For from the birth

Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said,
That not in humble nor in brief delight,
Not in the fading echoes of Renown,

Power's purple robes, nor Pleasure's flowery lap,
The soul should find enjoyment; but from these
Turning disdainful to an equal good,

Through all the ascent of things enlarge her view,
Till every bound at length should disappear,

And infinite perfection close the scene.'

Gray, a man of vast and varied acquirements, felt, with a melancholy sweetness, the mystery of the world in its relation to universal humanity, and gave voice to his musings in verse whose audience-chamber is capacious as the soul of man; for it reflects, as in peaceful stream, images in which every mind has an interest, and expresses sentiments which find in every bosom an echo. On the eve of a decisive battle, silently gliding along the St. Lawrence, in view of the hostile heights pencilled upon the midnight sky, Wolf repeated the Elegy, in low tones, to the other officers in his boat. Now, gentlemen,' said he, at the close of the recitation, 'I would rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec!' One stanza, one noble line, must have been fraught with a mournful meaning:

The boast of Heraldry, the pomp of Power,

And all that Beauty, all that Wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

All four, however, while they denote a transition era, show the influence of the artificial school. The intellect triumphs over the emotions; their emotion is formal, their tears are academical. Thomson's muse is often dainty, formal, cold. He saw correctly what was before him, the outward show of things, but had no glimpse of

The light that never was on sea or land,

The inspiration, and the poet's dream.'

Young lashes himself into a never-ending series of antitheses, strikes attitudes, and assumes theatricals. Akenside is stiffly classical in manner, and gives us too much foliage for the fruit. He helps on his age chiefly by his subject. Gray cannot shake off the classical drapery. He is fastidious, scrupulously delicate and exact, rather than fiery, tender, or inventive.

Before any aspect of nature or fact of life is capable of poetic treatment, it must have passed inward,― out of the mere region

of intellect into the warmer atmosphere of imaginative feeling,there have flushed into glowing color, and kindled the soul to ‘a white heat.'

Drama. Of slight literary importance. In 1732, Gay brought society upon the stage, held up the mirror of nature, in which men and women could see themselves as others saw them,— see vice made vulgar,- see their most striking peculiarities and defects pass in gay review before them, then learn either to avoid or to conceal them. The Beggar's Opera was acted in London without interruption for sixty-three days. The characters are highwaymen, who wear,― such was the similitude between high and low, the manners and morality of fine gentlemen. Hear people of quality converse:

"If any of the ladies chuse gin, I hope they will be so free as to call for it." "Indeed, sir, I never drink strong waters but when I have the colic." "Just the excuse of the fine ladies! Why, a lady of quality is never without the colic."*

Tragedy was marked rather by cold correctness and turgid declamation than by the freedom and warmth which lead captive the feelings and the imagination. As a reflection of the movement in literature, Shakespeare, who had been banished from the stage, began slowly to reappear. In 1741, the Merchant of Venice was produced in its original form, after an eclipse of one hundred years. In October of this year, Garrick appeared, for the first time on the London stage, in Richard III. It is worthy of notice that this great actor produced a revolution in the art of acting. He displaced the habit of slow, monotonous declamation, of unnatural pomp, by a more various and rapid intonation, and a more careful regard for the truth of nature and history. 'If,' said Quin, 'the young fellow is right, I and the rest of the players have been all wrong'; and he added, 'Garrick is a new religion,- Whitefield was followed for a time,—but they will all come to church again.' Garrick replied in a happy epigram, 'that it was not heresy but reformation.'

Periodical. The daily miscellany, which Addison's singular humor had made so popular, passed into inferior hands, and fell into disrepute. Johnson, in 1750, and again in 1760, vainly attempted to revive it.

The period is remarkable as the era of the commencement of

magazines and reviews. In 1731, appeared the Gentleman's Magazine; and in 1749, the Monthly Review, devoted to criticism. These periodicals are evidence of the large increase of readers, and they show, by their contents, that authors had begun to 'intermeddle with all knowledge,'-criticism, politics, philosophy, poetry, fiction.

The press was now, for the first time in the history of the world, the exponent of public opinion. Said a member of Parliament in 1738:

The people of Great Britain are governed by a power that never was heard of as a supreme authority in any age or country before. . . . It is the government of the press. The stuff which our weekly newspapers are filled with, is received with greater reverence than Acts of Parliament, and the sentiments of one of these scribblers have more weight with the multitude than the opinion of the best politician in the kingdom.'

Said Johnson in 1758:

No species of literary men has lately been so much multiplied as the writers of news. Not many years ago the nation was content with one Gazette, but now we have not only in the metropolis, papers of every morning and every evening, but almost every large town has its weekly historian."

