more easily pardoned ill things done than ill things said against them: such a peculiar rancour and venom do they leave behind them in men's minds, and so much more poisonously and incurably does the serpent bite with his tongue than with his teeth. Nor are men prevailed upon at this odd unaccountable rate by bare words, only through a defect of knowledge; but sometimes also do they suffer themselves to be carried away with these puffs of wind, even contrary to knowledge and experience itself. For otherwise how could men be brought to surrender up their reason, their interest, and their credit to flattery,-gross, fulsome, abusive fattery?-indeed, more abusive and reproachful, upon a true estimate of things and persons, than the rudest scoffs and the sharpest invectives. Yet so it is, that though men know themselves utterly void of those qualities and perfections which the impudent sycophant, at the same time, both ascribes to them, and in his sleeve laughs at them for believing; nay, though they know that the flatterer himself knows the falsehood of his own flatteries, yet they swallow the fallacious morsel, love the impostor, and with both arms hug the abuse; and that to such a degree, that no offices of friendship, no real services, shall be able to lie in the balance against those luscious falsehoods which flattery shall feed the mind of a fool in power with; the sweetness of the one infinitely overcomes the substance of the other.

And therefore you shall seldom see that such an one cares to have men of worth, honesty, and veracity about him; for such persons cannot fall down and worship stocks and stones, though they are placed never so high above them; but their yea is yea, and their nay, nay; and they cannot admire a fox for his sincerity, a wolf for his generosity, nor an ass for his wit and ingenuity, and therefore can never be acceptable to those whose whole credit, interest, and advantage lies in their not appearing to the world what they are really in themselves. None are or can be welcome to such but those who speak paint and wash; for that is the thing they love; and no wonder, since it is the thing they need.

There is hardly any rank, order, or degree of men but, more or less, have been captivated and enslaved by words. It is a weakness, or rather a fate, which attends both high and low,—the statesman who holds the helm, as well as the peasant who holds the plough. So that, if ever you find an ignoramus in place and power, and can have so little conscience and so much confidence as to tell him to his face that he has a wit and an understanding above all the world besides, and that what his own reason cannot suggest to him, neither can the united reason of all mankind put together, I dare undertake that as fulsome a dose as you give him, he shall readily take it down and admit the commendation, though he cannot believe the thing. Tell him that no history or antiquity can match his policies and his conduct; and presently the sot (because he knows neither history nor antiquity) shall begin to measure himself by himself (which is the only sure way for him not to fall short),

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and so, immediately amongst his outward admirers and his inward despisers, vouched also by a "Take my word for it," he steps forth an exact politician, and, by a wonderful and new way of arguing, proves himself no fool, because, forsooth, the sycophant who tells him so is an egregious knave. But to give you yet a grosser instance of the force of words, and of the extreme vanity of man's nature in being influenced by them, hardly shall you meet with any person, man or woman, so aged or ill-favoured, but, if you will venture to commend them for their comeliness, nay, and for their youth too, though "time out of mind" is wrote upon every line of their face, yet they shall take it very well at your hands, and begin to think with themselves that certainly they have some perfections which the generality of the world are not so happy as to be aware of. But now are not these, think we, strange self-delusions, and yet attested by common experience almost every day? But whence," in the meantime, can all this proceed, but from the besotting intoxication which this verbal magic, as I may so call it, brings upon the mind of man? For can anything in nature have a more certain, deep, and undeniable effect than folly has upon man's mind, and age upon his body? And yet we see that, in both these, words are able to persuade men out of what they find and feel, to reverse the very impressions of sense, and to amuse men with fancies and paradoxes, even in spite of nature and experience.

