16 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tain amount of testimony which will he all that is left for posterity to 

 judge from, and in consulting this we may find material from which 

 to form a tolerably satisfactory conclusion. 



It is an easy definition of the literature of the last century that 

 its tone was didactic. From the " Spectator " to the " Rambler " it 

 abounds with the soundest instruction in morality, yet it may be 

 worth while to notice that this is generally about the very rudiments 

 of decorum. The "Spectator," for example, defended matrimony 

 from the ribald attacks of the comic writers ; it preached sound views 

 concerning education, and it by no means neglected minor matters, 

 such as " that huddled economy of dress which passes under the gen- 

 eral name of a mob, the bane of conjugal love, and one of the readiest 

 means imaginable to alienate the affection of a husband, especially 

 a fond one " (No. 302). Elsewhere mention is made of misbehavior 

 at church ; improper conversation in public vehicles is denounced : 

 these are the domestic and somewhat rudimentary lessons inculcated 

 amid a great deal of social instruction concerning witchcraft, the folly 

 of dueling, the beauties of the arts, etc. The work of the " Specta- 

 tor" was summed up not inaccurately in these lines of an admirer, 

 which are given in Drake's " Essays," illustrative of the " Tatler," etc. : 



"Improving youth, and hoary age, 

 Are bettered by thy matchless page, 

 And, what no mortal could devise, 

 "Women, by reading thee, grow wise. 

 . . . wedlock by thy art is got 

 To be a soft and easy knot. . . . 

 The ladies, pleased with thee to dwell, 

 Aspire to write correct, and spell." 



There is a certain anti-climax in this outburst of praise, but it has 

 the merit of accuracy, and it is easy to see how great are the advances 

 made since the beginning of the last century in what we may call 

 social morality. 



Richardson, too, was didactic; but no reader of "Pamela" can 

 avoid seeing that the heroine clings to her virtue quite as much for 

 the reward she expects to win in this world as from any higher mo- 

 tive. The dangers portrayed in "Clarissa Harlowe" are somewhat 

 remote in this more decorous age ; and Sir Charles Grandison is a 

 curious combination of heroic romance and catlike domesticity. The 

 life that Fielding draws seems to us all very remote. Miss Edgeworth, 

 again, took charge of the education of her contemporaries by writing 

 a series of novels, each one of which exhibited the evil effects of one 

 minor vice and the advantages of the opposite virtue. In all her sto- 

 ries, clever though they are, there is a great deal of the teaching with 

 which Frank was dosed. 



When at length society was tamed, hospitality did not mean drink- 

 ing with your guest till one or both of you fell under the table, and 



