit. In thesociety of the clubs there was a natural tendency to form minor cliquesof the truly initiated, who looked with sovereign contempt upon thehackney author. One little indication is the love of mystifications, orwhat were entitled 'bites. ' All the Wits, as we know, combined to teasethe unlucky fortune-teller, Partridge, and to maintain that theirprediction of his death had been verified, though he absurdly pretendedto be still alive. So Swift tells us in the journal to Stella how he hadcirculated a lie about a man who had been hanged coming to life again, and how footmen are sent out to inquire into its success. He made a hitby writing a sham account of Prior's mission to Paris supposed to comefrom a French valet. The inner circle chuckled over such performances, which would be impossible when their monopoly of information had beenbroken up. A similar satisfaction was given by the various burlesquesand more or less ingenious fables which were to be fully appreciated bythe inner circle; such as the tasteless narrative of Dennis's frenzy bywhich Pope professed to be punishing his victim for an attack uponAddison: or to such squibs as Arbuthnot's _John Bull_--a parable whichgives the Tory view in a form fitted for the intelligent. The Wits, thatis, form an inner circle, who like to speak with an affectation ofobscurity even if the meaning be tolerably transparent, and show thatthey are behind the scenes by occasionally circulating bits of shamnews. They like to form a kind of select upper stratum, which most fullybelieves in its own intellectual eminence, and shows a contempt for itsinferiors by burlesque and rough sarcasm. 

It is not difficult (especially when we know the result) to guess at thecanons of taste which will pass muster in such regions. Enthusiasticalpoliticians of recent days have been much given to denouncing modernclubs, where everybody is a cynic and unable to appreciate the greatideas which stir the masses. It may be so; my own acquaintance with clublife, though not very extensive, does not convince me that every memberof a London club is a Mephistopheles; but I will admit that a certainexcess of hard worldly wisdom may be generated in such resorts; and wefind many conspicuous traces of that tendency in the clubs of QueenAnne's reign. Few of them have Addison's gentleness or his perception ofthe finer side of human nature. It was by a rare combination ofqualities that he was enabled to write like an accomplished man of theworld, and yet to introduce the emotional element without any jarringdiscord. The literary reformers of a later day denounce the men of thisperiod as 'artificial'! a phrase the antithesis of which is 'natural. 'Without asking at present what is meant by the implied distinction--aninquiry which is beset by whole systems of equivocations--I may justobserve that in this generation the appeal to Nature was as common andemphatic as in any later time. The leaders of thought believe in reason, and reason sets forth the Religion of Nature and assumes that the Law ofNature is the basis of political theory. The corresponding literarytheory is that Art must be subordinate to Nature. The critics' rules, asPope says in the poem which most fully expresses the general doctrine, 'Are Nature still, but Nature methodised; Nature, like Liberty, is but restrained By the same laws which first herself ordained. '

The Nature thus 'methodised' was the nature of the Wit himself; the setof instincts and prejudices which to him seemed to be so normal thatthey must be natural. Their standards of taste, if artificial to us, were spontaneous, not fictitious; the Wits were not wearing a mask, butwere exhibiting their genuine selves with perfect simplicity. Now onecharacteristic of the Wit is always a fear of ridicule. Above all thingshe dreads making a fool of himself. The old lyric, for example, whichcame so spontaneously to the Elizabethan poet or dramatist, and of whichechoes are still to be found in the Restoration, has decayed, or rather, has been transformed. When you have written a genuine bit oflove-poetry, the last place, I take it, in which you think of seekingthe applause of a congenial audience, would be the smoking-room of yourclub: but that is the nearest approach to the critical tribunal of QueenAnne's day. It is necessary to smuggle in poetry and passion indisguise, and conciliate possible laughter by stating plainly that youanticipate the ridicule yourself. In other words you write societyverses like Prior, temper sentiment by wit, and if you do not expressvehement passion, turn out elegant verses, salted by an irony which isa tacit apology perhaps for some genuine feeling. The old pastoral hadbecome hopelessly absurd because Thyrsis and Lycidas have becomeextravagant and 'unnatural. ' The form might be adopted for practice inversification; but when Ambrose Phillips took it a little too seriously, Pope, whose own performances were not much better, came down on him forhis want of sincerity, and Gay showed what could be still made of theform by introducing real rustics and turning it into a burlesque. Then, as Johnson puts it, the 'effect of reality and truth became conspicuous, even when the intention was to show them grovelling and degraded. ' _TheRape of the Lock_ is the masterpiece, as often noticed, of anunconscious allegory. The sylph, who was introduced with such curiousfelicity, is to be punished if he fails to do his duty, by imprisonmentin a lady's toilet apparatus. 

 'Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain, While clogged he beats his silver wings in vain. '

Delicate fancy and real poetical fancy may be turned to account; butunder the mask of the mock-heroic. We can be poetical still, it seems tosay, only we must never forget that to be poetical in deadly earnest isto run the risk of being absurd. Even a Wit is pacified when he is thusdexterously coaxed into poetry disguised as mere playful exaggeration, and feels quite safe in following the fortune of a game of cards inplace of a sanguinary Homeric battle. Ariel is still alive, but headopts the costume of the period to apologise for his eccentricities. Poetry thus understood may either give a charm to the trivial or fallinto mere burlesque; and though Pope's achievement is an undeniabletriumph, there are blots in an otherwise wonderful performance whichshow an uncomfortable concession to the coarser tastes of his audience. 

I will not dwell further upon a tolerably obvious theme. I must pass tothe more serious literature. The Wit had not the smallest notion thathis attitude disqualified him for succession in the loftiest poeticalendeavour. He thinks that his critical keenness will enable him tosurpass the old models. He wishes, in the familiar phrase, to be'correct'; to avoid the gross faults of taste which disfigured the oldGothic barbarism of his forefathers. That for him is the very meaning ofreason and nature. He will write tragedies which must get rid of thebrutalities, the extravagance, the audacious mixture of farce andtragedy which was still attractive to the vulgar. He has, indeed, a kindof lurking regard for the rough vigour of the Shakespearian epoch; hispatriotic prejudices pluck at him at intervals, and suggest thatMarlborough's countrymen ought not quite to accept the yoke of theFrench Academy. When Ambrose Phillips produced the _DistrestMother_--adapted from Racine--all Addison's little society wasenthusiastic. Steele stated in the Prologue that the play was meant tocombine French correctness with British force, and praised it in the_Spectator_ because it was 'everywhere Nature. ' The town, he pointedout, would be able to admire the passions 'within the rules of decency, honour, and good breeding. ' The performance was soon followed by _Cato_, unquestionably, as Johnson still declares, 'the noblest production ofAddison's genius. ' It presents at any rate the closest conformity to theFrench model; and falls into comic results, as old Dennis pointed out, from the so-called Unity of Place, and consequent necessity oftransacting all manner of affairs, love-making to Cato's daughter, andconspiring against Cato himself, in Cato's own hall. Such tragedy, however, refused to take root. Cato, as I think no one can deny, is agood specimen of Addison's style, but, except a few proverbial phrases, it is dead. The obvious cause, no doubt, is that the British publicliked to see battle, murder, and sudden death, and, in spite ofAddison's arguments, enjoyed a mixture of tragic and comic. Shakespeare, though not yet an idol, had still a hold upon the stage, and wasbeginning to be imitated by Rowe and to attract the attention ofcommentators. The sturdy Briton would not be seduced to the foreignmodel. The attempt to refine tragedy was as hopeless as the attempt tomoralise comedy. This points to the process by which the Wit becomes'artificial. ' He has a profound conviction, surely not altogether wrong, that a tragedy ought to be a work of art. The artist must observecertain rules; though I need not ask whether he was right in thinkingthat these rules were represented by the accepted interpreters of theteaching of Nature. What he did not perceive was that another essentialcondition was absent; namely, that the tragic mood should correspond tohis own 'nature. ' The tragic art can, like other arts, only flourishwhen it embodies spontaneously the emotions and convictions of thespectators; when the dramatist is satisfying a genuine demand, and ishimself ready to see in human life the conflict of great passions andthe scene of impressive catastrophes. Then the theatre becomes naturallythe mirror upon which the imagery can be projected. But the society towhich Addison and his fellows belonged was a society of good, commonplace, sensible people, who were fighting each other by pamphletsinstead of by swords; who played a game in which they staked not lifeand death but a comfortable competency; who did not even cut off thehead of a fallen minister, who no longer believed in great statesmen ofheroic proportions rising above the vulgar herd; and who had a veryhearty contempt for romantic extravagance. A society in which commonsense is regarded as the cardinal intellectual virtue does not naturallysuggest the great tragic themes. Cato is obviously contrived, notinspired; and the dramatist is thinking of obeying the rules of goodtaste, instead of having them already incorporated in his thought. Thiscomes out in one chief monument in the literary movement, I mean Pope's_Homer_. Pope, as we know, made himself independent by that performance. The method of publication is significant. He had no interest in thegeneral sale, which was large enough to make his publisher's fortune. The publisher meanwhile supplied him gratuitously with the copies forwhich the subscribers paid him six guineas apiece. That means that hereceived a kind of commission from the upper class to execute thetranslation. The list of his subscribers seems to be almost a directoryto the upper circle of the day; every person of quality has felt himselfbound to promote so laudable an undertaking; the patron had beensuperseded by a kind of joint-stock body of collective patronage. TheDuke of Buckingham, one of its accepted mouthpieces, had said in versein his _Essay on Poetry_ that if you once read Homer, everything elsewill be 'mean and poor. '

 Verse will seem prose; yet often in him look And you will hardly need another book. '

That was the correct profession of faith. Yet as a good many Wits foundGreek an obstacle, a translation was needed. Chapman had becomebarbarous; Hobbes and Ogilvie were hopelessly flat; and Pope wastherefore handsomely paid to produce a book which was to be the standardof the poetical taste. Pope was thus the chosen representative of theliterary spirit. It is needless to point out that Pope's _Iliad_ is notHomer's. That was admitted from the first. When we read in a speech ofAgamemnon exhorting the Greeks to abandon the siege, 'Love, duty, safety summon us away; 'Tis Nature's voice, and Nature we obey, '

we hardly require to be told that we are not listening to Homer'sAgamemnon but to an Agamemnon in a full-bottomed wig. Yet Pope's Homerhad a success unparalleled by any other translation of profane poetry;for the rest of the century it was taken to be a masterpiece; it hasbeen the book from which Byron and many clever lads first learned toenjoy what they at least took for Homer; and, as Mrs. Gallup hasdiscovered, it was used by Bacon at the beginning of the seventeenthcentury, and by somebody at the beginning of the twentieth. That it hasvery high literary merits can, I think, be denied by no unprejudicedreader, but I have only to do with one point. Pope had the advantage--Itake it to be an advantage--of having a certain style prescribed for himby the literary tradition inherited from Dryden. A certain diction andmeasure had to be adopted, and the language to be run into an acceptedmould. The mould was no doubt conventional, and corresponded to atemporary phase of sentiment. Like the costume of the period, it strikesus now as 'artificial' because it was at the time so natural. It wasworked out by the courtly and aristocratic class, and was fitted to givea certain dignity and lucidity, and to guard against mere greatness andtriviality of utterance. At any rate it saved Pope from one enormousdifficulty. The modern translator is aware that Homer lived a long timeago in a very different state of intellectual and social development, and yet feels bound to reproduce the impressions made upon the ancientGreek. The translator has to be an accurate scholar and to give theright shade of meaning for every phrase, while he has also toapproximate to the metrical effect. The conclusion seems to be that theonly language into which Homer could be adequately translated would beGreek, and that you must then use the words of the original. The actualresult is that the translator is cramped by his fetters; that his use ofarchaic words savours of affectation, and that, at best, he has toemphasise the fact that his sentiments are fictitious. Pope had notrouble of that kind. He aims at giving something equivalent to Homer, not Homer himself, and therefore at something really practical. He hasthe same advantage as a man who accepts a living style of architectureor painting; he can exert all his powers of forcible expression in aform which will be thoroughly understood by his audience, and whichsaves him, though at a certain cost, from the difficulties of trying toreproduce the characteristics which are really incongruous. 

There are disadvantages. In his time the learned M. Bossu was theaccepted authority upon the canons of criticism. Buckingham says he hadexplained the 'mighty magic' of Homer. One doctrine of his was that anepic poet first thinks of a moral and then invents a fable to illustrateit. The theory struck Addison as a little overstated, but it is anexaggeration of the prevalent view. According to Pope Homer's greatmerit was his 'invention'--and by this he sometimes appears to implythat Homer had even invented the epic poem. Poetry was, it seems, at a'low pitch' in Greece in Homer's time, as indeed were other arts andsciences. Homer, wishing to instruct his countrymen in all kinds oftopics, devised the epic poem: made use of the popular mythology tosupply what in the technical language was called his 'machinery';converted the legends into philosophical allegory, and introduced'strokes of knowledge from his whole circle of arts and sciences. ' This'circle' includes for example geography, rhetoric, and history; and thewhole poem is intended to inculcate the political moral that many evilssprang from the want of union among the Greeks. Not a doubt of it! Homerwas in the sphere of poetry what Lycurgus was supposed to be in thefield of legislation. He had at a single bound created poetry and madeit a vehicle of philosophy, politics, and ethics. Upon this showing theepic poem is a form of art which does not grow out of the historicalconditions of the period; but it is a permanent form of art, as good forthe eighteenth century as for the heroic age of Greece; it may beadopted as a model, only requiring certain additional ornaments andrefinements to adapt it to the taste of a more enlightened period. Yet, at the same time, Pope could clearly perceive some of the absurdconsequences of M. Bossu's view. He ridiculed that authority very keenlyin the 'Recipe to make an Epic Poem' which first appeared in the_Guardian_, while he was at work upon his own translation. Bossu'srules, he says, will enable us to make epic poems without genius orreading; and he proceeds to show how you are to work your 'machines, 'and introduce your allegories and descriptions, and extract your moralout of the fable at leisure, 'only making it sure that you strain itsufficiently. '

That was the point. The enlightened critic sees that the work of artembodies certain abstract rules; which may, and probably will--if he bea man of powerful intellectual power, be rational, and suggestinstructive canons. But, as Pope sees, it does not follow that theinverse process is feasible; that is, that you construct your poemsimply by applying the rules. To be a good cricketer you must applycertain rules of dynamics; but it does not follow that a sound knowledgeof dynamics will enable you to play good cricket. Pope sees thatsomething more than an acceptance of M. Bossu's or Aristotle's canons isrequisite for the writer of a good epic poem. The something more, according to him, appears to be learning and genius. It is certainlytrue that at least genius must be one requisite. But then, there is thefurther point. Will the epic poem, which was the product of certainremote social and intellectual conditions, serve to express the thoughtsand emotions of a totally different age? Considering the differencebetween Achilles and Marlborough, or the bards of the heroic age and thewits who frequented clubs and coffee-houses under Queen Anne, it was atleast important to ask whether Homer and Pope--taking them to be alikein genius--would not find it necessary to adopt radically differentforms. That is for us so obvious a suggestion that one wonders at thetacit assumption of its irrelevance. Pope, indeed, by taking the _Iliad_for a framework, a ready-made fabric which he could embroider with hisown tastes, managed to construct a singularly spirited work, full ofgood rhetoric and not infrequently rising to real poetical excellence. But it did not follow that an original production on the same lineswould have been possible. Some years later, Young complained of Pope forbeing imitative, and said that if he had dared to be original, he mighthave produced a modern epic as good as the _Iliad_ instead of a meretranslation. That is not quite credible. Pope himself tried an epic poemtoo, which happily came to nothing; but a similar ambition led to suchworks as Glover's _Leonidas_ and _The Epigoniad_ of the Scottish HomerWilkie. English poets as a rule seem to have suffered at some period oftheir lives from this malady and contemplated Arthuriads; but theconstructional epic died, I take it, with Southey's respectable poems. 

We may consider, then, that any literary form, the drama, the epic poem, the essay, and so forth, is comparable to a species in natural history. It has, one may say, a certain organic principle which determines thepossible modes of development. But the line along which it will actuallydevelop depends upon the character and constitution of the literaryclass which turns it to account, for the utterance of its own ideas; anddepends also upon the correspondence of those ideas with the most vitaland powerful intellectual currents of the time. The literary class ofQueen Anne's day was admirably qualified for certain formations: theWits leading the 'town, ' and forming a small circle accepting certaincanons of taste, could express with admirable clearness and honesty thejudgment of bright common sense; the ideas which commend themselves tothe man of the world, and to a rationalism which was the embodiment ofcommon sense. They produced a literature, which in virtue of itssincerity and harmonious development within certain limits could passfor some time as a golden age. The aversion to pedantry limited itscapacity for the highest poetical creation, and made the imaginationsubservient to the prosaic understanding. The comedy had come to adaptitself to the tastes of the class which, instead of representing thenational movement, was composed of the more disreputable part of thetown. The society unable to develop it in the direction of refinementleft it to second-rate writers. It became enervated instead of elevated. The epic and the tragic poetry, ceasing to reflect the really powerfulimpulses of the day, were left to the connoisseur and dilettante man oftaste, and though they could write with force and dignity whenrenovating or imitating older masterpieces, such literature becameeffete and hopelessly artificial. It was at best a display of technicalskill, and could not correspond to the strongest passions and conditionsof the time. The invention of the periodical essay, meanwhile, indicatedwhat was a condition of permanent vitality. There, at least, the Wit wasappealing to a wide and growing circle of readers, and could utter thereal living thoughts and impulses of the time. The problem for thecoming period was therefore marked out. The man of letters had todevelop a living literature by becoming a representative of the ideaswhich really interested the whole cultivated classes, instead of writingmerely for the exquisite critic, or still less for the regenerating andobnoxious section of society. That indeed, I take it, is the generalproblem of literature; but I shall have to trace the way in which itssolution was attempted in the next period. 

