originally derived; and because, being less under the influence of social
vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated
expressions.

III. He asserts that the language of poetry is in no way different, except
in respect to metre, from that of good prose. Poetry can boast of no
celestial _ichor_ that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose:
the same human blood circulates through the veins of them both. In works
of imagination and sentiment, in proportion as ideas and feelings are
valuable, whether the composition be in prose or verse, they require and
exact one and the same language.

Such are the principal changes proposed by Wordsworth; and we find Herder,
the German poet and metaphysician, agreeing with him in his estimate of
poetic language. Having thus propounded his tenets, he wrote his earlier
poems as illustrations of his views, affecting a simplicity in subject and
diction that was sometimes simply ludicrous. It was an affected
simplicity: he was simple with a purpose; he wrote his poems to suit his
canons, and in that way his simplicity became artifice.

Jeffrey and other critics rose furiously against the poems which
inculcated such doctrines. "This will never do" were the opening words of
an article in the _Edinburgh Review_. One of the _Rejected Addresses_,
called _The Baby's Début, by W. W._, (spoken in the character of Nancy
Lake, eight years old, who is drawn upon the stage in a go-cart,) parodies
the ballads thus:

    What a large floor! 'tis like a town;
    The carpet, when they lay it down,
      Won't hide it, I'll be bound:
    And there's a row of lamps, my eye!
    How they do blaze: I wonder why
      They keep them on the ground?

And this, Jeffrey declares, is a flattering imitation of Wordsworth's
style.

The day for depreciating Wordsworth has gone by; but calmer critics must
still object to his poetical views in their entireness. In binding all
poetry to his _dicta_, he ignores that _mythus_ in every human mind, that
longing after the heroic, which will not be satisfied with the simple and
commonplace. One realm in which Poetry rules with an enchanted sceptre is
the land of reverie and day-dream,--a land of fancy, in which genius
builds for itself castles at once radiant and, for the time, real; in
which the beggar is a king, the poor man a Crœsus, the timid man a hero:
this is the fairy-land of the imagination. Among Wordsworth's poems are a
number called _Poems of the Imagination_. He wrote learnedly about the
imagination and fancy; but the truth is, that of all the great
poets,--and, in spite of his faults, he is a great poet,--there is none so
entirely devoid of imagination. What has been said of the heroic may be
applied to wit, so important an element in many kinds of poetry; he
ignores it because he was without it totally. If only humble life and
commonplace incidents and unfigured rhetoric and bald language are the
proper materials for the poetry, what shall be said of all literature,
ancient and modern, until Wordsworth's day?

THE EXCURSION AND SONNETS.--With his growing fame and riper powers, he had
deviated from his own principles, especially of language; and his peaceful
epic, _The Excursion_, is full of difficult theology, exalted philosophy,
and glowing rhetoric. His only attempt to adhere to his system presents
the incongruity of putting these subjects into the lips of men, some of
whom, the Scotch pedler for example, are not supposed to be equal to their
discussion. In his language, too, he became far more polished and
melodious. The young writer of the _Lyrical Ballads_ would have been
shocked to know that the more famous Wordsworth could write

    A golden lustre slept upon the hills;

or speak of

    A pupil in the many-chambered school,
    Where superstition weaves her airy dreams.

_The Excursion_, although long, is unfinished, and is only a portion of
what was meant to be his great poem--_The Recluse_. It contains poetry of
the highest order, apart from its mannerism and its improbable narrative;
but the author is to all intents a different man from that of the
_Ballads_: as different as the conservative Wordsworth of later years was
from the radical youth who praised the French Revolution of 1791. As a
whole, _The Excursion_ is accurate, philosophic, and very dull, so that
few readers have the patience to complete its perusal, while many enjoy
its beautiful passages.

To return to the events of his life. In 1802 he married; and, after
several changes of residence, he finally purchased a place called
Rydal-mount in 1813, where he spent the remainder of his long, learned,
and pure life. Long-standing dues from the Earl of Lonsdale to his father
were paid; and he received the appointment of collector at Whitehaven and
stamp distributor for Cumberland. Thus he had an ample income, which was
increased in 1842 by a pension of £300 per annum. In 1843 he was made
poet-laureate. He died in 1850, a famous poet, his reputation being due
much more to his own clever individuality than to the poetic principles he
asserted.

His ecclesiastical sonnets compare favorably with any that have been
written in English. Landor, no friend of the poet, says: "Wordsworth has
written more fine sonnets than are to be met with in the language
besides."

AN ESTIMATE.--The great amount of verse Wordsworth has written is due to
his estimate of the proper uses of poetry. Where other men would have
written letters, journals, or prose sketches, his ready metrical pen wrote
in verse: an excursion to England or Scotland, _Yarrow Visited and
Revisited_, journeys in Germany and Italy, are all in verse. He exhibits
in them all great humanity and benevolence, and is emphatically and
without cant the poet of religion and morality. Coleridge--a poet and an
attached friend, perhaps a partisan--claims for him, in his _Biographia
Literaria_, "purity of language, freshness, strength, _curiosa felicitas_
of diction, truth to nature in his imagery, imagination in the highest
degree, but faulty fancy." We have already ventured to deny him the
possession of imagination: the rest of his friend's eulogium is not
undeserved. He had and has many ardent admirers, but none more ardent than
himself. He constantly praised his own verses, and declared that they
would ultimately conquer all prejudices and become universally popular--an
opinion that the literary world does not seem disposed to adopt.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.--Next to Wordsworth, and, with certain characteristic
differences, of the same school, but far beneath him in poetical power, is
Robert Southey, who was born at Bristol, August 12, 1774. He was the son
of a linen-draper in that town. He entered Balliol College, Oxford, in
1792, but left without taking his degree. In 1794 he published a radical
poem on the subject of _Wat Tyler_, the sentiments of which he was
afterwards very willing to repudiate. With the enthusiastic instinct of a
poet, he joined with Wordsworth and Coleridge in a scheme called
_Pantisocrasy_; that is, they were to go together to the banks of the
Susquehanna, in a new country of which they knew nothing except by
description; and there they were to realize a dream of nature in the
golden age--a Platonic republic, where everything was to be in common, and
from which vice and selfishness were to be forever excluded. But these
young neo-platonists had no money, and so the scheme was given up.

In 1795 he married Miss Fricker, a milliner of Bristol, and made a voyage
to Lisbon, where his uncle was chaplain to the British Factory. He led an
unsettled life until 1804, when he established himself at Keswick in the
Lake country, where he spent his life. He was a literary man and nothing
else, and perhaps one of the most industrious writers that ever held a
literary pen. Much of the time, indeed, he wrote for magazines and
reviews, upon whatever subject was suggested to him, to win his daily
bread.

HIS WRITINGS.--After the publication of _Wat Tyler_ he wrote an epic poem
called _Joan of Arc_, in 1796, which was crude and severely criticized.
After some other unimportant essays, he inaugurated his purpose of
illustrating the various oriental mythologies, by the publication of
_Thalaba the Destroyer_, which was received with great disfavor at the
time, and which first coupled his name with that of Wordsworth as of the
school of Lake poets. It is in irregular metre, which at first has the
charm of variety, but which afterwards loses its effect, on account of its
broken, disjointed versification. In 1805 appeared _Madoc_--a poem based
upon the subject of early Welsh discoveries in America. It is a long poem
in two parts: the one descriptive of _Madoc in Wales_ and the other of
_Madoc in Aztlan_. Besides many miscellaneous works in prose, we notice
the issue, in 1810, of _The Curse of Kehama_--the second of the great
mythological poems referred to.

Among his prose works must be mentioned _The Chronicle of the Cid_, _The
History of Brazil_, _The Life of Nelson_, and _The History of the
Peninsular War_. A little work called _The Doctor_ has been greatly liked
in America.

Southey wrote innumerable reviews and magazine articles; and, indeed,
tried his pen at every sort of literary work. His diction--in prose, at
least--is almost perfect, and his poetical style not unpleasing. His
industry, his learning, and his care in production must be acknowledged;
but his poems are very little read, and, in spite of his own prophecies,
are doomed to the shelf rather than retained upon the table. Like
Wordsworth, he was one of the most egotistical of men; he had no greater
admirer than Robert Southey; and had his exertions not been equal to his
self-laudation, he would have been intolerable.

The most singular instance of perverted taste and unmerited eulogy is to
be found in his _Vision of Judgment_, which, as poet-laureate, he produced
to the memory of George the Third. The severest criticism upon it is Lord
Byron's _Vision of Judgment_--reckless, but clever and trenchant. The
consistency and industry of Southey's life caused him to be appointed
poet-laureate upon the death of Pye; and in 1835, having declined a
baronetcy, he received an annual pension of £300. Having lost his first
wife in 1837, he married Miss Bowles, the poetess, in 1839; but soon after
his mind began to fail, and he had reached a state of imbecility which
ended in death on the 21st of March, 1843. In 1837, at the age of
sixty-three, he collected and edited his complete poetical works, with
copious and valuable historical notes.

HISTORICAL VALUE.--It is easy to see in what manner Southey, as a literary
man, has reflected the spirit of the age. Politically, he exhibits
partisanship from Radical to Tory, which may be clearly discerned by
comparing his _Wat Tyler_ with his _Vision of Judgment_ and his _Odes_. As
to literary and poetic canons, his varied metre, and his stories in the
style of Wordsworth, show that he had abandoned all former schools. In his
histories and biographies he is professedly historical; and in his epics
he shows that greater range of learned investigation which is so
characteristic of that age. The _Curse of Kehama_ and _Thalaba_ would have
been impossible in a former age. He himself objected to be ranked with the
Lakers; but Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge have too much in common,
notwithstanding much individual difference, not to be classed together as
innovators and asserters, whether we call them Lakers or something else.

It was on the occasion of his publishing _Thalaba_, that his name was
first coupled with that of Wordsworth. His own words are, "I happened to
be residing at Keswick when Mr. Wordsworth and I began to be acquainted.
Mr. Coleridge also had resided there; and this was reason enough for
classing us together as a school of poets." There is not much external
resemblance, it is true, between _Thalaba_ and the _Excursion_; but the
same poetical motives will cause both to remain unread by the
multitude--unnatural comparisons, recondite theology, and a great lack of
common humanity. That there was a mutual admiration is found in Southey's
declaration that Wordsworth's sonnets contain the profoundest poetical
wisdom, and that the _Preface_ is the quintessence of the philosophy of
poetry.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.--More individual, more eccentric, less
commonplace, in short, a far greater genius than either of his fellows,
Coleridge accomplished less, had less system, was more visionary and
fragmentary than they: he had an amorphous mind of vast proportions. The
man, in his life and conversation, was great; the author has left little
of value which will last when the memory of his person has disappeared. He
was born on the 21st of October, 1772, at Ottery St. Mary. His father was
a clergyman and vicar of the parish. He received his education at Christ's
Hospital in London, where, among others, he had Charles Lamb as a comrade,
and formed with him a friendship which lasted as long as they both lived.

EARLY LIFE.--There he was an erratic student, but always a great reader;
and while he was yet a lad, at the age of fourteen, he might have been
called a learned man.

He had little self-respect, and from stress of poverty he intended to
apprentice himself to a shoemaker; but friends who admired his learning
interfered to prevent this, and he was sent with a scholarship to Jesus
College, Cambridge, in 1791. Like Wordsworth and Southey, he was an
intense Radical at first; and on this account left college without his
degree in 1793. He then enlisted as a private in the 15th Light Dragoons;
but, although he was a favorite with his comrades, whose letters he wrote,
he made a very poor soldier. Having written a Latin sentence under his
saddle on the stable wall, his superior education was recognized; and he
was discharged from the service after only four months' duty. Eager for
adventure, he joined Southey and Lloyd in their scheme of pantisocracy,
to which we have already referred; and when that failed for want of money,
he married the sister-in-law of Southey--Miss Fricker, of Bristol. He was
at this time a Unitarian as well as a Radical, and officiated frequently
as a Unitarian minister. His sermons were extremely eloquent. He had
already published some juvenile poems, and a drama on the fall of
Robespierre, and had endeavored to establish a periodical called _The
Watchman_. He was always erratic, and dependent upon the patronage of his
friends; in short, he always presented the sad spectacle of a man who
could not take care of himself.

HIS WRITINGS.--After a residence at Stowey, in Somersetshire, where he
wrote some of his finest poems, among which were the first part of
_Christabel_, _The Ancient Mariner_, and _Remorse_, a tragedy, he was
enabled, through the kindness of friends, to go, in 1798, to Germany,
where he spent fourteen months in the study of literature and metaphysics.
In the year 1800 he returned to the Lake country, where he for some time
resided with Southey at Keswick; Wordsworth being then at Grasmere. Then
was established as a fixed fact in English literature the Lake school of
poetry. These three poets acted and reacted upon each other. From having
been great Radicals they became Royalists, and Coleridge's Unitarian
belief was changed into orthodox churchmanship. His translation of
Schiller's _Wallenstein_ should rather be called an expansion of that
drama, and is full of his own poetic fancies. After writing for some time
for the _Morning Post_, he went to Malta as the Secretary to the Governor
in 1804, at a salary of £800 per annum. But his restless spirit soon drove
him back to Grasmere, and to desultory efforts to make a livelihood.

In 1816 he published the two parts of _Christabel_, an unfinished poem,
which, for the wildness of the conceit, exquisite imagery, and charming
poetic diction, stands quite alone in English literature. In a periodical
called _The Friend_, which he issued, are found many of his original
ideas; but it was discontinued after twenty-seven numbers. His _Biographia
Literaria_, published in 1817, contains valuable sketches of literary men,
living and dead, written with rare critical power.

