It is instructive to remark, that the principles on which this style was constructed, exposed it to an imminent risk of contracting serious faults in the hands of writers not more than usually adroit. Seemingly easy, it was really very difficult. If the author dealt with familiar topics, or aimed at nothing more than a colloquial tone, he was liable to fall back into the old defects of vulgarism or irregular looseness; faults to which the nature of the style directly disposed it, and from which the chief himself had not always been free. If, again, the kind of topic, or any other motive, tempted towards elevation of style, the adaptation of the familiar language to this new exigency was apt to cause a complete evaporation of that easy and unforced union of extreme clearness with sufficient strength, which, almost everywhere, stamped so firmly the style of the skilful model.

5. It was not to be expected that the colloquial elegance of Addison should be inherited by any successor, nor perhaps that the popularity of such a style should long survive the discredit thrown on it by a series of bad imitations. The case was, that, by the middle of the century, the new style, of which Johnson became the characteristic example, was both the most common and the most admired.

His writings, indeed, gave to his style, during his old age and after his death, a fame which made it ridiculous through the undesigned caricatures perpetrated by his copyists. But the features imitated by such writers are, in many points, merely the accidental characteristics produced by Johnson's own manner of thinking; and we must not be tempted by them, either to misapprehend what was the real character of the style, or to believe that he or any one person whatever was the sole parent of it.

It deviated from the style of the age before it, both in idiom and in vocabulary.

In Idiom, its tendency was, to abandon the familiar and native characteristics of the Saxon part of our language, and to fall into those expressions and modes of arrangement, which may be said to be common to all the modern European tongues and particularly inherent in none. In Addison's Spectator there are sentences and phrases innumerable, which we could not possibly translate, with literal faithfulness, into any other language of Europe: in Johnson's Rambler there is hardly perhaps a clause or a sentence but could be transferred, by close rendering, to the French or Italian, the modern tongues whose idiomatic structure is farthest distant from that of the English. The change in idiom thus described can hardly be attributed at all to any special influence exercised by Johnson. It is also to be remembered that

it has had, on the speech of more recent times, an effect much wider and more permanent than the other class of changes.

In the changes on the Vocabulary, Johnson's writings operated much more actively; although here, also, all that he did was to accelerate the working of a tendency already existing, and closely allied to that which caused the idiomatic transformations. By others as well as by him, though by none so much, large use was made of words derived from the Latin. A very considerable proportion of such words had been formed by the writers who belonged to the first half of the seventeenth century, but were become obsolete in the course of the hundred years that had since elapsed. All that Johnson and his contemporaries did as to these, was to revive the use of them, and thus, in a certain degree, to throw our diction back on its older character. A good many others were new in the tongue; but those of this group were by no means so numerous as they have sometimes been believed to be. The new importations and the restorations of the old were alike prompted by various motives. A few of these terms may really have been required, for the expression of new facts. But, in a large majority of cases, there were already words denoting the same ideas; and what was gained was not so much an increase of precision, but only, in addition to the effect of novelty, greater impressiveness and pomp. These attributes of style were held valuable, when language was beginning to be wanting in grace and nature, and needed other qualities to make up for

the loss.

14

CHAPTER X.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

SECTION SECOND: THE LITERATURE OF THE FIRST GENERATION.

POETRY. 1. The Drama-Non-Dramatic Poetry-Its Artificial Character-Minor Poets. -2. Alexander Pope-Characteristics of his Genius and Poetry.-3. Pope's WorksHis Early Poems-Poems of Middle Age-His Later Poems.-PROSE. 4. Theologians-Philosophers- Clarke's Natural Theology--Bishop Berkeley's Idealism— Shaftesbury--Bolingbroke.-5. Miscellaneous Prose-Occasional Writings-Defoe and Robinson Crusoe-Swift's Works and Literary Character--Other Prose Satires6. The Periodical Essayists-Addison and Steele-The Spectator-Its Character-Its Design.

POETICAL LITERATURE.

1. In our study of the Poetry of Queen Anne's time, the Drama scarcely deserves more than a parenthesis. The one pleasant point about it is the improvement in morals, which was shown by the Comedies, although accompanied by great want of delicacy both in manners and in language. That the ethical tone was high, however, cannot be asserted of a time, in which the most famous works of the kind were Gay's equivocal "Beggar's Opera," and the "Careless Husband" of Cibber. Nor are these, or any other comic dramas of that day, comparable in ability to those of the best writers of the age immediately before them. In Tragedy, the first noticeable fact was the appearance of Rowe's "Fair Penitent," which has already been noticed as an impudent but clever plagiarism from Massinger. In Addison's celebrated "Cato," the strict rules of the French stage became triumphant, and co-operated with the natural coldness of the author, in producing a series of stately and impressive speeches hardly in any sense deserving to be called dramatic. Young's "Revenge" had much more of tragic passion; though it wanted almost entirely that force of characterization, which seemed to have been buried with the old dramatists, and which had not even in them been the strongest point.

