He was without worldly fortune, or the opportunity of high education. He had little Latin, and no Greek at all. He was apprenticed to a surgeon. In 1818, he published" Endymion,” with other poems; and the volume was so fiercely abused by some of the reviewers, that his early death is sometimes said to have been hastened by the shock thus given to him. His health was rapidly declining by consumption; and in 1820, he was obliged to go to Italy for a gentler climate. He died in Rome in the following year. Before leaving England, he published several exquisite and splendid poems, particularly "Hyperion,' Lamia," The Eve of St. Agnes," and "Ode to the Nightingale." He dictated the epitaph upon his tomb: Here lies one whose name was writ in water." The dying poet seems not to have dreamed of the great and imperishable renown that was to preserve his name from dying.

66

13. We must group into smaller space our record of the other poets belonging to this glorious, creative era of English literature. Robert Bloomfield (1766-1823), an apprentice to a farmer, and without helps to education, wrote "The Farmer's Boy," "Wild Flowers,” “Rural Tales," ," "The Banks of the Wye," "Songs and Ballads," etc., the first two of which once had great popularity. William Lisle Bowles (1762– 1850) was a learned antiquary, and a prolific writer both of prose and verse. His most memorable work is his "Sonnets," a form of verse in which he greatly excelled. Mary Tighe (1774–1810) published in 1805 a poem called "Psyche," which was much read. James Montgomery (1771-1854), a journalist, acquired wide popular recognition by his hymns, and by several long poems, particularly "The Wanderer of Switzerland," "The West Indies," "The World before the Flood," and "Greenland." Robert Montgomery (1807-55), a clergyman, wrote long pietistic poems on "The Omnipresence of the Deity," "The Messiah," and "Satan." His reputation is now chiefly derived from Macaulay's contemptuous essay on his poetry. Henry Kirke White (1785-1806) came to his death from imprudent devotion to study at Cambridge; and had great posthumous reputation on account of the publication of his verses and prose essays, edited by Southey. Reginald Heber (17831826) wrote, besides sermons and books of travel, "Poems and Translations," 1812; and "Hymns," 1827. Some of the latter will last as long as our language lasts. Felicia Hemans (1794-1835) wrote "Dartmoor," "Siege of Valencia," "Songs of the Cid," "Lays of Many Lands," "Songs of the Affections," etc. James Hogg (1770 or 17721835), known as "the Ettrick Shepherd," was a self-trained writer, and published, in 1807, "The Mountain Bard;" in 1810, "The Forest Min

strel;" and in 1813, "The Queen's Wake." He is a prominent personage in "Noctes Ambrosianæ." Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-49) wrote "The Bride's Tragedy," "The Improvisatore," "Death's Jest Book," ‚”“Dramatic Scenes and Fragments." John Keble (1792-1866) wrote "The Christian Year," which has probably been published in a hundred editions; also "Lyra Innocentium," and parts of "Lyra Apostolica." Ebenezer Elliott (1781-1849), known as "the Corn-Law Rhymer," won his chief distinction as a writer of passionate and stirring lyrics at a time of great political excitement in England. Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849), eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, wrote essays for "Blackwood's Magazine,” and “ Biographia Borealis;" also "Poems," in which the sonnets are of special tenderness and beauty. Arthur Henry Hallam (1811-33), who is forever commemorated in Tennyson's "In Memoriam,” wrote both poems and prose essays, which were printed, first, in 1834, and again in 1862. Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802-38) became known by her initials, "L. E. L.," with which she signed her many poems, such as "The Troubadour," "The Venetian Bracelet," "The Golden Violet," and "The Vow of the Peacock."

66

CHAPTER XVIII.

FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: NOVELISTS AND DRAMATISTS.

1. Sir Walter Scott.-2. Prominence of the Novel as a Form of Literature.-3. William Godwin; Maria Edgeworth; Matthew Gregory Lewis; Amelia Opie; Jane Austen; Jane Porter; Anna Maria Porter; Barbara Hofland; Mary Brunton.-4. Mrs. Shelley; James Morier; Thomas Hope; Robert P. Ward; Theodore Hook; Thomas H. Lister; Lady Blessington; Mrs. Trollope; Mary Russell Mitford; G. P. R. James; John Galt; William H. Ainsworth. — 5. Dramatists: Joanna Baillie; Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd; James Sheridan Knowles.-6. Six Greatest Novelists between 1830 and 1850: Captain Marryat; Lord Lytton; Lord Beaconsfield; Charlotte Bronté; Charles Dickens; William Makepeace Thackeray.

1. ENGLISH prose fiction, which, as an influential form of literature, received its first great impulse from the labors of Defoe, of Richardson, and of Fielding, received its second great impulse from the labors of Sir Walter Scott. When his metrical tales had begun to lose their influence before the growing fame of Byron, Scott broke with rhyme, and began, in 1814, with his first novel, "Waverley," to pour out his prose romances. At least one, often two, in a year, appeared for the next seventeen years without intermission, except in the single year 1830. Nowhere in print was Scott so much a poet as in the earlier of his novels. His bright, cheerful fancy, his quick humor, his honest warmth of feeling, which aroused every healthy emotion without stirring a passion, exercised, in these incessantly recurring novels, an influence as gradual, as sure, and as well fitted to its time, as that which had been exercised by Steele and Addison in constantly recurring numbers of the "Tatler" and "Spectator." There was a wide general public now able to fasten upon entertaining volumes. Scott widened it, and purified its taste. In him there was no form of romantic discontent. His world was the same world of genial sympathies, in which we may all live if we will, and do

live if we know it. He enjoyed the real, and sported with the picturesque. As he felt, he wrote, frankly and rapidly. Even his kindly Toryism was a wholesome influence. The Jacobites, so real to Defoe, amused the public now as the material of pleasant dreams; and the sunlight of Scott's fancy glistened upon rippling waters where the storm menaced wreck. Never, perhaps, was there a wholesomer English writer than he.

