On the Literature of the Early Part of the Reign of George the Third.
1768.
It may not be amiss, by way of appendix, to say a few words on the
state of literature during the period I have been describing. It will
be the less improper as the controversies and politics of the age gave
the principal, almost the whole tone to letters of that time. I do not
mean to send the reader to the gross and virulent libels of Wilkes
and his still coarser imitators. As a writer, Wilkes’s chief merit
was an easy style,--the vehicle of little knowledge, of not much more
wit, and of extreme boldness.[78] He was so far an original as being
the first who dared to print the most respected names at full length.
In imitation of him, the daily and evening newspapers printed every
outrageous libel that was sent to them. Till that time the abuse of
the week was generally confined to essays in the journals on Saturdays.
Bolingbroke and Pulteney were content with battering the Administration
once in seven days.
The contests that arose out of Wilkes’s case produced much disquisition
into the laws and Constitution; and amidst much party invective, some
grave and serious treatises appeared, especially one I have mentioned,
the masterly tract called _An Inquiry into the Doctrine of Libels_.[79]
Several other good pamphlets were written on national affairs,
particularly relative to the East India Company; and to the heats
occasioned in America by the Stamp Act. Among the latter were justly
distinguished _A Farmer’s Letters from Pennsylvania_, written by Dr.
Franklin.[80]
The state of our finances, and the properest methods of conducting and
restoring them, were much discussed: never more ably than in Mr. Edmund
Burke’s answer to a (supposed) pamphlet of Mr. Grenville, in 1769.[81]
Politics not only occupied our prose but inspired our poets. I have
taken notice of Churchill’s works; and will only say here that he did
not so much prove himself a great poet, as he showed how great he might
have been.
The politics of the times gave birth to two other poems of uncommon
merit, both in the burlesque style, but one in that of “Hudibras,”
the other in the graver march of “The Dispensary.” The first called
“Rodondo,” of which only two cantos appeared, though a third was
promised, was written by a Mr. Dalrymple, a Scot, and contained a
severe satire on Mr. Pitt, not much inferior in wit to Butler, and like
his work, liable by temporary allusions to lose many beauties in the
eyes of posterity.[82]
The second called “Patriotism; a Mock Heroic,” by Mr. Richard Bentley,
though full of negligences and crowded with intricate and sometimes
too far-fetched metaphors,--nay, in some places pushed to nonsense by
the confusion of those metaphors, in sense and imagination excelled
Churchill; and though less sonorous, did not breathe a spirit less
poetic. The flattery was profuse and indelicate; the satire rarely
unjust. The imitations of Milton, Dryden, and Garth, though frequent,
were always happy; and the whole poem, though much more incorrect than
“The Dispensary” or “The Dunciad,” has beauties that rank it next to
them in merit: in the dignity of its heroes it precedes both. One of
its greatest faults seems to be, that though all the personages appear
under allegoric names, all were meant for living characters, till the
last canto, when Fate is introduced in its own essence, and though
maintained with as sublime dignity as the nature of burlesque would
allow, still produces a confusion by not being of a piece with the rest
of the work. It has the same misfortune with Rodondo of being written
on transient ridicules.[83]
Two other poets of great merit arose, who meddled not with politics;
Dr. Goldsmith, the correct Author of “The Traveller;” and Mr. Anstey,
who produced as original a poem as “Hudibras” itself, “The New Bath
Guide.” The easiest wit, the most genuine humour, the most inoffensive
satire, the happiest parodies, the most unaffected poetry, and the
most harmonious melody in every kind of metre, distinguished that
poem by their assemblage from the works of all other men. It was a
melancholy proof of how little an author can judge of the merit of his
own compositions, when he afterwards produced “The Patriot,” in which
nobody could discover his meaning, or whether he had any meaning; and
in which, amidst various but unsuccessful attempts at humour, nothing
remained but his sonorous numbers. He afterwards sunk to no kind of
merit at all.[84]
I do not know whether this period may not be said to have _given birth_
to another original poem; for notwithstanding its boasted antiquity,
and the singularity of the style, it remains a doubt with me and many
others, whether “Fingal” was not formed in this age from scraps,
perhaps not modern, but of no very early date. Its sterility of ideas,
the insipid sameness that reigns throughout, and the timidity with
which it anxiously avoids every image that might affix it to any
specific age, country, or religion, are far from bespeaking a savage
bard, who the more he was original, the more he would naturally have
availed himself of the images and opinions around him. Few barbarous
authors write with the fear of criticism before their eyes. The moon, a
storm, the troubled ocean, a blasted heath, a single tree, a waterfall,
and a ghost; take these away, and Cadmus’s warriors, who started out of
the earth, and killed one another before they had time to conceive an
idea, were as proper heroes for an epic poem as Fingal and his captains.