III

(1714-1739)

The death of Queen Anne opens a new period in the history of literatureand of politics. Under the first Georges we are in the very heart of theeighteenth century; the century, as its enemies used to say, of coarseutilitarian aims, of religious indifference and political corruption;or, as I prefer to say, the century of sound common sense and growingtoleration, and of steady social and industrial development. 

To us, to me at least, it presents something pleasant in retrospect. There were then no troublesome people with philanthropic or political orreligious nostrums, proposing to turn the world upside down andintroduce an impromptu millennium. The history of periods when peoplewere cutting each other's throats for creeds is no doubt more exciting;but we, who profess toleration, ought surely to remember that youcannot have martyrs without bigots and persecutors; and thatfanaticism, though it may have its heroic aspects, has also a very uglyside to it. At any rate, we who come after a century of revolutionarychanges, and are often told that the whole order of things may be upsetby some social earthquake, look back with regret to the days of quietsolid progress, when everything seemed to have settled down to a quiet, stable equilibrium. Wealth and comfort were growing--surely no badthings; and John Bull--he had just received that name fromArbuthnot--was waxing fat and complacently contemplating his ownadmirable qualities. It is the period of the composition of 'RuleBritannia' and 'The Roast Beef of Old England, ' and of the settledbelief that your lusty, cudgel-playing, beer-drinking Briton was worththree of the slaves who ate frogs and wore wooden shoes across theChannel. The British constitution was the embodiment of perfect wisdom, and, as such, was entitled to be the dread and envy of the world. To thepolitical historian it is the era of Walpole; the huge mass of solidcommon sense, who combined the qualities of the sturdy country squireand the thorough man of business; whose great aim was to preserve thepeace; to keep the country as much as might be out of the continentaltroubles which it did not understand, and in which it had no concern;and to carry on business upon sound commercial principles. It is ofcourse undeniable that his rule not only meant regard for the solidmaterial interests of the country, but too often appealed to theinterests of the ruling class. Philosophical historians who deal withthe might-have-been may argue that a man of higher character might haveworked by better means and have done something to purify the politicalatmosphere. Walpole was not in advance of his day; but it is at leasttoo clear to need any exposition that under the circumstances corruptionwas inevitable. When the House of Commons was the centre of politicalauthority, when so many boroughs were virtually private property, whenmen were not stirred to the deeper issues by any great constitutionalstruggle--party government had to be carried on by methods whichinvolved various degrees of jobbery and bribery. The disease wascertainly not peculiar to Walpole's age; though perhaps the symptomswere more obvious and avowed more bluntly than usual. As Walpole'smasterful ways drove his old allies into opposition, they denounced thesystem and himself; but unfortunately although they claimed to bepatriots and patterns of political virtue, they were made pretty much ofthe same materials as the arch-corrupter. When the 'moneyed men, ' uponwhom he had relied, came to be in favour of a warlike policy and wereroused by the story of Captain Jenkins' ear, Walpole fell, but no reignof purity followed. The growing dissatisfaction, however, with theWalpolean system implied some very serious conditions, and the cryagainst corruption, in which nearly all the leading writers of the timejoined, had a very serious significance in literature and in the growthof public opinion. 

First, however, let me glance at the change as it immediately affectedthe literary organ. The old club and coffee-house society broke up withremarkable rapidity. While Oxford was sent to the Tower, and Bolingbrokeescaped to France, Swift retired to Dublin, and Prior, after beingimprisoned, passed the remainder of his life in retirement. Pope settleddown to translating Homer, and took up his abode at Twickenham, outsidethe exciting and noisy London world in which the poor invalid had beenjostled. Addison soared into the loftier regions of politics andmarried his Countess, and ceased to preside at Buttons'. Steele held onfor a time, but in declining prosperity and diminished literaryactivity, till his retirement to Wales. No one appeared to fill the gapsthus made in the ranks either of the Whigs' or the Tories' section ofliterature. The change was obviously connected with the systematicdevelopment of the party system. Swift bitterly denounced Walpole forhis indifference to literature! 'Bob the poet's foe' was guided by othermotives in disposing of his patronage. Places in the Customs were nolonger to be given to writers of plays or complimentary epistles inverse, or even to promising young politicians, but to members ofparliament or the constituents in whom they were interested. Theplacemen, who were denounced as one of the great abuses of the time, were rewarded for voting power not for literary merit. The patron, therefore, was disappearing; though one or two authors, such as Congreveand Gay, might be still petted by the nobility; and Young somehow got apension out of Walpole, probably through Bubb Dodington, the veryquestionable parson who still wished to be a Mæcenas. Meanwhile therewas a compensation. The bookseller was beginning to supersede thepatron. Tonson and Lintot were making fortunes; the first Longman wasfounding the famous firm which still flourishes; and the career of thedisreputable and piratical Curll shows that at least the demand formiscellaneous literature was growing. The anecdotes of the misery ofauthors, of the translators who lay three in a bed in Curll's garret, ofSamuel Boyse, who had reduced his clothes to a single blanket, andSavage sleeping on a bulk, are sometimes adduced to show that literaturewas then specially depressed. But there never was a time when authors ofdissolute habits were not on the brink of starvation, and theauthorities of the Literary Fund could give us contemporaryillustrations of the fact. The real inference is, I take it, that thedemand which was springing up attracted a great many impecuniouspersons, who became the drudges of the rising class of booksellers. Nodoubt the journalist was often in a degrading position. The press wasactive in all political struggles. The great men, Walpole, Bolingbroke, and Pulteney, wrote pamphlets or contributed papers to the _Craftsman_, while they employed inferior scribes to do the drudgery. Walpole paidlarge sums to the 'Gazetters, ' whom Pope denounces; and men likeAmherst of the _Craftsman_ or Gordon of the _Independent Whig_, carriedon the ordinary warfare. The author by profession was beginning to berecognised. Thomson and Mallet came up from Scotland during this periodto throw themselves upon literature; Ralph, friend of Franklin andcollaborator of Fielding, came from New England; and Johnson wasattracted from the country to become a contributor to the _Gentleman'sMagazine_, started by Cave in 1731--an event which marked a newdevelopment of periodical literature. Though no one would then advise ayoung man who could do anything else to trust to authorship (it would berash to give such advice now) the new career was being opened. Therewere hack authors of all varieties. The successful playwright gained areal prize in the lottery; and translations, satires, and essays on the_Spectator_ model enabled the poor drudge to make both ends meet, thoughtoo often in bondage to his employer to be, as I take it, better offthan in the previous period, when the choice lay between risking thepillory and selling yourself as a spy. 

Before considering the effect produced under the changed conditions, Imust note briefly the intellectual position. The period was that of theculmination of the deist controversy. In the previous period therationalism of which Locke was the mouthpiece represented the dominanttendency. It was generally held on all sides that there was a religionof nature, capable of purely rational demonstration. The problemremained as to its relation to the revealed religion and the establishedcreed. Locke himself was a sincere Christian, though he reduced thedogmatic element to a minimum. Some of his disciples, however, becamefreethinkers in the technical sense, and held that revelation wasneedless, and that in point of fact no supernatural revelation had beenmade. The orthodox, on the other hand, while admitting or declaring thatfaith should be founded on reason, and that reason could establish a'religion of nature, ' admitted in various ways that a supernaturalrevelation was an essential corollary or a useful addition to the simplerational doctrine. The controversies which arose upon this issue, afterbeing carried on very vigorously for a time, caused less interest astime went on, and were beginning to die out at the end of this period. It is often said in explanation that deism or the religion of nature, asthen understood, was too vague and colourless a system to have anystrong vitality. It faded into a few abstract logical propositions whichhad no relation to fact, and led to the optimistic formula, 'Whateveris, is right, ' which could in the long-run satisfy no one with anystrong perception of the darker elements of the world and human nature. This view may be emphasised by the most remarkable writings of theperiod. Butler's _Analogy_ (1736) has been regarded by many even of hisstrongest opponents as triumphant against the deistical optimism, andcertainly emphasises the side of things to which that optimism is blind. Hume's _Treatise of Human Nature_, at the end of the period (1739), uttered the sceptical revolution which destroys the base of thedeistical system. Another writer is notable: William Law's _SeriousCall_ is one of the books which has made a turning-point in many men'slives. It specially affected Samuel Johnson and John Wesley, and many ofthose who sympathised more or less with Wesley's movement. Law wasdriven by his sense of the aspects of the rationalist theories to adopta different position. He became a follower of Behmen, and his mysticismended by repelling the thoroughly practical Wesley, as indeed mysticismin general seems to be uncongenial to the English mind. Law's positionshows a difficulty which was felt by others. It means that while heholds that religion must be in the highest sense 'reasonable' it cannotbe (as another author put it) 'founded upon argument. ' Faith must beidentified with the inner light, the direct voice of God to man, whichappeals to the soul, and is not built upon syllogisms or allowed todepend upon the result of historical criticism. This view, I need hardlysay, is opposed to the whole rationalist theory, whether of the deist orthe orthodox variety: it was so opposed that it could find scarcely anysympathy at the time; and for that reason it indicates onecharacteristic of the contemporary thought. To omit the mystical elementis to be cold and unsatisfactory in religious philosophy, and to beradically prosaic and unpoetical in the sphere of literature. Englishmencould never become mystics in the technical sense, but they werebeginning to be discontented with the bare logical system of thereligion of nature. They were ready for some utterance of the emotionaland imaginative element in religion and philosophy which was left out ofaccount by the wits and rationalists. I do not myself believe that theintellectual weakness of abstract deism gives a sufficient explanationof its decay. In fact, as accepted by Rousseau and by some of hisEnglish followers, it could ally itself with the ardent revolutionaryenthusiasm which was to be the marked peculiarity of the latter part ofthe century. We must add another consideration. Locke and hiscontemporaries had laid down political and religious principles which, if logically developed, would lead to the revolutionary doctrines of1789. They did not develop them, and mainly, I take it, because thepractical application excited no strong feeling. The spark did not findfuel ready to be lighted. The political and social conditions supply asufficient explanation of the indifference. People were practicallycontent with the existing order in Church and State. The deistcontroversies did not reach the enormous majority of the nation, whowent quietly about their business in the old paths. The orthodoxthemselves were so rationalistic in principle that the whole discussionseemed to turn upon non-essential points. But moreover the Church was sothoroughly subordinated to the laity; it was so much a part of theregular comfortable system of things; so little able or inclined to setup as an independent power claiming special authority and enforcingdiscipline, that it excited no hostility. Parson and squire were part ofthe regular system which could not be attacked without upsetting thewhole system; and there was as yet no general discontent with thatsystem, or, indeed, any disposition whatever to reconstruct themachinery which was working so quietly and so thoroughly in accordancewith the dumb instincts of the overwhelming majority. 

Now let us pass to the literary manifestation of this order. Theliterary society, as it existed under Queen Anne, had been broken up;two or three of the men who had already made their mark continued theiractivity, especially Pope and Swift. Swift, however, was living apartfrom the world, though he was still to come to the front on more thanone remarkable occasion. Pope, meanwhile, became the acknowledgeddictator. The literary movement may be called after Pope, as distinctlyas the political after Walpole. He established his dynasty so thoroughlythat in later days the attempt to upset him was regarded as a daringrevolution. What was Pope? Poet or not, for his title to the name hasbeen disputed, he had one power or weakness in which he has scarcelybeen rivalled. No writer, that is, reflects so clearly and completelythe spirit of his own day. His want of originality means the extreme andeven morbid sensibility which enabled him to give the fullest utteranceto the ideas of his class, and of the nation, so far as the nation wasreally represented by the class. But the literary class was goingthrough a process of differentiation, as the alliance of authors andstatesmen broke up. Pope represents mainly the aristocratic movement. Hehad become independent--a fact of which he was a little too proud--andmoved on the most familiar terms with the great men of the age. The Toryleaders were, of course, his special friends; but in later days hebecame a friend of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and of the politicianswho broke off from Walpole; while even with Walpole he was on terms ofcivility. His poems give a long catalogue of the great men of whoseintimacy he was so proud. Besides Bolingbroke, his 'guide, philosopher, and friend, ' he counts up nearly all the great men of his time. Somersand Halifax, and Granville and Congreve, Oxford and Atterbury, who hadencouraged his first efforts; Pulteney, Chesterfield, Argyll, Wyndham, Cobham, Bathurst, Peterborough, Queensberry, who had become friends inlater years, receive the delicate compliments which imply his excusablepride in their alliance. Pope, therefore, may be considered from onepoint of view as the authorised interpreter of the upper circle, whichthen took itself to embody the highest cultivation of the nation. We mayappreciate Pope's poetry by comparing it with an independentmanifestation of their morality. The most explicit summary of thegeneral tone of the class-morality may, I think, be gathered fromChesterfield's _Letters_. Though written at a later period, they sum upthe lesson he has imbibed from his experience at this time. Chesterfieldwas no mere fribble or rake. He was a singularly shrewd, impartialobserver of life, who had studied men at first hand as well as frombooks. His letters deal with the problem: What are the conditions ofsuccess in public life? He treats it in the method of Machiavelli; thatis to say, he inquires what actually succeeds, not what ought tosucceed. An answer to that question given by a man of great ability isalways worth studying. Even if it should appear that success in thisworld is not always won by virtue, the fact should be recognised, though we should get rid of the conclusion that virtue, when anencumbrance to success, should be discarded. Chesterfield's answer, however, is not simply cynical. His pupil is to study men and politicsthoroughly; to know the constitutions of all European states, to readthe history of modern times so far as it has a bearing upon business; tobe thoroughly well informed as to the aims of kings and courts; tounderstand financial and diplomatic movements; briefly, as far as wasthen possible, to be an incarnate blue-book. He was to study literatureand appreciate art, though he was carefully to avoid the excess whichmakes the pedant or the virtuoso. He was to cultivate a good style inwriting and speaking, and even to learn German. Chesterfield's prophecyof a revolution in France (though, I fancy, a little overpraised) showsat least that he was a serious observer of political phenomena. Butbesides these solid attainments, the pupil, we know, is to study theGraces. The excessive insistence upon this is partly due to thepeculiarities of his hearer and his own quaint illusion that the way toput a man at his ease is to be constantly insisting upon his hopelessawkwardness. The theory is pushed to excess when he says thatMarlborough and Pitt succeeded by the Graces, not by supreme businesscapacity or force of character; and argues from recent examples that afool may succeed by dint of good manners, while a man of ability withoutthem must be a failure. The exaggeration illustrates the position. Thegame of politics, that is, has become mainly personal. The diplomatistmust succeed by making himself popular in courts, and the politician bywinning popularity in the House of Commons. Social success--that is, thepower of making oneself agreeable to the ruling class--is the essentialpre-condition to all other success. The statesman does not make himselfknown as the advocate of great principles when no great principles areat stake, and the ablest man of business cannot turn his abilities toaccount unless he commends himself to employers who themselves are toogood and great to be bothered with accounts. You must first of all beacceptable to your environment; and the environment means the upper tenthousand who virtually govern the world. The social qualities, therefore, come into the foreground. Undoubtedly this implies a cynicaltone. You can't respect the victims of your cajolery. Chesterfield'sfavourite author is Rochefoucauld of whom (not the Bible) his son is toread a chapter every day. Men, that is, are selfish. Happily also theyare silly, and can be flattered into helping you, little as they maycare for you. 'Wriggle yourself into power' he says more than once. Thatis especially true of women, of whom he always speaks with the truearistocratic contempt. A man of sense will humour them and flatter them;he will never consult them seriously, nor really trust them, but he willmake them believe that he does both. They are invaluable as tools, though contemptible in themselves. This, of course, represents the tonetoo characteristic of the epicurean British nobleman. Yet with all thiscynicism, Chesterfield's morality is perfectly genuine in its way. Hehas the sense of honour and the patriotic feeling of his class. He hasthe good nature which is compatible with, and even congenial to, acertain cynicism. He is said to have achieved the very unusual successof being an admirable Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. In fact he had theintellectual vigour which implies a real desire for good administration, less perhaps from purely philanthropic motives than from respect forefficiency. 

 'For forms of government let fools contest Whate'er is best administered, is best, '

says Pope, and that was Chesterfield's view. Like Frederick of Prussia, whom he admires above all rulers, he might not be over-scrupulous in hispolicy, but wishes the machinery for which he is responsible to be inthoroughly good working order. He most thoroughly sees the folly, if hedoes not sufficiently despise the motives, of the lower order ofpoliticians to whom bribery and corruption represented the onlypolitical forces worth notice. In practice he might be forced to usesuch men, but he sees them to be contemptible, and appreciates themischiefs resulting from their rule. 

