PROSE. 1. The Historians-Their Literary Character and Views of Art-Hume's History.-2. Robertson and Gibbon-The Character of each-Minor Historical Writers. -3. Miscellaneous Prose-Johnson's Talk and Boswell's Report of it--Goldsmith's Novels-Literature in Scotland-The First Edinburgh Review-Mackenzie's Novels -Other Novelists.-4. Criticism--Percy's Reliques-Warton's History-Parliamentary Eloquence-Edmund Burke-Letters.-5. Philosophy-(1.) Theory of Literature-Burke-Reynolds-Campbell-Home-Blair-Smith-(2.) Political Economy -Adam Smith.-6. Philosophy continued-(3.) Ethics-Adam Smith-TuckerPaley-(4.) Metaphysics and Psychology-Thomas Reid.-7. Theology-(1.) Scientific-Campbell-Paley-Watson-Lowth-(2.) Practical-Porteous-Blair-Newton and others.-POETRY. 8. The Drama-Home's Douglas-Comedies of Goldsmith and Sheridan-Goldsmith's Descriptive Poems.-9. Minor Poets-Their Various Tendencies-Later Poems-Beattie's Minstrel.-10. The Genius and Writings of Cowper and Burns.

PROSE LITERATURE.

1. BETWEEN the period we have last studied, and the reign of George the Third, there were several connecting links. One of these was formed by a group of Historians, whose works must always be classical monuments in English literature. The publication of Hume's History of England began in 1754: Robertson's History of Scotland appeared in 1759, and was followed by his Reign of Charles the Fifth, and his History of America; and Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was completed in twelve years from 1776.

These celebrated men, and others who profited by their teaching, viewed a great history as a work of literary art, as a work in which the manner of communication ought to possess an excellence correspondent to the value of the knowledge communicated. It is likewise characteristic of them, that, while all were active thinkers, and found or made occasion for imparting the fruits of their reflection, their works are properly Histories, not Historical Dissertations. They are narratives of events, in which the elucidation of the laws of human nature or of the progress of society

is introduced merely as illustrative and subordinate. The distinc tion is note-worthy for us, in whose time the favourite method of historical writing is of the contrary kind.

Perhaps history, so conceived and limited, was never written b. 1711. better than by David Hume. Never was the narrative } of interesting incidents told with greater clearness, and good sense, and quiet force of representation: never were the characters, and thoughts, and feelings of historical personages described in a manner more calculated to excite the feeling of dramatic reality, yet without overstepping the propriety of historical truth, or trespassing on the prominence due to great facts and great principles. His style may be said to display, generically, the natural and colloquial character of the early writers of the century. But it is specifically distinguished by features giving it an aspect very unlike theirs. It has not their strength and closeness of idiom; a want attributable to two causes. Hume was a Scotsman, born in a country whose dialect was then yet more distant than it now is from English purity; and French studies concurred with French reading in determining still further his turn of phraseology and construction. It has been the duty of more recent writers to protest against his strong spirit of partisanship, which is made the more seductive by his constant good temper and kindliness of manner; and his consultation of original authorities was so very negligent, that his evidence is quite worthless on disputed historical questions. But, if his matter had been as carefully studied as his manner, and if his social and religious theories had been as sound as his theory of literary art, Hume's history would still have held a place from which no rival could have hoped to degrade it..

2. In their manner of expression, Robertson and Gibbon, though unlike each other, are equally unlike Hume. They want his seemingly unconscious ease, his delicate tact, his calm yet lively simplicity. Hume tells his tale to us as a friend to friends: his successors always seem to hold that they are teachers and we thei. pupils. This change of tone had long been coming on, and was now very general in all departments of prose: very few writers belonging to the last thirty years of Johnson's life escaped the epidemic disease of dictatorship. Both Robertson and Gibbon may have been, by circumstances peculiar to each of them, predisposed to adopt the fashionable garb of dignity. The temptation of the former lay simply in his provincial position, which made his mastery of the language a thing to be attained only by study and imitation. An untravelled Scotsman might have aspired to harangue like Rasselas, but durst not dream of talking

like Will Honeycomb. Yet Robertson attained a degree of facility, smoothness, and correctness, which in the circumstances was wonderful. Gibbon's pompousness, which has justly become proverbial, was probably caused in part by his self-esteem, naturally inordinate, and pampered by years of solitary study; and it must have been cherished also by his half-avowed consciousness of the hostility in which his evil religious opinions placed him, towards those to whom his work was addressed. The peculiarity of his very peculiar style may perhaps be analyzed into a few elements. His words are always those of Latin root, not of Saxon, unless when these cannot be avoided: his favourite idioms and constructions are French, not English: and the structure of his sentences is so complex as to threaten obscurity, but so monotonously uniform that his practised dexterity of hand easily avoided the snare.

b. 1722. Robertson is an excellent story-teller, perspicuous, lively, d. 1798. and interesting: his opinions are formed with good judgment, and always temperately expressed: and his disquisitions, such as his view of the Progress of Society in the Middle Ages, are singularly able and instructive. His research was industrious and accurate, to a degree which, notwithstanding many unfavourable circumstances, makes him still to be a valuable historical authority.

b. 1787. d. 1794.