In his _Aids to Reflection_, published in 1825, are found his metaphysical
tenets; his _Table-Talk_ is also of great literary value; but his lectures
on Shakspeare show him to have been the most remarkable critic of the
great dramatist whom the world has produced.

It has already been mentioned that when the first volume of Wordsworth's
_Lyrical Ballads_ was published, _The Ancient Mariner_ was included in it,
as a poem by an anonymous friend. It had been the intention of Coleridge
to publish another poem in the second volume; but it was considered
incongruous, and excluded. That poem was the exquisite ballad entitled
_Love_, or _Genevieve_.

HIS HELPLESSNESS.--With no home of his own, he lived by visiting his
friends; left his wife and children to the support of others, and seemed
incapable of any other than this shifting and shiftless existence. This
natural imbecility was greatly increased during a long period by his
constant use of opium, which kept him, a greater portion of his life, in a
world of dreams. He was fortunate in having a sincere and appreciative
friend in Mr. Gilman, surgeon, near London, to whose house he went in
1816; and where, with the exception of occasional visits elsewhere, he
resided until his death in 1834. If the Gilmans needed compensation for
their kindness, they found it in the celebrity of their visitor; even
strangers made pilgrimages to the house at Highgate to hear the rhapsodies
of "the old man eloquent." Coleridge once asked Charles Lamb if he had
ever heard him preach, referring to the early days when he was a Unitarian
preacher. "I never heard you do anything else," was the answer he
received. He was the prince of talkers, and talked more coherently and
connectedly than he wrote: drawing with ease from the vast stores of his
learning, he delighted men of every degree. While of the Lake school of
poetry, and while in some sort the creature of his age and his
surroundings, his eccentricities gave him a rare independence and
individuality. A giant in conception, he was a dwarf in execution; and
something of the interest which attaches to a _lusus naturæ_ is the chief
claim to future reputation which belongs to S. T. C.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE, his son, (1796-1849,) inherited much of his father's
talents; but was an eccentric, deformed, and, for a time, an intemperate
being. His principal writings were monographs on various subjects, and
articles for Blackwood. HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE, (1800-1843,) a nephew and
son-in-law of the poet, was also a gifted man, and a profound classical
scholar. His introduction to the study of the great classic poets,
containing his analysis of Homer's epics, is a work of great merit.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE REACTION IN POETRY.

   Alfred Tennyson. Early Works. The Princess. Idyls of the King.
   Elizabeth B. Browning. Aurora Leigh. Her Faults. Robert Browning. Other
   Poets.

TENNYSON AND THE BROWNINGS.

ALFRED TENNYSON.--It is the certain fate of all extravagant movements,
social or literary, to invite criticism and opposition, and to be followed
by reaction. The school of Wordsworth was the violent protest against what
remained of the artificial in poetry; but it had gone, as we have seen, to
the other extreme. The affected simplicity, and the bald diction which it
inculcated, while they raised up an army of feeble imitators, also
produced in the ranks of poetry a vindication of what was good in the old;
new theories, and a very different estimate of poetical subjects and
expression. The first poet who may be looked upon as leading the
reactionary party is Alfred Tennyson. He endeavored out of all the schools
to synthesize a new one. In many of his descriptive pieces he followed
Wordsworth: in his idyls, he adheres to the romantic school; in his
treatment and diction, he stands alone.

EARLY EFFORTS.--He was the son of a clergyman of Lincolnshire, and was
born at Somersby, in 1810. After a few early and almost unknown efforts in
verse, the first volume bearing his name was issued in 1830, while he was
yet an under-graduate at Cambridge: it had the simple title--_Poems,
chiefly Lyrical_. In their judgment of this new poet, the critics were
almost as much at fault as they had been when the first efforts of
Wordsworth appeared; but for very different reasons. Wordsworth was simple
and intensely realistic. Tennyson was mystic and ideal: his diction was
unusual; his little sketches conveyed an almost hidden moral; he seemed to
inform the reader that, in order to understand his poetry, it must be
studied; the meaning does not sparkle upon the surface; the language
ripples, the sense flows in an undercurrent. His first essays exhibit a
mania for finding strange words, or coining new ones, which should give
melody, to his verse. Whether this was a process of development or not, he
has in his later works gotten rid of much of this apparent mannerism,
while he has retained, and even improved, his harmony. He exhibits a rare
power of concentration, as opposed to the diffusiveness of his
contemporaries. Each of his smaller poems is a thought, briefly, but
forcibly and harmoniously, expressed. If it requires some exertion to
comprehend it, when completely understood it becomes a valued possession.

It is difficult to believe that such poems as _Mariana_ and _Recollections
of the Arabian Nights_ were the production of a young man of twenty.

In 1833 he published his second volume, containing additional poems, among
which were _Enone_, _The May Queen_, _The Lotos-Eaters_, and _A Dream of
Fair Women_. _The May Queen_ became at once a favorite, because every one
could understand it: it touched a chord in every heart; but his rarest
power of dreamy fancy is displayed in such pieces as _The Arabian Nights_
and the _Lotos-Eaters_. No greater triumph has been achieved in the realm
of fancy than that in the court of good Haroun al Raschid, and amid the
Lotos dreams of the Nepenthe coast. These productions were not received
with the favor which they merited, and so he let the critics alone for
nine years. In 1842 he again appeared in print, with, among other poems,
the exquisite fragment of the _Morte d'Arthur_, _Godiva_, _St. Agnes_,
_Sir Galahad_, _Lady Clara Vere de Vere_, _The Talking Oak_, and chief,
perhaps, of all, _Locksley Hall_. In these poems he is not only a poet,
but a philosopher. Each of these is an extended apothegm, presenting not
only rules of life, but mottoes and maxims for daily use. They are
soliloquies of the nineteenth century, and representations of its men and
conditions.

THE PRINCESS.--In 1847 he published _The Princess, a Medley_--a pleasant
and suggestive poem on woman's rights, in which exquisite songs are
introduced, which break the monotony of the blank verse, and display his
rare lyric power. The _Bugle Song_ is among the finest examples of the
adaptation of sound to sense in the language; and there is nothing more
truthful and touching than the short verses beginning,

    Home they brought her warrior dead.

Arthur Hallam, a gifted son of the distinguished historian, who was
betrothed to Tennyson's sister, died young; and the poet has mourned and
eulogized him in a long poem entitled _In Memoriam_. It contains one
hundred and twenty-nine four-lined stanzas, and is certainly very musical
and finished; but it is rather the language of calm philosophy elaborately
studied, than that of a poignant grief. It is not, in our judgment, to be
compared with his shorter poems, and is generally read and overpraised
only by his more ardent admirers, who discover a crystal tear of genuine
emotion in every stanza.

IDYLS OF THE KING.--The fragment on the death of Arthur, already
mentioned, foreshadowed a purpose of the poet's mind to make the legends
of that almost fabulous monarch a vehicle for modern philosophy in English
verse. In 1859 appeared a volume containing the _Idyls of the King_. They
are rather minor epics than idyls. The simple materials are taken from the
Welsh and French chronicles, and are chiefly of importance in that they
cater to that English taste which finds national greatness typified in
Arthur. It had been a successful stratagem with Spenser in _The Fairy
Queen_, and has served Tennyson equally well in the _Idyls_. It unites the
ages of fable and of chivalry; it gives a noble lineage to heroic deeds.
The best is the last--_Guinevere_--almost the perfection of pathos in
poetry. The picturesqueness of his descriptions is evinced by the fact
that Gustave Doré has chosen these _Idyls_ as a subject for illustration,
and has been eminently successful in his labor.

_Maud_, which appeared in 1855, notwithstanding some charming lyrical
passages, may be considered Tennyson's failure. In 1869 he completed _The
Idyls_ by publishing _The Coming of Arthur_, _The Holy Grail_, and
_Pelleas and Etteare_. He also finished the _Morte d'Arthur_, and put it
in its proper place as _The Passing of Arthur_.

Tennyson was appointed poet-laureate upon the death of Wordsworth, in
1850, and receives besides a pension of £200. He lived for a long time in
great retirement at Farringford, on the Isle of Wight; but has lately
removed to Petersfield, in Hampshire. It may be reasonably doubted whether
this hermit-life has not injured his poetical powers; whether, great as he
really is, a little inhalation of the air of busy every-day life would not
have infused more of nature and freshness into his verse. Among his few
_Odes_ are that on the death of the Duke of Wellington, the dedication of
his poems to the Queen, and his welcome to Alexandra, Princess of Wales,
all of which are of great excellence. His _Charge of the Light Brigade_,
at Balaclava, while it gave undue currency to that stupid military
blunder, must rank as one of the finest battle-lyrics in the language.

The poetry of Tennyson is eminently representative of the Victorian age.
He has written little; but that little marks a distinct era in
versification--great harmony untrammelled by artificial _correctness_; and
in language, a search for novelty to supply the wants and correct the
faults of the poetic vocabulary. He is national in the _Idyls_;
philosophic in _The Two Voices_, and similar poems. The _Princess_ is a
gentle satire on the age; and though, in striving for the reputation of
originality, he sometimes mistakes the original for the beautiful, he is
really the laurelled poet of England in merit as well as in title.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.--The literary usher is now called upon to cry
with the herald of the days of chivalry--_Place aux dames_. A few ladies,
as we have seen, have already asserted for themselves respectable
positions in the literary ranks. Without a question as to the relative
gifts of mind in man and woman, we have now reached a name which must rank
among those of the first poets of the present century--one which
represents the Victorian age as fully and forcibly as Tennyson, and with
more of novelty than he. Nervous in style, elevated in diction, bold in
expression, learned and original, Mrs. Browning divides the poetic renown
of the period with Tennyson. If he is the laureate, she was the
acknowledged queen of poetry until her untimely death.

Miss Elizabeth Barrett was born in London, in 1809. She was educated with
great care, and began to write at a very early age. A volume, entitled
_Essays on Mind, with Other Poems_, was published when she was only
seventeen. In 1833 she produced _Prometheus Bound_, a translation of the
drama of Æschylus from the original Greek, which exhibited rare classical
attainments; but which she considered so faulty that she afterwards
retranslated it. In 1838 appeared _The Seraphim, and other Poems_; and in
1839, _The Romaunt of the Page_. Not long after, the rupture of a
blood-vessel brought her to the verge of the grave; and while she was
still in a precarious state of health, her favorite brother was drowned.
For several years she lived secluded, studying and composing when her
health permitted; and especially drawing her inspiration from original
sources in Greek and Hebrew. In 1844 she published her collected poems in
two volumes. Among these was _Lady Geraldine's Courtship_: an exquisite
story, the perusal of which is said to have induced Robert Browning to
seek her acquaintance. Her health was now partially restored; and they
were married in 1846. For some time they resided at Florence, in a
congenial and happy union. The power of passionate love is displayed in
her _Sonnets from the Portuguese_, which are among the finest in the
language. Differing in many respects from those of Shakspeare, they are
like his in being connected by one impassioned thought, and being, without
doubt, the record of a heart experience.

Thoroughly interested in the social and political conditions of struggling
Italy, she gave vent to her views and sympathies in a volume of poems,
entitled _Casa Guidi Windows_. Casa Guidi was the name of their residence
in Florence, and the poems vividly describe what she saw from its
windows--divers forms of suffering, injustice, and oppression, which
touched the heart of a tender woman and a gifted poet, and compelled it to
burst forth in song.

AURORA LEIGH.--But by far the most important work of Mrs. Browning is
_Aurora Leigh_: a long poem in nine books, which appeared in 1856, in
which the great questions of the age, social and moral, are handled with
great boldness. It is neither an epic, nor an idyl, nor a tale in verse:
it combines features of them all. It presents her clear convictions of
life and art, and is full of philosophy, largely expressed in the language
of irony and sarcasm. She is an inspired advocate of the intellectual
claims of woman; and the poem is, in some degree, an autobiography: the
identity of the poet and the heroine gives a great charm to the narrative.
There are few finer pieces of poetical inspiration than the closing scene,
where the friend and lover returns blind and helpless, and the woman's
heart, unconquered before, surrenders to the claims of misfortune as the
champion of love. After a happy life with her husband and an only child,
sent for her solace, this gifted woman died in 1863.

HER FAULTS.--It is as easy to criticize Mrs. Browning's works as to admire
them; but our admiration is great in spite of her faults: in part because
of them, for they are faults of a bold and striking individuality. There
is sometimes an obscurity in her fancies, and a turgidity in her language.
She seems to transcend the poet's license with a knowledge that she is
doing so. For example:

    We will sit on the throne of a purple sublimity,
    And grind down men's bones to a pale unanimity.

And again, in speaking of Goethe, she says:

    His soul reached out from far and high,
    And fell from inner entity.

Her rhymes are frequently and arrogantly faulty: she seems to scorn the
critics; she writes more for herself than for others, and infuses all she
writes with her own fervent spirit: there is nothing commonplace or
lukewarm. She is so strong that she would be masculine; but so tender that
she is entirely feminine: at once one of the most vigorous of poets and
one of the best of women. She has attained the first rank among the
English poets.

ROBERT BROWNING.--As a poet of decided individuality, which has gained for
him many admirers, Browning claims particular mention. His happy marriage
has for his fame the disadvantage that he gave his name to a greater
poet; and it is never mentioned without an instinctive thought of her
superiority. Many who are familiar with her verses have never read a line
of her husband. This is in part due to a mysticism and an intense
subjectivity, which are not adapted to the popular comprehension. He has
chosen subjects unknown or uninteresting to the multitude of readers, and
treats them with such novelty of construction and such an affectation of
originality, that few persons have patience to read his poems.