2. The vast renown, and even the vast pecuniary reward, reaped by Scott from his novels, aided to bring the novel to the front, as the one form of literature in which nearly all writers in the nineteenth century should feel a desire to utter themselves, very much as was the case with the drama in the seventeenth century. An exhaustive list of the mere names of English writers who have written novels between 1800 and 1850 would fill a great space in this book. We can only call attention to those of chief significance.

3. First, let us group together those who were writing novels in the years just before Scott published "Waverley." As far back as in 1794, William Godwin (1756–1836) published his powerful novel, “Caleb Williams;" which was followed, in 1799, by "St. Leon;" by "Fleetwood," in 1805; by Mandeville," in 1817; by "Cloudesley," in 1830; and by "Deloraine," in 1833. Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) established her reputation as a novelist by "Castle Rackrent," in 1801. Her other novels are numerous, including "The Absentee," "Belinda,” "Patronage," "Harrington," and "Ormond." Her writings were greatly admired by Sir Walter Scott. Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818) published in 1795 his most celebrated work, "The Monk;" and in 1801, his "Tales of Wonder." Besides these, he wrote several dramas and poems. Amelia Opie (1769-1853) wrote many stories that have had great popularity, such as "The Ruffian Boy," "Temper," "Murder will Out," ," "The Father and Daughter," and "St. Valentine's Day." Jane Austen (1775-1817) showed great power as a delineator of common life and simple characters, in such novels as "Sense and Sensibility," "6 Emma," "Mansfield Park," " ""Pride and Prejudice," and "Persuasion." Jane Porter (1776-1850) published two novels that are still celebrated, "Thaddeus of Warsaw," in 1803, and "The Scottish Chiefs," in 1809. Besides these are "The Field of Forty Footsteps," "Sir Edward Seaward's Diary," and several more. With her sister. Anna Maria Porter (1780-1832), she wrote "Tales round a Winter's Hearth." This sister wrote, alone, a large number of novels; among which are The Lakes of Killarney," in 1804; "A Sailor's Friendship and a Soldier's Love," in 1805; "The Hungarian Brothers," in 1807;

66

and "The Recluse of Norway," in 1814. Barbara Hofland (1770-1844) was a diligent writer, producing about seventy different works, mostly novels, which have had an enormous sale in England and America, as well as upon the European continent. Some of these are "Emily," "The Son of a Genius," "The Unloved One," "Adelaide," "Humility," and "Tales of the Manor." Mary Brunton (1778-1818) published, in 1811, "Self-Control,” and, in 1814, “Discipline,” two novels that at once gained great popularity.

66

4. Among the novelists whose work began after the publication of "Waverley," the following are to be mentioned. Mrs. Shelley (1798– 1851), second wife of the poet, published, in 1818, "Frankenstein;" in 1823, "Valperga;" and, subsequently, "Lodore," "The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck," "The Last Man," and "Falkner." James Morier (1780-1849) wrote "Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan," ""Zohrab the Hostage," Ayesha, the Maid of Kars," "The Banished Swabian," etc. Thomas Hope (about 1770–1831) acquired reputation by his "Anastasius; or, Memoirs of a Modern Greek," published in 1819. Robert P. Ward (1765-1846) published, in 1825, "Tremaine; or, the Man of Refinement," and afterwards "De Vere; or, the Man of Independence," "De Clifford; or, the Constant Man," and "Chatsworth; or, the Romance of a Week." Other novelists of this time are Theodore Hook (1788-1841); Thomas Henry Lister (1801–42); Lady Blessington (1789-1849); Mrs. Trollope (1778-1863); Mary Russell Mitford (1786-1855); G. P. R. James (1801-60) John Galt (1779-1839); and William Harrison Ainsworth (1805).

5. Many of the novelists included in the foregoing list also wrote dramatic pieces. During the same period there were several other writers who are best known as dramatists. Joanna Baillie (1762-1851) published multitudes of tragedies and comedies, which are interesting and powerful as literature, but have had no prolonged success in actual representation. One of the most exquisite dramatic pieces of this century is "Ion," a tragedy, by Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854), who also wrote "The Athenian Captive," "Glencoe," and "The Castilian." James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862) wrote a great number of successful plays.

6. Of the novelists who rose in England between the culmination of Sir Walter Scott's career and the middle of the nineteenth century, these six may be named as chiefs in merit and in reputation. Captain Frederick Marryat (17921848) greatly excelled in naval stories, and produced a long series of works, many of which still retain their great popularity. Of such are "Peter Simple," "Jacob Faithful," "Japhet in Search of a Father," and " and "Midshipman Easy." Lord