mode in which that event, and Swift's own character, would be discussed among his friends, his enemies, and his acquaintances; and there is no composition in the world which gives a more easy and animated picture, at once satirical and true, of the language and sentiments of ordinary society. But his fame rests wholly upon his wonderful prose. Vigor and perspicuity mark every page. There is no sign of pedantry in his style; every sentence is homely and rugged and strong. "He seems to have hated foreign words as he hated men." His vocabulary is thoroughly Saxon, and the variety of English idioms used in expressing his thought is greater than can be found in any other writer of his age.* No member of the brilliant society of which Pope and Swift were the chief luminaries, deserves more respect than Dr. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735). He was of Scottish origin, and enjoyed high reputation as a physician attached to the Court from 1709 till the death of Queen Anne. He was one of the most learned wits of the day, and was the chief contributor to the Miscellanies spoken of in our discussion of Pope. He is supposed to have conceived the plan of that extensive satire on the abuses of learning, embodied in the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, and to have executed the best portions of that work. It is impossible, however, to distinguish between the different contributions of the club. But the fame of Arbuthnot is more intimately connected with the History of John Bull, in which the intrigues and Wars of the Succession are caricatured with much drollery. The object of the work was to render the prosecution of the war by Marlborough unpopular with the nation. The adventures of Squire South (Austria), Lewis Baboon (France), Nic. Frog (Holland), and Lord Strutt (the King of Spain), are related with fun, odd humor, and familiar vulgarity of language. Arbuthnot is always good-natured. He shows no trace of that fierce misanthropy which tinged every page of Swift. The characters of the various nations and parties are conceived and maintained *For further readings on this topic see The North American Review, Jan. 1868, -Craik's English Literature, vol. II., p. 208, seq.,-Macaulay's Essay on Sir William Temple, Thackeray's English Humorists,-Jeffrey in the British Essayists,-Scott's Life of Swift.-Hazlitt's Lectures on The English Poets, Lect. VI. with spirit. The popular ideal of John Bull, with which Englishmen are so fond of identifying their personal and national peculiarities, was first stamped and fixed by Arbuthnot's amusing burlesque. Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751), remarkable for his extraordinary career as a statesman and orator, was a prominent member of the brilliant coterie of Pope and Swift. After a stormy public life, he amused his declining years by the composition of political, moral, and philosophical essays. While an exile he wrote his Reflections on Exile, his Letter to Sir William Windham in defence of his political life, his papers On the Study of History, and On the True Use of Retirement. After his death a complete edition of his works was published in five volumes. His disbelief in the divine origin of Christianity is distinctly stated. The language of Bolingbroke is lofty and oratorical; but the thought is often feeble, and the tone of philosophical indifference to matters in which other men are interested seems to be affected. It was to Bolingbroke that Pope addressed The Essay on Man, and from him the poet derived many of his loose opinions. George Berkeley (1684–1753) was ever full of projects for increasing the virtue and happiness of his fellow-creatures. When fifty years of age he was made Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland. This position he continued to hold, obstinately refusing any promotion that would remove him from the people for whom he loved to work. His writings are numerous, embracing a wide field of moral and metaphysical discussion (191). He is one of the most brilliant, as well as one of the earliest advocates of the ideal theory; and therefore appears in contrast with Locke in the history of English philosophy. Locke traced ideas to external nature, teaching that the phenomena observed are the measure of ideas. Berkeley taught that the ideas themselves are the only things man can pronounce real. His first philosophical work was his Theory of Vision, in which he announces an important discovery concerning knowledge of the properties of bodies. This was followed by The Principles of Human Knowledge, and by the Three Dialogues. What he aimed to do in his writings, was to refute the scepticism found in other philosophical works; but in the interpretation of much of his thought he is treated as though he were himself a reckless teacher of error. Although Pope and many distinguished men of letters in this period assiduously cultivated epistolary composition, none of them could equal Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1690-1762) in brilliant letter-writing. She was the daughter of the Duke of Kingston, and was celebrated, even from her childhood, for the vivacity of her intellect, her precocious mental acquirements, and the beauty and graces of her person. Her education had been far more extensive and solid than was then usually given to women. Her acquaintance with history, and even with Latin, was considerable, and her studies had been in some degree directed by Bishop Burnet. In 1712 she married Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu, and