Robert Browning was born, in 1812, at Camberwell; and after a careful
education, not at either of the universities, (for he was a dissenter,) he
went at the age of twenty to Italy, where he eagerly studied the history
and antiquity to be found in the monasteries and in the remains of the
mediæval period. He also made a study of the Italian people. In 1835 he
published a drama called _Paracelsus_, founded upon the history of that
celebrated alchemist and physician, and delineating the conditions of
philosophy in the fifteenth century. It is novel, antique, and
metaphysical: it exhibits the varied emotions of human sympathy; but it is
eccentric and obscure, and cannot be popular. He has been called the poet
for poets; and this statement seems to imply that he is not the poet for
the great world.

In 1837 he published a tragedy called _Strafford_; but his Italian culture
seems to have spoiled his powers for portraying English character, and he
has presented a stilted Strafford and a theatrical Charles I.

In 1840 appeared _Sordello_, founded upon incidents in the history of that
Mantuan poet Sordello, whom Dante and Virgil met in purgatory; and who,
deserting the language of Italy, wrote his principal poems in the
Provençal. The critics were so dissatisfied with this work, that Browning
afterwards omitted it in the later editions of his poems. In 1843 he
published a tragedy entitled _A Blot on the 'Scutcheon_, and a play
called _The Dutchess of Cleves_. In 1850 appeared _Christmas Eve_ and
_Easter Day_. Concerning all these, it may be said that it is singular and
sad that a real poetic gift, like that of Browning, should be so shrouded
with faults of conception and expression. What leads us to think that many
of these are an affectation, is that he has produced, almost with the
simplicity of Wordsworth, those charming sketches, _The Good News from
Ghent to Aix_, and _An Incident at Ratisbon_.

Among his later poems we specially commend _A Death in the Desert_, and
_Pippa Passes_, as less obscure and more interesting than any, except the
lyrical pieces just mentioned. It is difficult to show in what manner
Browning represents his age. His works are only so far of a modern
character that they use the language of to-day without subsidizing its
simplicity, and abandon the old musical couplet without presenting the
intelligible if commonplace thought which it used to convey.

OTHER POETS OF THE LATEST PERIOD.

_Reginald Heber_, 1783-1826: a godly Bishop of Calcutta. He is most
generally known by one effort, a little poem, which is a universal
favorite, and has preached, from the day it appeared, eloquent sermons in
the cause of missions--_From Greenland's Icy Mountains_. Among his other
hymns are _Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning_, and _The Son of
God goes forth to War_.

_Barry Cornwall_, born 1790: this is a _nom de plume_ of _Bryan Proctor_,
a pleasing, but not great poet. His principal works are _Dramatic Scenes_,
_Mirandola_, a tragedy, and _Marcian Colonna_. His minor poems are
characterized by grace and fluency. Among these are _The Return of the
Admiral_; _The Sea, the Sea, the Open Sea_; and _A Petition to Time_. He
also wrote essays and tales in prose--a _Life of Edmund Keane_, and a
_Memoir of Charles Lamb_. His daughter, _Adelaide Anne Proctor_, is a
gifted poetess, and has written, among other poems, _Legends and Lyrics_,
and _A Chaplet of Verses_.

_James Sheridan Knowles_, 1784-1862: an actor and dramatist. He left the
stage and became a Baptist minister. His plays were very successful upon
the stage. Among them, those of chief merit are _The Hunchback_,
_Virginius and Caius Gracchus_, and _The Wife, a Tale of Mantua_.

_Jean Ingelow_, born 1830: one of the most popular of the later English
poets. _The Song of Seven_, and _My Son's Wife Elizabeth_, are extremely
pathetic, and of such general application that they touch all hearts. The
latter is the refrain of _High Tide on the Coast of Lancashire_. She has
published, besides, several volumes of stories for children, and one
entitled _Studies for Stories_.

_Algernon Charles Swinburne_, born 1843: he is principally and very
favorably known by his charming poem _Atalanta in Calydon_. He has also
written a somewhat heterodox and licentious poem entitled _Laus Veneris_,
_Chastelard_, and _The Song of Italy_; besides numerous minor poems and
articles for magazines. He is among the most notable and prolific poets of
the age; and we may hope for many and better works from his pen.

_Richard Harris Barham_, 1788-1845: a clergyman of the Church of England,
and yet one of the most humorous of writers. He is chiefly known by his
_Ingoldsby Legends_, which were contributed to the magazines. They are
humorous tales in prose and verse; the latter in the vein of Peter Pindar,
but better than those of Wolcot, or any writer of that school. Combined
with the humorous and often forcible, there are touches of pathos and
terror which are extremely effective. He also wrote a novel called _My
Cousin Nicholas_.

_Philip James Bailey_, born 1816: he published, in 1839, _Festus_, a poem
in dramatic form, having, for its _dramatis personæ_, God in his three
persons, Lucifer, angels, and man. Full of rare poetic fancy, it repels
many by the boldness of its flight in the consideration of the
incomprehensible, which many minds think the forbidden. _The Angel World_
and _The Mystic_ are of a similar kind; but his last work, _The Age, a
Colloquial Satire_ is on a mundane subject and in a simpler style.

_Charles Mackay_, born 1812: principally known by his fugitive pieces,
which contain simple thoughts on pleasant language. His poetical
collections are called _Town Lyrics_ and _Egeria_.

_John Keble_, 1792-1866: the modern George Herbert; a distinguished
clergyman. He was Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and produced, besides
_Tracts for the Times_, and other theological writings, _The Christian
Year_, containing a poem for every Sunday and holiday in the
ecclesiastical year. They are devout breathings in beautiful verse, and
are known and loved by great numbers out of his own communion. Many of
them have been adopted as hymns in many collections.

_Martin Farquhar Tupper_, born 1810: his principal work is _Proverbial
Philosophy_, in two series. It was unwontedly popular; and Tupper's name
was on every tongue. Suddenly, the world reversed its decision and
discarded its favorite; so that, without having done anything to warrant
the desertion, Tupper finds himself with but very few admirers, or even
readers: so capricious is the _vox populi_. The poetry is not without
merit; but the world cannot forgive itself for having rated it too high.

_Matthew Arnold_, born 1822: the son of Doctor Arnold of Rugby. He has
written numerous critical papers, and was for some time Professor of
Poetry at Oxford. _Sorab and Rustam_ is an Eastern tale in verse, of great
beauty. His other works are _The Strayed Reveller_, and _Empedocles on
Etna_. More lately, an Inspector of Schools, he has produced several works
on education, among which are _Popular Education in France_ and _The
Schools and Universities of the Continent_.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE LATER HISTORIANS.

   New Materials. George Grote. History of Greece. Lord Macaulay. History
   of England. Its Faults. Thomas Carlyle. Life of Frederick II. Other
   Historians.

NEW MATERIALS.

Nothing more decidedly marks the nineteenth century than the progress of
history as a branch of literature. A wealth of material, not known before,
was brought to light, increasing our knowledge and reversing time-honored
decisions upon historic points. Countries were explored and their annals
discovered. Expeditions to Egypt found a key to hieroglyphs; State papers
were arranged to the hand of the scholar; archives, like those of
Simancas, were thrown open. The progress of Truth, through the extension
of education, unmasked ancient prescriptions and prejudices: thus, where
the chronicle remained, philosophy was transformed; and it became evident
that the history of man in all times must be written anew, with far
greater light to guide the writer than the preceding century had enjoyed.
Besides, the world of readers became almost as learned as the historian
himself, and he wrote to supply a craving and a demand such as had never
before existed. A glance at the labors of the following historians will
show that they were not only annalists, but reformers in the full sense of
the word: they re-wrote what had been written before, supplying defects
and correcting errors.

GEORGE GROTE.--This distinguished writer was born near London, in 1794. He
was the son of a banker, and received his education at the Charter House.
Instead of entering one of the universities, he became a clerk in his
father's banking-house. Early imbued with a taste for Greek literature, he
continued his studies with great zeal; and was for many years collecting
the material for a history of Greece. The subject was quietly and
thoroughly digested in his mind before he began to write. A member of
Parliament from 1832 to 1841, he was always a strong Whig, and was
specially noted for his championship of the vote by ballot. There was no
department of wholesome reform which he did not sustain. He opposed the
corn laws, which had become oppressive; he favored the political rights of
the Jews, and denounced prescriptive evils of every kind.

HISTORY OF GREECE.--In 1846 he published the first volume of his _History
of Greece from the Earliest Period to the Death of Alexander the Great_:
the remaining volumes appeared between that time and 1856. The work was
well received by critics of all political opinions; and the world was
astonished that such a labor should have been performed by any writer who
was not a university man. It was a luminous ancient history, in a fresh
and racy modern style: the review of the mythology is grand; the political
conditions, the manners and customs of the people, the military art, the
progress of law, the schools of philosophy, are treated with remarkable
learning and clearness. But he as clearly exhibits the political condition
of his own age, by the sympathy which he displays towards the democracy of
Athens in their struggles against the tenets and actions of the
aristocracy. The historian writes from his own political point of view;
and Grote's history exhibits his own views of reform as plainly as that of
Mitford sets forth his aristocratic proclivities. Thus the English
politics of the age play a part in the Grecian history.

There were several histories of Greece written not long before that of
Grote, which may be considered as now set aside by his greater accuracy
and better style. Among these the principal are that of JOHN GILLIES,
1747-1836, which is learned, but statistical and dry; that of CONNOP
THIRLWALL, born 1797, Bishop of St. David's, which was greatly esteemed by
Grote himself; and that of WILLIAM MITFORD, 1744-1827, to correct the
errors and supply the deficiencies of which, Grote's work was written.

LORD MACAULAY.--Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley, in
Leicestershire, on the 25th of October, 1800. His father, Zachary
Macaulay, a successful West Indian merchant, devoted his later life to
philanthropy. His mother was Miss Selina Mills, the daughter of a
bookseller of Bristol. After an early education, chiefly conducted at
home, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1818, where he
distinguished himself as a debater, and gained two prize poems and a
scholarship. He was graduated in 1822, and afterwards continued his
studies; producing, during the next four years, several of his stirring
ballads. He began to write for the Edinburgh Review in 1825. In 1830 he
entered Parliament, and was immediately noted for his brilliant oratory in
advocating liberal principles. In 1834 he was sent to India, as a member
of the Supreme Council; and took a prominent part in preparing an Indian
code of laws. This code was published on his return to England, in 1838;
but it was so kind and considerate to the natives, that the martinets in
India defeated its adoption. From his return until 1847, he had a seat in
Parliament as member for Edinburgh; but in the latter year his support of
the grant to the Maynooth (Roman Catholic) College so displeased his
constituents, that in the next election he lost his seat.

During all these busy years he had been astonishing and delighting the
reading world by his truly brilliant papers in the _Edinburgh Review_,
which have been collected and published as _Miscellanies_. The subjects
were of general interest; their treatment novel and bold; the learning
displayed was accurate and varied; and the style pointed, vigorous, and
harmonious. The papers upon _Clive_ and _Hastings_ are enriched by his
intimate knowledge of Indian affairs, acquired during his residence in
that country. His critical papers are severe and satirical, such as the
articles on _Croker's Boswell_, and on _Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems_.
His unusual self-reliance as a youth led him to great vehemence in the
expression of his opinions, as well as into errors of judgment, which he
afterwards regretted. The radicalism which is displayed in his essay on
_Milton_ was greatly modified when he came to treat of kindred subjects in
his History.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND.--He had long cherished the intention of writing
the history of England, "from the accession of James II. down to a time
which is within the memory of men still living." The loss of his election
at Edinburgh gave him the leisure necessary for carrying out this purpose.
In 1848 he published the first and second volumes, which at once achieved
an unprecedented popularity. His style had lost none of its brilliancy;
his reading had been immense; his examination of localities was careful
and minute. It was due, perhaps, to this growing fame, that the electors
of Edinburgh, without any exertion on his part, returned him to Parliament
in 1852. In 1855 the third and fourth volumes of his History appeared,
bringing the work down to the peace of Ryswick, in 1697. All England
applauded the crown when he was elevated to the peerage, in 1857, as Baron
Macaulay of Rothley.

It was now evident that Macaulay had deceived himself as to the magnitude
of his subject; at least, he was never to finish it. He died suddenly of
disease of the heart, on the 28th of December, 1859; and all that remained
of his History was a fragmentary volume, published after his death by his
sister, Lady Trevelyan, which reaches the death of William III., in 1702.

ITS FAULTS.--The faults of Macaulay's History spring from the character of
the man: he is always a partisan or a bitter enemy. His heroes are angels;
those whom he dislikes are devils; and he pursues them with the ardor of a
crusader or the vendetta of a Corsican. The Stuarts are painted in the
darkest colors; while his eulogy of William III. is fulsome and false. He
blackens the character of Marlborough for real faults indeed; but for such
as Marlborough had in common with thousands of his contemporaries. If, as
has been said, that great captain deserved the greatest censure as a
statesman and warrior, it is equally true, paradoxical as it may seem,
that he deserved also the greatest praise in both capacities. Macaulay has
fulminated the censure and withheld the praise.

What is of more interest to Americans, he loses no opportunity of
attacking and defaming William Penn; making statements which have been
proved false, and attributing motives without reason or justice.

