own day, Child, Petty, or Davenant. It would hardly be believed that the man whose name has been overlooked by Smollett, and later historians, had anticipated Macadam and Howard, had laid the foundation of Bethlehem Asylum and Greenwich Academy, had published expositions of views on commerce not unworthy of the Free Trade Catechism, had suggested the reform of the national banking system, had proposed the establishment of provincial banks-and this, too, when not twenty years before the rise of shops in the country villages had been seriously deplored as the ruin of the great towns; and had projected a scheme for a commission of bankruptcy, for friendly societies, and for an institution for the education of females. It is not one of the least anomalies about his singular character and fate, that posterity should forget the merits of a writer who had, in his time, composed one of the most extraordinary books since the

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Century of Inventions" or the " Principia," and whose moth-eaten pages should one day help to mould the mind of such a philosopher as Franklin.

In closing a review of De Foe's career, one cannot help acknowledging that there is no writer in English literature whose characteristics bear more strongly the stamp of nationality. Everything about him is identified with that idiomatic creature we are accustomed to recognize as the portrait of an English citizen. Goldsmith is Irish all over. The artistic affability of Addison would rather suggest an association with the fellow-countrymen of La Bruyère. The artificiality of Johnson's exterior compromises the earnestness of his spirit. The brusque and indomitable emphasis which Swift sometimes infused into his demeanour, comes nearest to him. But it is in

De Foe alone we meet with the plain, unembellished existence of the Anglo-Saxon element, exemplifying itself in its vigorous common sense, its epigrammatic

His

expressiveness, its homely and prosaic reality. individuality realizes the philosophy of common life as thoroughly as that of Addison illustrates its amenities. His experience embodies, as it were, the chivalry of the middle class, the heroism of the bourgeoisie. Every page of his writings is impregnated with the spirit of rational industry, which he opposed to the sensualism around him, and of which he is the canonical exponent. Cobbett did not yield less to sentiment. Critics have decided that this unmusical deficiency in taste has ruined his reputation as a literary artist, that his versification is harsh, his characterization homely, his narration without variety. The remark might, indeed, be justly extended to his conduct in matters where other men, with more sensibility, would have escaped the imputation. The reason is plain. His speculations had not been elaborated in the studio. His academy had been the world. He had not been "swaddled, rocked, and dandled," into a theorist. "Nitor in adversum," was his motto, as emphatically as it was Burke's. His sphere of contemplation was not in the realms of imagination, but of fact. His studies were identified, not with the ideal, but with the real. He had no sympathies with the prevailing tastes of the age. His powers were enlisted in another quarter; his subjects were of sterner stuff. The delicacies of criticism, the elegancies of the "belles lettres" he resigned to the wits, who decided over their cups at Button's on the merits of Pope's "Homer" and Tickell's; or to the fine gentlemen of White's, who relieved the tedium of ombre with bets on the arrival of Sir Henry Newton's despatches from the Court of Tuscany, with Filicaja's last Latin ode on Lord Somers. His standard was not "mode," but utility. His character accordingly shone, to use a Baconian expression, with a dry light. His mental and moral structure partook of the angular

conformation peculiar to his sect. In his idiosyncracies the mechanical predominated. His ethics were those of a reformer, and were composed in the single word Progress. A century later in England he would have been called a Utilitarian, in Germany a Eudæmonist.

CHAPTER V.

POPE AND SWIFT, BOLINGBROKE AND HARLEY.

Literary Biography Prolix and Minute.-English and Continental Men of Letters.-The Moral and Physical Welfare of Literary Men before and after the Revolution.-The System of Dedication a Mark of their Condition. The Theory of External Rewards at the Revolution examined. -Dissociation of Literature from Politics after Anne, and consequent Dissociation of Literary Men from the Court.-Pope.-Arbuthnot.— Gay.-Johnson.-Its results in creating a Literature of the Beau Monde. Relations between the two Literatures.-Goldsmith.-Gibbon.—Mrs. Macaulay. Johnson. Lord Lyttleton. -Walpole.

Chesterfield.Mutual Intercourse of Literary Men.-The Quarrels of Authors.Churchill.-Philips.-Moore.-Byron.-Macaulay.-Pope.-Iis Early Position as a Man of Letters.-His Splenetic Habits.-His Quarrel with Addison.-An Unbiassed Estimate of Addison's Character. - Pope's Treatment of his Friends.-The Affair of his Letters.-The Relation of Bookseller and Bookmaker Examined and Exemplified.-Pope's Poetical Position Defined.-Dryden.-Reaction in English Poetry.— Cowper's Place in that Reaction.-Scott.-Byron.-Effect of Politics on Poetry.-Classic Poetic Fervour.-Speculation on Pope's proposed Epic. His Satires and Epistle to Abelard Criticized.—Swift as a Satirist. -D'Alembert on English Criticism.-Milton.-Bacon.- Addison.— Swift's Poetry to be Examined by the Light of his Life.—Attempt at Elucidating his Real Character. -Not Trusted by Queen Anne's Ministry. The Opposite Theory Refuted. Harley's Character.Bolingbroke. His Historical Position.-His Personal Demeanour.— Connection with Pope and Swift.-Particular Estimate of his Intellectual Career. His Superiority to Harley. His Versatile, Imposing Genius.

THE prolixity of the literary annals of the eighteenth century is remarkable. The general intimacy with writers of every grade may be said to exceed the vulgar intimacy with those other characters, whose position the muse of history has marked by a more dignified and a more emphatic prominence. Most persons who would cheerfully own their ignorance as to whether Charles II. was a quick walker, or William of Orange a hard drinker,

would repel the insinuation on their reading, were they suspected of not knowing that Dryden took snuff, and Johnson was purblind and laughed like a rhinoceros. Their failures and virtues, the gestures and dress, the habits and even the conversations of the men of letters, have been reported to us with a fidelity that Plutarch would have envied, and that almost mocks the oblivion of the tomb. The grand outlines of Johnson's figure, with all its irregularities, as they have been preserved to us by the skill of an artist as superior to Plutarch, as Plutarch is to Diogenes Laërtius, stand forth in relief too bold to escape the notice of even the most transient passenger. But the man who required to be told that Lord Chesterfield was one of the best Viceroys Ireland ever had, that Sir Robert Walpole governed the kingdom in Latin, that Pitt used a crutch, and Fox loved ombre and champagne, would tell you in turn how Swift rose from planting asparagus in Moor Park, to lord it over the October Club, how Addison could not talk without a bottle, how Pope had a hunch on his back, and died worth eight hundred a year, how Steele entertained the beggars of Edinburgh on wine-whey, and whiskey-punch, with bailiffs for liveryservants, how Sterne joked in his sermons, and died in the hands of menials, and how Goldsmith was an inspired idiot, who wrote like an angel, loved sassafras, and was buried two thousand pounds in debt.

And yet no period more deserves to have the veil of secrecy drawn over it, calls up more chequered feelings, or presents more chequered scenes of high intellectual culture, by the side of such little heroism of character, as that period which dates from the birth of Dryden to the birth of Scott. It would have been a flattering feature in our nationality if the mental history of England had offered any favourable contrast in its material condition to that career of misfortune which has so uniformly