The development of this morality in the aristocratic class, which wasstill predominant although the growing importance of the House ofCommons was tending to shift the centre of political gravity to a lowerpoint, is, I think, sufficiently intelligible to be taken for granted. Pope, I have said, represents the literary version. The problem, then, is how this view of life is to be embodied in poetry. One answer is the_Essay on Man_, in which Pope versified the deism which he learned fromBolingbroke, and which was characteristic of the upper circlegenerally. I need not speak of its shortcomings; didactic poetry of thatkind is dreary enough, and the smart couplets often offend one's taste. I may say that here and there Pope manages to be really impressive, andto utter sentiments which really ennobled the deist creed; the aversionto narrow superstition; to the bigotry which 'dealt damnation round theland'; and the conviction that the true religion must correspond to acosmopolitan humanity. I remember hearing Carlyle quote with admirationthe Universal Prayer--

 'Father of all, in every age, In every clime adored, By Saint, by Savage, and by Sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord, '

and it is the worthy utterance of one good legacy which the deistbequeathed to posterity. Pope himself was alarmed when he discoveredthat he had slipped unawares into heterodoxy. His creed was notcongenial to the average mind, though it was to that of his immediatecircle. Meanwhile, his most characteristic and successful work was of adifferent order. The answer, in fact, to the problem which I have juststated, is that the only kind of poetry that was congenial to hisenvironment was satire--if satire can be called poetry. Pope's satires, the 'Epistle to Arbuthnot, ' the 'Epilogue, ' and some of the 'Imitationsof Horace, ' represent his best and most lasting achievement. There hegives the fullest expression to the general sentiment in the mostappropriate form. His singular command of language, and, within his ownlimits, of versification, was turned to account by conscientious andunceasing labour in polishing his style. Particular passages, like thefamous satire upon Addison, have been slowly elaborated; he has broodedover them for years; and, if the result of such methods is sometimes amosaic rather than a continuous current of discourse, the extraordinarybrilliance of some passages has made them permanently interesting andenriched our literature with many proverbial phrases. The art wasnaturally cultivated and its results appreciated in the circle formed bysuch men as Congreve, Bolingbroke, and Chesterfield and the like, bywhom witty conversation was cultivated as a fine art. Chesterfield tellsus that he never spoke without trying to express himself as well aspossible; and Pope carries out the principle in his poetry. The thoroughpolish has preserved the numerous phrases, still familiar, which havesurvived the general neglect of his work. Pope indeed manages tointroduce genuine poetry, as in his famous compliments or his passageabout his mother, in which we feel that he is really speaking from hisheart. But no doubt Atterbury gave him judicious (if not very Christian)advice, when he told him to stick to the vein of the Addison verses. Themain topic of the satires is a denunciation of an age when, as he putsit, 'Not to be corrupted is the shame. '

He ascribes his own indignation to the 'strong antipathy of good tobad, ' which is a satisfactory explanation to himself. But he was stillinterpreting the general sentiment and expressing the general discontentcaused by the Walpole system. His friends, Bolingbroke and Wyndham, andthe whole opposition, partially recruited from Walpole's supporters, were insisting upon the same theme. If, as I have said, some of themwere really sincere in recognising the evil, and, like Bolingbroke inthe _Patriot King_, trying to ascertain its source--we are troubled inthis even by the doubt as to whether they objected to corruption or onlyto the corrupt influence of their antagonists. But Pope, as a poet, living outside the political circle, can take the denunciations quiteseriously and be not only pointed but really dignified. He sincerelybelieves that vice can be seriously discouraged by lashing at it withepigrams. So far, he represented a general feeling of the literaryclass, explained in various ways by such men as Thomson, Fielding, Glover, and Johnson, who were, from very different points of view, inopposition to Walpole. Satire can only flourish under some suchconditions as then existed. It supposes, among other things, theexistence of a small cultivated class, which will fully appreciate thepersonalities, the dexterity of insinuation, and the cutting sarcasmwhich gives the spice to much of Pope's satire. Young, a singularlyclever writer, was eclipsed by Pope because he kept to denoting generaltypes and was not intimate with the actors on the social stage. Johnson, still more of an outsider, wrote a most effective and sonorous poem withthe help of Juvenal; but it becomes a moral disquisition upon humannature which has not the special sting and sparkle of Pope. No latersatirist has approached Pope, and the art has now become obsolete, or isadopted merely as a literary amusement. One obvious reason is theabsence of the peculiar social backing which composed Pope's audienceand supplied him with his readers. 

The growing sense that there was something wrong about the politicalsystem which Pope turned to account was significant of coming changes. The impression that the evil was entirely due to Walpole personally wasone of the natural illusions of party warfare, and the disease was notextirpated when the supposed cause was removed. The most memorableembodiment of the sentiment was Swift. The concentrated scorn ofcorruption in the _Drapier's Letters_ was followed by the intensemisanthropy of _Gulliver's Travels_. The singular way in which Swiftblends personal aversion with political conviction, and the strangehumour which conceals the misanthropist under a superficial playfulness, veils to some extent his real aim. But Swift showed with unequalledpower and in an exaggerated form the conviction that there was somethingwrong in the social order, which was suggested by the conditions of thetime and was to bear fruit in later days. Satire, however, is by itsnature negative; it does not present a positive ideal, and tends todegenerate into mere hopeless pessimism. Lofty poetry can only springfrom some inner positive enthusiasm. 

I turn to another characteristic of the literary movement. I have calledattention to the fact that while the Queen Anne writers were never tiredof appealing to nature, they came to be considered as prematurely'artificial. ' The commonest meaning of 'natural' is that in which it isidentified with 'normal, ' We call a thing natural when its existenceappears to us to be a matter of course, which again may simply mean thatwe are so accustomed to certain conditions that we do not remember thatthey are really exceptional. We take ourselves with all ourpeculiarities to be the 'natural' type or standard. An English travellerin France remarked that it was unnatural for soldiers to be dressed inblue; and then, remembering certain British cases, added, 'except, indeed, for the Artillery or the Blue Horse. ' The English model, withall its variations, appeared to him to be ordained by Nature. Thisunconscious method of usurping a general name so as to cover a generalmeaning produces many fallacies. In any case, however, it was of theessence of Pope's doctrine that we should, as he puts it, 'Look throughNature up to Nature's God. ' God, that is, is known through Nature, if itwould not be more correct to say that God and Nature are identical. ThisNature often means the world as not modified by human action, andtherefore sharing the divine workmanship unspoilt by man's interference. Thus in the common phrase, the 'love of Nature' is generally taken tomean the love of natural scenery, of sea and sky and mountains, whichare not altered or alterable by any human art. Yet it is said the wantof any such love describes one of the most obvious deficiencies inPope's poetry, of which Wordsworth so often complained. His famouspreface asserts the complete absence of any imagery from Nature in thewritings of the time. It was, however, at the period of which I amspeaking that a change was taking place which was worth considering. 

One cause is obvious. The Wit utters the voice of the town. He agreedwith the gentleman who preferred the smell of a flambeau in St. JamesStreet to any abundance of violet and sweetbriar. But, as communicationsimproved between town and country, the separation between the taste ofclasses became less marked. The great nobleman had always been in partan exalted squire, and had a taste for field-sports as well as for theopera. Bolingbroke and Walpole are both instances in point. Sir Roger deCoverley came up to town more frequently than his ancestors, but the_Spectator_ recorded his visits as those of a simple rustic. After thepeace, the country gentleman begins regularly to visit the Continent. The 'grand tour' mostly common in the preceding century becomes a normalfact of the education of the upper classes. The foundation of theDilettante Club in 1734 marks the change. The qualifications, saysHorace Walpole, were drunkenness and a visit to Italy. The founders ofit seem to have been jovial young men who had met each other abroad, where, with obsequious tutors and out of sight of domestic authority, they often learned some very queer lessons. But many of them learnedmore, and by degrees the Dilettante Club took not only to encouragingthe opera in England, but to making really valuable archæologicalresearches in Greece and elsewhere. The intelligent youth had greatopportunities of mixing in the best foreign society, and began to bringhome the pictures which adorn so many English country houses; to talkabout the 'correggiosity of Correggio'; and in due time to patroniseReynolds and Gainsborough. The traveller began to take some interesteven in the Alps, wrote stanzas to the 'Grande Chartreuse, ' admiredSalvator Rosa, and even visited Chamonix. Another characteristic changeis more to the present purpose. A conspicuous mark of the time was agrowing taste for gardening. The taste has, I suppose, existed eversince our ancestors were turned out of the Garden of Eden. Milton'sdescription of that place of residence, and Bacon's famous essay, andCowley's poems addressed to the great authority Evelyn, and most of allperhaps Maxwell's inimitable description of the very essence of garden, may remind us that it flourished in the seventeenth century. It isneedless to say in Oxford how beautiful an old-fashioned garden mightbe. But at this time a change was taking place in the canons of taste. Temple in a well-known essay had praised the old-fashioned garden andhad remarked how the regularity of English plantations seemed ridiculousto--of all people in the world--the Chinese. By the middle of theeighteenth century there had been what is called a 'reaction, ' and theEnglish garden, which was called 'natural, ' was famous and oftenimitated in France. It is curious to remark how closely this taste wasassociated with the group of friends whom Pope has celebrated. Thefirst, for example, of the four 'Moral Epistles, ' is addressed toCobham, who laid out the famous garden at Stowe, in which 'CapabilityBrown, ' the most popular landscape gardener of the century, was broughtup; the third is addressed to Bathurst, an enthusiastic gardener, whohad shown his skill at his seat of Richings near Colnbrook; and thefourth to Burlington, whose house and gardens at Chiswick were laid outby Kent, the famous landscape gardener and architect--Brown'spredecessor. In the same epistle Pope ridicules the formality ofChandos' grounds at Canons. A description of his own garden includes thefamiliar lines

 'Here St. John mingles with my friendly bowl The feast of reason and the flow of soul, And he (Peterborough) whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines Now forms my quincunx and now ranks my vines, Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain. '

Pope's own garden was itself a model. 'Pope, ' says Horace Walpole, 'hadtwisted and twirled and rhymed and harmonised his little five acrestill it appeared two or three sweet little lawns opening and openingbeyond one another, and the whole surrounded with thick impenetrablewoods. ' The taste grew as the century advanced. Now one impulse towardsthe new style is said to have come from articles in the _Spectator_ byAddison and in the _Guardian_ by Pope, ridiculing the old-fashioned modeof clipping trees, and so forth. Nature, say both, is superior to art, and the man of genius, as Pope puts it, is the first to perceive thatall art consists of 'imitation and study of nature. ' Horace Walpole inhis essay upon gardening remarks a point which may symbolise theprinciple. The modern style, he says, sprang from the invention of theha-ha by Bridgeman, one of the first landscape gardeners. The 'ha-ha'meant that the garden, instead of being enclosed by a wall, was laid outso as to harmonise with the surrounding country, from which it was onlyseparated by an invisible fence. That is the answer to the problem; isit not a solecism for a lover of gardens to prefer nature to art? Agarden is essentially a product of art? and supplants the moor anddesert made by unassisted nature. The love of Nature as understood in alater period, by Byron for example, went to this extreme, in words atleast, and becomes misanthropical in admiring the savage for its ownsake. But the landscape gardener only meant that his art must be in somesense subordinate to nature; that he must not shut out the wider scenerybut include it in his designs. He was apt to look upon mountains as abackground to parks, as Telford thought that rivers were created tosupply canals. The excellent Gilpin, who became an expounder of what hecalls 'the theory of the picturesque, ' travelled on the Wye in the sameyear as Gray; and amusingly criticises nature from this point of view. Nature, he says, works in a cold and singular style of composition, buthas the merit of never falling into 'mannerism. ' Nature, that is, is asublime landscape gardener whose work has to be accepted, and to whomthe gardener must accommodate himself. A quaint instance of this theorymay be found in the lecture which Henry Tilney in _Mansfield Park_delivers to Catherine Morland. In Horace Walpole's theory, the evolutionof the ha-ha, means that man and nature, the landowner and the country, are gradually forming an alliance, and it comes to the same thingwhether one or the other assimilates his opposite. 

Briefly, this means one process by which the so-called love of naturewas growing; it meant better roads and inns; the gradual reflux of towninto country; and the growing sense already expressed by Cowley andMarvell, that overcrowded centres of population have theirinconveniences, and that the citizen should have his periods ofcommunion with unsophisticated nature. Squire and Wit are each learningto appreciate each other's tastes. The tourist is developed, and begins, as Gibbon tells us, to 'view the glaciers' now that he can view themwithout personal inconvenience. This, again, suggests that there isnothing radically new in the so-called love of nature. Any number ofpoets from Chaucer downwards may be cited to show that men were neverinsensible to natural beauty of scenery; to the outburst of spring, orthe bloom of flowers, or the splendours of storms and sunsets. Theindifference to nature of the Pope school was, so far, the temporarycomplacency of the new population focused in the metropolitan area intheir own enlightenment and their contempt for the outside rustic. Thelove of field-sports was as strong as ever in the squire, and as soon ashe began to receive some of the intellectual irradiation from the townWit, he began to express the emotions which never found clearerutterance than in Walton's _Compleat Angler_. But there is acharacteristic difference. With the old poets nature is in thebackground; it supplies the scenery for human action and is not itselfconsciously the object; they deal with concrete facts, with the delightof sport or rustic amusements: and they embody their feelings in the oldconventions; they converse with imaginary shepherds: with Robin Hood orallegorical knights in romantic forests, who represent a love of naturebut introduce description only as a set-off to the actors in masques orfestivals. In Pope's time we have the abstract or metaphysical deityNature, who can be worshipped with a distinct appreciation. Theconventions have become obsolete, and if used at all, the poet himselfis laughing in his sleeve. The serious aim of the poet is to give aphilosophy of human nature; and the mere description of natural objectsstrikes him as silly unless tacked to a moral. Who could take offence, asks Pope, referring to his earlier poems, 'when pure description heldthe place of sense'? The poet, that is, who wishes to be 'sensible'above all, cannot condescend to give mere catalogues of trees andrivers and mountains. Nature, however, is beginning to put in a claimfor attention, even in the sense in which Nature means the materialworld. In one sense this is a natural corollary from the philosophy ofthe time and of that religion of nature which it implied. Pope himselfgives one version of it in the _Essay on Man_; and can expatiateeloquently upon the stars and upon the animal world. But the poem itselfis essentially constructed out of a philosophical theory too purelyargumentative to lend itself easily to poetry. A different, thoughallied, way of dealing with the subject appears elsewhere. If Popelearned mainly from Bolingbroke, he was also influenced by Shaftesburyof the _Characteristics_. I note, but cannot here insist upon, Shaftesbury's peculiar philosophical position. He inherited to someextent the doctrine of the Cambridge Platonists and repudiated thesensationalist doctrine of Locke and the metaphysical method of Clarke. He had a marked influence on Hutcheson, Butler, and the common-sensephilosophers of his day. For us, it is enough to say that he worshipsNature but takes rather the æsthetic than the dialectical point of view. The Good, the True, and the Beautiful are all one, as he constantlyinsists, and the universe impresses us not as a set of mechanicalcontrivances but as an artistic embodiment of harmony. He thereforerestores the universal element which is apt to pass out of sight inPope's rhymed arguments. He indulges his philosophical enthusiasm inwhat he calls _The Moralists, a Rhapsody_. It culminates in a prose hymnto a 'glorious Nature, supremely fair and sovereignly good; all-lovingand all-lovely, all divine, ' which ends by a survey of the differentclimates, where even in the moonbeams and the shades of the forests wefind intimations of the mysterious being who pervades the universe. Alove of beauty was, in this sense, a thoroughly legitimate developmentof the 'Religion of Nature. ' Akenside in his philosophical poem _ThePleasures of Imagination_, written a little later, professed himself tobe a disciple of Shaftesbury, and his version supplied many quotationsfor Scottish professors of philosophy. Henry Brooke's _UniversalBeauty_, a kind of appendix to Pope's essay, is upon the same theme, though he became rather mixed in physiological expositions, whichsuggested, it is said, Darwin's _Botanic Garden_. The religioussentiment embodied in his _Fool of Quality_ charmed Wesley and wasenthusiastically admired by Kingsley. Thomson, however, best illustratesthis current of sentiment. The fine 'Hymn of Nature' appended to the_Seasons_, is precisely in the same vein as Shaftesbury's rhapsody. Thedescriptions of nature are supposed to suggest the commentary embodiedin the hymn. He still describes the sea and sky and mountains with themore or less intention of preaching a sermon upon them. That is thejustification of the 'pure description' which Pope condemned inprinciple, and which occupies the larger part of the poem. Thomson, whenhe wrote the sermons, was still fresh from Edinburgh and fromTeviotdale. He had a real eye for scenery, and describes fromobservation. The English Wits had not, it seems, annexed Scotland, andThomson had studied Milton and Spenser without being forced to lookthrough Pope's spectacles. Still he cannot quite trust himself. He isstill afraid, and not without reason, that pure description will fallinto flat prose, and tries to 'raise his diction'--in the phrase of theday--by catching something of the Miltonic harmony and by speaking offish as 'finny tribes' and birds as 'the feathered people. ' The fact, however, that he could suspend his moralising to give realisticdescriptions at full length, and that they became the most interestingparts of the poem, shows a growing interest in country life. Thesupremacy of the town Wit is no longer unquestioned; and there is anaudience for the plain direct transcripts of natural objects for whichthe Wit had been too dignified and polished. Thomson had thus the meritof representing a growing sentiment--and yet he has not quite solved theproblem. His philosophy is not quite fused with his observation. To make'Nature' really interesting you must have a touch of Wordsworthianpantheism and of Shelley's 'pathetic fallacy. ' Thomson's facts and hiscommentary lie in separate compartments. To him, apparently, thephilosophy is more important than the simple description. Hismasterpiece was to be the didactic and now forgotten poem on _Liberty_. It gives an interesting application; for there already we have thesentiment which was to become more marked in later years. 'Liberty'crosses the Alps and they suggest a fine passage on the beauty ofmountains. Nature has formed them as a rampart for the homely republicswhich worship 'plain Liberty'; and are free from the corruption typifiedby Walpole. That obviously is the germ of the true Rousseau version ofNature worship. On the whole, however, Nature, as interpreted by theauthor of 'Rule Britannia, ' is still very well satisfied with theBritish Constitution and looks upon the Revolution of 1688 as the avatarof the true goddess. 'Nature, ' that is, has not yet come to condemncivilisation in general as artificial and therefore corrupt. As inpractice, a lover of Nature did not profess to prefer the wilderness tofields, and looked upon mountains rather as a background to thenobleman's park than as a shelter for republics; so in politics itreflected no revolutionary tendency but rather included the true Britishsystem which has grown up under its protection. Nature has taken tolecturing, but she only became frankly revolutionary with Rousseau andmisanthropic with Byron. 