His style is what the French call the _style coupé_,--short sentences,
like those of Tacitus, which ensure the interest by their recurring
shocks. He writes history with the pen of a reviewer, and gives verdicts
with the authority of a judge. He seems to say, Believe the autocrat; do
not venture to philosophize.

His poetry displays tact and talent, but no genius; it is pageantry in
verse. His _Lays of Ancient Rome_ are scholarly, of course, and pictorial
in description, but there is little of nature, and they are theatrical
rather than dramatic; they are to be declaimed rather than to be read or
sung.

In society, Macaulay was a great talker--he harangued his friends; and
there was more than wit in the saying of Sidney Smith, that his
conversation would have been improved by a few "brilliant flashes of
silence."

But in spite of his faults, if we consider the profoundness of his
learning, the industry of his studies, and the splendor of his style, we
must acknowledge him as the most distinguished of English historians. No
one has yet appeared who is worthy to complete the magnificent work which
he left unfinished.

THOMAS CARLYLE.--A literary brother of a very different type, but of a
more distinct individuality, is Carlyle, who was born in Dumfries-shire,
Scotland, in 1795. He was the eldest son of a farmer. After a partial
education at home, he entered the University of Edinburgh, where he was
noted for his attainments in mathematics, and for his omnivorous reading.
After leaving the university he became a teacher in a private family, and
began to study for the ministry, a plan which he soon gave up.

His first literary effort was a _Life of Schiller_, issued in numbers of
the _London Magazine_, in 1823-4. He turned his attention to German
literature, in the knowledge of which he has surpassed all other
Englishmen. He became as German as the Germans.

In 1826 he married, and removed to Craigen-Puttoch, on a farm, where, in
isolation and amid the wildness of nature, he studied, and wrote articles
for the _Edinburgh Review_, the _Foreign Quarterly_, and some of the
monthly magazines. His study of the German, acting upon an innate
peculiarity, began to affect his style very sensibly, as is clearly seen
in the singular, introverted, parenthetical mode of expression which
pervades all his later works. His earlier writings are in ordinary
English, but specimens of _Carlylese_ may be found in his _Sartor
Resartus_, which at first appalled the publishers and repelled the general
reader. Taking man's clothing as a nominal subject, he plunges into
philosophical speculations with which clothes have nothing to do, but
which informed the world that an original thinker and a novel and curious
writer had appeared.

In 1834 he removed to Chelsea, near London, where he has since resided. In
1837, he published his _French Revolution_, in three volumes,--_The
Bastile_, _The Constitution_, _The Guillotine_. It is a fiery, historical
drama rather than a history; full of rhapsodies, startling rhetoric,
disconnected pictures. It has been fitly called "a history in flashes of
lightning." No one could learn from it the history of that momentous
period; but one who has read the history elsewhere, will find great
interest in Carlyle's wild and vivid pictures of its stormy scenes.

In 1839 he wrote, in his dashing style, upon _Chartism_, and about the
same time read a course of lectures upon _Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the
Heroic in History_, in which he is an admirer of will and impulse, and
palliates evil when found in combination with these.

In 1845 he edited _The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell_, and in
his extravagant eulogies worships the hero rather than the truth.

FREDERICK II.--In 1858 appeared the first two volumes of _The Life of
Frederick the Great_, and since that time he has completed the work. This
is doubtless his greatest effort. It is full of erudition, and contains
details not to be found in any other biography of the Prussian monarch;
but so singularly has he reasoned and commented upon his facts, that the
enlightened reader often draws conclusions different from those which the
author has been laboring to establish. While the history shows that, for
genius and success, Frederick deserved to be called the Great, Carlyle
cannot make us believe that he was not grasping, selfish, a dissembler,
and an immoral man.

The author's style has its admirers, and is a not unpleasing novelty and
variety to lovers of plain English; but it wearies in continuance, and one
turns to French or German with relief. The Essays upon _German
Literature_, _Richter_, and _The Niebelungen Lied_ are of great value to
the young student. Such tracts as _Past and Present_, and _The Latter-Day
Pamphlets_, have caused him to be called the "Censor of the Age." He is
too eccentric and prejudiced to deserve the name in its best meaning. If
he fights shams, he sometimes mistakes windmills and wine-skins for
monsters, and, what is worse, if he accost a shepherd or a milkmaid, they
at once become _Amadis de Gaul_ and _Dulcinea del Toboso_. In spite of
these prejudices and peculiarities, Carlyle will always be esteemed for
his arduous labors, his honest intentions, and his boldness in expressing
his opinions. His likes and dislikes find ready vent in his written
judgments, and he cares for neither friend nor foe, in setting forth his
views of men and events. On many subjects it must be said his views are
just. There are fields in which his word must be received with authority.

OTHER HISTORIANS OF THE LATEST PERIOD.

_John Lingard_, 1771-1851: a Roman Catholic priest. He was a man of great
probity and worth. His chief work is _A History of England_, from the
first invasion of the Romans to the accession of William and Mary. With a
natural leaning to his own religious side in the great political
questions, he displays great industry in collecting material, beauty of
diction, and honesty of purpose. His history is of particular value, in
that it stands among the many Protestant histories as the champion of the
Roman Catholics, and gives an opportunity to "hear the other side," which
could not have had a more respectable advocate. In all the great
controversies, the student of English history must consult Lingard, and
collate his facts and opinions with those of the other historians. He
wrote, besides, numerous theological and controversial works.

_Patrick Fraser Tytler_, 1791-1849: the author of _A History of Scotland
from Alexander III. to James VI. (James I. of England)_, and _A History of
England during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary_. His _Universal History_
has been used as a text-book, and in style and construction has great
merit, although he does not rise to the dignity of a philosophic
historian.

_Sir William Francis Patrick Napier_, 1785-1866: a distinguished soldier,
and, like Cæsar, a historian of the war in which he took part. His
_History of the War in the Peninsula_ stands quite alone. It is clear in
its strategy and tactics, just to the enemy, and peculiar but effective in
style. It was assailed by several military men, but he defended all his
positions in bold replies to their strictures, and the work remains as
authority upon the great struggle which he relates.

_Lord Mahon_, Earl of Stanhope, born 1805: his principal work is a
_History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles_.
He had access to much new material, and from the Stuart papers has drawn
much of interest with reference to that unfortunate family. His view of
the conduct of Washington towards Major André has been shown to be quite
untenable. He also wrote a _History of the War of Succession in Spain_.

_Henry Thomas Buchle_, 1822-1862: he was the author of a _History of
Civilization_, of which he published two volumes, the work remaining
unfinished at the time of his death. For bold assumptions, vigorous style,
and great reading, this work must be greatly admired; but all his theories
are based on second principles, and Christianity, as a divine institution,
is ignored. It startled the world into admiration, but has not retained
the place in popular esteem which it appeared at first to make for itself.
He is the English _Comte_, without the eccentricity of his model.

_Sir Archibald Alison_, 1792-1867: he is the author of _The History of
Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration
of the Bourbons_, and a continuation from 1815 to 1852. It may be doubted
whether even the most dispassionate scholar can write the history of
contemporary events. We may be thankful for the great mass of facts he has
collated, but his work is tinctured with his high Tory principles; his
material is not well digested, and his style is clumsy.

_Agnes Strickland_, born 1806: after several early attempts Miss
Strickland began her great task, which she executed nobly--_The Queens of
England_. Accurate, philosophic, anecdotal, and entertaining, this work
ranks among the most valuable histories in English. If the style is not so
nervous as that of masculine writers, there is a ready intuition as to the
rights and the motives of the queens, and a great delicacy combined with
entire lack of prudery in her treatment of their crimes. The library of
English history would be singularly incomplete without Miss Strickland's
work. She also wrote _The Queens of Scotland_, and _The Bachelor Kings of
England_.

_Henry Hallam_, 1778-1859: the principal works of this judicious and
learned writer are _A View of Europe during the Middle Ages_, _The
Constitutional History of England_, and _An Introduction to the Literature
of Europe_ in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. With
the skill of an advocate he combines the calmness of a judge; and he has
been justly called "the accurate Hallam," because his facts are in all
cases to be depended on. By his clear and illustrative treatment of dry
subjects, he has made them interesting; and his works have done as much to
instruct his age as those of any writer. Later researches in literature
and constitutional history may discover more than he has presented, but he
taught the new explorers the way, and will always be consulted with
profit, as the representative of this varied learning during the first
half of the nineteenth century.

_James Anthony Froude_, born 1818: an Oxford graduate, Mr. Froude
represents the Low Church party in a respectable minority. His chief work
is _A History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of
Elizabeth_. With great industry, and the style of a successful novelist in
making his groups and painting his characters, he has written one of the
most readable books published in this period. He claimed to take his
authorities from unpublished papers, and from the statute-books, and has
endeavored to show that Henry VIII. was by no means a bad king, and that
Elizabeth had very few faults. His treatment of Anne Boleyn and Mary Queen
of Scots is unjust and ignoble. Not content with publishing what has been
written in their disfavor, with the omniscience of a romancer, he asserts
their motives, and produces thoughts which they never uttered. A race of
powerful critics has sprung forth in defence of Mary, and Mr. Froude's
inaccuracies and injustice have been clearly shown. To novel readers who
are fond of the sensational, we commend his work: to those who desire
historic facts and philosophies, we proclaim it to be inaccurate,
illogical, and unjust in the highest degree.

_Sharon Turner_, 1768-1847: among many historical efforts, principally
concerning England in different periods, his _History of the Anglo-Saxons_
stands out prominently as a great work. He was an eccentric scholar, and
an antiquarian, and he found just the place to delve in when he undertook
that history. The style is not good--too epigrammatic and broken; but his
research is great, his speculations bold, and his information concerning
the numbers, manners, arts, learning, and other characters of the
Anglo-Saxons, immense. The student of English history must read Turner for
a knowledge of the Saxon period.

_Thomas Arnold_, 1795-1832: widely known and revered as the Great
Schoolmaster. He was head-master at Rugby, and influenced his pupils more
than any modern English instructor. Accepting the views of Niebuhr, he
wrote a work on _Roman History_ up to the close of the second Punic war.
But he is more generally known by his historical lectures delivered at
Oxford, where he was Professor of Modern History. A man of original views
and great honesty of purpose, his influence in England has been
strengthened by the excellent biography written by his friend Dean
Stanley.

_William Hepworth Dixon_, born 1821: he was for some time editor of _The
Athenæum_. In historic biography he appears as a champion of men who have
been maligned by former writers. He vindicates _William Penn_ from the
aspersions of Lord Macaulay, and _Bacon_ from the charges of meanness and
corruption.

_Charles Merivale_, born 1808: he is a clergyman, and a late Fellow of
Cambridge, and is favorably known by his admirable work entitled, _The
History of the Romans under the Empire_. It forms an introduction to
Gibbon, and displays a thorough grasp of the great epoch, varied
scholarship, and excellent taste. His analyses of Roman literature are
very valuable, and his pictures of social life so vivid that we seem to
live in the times of the Cæsars as we read.

CHAPTER XL.

THE LATER NOVELISTS AS SOCIAL REFORMERS.

   Bulwer. Changes in Writing. Dickens's Novels. American Notes. His
   Varied Powers. Second Visit to America. Thackeray. Vanity Fair. Henry
   Esmond. The Newcomes. The Georges. Estimate of his Powers.

The great feature in the realm of prose fiction, since the appearance of
the works of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, had been the Waverley
novels of Sir Walter Scott; but these apart, the prose romance had not
played a brilliant part in literature until the appearance of Bulwer, who
began, in his youth, to write novels in the old style; but who underwent
several organic changes in modes of thought and expression, and at last
stood confessed as the founder of a new school.

BULWER.--Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer was a younger son of General
Bulwer of Heydon Hall, Norfolk, England. He was born, in 1806, to wealth
and ease, but was early and always a student. Educated at Cambridge, he
took the Chancellor's prize for a poem on _Sculpture_. His first public
effort was a volume of fugitive poems, called _Weeds and Wild Flowers_, of
more promise than merit. In 1827 he published _Falkland_, and very soon
after _Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentleman_. The first was not
received favorably; but _Pelham_ was at once popular, neither for the
skill of the plot nor for its morality, but because it describes the
character, dissipations, and good qualities of a fashionable young man,
which are always interesting to an English public. Those novels that
immediately followed are so alike in general features that they may be
called the Pelham series. Of these the principal are _The Disowned_,
_Devereux_, and _Paul Clifford_--the last of which throws a sentimental,
rosy light upon the person and adventures of a highwayman; but it is too
unreal to have done as much injury as the _Pirate's Own Book_, or the
_Adventures of Jack Sheppard_. It may be safely asserted that _Paul
Clifford_ never produced a highwayman. Of the same period is _Eugene
Aram_, founded upon the true story of a scholar who was a murderer--a
painful subject powerfully handled.

In 1831 Bulwer entered Parliament, and seems to have at once commenced a
new life. With his public duties he combined severe historical study; and
the novels he now produced gave witness of his riper and better learning.
Chief among these were _Rienzi_, and _The Last Days of Pompeii_. The
former is based upon the history of that wonderful and unfortunate man
who, in the fourteenth century, attempted to restore the Roman republic,
and govern it like an ancient tribune. The latter is a noble production:
he has caught the very spirit of the day in which Pompeii was submerged by
the lava-flood; his characters are masterpieces of historic delineation;
he handles like an adept the conflicting theologies, Christian, Roman, and
Egyptian; and his natural scenes--Vesuvius in fury, the Bay of Naples in
the lurid light, the crowded amphitheatre, and the terror which fell on
man and beast, gladiator and lion--are _chef-d'œuvres_ of Romantic art.

