Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/446

426 written while its author lay in prison, awaiting his public exposure in that "state machine" for having written The Shortest Way with the Dissenters. This was an ironical pamphlet, occasioned by the disgust with which Defoe was inspired by the conduct of the wealthy dissenters in London, who occasionally conformed to the worship of the establishment in order to qualify themselves under the Test Act for holding office. Defoe recommends the passing of an Act by which a dissenter attending a conventicle shall be made punishable by death or imprisonment for life. Many of the clergy took the pamphlet seriously, and approved of it; when it was discovered that the advice was ironical, the exasperation against Defoe was so great that it resulted in his being condemned to pay a heavy fine and to stand in the pillory. The Ode has a nervous strength, almost dignity, of style, which can seldom be asserted of the writings of Defoe. Referring to this incident, Pope, whose Catholic rearing made him detest the abettor of the Revolution and the champion of William of Orange, wrote in the Dunciad—

though he knew that the sentence to the pillory had long ceased to entail the loss of ears.

The exceptionally remarkable poem to which reference was made in the last paragraph was Pope's Essay on Criticism, which appeared in 1711. Of all such poems the Ars Poetica of Horace is the original model—a model, it may be added, which has never been surpassed. The classical taste, and the desire to conform to the ancient rules, which had obtained a complete ascendency in the literary circles of France during the reign of Louis XIV., were now almost equally prevalent in England. Boileau's Épître sur l'Art Poetique, and the critical writings of Bossu, Bouhours, Dacier, and Sarasin, led to the appearance in England of such works as Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse, Sheffield's two Essays, on satire and on poetry, and the critical attempts, in prose, of Rymer and Dennis. The receptivity and power of Pope's intellect were naturally employed at an early period of his career on a line of thought, in literature and art, which interested so many able minds, and was, so to speak, in the air. He lays down in the Essay rules for the guidance of critics in judging, which, he contends, they are as much bound to observe as poets are to follow the rules of art in writing, The acuteness of observation, the terseness of definition, the brilliance of wit, and the keenness of polished invective which distinguish the Essay, render it, though containing little that is absolutely new, a composition of which English literature may well be proud.

But the chief literary achievements of this period were expressed in prose. Prose is the medium which befits the seculum rationalisticum which is now opening, an age in which men do not trouble themselves about new ideas, but reason and debate upon those which have been already manifested. Ideas possess themselves of the whole man, and impel him to remodel his life in accordance with them. The idea of the theocratic republic, growing into distinct shape in the minds of Milton, Cromwell, and other Puritans, drove them to march through war, regicide, and revolution towards its accomplishment. The idea of hereditary monarchy, ruling by virtue of a right of which the origin is lost in the mists of a venerable antiquity, and is therefore assumed to be divine, animated the Jacobites of 1700, as it animates the French legitimists of our own day. But neither of these two ideas had, after turning England upside down, succeeded in establishing itself; the country had acquiesced perforce in a compromise. The partisans of the theocratic republic were forced to put up with king, constitution, law, and an Erastian church; nevertheless they were tolerated, and even allowed to write and preach what they pleased, so long as they did not openly advocate sedition. The partisans of hereditary monarchy were forced to accept a king, and then a queen, and then a whole dynasty, whose rights had no older or more sacred origin than the Acts of Settlement of 1689 and 1701; still some deference was paid to their cherished sentiments, inasmuch as the new stock of royalty was not sought from an alien tree, but was a scion, though not the legitimate scion, growing from the old Stuart trunk. With this makeshift English loyalty was fain to be content. Thus on both sides the consistent theorists, the men of an idea, were discountenanced; and the via media in politics and religion, since it seemed to be the only practicable path, was more and more frequented by men of sense. Then a host of reasoners and debaters arose, bent upon showing, not that the compromises were logically sound, which they could not do, but that the extremists were dangerous fools. Moreover, since the compromise might be held and viewed from opposite sides, endless debate was possible, and actually arose, as to the right way of viewing it, whether mainly as a concession to liberty and democracy, or mainly as the guarantee of order and conservatism. In contests of this kind the pens of many able writers were engaged in the reign of Anne; we may mention in particular Swift, Steele, Addison, and Arbuthnot. We will briefly examine their chief performances, first in general literature and then in theology and philosophy.

Swift, appointed to the deanery of St Patrick's in 1713, Swift, was generally believed to have no faith in revealed religion, but to adhere to what we have called "the compromise" for the sake of what he could get by it. On the night before his installation, a copy of verses was affixed to the door of St Patrick's cathedral, containing these amongst other lines:—

This reputation for unbelief was acquired through the publication of The Tale of a Tub (1704), in which Swift employed the unequalled resources of his scornful wit in satirizing the extreme parties, the consistent doctrines, which the Revolution had discomfited. In the celebrated apologue of Peter, Martin, and Jack (by whom we may either understand Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism, or the Church of Rome, that of England, and the Puritans), it is hard to say whether the assault on Peter's knavery and mendacity, or on Jack's fanatical folly, be the more unsparing. Of Martin, who represents rational religion, moderation, common-sense,—in a word, the compromise,—Swift has only expressions of approval. But we know that what men feel to be a compromise, they cannot heartily love; and it is therefore only in conformity with what we should expect, to find that for every page given to the commendation of Martin, at least twenty are employed in reviling Peter or ridiculing Jack. Hence the general effect of the work as a whole is that of an attack on Christianity; and on this account its perusal was much recommended by Voltaire.

But there were other upholders of "the compromise" who had nothing of Swift's cynical temper, nay, who were conspicuously warm-hearted, eager, and generous. Such a man was the Irishman Richard Steele. He seems to have Steele. been descended from one of those Cromwellian adventurers who were rewarded for their services to the Puritan