REIGN OF GEORGE III-FIRST SECTION.-[1760 TO 1800.] POETS. not read a poet for seventeen years; but he drew the distinguishing features of English life and scenery with such graphic power and beauty, that the mere poetry of art and fashion, and the stock images of descriptive verse, could not but appear mean, affected, and commonplace. Warton's History of Poetry, and Percy's Reliques, threw back the imagination to the bolder and freer era of our national literature, and in the Scottish poetry of Burns, a new world of rustic life, humour, tenderness, and pathos was opened up. Even the German imagin THE great variety and abundance of the literature of this period, especially towards its close, might, in some measure, have been predicted from the progress made during the previous thirty or forty years, in which, as Johnson said, almost every man had come to write and to express himself correctly, and the number of readers had been vastly multiplied. The increase in national wealth and population naturally led, in a country like Great Britain, to the improvement of litera-ative literature-which began to be cultivated in ture and the arts, and accordingly we find that a more popular and general style of composition began to supplant the conventional stiffness and classic restraint imposed upon former authors. The human intellect and imagination were sent abroad on wider surveys, and with more ambitious views. To excite a great mass of hearers, the public orator finds it necessary to appeal to the stronger passions and universal sympathies of his audience; and in writing for a large number of readers, an author must adopt similar means or fail of success. Hence it seems natural that as society advanced, the character of our literature should become assimilated to it, and partake of the onward movement, the popular feeling, and rising energy of the nation. There were, however, some great public events, and accidental circumstances, which assisted in bringing about a change. The American war, by exciting the eloquence of Chatham and Burke, awakened the spirit of the nation. The enthusiasm was continued by the poet Cowper, who sympathised keenly with his fellow-men, and had a warm love of his native country. Cowper wrote from no system; he had this country-was, with all its horrors and extravagance, something better than mere delineations of manners or incidental satire. The French Revolution came next, and seemed to break down all artificial distinctions. Talent and virtue only were to be regarded, and the spirit of man was to enter on a new course of free and glorious action. This dream passed away; but it had sunk deep into some ardent minds, and its fruits were seen in bold speculations on the hopes and destiny of man, in the strong colourings of nature and passion, and in the free and flexible movements of the native genius of our poetry. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, and Campbell had each commenced his poetical career, but they belong distinctively to the nineteenth century. One remarkable peculiarity in the period is, that it comprises the most striking and memorable of our literary frauds or forgeries-those of Macpherson, Chatterton, and Ireland. Macpherson had some foundation for his Ossianic poems, though assuredly he discovered no entire epic in the Hebrides. The two others were sheer fabricators-Chatterton possessing, while yet a boy, the genius of a true poet, combined with the taste and acquirements of the antiquary; while Ireland excelled only in the mechanical imitation of ancient writings, and was destitute of the talent or knowledge to give them verisimilitude and animation. It is some apology for these literary felonies or misdemeanours, that the oldest of the culprits was barely of age when he entered on his perilous and discreditable enterprise, and that all of them were cheered and encouraged by popular applause. In the case of the Shakspeare forgeries, public credulity was strongly displayed, but the Celtic and Rowley imitations had many redeeming and attractive qualities. At the opening of this section, Johnson was the great literary dictator, and he had yet to produce his best work, the Lives of the Poets. The exquisite poetry of Goldsmith was the most precious product of the age. In fiction, Sterne was triumphantly successful, and he found many imitators, the best of whom was Henry Mackenzie. Several female writers-as Miss Burney, Mrs Inchbald, Charlotte Smith, and Mrs Radcliffe-also enjoyed great popularity, though they are now comparatively little read. The more solid departments of literature were well supported. Hume and Robertson completed their historical works, and a fitting rival or associate appeared in Gibbon, the great historian of the Roman Empire. In theological literature we have the names of Paley, and Campbell, and Blair -the latter highly popular, if not profound. In metaphysics or mental philosophy, the writings of Reid formed a sort of epoch; and Smith's Wealth of Nations first explained to the world, fully and systematically, the principles upon which the wealth and prosperity of states must ever rest. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. OLIVER GOLDSMITH, whose writings range over every department of miscellaneous literature, challenges attention as a poet chiefly for the unaffected ease, grace, and tenderness of his descriptions of Ruins of the house at Lissoy, where Goldsmith spent his youth. of nine children, and his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, was a poor curate, who eked out the scanty funds which he derived from his profession, by renting and cultivating some land. The poet's father afterwards succeeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West, and removed to the house and farm of Lissoy, in his former parish. Here Goldsmith's youth was spent, and here he found the materials for his Deserted Village. After a good country education, Oliver was admitted a sizer of Trinity College, Dublin, June 11, 1745. The expense of his education was chiefly defrayed by his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Contarini, an excellent man, son to an Italian of the Contarini family at Venice, and a clergyman of the established church. At college, the poet was thoughtless and irregular, and always in want. His tutor was a man of fierce and brutal passions, and having struck him on one occasion before a party of friends, the poet left college, and wandered about the country for some time in the utmost poverty. His brother Henry clothed and carried him back to college, and on the 27th of February 1749, he was admitted to the degree of B.A. Goldsmith now gladly left the university, and returned to Lissoy. His father was dead, but he idled away two years among his relations. He afterwards became tutor in the family of rural and domestic life, and for a certain vein of a gentleman in Ireland, where he remained a year. pensive philosophic reflection. His countryman His uncle then gave him £50 to study the law in Burke said of himself, that he had taken his ideas Dublin, but he lost the whole in a gaming-house. of liberty not too high, that they might last him | A second contribution was raised, and the poet next Oliver Goldsmith. |