390 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOPv. 



Cologne was its leading city, and the towns of Amsterdam, 

 Armheim, Bolsvard, Briel, Deventer, Dordrecht or Dort, Dort- 

 mund, Duisburg, Groningen, Hardewyk, Kampen, Middelburg, 

 Muiden, Munster, Nordheim, Nimeguen, Osnabruck, Stavoren, 

 Paderborn, Roermonde, Zierickzee, Zutphen, Wessel, and Zwoll 

 belonged to this important and populous quarter. 



The Prussian (Quarter included the towns of the far east, viz., 

 those of Old Prussia (not to be confounded with the modern 

 kingdom of that name), Livonia, Esthonia, Lithuania, and 

 Poland. Dantzic was the capital of this quarter, and among 

 its Members were Konigsberg, Riga, Dorpat, Revel, Krakau, 

 Elbing, Thorn, and Kulm. 



From the constitution of the Hanse, the numbers of towns of 

 which it was composed, as well as those in alliance with it, 

 varied from time to time. Those mentioned above were the 

 members in the fourteenth century. 



LESSONS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

 XXVII. 



DEFOE TO COWPEK. 



THE seventh period of our literature, as sketched in the 

 introductory chapter which begins these lessons, may bo said to 

 be the age of the great novelists, although a few poets graced it, 

 and the king of all its men of letters was a man who partially 

 failed both in fiction and in poetry Samuel Johnson, critic and 

 lexicographer. 



From the artificialities of style which most of the writers in 

 Pope's time considered indispensable marks of taste and power, 

 the transition to such plain speech and matter-of-fact thinking 

 as we find in Defoe is very remarkable. He was a sturdy Eng- 

 lishman from top to toe. He would have his ears cropped 

 rather than forego the expression of his opinions. " 'Tis hard 

 for a man to say, all the world is mistaken but himself, but if 

 it be so, who can help it ? " The man who had a dogged mind 

 of this kind in him was not the man to express himself with 

 dainty phrase, or to busy himself with abstractions. 



Defoe, born in London in 1663, was the son of a butcher, 

 and became a hosier soon after leaving school. Ere he entered 

 on this trade, however, he had already scribbled a little. He 

 joined Monmouth's rising in 1685, thereafter speculated in one 

 or two mercantile adventures, became bankrupt, struggled into 

 business again as a tile manufacturer, and then obtained the 

 post of commissioner on glass-duties. When King William 

 came to the throne, the Jacobites called out upon him as a 

 foreigner ; but Defoe, who all through his life was a Whig 

 partisan, defended His Majesty in a dogged satire called " The 

 True-born Englishman." This had a prodigious success ; 

 80,000 copies were soon sold off in the streets. Other success- 

 ful works of Defoe's are, " Moll Flanders," " A Journal of the 

 Plague" (fictitious, but often taken for true history), " Colonel 

 Jack," " Captain Singleton," " Memoirs of a Cavalier," and 

 "Roxana." It was not until Defoe had lost his fortune and 

 health, and had emerged from a prison, partially paralysed, 

 that he began his " Robinson Crusoe." This appeared in 

 1719. It has been translated into every European language. 

 Founded upon a few incidents in the life of a Scottish seaman 

 named Alexander Selkirk, it deals with fictitious circumstances 

 in such a minute and seemingly veracious manner, that the 

 .'' reader feels Robinson Crusoe as living a reality in his mind 

 AS Columbus is. Defoe had a hard life, and died in London, 

 in 1,731, worn out with disease and misfortune. 



"Robinson Crusoe "was Defoe's greatest work ; but some of his 

 other stories, like " Moll Flanders " and " Colonel Jack," more 

 distinctly indicate the work he did in diverting the attention of 

 literary men from classical and romantic subjects, and fixing 

 them on life around them. Defoe's manner of studying life 

 was coarse ; and he could describe things and incidents better 

 than character. Samuel Richardson, however, took up his pen, 

 and gave us minute pictures of the manners of life in his 

 times, with capitally executed studies of character. Samuel 

 Bichardson was born in Derbyshire in 1689, and became a 

 printer in London. He often exercised his pen in writing 

 indexes, prefaces, and "honest dedications" to the volumes he 

 printed and published ; but real authorship he did not attempt 

 until he had passed his fiftieth year. Two brother booksellers 

 desired him to write a collection of familiar letters, for the 



instruction and edification of youth. Richardson pondered the 

 task for some time, and conceived that he might possibly in- 

 troduce ** a new species of writing that might turn young people 

 into a course of reading different from the pomp and parade of 

 romance writing, and, diminishing the improbable and marvel- 

 lous with which novels generally abound, might tend to promote 

 the course of religion and virtue." So the result was that this* 

 collection of letters became the first real English novel, and 

 appeared under the title of " Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded." 