Novel.-Prose fiction, we first observe, is not a wandering maze of fancy, but a tale with more or less loftiness of style, fulness of detail, and unity of action. If the interest turns on supernatural, improbable, or marvellous incidents, the story is called a romance; if on pictures of life, showing the web and texture of society as it really exists, or has existed, it is called a novel. If the novel recreates the events and characters of history, putting us into living contact with a given phase of national life, it is historical; if it paints human nature and facts, with a moral effect or design, it is ethical. The ethical novel may convey its lesson in two principal ways,-it may inflict morality, or insinuate it; it may wall up the heart with discipline, subjecting its impulses uniformly to a severe ideal, or, less exacting, may adopt expansive and liberal measures, allowing a generous supply of air and sunshine. The first was the method of Richardson, the second, of Fielding. The one represents noble dreams, enthusiastic elevation; the other, noisy hilarity and frank benevolence. The heroine of the one is studious, loving, and pious; of the other, modest, loving, and — an excellent cook. Each is the complement of the other, and both are artists. In a literary, artistic view, the novels of Richardson and Fielding are the freshest feature of the period, and the most interesting. Few works yield richer profit

or delight. In them we see veritable men and manners, imbibe our notions of virtue and vice from practical examples, and see life translated into a spiritual language. Where should we go for so satisfactory an account of the general state of society as the standard productions in this species of composition afford? History gives us names and dates, we see the panoramic splendor of kings, and hear the sonorous sounds of war, but cannot see the many-hued daily life, the mad menagerie of passions, which they conceal. We see the dance and sparkle of the rose-colored waters, but think not of the hidden skeletons of death.

History. The historical literature of a people is developed by successive stages. Falling at first, like the mind itself, under the absolute dominion of the imagination, its earliest expression is legendary, and its form is metrical,- songs, epics, and ballads. These are the groundwork. They preserve the stock of oral traditions, and thus mark the dim beginnings of national life. We have listened to the impassioned war-chant of the Anglo-Saxons, which exhibits beforehand the flower in the bud:

The army goes forth; the birds sing, the cricket chirps, the war-weapons sound, the lance clangs against the shield. Now shineth the moon, wandering under the sky. Now arise deeds of woe, which the enmity of this people prepares to do. . . . Then in the court came the tumult of war-carnage. They seized with their hands the hollow wood of the shield. They smote through the bones of the head. The roofs of the castle resounded, until Garulf fell in battle, the first of earth-dwelling men, son of Guthlaf. Around him lay many brave men dying. The raven whirled about dark and sombre, like a willow leaf. There was a sparkling of blades, as if all Finsburg were on fire. Never have I heard of a more worthy battle in war.'1

Such productions are a source of amusement in time of peace, of inspiration in time of war; and the minstrels who sing them rise to the dignity of final umpires in disputed questions. It will be found that the first rudiments of knowledge consist always of poetry. In the absence of authentic records, this is the form best calculated to assist the memory.

This sort of hero-worship, as a means of perpetuating public memories, is at length succeeded by annals or chronicles, with bare dates; a diary of passing experience-a kind of historical almanac in prose or verse. We have seen how the monks with

1 Composed before the beginning of the emigrations to England.

2 Mr. Ellis, a missionary in the South Sea Islands, says of the inhabitants: Their traditionary ballads were a kind of standard, or classical authority, to which they referred for the purpose of determining any disputed fact in their history. And when doubts arose, as they had no records to which they could at such times refer, they could only oppose one oral tradition to another; which unavoidably involved the parties in protracted and often obstinate debates.'-Polynesian Researches.

monotonous dryness gather up and take note of the great visible events:

'A.D. 788. This year there was a synod assembled at Fingal in Northumberland, on the fourth day before the nones of September; and Abbot Albert departed this life.

A.D. 788. Here Elwald, King of the Northumbrians, was slain by Siga, on the 11th day before the calends of October; and a heavenly light was often seen there, where he was slain. He was buried in the church of Hexam; and Osred, the son of Alred, who was his nephew, succeeded to him in the government. This year there was synod assembled at Acley.

A.D. 790. Here Archbishop Eanbert died, and Abbot Ethelherd was chosen archbishop the same year, and Osred, King of the Northumbrians, was betrayed, and banished from his kingdom, and Ethelred, the son of Ethelwald, succeeded him.'

We have heard the dull babbling of Robert Mannyng, as he turns the fabulous history of England into prosaic rhymes.'

These are the infant attempts at regular narrative — mere pegs without tapestry to cover them. The narrator, however, in telling his story of the present or past, has thus far no choice of materials. Like the society for which he has written, he has a natural appetite for the marvellous, sharpened by the mystery which hangs over what is distant. Nothing is too absurd for his or the general belief. The legends of the bard and the superstitions of the monastic-omens, prodigies, apparitions, monstrous appearances in the heavens. are recounted with grave minuteness of detail, and copied from book to book as if they were the choicest treasures of human wisdom. Thus in 1483, the pedigree of the London bishops was traced back to the migration of Brutus from Troy, even to Noah and Adam. The History of the Britons, composed in 1147, and professing to take a comprehensive view of the subject, relates how Brutus, having slain the giants who peopled England, built London; how, during a succeeding government, it rained blood three consecutive days; how the coasts were infested by a horrid sea-monster, which, having devoured multitudes, swallowed the reigning king; how a giant, more terrible than the others, clothed himself in furs made entirely from the beards of kings he had killed, but fell himself a victim to the prowess of Arthur. The reputation of this work procured for its author a bishopric, and for several centuries but two or three critics ventured to question its accuracy.

As the bounding boyhood of fancy merges into the sober manhood of reason, as the roseate hues of morning fade into the calm

1 See Vol. I, p. 181.