I must touch one more characteristic. Pope, I have said, represents thearistocratic development of literature. Meanwhile the purely plebeiansociety was growing, and the toe of the clown beginning to gall the kibeof the courtier. Pope's 'war with the dunces' was the historical symptomof this most important social development. The _Dunciad_, which, whatever its occasional merits, one cannot read without spasms both ofdisgust and moral disapproval, is the literary outcome. Pope's morbidsensibility perverts his morals till he accepts the worst ofaristocratic prejudices and treats poverty as in itself criminal. It ledhim, too, to attack some worthy people, and among others the 'earless'Defoe. Defoe's position is most significant. A journalist of supremeability, he had an abnormally keen eye for the interesting. No one couldfeel the pulse of his audience with greater quickness. He had alreadylearned by inference that nothing interests the ordinary reader so muchas a straightforward narrative of contemporary facts. He added theremark that it did not in the least matter whether the facts had or hadnot happened; and secondly, that it saved a great deal of trouble tomake your facts instead of finding them. The result was the inimitable_Robinson Crusoe_, which was, in that sense, a simple application ofjournalistic methods, not a conscious attempt to create a new variety ofnovel. Alexander Selkirk had very little to tell about his remarkableexperience; and so Defoe, instead of confining himself like the ordinaryinterviewer to facts, proceeded to tell a most circumstantial andelaborate lie--for which we are all grateful. He was doing far more thanhe meant. Defoe, as the most thorough type of the English class towhich he belonged, could not do otherwise than make his creation aperfect embodiment of his own qualities. _Robinson Crusoe_ became, weknow, a favourite of Rousseau, and has supplied innumerableillustrations to writers on Political Economy. One reason is that Crusoeis the very incarnation of individualism: thrown entirely upon his ownresources, he takes the position with indomitable pluck; adapts himselfto the inevitable as quietly and sturdily as may be; makes himselfthoroughly at home in a desert island, and, as soon as he meets anative, summarily annexes him, and makes him thoroughly useful. He comesup smiling after many years as if he had been all the time in a shop inCheapside without a hair turned. This exemplary person not only embodiesthe type of middle class Briton but represents his most romanticaspirations. In those days the civilised world was still surrounded bythe dim mysterious regions, where geographers placed elephants insteadof towns, but where the adventurous Briton was beginning to push his wayinto strange native confines and to oust the wretched foreigner, Dutch, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, who had dared to anticipate him. Crusoe is the voice of the race which was to be stirred by the story ofJenkins' ear and lay the foundation of the Empire. Meanwhile, as aliterary work, it showed most effectually the power of homely realism. There is no bother about dignity or attempt to reveal the eloquence ofthe polished Wit. It is precisely the plain downright English vernacularwhich is thoroughly intelligible to everybody who is capable of reading. The Wit, too, as Swift sufficiently proved, could be a consummate masterof that kind of writing on occasion, and Gulliver probably showedsomething to Crusoe. But for us the interest is the development of a newclass of readers, who won't bother about canons of taste or care forskill in working upon the old conventional methods, but can beprofoundly interested in a straightforward narrative adapted to thesimplest understandings. Pope's contempt for the dunces meant that thelower classes were the objects of supreme contempt to the aristocraticcircle, whose culture they did not share. But Defoe was showing in a newsense of the word the advantage of an appeal to Nature; for the truelife and vigour of the nation was coming to be embodied in the classwhich was spontaneously developing its own ideals and beginning toregard the culture of the upper circle as artificial in theobjectionable sense. Outside the polished circle of wits we have themiddle-class which is beginning to read, and will read, what it reallylikes without bothering about Aristotle or M. Bossu: as, in the otherdirection, the assimilation between town and country is incidentallysuggesting a wider range of topics, and giving a new expression toconditions which had for some time been without expression. 

IV

(1739-1763)

I am now to speak of the quarter of a century which succeeded the fallof Walpole, and includes two singularly contrasted periods. Walpole'sfall meant the accession to power of the heterogeneous body of statesmenwhose virtuous indignation had been raised by his corrupt practices. Some of them, as Carteret, Pulteney, Chesterfield, were men of greatability; but, after a series of shifting combinations and personalintrigues, the final result was the triumph of the Pelhams--thegrotesque Duke of Newcastle and his brother, who owed their successmainly to skill in the art of parliamentary management. The oppositionhad ousted Walpole by taking advantage of the dumb instinct whichimpelled us to go to war with Spain; and distracted by the interests ofHanover and the balance of power we had plunged into that complicatedseries of wars which lasted for some ten years, and passes all powersof the ordinary human intellect to understand or remember. For whatparticular reason Englishmen were fighting at Dettingen or Fontenoy orLauffeld is a question which a man can only answer when he has beenspecially crammed for examination and his knowledge has not begun toooze out; while the abnormal incapacity of our rulers was displayed atthe attack upon Carthagena or during the Pretender's march into England. The history becomes a shifting chaos marked by no definite policy, andthe ship of State is being steered at random as one or other of thecompetitors for rule manages to grasp the helm for a moment. Then afteranother period of aimless intrigues the nation seems to rouse itself;and finding at last a statesman who has a distinct purpose and canappeal to a great patriotic sentiment, takes the leading part in Europe, wins a series of victories, and lays the foundation of the BritishEmpire in America and India. Under Walpole's rule the House of Commonshad become definitely the dominant political body. The minister whocould command it was master of the position. The higher aristocracy arestill in possession of great influence, but they are ceasing to be theadequate representatives of the great political forces. They are in thecomfortable position of having completely established their ownprivileges; and do not see any reason for extending privileges toothers. Success depends upon personal intrigues among themselves andupon a proper manipulation of the Lower House which, though no overtconstitutional change has taken place, is coming to be more decidedlyinfluenced by the interests of the moneyed men and the growing middleclasses. Pitt and Newcastle represent the two classes which are cominginto distinct antagonism. Pitt's power rested upon the general nationalsentiment. 'You have taught me, ' as George II. Said to him, 'to look forthe sense of my people in other places than the House of Commons. ' TheHouse of Commons, that is, should not derive its whole authority fromthe selfish interest of the borough-mongers but from the great outsidecurrent of patriotic sentiment and aspiration. But public opinion wasnot yet powerful enough to support the great minister without analliance with the master of the small arts of intrigue. The generalsentiments of discontent which had been raised by Walpole was thereforebeginning to widen and deepen and to take a different form. The root ofthe evil, as people began to feel, was not in the individual Walpole butin the system which he represented. Brown's _Estimate_ is often noticedin illustration. Brown convinced his readers, as Macaulay puts it, thatthey were a race of cowards and scoundrels, who richly deserved the fatein store for them of being speedily enslaved by their enemies; and theprophecy was published (1757) on the eve of the most glorious war we hadever known. It represents also, as Macaulay observes, the indignationroused by the early failures of the war and the demand that Pitt shouldtake the helm. Brown was a very clever, though not a very profound, writer. A similar and more remarkable utterance had been made some yearsbefore (1749) by the remarkable thinker, David Hartley. The world, hesaid, was in the most critical state ever known. He attributes the evilto the growth of infidelity in the upper classes; their generalimmorality; their sordid self-interest, which was almost the sole motiveof action of the ministers; the contempt for authority of all theirsuperiors; the worldly-mindedness of the clergy and the generalcarelessness as to education. These sentiments are not the mereplatitudes, common to moralists in all ages. They are pointed andemphasised by the state of political and social life in the period. Besides the selfishness and want of principle of the upper classes, onefact upon which Hartley insists is sufficiently familiar. The Church itis obvious had been paralysed. It had no corporate activity; it was inthorough subjection to the aristocracy; the highest preferments were tobe won by courting such men as Newcastle, and not by learning or byactive discharge of duty; and the ordinary parson, though he might bethoroughly respectable and amiable, was dependant upon the squire as hissuperior upon the ministers. He took things easily enough to verifyHartley's remarks. We must infer from later history that a truediagnosis would not have been so melancholy as Hartley supposed. Thenation was not corrupt at the core. It was full of energy; and rapidlydeveloping in many directions. The upper classes, who had gained allthey wanted, were comfortable and irresponsible; not yet seriouslythreatened by agitators; able to carry on a traffic in sinecures andpensions, and demoralised as every corporate body becomes demoralisedwhich has no functions to discharge in proportion to capacities. TheChurch naturally shared the indolence of its rulers and patrons. Hartleyexhorts the clergy to take an example from the energy of the Methodistsinstead of abusing them. Wesley had begun his remarkable missionarycareer in 1738, and the rapid growth of his following is a familiarproof on the one side of the indolence of the established authorities, and on the other of the strength of the demand for reform in classes towhich he appealed. If, that is, the clergy were not up to their duties, Wesley's success shows that there was a strong sense of existing moraland social evils which only required an energetic leader to form apowerful organisation. I need not attempt to inquire into the causes ofthe Wesleyan and Evangelical movement, but must note onecharacteristic--it had not an intellectual but a sound moral origin. Wesley takes his creed for granted, and it was the creed, so far as theyhad one, of the masses of the nation. He is shocked by perjury, drunkenness, corruption, and so forth, but has not seriously to meetscepticism of the speculative variety. If Wesley did not, like theleader of another Oxford movement, feel bound to clear up the logicalbasis of his religious beliefs, he had of course to confront deism, butcould set it down as a mere product of moral indifference. When Hartley, like Butler, speaks of the general unbelief of the day, he was no doubtcorrect within limits. In the upper social sphere the tone wassceptical. Not only Bolingbroke but such men as Chesterfield and Walpolewere indifferent or contemptuous. They were prepared to go withVoltaire's development of the English rationalism. But the Englishsceptic of the upper classes was generally a Gallio. He had no desire topropagate his creed, still less to attack the Church, which was avaluable part of his property; it never occurred to him that scepticismmight lead to a political as well as an ecclesiastical revolution. Voltaire was not intentionally destructive in politics, whatever thereal effect of his teaching; but he was an avowed and bitter enemy ofthe Church and the orthodox creed. Hume, the great English sceptic, wasnot only a Tory in politics but had no desire to affect the popularbelief. He could advise a clergyman to preach the ordinary doctrines, because it was paying far too great a compliment to the vulgar to bepunctilious about speaking the truth to them. A similar indifference ischaracteristic of the whole position. The select classes were to beperfectly convinced that the accepted creed was superstitious; but theywere not for that reason to attack it. To the statesman, as Gibbon wasto point out, a creed is equally useful, true or false; and the Englishclergy, though bound to use orthodox language, were far too well in handto be regarded as possible persecutors. Even in Scotland they made noserious attempt to suppress Hume; he had only to cover his opinions bysome decent professions of belief. One symptom of the general state ofmind is the dying out of the deist controversies. The one great divine, according to Brown's _Estimate_, was Warburton, the colossus, he says, who bestrides the world: and Warburton, whatever else he may have been, was certainly of all divines the one whose argument is most palpablyfictitious, if not absolutely insincere. He marks, however, the tendencyof the argument to become historical. Like a much acuter writer, ConyersMiddleton, he is occupied with the curious problem: how do we reconcilethe admission that miracles never happen with the belief that they oncehappened?--or are the two beliefs reconcilable? That means, is historycontinuous? But it also means that the problems of abstract theologywere passing out of sight, and that speculation was turning to thehistorical and scientific problems. Hartley was expounding theassociation principle which became the main doctrine of the empiricalschool, and Hume was teaching ethics upon the same basis, and turningfrom speculation to political history. The main reason of thisintellectual indifference was the social condition under which thephilosophical theory found no strong current of political discontentwith which to form an alliance. The middle classes, which are nowgrowing in strength and influence, had been indifferent to thediscussions going on above their heads. The more enlightened clergy had, of course, been engaged in the direct controversy, and had adopted akind of mild common-sense rationalism which implied completeindifference to the dogmatic disputes of the preceding century. TheMethodist movement produced a little revival of the Calvinist andArminian controversy. But the beliefs of the great mass of thepopulation were not materially affected: they held by sheer force ofinertia to the old traditions, and still took themselves to be goodorthodox Protestants, though they had been unconsciously more affectedby the permeation of rationalism than they realised. 

So much must be said, because the literary work was being more and moredistinctly addressed to the middle class. The literary profession is nowtaking more of the modern form. Grub Street is rapidly becomingrespectable, and its denizens--as Beauclerk said of Johnson when he gothis pension--will be able to 'purge and live cleanly like gentlemen. 'Johnson's incomparable letter (1755) rejecting Chesterfield's attempt toimpose his patronage, is the familiar indication of the change. Johnsonhad been labouring in the employment of the booksellers, and always, unlike some more querulous authors, declares that they were fair andliberal patrons--though it is true that he had to knock down one of themwith a folio. Other writers of less fame can turn an honest penny byproviding popular literature of the heavier kind. There is a demand for'useful information. ' There was John Campbell, for example, the 'richestauthor, ' said Johnson, who ever grazed 'the common of literature, ' whocontributed to the _Modern Universal History_, the _BiographicaBritannica_, and wrote the _Lives of the Admirals_ and the _PoliticalSurvey of Great Britain_, and innumerable historical and statisticalworks; and the queer adventurer Sir John Hill, who turned out book afterbook with marvellous rapidity and impudence, and is said to have reallyhad some knowledge of botany. The industrious drudges and clevercharlatans could make a respectable income. Smollett is a superiorexample, whose 'literary factory, ' as it has been said, 'was in fullswing' at this period, and who, besides his famous novels, wasjournalist, historian, and author of all work, and managed to keephimself afloat, though he also contrived to exceed his income and wassupported by a number of inferior 'myrmidons' who helped to turn out hishackwork. He describes the author's position in a famous passage in_Humphry Clinker_ (1756). Smollett also started the _Critical Review_ inrivalry to the _Monthly Review_, begun by Griffiths a few years before(1749), and these two were for a long time the only precursors to the_Edinburgh Review_, and marked an advance upon the old _Gentleman'sMagazine_. In other words, we have the beginning of a new tribunal orliterary Star Chamber. The author has not to inquire what is said of hisperformances in the coffee-houses, where the Wits gathered under thepresidency of Addison or Swift. The professional critic has appearedwho will make it his regular business to give an account of all newbooks, and though his reviews are still comparatively meagre and apt tobe mere analyses, it is implied that a kind of public opinion is growingup which will decide upon his merits, and upon which his success orfailure will depend. That means again that the readers to whom he is toappeal are mainly the middle class, who are not very highly cultivated, but who have at any rate reached the point of reading their newspaperand magazine regularly, and buy books enough to make it worth while tosupply the growing demand. The nobleman has ceased to consider thepatronage of authors as any part of his duty, and the tradition whichmade him consider writing poetry as a proper accomplishment is dyingout. Since that time our aristocracy as such has been normallyilliterate. Peers--Byron, for example--have occasionally written books;and more than one person of quality has, like Fox, kept up the interestin classical literature which he acquired at a public school, and addeda charm to his parliamentary oratory. The great man, too, as I havesaid, could take his chance in political writing, and occasionallycondescend to show his skill at an essay of the _Spectator_ model. But acertain contempt for the professional writer is becoming characteristic, even of men like Horace Walpole, who have a real taste for literature. He is inclined to say, as Chesterfield put it in a famous speech, 'We, my lords, may thank Heaven that we have something better than our brainsto depend upon. ' As literature becomes more of a regular profession, your noble wishes to show his independence of anything like a commercialpursuit. Walpole can speak politely to men like Gibbon, and even toHume, who have some claim to be gentlemen as well as authors; but hefeels that he is condescending even to them, and has nothing butcontemptuous aversion for a Johnson, whose claim to considerationcertainly did not include any special refinement. Johnson and his circlehad still an odour of Grub street, which is only to be kept at adistance more carefully because it is in a position of comparativeindependence. Meanwhile, the author himself holds by the authority ofAddison and Pope. They, he still admits for the most part, represent theorthodox church; their work is still taken to be the perfection of art, and the canons which they have handed down have a prestige which makesany dissenter an object of suspicion. Yet as the audience has reallychanged, a certain change also makes itself felt in the substance andthe form of the corresponding literature. 

