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eighteenth century was the age in which the critic, the essayist, the satirist, the novelist, and the moralist first appeared, or reached the highest mark. Criticism, though still in its infancy, first became an independent art with Addison. Addison and his various colleagues set. the first example of that kind of social essay which is still popular. Satire had been practised in the preceding century, and in the hands of Dryden had become a formidable political weapon; but the social satire of which Pope was, and remains, the chief master, began with the century, and may be said to have expired with it, in spite of the efforts of Byron and Gifford. De Foe, Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett developed the modern novel out óf very crude rudiments; and two of the greatest men of the century, Swift and Johnson, may be best described as practical moralists in a vein peculiar to the time. I have already pointed out, more than once, that the causes of the great development of this kind of literature must be sought chiefly in social conditions. The rise of a class of comparatively educated and polished persons, large enough to form a public, and not so large as to degenerate into a mob, distinct from the old feudal nobility, and regarding the life of the nobles with a certain contempt as rustic and brutal, more refined again than that class of hangers-on to the Court, of merchants and shopkeepers stamped with the peculiarities of their business, which generated the drama of the Restoration, and, on another side, beginning to despise the pedants of colleges and cathedrals as useless and antiquated encumbrances, accounts for many of the most obvious phenomena of the time. After the long struggle of the end of the preceding century, the, society called 'the Town' in the language of the essayists, definitely emerges, and is inclined to identify itself with the nation. Poets, novelists, essayists, and satirists consult its tastes, and consider Temple Bar as the centre of the universe. What are the characteristics in its intellectual relations of the literature which emerges?

43. Three tendencies, strongly marked in all this crowd of writers, may be noticed as sufficiently indicative of the contemporary modes of thought. The first is a speculative, the second an ethical, and the third an æsthetic tendency. They are intimately connected, and may be plausibly deduced from

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the working of the dominant ideas which have been expounded in previous chapters. The first half of the century was a period of vehement discussion; the deists and their antagonists fought over questions of the deepest importance with an energy proportional to the interests at stake. But there is a tendency, strongly marked on both sides, which determines the limits of the controversy. Neither party wishes really to push matters to an extremity. The deists attack priestcraft with fierce hostility; but they do not wish to destroy theology. The priest once deprived of his exaggerated pretensions may be allowed to remain as a useful member of society, and the natural religion which is desired, is to be but a modified and emasculated version of the old creed. The orthodox, on the other hand, have no inclination to attack the vital principles of their opponents. They admit the duty of free thought; they claim to be thoroughgoing rationalists, and they only desire to embody the teaching of reason in the old formula. Both sides tacitly evade certain crucial questions. Even Butler refrains from searching into the fundamental difficulty; and Hume alone dares to suggest the logical answer. This kind of intellectual indolence is revealed in the sphere of direct controversy by a general superficiality and readiness to put up with flimsy theories; and it is naturally connected with the cardinal fact that, in attacking the religious theory of the time, the deists were not animated, like their French successors, by any decided discontent with the social order. They were not seriously persecuted, and did not wish to inflict serious injury. To keep the clergy well under the heel of parlia-mentary authority would describe the ultimate limit of their political aspirations, as in a philosophical sense they wished generally to preserve theology, whilst getting rid of the supernatural. In literature the same tendency is marked by a stronger feeling. The strongest intellects of the day perceived, or felt instinctively, that the tendency of the deist speculations was to undermine the whole social order, and to undermine it in the interests of a flimsy creed. To any man with a strong sense of the practical needs of the time, the deists appeared to be superficial theorists who were gratifying their vanity at the expense of the most important institutions. They were insisting upon asking questions which had better not be asked,

and to which they were prepared with no satisfactory answer. To stir the very foundations of society, a man must be prompted either by a passionate love of speculation, or by a distinct prospect of some fruitful result, or by a conviction of the absolute necessity of social reconstruction. Neither of the last two elements was present; and the pure love of enquiry is at all times the rarest of endowments. The hidden fear of dangerous consequences, which kept the deists to half-truths, 7 led men of strong, but not really speculative, intellects to object to speculation altogether.