When we turn from the Drama, we find some Minor Poets, who should not be altogether overlooked. Such were Gay, whose

name is preserved by his "Fables," cheerful pieces of no great moment; and Somerville, whose blank-verse poem, "The Chase," is not quite forgotten. Swift's octosyllabic satires and occasional pieces, as excellent as his prose writings for their diction, are quite guiltless of the essence of poetry,

The Heroic Measure of our poetic language, written by Dryden ruggedly and irregularly, but with a noble roundness and variety of modulation, was now treated in another fashion, which continued to prevail throughout the greater part of the century. Two qualities were chiefly aimed at; smoothness of melody, and brief pointedness of expression. The master in this school was Pope, whose versification has been described by a more recent poet, fairly on the whole, though with somewhat of the affection of a disciple. "That his rhythm and manner are the very best in the whole range of our poetry, need not be asserted. He has a gracefully peculiar manner; though it is not calculated to be an universal one: and where indeed shall we find the style of poetry, that could be pronounced an exclusive model for every composer ? His pauses have little variety; and his phrases are too much weighed in the balance of antithesis. But let us look to the spirit that points his antitheses, and to the rapid precision of his thoughts; and we shall forgive him for being too antithetic and sententious."*

The same turn, with less both of poetry and of terseness, is shown by other poets, some of whom began to write before Pope. Of these, Parnell comes nearest to him in manner; Ambrose Phillips was a particularly pleasing versifier; and Addison's best poem, the Letter from Italy, catches, from the fascinating theme, more warmth of feeling than its author has elsewhere shown in verse. Within this period fall the later works of Sir Richard Blackmore; who, although his poetic feebleness, as well as his heaviness of thought and language, made him a tempting butt for the witty men of his time, deserves remembrance on other grounds. Amidst the licence which followed the Restoration, he had vindicated the cause of goodness by the example which all his writings furnished: in a time when poetry was hardly ever narrative, he ventured to compose regular epics: and in his didactic poems he rose above the trivialities that were universally popular, and, as in his "Creation," touched the highest religious topics.

2. It has gravely been asked whether Pope was a poet. They who put the question, expecting to compel an answer in d. 1744. the negative, must have fallen into some confusion in

b. 1688.

* Campbell: Specimens of the British Poets.

their use of words. But, if they ask, with a similar design, whe ther he was a great poet, or a poet of the first order, we shall tell the truth in answering them as they wish. We might perhaps say, further, that the works which he has given us do not possess nearly all the value, which his fine genius might have imparted to them.

There abound, in his poems, passages beautifully poetical; passages which convey to us, on the wings of the sweetest verse, exquisite thoughts, or dazzling images, or feelings delicately pleasing. Still more frequent are vigorous portraits of character, and sketches of social oddities, and evidences, widely various, of shrewd observation and reflective good sense. The diction, almost everywhere, is as highly finished as the versification. Further, if we turn from the details of a work to its aspect as a whole, we can hardly ever fail to admire the care and skill with which the parts are disposed and united.

Amidst all these excellences, we want, or find but seldom, those others, in virtue of which poetry holds her prerogative as the soother and elevator of the human soul. Those few works of his which communicate to us, with unity and sequence, the characteristic pleasure of poetic art, yet, (it cannot but be allowed,) raise that pleasure from excitants of the least dignified kind that can excite it at all. We are wafted into no bright world of imagination, rapt into no dream of strong passion, seldom raised into any high region of moral thought. If emotion is shown by the poet or his personages, it is slight; if fancy is excited, it is avowedly but in sport. Oftenest, however, it is only by fits and starts that we are at all tempted towards a poetical mood. The passages which make the poetry, are but occasional intervals of diversion from strains of observation or strokes of satire. If the words here used resemble those which occurred to us when we glanced at the works of Dryden, it is because a strong likeness prevails between the things described.

For this continual alloy of Pope's poetry by non-poetical ingredients, several reasons may be assigned, all of them common to him with the other poets of his day. In the first place, they were agreed in setting a higher value on skill of execution, than on originality or vigour of conception. He himself prized his lively fancy and fine susceptibility much less than his delicacy of phrase and his melodious versification. Secondly, those poets abstained systematically from all attempts at exciting strongly either imagination or feeling. No group of writers, calling themselves poets, could have shunned more anxiously the heroic and the tragic. It has been said that Pope never tried to be pathetic