CHANGES IN WRITING.--For a time he edited _The New Monthly Magazine_, and
a change came over the spirit of his novels. This was first noticed in his
_Ernest Maltravers_, and the sequel, _Alice, or the Mysteries_, which are
marked by sentimental passion and mystic ideas. In _Night and Morning_ he
is still mysterious: a blind fate seems to preside over his characters,
robbing the good of its free merit and condoning the evil.

In 1838 he was made a baronet. His versatile pen now turned to the drama;
and although he produced nothing great, his _Lady of Lyons_, _Richelieu_,
_Money_, and _The Sea Captain_ have always since been favorites upon the
stage, subsidizing the talents of actors like Macready, Kean, and Edwin
Booth.

We must now chronicle another change, from the mystic to the supernatural,
as displayed in _Zanoni_ and _Lucretia_, and especially in _A Strange
Story_, which is the strangest of all. It was at the same period that he
wrote _The Last of the Barons_, or the story of Warwick the king-maker,
and _Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings_. Both are valuable to the
student of English history as presenting the fruits of his own historic
research.

The last and most decided, and, we may add, most beneficial, change in
Bulwer as a writer, was manifested in his publication of the _Caxtons_,
the chief merit of which is as an usher of the novels which were to
follow. Pisistratus Caxton is the modern Tristram Shandy, and becomes the
putative editor of the later novels. First of these is _My Novel, or
Varieties of English Life_. It is an admirable work: it inculcates a
better morality, and a sense of Christian duty, at which Pelham would have
laughed in scorn. Like it, but inferior to it, is _What Will He do with
It?_ which has an interesting plot, an elevated style, and a rare human
sympathy.

Among other works, which we cannot mention, he wrote _The New Timon_, and
_King Arthur_, in poetry, and a prose history entitled _Athens, its Rise
and Fall_.

Without the highest genius, but with uncommon scholarship and great
versatility, Bulwer has used the materials of many kinds lying about him,
to make marvellous mosaics, which imitate very closely the finest efforts
of word-painting of the great geniuses of prose fiction.

CHARLES DICKENS.--Another remarkable development of the age was the use
of prose fiction, instead of poetry, as the vehicle of satire in the cause
of social reform. The world consents readily to be amused, and it likes to
be amused at the expense of others; but it soon tires of what is simply
amusing or satirical unless some noble purpose be disclosed. The novels of
former periods had interested by the creation of character and scenes; and
there had been numerous satires prompted by personal pique. It is the
glory of this latest age that it demands what shall so satirize the evil
around it in men, in classes, in public institutions, that the evil shall
recoil before the attack, and eventually disappear. Chief among such
reformers are Dickens and Thackeray.

Charles Dickens, the prince of modern novelists, was born at Landsport,
Portsmouth, England, in 1812. His father was at the time a clerk in the
Pay Department of the Navy, but afterwards became a reporter of debates in
Parliament. After a very hard early life and an only tolerable education,
young Dickens made some progress in the study of law; but soon undertook
his father's business as reporter, in which he struggled as he has made
David Copperfield to do in becoming proficient.

His first systematic literary efforts were as a daily writer and reporter
for _The True Sun_; he then contributed his sketches of life and
character, drawn from personal observation, to the _Morning Chronicle_:
these were an earnest of his future powers. They were collected as
_Sketches by Boz_, in two volumes, and published in 1836.

PICKWICK.--In 1837 he was asked by a publisher to prepare a series of
comic sketches of cockney sportsmen, to illustrate, as well as to be
illustrated by, etchings by Seymour. This yoking of two geniuses was a
trammel to both; but the suicide of Seymour dissolved the connection, and
Dickens had free play to produce the _Pickwick Papers_, by Boz, which were
illustrated, as he proceeded, by H. K. Browne (Phiz). The work met and
has retained an unprecedented popularity. Caricature as it was, it
caricatured real, existent oddities; everything was probable; the humor
was sympathetic if farcical, the assertion of humanity bold, and the
philosophy of universal application. He had touched our common nature in
all ranks and conditions; he had exhibited men and women of all types; he
had exposed the tricks of politics and the absurdity of elections; the
snobs of society were severely handled. He was the censor of law courts,
the exposer of swindlers, the dread of cockneys, the friend of rustics and
of the poor; and he has displayed in the principal character, that of the
immortal Pickwick, the power of a generous, simple-hearted, easily
deceived, but always philanthropic man, who comes through all his trials
without bating a jot of his love for humanity and his faith in human
nature. But the master-work of his plastic hand was Sam Weller, whose wit
and wisdom pervaded both hemispheres, and is as potent to excite laughter
to-day as at the first.

In this work he began that assault, not so much on shams as upon
prominent, unblushing evil, which he carried on in some form or other in
all his later works; and which was to make him prominent among the
reformers and benefactors of his age. He was at once famous, and his pen
was in demand to amuse the idle and to aid the philanthropic.

NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.--The _Pickwick Papers_ were in their intention a series
of sketches somewhat desultory and loosely connected. His next work was
_Nicholas Nickleby_, a complete story, in which he was entirely
successful. Wonderful in the variety and reality of his characters, his
powerful satire was here principally directed against the private
boarding-schools in England, where unloved children, exiled and forgotten,
were ill fed, scantily clothed, untaught, and beaten. Do-the-boys' Hall
was his type, and many a school prison under that name was fearfully
exposed and scourged. The people read with wonder and applause; these
haunts of cruelty were scrutinized, some of them were suppressed; and
since Nicholas Nickleby appeared no such school can live, because Squeers
and Smike are on every lip, and punishment awaits the tyrant.

Our scope will not permit a review of his numerous novels. In _Oliver
Twist_ he denounces the parish system in its care of orphans, and throws a
Drummond light upon the haunts of crime in London.

_The Old Curiosity Shop_ exposes the mania of gaming, and seems to have
been a device for presenting the pathetic pictures of _Little Nell_ and
her grandfather, the wonderful and rapid learning of the marchioness, and
the uncommon vitality of Mr. Richard Swiveller; and also the compound of
will and hideousness in Quilp.

He affected to find in the receptacle of Master Humphrey's clock, his
_Barnaby Rudge_, a very dramatic picture of the great riot incited by Lord
George Gordon in 1780, which, in its gathering, its fury, and its easy
dispersion, was not unlike that of Wat Tyler. Dickens's delineations are
eminently historic, and present a better notion of the period than the
general history itself.

AMERICAN NOTES.--In 1841 Dickens visited America, where he was received by
the public with great enthusiasm, and annoyed, as the author of his
biography says, by many individuals. On his return to England, he produced
his _American Notes for General Circulation_. They were sarcastic,
superficial, and depreciatory, and astonished many whose hospitalities he
had received. But, in 1843, he published _Martin Chuzzlewit_, in which
American peculiarities are treated with the broadest caricature. The
_Notes_ might have been forgiven; but the novel excited a great and just
anger in America. His statements were not true; his pictures were not
just; his prejudice led him to malign a people who had received him with
a foolish hospitality. He had eaten and drunk at the hands of the men whom
he abused, and his character suffered more than that of his intended
victims. In taking a few foibles for his caricature, he had left our
merits untold, and had been guilty of the implication that we had none,
although he knew that there were as elegant gentlemen, as refined ladies,
and as cultivated society in America as the best in England. But a truce
to reproaches; he has been fully forgiven.

His next novel was _Dombey and Son_, in which he attacks British pomp and
pride of state in the haughty merchant. It is full of character and of
pathos. Every one knows, as if they had appeared among us, the proud and
rigid Dombey, J. B. the sly, the unhappy Floy, the exquisite Toots, the
inimitable Nipper, Sol Gills the simple, and Captain Cuttle with his hook
and his notes.

This was followed by _David Copperfield_, which is, to some extent, an
autobiography describing the struggles of his youth, his experience in
acquiring short-hand to become a reporter, and other vicissitudes of his
own life. In it there is an attack upon the system of model prisons; but
the chief interest is found in his wonderful portraitures of varied and
opposite characters: the Peggottys, Steerforth, the inimitable Micawber,
Betsy Trotwood; Agnes, the lovely and lovable; Mr. Dick, with such noble
method in his madness; Dora, the child-wife; the simple Traddles, and
Uriah Heep, the 'umble intriguer and villain.

_Bleak House_ is a tremendous onslaught upon the Chancery system, and is
said to have caused a modification of it; his knowledge of law gave him
the power of an expert in detailing and dissecting its enormities.

_Little Dorrit_ presents the heartlessness of society, and is besides a
full and fearful picture of the system of imprisonment for debt. For
variety, power, and pathos, it is one of his best efforts.

_A Tale of Two Cities_ is a gloomy but vivid story of the French
Revolution, which has by no means the popularity of his other works.

In _Hard Times_, a shorter story, he has shown the evil consequences of a
hard, statistical, cramming education, in which the sympathies are
repressed, and the mind made a practical machine. The failure of Gradgrind
has warned many a parent from imitating him.

_Great Expectations_ failed to fulfil the promise of the name; but Joe
Gargery is as original a character as any he had drawn.

His last completed story is _Our Mutual Friend_, which, although unequal
to his best novels, has still original characters and striking scenes. The
rage for rising in the social scale ruins the Veneerings, and Podsnappery
is a well-chosen name far the heartless dogmatism which rules in English
society.

Besides these splendid works, we must mention the delight he has given,
and the good he has done in expanding individual and public charity, by
his exquisite Christmas stories, of which _The Chimes_, _The Christmas
Carol_, and _The Cricket on the Hearth_ are the best.

His dramatic power has been fully illustrated by the ready adaptations of
his novels to the stage; they are, indeed, in scenes, personages, costume,
and interlocution, dramas in all except the form; and he himself was an
admirable actor.

HIS VARIED POWERS.--His tenderness is touching, and his pathos at once
excites our sympathy. He does not tell us to feel or to weep, but he shows
us scenes like those in the life of Smike, and in the sufferings and death
of Little Nell, which so simply appeal to the heart that we are for the
time forgetful of the wand which conjures them before us.

Dickens is bold in the advocacy of truth and in denouncing error; he is
the champion of honest poverty; he is the foe of class pretension and
oppression; he is the friend of friendless children; the reformer of
those whom society has made vagrants. Without many clear assertions of
Christian doctrine, but with no negation of it, he believes in doing good
for its own sake,--in self-denial, in the rewards which virtue gives
herself. His faults are few and venial. His merry life smacks too much of
the practical joke and the punch-bowl; he denounces cant in the
self-appointed ministers of the gospel, but he is not careful to draw
contrasted pictures of good pastors. His opinion seems to be based upon a
human perfectibility. But for rare pictures of real life he has never been
surpassed; and he has instructed an age, concerning itself, wisely,
originally, and usefully. He has the simplicity of Goldsmith, and the
truth to nature of Fielding and Smollett, without a spice of
sentimentalism or of impurity; he has brought the art of prose fiction to
its highest point, and he has left no worthy successor. He lived for years
separated from his wife on the ground of incompatibility, and, during his
later years at Gadshill, twenty miles from London, to avoid the
dissipations and draughts upon his time in that city.

SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA.--In 1868 he again visited America, to read
portions of his own works. He was well received by the public; but society
had learned its lesson on his former visit, and he was not overwhelmed
with a hospitality he had so signally failed to appreciate. And if we had
learned better, he had vastly improved; the genius had become a gentleman.
His readings were a great pecuniary success, and at their close he made an
amend which was graceful and proper; so that when he departed from our
shores his former errors were fully condoned, and he left an admiring
hemisphere behind him.

In the glow of health, and while writing, in serial numbers, a very
promising novel entitled _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_, he was struck by
apoplexy, in June, 1870, and in a few hours was dead. England has hardly
experienced a greater loss. All classes of men mourned when he was buried
in Westminster Abbey, in the poets' corner, among illustrious writers,--a
prose-poet, none of whom has a larger fame than he; a historian of his
time of greater value to society than any who distinctively bear the
title. His characters are drawn from life; his own experience is found in
_Nicholas Nickleby_ and _David Copperfield_; _Micawber_ is a caricature of
his own father. _Traddles_ is said to represent his friend Talfourd.
_Skimpole_ is supposed to be an original likeness of Leigh Hunt, and
William and Daniel Grant, of Manchester, were the originals of the
_Brothers Cheeryble_.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.--Dickens gives us real characters in the garb
of fiction; but Thackeray uses fiction as the vehicle of social
philosophy. Great name, second only to Dickens; he is not a story-teller,
but an eastern Cadi administering justice in the form of apologue. Dickens
is eminently dramatic; Thackeray has nothing dramatic, neither scene nor
personage. He is Democritus the laughing philosopher, or Jupiter the
thunderer; he arraigns vice, pats virtue on the shoulder, shouts for
muscular Christianity, uncovers shams,--his personages are only names.
Dickens describes individuals; Thackeray only classes: his men and women
are representatives, and, with but few exceptions, they excite our sense
of justice, but not our sympathy; the principal exception is _Colonel
Newcome_, a real individual creation upon whom Thackeray exhausted his
genius, and he stands alone.

Thackeray was born in Calcutta, of an old Yorkshire family, in 1811. His
father was in the civil service, and he was sent home, when a child of
seven, for his education at the Charter House in London. Thence he was
entered at Cambridge, but left without being graduated. An easy fortune of
£20,000 led him to take life easily; he studied painting with somewhat of
the desultory devotion he has ascribed to Clive Newcome, and, like that
worthy, travelled on the Continent. Partly by unsuccessful investments,
and partly by careless living, his means were spent, and he took up
writing as a profession. The comic was his forte, and his early pieces,
written under the pseudonym of Michael Angelo Fitzmarsh and George Fitz
Boodle, are broadly humorous, but by no means in his later finished style.
_The Great Hoggarty Diamond_ (1841) did not disclose his full powers.

