Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/654

 642 ENGLAND (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) vealed religion. It was said by Burke that he appears far greater in Boswell's pages than in his own, and the reason is that he conversed with admirable simplicity and plainness, but in his writings adopted an elaborately vicious and ponderous style. In the 18th century the nov- el assumed nearly the form and character which have since made it a leading department of lit- erature. The " Arcadia " of Sir Philip Sidney had been followed by a large number of chiv- alrously heroic and courtly pastoral romances, many of them translations and adaptations, as Johnson's once famous " Seven Champions of Christendom," and in the 17th century the "Man in the Moon" of Francis Goodwin. After the restoration the most popular novels of the continent were translated, but of Eng- lish original fictions, the " Parthenissa " .of Lord Orrery and the tales of Mrs. Behn and Mrs. Manley are all that are now remembered even by the antiquary. Daniel Defoe (1661- 1731) first gave to English fiction a simple, di- rect, matter-of-fact, and human interest, and the verisimilitude of "Eobinson Crusoe "has never been excelled. The "Tale of a Tub" and "Gulliver's Travels" by Swift, the "His- tory of John Bull" by Arbuthnpt, and his "Me- moirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works, and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus," are satires in the form of fictitious narratives. The wri- tings of Swift are admirable for their vigor and humor. Under his successors the novel became more complex and artistic, embraced greater varieties of character and diversities of treatment, and pictured the artificial refine- ments and distinctions of society, the contrasts of temper and manners, and the complicated and conflicting relations of life. The "Joseph Andrews," "Tom Jones," and "Amelia" of Fielding, and the "Pamela," "Clarissa Har- lowe," and " Sir Charles Grandison " of Eich- ardson, were published near the middle of the century. Fielding claimed for his great work, " Tom Jones," the dignity of a comic epopee. Its plot, which involves wonderfully diver- sified characters and adventures, is contrived with almost perfect art, and it portrays the especial features of real life in England, with keenness, coarseness, an easy humor, and a buoyant affluence of practical knowledge. Eichardson is one of the most powerful, tra- gic, and tedious of novelists, and his volumi- nous works obtained almost unexampled pop- ularity in England and on the continent. He and Fielding were embodiments respectively of the idealistic and the realistic tendency, and each entertained great contempt for the wri- tings of the other. The "Peregrine Pickle," "Humphrey Clinker," and other novels of Smollett are distinguished for coarse, comic in- cidents and broad humor; and the " Tristram Shandy " and "Sentimental Journey " of Sterne contain masterly touches of character, passages and episodes sparkling with wit and fancy, and also much melodramatic pathos and sentimen- tality. Three works of fiction contributed es- pecially to refine the public taste and the style of novels : the "Kasselas" of Johnson, a philo- sophical essay in the garb of an oriental tale, the " Vicar of Wakefield " of Goldsmith, a pic- ture of English rural life remarkable for kind- liness and taste, and the " Castle of Otranto " of Horace Walpole, a striking Gothic and chiv- alric romance. In 1771 Mackenzie produced "The Man of Feeling," and a few years later appeared Miss Burney's "Evelina," a picture of life and manners, which showed that both the vulgar and the fashionable life of London might be delineated with lively skill, and with broad comic humor, without a line to offend a delicate taste. This and her second novel, " Cecilia," are especially esteemed for their characterizations. With the French revolu- tion begins a new period in English literature. Again, as in the age of Elizabeth, great civil and religious changes were agitated ; old habits and feelings were to be set aside, old manners to pass into oblivion ; and out of the ruins of venerable institutions political theorists were seeking to rear the structure of a new social order. Amid bloodshed and confusion, in the conflict between traditions and hopes, men were forced to speculate on the very elements of human nature and destiny. The commotion of the times marked a change of scene in the drama of European civilization, and though it did not shake the constitution of England, it stirred the mind of the country in every de- partment, and led to deeper moods of thought and to larger sympathies. The revival of poetry had already been prepared by Cowper. A greater influence, probably, was exerted by Eobert Burns (1759-'96), whose "Tarn o' Shanter," "Hallowe'en," "Cotter's Saturday Night," and numerous songs, were indigenous to the soil of Scotland, and displayed a fresh- ness of humor, pathos, force, and beauty which made them esteemed alike by peasants and scholars, and a union of the morally sublime with the extrinsically humble. Yet his influ- ence did not extend at once to England, where Cowper was still rivalled in popularity by Dar- win and Hayley. Connected with these was the Delia Cruscan school of affected rhymesters, prominent among whom were Anna Seward, Mrs. Thrale, Mrs. Eobinson, Greathead, Merry, Weston, and Parsons, who were ridiculed by Gifford in his " Baviad " and " Mamad." Mat- thew Gregory Lewis was the originator of a romantic school, both of poetry and prose fic- tion, abounding in diablerie and all manner of extramundane machinery. His verses were reflected in some of the most powerful con- temporary prose, and exerted an influence on the early productions of Scott, Southey, and Coleridge, but were demolished by the "Eo- vers" of Canning and Frere, who also ridiculed Darwin's " Loves of the Plants " by a burlesque entitled " The Loves of the Triangles." William Wordsworth (1770-1850), esteemed by many the greatest poet of his century, devoted his life to poetry. It was the solemn business of