The modern novel of actual life and manners dates from 1740, when Samuel
Richardson published his _Pamela_, a story that was the talk and wonder
of the town. It was followed by _Clarissa Harlowe_, its author’s
masterpiece--a book charged with pathos, and instinct with tenderness
and morality. Henry Fielding, “the prose Homer of human nature,” and, if
not so delicate, a more powerful artist than Richardson, issued his
_Joseph Andrews_ in 1742, and his world-famous _Tom Jones_ in 1749.
Tobias Smollett wrote his _Roderick Random_ in 1748, and this was
followed by other stories as realistic as Fielding’s but much more
marred by caricature. Laurence Sterne’s _Tristram Shandy_ and the
_Sentimental Journey_ were novelties in prose writing, and, although
they are thin as novels, they will live for their peculiar wit and
pathos. Goldsmith’s _Vicar of Wakefield_, published in 1766, stands
alone for its idyllic beauty and charming simplicity. Fanny Burney’s
_Evelina_ and _Cecilia_ were noticeable for invention and observation
and skill in portraiture.
The poetry of the second half of the century was varied in character,
but it closed with a noble elevation in Burns. To the heavy religious
poems of Blair and Young succeeded the more artistic strains of Gray and
Collins and Goldsmith, and the mystical yearnings and Elizabethan fervor
of Blake. Thomson, one of the most excellent of descriptive poets, had
given place to Shenstone, who had less genius but more taste, and a
third writer of the Spenserian stanza was found in Beattie. Percy’s
_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_ brought the ballad again into
favor; while Chatterton deceived the very elect by his marvelous
imitation of the older forms of poetry.
William Cowper, notwithstanding his fastidiousness and over-refinement,
was a poet of a high and genuine order. He let nature have its way in
such exquisite poems as the _Lines to His Mother’s Picture_ and the
_Loss of the “Royal George,”_ while any humorist might envy the
delightful abandonment of _John Gilpin_. His larger poems are severer in
style, yet many of their pictures, testifying to a reverent love of
nature, remain imprinted on the memory; and they are full of happy
phrases and turns of expression.
The new life infused into Scottish poetry was heralded by Michael Bruce,
a sweet singer who died at twenty-one, and by Allan Ramsay, whose
pastoral drama of the _Gentle Shepherd_ affords one of the most
beautiful and tender pictures of Scottish rural life. The ballad
acquired a new pathos and interest in such productions as Lady Anne
Barnard’s _Auld Robin Gray_.
But the poetic genius of Scotland found its ripest and fullest
expression in Robert Burns. His love songs have the freshness and fervor
of the Elizabethan lyrics; his poems of man and of nature, like those of
Cowper, reveal the highest aspirations for the welfare of humanity; his
humorous compositions are as lifelike in their character-painting as
they are full to overflowing of fun; and his serious poems reveal a
pathos which has never been excelled. Nature seemed to put on new
beauties when Robert Burns chanted her praises, and the daisy can never
again seem commonplace since he immortalized it. The poor at length
acquired their laureate in this sweet singer of the North.
Historical and philosophical literature attained a high level at this
period. Edward Gibbon, though lacking human sympathy, had great creative
power and originality, and his _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ is
one of the most massive of historical conceptions, worked out with
stately eloquence. David Hume, whose _History of England_ does not take
such high rank, was more original in his philosophical speculations,
referring all actual knowledge to experience, and making utility the
standard of virtue.
Adam Smith, by his _Wealth of Nations_, established his claim to be
regarded as the founder of the modern system of political economy, and
one of the benefactors of his species. All questions of labor and
capital were placed by this work on a scientific basis, and it paved the
way for the doctrine of free trade.
Edmund Burke’s _Reflections on the French Revolution_ caused a revulsion
of feeling against France, while his _Letters on a Regicide Peace_
increased the war fever in England. The former work was answered by
Thomas Paine in his _Rights of Man_, and the latter by Sir James
Mackintosh in his _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_. Burke’s philosophical works are
models of eloquence and construction. William Paley, in his _Evidences
of Christianity_ and other works, skillfully defended revealed religion
against the attacks of its enemies.
Towards the close of the century the newspaper press received a strong
impetus by the establishment of _The Times_ and other important
journals; knowledge likewise began to be condensed and methodized in
Cyclopædias; while criticism took a wider as well as a more popular
range in the first decade of the nineteenth century by the foundation of
the _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly Reviews_.
We cannot pass from the eighteenth century without noticing the
remarkable development in hymnology. George Wither issued the earliest
English hymn-book in 1623, _Hymns and Songs of the Church_; but the
first hymn-book of the modern type was published by John Wesley for use
in the Church of England in 1737. Among the hymnologists of the
eighteenth century whose compositions remain in general use until this
day may be mentioned A. M. Toplady, John Newton, the Wesleys, Isaac
Watts, William Cowper, and Philip Doddridge.
ROMANTICISM AND THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY.--The literature of the
nineteenth century is almost overwhelming in its magnitude and variety.
In nearly every branch it has attained a higher level than in the
preceding century, and in nothing is this more noticeable than in
poetry. Although the century opened when Crabbe, the reporter of rural
life, was painting his Dutch-like pictures, we soon pass on to higher
things. There was a great revival in imaginative poetry before 1820.
Byron, with his precociousness in love and genius, took a high flight in
his _Childe Harold_, and although all his works--_Don Juan_, _Manfred_,
_Cain_, etc.--were impressed by his own gloomy personality, he yet made
living verse.
Shelley, imbued with revolutionary ideas and aspirations after an ideal
being, was one of the greatest poets of the age, now Miltonic in his
elegiac verse in _Adonais_, and now unapproachable in his lyrics. No
singer has ever drawn deeper from the wells of poetic inspiration.
Wordsworth, contemplative and philosophic the patriarch of the Lake
School, taught the dependence of the poet on nature, and from the
_Lyrical Ballads_ to the _Excursion_ he illustrated his own saying in
his works, that “poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity.” He
threw off the conventional, and endeavored to pierce to the heart of
things, whether in man or in nature.
Fancy and imagination were made perfect in the exquisite creations and
sensuous verse of Keats; wit and pathos abounded in Thomas Hood; while
historic and romantic poetry found notable exemplars in Southey, Scott,
Rogers, Campbell, and Coleridge. Hannah More and Joanna Baillie sought
to galvanize the classical drama; Cunningham sang his Scottish songs;
and Keble consecrated sacred hopes in the _Christian Year_.
The historic novel was made memorable by Sir Walter Scott, whose
extraordinary fecundity was the wonder of his generation. His novels
were the first and greatest prose result of the revived spirit of
romanticism. Jane Austen did for the domestic novel what Scott did for
the historical. The pictures of English life in _Pride and Prejudice_,
_Mansfield Park_, and the remaining stories by this writer, have never
been excelled. Her painting of manners was exquisite, and while her
characters and incidents were of the most every-day description, she
lifted them out of the commonplace by her exquisite touch and her
absolute truthfulness to nature.