In 1841, _Punch_, a weekly comic illustrated sheet, was begun, and it
opened to Thackeray a field which exactly suited him. Short scraps of
comedy, slightly connected sketches, and the weekly tale of brick, chimed
with his humor, and made him at once a favorite. The best of these serial
contributions were _The Snob Papers_: they are as fine specimens of
humorous satire as exist in the language. But these would not have made
him famous, as they did not disclose his power as a novelist.

VANITY FAIR.--This was done by his _Vanity Fair_, which was published, in
monthly numbers, between 1846 and 1848. It was at once popular, and is the
most artistic of all his works. He called it a novel without a hero, and
he is right; the mind repudiates all aspirants for the post, and settles
upon poor Major Sugar-Plums as the best man in it. He could not have said
_without a heroine_, for does not the world since ring with the fame of
Becky Sharpe, the cleverest and wickedest little woman in England? The
virtuous reader even is sorry that Becky must come to grief, as, with a
proper respect to morality, the novelist makes her.

Never had the Vanity Fair of European society received so scathing a
dissection; and its author was immediately recognized as one of the
greatest living satirists and novelists. If he adheres more to the old
school of Fielding, who was his model, in his plots and handling of the
story, he was evidently original in his satire.

In 1847, upon the completion of this work, he began his _History of
Pendennis_, in serial numbers, in which he presents the hero, Arthur
Pendennis, as an average youth of the day, full of faults and foibles, but
likewise generous and repentant. Here he enlists the sympathies which one
never feels for perfection; and here, too, he portrays female loveliness
and endurance in his Mrs. Pendennis and Laura. Arthur is a purer Tom Jones
and Laura a superior Sophia Western.

In 1851 he gave a course of lectures, repeated in America the next year,
on "the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century." There was no one
better fitted to write such a course; he felt with them and was of them.
But if this enabled him to present them sympathetically, it also caused
him to overrate them, and in some cases to descend to the standpoint of
their own partial views. He is wrong in his estimate of Swift, and too
eulogistic of Addison; but he is thoroughly English in both.

HENRY ESMOND.--The study of history necessary to prepare these led to his
undertaking a novel on the time of Queen Anne, entitled _The History of
Henry Esmond, Esq., written by himself_. His appreciation of the age is
excellent; but the book, leaving for the most part the comic field in
which he was most at home, is drier and less read than his others; as an
historical presentation a great success, with rare touches of pathos; as a
work of fiction not equal to his other stories. The comic muse assumes a
tragic, or at least a very sombre, dress. We have a portraiture of Queen
Anne in her last days, and a sad picture of him who, to the Protestant
succession, was the pretender, and to the hopeful Jacobites, James III.
The character of Marlborough is given with but little of what was really
meritorious in that great captain.

His novel of _Pendennis_ gave him, after the manner of Bulwer's _Caxton_,
an editor in _Arthur Pendennis_, who presents us _The Newcomes, Memoirs of
a Most Respectable Family_, which he published in a serial form,
completing it in 1855.

THE NEWCOMES.--In that work we have the richest culture, the finest
satire, and the rarest social philosophy. The character--the hero by
pre-eminence--is Colonel Newcome, a nobleman of nature's creation,
generous, simple, a yearningly affectionate father, a friend to all the
poor and afflicted, one of the best men ever delineated by a novelist; few
hearts are so hard as not to be touched by the story of his death in his
final retirement at the Charter House. When, surrounded by weeping
friends, he heard the bell, "a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face,
and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said 'Adsum,' and fell
back: it was the word we used at school when names were called; and, lo!
he, whose heart was that of a little child, had answered to his name, and
stood in the presence of the Master."

THE GEORGES.--While he was writing _The Newcomes_, he had prepared a
course of four lectures on the _Four Georges_, kings of England, with
which he made his second visit to the United States, and which he
delivered in the principal cities, to make a fund for his daughters and
for his old age. It was entirely successful, and he afterwards read them
in England and Scotland. They are very valuable historically, as they give
us the truth with regard to men whose reigns were brilliant and on the
whole prosperous, but who themselves, with the exception of the third of
the name, were as bad men as ever wore crowns. George III. was continent
and honest, but a maniac, and Mr. Thackeray has treated him with due
forbearance and eulogy.

In 1857, Mr. Thackeray was a candidate for Parliament from Oxford, but
was defeated by a small majority; his conduct in the election was so
magnanimous, that his defeat may be regarded as an advantage to his
reputation.

In the same year he began _The Virginians_, which may be considered his
failure; it is historically a continuation of _Esmond_,--some of the
English characters, the Esmonds in Virginia, being the same as in that
work. But his presentation and estimate of Washington are a caricature,
and his sketch of General James Wolfe, the hero of Quebec, is tame and
untrue to life. His descriptions of Virginia colonial life are unlike the
reality; but where he is on his own ground, describing English scenes and
customs in that day, he is more successful. To paint historical characters
is beyond the power of his pencil, and his Doctor Johnson is not the man
whom Boswell has so successfully presented.

In 1860 he originated the _Cornhill Magazine_, to which his name gave
unusual popularity: it attained a circulation of one hundred
thousand--unprecedented in England. In that he published _Lovel the
Widower_, which was not much liked, and a charming reproduction of the
Newcomes,--for it is nothing more,--entitled _The Adventures of Philip on
His Way through the World_. Philip is a more than average Englishman, with
a wicked father and rather a stupid wife; but "the little sister" is a
star--there is no finer character in any of his works. _Philip_, in spite
of its likeness to _The Newcomes_, is a delightful book.

With an achieved fame, a high position, a home which he had just built at
Kensington, a large income, he seemed to have before him as prosperous an
old age as any one could desire, when, such are the mysteries of
Providence, he was found dead in his room on the morning of December 24,
1863.

ESTIMATE OF HIS POWERS.--Thackeray's excellences are manifest: he was the
master of idiomatic English, a great moralist and reformer, and the king
of satire, all the weapons of which he managed with perfect skill. He had
a rapier for aristocratic immunities of evil, arrows to transfix
prescriptions and shams; and with snobs (we must change the figure) he
played as a cat does with a mouse, torturing and then devouring. In the
words of Miss Bronté, "he was the first social regenerator of the day, the
very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the
warped system of things." But this was his chief and glorious strength: in
the truest sense, he was a satirist and a humorist, but not a novelist; he
could not create character. His dramatic persons do not speak for
themselves; he tells us what they are and do. His mission seems to have
been to arraign and demolish evil rather than to applaud good, and thus he
enlists our sinless anger as crusaders rather than our sympathy as
philanthropists. In Dickens we are sometimes disposed to skip a little, in
our ardor, to follow the plot and find the dénouement. In Thackeray we
read every word, for it is the philosophy we want; the plot and personages
are secondary, as indeed he considered them; for he often tells us, in the
time of greatest depression of his hero, that it will all come out right
at the end,--that Philip will marry Charlotte, and have a good income,
while the poor soul is wrestling with the _res augusta domi_. Dickens and
Thackeray seemed to draw from each other in their later works; the former
philosophizing more in his _Little Dorrit_ and _Our Mutual Friend_, and
the latter attempting more of the descriptive in _The Newcomes_ and
_Philip_. Of minor pieces we may mention his _Rebecca_ and _Rowena_, and
his _Kickleburys on the Rhine_; his _Essay on Thunder_ and _Small Beer_;
his _Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo_, in 1846, and his
published collection of smaller sketches called _The Roundabout Papers_.
That Thackeray was fully conscious of the dignity of his functions may be
gathered from his own words in _Henry Esmond_. "I would have history
familiar rather than heroic, and think Mr. Hogarth and Mr. Fielding.
[and, we may add, Mr. Thackeray,] will give our children a much better
idea of the manners of that age in England than the _Court Gazette_ and
the newspapers which we get thence." At his death he left an unfinished
novel, entitled _Dennis Duval_. A gifted daughter, who was his kind
amanuensis. Miss ANNE E. THACKERAY, has written several interesting tales,
among which are _The Village on the Cliff_ and _The Story of Elizabeth_.

CHAPTER XLI.

THE LATER WRITERS.

   Charles Lamb. Thomas Hood. Thomas de Quincey. Other Novelists. Writers
   on Science and Philosophy.

CHARLES LAMB.--This distinguished writer, although not a novelist like
Dickens and Thackeray, in the sense of having produced extensive works of
fiction, was, like them, a humorist and a satirist, and has left
miscellaneous works of rare merit. He was born in London, and was the son
of a servant to one of the Benches of the Inner Temple; he was educated at
Christ's Hospital, where he became the warm friend of Coleridge. In 1792
he received an appointment as clerk in the South Sea House, which he
retained until 1825, when, owing to the distinction he had obtained in the
world of letters, he was permitted to retire with a pension of £450. He
describes his feelings on this happy release from business, in his essay
on _The Superannuated Man_. He was an eccentric man, a serio-comic
character, whose sad life is singularly contrasted with his irrepressible
humor. His sister, whom he has so tenderly described as Bridget Elia, in a
fit of insanity killed their mother with a carving-knife, and Lamb devoted
himself to her care.

He was a poet, and left quaint and beautiful album verses and minor
pieces. As a dramatist, he is known by his tragedy _John Woodvil_, and the
farce _Mr. H----_, neither of which was a success. But he has given us in
his _Specimens of Old English Dramatists_ the result of great reading and
rare criticism.

But it is chiefly as a writer of essays and short stories that he is
distinguished. The _Essays of Elia_, in their vein, mark an era in the
literature; they are light, racy, seemingly dashed off, but really full of
his reading of the older English authors. Indeed, he is so quaint in
thought and style, that he seems an anachronism--a writer of the
Elizabethan period returned to life in this century. He bubbles over with
puns, jests, and repartees; and although not popular in the sense of
reaching the multitude, he is the friend and companion of congenial
readers. Among his essays, we may mention the stories of _Rosamund Gray_
and _Old Blind Margaret_. _Dream Children_ and _The Child Angel_ are those
of greatest power; but every one he has written is charming. His sly hits
at existing abuses are designed to laugh them away. He was the favorite of
his literary circle, and as a talker had no superior. After a life of
care, not unmingled with pleasures, he died in 1834. Lamb's letters are
racy, witty, idiomatic, and unlabored; and, as most of them are to
colleagues in literature and on subjects of social and literary interest,
they are important aids in studying the history of his period.

THOMAS HOOD.--The greatest humorist, the best punster, and the ablest
satirist of his age, Hood attacked the social evils around him with such
skill and power that he stands forth as a philanthropist. He was born in
London in 1798, and, after a limited education, he began to learn the art
of engraving; but his pen was more powerful than his burin. He soon began
to contribute to the _London Magazine_ his _Whims and Oddities_; and, in
irregular verse, satirized the would-be great men of the time, and the
eccentric legislation they proposed in Parliament. These short poems are
full of puns and happy _jeux de mots_, and had a decided effect in
frustrating the foolish plans. After this he published _National Tales_,
in the same comic vein; but also produced his exquisite serious pieces,
_The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies_, _Hero and Leander_, and others, all
of which are striking and tasteful. In 1838 he commenced _The Comic
Annual_, which appeared for several years, brimful of mirth and fun. He
was editor of various magazines,--_The New Monthly_, and _Hood's
Magazine_. For _Punch_ he wrote _The Song of the Shirt_, and _The Bridge
of Sighs_. No one can compute the good done by both; the hearts touched;
the pockets opened. The sewing women were better paid, more cared for,
elevated in the social scale; and many of them saved from that fate which
is so touchingly chronicled in _The Bridge of Sighs_. Hood was a true poet
and a great poet. _Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg_ is satire, story,
epic, comedy, in one.

If he owed to Smollett's _Humphrey Clinker_ the form of his _Up the
Rhine_, he has equalled Smollett in the narrative, in the variety of
character, and in the admirable cacography of Martha Penny. His
caricatures fasten facts in the memory, and every tourist up the Rhine
recognizes Hood's personages wherever he lands.

After a life of ill-health and pecuniary struggle, Hood died, greatly
lamented, on the 3d of May, 1845, and left no successor to wield his
subtle pen.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859).--This singular author, and very learned and
original thinker, owes much of his reputation to the evil habit of
opium-eating, which affected his personal life and authorship. His most
popular work is _The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, which
interests the reader by its curious pictures of the abnormal conditions in
which he lived and wrote. He abandoned this noxious practice in the year
1820. He produced much which he did not publish; and his writings all
contain a suggestion of strength and scholarship, a surplus beyond what he
has given to the world. There are numerous essays and narratives, among
which his paper entitled _Murder considered as One of the Fine Arts_ is
especially notable. His prose is considered a model of good English.

The death of Dickens and Thackeray left England without a novelist of
equal fame and power, but with a host of scholarly and respectable pens,
whose productions delight the popular taste, and who are still in the tide
of busy authorship.

Our purpose is already accomplished, and we might rest without the
proceeding beyond the middle of the century; but it will be proper to make
brief mention of those, some of whom have already departed, but many of
whom still remain, and are producing new works, who best illustrate the
historical value and teachings of English literature, and whose writings
will be read in the future for their delineations of the habits and
conditions of the present period.

OTHER NOVELISTS.

