Beautiful; one of the most typical of his later works was his Letter to a Noble Lord. It is not a little surprising to find that the latter theme produced the richer and more imaginative style. Something of this difference is doubtless due to the purposes of the various writings and the circumstances under which they were produced. A still further probable explanation is that Burke felt the repressing influences of Classicism more strongly in his younger days, and gave freer play to his own remarkable individuality as he grew older. The conditions of the age were favorable to such a development. The force of Classicism was growing ever less and less, the forces of Individualism were becoming ever more and more; and Burke's life continued until 1797, into a time when the newer influences had gained their complete triumph. Among Burke's most famous productions are those in which he deals with the misgovernment in India under Warren Hastings, with the French Revolution, Burke's and with the affairs of the American colonies. Genius In these and other works, he reveals himself as an orator, a statesman, a political philosopher, and a scholar. He united great literary ability with a powerful mind, an impressive personality, a noble character, and a high devotion to truth and duty. His writings are splendid examples of logical argument, exalted by poetic imagination, enriched by vast knowledge, inspired by intense earnestness, and clothed in a diction of surpassing power and beauty. Johnson was Johnson was a great and typical Englishman in every fibre of his being; Burke added to solid intellectual and moral qualities the imaginative fervor of his Irish nature. The drama of the eighteenth century was extensive, but very little of it has permanent literary or acting value. We have already noted the dramatic work of Addison and Steele in the early part of the century. Within the Age Eighteenth of Johnson several men already mentioned in other departments of literature tried their hands at dramatic work. Thomson, the poet, wrote dramas which are now century all but forgotten. Young produced a tragedy Drama called The Revenge. Johnson, who appears in all forms of literature, was the author of a cold and stately classical tragedy named Irene. Fielding wrote a number of comedies before he found his true vocation as a novelist, but none of them would have preserved his fame to posterity. Of the many minor dramatists there is no occasion. to speak. Only two men, Goldsmith and Sheridan, produced work which is of high literary quality and which still retains its interest upon the stage. Goldsmith's two comedies, The Good-Natured Man and She Stoops to Conquer, have already received due attention, and it only remains to speak briefly of the dramatic work of Sheridan. Richard Richard Brinsley Sheridan was, like Goldsmith and like Burke, an Irishman; and he had all the Irish brilliancy and wit. He was one of the most famous orators of his time, far surpassing Burke in the immediate and striking character of his oratorical effects, but as far inferior to him in the permanent literary quality of his work. His literary fame rests almost exclusively upon his dramas. His famous comedy, The Rivals, was written in his twenty-fourth year, and The School for Scandal and The Critic within four years thereafter. Sheridan wrote other plays, but none that equal these three. These are sufficient to maintain his reputation as one of the most brilliant of English writers of comedy. Such names as Bob Acres, Mrs. Malaprop, Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, and Sir Fretful Plagiary are among the best known in English comic drama. They give evidence of Sheridan's skill in the creation of comic characters and of his masterful ease in witty and sparkling dialogue. BOOK V INDIVIDUALISM (1780–1832) CHAPTER XIII THE AGE OF BURNS (1780-1800) of the Age THE Age of Johnson was an age of transition. Classicism continued to assert its authority and to influence the character of literary work; but both its prestige and its power gradually declined before the growing strength of other forces. The Age of Burns was also in some sense an age of transition. The reign of Classicism, to be sure, was practically over, and only here and there did evidences remain that its rule had once been so exclusive and so potent. The reign of Individualism had clearly begun, with the prestige derived from a generation of Character successful struggle. Yet this age was not to witness the high tide of the individualistic movement, that display of its power which was to create the noblest body of English literature since the days of Shakespeare. This full manifestation of the power of Individualism in literature was to come in the early years of the nineteenth century. In the meantime, the last twenty years of the eighteenth century were to constitute a period during which individualistic tendencies should be clearly dominant, and during which there should be a still further gathering up of strength for widespread and splendid literary achievement. It is in part such considerations. as these that make it desirable to set this period off by itself as a distinct interval lying between the vastly different ages of Johnson and Wordsworth, partaking to some |