44. This sentiment is curiously expressed in the ablest writing of the time, down to the very end of the century, when it takes a rather different colouring. Why can't you let things alone? is the unanimous cry of the intellectual leaders. The old theology is effete; but a creed which is effete (an unlucky but a plausible doctrine!) is harmless. The deists are almost uniformly mentioned with a mixture of contempt and dislike. Addison dislikes them as much as he can dislike anyone. Swift dislikes them, also, as much as he can dislike anyone; and the phrase in his case represents, perhaps, the greatest intensity of aversion of which the human soul is, capable. With the whole body of essayists, from Steele downwards, a deist is a futile coxcomb, to be ridiculed like the 'virtuoso' and the fine gentleman. The novelists are equally clear. De Foe makes Robinson Crusoe preach sermons fit for a dissenting pulpit. Richardson has so great a contempt for infidels that he will not contemplate the possibility that even a Lovelace should disbelieve in a future state of rewards and punishments. Fielding, laughing over his beer and pipe at Richardson's namby-pamby sentiment, still has as hearty a contempt for a deist as for a methodist. Johnson turns the roughest side of his contempt to anyone suspected of scepticism, and calls Adam Smith a 'son of a bitch.' When Burke endeavours to blast the deists with his fiery rhetoric at the end of the century, it is only that the wrath which had been smouldering whilst the Deism was comparatively maskedbursts into flame as soon as the concealment vanishes. The common sense of the country was entirely on the side of Revelation as against Deism, and the ablest writers were but the

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mouthpiece of the common sense. The result, however, of this sentiment was not to give an actively orthodox tone to the writing of the time; for theology was for the most part almost as deistical as the deists.

45. A hatred for enthusiasm was as strongly impressed upon the whole character of contemporary thought as a hatred of scepticism. And thus the literary expression of the feeling is rather a dislike to all speculation than a dislike to a particular school of speculatists. The whole subject was dangerous, and should be avoided by reasonable men. A good common-sense religion should be taken for granted, and no questions asked. If the philosophy of the time was unfitted for poetry, it was, for the same reason, unfitted to stimulate the emotions, and therefore for practical life. With Shakespeare, or Sir Thomas Browne, or Jeremy Taylor, or Milton, man is contemplated in his relations to the universe; he is in presence of eternity and infinity; life is a brief dream; we are ephemeral actors in a vast drama; heaven and hell are behind the veil of phenomena; at every step our friends vanish into the vast abyss of ever-present mystery. To all such thoughts the writers of the eighteenth century seemed to close their eyes as resolutely as possible. They do not, like Sir Thomas Browne, delight to lose themselves in an Oh! Al titudo! or to snatch a solemn joy from the giddiness which follows a steady gaze into the infinite. The greatest men amongst them, a Swift or a Johnson, have indeed a senseperhaps a really stronger sense than Browne or Taylor-of the pettiness of our lives and the narrow limits of our knowledge. No great man could ever be without it. But the awe of the infinite and the unseen does not induce them to brood over the mysterious, and find utterance for bewildered musings on the inscrutable enigma.

habitual sadness which They turn their backs

46. It is felt only in a certain clouds their whole tone of thought. upon the infinite and abandon the effort at a solution. Their eyes are fixed upon the world around them, and they regard as foolish and presumptuous anyone who dares to contemplate the great darkness. The expression of this sentiment in literature is a marked disposition to turn aside from pure speculation, combined with a deep interest in social and moral laws.

The absence of any deeper speculative ground makes the immediate practical questions of life all the more interesting. We know not what we are, nor whither we are going, nor whence we come; but we can, by the help of common sense, discover a sufficient share of moral maxims for our guidance in life, and we can analyse human passions, and discover what are the moving forces of society, without going back to first principles. Knowledge of human nature, as it actually presented itself in the shifting scene before them, and a vivid appreciation of the importance of the moral law, are the staple of the best literature of the time. As ethical speculation was prominent in the philosophy, the enforcement of ethical principles is the task of those who were inclined to despise philosophy. When a creed is dying, the importance of preserving the moral law naturally becomes a pressing consideration with all strong natures.

47. I have coupled Swift and Johnson as the two most vigorous representatives of this tendency. Between them there is a curious analogy as well as a striking contrast. They are alike in that shrewd humorous common sense which seems to be the special endowment of the English race. They are alike, too, in this that they express the reaction against the complacent optimism of the Pope-Shaftesbury variety. They illustrate the incapacity of that system of thought to satisfy men of powerful emotional nature. The writings of each might be summed up in a phrase embodying the most uncompromising protest against the optimist philosophy. Swift says, with unrivalled intensity, that the natural man is not, as theorists would maintain, a reasonable and virtuous animal; but, for the most part, a knave and a fool. Johnson denies, with equal emphasis, though with inferior literary power, that the business of life can be carried on by help of rose-coloured sentiments and general complacency. The world is, at best, but a melancholy place, full of gloom, of misery, of wasted purpose, and disappointed hopes. 'Whatever is, is right,' say the philosophers. Make up the heavy account of suffering, of disease, vice, cruelty, of envy, hatred, and malice, of corruption in high places, of starvation and nakedness amongst the low, of wars, and pestilences, and famines, of selfish ambition

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