_Captain Frederick Marryat_, of the Royal Navy, 1792-1848: in his sea
novels depicts naval life with rare fidelity, and with, a roystering
joviality which makes them extremely entertaining. The principal of these
are _Frank Mildmay_, _Newton Forster_, _Peter Simple_, and _Midshipman
Easy_. His works constitute a truthful portrait of the British Navy in the
beginning of the eighteenth century, and have influenced many
high-spirited youths to choose a maritime profession.

_George P. R. James_, 1806-1860: is the author of nearly two hundred
novels, chiefly historical, which have been, in their day, popular. It was
soon found, however, that he repeated himself, and the sameness of
handling began to tire his readers. His "two travellers," with whom he
opens his stories, have become proverbially ridiculous. But he has
depicted scenes in modern history with skill, and especially in French
history. His _Richelieu_ is a favorite; and in his _Life of Charlemagne_
he has brought together the principal events in the career of that
distinguished monarch with logical force and historical accuracy.

_Benjamin d'Israeli_, born 1805: is far more famous as a persevering,
acute, and able statesman than as a novelist. In proof of this, having
surmounted unusual difficulties, he has been twice Chancellor of the
Exchequer and once Prime Minister of England. Among his earlier novels,
which are pictures of existing society, are: _Vivian Gray_, _Contarini
Fleming_, _Coningsby_, and _Henrietta Temple_. In _The Wondrous Tale of
Alroy_ he has described the career of that singular claimant to the
Jewish Messiahship. _Lothair_, which was published in 1869, is the story
of a young nobleman who was almost enticed to enter the Roman Catholic
Church. The descriptions of society are either very much overwrought or
ironical; but his knowledge of State craft and Church craft renders the
book of great value to the history of religious polemics. His father,
_Isaac d'Israeli_, is favorably known as the author of _The Curiosities of
Literature_, _The Amenities of Literature_, and _The Quarrels of Authors_.

_Charles Lever_, 1806-1872: he was born in Dublin, and, after a partial
University career, studied medicine. He has embodied his experience of
military life in several striking but exaggerated works,--among these are:
_The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer_, _Charles O'Malley_, and _Jack
Hinton_. He excels in humor and in picturesque battle-scenes, and he has
painted the age in caricature. Of its kind, _Charles O'Malley_ stands
pre-eminent: the variety of character is great; all classes of military
men figure in the scenes, from the Duke of Wellington to the inimitable
Mickey Free. He was for some time editor of the _Dublin University
Magazine_, and has written numerous other novels, among which are: _Roland
Cashel_, _The Knight of Gwynne_, and _The Dodd Family Abroad_; and, last
of all, _Lord Kilgobbin_.

_Charles Kingsley_, born 1809: this accomplished clergyman, who is a canon
of Chester, is among the most popular English writers,--a poet, a
novelist, and a philosopher. He was first favorably known by a poetical
drama on the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, entitled _The Saint's
Tragedy_. Among his other works are: _Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet_;
_Hypatia, the Story of a Virgin Martyr_; _Andromeda; Westward Ho! or the
Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh_; _Two Years Ago_; and _Hereward, the Last
of the English_. This last is a very vivid historical picture of the way
in which the man of the fens, under the lead of this powerful outlaw, held
out against William the Conqueror. The busy pen of Kingsley has produced
numerous lectures, poems, reviews, essays, and some plain and useful
sermons. He is now Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.

_Charlotte Bronté_, 1816-1855: if of an earlier period, this gifted woman
would demand a far fuller mention and a more critical notice than can be
with justice given of a contemporary. She certainly wrote from the depths
of her own consciousness. _Jane Eyre_, her first great work, was received
with intense interest, and was variously criticized. The daughter of a
poor clergyman at Haworth, and afterwards a teacher in a school at
Brussels, with little knowledge of the world, she produced a powerful book
containing much curious philosophy, and took rank at once among the first
novelists of the age. Her other works, if not equal to _Jane Eyre_, are
still of great merit, and deal profoundly with the springs of human
action. They are: _The Professor_, _Villette_, and _Shirley_. Her
characters are portraits of the men and women around her, painted from
life; and she speaks boldly of motives and customs which other novelists
have touched very delicately. She had two gifted sisters, who were also
successful novelists; but who died young. Miss Bronté died a short time
after her marriage to Mr. Nichol, her father's curate. _Mrs. Elizabeth
Gaskell_, her near friend, and the author of a successful novel called
_Mary Barton_, has written an interesting biography of Mrs. Nichol.

_George Eliot_, born 1820: under this pseudonym, Miss Evans has written
several works of great interest. Among these are: _Adam Bede_; _The Mill
on the Floss_; _Romola_, an Italian story; _Felix Holt_; and _Silas
Marner_. Simple, and yet eminently dramatic in scene, character, and
interlocution, George Eliot has painted pictures from middle and common
life, and is thus the exponent of a large humanity. She is now the wife of
the popular author, G. H. Lewes.

_Dinah Maria Muloch_ (Mrs. Craik), born 1826: a versatile writer. She is
best known by her novels entitled _John Halifax_ and _The Ogilvies_.

_Wilkie Collins_, born 1824: he is the son of a landscape-painter, and is
renowned for his curious and well-concealed plots, phantom-like
characters, and striking effects. Among his novels the best known are:
_Antonina_, _The Dead Secret_, _The Woman in White_, _No Name_,
_Armadale_, _The Moonstone_, and _Man and Wife_. There is a sameness in
these works; and yet it is evident that the author has put his invention
on the rack to create new intrigues, and to mystify his reader from the
beginning to the end of each story.

_Charles Reade_, born 1814: he is one of the most prolific writers of the
day, as well as one of the most readable in all that he has written. He
draws many impassioned scenes, and is as sensuous in literature as Rubens
in art. Among his principal works are: _White Lies_, _Love Me Little, Love
Me Long_; _The Cloister and The Hearth_; _Hard Cash_, and _Griffith
Gaunt_, which convey little, if any, practical instruction. His _Never Too
Late to Mend_ is of great value in displaying the abuses of the prison
system in England; and his _Put Yourself in His Place_ is a very powerful
attack upon the Trades' Unions. A singular epigrammatic style keeps up the
interest apart from the story.

_Mary Russell Mitford_, 1786-1855: she was a poet and a dramatist, but is
chiefly known by her stories. In the collection called _Our Village_, she
has presented beautiful and simple pictures of English country life which
are at once touching and instructive.

_Charlotte Mary Yonge_, born 1823: among the many interesting works of
this author, _The Heir of Redclyff_ is the first and best. This was
followed by _Daisy Chain_, _Heartsease_, _The Clever Woman of the Family_,
and numerous other works of romance and of history,--all of which are
valuable for their high tone of moral instruction and social manners.

_Anthony Trollope_, born 1815: he and his brother, Thomas Adolphus
Trollope, are sons of that Mrs. Frances Trollope who abused our country in
her work entitled _The Domestic Manners of the Americans_, in terms that
were distasteful even to English critics. Anthony Trollope is a successful
writer of society-novels, which, without being of the highest order, are
faithful in their portraitures. Among those which have been very popular
are: _Barchester Towers_, _Framley Parsonage_, _Doctor Thorne_, and _Orley
Farm_, He travelled in the United States, and has published a work of
discernment entitled _North America_. His brother Thomas is best known by
his _History of Florence to the Fall of the Republic_.

_Thomas Hughes_, born 1823: the popular author of _Tom Brown's School-Days
at Rugby_, and _Tom Brown at Oxford_,--books which display the workings of
these institutions, and set up a standard for English youth. The first is
the best, and has made him famous.

WRITERS ON SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Although these do not come strictly within the scope of English
literature, they are so connected with it in the composition of general
culture, and give such a complexion to the age, that it is well to mention
the principal names.

_Sir William Hamilton_, 1788-1856: for twenty years Professor of Logic and
Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. His voluminous lectures on
both these subjects were edited, after his death, by Mansel and Veitch,
and have been since of the highest authority.

_William Whewell_, 1795-1866: for some time Master of Trinity College,
Cambridge. He has written learnedly on many subjects: his most valuable
works are: _A History of the Inductive Sciences_, _The Elements of
Morality_, and _The Plurality of Worlds_. Of Whewell it has been pithily
said, that "science was his forte, and omniscience his foible."

_Richard Whately, D.D._, 1787-1863: he was appointed in 1831 Archbishop
of Dublin and Kildare, in Ireland. His chief works are: _Elements of
Logic_, _Elements of Rhetoric_, and _Lectures on Political Economy_. He
gave a new impetus to the study of Logic and Rhetoric, and presented the
formal logic of Aristotle anew to the world; thus marking a distinct epoch
in the history of that much controverted science.

_John Ruskin_, born 1819: he ranks among the most original critics in art;
but is eccentric in his opinions. His powers were first displayed in his
_Modern Painters_. In his _Seven Lamps of Architecture_ he has laid down
the great fundamental principles of that art, among the forms of which the
Gothic claims the pre-eminence. These are further carried out in _The
Stones of Venice_. He is a transcendentalist and a pre-Raphaelite, and
exceedingly dogmatic in stating his views. His descriptive powers are very
great.

_Hugh Miller_, 1802-1856: an uneducated mechanic, he was a brilliant
genius and an observant philosopher. His best works are: _The Old Red
Sandstone_, _Footprints of the Creator_, and _The Testimonies of the
Rocks_. He shot himself in a fit of insanity.

_John Stuart Mill_, born 1806: the son of James Mill, the historian of
India. He was carefully educated, and has written on many subjects. He is
best known by his _System of Logic_; his work on _Political Economy_; and
his _Treatise on Liberty_. Each of these topics being questions of
controversy, Mr. Mill states his views strongly in respect to opposing
systems, and is very clear in the expression of his own dogmas.

_Thomas Chalmers, D.D._, 1780-1847: this distinguished divine won his
greatest reputation as an eloquent preacher. He was for some time
Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of St. Andrew's, and wrote
on _Natural Theology_, _The Evidences of Christianity_, and some lectures
on _Astronomy_. But all his works are glowing sermons rather than
philosophical treatises.

_Richard Chevenix Trench, D.D._, born 1807: the present Archbishop of
Dublin. He has written numerous theological works of popular value, among
which are _Notes on the Parables, and on Miracles_. He has also published
two series of charming lectures on English philology, entitled _The Study
of Words_ and _English Past and Present_. They are suggestive and
discursive rather than philosophical, but have incited many persons to
pursue this delightful study.

_Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D._, born 1815: Dean of Westminster. He was
first known by his excellent biography of Dr. Arnold of Rugby; but has
since enriched biblical literature by his lectures on _The Eastern Church_
and on _The Jewish Church_. He accompanied the Prince of Wales on his
visit to Palestine, and was not only eager in collecting statistics, but
has reproduced them with poetic power.

_Nicholas Wiseman, D.D._, 1802-1865: the head of the Roman Catholic Church
in England. Cardinal Wiseman has written much on theological and
ecclesiastical questions; but he is best known to the literary world by
his able lectures on _The Connection between Science and Revealed
Religion_, which are additionally valuable because they have no sectarian
character.

_Charles Darwin_, born 1809: although he began his career at an early age,
his principal works are so immediately of the present time, and his
speculations are so involved in serious controversies, that they are not
within the scope of this work. His principal works are: _The Origin of
Species by means of Natural Selection_, and _The Descent of Man_. His
facts are curious and very carefully selected; but his conclusions have
been severely criticized.

_Frederick Max Müller_, born 1823: a German by birth. He is a professional
Oxford, and has done more to popularize the Science of Language than any
other writer. He has written largely on Oriental linguistics, and has
given two courses of lectures on _The Science of Language_, which have
been published, and are used as text-books. His _Chips from a German
Workshop_ is a charming book, containing his miscellaneous articles in
reviews and magazines.

CHAPTER XLII.

ENGLISH JOURNALISM.

   Roman News Letters. The Gazette. The Civil War. Later Divisions. The
   Reviews. The Monthlies. The Dailies. The London Times. Other
   Newspapers.

ROMAN NEWS LETTERS.--English serials and periodicals, from the very time
of their origin, display, in a remarkable manner, the progress both of
English literature and of English history, and form the most striking
illustration that the literature interprets the history. In using the
caption, "journalism," we include all forms of periodical
literature--reviews, magazines, weekly and daily papers. The word
journalism is, in respect to many of them, a misnomer, etymologically
considered: it is a French corruption of _diurnal_, which, from the Latin
_dies_, should mean a daily paper; but it is now generally used to include
all periodicals. The origin of newspapers is quite curious, and antedates
the invention of printing. The _acta diurna_, or journals of public
events, were the daily manuscript reports of the Roman Government during
the later commonwealth. In these, among other matters of public interest,
every birth, marriage, and divorce was entered. As an illustration of the
character of these brief entries, we have the satire of Petronius, which
he puts in the mouth of the freed man Trimalchio: "The seventh of the
Kalends of Sextilis, on the estate at Cumæ, were born thirty boys, twenty
girls; were carried from the floor to the barn, 500,000 bushels of wheat;
were broke 500 oxen. The same day the slave Mithridates was crucified for
blasphemy against the Emperor's genius; the same day was placed in the
chest the sum of ten millions sesterces, which could not be put out to
use." Similar in character were the _Acta Urbana_, or city register, the
_Acta Publica_, and the _Acta Senatus_, whose names indicate their
contents. They were brief, almost tabular, and not infrequently
sensational.

THE GAZETTE.--After the downfall of Rome, and during the Dark Ages, there
are few traces of journalism. When Venice was still in her palmy days, in
1563, during a war with the Turks, printed bulletins were issued from time
to time, the price for reading which was a coin of about three farthings'
value called a _gazetta_; and so the paper soon came to be called a
gazette. Old files, to the amount of thirty volumes, of great historical
value, may be found in the Magliabecchian Library at Florence.