One remarkable book marks the opening of the period. The first part ofYoung's _Night Thoughts_ appeared in 1742, and the poem at once acquireda popularity which lasted at least through the century. Young had beenmore or less associated with the Addison and Pope circles, in the laterpart of Queen Anne's reign. He had failed to obtain any satisfactoryshare of the patronage which came to some of his fellows. He is still aWit till he has to take orders for a college living as the old Wits'circle is decaying. He tried with little success to get something byattaching himself to some questionable patrons who were induced to carryon the practice, and the want of due recognition left him to the end ofhis life as a man with a grievance. He had tried poetical epistles, andsatires, and tragedies with undeniable success and had shown undeniableability. Yet somehow or other he had not, one may say, emerged from thesecond class till in the _Night Thoughts_ he opened a new vein whichexactly met the contemporary taste. The success was no doubt due to somereally brilliant qualities, but I need not here ask in what precise rankhe should be placed, as an author or a moralist. His significance for usis simple. The _Night Thoughts_, as he tells us, was intended to supplyan omission in Pope's _Essay on Man_. Pope's deistical position excludedany reference to revealed religion, to posthumous rewards and penalties, and expressed an optimistic philosophy which ignored the corruption ofhuman nature. Young represents a partial revolt against the dominationof the Pope circle. He had always been an outsider, and his life atOxford had, you may perhaps hope, preserved his orthodoxy. He writesblank verse, though evidently the blank verse of a man accustomed to the'heroic couplets'; he uses the conventional 'poetic diction'; he strainsafter epigrammatic point in the manner of Pope, and the greater part ofhis poem is an elaborate argumentation to prove the immortality ofman--chiefly by the argument from astronomy. But though so far acceptingthe old method, his success in introducing a new element marks animportant change. He is elaborately and deliberately pathetic; he isalways thinking of death, and calling upon the readers to sympathisewith his sorrows and accept his consolations. The world taken by itselfis, he maintains, a huge lunatic asylum, and the most hideous of sightsis a naked human heart. We are, indeed, to find sufficient consolationfrom the belief in immortality. How far Young was orthodox or logical orreally edifying is a question with which I am not concerned. Theappetite for this strain of melancholy reflection is characteristic. Blair's _Grave_, representing another version of the sentiment, appearedsimultaneously and independently. Blair, like Thomson, living inScotland, was outside the Pope circle of wit, and had studied the oldEnglish authors instead of Pope and Dryden. He negotiated for thepublication of his poem through Watts and Doddridge, each of whom was aneminent interpreter of the religious sentiment of the middle classes. Both wrote hymns still popular, and Doddridge's _Rise and Progress ofReligion in the Soul_ has been a permanently valued manual. The Popeschool had omitted religious considerations, and treated religion as asystem of abstract philosophy. The new class of readers wants somethingmore congenial to the teaching of their favourite ministers andchapels. Young and Blair thoroughly suited them. Wesley admired Young'spoem, and even proposed to bring out an edition. In his _Further Appealto Men of Reason and Religion_, Wesley, like Brown and Hartley, draws upa striking indictment of the manners of the time. He denounces theliberty and effeminacy of the nobility; the widespread immorality; thechicanery of lawyers; the jobbery of charities; the stupidself-satisfaction of Englishmen; the brutality of the Army; theindolence and preferment humbug of the Church--the true cause, as hesays, of the 'contempt for the clergy' which had become proverbial. Hisremedy of course is to be found in a revival of true religion. Heaccepts the general sentiment that the times are out of joint, though hewould seek for a deeper cause than that which was recognised by thepolitical satirist. While Young was weeping at Welwyn, James Hervey wasmeditating among the tombs in Devonshire, and soon afterwards gaveutterance to the result in language inspired by very bad taste, butshowing a love of nature and expressing the 'sentimentalism' which wasthen a new discovery. It is said to have eclipsed Law's _Serious Call_, which I have already mentioned as giving, in admirable literary form, the view of the contemporary world which naturally found favour withreligious thinkers. 

These symptoms indicate the tendencies of the rising class to which theauthor has mainly to address himself. It has ceased to be fullyrepresented by the upper social stratum whose tastes are reflected byPope. No distinct democratic sentiment had yet appeared; thearistocratic order was accepted as inevitable or natural; but there wasa vague though growing sentiment that the rulers are selfish andcorrupt. There is no strong sceptical or anti-religious sentiment; but aspreading conviction that the official pastors are scandalously carelessin supplying the wants of their flocks. The philosophical and literarycanons of the scholar and gentleman have become unsatisfactory; thevulgar do not care for the delicate finish appreciated by yourChesterfield and acquired in the conversations of polite society, andthe indolent scepticism which leads to metaphysical expositions, and isnot allied with any political or social passion, does not appeal tothem. The popular books of the preceding generation had been thedirectly religious books: Baxter's _Saint's Rest_, and the _Pilgrim'sProgress_--despised by the polite but beloved by the popular class inspite of the critics; and among the dissenters such a work as Boston's_Fourfold State_, or in the Church, Law's _Serious Call_. Your politeauthor had ignored the devil, and he plays a part in human affairswhich, as Carlyle pointed out in later days, cannot be permanentlyoverlooked. The old horned and hoofed devil, indeed, for whom Defoe hadstill a weakness, shown in his _History of the Devil_, was becoming alittle incredible; witchcraft was dying out, though Wesley still feltbound to profess some belief in it; and the old Calvinistic dogmatism, though it could produce a certain amount of controversy among theMethodists, had been made obsolete by the growth of rationalism. Stillthe new public wanted something more savoury than its elegant teachershad given; and, if sermons had ceased to be so stimulating as of old, itcould find it in secular moralisers. Defoe, always keenly alive to thegeneral taste, had tried to supply the demand not only by his queer_History of the Devil_ but by appending a set of moral reflections to_Robinson Crusoe_ and other edifying works, which disgusted Charles Lambby their petty tradesman morality, and which hardly represent a verylofty ideal. But the recognised representative of the moralists was theponderous Samuel Johnson. It is hard when reading the _Rambler_ torecognise the massive common sense and deep feeling struggling with theponderous verbiage and elephantine facetiousness; yet it was not only atreasure of wisdom to the learned ladies, Mrs. Chapone, and Mrs. Elizabeth Carter and the like, who were now beginning to appear, but wasreceived, without provoking ridicule, by the whole literary class. _Rasselas_, in spite of its formality, is still a very impressive book. The literary critic may amuse himself with the question how Johnson cameto acquire the peculiar style which imposed upon contemporaries andexcited the ridicule of the next generation. According to Boswell, itwas due to his reading of Sir Thomas Browne, and a kind of reversion tothe earlier period in which the Latinisms of Browne were still natural, when the revolt to simple prose had not begun. Addison, at any rate, asBoswell truly remarks, writes like a 'companion, ' and Johnson like ateacher. He puts on his academical robes to deliver his message tomankind, and is no longer the Wit, echoing the coffee-house talk, butthe moralist, who looks indeed at actual life, but stands well apartand knows many hours of melancholy and hypochondria. He preaches themorality of his time--the morality of Richardson and Young--onlytempered by a hearty contempt for cant, sentimentalism, and allunreality, and expressing his deeper and stronger nature. The style, however acquired, has the idiosyncrasy of the man himself; but I shallhave to speak of the Johnsonian view in the next period, when he becamethe acknowledged literary dictator and expressed one main tendency ofthe period. 

Meanwhile Richardson, as Johnson put it, had been teaching the passionsto move at the command of virtue. In other words, Richardson haddiscovered an incomparably more effective way of preaching a popularsermon. He had begun, as we know, by writing a series of edifyingletters to young women; and expounded the same method in _Pamela_, andafterwards in the famous _Clarissa Harlowe_ and _Sir Charles Grandison_. All his books are deliberate attempts to embody his ideal in modelrepresentatives of the society of his day. He might have taken asuggestion from Bunyan; who besides his great religious allegory and thecurious life of _Mr. Badman_, couched a moral lesson in a descriptionof the actual tradesman of his time. Allegory was now to be supplantedby fiction. The man was to take the place of the personified virtue andvice. Defoe had already shown the power of downright realisticstorytelling; and Richardson perhaps learnt something from him when hewas drawing his minute and vivid portraits of the people who might atany rate pass for being realities. I must take for granted thatRichardson was a man of genius, without adding a word as to its precisequality. I need only repeat one familiar remark. Richardson was atypical tradesman of the period; he was the industrious apprentice whomarries his master's daughter; he lived between Hammersmith andSalisbury Court as a thorough middle-class cockney, and had not an ideabeyond those common to his class; he accepted the ordinary creeds andconventions; he looked upon freethinkers with such horror that he willnot allow even his worst villains to be religious sceptics; he sharesthe profound reverence of the shopkeepers for the upper classes who arehis customers, and he rewards virtue with a coach and six. And yet thismild little man, with the very narrowest intellectual limitations, writes a book which makes a mark not only in England but in Europe, andis imitated by Rousseau in the book which set more than one generationweeping; _Clarissa Harlowe_, moreover, was accepted as the masterpieceof its kind, and she moved not only Englishmen but Germans and Frenchmento sympathetic tears. One explanation is that Richardson is regarded asthe inventor of 'sentimentalism. ' The word, as one of his correspondentstells him, was a novelty about 1749, and was then supposed to includeanything that was clever and agreeable. I do not myself believe thatanybody invented the mode of feeling; but it is true that Richardson wasthe first writer who definitely turned it to account for a new literarygenus. Sentimentalism, I suppose, means, roughly speaking, indulgence inemotion for its own sake. The sentimentalist does not weep becausepainful thoughts are forced upon him but because he finds weepingpleasant in itself. He appreciates the 'luxury of grief. ' (The phrase isused in Brown's _Barbarossa_; I don't know who invented it. ) Certainlythe discovery was not new. The charms of melancholy had been recognisedby Jaques in the forest of Arden and sung by various later poets; butsentimentalism at the earlier period naturally took the form ofreligious meditation upon death and judgment. Young and Hervey arereligious sentimentalists, who have also an eye to literary elegance. Wesley was far too masculine and sensible to be a sentimentalist; hisemotions impel him to vigorous action; and are much too serious to becultivated for their own sakes or to be treated aesthetically. But thegeneral sense that something is not in order in the general state ofthings, without as yet any definite aim for the vague discontent, wasshared by the true sentimentalist. Richardson's sentimentalism is partlyunconscious. He is a moralist very much in earnest, preaching a verypractical and not very exalted morality. It is his moral purpose, hisinsistence upon the edifying point of view, his singular fertility infinding illustrations for his doctrines, which makes him asentimentalist. I will confess that the last time I read _ClarissaHarlowe_ it affected me with a kind of disgust. We wonder sometimes atthe coarse nerves of our ancestors, who could see on the stage anyquantity of murders and ghosts and miscellaneous horrors. Richardsongave me the same shock from the elaborate detail in which he tells thestory of Clarissa; rubbing our noses, if I may say so, in all heragony, and squeezing the last drop of bitterness out of every incident. I should have liked some symptom that he was anxious to turn his eyesfrom the tragedy instead of giving it so minutely as to suggest that heenjoys the spectacle. Books sometimes owe part of their success, as Ifear we must admit, to the very fact that they are in bad taste. Theyattract the contemporary audience by exaggerating and over-weighting thenew vein of sentiment which they have discovered. That, in fact, seemsto be the reason why in spite of all authority, modern readers find itdifficult to read Richardson through. We know, at any rate, how itaffected one great contemporary. This incessant strain upon the moral inquestion (a very questionable moral it is) struck Fielding as mawkishand unmanly. Richardson seemed to be a narrow, straitlaced preacher, whocould look at human nature only from the conventional point of view, andthought that because he was virtuous there should be no more cakes andale. 

Fielding's revolt produced his great novels, and the definite creationof an entirely new form of art which was destined to a long andvigorous life. He claimed to be the founder of a new province inliterature, and saw with perfect clearness what was to be its nature. The old romances which had charmed the seventeenth century were stillread occasionally: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, for example, and Dr. Johnson had enjoyed them, and Chesterfield, at a later period, has topoint out to his son that Calprenède's _Cassandra_ has becomeridiculous. The short story, of which Mrs. Behn was the last Englishwriter, was more or less replaced by the little sketches in the_Spectator_; and Defoe had shown the attractiveness of a downrightrealistic narrative of a series of adventures. But whatever precedentsmay be found, our unfortunate ancestors had not yet the true modernnovel. Fielding had, like other hack authors, written for the stage andtried to carry on the Congreve tradition. But the stage had declined. The best products, perhaps, were the _Beggar's Opera_ and_Chrononhotonthologos_ and Fielding's own _Tom Thumb_. When Fieldingtried to make use of the taste for political lampoons, the result wasthe Act of Parliament which in 1737 introduced the licensing system. TheShakespearian drama, it is true, was coming into popularity with thehelp of Fielding's great friend, Garrick; but no new Shakespeareappeared to write modern _Hamlets_ and _Othellos_; Johnson tried tosupply his place with the ponderous _Irene_, and John Home followed with_Douglas_ of 'My name is Norval' fame. The tragedies were becoming moredreary. Characteristic of Fielding was his admiration of Lillo, whose_George Barnwell_ (1730) and _Fatal Curiosity_ (about 1736), the last ofthem brought out under Fielding's own management, were remarkableattempts to revive tragedies by going to real life. It is plain, however, that the theatre is no longer the appropriate organ of thereading classes. The licensing act seems to have expressed the generalfeeling which, if we call it Puritan, must be Puritan in a sense whichdescribed the general middle-class prejudices. The problem whichFielding had to solve was to find a literary form which should meet thetastes of the new public, who could not be drawn to the theatre, andwhich yet should have some of the characteristics which had hithertobeen confined to the dramatic form. That was the problem which wastriumphantly solved by _Tom Jones_. The story is no longer a mere seriesof adventures, such as that which happened to Crusoe or Gil Blas, connected by the fact that they happen to the same person; nor aprolonged religious or moral tract, showing how evil will be punishedand virtue rewarded. It implies a dramatic situation which can bedeveloped without being hampered by the necessities ofstage-representation; and which can give full scope to a realisticportrait of nature as it is under all the familiar circumstances of timeand place. This novel, which fulfilled those conditions, has ever sincecontinued to flourish; although a long time was to elapse before any onecould approach the merits of the first inventor. In all ages, I suppose, the great artist, whether dramatist or epic poet or novelist, has moreor less consciously had the aim which Fielding implicitly claims forhimself; that is, to portray human nature. Every great artist, again, must, in one sense, be thoroughly 'realistic. ' The word has acquired anirrelevant connotation: but I mean that his vision of the world mustcorrespond to the genuine living convictions of his time. He only ceasesto be a realist in that wide sense of the word when he deliberatelyaffects beliefs which have lost their vitality and uses the oldmythology, for example, as convenient machinery, when it has ceased tohave any real hold upon the minds of their contemporaries. So far Defoeand Richardson and Fielding were perfectly right and deservedlysuccessful because they described the actual human beings whom they sawbefore them, instead of regarding a setting forth of plain facts assomething below the dignity of the artist. Every new departure inliterature thrives in proportion as it abandons the old conventionswhich have become mere survivals. Each of them, in his way, felt theneed of appealing to the new class of readers by direct portraiture ofthe readers themselves, Fielding's merit is his thorough appreciation ofthis necessity. He will give you men as he sees them, with perfectimpartiality and photographic accuracy. His hearty appreciation ofgenuine work is characteristic. He admires Lillo, as I have said, forgiving George Barnwell instead of the conventional stage hero; and hisfriend Hogarth, who was in pictorial art what he was in fiction, andpaints the 'Rake's Progress' without bothering about old masters or thegrand style; and he is enthusiastic about Garrick because he makesHamlet's fear of the ghost so natural that Partridge takes it for amere matter of course. Downright, forcible appeals to fact--contempt forthe artificial and conventional--are his strength, though they alsoimply his weakness. Fielding, in fact, is the ideal John Bull; the 'goodbuffalo, ' as Taine calls him, the big, full-blooded, vigorous mass ofroast-beef who will stand no nonsense, and whose contempt for thefanciful and arbitrary tends towards the coarse and materialistic. Thatcorresponds to the contrast between Richardson and Fielding; and mayhelp to explain why the sentimentalism which Fielding despised yetcorresponded to a vague feeling after a real element of interest. But, in truth, our criticism, I think, applies as much to Richardson as toFielding. Realism, taken in what I should call the right sense, is notproperly opposed to 'idealism'; it points to one of the two polestowards which all literary art should be directed. The artist is arealist so far as he deals with the actual life and the genuine beliefsof his time; but he is an idealist so far as he sees the most essentialfacts and utters the deepest and most permanent truths in his owndialect. His work should be true to life and give the essence of actualhuman nature, and also express emotions and thoughts common to the menof all times. Now that is the weak side of the fiction of this period. We may read _Clarissa Harlowe_ and _Tom Jones_ with unstintedadmiration; but we feel that we are in a confined atmosphere. There areregions of thought and feeling which seem to lie altogether beyond theirprovince. Fielding, in his way, was a bit of a philosopher, though he istoo much convinced that Locke and Hoadley have said the last words intheology and philosophy. Parson Adams is a most charming person in hisway, but his intellectual outlook is decidedly limited. That may nottrouble us much; but we have also the general feeling that we are livingin a little provincial society which somehow takes its own specialarrangements to be part of the eternal order of nature. The worthyRichardson is aware that there are a great many rakes and infamouspersons about; but it never occurs to him that there can be anyspeculation outside the Thirty-nine Articles; and though Fieldingperceives a great many abuses in the actual administration of the lawsand the political system, he regards the social order, with its squiresand parsons and attorneys as the only conceivable state of things. Inother words they, and I might add their successor Smollett, representall the prejudices and narrow assumptions of the quiet, respectable, andin many ways worthy and domestically excellent, middle-class of the day;which, on the whole, is determined not to look too deeply into awkwardquestions, but to go along sturdily working out its own conceptions andplodding along on well-established lines. 