2. THE STATE OF MAN BEFORE THE FALL.

The understanding, the noblest faculty of the mind, was then sublime, clear, and aspiring, and as it were the soul's upper region, lofty and serene, free from the vapours and disturbances of the inferior affections. It was the leading, controlling faculty; all the passions wore the colours of reason; it did not so much persuade as command; it was not consul, but dictator. Discourse was then almost as quick as intuition; it was nimble in proposing, firm in concluding; it could sooner determine than now it can dispute. Like the sun, it had both light and agility; it knew no rest but in motion; no quiet but in activity. It did not so properly apprehend as irradiate the object; not so much find as make things intelligible. It arbitrated upon the several reports of sense, and all the varieties of imagination; not, like a drowsy judge, only hearing, but also directing their verdict. In short, it was vegete, quick, and lively; open as the day, untainted as the morning, full of the innocence and sprightliness of youth; it gave the soul a bright and full view into all things; and was not only a window, but itself the prospect. Adam came into the world a philosopher, which sufficiently appeared by his writing the nature of things upon their names; he could view essences in themselves, and read forms without the comment of their respective properties; he could see consequents yet dormant in their principles, and effects yet unborn in the womb of their causes; his understanding could almost pierce into

future contingents, his conjectures improving even to prophecy, or the certainties of prediction; till his fall, he was ignorant of nothing but sin; or at least it rested in the notion, without the smart of the experiment. Could any difficulty have been proposed, the resolution would have been as early as the proposal; it could not have had time to settle into doubt. Like a better Archimedes, the issue of all his inquiries was an "I have found it, I have found it!"—the offspring of his brain, without the sweat of his brow. Study was not then a duty, night-watchings were needless; the light of reason wanted not the assistance of a candle. This is the doom of fallen man, to labour in the fire, to seek truth in the deep,2 to exhaust his time, and to impair his health, and perhaps to spin out his days and himself into one pitiful controverted conclusion. There was then no poring, no struggling with memory, no straining for invention; his faculties were quick and expedite; they answered without knocking, they were ready upon the first summons; there was freedom and firmness in all their operations. I confess it is as difficult for us, who date our ignorance from our first being, and were still bred up with the same infirmities about us with which we were born, to raise our thoughts and imaginations to those intellectual perfections that attended our nature in the time of innocence, as it is for a peasant bred up in the obscurities of a cottage to fancy in his mind the unseen splendours of a court. But by rating positives by their privatives, and other acts of reason, by which discourse supplies the want of the reports of sense, we may collect the excellency of the understanding then by the glorious remainders of it now, and guess at the stateliness of the building by the magnificence of its ruins. All those arts, rarities, and inventions, which vulgar minds gaze at, the ingenious pursue, and all admire, are but the relics of an intellect defaced with sin and time. We admire it now only as antiquaries do a piece of old coin, for the stamp it once bore, and not for those vanishing lineaments and disappearing draughts that remain upon it at present. And certainly that must needs have been very glorious the decays of which are so admirable. He that is comely when old and decrepit, surely was very beautiful when he was young. An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.

1 South here refers to the well-known story of Archimedes having discovered, while in the bath, the principle of a problem which had long puzzled him, and rushing out exclaiming, "I have found it!" (Heureka.)

2 South here uses the Latin "in profundo," alluding, perhaps, to the Latin version of Psalm cxxx. Quotations in Latin were common in the sermons of this age,--more so perhaps among Dissenters than among Churchmen.

PERIOD THIRD.

FROM THE ACCESSION OF QUEEN ANNE TO THE BREAKING OUT OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

HISTORICAL SKETCH.