Next in order, we find in France _Affiches_, or _placards_, which were
soon succeeded by regular sheets of advertisement, exhibited at certain
offices.

As early as the time of the intended invasion of England by the Spanish
Armada, about the year 1588, we find an account of its defeat and
dispersion in the _Mercurie_, issued by Queen Elizabeth's own printer. In
another number is the news of a plot for killing the queen, and a
statement that instruments of torture were on board the vessels, to set up
the Inquisition in London. Whether true or not, the newspaper said it; and
the English people believed it implicitly.

About 1600, with the awakening spirit of the people, there began to appear
periodical papers containing specifically news from Germany, from Italy,
&c. And during the Thirty Years' War there was issued a weekly paper
called _The Certain News of the Present Week_. Although the word _news_ is
significant enough, many persons considered it as made up of the initial
letters representing the cardinal points of the compass, _N.E.W.S._, from
which the curious people looked for satisfying intelligence.

THE CIVIL WAR.--The progress of English journalism received a great
additional impetus when the civil war broke out between Charles I. and his
Parliament, in 1642. To meet the demands of both parties for intelligence,
numbers of small sheets were issued: _Truths from York_ told of the rising
in the king's favor there. There were: _Tidings from Ireland_, _News from
Hull_, telling of the siege of that place in 1643; _The Dutch Spy_; _The
Parliament Kite_; _The Secret Owl_; _The Scot's Dove_, with the
olive-branch. Then flourished the _Weekly Discoverer_, and _The Weekly
Discoverer Stripped Naked_. But these were only bare and partial
statements, which excited rancor without conveying intelligence. "Had
there been better vehicles for the expression of public opinion," says the
author of the Student's history of England, "the Stuarts might have been
saved from some of those schemes which proved so fatal to themselves."

In the session of Parliament held in 1695, there occurred a revolution of
great moment. There had been an act, enforced for a limited time, to
restrain unlicensed printing, and under it censors had been appointed;
but, in this year, the Parliament refused to re-enact or continue it, and
thus the press found itself comparatively free.

We have already referred to the powerful influence of the essayists in
_The Tatler_, _Spectator_, _Guardian_, and _Rambler_, which may be called
the real origin of the present English press.

LATER DIVISIONS.--Coming down to the close of the eighteenth century, we
find the following division of English periodical literature:
_Quarterlies_, usually called _Reviews_; _Monthlies_, generally entitled
_Magazines_; _Weeklies_, containing digests of news; and _Dailies_, in
which are found the intelligence and facts of the present moment; and in
this order, too, were the intellectual strength and learning of the time
at first employed. The _Quarterlies_ contained the articles of the great
men--the acknowledged critics in politics, literature, and art; the
_Magazines_, a current literature of poetry and fiction; the _Weeklies_
and _Dailies_, reporters' facts and statistics; the latter requiring
activity rather than cleverness, and beginning to be a vehicle for
extensive advertisements.

This general division has been since maintained; but if the order has not
been reversed, there can be no doubt that the great dailies have steadily
risen; on most questions of popular interest in all departments, long and
carefully written articles in the dailies, from distinguished pens,
anticipate the quarterlies, or force them to seek new grounds and forms of
presentation after forestalling their critical opinions. Not many years
ago, the quarterlies subsidized the best talent; now the men of that class
write for _The Times_, _Standard_, _Telegraph_, &c.

Let us look, in the order we have mentioned, at some representatives of
the press in its various forms.

Each of the principal reviews represents a political party, and at the
same time, in most cases, a religious denomination; and they owe much of
their interest to the controversial spirit thus engendered.

REVIEWS.--First among these, in point of origin, is the _Edinburgh
Review_, which was produced by the joint efforts of several young, and
comparatively unknown, gentlemen, among whom were Francis (afterwards)
Lord Jeffrey, Lord Murray, Mr. (since Lord) Brougham, and the Rev. Sydney
Smith. The latter gentleman was appointed first editor, and remained long
enough in Edinburgh to edit the first number. Thereafter Jeffrey conducted
it. The men were clever, witty, studious, fearless; and the Review was not
only from the first a success, but its fiat was looked for by authors with
fear and trembling. It became a vehicle for the efforts of the best minds.
Macaulay wrote for it those brilliant miscellanies which at once
established his fame, and gave it much of its popularity. In it Jeffrey
attacked the Lake poetry, and incurred the hatred of Byron. Its
establishment, in 1803, was an era in the world of English letters. The
papers were not merely reviews, but monographs on interesting subjects--a
new anatomy of history; it was in a general way an exponent, but quite an
independent one, of the Whig party, or those who would liberally construe
the Constitution,--putting Churchmen and Dissenters on the same platform;
although published in Edinburgh, it was neither Scotch nor Presbyterian.
It attacked ancient prescriptions and customs; agitated questions long
considered settled both of present custom and former history; and thus
imitated the champion knights who challenged all comers, and sustained no
defeats.

Occupying opposite ground to this is the great English review called the
_London Quarterly_: it was established in 1809; is an uncompromising
Tory,--entirely conservative as to monarchy, aristocracy, and Established
Church. Its first editor was William Gifford; but it attained its best
celebrity under the charge of John Gibson Lockhart, the son-in-law of Sir
Walter Scott, a man of singular critical power. Among its distinguished
contributors were Southey, Scott, Canning, Croker, and Wordsworth.

The _North British Review_, which never attained the celebrity of either
of these, and which has at length, in 1871, been discontinued, occupied
strong Scottish and Presbyterian ground, and had its respectable
supporters.

But besides the parties mentioned, there is a floating one, growing by
slow but sure accretion, know as the _Radical_. It includes men of many
stamps, mainly utilitarian,--radical in politics, innovators, radical in
religion, destructive as to systems of science and arts, a learned and
inquisitive class,--rational, transcendental, and intensely dogmatic. As a
vent for this varied party, the _Westminster Review_ was founded by Mr
Bentham, in 1824. Its articles are always well written, and sometimes
dangerous, according to our orthodox notions. It is supported by such
writers as Mill, Bowring, and Buckle.

Besides these there are numerous quarterlies of more or less limited
scope, as in science or art, theology or law; such as _The Eclectic, The
Christian Observer, The Dublin_, and many others.

THE MONTHLIES.--Passing from the reviews to the monthlies, we find the
range and number of these far greater, and the matter lighter. The first
great representative of the modern series, and one that has kept its issue
up to the present day, is Cave's _Gentleman's Magazine_, which commenced
its career in 1831, and has been continued, after Cave's death, by Henry &
Nichols, who wrote under the pseudonym of _Sylvanus Urban_. It is a strong
link between past and present. Johnson sent his _queries_ to it while
preparing his dictionary, and at the present day it is the favorite
vehicle of antiquarians and historians. Passing by others, we find
Blackwood's _Edinburgh Magazine_, first published in 1817. Originally a
strong and bitter conservative, it kept up its popularity by its fine
stories and poems. Among the most notable papers in Blackwood are the
_Noctes Ambrosianæ_, in which Professor Wilson, under the pseudonym of
_Christopher North_, took the greater part.

Most of the magazines had little or no political proclivity, but were
chiefly literary. Among them are _Fraser's_, begun in 1830, and the
_Dublin University_, in 1832.

A charming light literature was presented by the _New Monthly_: in
politics it was a sort of set-off to Blackwood: in it Captain Marryat
wrote his famous sea stories; and among other contributors are the ever
welcome names of Hood, Lytton, and Campbell. The _Penny Magazine_, of
Knight, was issued from 1832 to 1845.

Quite a new era dawned upon the magazine world in the establishment of
several new ones, under the auspices of famous authors; among which we
mention _The Cornhill_, edited by Thackeray, in 1859, with unprecedented
success, until his tender heart compelled him to resign it; _Temple Bar_,
by Sala, in 1860, is also very successful.

In 1850 Dickens began the issue of _Household Words_, and in 1859 this was
merged into _All the Year Round_, which owed its great popularity to the
prestige of the same great writer.

Besides these, devoted to literature and criticism, there are also many
monthlies issued in behalf of special branches of knowledge, art, and
science, which we have not space to refer to.

Descending in the order mentioned, we come to the weeklies, which, besides
containing summaries of daily intelligence, also share the magazine field
in brief descriptive articles, short stories, and occasional poems.

A number of these are illustrated journals, and are of great value in
giving us pictorial representations of the great events and scenes as they
pass, with portraits of men who have become suddenly famous by some
special act or appointment. Their value cannot be too highly appreciated;
they supply to the mind, through the eye, what the best descriptions in
letter-press could not give; and in them satire uses comic elements with
wonderful effect. Among the illustrated weeklies, the _Illustrated London
News_ has long held a high place; and within a short period _The Graphic_
has exhibited splendid pictures of men and things of timely interest. Nor
must we forget to mention _Punch_, which has been the grand jester of the
realm since its origin. The best humorous and witty talent of England has
found a vent in its pages, and sometimes its pathos has been productive of
reform. Thackeray, Cuthbert Bede, Mark Lemon, Hood, have amused us in its
pages, and the clever pencil of Leech has made a series of etching which
will never grow tiresome. To it Thackeray contributed his _Snob Papers_,
and Hood _The Song of the Shirt_.

THE DAILIES.--But the great characteristic of the age is the daily
newspaper, so common a blessing that we cease to marvel at it, and yet
marvellous as it is common. It is the product of quick intelligence, of
great energy, of concurrent and systematized labor, and, in order to
fulfil its mission, it seems to subsidize all arts and invade all
subjects--steam, mechanics, photography, phonography, and electricity. The
news which it prints and scatters comes to it on the telegraph; long
orations are phonographically reported; the very latest mechanical skill
is used in its printing; and the world is laid at our feet as we sit at
the breakfast-table and read its columns.

I shall not go back to the origin of printing, to show the great progress
that has been made in the art from that time to the present; nor shall I
attempt to explain the present process, which one visit to a press-room
would do far better than any description; but I simply refer to the fact
that fifty years ago newspapers were still printed with the hand-press,
giving 250 impressions per hour--no cylinder, no flying Hoe, (that was
patented only in 1847.) Now, the ten-cylinder Hoe, steam driven, works off
20,000 sheets in an hour, and more, as the stereotyper may multiply the
forms. What an emblem of art-progress is this! Fifty years ago
mail-coaches carried them away. Now, steamers and locomotives fly with
them all over the world, and only enlarge and expand the story, the great
facts of which have been already sent in outline by telegraph.

Nor is it possible to overrate the value of a good daily paper: as the
body is strengthened by daily food, so are we built up mentally and
spiritually for the busy age in which we live by the world of intelligence
contained in the daily journal. A great book and a good one is offered for
the reading of many who have no time to read others, and a great culture
in morals, religion, politics, is thus induced. Of course it would be
impossible to mention all the English dailies. Among them _The London
Times_ is pre-eminent, and stands highest in the opinion of the
ministerial party, which fears and uses it.

There was a time when the press was greatly trammelled in England, and
license of expression was easily charged with constructive treason; but at
present it is remarkably free, and the great, the government, and existing
abuses, receive no soft treatment at its hands.

_The London Times_ was started by John Walter, a printer, in 1788, there
having been for three years before a paper called the _London Daily
Universal Register_. In 1803 his son, John, went into partnership, when
the circulation was but 1,000. Within ten years it was 5,000. In 1814,
cleverly concealing the purpose from his workmen, he printed the first
sheet ever printed by steam, on Kœnig's press. The paper passed, at his
death, into the hands of his son, the third John, who is a scholar,
educated at Eton and Oxford, like his father a member of Parliament, and
who has lately been raised to the peerage. The _Times_ is so influential
that it may well be called a third estate in the realm: its writers are
men of merit and distinction; its correspondence secures the best foreign
intelligence; and its travelling agents, like Russell and others, are the
true historians of a war. English journalism, it is manifest, is eminently
historical. The files of English newspapers are the best history of the
period, and will, by their facts and comments, hereafter confront specious
and false historians. Another thing to be observed is the impersonality of
the British press, not only in the fact that names are withheld, but that
the articles betray no authorship; that, in short, the paper does not
appear as the glorification of one man or set of men, but like an
unprejudiced relator, censor, and judge.

Of the principal London papers, the _Morning Post_ (Liberal, but not
Radical,) was begun in 1772. The _Globe_ (at first Liberal, but within a
short time Tory), in 1802. The _Standard_ (Conservative), in 1827. The
_Daily News_ (high-class Liberal), in 1846. The _News_ announced itself as
pledged to _Principles of Progress and Improvement_. _The Daily Telegraph_
was started in 1855, and claims the largest circulation. It is also a
_Liberal_ paper.

INDEX OF AUTHORS

Addison, Joseph, 258.
Akenside, Mark, 351.
Alcuin, 40.
Aldhelm, Abbot, 40.
Alfred the Great, 42.
Alfric, surnamed Germanicus, 40.
Alison, Sir Archibald, 447.
Alured of Rievaux, 49.
Arbuthnot, John, 252.
Arnold, Matthew, 438.
Arnold, Thomas, 448.
Ascham, Roger, 103.
Ashmole, Elias, 232.
Aubrey, John, 232.
Austen, Jane, 411.

Bacon, Francis, 156.
Bacon, Roger, 59.
Bailey, Philip James, 437.
Baillie, Joanna, 368.
Barbauld, Anne Letitia, 359.
Barbour, John, 89.
Barclay, Robert, 228.
Barham, Richard Harris, 437.
Barklay, Alexander, 102.