I will mention but two other authors of this period, Dr. Robertson,
and Mrs. Macaulay. The first as sagacious and penetrating as Tacitus,
with the perspicuity of Livy, and without the partialities of his own
countryman, Hume, gave a perfect model of history in that of Scotland.
In biography, his method and style were still preserved, though his
Charles the Fifth fell far short of his other works. The female
historian, as partial in the cause of liberty as bigots to the Church
and royalists to tyranny, exerted manly strength with the gravity of
a philosopher.[85] Too prejudiced to dive into causes, she imputes
everything to tyrannic views, nothing to passions, weakness, error,
prejudice, and still less to what operates oftenest, and her ignorance
of which qualified her yet less for a historian,--to accident and
little motives. She seems to think men have acted from no views but
those of establishing a despotism or a republic. As a mixed government
clashed with her system, she forgot the nation had been habituated to
it, and she could not forgive the victors in the civil war for not
abolishing all _established_ order, and for not shutting their ears
and hearts against every connection and interest, in pursuit of a
model which mad Harrington had chalked out, though impracticable,
and which she was not then born to preach up. In this wild pursuit
of a vision which must have rooted up every law, she is reduced to
declare for the army[86] that tore out of the House of Commons the
very Parliament to whom the nation had owed the first assertion of
its liberties. To such absurdities are they reduced whose prejudices
hurry them to extremes! If the Parliament were not the legal authority
for controlling the King, where shall we say legality resides? She
would answer, In the natural right of mankind to be free. That right,
then, must be vindicated by force. Thence we revert to a state of
nature. What did that state of nature produce? System-builders will
tell me, it produced deliberation on the right method of governing
nations. The answer is not true. Time, accident, and events produced
government;--but no matter, I will allow the position, with this
proviso, that a victorious army shall sheathe their swords, and allow
the wisest and best citizens to form a new Constitution: who sees
not the absurdity and impracticability of this proposition? When did
an army bestow freedom? Did that army which raised Cromwell to the
throne--those republican heroes of Mrs. Macaulay? The Parliament was
the true barrier against the King’s usurpations, and had done its
duty nobly. Reformation, not destruction of the constitution, was
its aim; and therefore, in her eyes, it was not less guilty than the
King. I worship liberty as much as she does, detest despotism as much;
but I never yet saw or read of a form of government under which more
general freedom is enjoyed, than under our own. Republics veer towards
aristocracy or democracy, and often end in a single tyrant,--not
that nobles are not tyrants. For the people, they are not capable
of government, and do more harm in an hour, when heated by popular
incendiaries than a king can do in a year. It is a government like
ours, in which all the three parts seek augmentation of their separate
powers, and in which King, Lords, and Commons, are a watch and a check
upon the other two, that best ensures the general happiness. Mrs.
Macaulay will allow that there is no check upon an absolute monarch.
In an aristocracy, the pride, ambition, and jealousy of the nobles
are some check upon each individual grandee. But what is a check
upon the people in a republic? In what republic have not the best
citizens fallen a sacrifice to the ambition and envy of the worst? God
grant that, with all its deficiencies, we may preserve our own mixed
government!