Another literary movement is beginning which is to lead to the sense ofthis deficiency. The nobleman, growing rich and less absorbed in thepolitical world, has time and leisure to cultivate his tastes, becomes, as I have said, a dilettante, and sends his son to make the grand touras a regular part of his education. Some demon whispers to him, as Popeputs it, Visto, have a taste! He buys books and pictures, takes toarchitecture and landscape-gardening, and becomes a 'collector. ' Theinstinct of 'collecting' is, I suppose, natural, and its development isconnected with some curious results. One of the favourite objects ofridicule of the past essayists was the virtuoso. There was something tothem inexpressibly absurd in a passion for buying odds and ends. Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay made a special butt of Dr. Woodward, possessor of afamous ancient shield and other antiquities. Equally absurd, theythought, was his passion for fossils. He made one of the firstcollections of such objects, saw that they really had a scientificinterest, and founded at Cambridge the first professorship of geology. Another remarkable collector was Sir Hans Sloane, who had brought home agreat number of plants from Jamaica and founded the botanic garden atChelsea. His servant, James Salter, set up the famous Don Saltero'smuseum in the same place, containing, as Steele tell us, '10, 000gimcracks, including a "petrified crab" from China and Pontius Pilate'swife's chambermaid's sister's hat. ' Don Saltero and his master seemedequally ridiculous; and Young in his satires calls Sloane 'the foremosttoyman of his time, ' and describes him as adoring a pin of QueenElizabeth's. Sloane's collections were bought for the nation and becamethe foundation of the British Museum; when (1753) Horace Walpole remarksthat they might be worth £80, 000 for anybody who loved hippopotamuses, sharks with one ear, and spiders as big as geese. Scientific research, that is, revealed itself to contemporaries as a childish and absurdmonomania, unworthy of a man of sense. John Hunter had not yet begun toform the unequalled museum of physiology, and even the scientificcollectors could have but a dim perception of the importance of a minuteobservation of natural phenomena. The contempt for such collectionsnaturally accompanied a contempt for the antiquary, another variety ofthe same species. The study of old documents and ancient buildingsseemed to be a simple eccentricity. Thomas Hearne, the Oxford antiquary, was a typical case. He devoted himself to the study of old records andpublished a series of English Chronicles which were of essential serviceto English historians. To his contemporaries this study seemed to be asworthless as Woodward's study of fossils. Like other monomaniacs hebecame crusty and sour for want of sympathy. His like-mindedcontemporary, Carte, ruined the prospects of his history by letting outhis belief in the royal power of curing by touch. Antiquarianism, thoughproviding invaluable material for history, seemed to be a sillycrotchet, and to imply a hatred to sound Whiggism and modernenlightenment, so long as the Wit and the intelligent person of qualitylooked upon the past simply as the period of Gothic barbarism. But anapproximation is beginning to take place. The relation is indicated bythe case of Horace Walpole, a man whose great abilities have beenconcealed by his obvious affectations. Two of Walpole's schoolfellows atEton were Gray and William Cole. Cole, the Cambridge antiquary, whotried to do for his own university what Woodward had done for Oxford, was all but a Catholic, and in political sympathies agreed with Hearneand Carte. Walpole was a thorough Whig and a freethinker, so long, atleast, as freethinking did not threaten danger to comfortable sinecuresbestowed upon the sons of Whig ministers. But Cole became Walpole'santiquarian oracle. When Walpole came back from the grand tour, withnothing particular to do except spend his income, he found one amusementin dabbling in antiquarian research. He discovered, among other things, that even a Gothic cathedral could be picturesque, and in 1750 set aboutbuilding a 'little Gothic Castle' at Strawberry Hill. The Gothic was ofcourse the most superficial imitation; but it became the first of a longline of similar imitations growing gradually more elaborate with resultsof which we all have our own opinion. To Walpole himself Strawberry Hillwas a mere plaything, and he would not have wished to be taken tooseriously; as his romance of the _Castle of Otranto_ was a literarysquib at which he laughed himself, though it became the forefather of agreat literary school. The process may be regarded as logical: theprevious generation, rejoicing in its own enlightenment, began torecognise the difference between present and past more clearly than itsancestors had done; but generally inferred that the men of old had beenbarbarians. The Tory and Jacobite who clings to the past praises itsremains with blind affection, and can see nothing in the present butcorruption and destruction of the foundations of society. Theindifferent dilettante, caring little for any principles and mainlydesirous of amusement, discovers a certain charm in the old institutionswhile he professes to despise them in theory. That means one of theelements of the complex sentiment which we describe as romanticism. Thepast is obsolete, but it is pretty enough to be used in making newplaythings. The reconciliation will be reached when the growth ofhistorical inquiry leads men to feel that past and present are parts ofa continuous series, and to look upon their ancestors neither as simplyridiculous nor as objects of blind admiration. The historical sense was, in fact, growing: and Walpole's other friend, Gray, may represent theliterary version. The Queen Anne school, though it despised the olderliterature, had still a certain sneaking regard for it. Addison, forexample, pays some grudging compliments to Chaucer and Spenser, thoughhe is careful to point out the barbarism of their taste. Pope, like allpoets, had loved Spenser in his boyhood and was well read in Englishpoetry. It was mighty simple of Rowe, he said, to try to write in thestyle of Shakespeare, that is, in the style of a bad age. Yet he becameone of the earliest, and far from one of the worst, editors ofShakespeare; and the growth of literary interest in Shakespeare is oneof the characteristic symptoms of the period. Pope had contemplated ahistory of English poetry which was taken up by Gray and finallyexecuted by Warton. The development of an interest in literary historynaturally led to new departures. The poets of the period, Gray andCollins and the Wartons, are no longer members of the little circle withstrict codes of taste. They are scholars and students not shut up withinthe metropolitan area. There has been a controversy as to whether Gray'sunproductiveness is partly to be ascribed to his confinement to a narrowand, it seems, to a specially stupid academical circle at Cambridge. Anyway, living apart from the world of politicians and fine gentlemen, he had the opportunity to become the most learned of English poets andto be at home in a wide range of literature representing a great varietyof models. As the antiquary begins to rise to the historian, thepoetical merits recognised in the less regular canons become manifest. Thomson, trying to write a half-serious imitation of Spenser, made hisgreatest success by a kind of accident in the _Castle of Indolence_(1748); Thomas Warton's Observation on the _Faery Queene_ in 1757 was anillustration of the influence of historical criticism. I need not sayhow Collins was interested by Highland superstition and Gray impressedby Mallet's _Northern Antiquities_, and how in other directions thelabours of the antiquarian were beginning to provide materials for thepoetical imagination. Gray and Collins still held to the main Popeprinciples. They try to be clear and simple and polished, and theirtrick of personifying abstract qualities indicates the philosophicaldoctrine which was still acceptable. The special principle, however, which they were beginning to recognise is that indicated by JosephWarton's declaration in his _Essay on Pope_ (1757). 'The fashion ofmoralising in verse, ' he said, had been pushed too far, and he proceededto startle the orthodox by placing Spenser above Pope. The heresy gaveso much offence, it is said, that he did not venture to bring out hissecond volume for twenty-five years. The point made by Warton marks, infact, the critical change. The weak side of the Pope school had been thesubordination of the imagination to the logical theory. Poetry tends tobecome rhymed prose because the poet like the preacher has to expounddoctrines and to prove by argument. He despises the old mythology andthe romantic symbolism because the theory was obviously absurd to a manof the world, and to common sense. He believes that Homer wasdeliberately conveying an allegory: and an allegory, whether of Homer orof Spenser, is a roundabout and foolish way of expressing the truth. Aphilosopher--and a poem is versified philosophy--should express himselfas simply and directly as possible. But, as soon as you begin toappreciate the charm of ancient poetry, to be impressed by ScandinavianSagas or Highland superstition or Welsh bards, or allow yourself toenjoy Spenser's idealised knights and ladies in spite of their totalwant of common sense, or to appreciate _Paradise Lost_ although you nolonger accept Milton's scheme of theology, it becomes plain that thespecially poetic charm must consist in something else; that it canappeal to the emotions and the imagination, though the doctrine which itembodies is as far as possible from convincing your reason. Thediscovery has a bearing upon what is called the love of Nature. EvenThomson and his followers still take the didactic view of Nature. Theyare half ashamed of their interest in mere dead objects, but can treatskies and mountains as a text for discourses upon Natural Theology. ButCollins and Gray and Warton are beginning to perceive that the pleasurewhich we receive from a beautiful prospect, whether of a mountain or ofan old abbey, is something which justifies itself and may be expressedin poetry without tagging a special moral to its tail. Yet the sturdycommon sense represented by Fielding and Johnson is slow to accept thisview, and the romantic view of things has still for him a touch ofsentimentalism and affectation, and indicates the dilettante rather thanthe serious thinker, and Pope still represents the orthodox creed thoughsymptoms of revolt are slowly showing themselves. 

V

(1763-1788)

I now come to the generation which preceded the outbreak of the FrenchRevolution. Social and political movements are beginning to showthemselves in something of their modern form, and suggest mostinteresting problems for the speculative historian. At the same time, ifwe confine ourselves to the purely literary region, it is on the whole aperiod of stagnation. Johnson is the acknowledged dictator, and Johnson, the 'last of the Tories, ' upholds the artistic canons of Dryden andPope, though no successor arises to produce new works at all comparablewith theirs. The school, still ostensibly dominant, has lost its powerof stimulating genius; and as yet no new school has arisen to take itsplace. Wordsworth and Coleridge and Scott were still at college, andByron in the nursery, at the end of the period. There is a kind ofliterary interregnum, though not a corresponding stagnation ofspeculative and political energy. 

Looking, in the first place, at the active world, the great fact of thetime is the series of changes to which we give the name of theindustrial revolution. The growth of commercial and manufacturingenterprise which had been going on quietly and continuously had beensuddenly accelerated. Glasgow and Liverpool and Manchester andBirmingham were becoming great towns, and the factory system was beingdeveloped, profoundly modifying the old relation of the industrialclasses. England was beginning to aim at commercial supremacy, andpolitics were to be more than ever dominated by the interests of the'moneyed man, ' or, as we now call them, 'capitalists. ' Essentiallyconnected with these changes is another characteristic development. Social problems were arising. The growth of the manufactory system andthe accumulation of masses of town population, for example, forcedattention to the problem of pauperism, and many attempts of variouskinds were being made to deal with it. The same circumstances werebeginning to rouse an interest in education; it had suddenly struckpeople that on Sundays, at least, children might be taught theirletters so far as to enable them to spell out their Bible. Theinadequacy of the police and prison systems to meet the new requirementsroused the zeal of many, and led to some reforms. As the British Empireextended we began to become sensible of certain correlative duties; theimpeachment of Warren Hastings showed that we had scruples abouttreating India simply as a place where 'nabobs' are to accumulatefortunes; and the slave-trade suggested questions of conscience which atthe end of the period were to prelude an agitation in some waysunprecedented. 

In the political world again we have the first appearance of adistinctly democratic movement. The struggle over Wilkes during theearlier years began a contest which was to last through generations. TheAmerican War of Independence emphasised party issues, and in some senseheralded the French Revolution. I only note one point. The British'Whig' of those days represented two impulses which gradually diverged. There was the home-bred Whiggism of Wilkes and Horne Tooke--the Whiggismof which the stronghold was in the city of London, with such heroes asLord Mayor Beckford, whose statue in the Guildhall displays him hurlingdefiance at poor George III. This party embodies the dissatisfaction ofthe man of business with the old system which cramped his energies. Inthe name of liberty he demands 'self-government'; not greater vigour inthe Executive but less interference and a freer hand for the capitalist. He believes in individual enterprise. He accepts the good old Englishprinciple that the man who pays taxes should have a voice in spendingthem; but he appeals not to an abstract political principle but totradition. The reformer, as so often happens, calls himself a restorer;his political bible begins with the great charter and comes down to thesettlement of 1688. Meanwhile the true revolutionarymovement--represented by Paine and Godwin, appeals to the doctrines ofnatural equality and the rights of man. It is unequivocally democratic, and implies a growing cleavage between the working man and thecapitalists. It repudiates all tradition, and aspires to recast thewhole social order. Instead of proposing simply to diminish theinfluence of government, it really tends to centralisation and thetransference of power to the lower classes. This genuine revolutionaryprinciple did not become conspicuous in England until it was introducedby the contagion from France, and even then it remained an exotic. Forthe present the Whig included all who opposed the Toryism of George III. The difference between the Whig and the Radical was still latent, thoughto be manifested in the near future. When the 'new Whigs, ' as Burkecalled them, Fox and Sheridan, welcomed the French Revolution in 1789, they saw in it a constitutional movement of the English type and not athorough-going democratic movement which would level all classes, andtransfer the political supremacy to a different social stratum. 

This implies a dominant characteristic of the English politicalmovement. It was led, to use a later phrase, by Whigs not Radicals; bymen who fully accepted the British constitution, and proposed to removeabuses, not to recast the whole system. The Whig wished to carry outmore thoroughly the platform accepted in 1688, to replace decaying bysound timbers; but not to reconstruct from the base or to overridetradition by abstract and obsolete theories. His desire for change waslimited by a strong though implicit conservatism. This characteristicis reflected in the sphere of speculative activity. Philosophy wasrepresented by the Scottish school whose watchword was common sense. Reid opposed the scepticism of Hume which would lead, as he held, toknocking his head against a post--a course clearly condemned by commonsense; but instead of soaring into transcendental and ontologicalregions, he stuck to 'Baconian induction' and a psychology founded uponexperience. Hume himself, as I have said, had written for thespeculative few not for the vulgar; and he had now turned from the chaseof metaphysical refinements to historical inquiry. Interest in historyhad become characteristic of the time. The growth of a stable, complex, and continuous social order implies the formation of a corporate memory. Masses of records had already been accumulated by antiquaries who hadconstructed rather annals than history, in which the series of eventswas given without much effort to arrange them in literary form or tracethe causal connection. In France, however, Montesquieu had definitelyestablished the importance of applying the historical method topolitical problems; and Voltaire had published some of his brilliantsurveys which attempt to deal with the social characteristics as wellas the mere records of battles and conquests. Hume's _History_, admirably written, gave Englishmen the first opportunity of enjoying alucid survey of the conspicuous facts previously embedded in ponderousantiquarian phrases. Hume was one of the triumvirate who produced therecognised masterpieces of contemporary literature. Robertson's theoriesare, I take it, superseded: but his books, especially the _Charles V. _, not only gave broad surveys but suggested generalisations as to thedevelopment of institutions, which, like most generalisations, weremainly wrong, but stimulated further inquiry. Gibbon, the third of thetriumvirate, uniting the power of presenting great panoramas of historywith thorough scholarship and laborious research, produced the greatwork which has not been, if it ever can be, superseded. A growinginterest in history thus led to some of the chief writings of the time, as we can see that it was the natural outgrowth of the intellectualposition. The rapid widening of the historical horizon made even a baresurvey useful, and led to some recognition of the importance of guidingand correcting political and social theory by careful investigation ofpast experience. The historian began to feel an ambition to deal inphilosophical theories. He was, moreover, touched by the greatscientific movement. A complete survey of the intellectual history ofthe time would of course have to deal with the great men who were layingthe foundations of the modern physical sciences; such as Black, andPriestley, and Cavendish, and Hunter. It would indeed, have to point outhow small was the total amount of such knowledge in comparison with thevast superstructure which has been erected in the last century. Thefoundation of the Royal Institution at the end of the eighteenth centurymarks, perhaps, the point at which the importance of physical sciencebegan to impress the popular imagination. But great thinkers had longrecognised the necessity of applying scientific method in the sphere ofsocial and political investigation. Two men especially illustrate thetendency and the particular turn which it took in England. Adam Smith'sgreat book in 1776 applied scientific method to political economy. Smithis distinguished from his French predecessors by the historical elementof his work; by his careful study, that is, of economic history, and hisconsequent presentation of his theory not as a body of absolute andquasi-mathematical truth, but as resting upon the experience andapplicable to the concrete facts of his time. His limitation is equallycharacteristic. He investigated the play of the industrial mechanismwith too little reference to the thorough interdependence of economicand other social conditions. Showing how that mechanism adapts itself tosupply and demand, he comes to hold that the one thing necessary is toleave free play to competition, and that the one essential force is theindividual's desire for his own material interests. He became, therefore, the prophet of letting things alone. That doctrine--whateverits merits or defects--implies acquiescence in the existing order, andis radically opposed to a demand for a reconstruction of society. Thisis most clearly illustrated by the other thinker Jeremy Bentham. Bentham, unlike Smith, shared the contempt for history of the absolutetheorists, and was laying down a theory conceived in the spirit ofabsolutism which became the creed of the uncompromising politicalradicals of the next generation. But it is characteristic that Benthamwas not, during the eighteenth century, a Radical at all. He altogetherrepudiated and vigorously denounced the 'Rights of Men' doctrines ofRousseau and his followers, and regarded the Declaration ofIndependence in which they were embodied as a mere hotchpotch ofabsurdity. He is determined to be thoroughly empirical--to take men ashe found them. But his utilitarianism supposed that men's views ofhappiness and utility were uniform and clear, and that all that waswanted was to show them the means by which their ends could be reached. Then, he thought, rulers and subjects would be equally ready to applyhis principles. He fully accepted Adam Smith's theory ofnon-interference in economical matters; and his view of philosophy inthe lump was that there was no such thing, only a heap of obsoletefallacies and superstitions which would be easily dispersed by theapplication of a little downright common sense. Bentham'sutilitarianism, again, is congenial to the whole intellectual movement. His ethical theory was substantially identical with that of Paley--themost conspicuous writer upon theology of the generation, --and Paley isas thoroughly empirical in his theology as in his ethics, and makes thetruth of religion essentially a question of historical and scientificevidence. 