1. A change in the national style of literary composition necessarily implies a previous change in the moral and social character of the nation, and an important alteration in the established habits of thought. The difference between the styles of different countries is not more certainly an index of difference of national character, than are the varieties of style in the same country at different epochs, of the fluctuations of the moral and social condition of the state. When, therefore, after the Restoration, a complete change of manners took place in England, a corresponding change followed as a matter of course in the literary style. What suited the earnest gravity of the times of Charles I. would have been quite out of place amid the heartless frivolity of the reign of his son, or the dull routine of the Orange and Brunswick families. The nation had become French in its morals and tastes, and an imitation of French style in compositions, intended to gratify these tastes, was in the nature of things unavoidable. Not the writer's matter, but his manner was now all-important; his aim was to be witty, and say smart things; but how could the language of Taylor and Bacon be accommodated to such purposes? The dignity of the former style rendered it quite unsuitable as a vehicle for wit; and a lighter and more flexible style was thus required to suit the wants of an age in which gravity, earnestness, and learning were no longer valued as an author's highest recommendations. Such a style was not of course formed at once, or by one author; it was some time before it succeeded in displacing the old style, and did not reach its perfection till the days of Addison and Pope. In many respects, the style that now became prevalent was inferior to that which had preceded it; it wanted its dignity, its copiousness, and its variety of musical rhythm. It had, however, merits of its own; it was less obscure, less heavy, more suitable for narrative and controversy, and more easily adapted to light compositions and the more common purposes of life. The French manners, which were now introduced, were those of a highly artificial state of society, and a corresponding conventional uniformity in style was established in every department of literature. Thought and expression were in a great measure moulded into one form; profound sentiment, true

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pathos, and simple love of nature were almost wholly banished from poetry, and the poet was taught to confide for success in his smooth and antithetical couplets, his judicious employment of a system of stereotype images, his polished sarcasm, his knowledge of genteel society, and his accurate delineation of the conventionalities of artificial life. For the purposes for which in a degenerate age literature was employed, the style now introduced was indeed admirably adapted, but these purposes were by no means of the highest order. Well suited for irony and satire, controversy and narrative, it was ill adapted to express warmth of feeling, depth of thought, and dignity of sentiment; and hence this period of our literature exhibits a great deficiency in all that is of the highest excellence in tragedy, in poetry, and the higher departments of prose. This style continued to prevail for nearly a century, for so long did the same habits of thought prevail in the nation. During that period the energies of the nation seemed to remain dormant; the quiet, commonplace decorum of the reigns of William and Anne was succeeded by the dull and heartless scepticism of the early Georges, and nothing occurred to awaken into life that intensity and earnestness of feeling, without which no literature of the highest class has ever been produced.

2. Of the poets of this period, the earliest in point of time was Matthew Prior, one of the fortunate sons of the Muses, who contrived by his abilities to procure for himself honourable and lucrative political employment. His "Tales" afford one of the finest specimens of the new French style, for they possess in perfection all the excellences of which that style is capable, and his subject required no higher. They are, however, considerably tinged with the prevalent licentiousness of the period. Addison's poems are distinguished by the same moral purity and correctness of language which characterize his prose, but are deficient in all the higher virtues of poetry. His short devotional hymns are perhaps his best works; they are certainly those by which he is at present best known and most likely to be remembered. Garth, a well-known physician in London, is the author of a mock-heroic poem called the "Dispensary," which was long deservedly popular, as the light, graceful style in which it is written is admirably in keeping with the object of the author. Equally popular at the time, though long ago forgotten, were the solemn epics of another noted physician, Sir Richard Blackmore. His "Prince Arthur," "King Arthur,' Creation," " Eliza,' ," "Nature of Man," and "King Alfred,' all heroic and philosophical poems, were written on the model of the graver French writers, and, besides abounding in instances of false taste and bombast, which Swift and Pope delighted to hold up to ridicule, are perhaps the dullest poems ever written. Pope, the next great poet of the age, holds the unquestioned pre-eminence among all the poets of the reign of Queen Anne. He possessed, in the highest excellence, all those accomplishments which were then considered essential to the poetical character, combined with others which, though less esteemed in his own day, are now more highly appreciated. His versification, in polish, roundness, and epigrammatic smartness, has never been equalled, and whatever objection may be made to the uniformity and monotonous excellence of the heroic couplet in his hands, it must at least be admitted that he has given

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