EXTRACTS.

I.

God made the country and man made the town.

The Task, Bk. V.

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside.

V.

God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;

He plants his footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.-Hymn.

OTHER POETS OF THIS AGE.

JAMES BEATTIE (1735-1803), Prof. of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen, author of The Minstrel, and a celebrated prose work, Essay on Truth.

THOMAS CHATTERTON (1752-1770), the boy poet, who deceived nearly all the scholars of his age by his imitations of Old English Poetry.

II. PROSE WRITERS OF THE AGE OF JOHNSON.

JOHNSON. 1709-1784.

Samuel Johnson was born at Litchfield in 1709, and died in 1784. He attended Oxford, but left for want of money; married a woman old enough to be his mother; opened a school, but failed for want of pupils; and finally went to London, without money or friends, to seek employment for his pen. After untold hard. ships he succeeded in raising himself above want, and placing

himself at the head of the English writers of the age. Notwith standing a repulsive exterior and disgusting habits, he deservedly enjoyed the friendship and admiration of the greatest men and women of the kingdom. His conversational powers were of the highest order, and he is as much distinguished for his sayings, recorded by his biographer, Boswell, as for his writings.

Johnson had a great fondness for long, sonorous words, and balanced sentences. Indeed, so marked was his style in these respects, that it has been called "Johnsonese," or "Johnsonian style." (See Boswell's Life of Johnson.)

He wrote both poetry and prose. His principal poems are London, The Vanity of Human Wishes, and his tragedy of Irene. His chief prose works are his contributions to The Rambler, Rasselas (a romance), Lives of the Poets, and an English Dictionary. The latter was a prodigious work for one man, and forms an enduring monument to his learning and industry.

EXTRACTS.
I.

Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

II.

Whoever wishes to attain an English style familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.

III.

This mournful truth is everywhere confessed,
Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.

IV.

Each change of many-colored life he drew,
Exhausted worlds and then imagined new;
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting time toiled after him in vain.*

London.

Prologue spoken by Garrick at the opening of
Drury Lane Theatre.

*Of course the reference is to Shakspeare.

BURKE. 1730-1797.

Among the friends of Dr. Johnson was the great orator, Ed. He was a man of fine culture, and genius of the

mund Burke.

highest order.

His most celebrated works are-An Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, Reflections on the French Revolution, Letter to a Noble Lord (the Duke of Bedford), and his great Speech on the Imbeachment of Warren Hastings.

EXTRACTS.

I.

Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.

II.

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

III.

There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

OTHER PROSE WRITERS OF THIS AGE.

HISTORICAL.

DAVID HUME (1711-1776), an infidel philosopher, author of History of England.

EDWARD GIBBON (1737-1794), author of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

WILLIAM ROBERTSON (1721-1793), a Scotchman, author of History of Scotland, History of Charles V. of Germany, and History of America.

FICTITIOUS.

SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689-1761), author of Pamela, Clarissa Harlowe, and Sir Charles Grandison.

HENRY FIELDING (1707-1754), author of Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, and Amelia.

TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT (1721-1771), author of Roderick Random Peregrine Pickle, and Humphrey Clinker.

LAWRENCE Sterne (1713-1768), an irreligious parson, author of Tristram Shandy and Sentimental Journey.

HANNAH MORE (1745-1833), author of The Inflexible Captive and other dramas; The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, Colebs in Search of a Wife, and other tales; and some very useful works on Education. She was a great favorite of Dr. Johnson's.

POLITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS.

JUNIUS, supposed to be Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818), author of the cele brated Letters of Junius.

RICHARD Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), a great orator, and author of School for Scandal.

HORACE WALPOLE (1717-1797), author of Castle of Otranto (a romance), and celebrated for his letters, which have been published in nine volumes.

THEOLOGICAL AND METAPHYSICAL.

THOMAS REID, D. D. (1710-1796), a distinguished Scotch metaphysician, author of An Inquiry into the Human Mind, etc.

WM. PALEY, D. D. (1743-1805), author of Natural Theology, Hora Paulinæ, etc.

JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY, founders of Methodism, eminent as scholars, preachers, and hymnists.

RICHARD CHALLONER, D. D. (1691-1781), a learned Bishop of the Catholic Church, author of an English Version of the Bible, Church History, etc.

AMERICAN CONTEMPORARIES.

Benj. Franklin, Thos. Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and other writers of the Period of the Revolution.

THE

PERIOD VIII.-AGE OF SCOTT.

1800-1830.

(Part of the reign of Geo. JII., and reign of Geo. IV.)

HE Age of Scott, sometimes called the Age of Romantic Poetry, extends from the beginning of the present century to the death of George IV., in 1830. The reaction from the correct and artificial school of poetry, which had been begun nearly a century earlier by Thomson, and carried on by Burns and Cowper, was now complete, and reached its culmination in the metrical romances of Scott and the impassioned outbursts of Byron and Shelley. Much of the romantic character of the literature of the age is probably due to the influence of the collection of folk-songs or ballads, published a little earlier (1765) by Bishop Percy. We know that Scott was powerfully influenced by them, and their ef

fects can be distinctly traced in all subsequent poetry, even to the present day. (See Lockhart's Life of Scott.)

The principal historical events of the age were the downfall of Napoleon and the war of 1812.

The authors will be divided into two classes :

I. THE POETS, represented by Byron, Shelley, Moore, Keats, Campbell, and Wordsworth.

II. THE PROSE WRITERS, represented by Scott, Southey, Coleridge, Wilson, De Quincey, and Lamb.

Scott, Southey, Coleridge, Wilson, and Campbell were distinguished both in poetry and prose.

I. POETS OF THE AGE OF SCOTT.

LORD BYRON. 1788-1824.

George Gordon Noel Byron, the most splendid genius of the age, was born in London in 1788. He graduated at Cambridge, and then travelled for about two years. On his return he married Miss Milbanke, who left him in about a year, soon after the birth of their daughter, Ada. He then quitted England forever, and passed the rest of his life, in the grossest dissipation, on the Continent, mostly in Switzerland and Italy. In 1824 he went to Missolonghi to assist the Greeks in their struggle for liberty, where he died in the same year, at the age of thirty-six, thus gloriously ending an inglorious and wretched life.

Byron was a great genius, but not in the best sense a great poet. He was great in a small way. Instead of giving voice to the healthful impulses and aspirations of the universal heart, he filled the universe with the scoffs and sneers and fancied woes of Lord Byron. His works contain some magnificent descriptions, fine imagery, and noble sentiments; but their general tone is misanthropic, irreligious, immoral, and therefore unhealthful.

His finest poem-and, indeed, one of the grandest poems of