The learning of Gibbon, though not in all points very exact, was remarkably extensive; and it was fully sufficient to make him a trustworthy guide through the vast region he traverses, unless in those quarters where he was inclined to lead us astray. His work was first conceived in Rome, "as he sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter:" and its prevalent tone might, with no very wide stretch of fancy, be supposed to retain symptoms of that evening's meditation. There is a patrician haughtiness in the stately march of his narrative, and in the air of careless superiority with which he treats both his heroes and his audience; and, contemplating the actions of his story in such a spirit as if he shrunk from Christian truth because he had known it only as alloyed by superstitious error, he honours the ruthless bravery of the conqueror and the politic craft of the statesman, but is unable to appreciate the hermit's humble piety or the heroic self-sacrifice of the martyr. His manner wants that dramatic animation, which would entitle him to be ranked in the highest order of historians, and for which he was disqualified by his coldness of feeling. He seems to describe, not scenes in which living men act, but pictures in which those scenes are represented:

and in this art of picturesque narration he is a master. Nor u he less skilful in indirect insinuation; which, indeed, is his favour ite and usual method of communicating his opinions, although most striking in those many passages in his history of the church, where he covertly attacks a religion which he neither believed nor understood.

Among other historians of the time was Smollett, whose History of England has no claim to remembrance except the celebrity otherwise gained by the author. Ferguson's History of the Roman Republic is not only well written, but meritorious for its researches into the constitution of Rome. Of the many historical and antiquarian works, the value of whose matter exceeds their literary merit, it may be enough to name those of two Scotsmen; Henry's History of Great Britain, and Sir David Dalrymple's Annals of Scotland, both of which have saved much toil to their successors. To this period, more conveniently than to the next, may be assigned the Grecian Histories of Gillies and Mitford, each useful in its day, especially the latter, but both now altogether superseded.

3. While the historians thus produced works on which, more than on anything else, the literary reputation of the time depended, other men of letters exerted themselves so actively and so variously, that it is difficult to describe their efforts briefly.

b. 1709. d. 1779.

Johnson, seated at last in his easy-chair, talked incessantly for twenty years: his dogmatical announcements of opinion were received as oracular by the literary world: and, soon after his death, Boswell's clever record of his conversations gave to the name of this remarkable man a place in our literature, which, in our day, is commonly held to be more secure than that which he had obtained by his writings.

b. 1728.

In the large circle of his friends and admirers, none was more respectful or more beloved than the amiable and artless d. 1774. Goldsmith. Yet none of them had so much native originality of genius, or deviated so far from the track of his patron. Though his poems had never been written, he would stand among the classics of English prose, in virtue of the few trifles on which he was able, in the intervals snatched from his literary drudgery, to exercise his power of shrewd observation and natural invention, and to exhibit his warm affections and purity of moral sentiment. Such is his inimitable little novel, "The Vicar of Wakefield ;" and such, though less valuable, is the good-natured satire on society which he called "The Citizen of the World." It consists of letters in which a Chinese, visiting England, relates to friends at home what he saw and what he thought of it. In good-humoured

irony, Goldsmith is here admirable: there are some comic scenes of domestic life, such as the household of Beau Tibbs, which are not surpassed by anything of the sort in our language; while the interest is varied by little flights of romance, lively criticisms on the state of learning and the arts, and despondent caricature (which no one had better opportunities of sketching from the life) of the miseries of men whose trade was authorship.* Goldsmith's

* OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

From "The Citizen of the World:" Letter xxvii.

Were we to estimate the learning of the English by the number of books that are every day published among them, perhaps no country, not even China itself, could equal them in this particular. I have reckoned not less than twenty-three new books published in one day; which, upon computation, makes eight thousand three hundred and ninety-five in one year. Most of these are not confined to one single science, but embrace the whole circle. History, politics, poetry, mathematics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of nature, are all comprised in a manual not larger than that in which our children are taught the letters. If, then, we suppose the learned of England to read but an eighth part of the works which daily come from the press, (and sure none can pretend to learning upon more easy terms,) at this rate every scholar will read a thousand books in one year. From such a calculation, you may conjecture what an amazing fund of literature a man must be possessed of, who thus reads three new books every day, not one of which but contains all the good things that ever were said or written.

And yet, I know not how it happens: but the English are not, in reality, so learned as would seem from this calculation. We meet but few who know all arts and sciences in perfection; whether it is that the generality are incapable of such extensive knowledge, or that the authors of those books are not adequate instructors. In China, the Emperor himself takes cognizance of all the doctors in the kingdom who profess authorship. In England, every man may be an author that can write: for they have by law a liberty, not only of saying what they please, but of being also as dull as they please.

Yesterday I testified my surprise to the man in black, where writers could be found in sufficient number to throw off the books I daily saw crowding from the press. I at first imagined, that their learned seminaries might take this method of instructing the world: but my companion assured me that the doctors of colleges never wrote, and that some of them had actually forgot their reading. 'But, if you desire," continued he, "to see a collection of authors, I fancy I can introduce you this evening to a club, which assembles every Saturday at seven, at the sign of the Broom near Islington, to talk over the business of the last and the entertainment of the week ensuing."

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I accepted his invitation: we walked together, and entered the house some time before the usual hour for the company assembling. My friend Look this opportunity of letting me into the characters of the principal members of the club; not even the host excepted, who, it seems, was once an author himself, but preferred by a bookseller to this situation as a reward for his former service.