 These letters, passing between several people, tell us of a pretty, 

 bashful young servant girl, to whom her wealthy young master 

 makes love in rather a free fashion. The girl's modesty pre- 

 vails triumphantly in the end, and virtue is rewarded by her get- 

 ting the rake to propose real marriage to her. She drives off with 

 him to church, and goes home to make him happy ever after 

 by helping his housekeeper " to make jellies, comfits, sweetmeats, 

 marmalades, cordials, and to pot, candy and preserve." It 

 was curious that the long-drawn story of this young girl's 

 temptation should have been selected by Richardson for the 

 reading of youth, and still more curious that divines like Dr. 

 Slocock should publicly praise the tendency of the book from 

 the pulpit. Dr. Watts was more near the mark when he told 

 the author that a young woman could not read it without 

 blushing. The moral of the whole thing is not so high-pitched 

 as Richardson supposed, being prudential at the best. The 

 minutely delicate touches of human character with which the 

 novel abounds are wonderful and fascinating, and although no 

 sentence in the book stamps Richardson as a great thinker, 

 the cumulative effect of what he writes amounts to the 

 effect of true genius. 



" Clarissa Harlowe," in eight volumes, was Richardson's next 

 novel. Its execution is similar to that of " Pamela," and its 

 morality is just as doubtful. Clarissa is less lovable than 

 Pamela, and goes through life as if she had a treatise on 

 propriety always in her hand. This novel contains the classic 

 Lovelace, an accomplished, ingenious, handsome, villainous 

 profligate. As a contrast to Lovelace, Richardson has given 

 us his idea of an English Christian gentleman in his third novel, 

 " The History of Sir Charles Grandison." People laugh now 

 when they read this book ; and it never succeeded so well as its 

 predecessors. Sir Charles Grandison acts and talks like a figure 

 that had just stepped out of a " moral waxwork." 



Of course, many laughed at Richardson's namby-pambinesses, 

 even while feeling his power. Henry Fielding resolved to 

 burlesque him. Fielding, born near Glastonbury in 1707, had 

 been student, man of pleasure, spendthrift, playwright, lawyer, 

 all in turn, before he brought forth his parody of ''Pamela." 

 It appeared in 1742, and was called " Joseph Andrews." He 

 " builded better than he knew." In satirising Richardson, and 

 aiming at burlesque, he really drew pictures of England and 

 English people that were the most graphic ever written. His 

 next efforts were " A Journey from this World to the Next," 

 and " Jonathan Wild." Then came his masterpiece, " Tom 

 Jones." In this novel he certainly takes our breath away 

 pretty often. He is frank to a fault ; he nothing extenuates, 

 but tells us all he knows about the life of ordinary English- 

 men and women of his day, who eat plenty of beef and drink 

 plenty of ale, and love sport and horseplay, and talk in very 

 plain speech, with jokes that would shock any of us now. 

 Fielding, more than any other writer, has drawn John Bull. 

 He is not particular as to the circumstances with which he 

 surrounds his characters ; but his teaching as a whole was 

 healthy. His Tom Jones, who was meant as a sort of anti- 

 dote to the priggish Sir Charles Grandison. is a sad young dog 

 at times ; but it is the very healthiness of his blood, and the 

 heartiness of his character, that land him in such scrapes. 

 Honesty and manliness are his backbone. After the somewhat 

 sickly sentimentalisms of Richardson, which at the best 

 preached negative abstention from immorality rather than spon- 

 taneous goodness and generosity, Fielding's teaching was of 

 service. Two years after " Tom Jones " was published, 

 Fielding received 1,000 for "Amelia," which is almost as good 

 as " Tom Jones." The novelist's first wife was named Amelia ; 

 and this book may be said to be a tender tribute to her memory. 

 Fielding died at Lisbon in 1754. 



Fielding, whom Byron has called " the prose Homer of 

 human nature," took large views of everything ; he dealt with 

 things in the rough, as it were. Laurence Sterne did tho 