It follows that neither in practice nor in speculative questions werethe English thinkers of the time prescient of any coming revolution. They denounced abuses, but they had regarded abuses as removableexcrescences on a satisfactory system. They were content to appeal tocommon sense, and to leave philosophers to wrangle over ultimateresults. They might be, and in fact were, stirring questions which wouldlead to far more vital disputes; but for the present they wereunconscious of the future, and content to keep the old machinery goingthough desiring to improve its efficiency. The characteristic might beelucidated by comparison with the other great European literatures. InFrance, Voltaire had begun about 1762 his crusade against orthodoxy, or, as he calls it, his attempt to crush the infamous. He was supported byhis allies, the Encyclopædists. While Helvétius and Holbach wereexpounding materialism and atheism, Rousseau had enunciated thepolitical doctrines which were to be applied to the Revolution, andelsewhere had uttered that sentimental deism which was to be so dear tomany of his readers. Our neighbours, in short, after theircharacteristic fashion, were pushing logic to its consequences, andfully awake to the approach of an impending catastrophe. In Germany themovement took the philosophical and literary shape. Lessing's criticalwritings had heralded the change. Goethe, after giving utterance topassing phases of thought, was rising to become the embodiment of a newideal of intellectual culture. Schiller passed through the storm andstress period and developed into the greatest national dramatist. Kanthad awakened from his dogmatic theory, and the publication of the_Critique of Pure Reason_ in 1781 had awakened the philosophical worldof Germany. In both countries the study of earlier English literature, of the English deists and freethinkers, of Shakespeare and ofRichardson, had had great influence, and had been the occasion of newdevelopments. But it seemed as though England had ceased to be theoriginator of ideas, and was for the immediate future at least toreceive political and philosophical impulses from France and Germany. Toexplain the course taken in the different societies, to ask how far itmight be due to difference of characteristics, and of politicalconstitutions, of social organism and individual genius, would be a verypretty but rather large problem. I refer to it simply to illustrate thefacts, to emphasise the quiet, orderly, if you will, sleepy movement ofEnglish thought which, though combined with great practical energy andvigorous investigation of the neighbouring departments of inquiry, admitted of comparative indifference to the deeper issues involved. Itdid not generate that stimulus to literary activity due to the dawningof new ideas and the opening of wide vistas of speculation. When theFrench Revolution broke out, it took Englishmen, one may say, bysurprise, and except by a few keen observers or rare disciples ofRousseau, was as unexpected as the earthquake of Lisbon. 

Let us glance, now, at the class which was to carry on the literarytradition. It is known to us best through Boswell, and itscharacteristics are represented by Johnson's favourite club. In one ofhis talks with Boswell the great man amused himself by showing how theclub might form itself into a university. Every branch of knowledge andthought might, he thought, be represented, though it must be admittedthat some of the professors suggested were scarcely up to the mark. Thesocial variety is equally remarkable. Among the thirty or forty memberselected before Johnson's death, there were the lights of literature;Johnson himself and Goldsmith, Adam Smith and Gibbon, and others ofless fame. The aristocratic element was represented by Beauclerk and byhalf a dozen peers, such as the amiable Lord Charlemont; Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and Wyndham represent political as well as literary eminence;three or four bishops represent Church authority; legal luminariesincluded Dunning, William Scott (the famous Lord Stowell), Sir RobertChambers, and the amazingly versatile Sir William Jones. Boswell andLangton are also cultivated country gentlemen; Sir Joseph Banks stoodfor science, and three other names show the growing respect for art. Theamiable Dr. Burney was a musician who had raised the standard of hiscalling; Garrick had still more conspicuously gained social respect forthe profession of actor; and Sir Joshua Reynolds was the representativeof the English school of painters, whose works still impress upon us thebeauty of our great-grandmothers and the charm of their children, andsuggest the existence of a really dignified and pure domestic life in aclass too often remembered by the reckless gambling and loose moralityof the gilded youth of the day. To complete the picture of the world inwhich Johnson was at home we should have to add from the outer spheresuch types as Thrale, the prosperous brewer, and the lively Mrs. Thraleand Mrs. Montague, who kept a salon and was president of the 'Blues. 'The feminine society which was beginning to write our novels wasrepresented by Miss Burney and Hannah More; and the thriving booksellerswho were beginning to become publishers, such as Strahan and the Dillys, at whose house he had the famous meeting with the reprobate Wilkes. Tomany of us, I suppose, an intimacy with that Johnsonian group has been afirst introduction to an interest in English literature. Thanks toBoswell, we can hear its talk more distinctly than that of any latercircle. When we compare it to the society of an earlier time, one or twopoints are conspicuous. Johnson's club was to some extent a continuationof the clubs of Queen Anne's time. But the Wits of the earlier periodwho met at taverns to drink with the patrons were a much smaller andmore dependent body. What had since happened had been the growth of agreat comfortable middle-class--meaning by middle-class the upperstratum, the professional men, the lawyers, clergymen, physicians, themerchants who had been enriched by the growth of commerce andmanufactures; the country gentlemen whose rents had risen, and who couldcome to London and rub off their old rusticity. The aristocracy is stillin possession of great wealth and political power, but beneath it hasgrown up an independent society which is already beginning to be themost important social stratum and the chief factor in political andsocial development. It has sufficient literary cultivation to admit thedistinguished authors and artists who are becoming independent enough totake their place in its ranks and appear at its tables and rule theconversation. The society is still small enough to have in the club asingle representative body and one man for dictator. Johnson succeededin this capacity to Pope, Dryden, and his namesake Ben, but he was thelast of the race. Men like Carlyle and Macaulay, who had a similardistinction in later days, could only be leaders of a single group orsection in the more complex society of their time, though it was not yetso multitudinous and chaotic as the literary class has become in ourown. Talk could still be good, because the comparatively small societywas constantly meeting, and each prepared to take his part in the game, and was not being swept away distractedly into a miscellaneous vortexof all sorts and conditions of humanity. Another fact is conspicuous. The environment, we may say, of the man of letters was congenial. Heshared and uttered the opinions of the class to which he belonged. Buckle gives a striking account of the persecution to which the Frenchmen of letters were exposed at this period; Voltaire, Buffon, andRousseau, Diderot, Marmontel, and Morellet, besides a whole series ofinferior authors, had their books suppressed and were themselves eitherexiled or imprisoned. There was a state of war in which almost the wholeliterary class attacked the established creed while the rulers repliedby force instead of argument. In England men of letters were allowed, with a few exceptions, to say what they thought, and simply shared theaverage beliefs of their class and their rulers. If some leant towardsfreethinking, the general tendency of the Johnson circle was harshlyopposed to any revolutionary movement, and authors were satisfied withthe creeds as with the institutions amid which they lived. 

The English literary class was thus content to utter the beliefsprevalent in the social stratum to which the chief writers belonged--astratum which had no special grievances and no revolutionary impulses, and which could make its voice sufficiently heard though by methodswhich led to no explicit change in the constitution, and suggests only achange in the forces which really lay behind them. The chief politicalchanges mean for the present that 'public opinion' was acquiring morepower; that the newspaper press as its organ was especially growing instrength; that Parliament was thrown open to the reporter, and speechesaddressed to the constituencies as well as to the Houses of Parliament, and therefore the authority of the legislation becoming more amenable tothe opinions of the constituency. That is to say, again, that thejournalist and orator were growing in power and a correspondingdirection given to literary talent. The Wilkes agitation led to the_Letters of Junius_--one of the most conspicuous models of the style ofthe period; and some of the newspapers which were to live through thenext century began to appear in the following years. This period againmight almost be called the culminating period of English rhetoric. Thespeeches of Pitt and Burke and Fox and Sheridan in the House of Commonsand at the impeachment of Warren Hastings must be regarded from theliterary as well as the political point of view, though in most casesthe decay of the temporary interests involved has been fatal to theirpermanence. The speeches are still real speeches, intended to affect theaudience addressed, and yet partly intended also for the reporters. Whenthe audience becomes merely the pretext, and the real aim is to addressthe public, the speech tends to become a pamphlet in disguise and losesits rhetorical character. I may remark in passing that almost the onlylegal speeches which, so far as my knowledge goes, are still readable, were those of Erskine, who, after trying the careers of a sailor and asoldier, found the true application for his powers in oratory. Thoughhis legal knowledge is said to have been slight, the conditions of thetime enabled him in addressing a British jury to put forward a politicalmanifesto and to display singular literary skill. Burke, however, is thetypical figure. Had he been a German he might have been a Lessing, andthe author of the _Sublime and Beautiful_ might, like the author of_Laokoon_, have stimulated his countrymen by literary criticism. Or hemight have obtained a professorship or a court preachership and, likeHerder, have elaborated ideas towards the future of a philosophy ofhistory. In England he was drawn into the political vortex, and in thatcapacity delivered speeches which also appeared as pamphlets, and whichmust rank among the great masterpieces of English literature. I need notinquire whether he lost more by giving to party what was meant formankind, or whether his philosophy did not gain more by the necessity ofconstant application to the actual facts of the time. That necessity nodoubt limited both the amount and the systematic completeness of hiswritings, though it also emphasised some of their highest merits. TheEnglish political order tended in any case to divert a great deal ofliterary ability into purely political channels--a peculiarity which ithas not yet lost. Burke is the typical instance of this combination, andillustrates most forcibly the point to which I have already adverted. Johnson, as we know, was a mass of obstinate Tory prejudice, and heldthat the devil was the first Whig. He held at bottom, I think, thatpolitics touched only the surface of human life; that 'kings or laws, 'as he put it, can cause or cure only a small part of the evils which wesuffer, and that some authority is absolutely necessary, and that itmatters little whether it be the authority of a French monarch or anEnglish parliament. The Whig he thought objected to authority onprinciple, and was therefore simply subversive. Something of the sameopinion was held by Johnson's circle in general. They were conservativeboth in politics and theology, and English politics and theologicaldisputes did not obviously raise the deeper issues. Even thedevil-descended Whig--especially the variety represented by Burke--wasas far as possible from representing what he took for the diabolicagency. Burke represents above all things the political application ofthe historical spirit of the period. His hatred for metaphysics, fordiscussions of abstract rights instead of practical expediency; hisexaltation of 'prescription' and 'tradition'; his admiration forMontesquieu and his abhorrence of Rousseau; his idolatry of the Britishconstitution, and in short his whole political doctrine from first tolast, implies the profound conviction of the truth of the principlesembodied in a thorough historical method. Nobody, I think, was ever moreconsistent in his first principles, though his horror of the Revolutionno doubt led him so to exaggerate one side of his teaching that he wasled to denounce some of the consequences which naturally followed fromother aspects of his doctrine. The schism between the old and the newWhigs was not to be foreseen during this period, nor the coming into theforeground of the deeper problems involved. 

I may now come to the purely literary movement. I have tried to showthat neither in philosophy, theology, nor political and social strata, was there any belief in the necessity of radical changes, or prescienceof a coming alteration of the intellectual atmosphere. Speculation, likepolitics, could advance quietly along the old paths without fearing thatthey might lead to a precipice; and society, in spite of very vigorousand active controversy upon the questions which decided it was in themain self-satisfied, complacent, and comfortable. Adherence to the oldsystem is after all the general rule, and it is of the change not thepersistence that we require some account. At the beginning of ourperiod, Pope's authority was still generally admitted, although manysymptoms of discontent had appeared, and Warton was proposing to lowerhim from the first to the second rank. The two most brilliant writerswho achieved fame in the early years of George III. , Goldsmith andSterne, mark a characteristic moment in the literary development. Goldsmith's poems the _Traveller_ (1765) and the _Deserted Village_(1770), and the _Vicar of Wakefield_ (1766), are still on the old lines. The poetry adopts Pope's versification, and implies the same ideal; thedesire for lucidity, sympathy, moderation, and the qualities which wouldgenerally be connoted by classical. The substance, distinguished fromthe style, shows the sympathy with sentimentalism of which Rousseau wasto be the great exponent. Goldsmith is beginning to denounce luxury--acharacteristic mark of the sentimentalist--and his regret for the periodwhen 'every rood of earth maintained its man' is one side of theaspiration for a return to the state of nature and simplicity ofmanners. The inimitable Vicar recalls Sir Roger de Coverley and thegentle and delicate touch of Addison. But the Vicar is beginning to takean interest in philanthropy. He is impressed by the evils of the oldprison system which had already roused Oglethorpe (who likeGoldsmith--as I may notice--disputed with Johnson as to the evils ofluxury) and was soon to arouse Howard. The greatest attraction of theVicar is due to the personal charm of Goldsmith's character, but hischaracter makes him sympathise with the wider social movements and thegrowth of genuine philanthropic sentiment. Goldsmith, in his remarksupon the _Present State of Polite Learning_ (1759), explains the decayof literature (literature is always decaying) by the general enervationwhich accompanies learning and the want of originality caused by thegrowth of criticism. That was not an unnatural view at a time when theold forms are beginning to be inadequate for the new thoughts which areseeking for utterance. As yet, however, Goldsmith's own work provessufficiently that the new motive could be so far adapted to the old formas to produce an artistic masterpiece. Sterne may illustrate a similarremark. He represents, no doubt, a kind of sham sentimentalism with aninsincerity which has disgusted many able critics. He was resolved toattract notice at any price--by putting on cap and bells, and by thepruriency which stains his best work. Like many contemporaries he wasreading old authors and turned them to account in a way which exposedhim to the charge of plagiarism. He valued them for their quaintness. They enabled him to satisfy his propensity for being deliberatelyeccentric which made Horace Walpole call _Tristram Shandy_ the 'dregs ofnonsense, ' and the learned Dr. Farmer prophesied that in twenty years itwould be necessary to search antiquarian shops for a copy. Sterne'sgreat achievement, however, was not in the mere buffoonery but in thepassages where he continued the Addison tradition. Uncle Toby is asuccessor of Sir Roger, and the famous death of Lefevre is told withinimitable simplicity and delicacy of touch. Goldsmith and Sterne workupon the old lines, but make use of the new motives and materials whichare beginning to interest readers, and which will in time call fordifferent methods of treatment. 

I must briefly indicate one other point. The society of which Garrickwas a member, and which was both reading Shakespeare and seeing hisplays revived, might well seem fitted to maintain a drama. Goldsmithcomplains of the decay of the stage, which he attributes partly to theexclusion of new pieces by the old Shakespearian drama. On that point heagrees as far as he dares with Voltaire. He ridiculed Home's _Douglas_, one of the last tragedies which made even a temporary success, and whichcertainly showed that the true impulse was extinct. But Goldsmith andhis younger contemporary Sheridan succeeded for a time in restoringvigour to comedy. Their triumph over the sentimentalists Kelly andCumberland showed, as Johnson put it, that they could fill the aim ofthe comedian, namely, making an audience merry. _She Stoops to Conquer_and _The School for Scandal_ remain among genuine literary masterpieces. They are revivals of the old Congreve method, and imply the growth of asociety more decent and free from the hard cynical brutality whichdisgraced the earlier writers. I certainly cannot give a sufficientreason why the society of Johnson and Reynolds, full of shrewd commonsense, enjoying humour, and with a literary social tradition, should nothave found other writers capable of holding up the comic mirror. I amupon the verge of a discussion which seems to be endless, the causes ofthe decay of the British stage. I must give it a wide berth, and onlynote that, as a fact, Sheridan took to politics, and his mantle fell onno worthy successor. The next craze (for which he was partlyresponsible) was the German theatre of Kotzebue, which represented theintrusion of new influences and the production of a great quantity ofrubbish. After Goldsmith the poetic impulse seems to have decayedentirely. After the _Deserted Village_ (1770) no striking work appearedtill Crabbe published his first volume (1781), and was followed by hissenior Cowper in 1782. Both of them employed the metre of Pope, thoughCowper took to blank verse; and Crabbe, though he had read and admiredSpenser, was to the end of his career a thorough disciple of Pope. Johnson read and revised his _Village_, which was thoroughly in harmonywith the old gentleman's poetic creed. Yet both Cowper and Crabbestimulate what may be called in some sense 'a return to nature'; thoughnot in such a way as to announce a literary revolution. Each wasrestrained by personal conditions. Cowper's poetical aims wereprofoundly affected by his religious views. The movement which we callMethodist was essentially moral and philanthropic. It agreed so far withRousseau's sentimentalism that it denounced the corruptions of theexisting order; but instead of attributing the evils to the departurefrom the ideal state of nature, expressed them by the theologicaldoctrine of the corruption of the human heart. That implied in somesenses a fundamental difference. But there was a close coincidence inthe judgment of actual motives. Cowper fully agreed with Rousseau thatour rulers had become selfish and luxurious; that war was kept up tosatisfy the ambition of kings and courtiers; that vice flourishedbecause the aims of our rulers and teachers were low and selfish, andthat slavery was a monstrous evil supported by the greed of traders. Brown's _Estimate_, he said, was thoroughly right as to our degeneracy, though Brown had not perceived the deepest root of the evil. Cowper'ssatire has lost its salt because he had retired too completely from theworld to make a telling portrait. But he succeeds most admirably when hefinds relief from the tortures of insanity by giving play to theexquisite playfulness and tenderness which was never destroyed by hismelancholy. He delights us by an unconscious illustration of the simpledomestic life in the quiet Olney fields, which we see in another form inthe charming White of Selborne. He escapes from the ghastly images ofreligious insanity when he has indulged in the innocent play of tenderand affectionate emotions, which finds itself revealed in tranquillisingscenery. The literary result is a fresh appreciation of 'Nature. ' Pope'sNature has become for him artificial and conventional. From a religiouspoint of view it represents 'cold morality, ' and the substitution oflogical argumentation for the language of the heart. It suggests thecynicism of the heartless fine gentleman who sneers at Wesley andBunyan, and covers his want of feeling by a stilted deism. Cowper triedunsuccessfully to supersede Pope's _Homer_; in trying to be simple hebecame bald; but he also tried most successfully to express withabsolute sincerity the simple and deep emotions of an exquisitely tendercharacter. 

