LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 



165 



displayed a droll mingling of wit and pathos, 

 in a style exceedingly lively and flexible. 

 Richardson, one of the first English romance 

 writers, was born in 1689. His principal 

 novels, which are of immense length, are 

 Pamela, 'Clarissa Harlowe, and Sir Charles 

 Grandison. Smollett, his successor, published 

 his Roderick Random in 1748, and Humphrey 

 Clinker, his last work, in 1771. Hume, in 

 addition to political and philosophical works, 

 wrote the History of England, from the inva- 

 sion of Caesar to the rebellio'n of 1688, which 

 was published in 1673-4. Smollett wrote four 

 volumes in continuation of the history. Gib- 

 bon, born in 1737, completed, after twenty 

 years' labor, his History of the Decline and Fall 

 of the Roman Empire, which appeared from 

 1782 to 1788. Robertson, the contemporary 

 of Gibbon, published his History of Scotland 

 in 1759, and his History of the Reign of Charles 

 V. in 1769. Dr. Johnson, whose Rasselas, 

 Lives of the Poets, and contributions to The 

 Rambler exercised such a salutary influence on 

 the popular taste of his time, died in 1784. 

 His Dictionary of the English Language was 

 first published in 1755. Edmund Burke, one 

 of the most finished and powerful of English 

 orators, published, in 1756, his Essay on the 

 Sublime and Beautiful, which is a model of 

 philosophical writing. He died in 1797. 



With the present century commenced a new 

 era in English literature. The reign of the 

 drama and the epic was over ; the reign of 

 romance, in bpth prose and poetry, and the 

 expression of a higher and more subtle range 

 of imagination now commenced. The lan- 

 guage lost something, perhaps, of its classic 

 polish and massive strength, but became more 

 free and flowing, more varied in style, and 

 richer in epithet. The authors in whom this 

 change is first apparent are Coleridge and 

 Wordsworth in poetry, and Scott in prose. 

 Nearly coeval with the two former, but differ- 

 ent in character, were Byron and Moore ; the j 

 latter are the poets of passion, the former of 

 imagination. Scott, in his Waverley novels, 

 first developed the neglected wealth of English 

 romance. Burns, although his best songs are 

 in the Scottish dialect, stands at the head of 

 all English song writers. Campbell, in the 

 true lyric inspiration of his poems, is classed 

 with Gray. Rogers and Southey can hardly 

 be ranked among those poets who assisted in 

 developing the later English literature. The 

 former imitates the old models ; the latter, 

 more daring in his forms of verse and more 

 splendid in his imagination, has never been 

 able to touch the popular heart. Coleridge's 

 prose works contain probably the most impor- 

 tant contributions to English philosophical 



literature since the time of Bacon. The de- 

 partment of history has been amply filled by 

 Scott, Alison, author of a History of Europe, 

 Gillies and Grote, celebrated for their Histories 

 of Greece, Napier in his History of (he Peninsu- 

 lar War, Hallam in his History of the Middle 

 Ages, and Macaulay in his History of England. 

 Leigh Hunt wrote The Rimini. The field of 

 historical romance opened by Sir Walter Scott 

 has been successfully followed by Sir Edward 

 Bulwer-Lytton and G. P. R. James. 



As novelists of English life find society, 

 under all its aspects, Dickens and Thackeray ~ 

 and Miss Bronte", author of Shirley and Jane 

 Eyre stand preeminent. As essayists and 

 critics, the names of Lords Jeffrey and 

 Brougham, Sidney Smith, Macaulay, Professor 

 Wilson, De Quincey, Carlyle, and Stevens 

 surpass even the group who produced The 

 Tatler and The Spectator. Carlyle, in his 

 Sartor Resartus, Past and Present, and Heroes 

 and Hero Worship, has made use of an idiom 

 of his own a broken, involved, German- 

 esque diction, which resembles that of no 

 other English author. Some of the most 

 prominent English poets of this period are 

 Lord Byron, Shelley, Thomas Moore, Leigh 

 Hunt, Rogers, Alfred Tennyson, Milnes, 

 Barry Cornwall, Robert Browning, Elizabeth 

 Barrett Browning, probably the most impas- 

 sioned and imaginative of English female 

 authors, Walter Savage Landor, Mary How- 

 itt, R. H. Home, author of Orion, Croly, 

 Philip James Bailey, author of Festus, and 

 T. N. Talfourd, author of the tragedy of Ion. 

 Among later writers of poetry, Matthew 

 Arnold has written some of the most refined 

 verse of our generation, and among critics 

 holds the first rank. Algernon Swinburne 

 excels all living poets in his marvelous gift of 

 rhythm and command over the resources of 

 the language. Dante Rossetti had great lyrical 

 power ; Edwin Arnold has extraordinary pop- 

 ularity in the United States for his remark- 

 able poem, The Light of Asia, and for other 

 poems on Oriental subjects. Among other 

 poets of the present generation whose writings 

 are marked by excellences of various kinds 

 are Lord Lytton ("Owen Meredith"), Wil- 

 liam Morris, Edmund Gosse, Austin Dobson, 

 Andrew Lang, and Philip Marston. Among 

 female writers, the poems of Jean Ingelow 

 have a merited popularity ; those of Adelaide 

 Procter are pervaded by a beautiful spirit of 

 faith and hope ; while Christina Rossetti 

 shows great originality and deep feeling. 

 Chief in the field of fiction are the writings c>2 

 " George Eliot," a woman of rare genius, 

 whose works are among the greatest England 

 has produced. Anthony Trollope has produced 



