Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/651

 ENGLAND (LANGUAGE AND LITEEATURE) 639 sitory works of Leighton, Owen, and Hen- ry," and the writings of the Quakers George Fox, Robert Barclay, William Penn, and Thomas Ellwood. This age of divines and comic dram- atists was also distinguished for its devotion to practical science under the guidance of the spirit of Bacon, and chemistry and physics be- came at once fashionable and respected. In- stances of this tendency are the " Discovery of a New World " and the other so-called "mathe- matical works " of Bishop Wilkins, the " His- tory of the Royal Society " of Sprat, the " Sa- cred Theory of the Earth" of Thomas Burnet, the "Sylva" and "Terra" of Evelyn, the "Observations" and the "Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of Creation " of John Ray, and above all others, the " Consid- erations on the Usefulness of Experimental Philosophy," and other works, philosophical and religious, of Robert Boyle, and the Phi- losophies Naturalis Principia Mathematica of Sir Isaac Newton. Among antiquarian works were the Monasticon Anglicanum of Sir Wil- liam Dugdale, the Athena Oxonienses of An- thony a Wood, the history of the order of the garter by Elias Ashmole, the "Miscellanies" of John Aubrey, and the fosdera of Thomas Rymer, who also wrote a curious treatise on tragedy, in which Shakespeare is criticised ac- cording to certain stately notions derived from the ancients. Works of high literary interest are the " Worthies of England " of Thomas Fuller, one of the strangest books in the world, a melange of oddity, sagacity, and humor, in a pithy style ; the " History of the Rebellion " of Lord Clarendon, which, in spite of its par- tiality, is admirable for its portraitures of char- acter and its animated narrative ; the " Obser- vations on the United Provinces of the Neth- erlands " of Sir William Temple ; the histories of the reformation and of his own times by Gilbert Burnet; the "Pilgrim's Progress" of John Bunyan, a specimen of homely English, the fruit of a lively and powerful imagination cultivated only by the study of the Scriptures; and the half poetical "Complete Angler" of Izaak Walton, who also wrote some pleasing biographies. Minor works were the transla- tions and political pamphlets of Sir Robert L'Estrange, the " Contemplations " of Sir Mat- thew Hale, the "Essays" on ancient and mod- ern learning by Temple, and the " Reflections " in answer to them by Wotton. Tom D'Urfey and Tom Brown, the last of the wits of the restoration, wrote comic and licentious compo- sitions in prose and verse. The " Short View," &c., of Jeremy Collier was the beginning of a controversy between him and the comic dram- atists which resulted in the reformation of the theatre. With the reign of Anne (1702-'14) begins a new era in English composition, when the affluence of the older literature gave way to correctness. The rules of the art were better understood, the style was cleared of its redundances, and wit refined from its alloy. The writers of the Elizabethan period, in an 297 VOL. vi. -41 age of stupendous changes, on the confines between barbarism and refinement, had dealt with the original passions and principles of human nature, and had found their illustra- tions in the pageantry of past institutions and in dreams of the future. As the English ad- vanced to the character of a polished nation, their literature also became less wild and grand in its romance and more regular in its outlines, the suggestions of genius being moulded by the rules of taste. As enriched and refined by the writers of the reign of Anne, which is often called the Augustan age of the literature, the language was almost finally formed. The fashions and frivolities of elegant and arti- ficial life became the themes of poets and es- sayists, and while the highest regions of poetry and speculation were abandoned, books were no longer confined to the learned or curious, but were gradually spread among all classes. Men of letters now first became known in Eng- land as a distinct class in society. To bring philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, and to make it dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea tables, and in coffee houses, was the task which Steele proposed to himself. That school of poetry which may be traced to the adoption of. French rules under Charles II. , which acquired stability from the trans- cendent powers of Dryden, was now perfected by Alexander Pope (1688-1744), and retained its ascendancy nearly through the 18th cen- tury. The follies of his feeble copyists have reacted injuriously upon the fame of the great master of the school. For half a century the notion prevailed that whoever deviated from the standard of Pope was worthy only to fig- ure in the " Dunciad ;" but somewhat later it became common to deny to him poetic genius, imagination, and versatility, and to decry his wit, epigrammatic force, and faultless num- bers, by confounding them with the imitations of those who had caught something of his metre, but nothing of his spirit. His correct- ness was branded as the badge of unimagina- tive and artificial verse, and might almost be numbered among the lost arts. Yet Camp- bell and Byron were zealous to do him justice, and the latter compared the poetry of the 18th century to the Parthenon, and that of his own times to a Turkish mosque. The vigor of conception and point of expression which distinguished the "Essay on Man," the "Rape of the Lock," the "Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard," the "Satires," and the " Dunciad," vindicate for them the highest rank in a peculiar and admirable class of composi- tions. His " Iliad " and " Odyssey," though un-Homeric, are valuable additions to English literature. The finest contemporary poetical productions were the " Letter from Italy," the " Campaign," and the " Cato " of Addison, the octosyllabic satires and occasional pieces of Swift, the " Shepherd's Week, in Six Pastorals," of Gay, the "Hermit" and the "Night Piece on Death " of Parnell, and the " Gentle Shep-