Crabbe meanwhile believed in Pope, and had a sturdy solid contempt forMethodism. Cowper's guide, Newton, would have passed with him for anuisance and a fanatic. Crabbe is a thorough realist. In some ways hemay be compared to his contemporary Malthus. Malthus started, as weknow, by refuting the sentimentalism of Rousseau; Crabbe's _Village_ isa protest against the embodiment of the same spirit in Goldsmith. He isdetermined to see things as they are, with no rose-coloured mist. Crabbereplies to critics that if his realism was unpoetical, the criterionsuggested would condemn much of Dryden and Pope as equally unpoetical. He was not renouncing but carrying on the tradition, and was admired byByron in his rather wayward mood of Pope-worship as the lastrepresentative of the legitimate school. The position is significant. Crabbe condemns Goldsmith's 'Nature' because it is 'unnatural. ' It meansthe Utopian ideal of Rousseau which never did and never can exist. Itbelongs to the world of old-fashioned pastoral poetry, in which Corydonand Thyrsis had their being. He will paint British squires and farmersand labourers as he has seen them with his own eyes. The wit has becomefor him the mere fop, whose poetry is an arbitrary convention, a mereplaything for the fine ladies and gentlemen detached from the livinginterests of mankind. The Pope tradition is still maintained, but is tobe revised by being brought down again to contact with solid earth. Therefore on the one hand he is thoroughly in harmony with Johnson, theembodiment of common sense, and on the other, excited the enthusiasm ofWordsworth and Scott, who, though leaders of a new movement, heartilysympathised with his realism and rejection of the old conventionalism. Though Crabbe regards Cowper's religion as fanaticism, they are so faragreed that both consider that poetry has become divorced from realityand reflects the ugly side of actual human nature. They do not propose arevolution in its methods, but to put fresh life into it by seeingthings as they are. And both of them, living in the country, apply theprinciple to 'Nature' in the sense of scenery. Cowper gives interest tothe flat meadows of the Ouse; and Crabbe, a botanist and lover ofnatural history, paints with unrivalled fidelity and force the flatshores and tideways of his native East Anglia. They are both thereforeprophets of a love of Nature, in one of the senses of the Protean word. Cowper, who prophesied the fall of the Bastille and denounced luxury, was to some extent an unconscious ally of Rousseau, though he regardedthe religious aspects of Rousseau's doctrine as shallow andunsatisfactory. Crabbe shows the attitude of which Johnson is the mostcharacteristic example. Johnson was thoroughly content with the oldschool in so far as it meant that poetry must be thoroughly rational andsensible. His hatred of cant and foppery was so far congenial to thetradition; but it implied a difference. To him Pope's metaphysicalsystem was mere foppery, and the denunciation of luxury mere cant. Hefelt mere contempt for Goldsmith's flirtation with that vein ofsentiment. His dogged conservatism prevented him from recognising thestrength of the philosophical movements which were beginning to clothethemselves in Rousseauism. Burke, if he condemned the revolutionarydoctrine as wicked, saw distinctly how potent a lesson it was becoming. Johnson, showing the true British indifference, could treat the movementwith contempt--Hume's scepticism was a mere 'milking the bull'--a loveof paradox for its own sake--and Wilkes and the Whigs, though wicked inintention, were simple and superficial dealers in big words. In theliterary application the same sturdy common sense was opposed to thePope tradition so far as that tradition opposed common sense. Conventional diction, pastorals, and twaddle about Nature belonged tothe nonsensical side. He entirely sympathised with Crabbe's substitutionof the real living brutish clown for the unreal swain of Arcadia; thatis, for developing poetry by making it thoroughly realistic even at thecost of being prosaic. 

So far the tendency to realism was thoroughly congenial to thematter-of-fact utilitarian spirit of the time, and was in some sense inharmony with a 'return to Nature. ' But it was unconsciously becomingdivorced from some of the great movements of thought, of which it failedto perceive the significance. A new inspiration was showing itself, towhich critics have done at least ample justice. The growth of historyhad led to renewed interest in much that had been despised as merecuriosities or ridiculed as implying the barbarism of our ancestors. Ihave already noticed the dilettantism of the previous generation, andthe interest of Gray and Collins and Warton and Walpole in antiquarianresearches. Gothic had ceased to be a simple term of reproach. The oldEnglish literature is beginning to be studied seriously. Pope andWarburton and Johnson had all edited Shakespeare; Garrick had given himfresh popularity, and the first edition of _Old Plays_ by Dodsleyappeared in 1744. Similar studies were extending in many directions. Mallet in his work upon Denmark (1755) gave a translation of the _Eddas_which called attention to Scandinavian mythology. Bodmer soonafterwards published for the first time the _Nibelungen Lied_. Macpherson startled the literary world in 1762 by what professed to bean epic poem from the Gaelic. Chatterton's career (1752-1770) was aproof not only of unique poetical precocity, but of a singular facilityin divining the tastes of the literary world at the time. Percy's_Reliques_ appeared in 1765. Percy, I may note, had begun oddly enoughby publishing a Chinese novel (1761), and a translation of Icelandicpoetry (1763). Not long afterwards Sir William Jones publishedtranslations of Oriental poetry. Briefly, as historical, philological, and antiquarian research extended, the man of letters was also beginningto seek for new 'motives, ' and to discover merits in old forms ofliterature. The importance of this new impulse cannot be over-estimated, but it may be partly misinterpreted. It is generally described as aforetaste of what is called the Romantic movement. The word is no doubtvery useful--though exceedingly vague. The historian of literature issometimes given to speak as though it meant the revelation of a new anddefinite creed. He speaks, that is, like the historian of science, whoaccepts Darwinism as the revelation of a new principle transfusing theold conceptions, and traces the various anticipations, the seminal idea;or like the Protestant theologian who used to regard Luther as havingannounced the full truth dimly foreseen by Wicliff or the Albigenses. Romanticism, that is, is treated as a single movement; while the men whoshare traces of the taste are supposed to have not only foreseen the newdoctrine but to have been the actual originators. Yet I think that allcompetent writers will also agree that Romanticism is a name which hasbeen applied to a number of divergent or inconsistent schools. It seemsto mean every impulse which tended to find the old clothing inadequatefor the new thoughts, which caused dissatisfaction with the oldphilosophical and religious or political systems and aspirations, andtook a corresponding variety of literary forms. It is far too complex aphenomenon to be summed up in any particular formula. The mischief isthat to take the literary evolution as an isolated phenomenon is to missan essential clue to such continuity and unity as it really possesses. When we omit the social factor, the solidarity which exists betweencontemporaries occupied with the same problem and sharing certain commonbeliefs, each school appears as an independent unit, implying adiscontinuity or a simple relation of contrariety, and we explain thesuccession by such a verbal phrase as 'reaction. ' The real problem is, what does the reaction mean? and that requires us to take into accountthe complex and variously composed currents of thought and reason whichare seeking for literary expression. The popularity of _Ossian_ forexample, is a curious phenomenon. At the first sight we are disposed toagree with Johnson that any man could write such stuff if he wouldabandon his mind to it, and to add that if any one would write it no onecould read it. Yet we know that _Ossian_ appealed to the giganticintellects of Goethe and Napoleon. That is a symptom of deepsignificance; _Ossian_ suited Goethe in the _Werther_ period andNapoleon took it with him when he was dreaming of rivalling Alexander'sconquests in the East. We may perhaps understand why the gigantesquepictures in _Ossian_ of the northern mountains and scenery--with all itsvagueness, incoherence, and bombast, was somehow congenial to mindsdissatisfied, for different reasons, with the old ideals. To explain thecharm more precisely is a very pretty problem for the acute critic. _Ossian_, it is clear, fell in with the mood characteristic of thetime. But when we ask what effect it produced in English literature, theanswer must surely be, 'next to none. ' Gray was enthusiastic and triedto believe in its authenticity. Scots, like Blair and even the scepticalHume--though Hume soon revolted--defended _Ossian_ out of patrioticprejudice, and Burns professed to admire. But nobody in Great Britaintook to writing Ossianesque. Wordsworth was simply disgusted by theunreality, and nothing could be less in the _Ossian_ vein than Burns. The _Ossian_ craze illustrates the extension of historical interest, ofwhich I have spoken, and the vague discontent of Wertherism. But I donot see how the publication can be taken as the cause of a newdeparture, although it was an indication of the state of mind which ledto a new departure. Percy's _Reliques_, again, is often mentioned as an'epoch-making' book. Undoubtedly it was a favourite with Scott and manyother readers of his generation. But how far did it create any change oftaste? The old ballad was on one side congenial to the classical school, as Addison showed by his criticism of _Chevy Chase_ for its simpleversion of a heroic theme. Goldsmith tried his hand at a ballad aboutthe same time with Percy, and both showed that they were a little toomuch afraid that simplicity might degenerate into childishness, and gainJohnson's contempt. But there was nothing in the old school incompatiblewith a rather patronising appreciation of the popular poetry. It gainedfresh interest when the historical tendency gave a newer meaning to theold society in which ballad poetry had flourished. 

This suggests the last remark which I have room to make. Onecharacteristic of the period is a growth of provincial centres of someintellectual culture. As manufactures extended, and manufacturers beganto read, circles of some literary pretensions sprang up in Norwich, Birmingham, Bristol, and Manchester; and most conspicuously inEdinburgh. Though the Scot was coming south in numbers which alarmedJohnson, there were so many eminent Scots at home during this time thatEdinburgh seems at least to have rivalled London as an intellectualcentre. The list of great men includes Hume and Adam Smith, Robertsonand Hailes and Adam Ferguson, Kames, Monboddo, and Dugald Stewart amongphilosophers and historians; John Home, Blair, G. Campbell, Beattie, andHenry Mackenzie among men of letters; Hutton, Black, Cullen, andGregory among scientific leaders. Scottish patriotism then, as at otherperiods, was vigorous, and happily ceasing to be antagonistic tounionist sentiment. The Scot admitted that he was touched byprovincialism; but he retained a national pride, and only made themodest and most justifiable claim that he was intrinsically superior tothe Southron. He still preserved intellectual and social traditions, andcherished them the more warmly, which marked him as a distinct member ofthe United Kingdom. In Scotland the rapid industrial development hadgiven fresh life to the whole society without obliterating itsdistinctive peculiarities. Song and ballad and local legends were stillalive, and not merely objects of literary curiosity. It was under suchconditions that Burns appeared, the greatest beyond compare of all theself-taught poets. Now there can be no explanation whatever of theoccurrence of a man of genius at a given time and place. For anything wecan say, Burns was an accident; but given the genius, his relation wasclear, and the genius enabled him to recognise it with unequalledclearness. Burns became, as he has continued, the embodiment of theScottish genius. Scottish patriotic feeling animates some of hisnoblest poems, and whether as an original writer--and no one could bemore original--or as adapting and revising the existing poetry, herepresents the essential spirit of the Scottish peasant. I need notpoint out that this implies certain limitations, and some failings worsethan limitation. But it implies also the spontaneous and masculinevigour which we may call poetic inspiration of the highest kind. He hadof course read the English authors such as Addison and Pope. So far ashe tried to imitate the accepted form he was apt to lose his fire. He isinspired when he has a nation behind him and is the mouthpiece ofsentiments, traditional, but also living and vigorous. He represents, therefore, a new period. The lyrical poetry seemed to have died out inEngland. It suddenly comes to life in Scotland and reaches unsurpassableexcellence within certain limits, because a man of true genius rises toutter the emotions of a people in their most natural form withoutbothering about canons of literary criticism. The society and theindividual are in thorough harmony, and that, I take it, is thecondition of really great literature at all times. 

This must suggest my concluding moral. The watchword of every literaryschool may be brought under the formula 'Return to Nature': though'Nature' receives different interpretations. To be natural, on the onehand, is to be sincere and spontaneous; to utter the emotions natural toyou in the forms which are also natural, so far as the accepted canonsare not rules imposed by authority but have been so thoroughlyassimilated as to express your own instinctive impulses. On the otherside, it means that the literature must be produced by the class whichembodies the really vital and powerful currents of thought which aremoulding society. The great author must have a people behind him; utterboth what he really thinks and feels and what is thought and felt mostprofoundly by his contemporaries. As the literature ceases to be trulyrepresentative, and adheres to the conventionalism of the former period, it becomes 'unnatural' and the literary forms become a survival insteadof a genuine creation. The history of eighteenth century literatureillustrates this by showing how as the social changes give new influenceto the middle classes and then to the democracy, the aristocratic classwhich represented the culture of the opening stage is gradually pushedaside; its methods become antiquated and its conventions cease torepresent the ideals of the most vigorous part of the population. Thereturn to Nature with Pope and Addison and Swift meant, get rid ofpedantry, be thoroughly rational, and take for your guide the brightcommon sense of the Wit and the scholar. During Pope's supremacy the Witwho represents the aristocracy produces some admirably polished work;but the development of journalism and Grub Street shows that he iswriting to satisfy the popular interests so keenly watched by Defoe inGrub Street. In the period of Richardson and Fielding Nature has becomethe Nature of the middle-class John Bull. The old romances have becomehopelessly unnatural, and they will give us portraits of living humanbeings, whether Clarissa or Tom Jones. The rationalism of the higherclass strikes them as cynical, and the generation which listens toWesley must have also a secular literature, which, whether sentimentalas with Richardson or representing common sense with Fielding, must atany rate correspond to solid substantial matter-of-fact motives, intelligible to the ordinary Briton of the time. In the last period, theold literary conventions, though retaining their old literary prestige, are becoming threadbare while preserving the old forms. Even theJohnsonian conservatism implies hatred for cant, for mere foppery andsham sentimentalism; and though it uses them, insists with Crabbe uponkeeping in contact with fact. We must be 'realistic, ' though we canretain the old literary forms. The appeal to Nature, meanwhile, has comewith Rousseau and the revolutionists to mean something different--thedemand, briefly, for a thorough-going reconstruction of the wholephilosophical and social fabric. To the good old Briton, Whig or Tory, that seemed to be either diabolical or mere Utopian folly. To him theBritish constitution is still thoroughly congenial and 'natural. 'Meanwhile intellectual movement has introduced a new element. Thehistorical sense is being developed, as a settled society with a complexorganisation becomes conscious at once of its continuity and of the slowprocesses of growth by which it has been elaborated. The fusion ofEnglish and Scottish nations stimulates the patriotism of the smallerthough better race, and generates a passionate enthusiasm for the oldliterature which represents the characteristic genius of the smallercommunity. Burns embodies the sentiment, though without any consciousreference to theories philosophical or historical. The significance wasto be illustrated by Scott--an equally fervid patriot. He tells Crabbehow oddly a passage in the _Village_ was associated in his memory withborder-riding ballads and scraps of old plays. 'Nature' for Scott meant'his honest grey hills' speaking in every fold of old traditional lore. That meant, in one sense, that Scott was not only romantic butreactionary. That was his weakness. But if he was the first to make thepast alive, he was also the first to make the present historical. Hismasterpieces are not his descriptions of mediæval knights so much as thestories in which he illuminates the present by his vivid presentation ofthe present order as the outgrowth from the old, and makes the Scottishpeasant or lawyer or laird interesting as a product and a type of socialconditions. Nature therefore to him includes the natural processes bywhich society has been developed under the stress of circumstances. Nothing could be more unnatural for him than the revolutionary principlewhich despises tradition and regards the patriotic sentiment assuperfluous and irrational. Wordsworth represents again another sense ofNature. He announced as his special principle that poetry should speakthe language of Nature, and therefore, as he inferred, of the ordinarypeasant and uneducated man. The hills did not speak to him of legend orhistory but of the sentiment of the unsophisticated yeoman or'statesman. ' He sympathised enthusiastically with the French Revolutionso long as he took it to utter the simple republican sentiment congenialto a small society of farmers and shepherds. He abandoned it when hecame to think that it really meant the dissolution of the religious andsocial sentiments which correspond to the deepest instincts which boundsuch men together. Coleridge represents a variation. He was the firstEnglishman to be affected by the philosophical movement of Germany. Hehad been an ardent revolutionist in the days when he adopted themetaphysics of Hartley and Priestley, which fell in with the maineighteenth-century current of scepticism. He came to think that themovement represented a perversion of the intellect. It meant materialismand scepticism, or interpreted Nature as a mere dead mechanism. Itomitted, therefore, the essential element which is expressed by what wemay roughly call the mystical tendency in philosophy. Nature must betaken as the embodiment of a divine idea. Nature, therefore, in hispoetry, is regarded not from Scott's point of view as subordinate tohuman history, or from Wordsworth's as teaching the wisdom ofunsophisticated mankind, but rather as a symbolism legible to the higherimagination. Though his fine critical sense made him keep his philosophyand his poetry distinct, that is the common tendency which gives unityto his work and which made his utterances so stimulating to congenialintellects. His criticism of the 'Nature' of Pope and Bolingbroke wouldbe substantially, that in their hands the reason which professed tointerpret Nature became cold and materialistic, because its logic leftout of account the mysterious but essential touches revealed only to theheart, or, in his language, to the reason but not to the understanding. Meanwhile, though the French revolutionary doctrines were preached inEngland, they only attracted the literary leaders for a time, and it wasnot till the days of Byron and Shelley that they found thorough-goingrepresentatives in English poetry. On that, however, I must not speak. I have tried to indicate briefly how Scott and Wordsworth and Coleridge, the most eminent leaders of the new school, partly represented movementsalready obscurely working in England, and how they were affected by thenew ideas which had sprung to life elsewhere. They, like theirpredecessors, are essentially trying to cast aside the literary'survivals' of effete conditions, and succeed so far as they could findadequate expression for the great ideas of their time. 

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