accompanied him on his embassy to the court of Constantinople. She described her travels over Europe and the East in those delightful Letters which have given her in English literature a place resembling that of Madame de Sévigné in the literature of France (192). Admirable common sense, observation, vivacity, extensive reading without a trace of pedantry, and a pleasant tinge of half-playful sarcasın, are qualities of her correspondence. The style displays the simplicity and natural elegance of the high-born and high-bred lady combined with the ease of the thorough woman of the world. The moral tone, indeed, is not high, for the career of Lady Mary had not been such as to cherish a very scrupulous delicacy. But she had seen so much, and had been brought into contact with so many remarkble persons, and in a way that gave her such means of judging of them, that she is always sensible and amusing. The successful introduction of inoculation for the small-pox is mainly to be attributed to her intelligence and courage. She not only had the courage to try the experiment upon her own child, but with admirable constancy she resisted the furious opposition of bigotry and ignorance against the bold innovation. She was at one time the intimate friend of Pope, and the object of his most ardent adulation; but a violent quarrel occurred between them, and the spiteful poet pursued her for a time with an almost furious hatred. She is the Sappho of his satirical works. CHAPTER XX. THE FIRST GREAT NOVELISTS. ROSE FICTION was one of the latest departments of literature PROSE cultivated by English authors. It is true that Sydney's Arcadia was a chivalric form of this kind of writing, and Bacon's Atlantis and More's Utopia, written in Latin, were philosophical romances; but the use of prose narrative in the delineation of passions, characters, and incidents of real life was first developed by a constellation of great writers in the eighteenth century, among whom the names of Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne, are the most brilliant. The literature of fiction divides itself into two great branchesromances and novels. In the romance the characters and incidents are of a lofty, historical, or supernatural character; in the novel there is a recital of the events of ordinary life. "The two differ from each other in the element of truth. The typical novel has this complete. It adheres to the line of characters it has chosen to delineate, with thorough and exact representation, striving to make them clearly drawn counterparts of those real persons whom they represent. The romance lacks truth, and that in the worst of all ways, by insensible departures, by excessive coloring, by glaring and false lights. It is against the romance element, ever likely to appear in historical novels, as it appears in history itself, when it runs like a child after the glittering march and the sonorous sounds of war, that most of the moral objections to works of fiction hold."* In the department of the novel, from its first appearance in our literature down to the present time, English writers have encountered few rivals and no superiors. * Bascom's Philosophy of English Literature, p. 271. Daniel Defoe (1661-1731) was the founder of the English novel. He was the son of a London butcher named Foe, and not liking the family name he attached a prefix to suit his taste. He was educated for the ministry in a dissenting sect, but chose a mercantile life, at various times carrying on the business of a hosier, a tilemaker, and a woolen draper. His interest in politics led him to take up the pen as a pamphleteer, and his radical Protestantism carried him to such extremes that he was frequently subjected to punishment. In spite of the pillory, of fines and of imprisonment, he fearlessly continued to publish pamphlet after pamphlet, full of irony, logic, and patriotism. In The Trueborn Englishman, a poem written in singularly tuneless rhymes, he defended William of Orange and the Dutch against the prejudices of his countrymen; in The Shortest Way with the Dissenters he gravely proposed as the easiest and speediest way of ridding the land of them, to hang their ministers and banish the people; and when the House of Commons pronounced the pamphlet a libel on the nation, and sentenced him to stand in the pillory, he coolly wrote his Ode to the Pillory, describing it as "A hieroglyphic state-machine During one of his imprisonments he commenced The Review, the prototype of our semi-political, semi-literary periodicals, publishing it three times a week. In 1719 the first part of Robinson Crusoe appeared. Its 1719] success among the humble readers whom Defoe generally addressed was instantaneous. The simplicity and probability of the events narrated, and the author's skill in identifying himself with the character of his recluse, give the book an intense interest. The impression it leaves on the memory of every reader is deep and permanent. The hero is without pretensions to extraordinary knowledge or intelligence, and is therefore such a person as every one, ignorant or cultivated, old or young, can sympathize with. The more thoughtful the reader, the more does he appreciate Defoe's wonderful art in throwing the air of reality over every part of his fiction. Scott remarks that the author has shown his skill in this work, by studiously pitching it in a low key, both as regards its style and its incidents. Among Defoe's other works of fiction, The Memoirs of a Cavalier |