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nature and peasant life are so agreeable that his composition will always be read with pleasure for its intrinsic merit. Like Spenser before him, Gay gave a national color to his personages and to his landscape, but his incidents and the general tone of his dialogues are comic. He has shown great address in applying the topics of Theocritus and Virgil to the customs, employments, and superstitions of English peasants, and he has endeavored to heighten the effect by the occasional employment of antiquated and provincial expressions. The Trivia is interesting, not only for its ease and quiet humor, but for the curious details it gives us of the street scenery, costume, and manners of that time. Gay produced several dramatic works, principally of a comic nature, and interspersed with songs, for the composition of which he showed an almost unrivalled talent: I may mention What d'ye Call it? a sort of half-pastoral extravaganza, and the farce of Three Hours after Marriage. Gay's pieces generally contained, or were supposed to contain, occasional political allusions, the piquancy of which greatly contributed to their popularity. They are also seldom free from a somewhat loose and immoral tendency. His most successful venture was the Beggars' Opera, the idea of which is said to have been first suggested by Swift, when residing, in 1726, at Pope's villa at Twickenham. The idea of this piece is eminently happy: it was to transfer the songs and incidents of the Italian Opera - then almost a novelty in England, and in the blaze of popularity—to the lowest class of English life. The hero of the Beggars' Opera is a highwayman, and gaolers, pickpockets, and prostitutes form the dramatis personæ, while the scene is principally in Newgate. In a word, to use Swift's expression, it was a kind of Newgate pastoral, and was a sort of parody of the opera then in vogue, while it became the origin of the English Opera. The beauty and charming voice of Elizabeth Fenton, who first acted Polly, the satirical allusions plentifully scattered through the dialogue, and eagerly caught up by the parties of the day, the novelty and oddity of the whole spectacle, and above all, the exquisite beauty of the songs plentifully interspersed throughout, gave the Beggars' Opera an unparalleled success. Polly became the idol of the town, and was removed from the stage to share the coronet of a duke; and Gay acquired from the performance of his piece the very large sum of nearly 700l. He was encouraged by success to endeavor to continue in the same strain, and produced a kind of continuation called Polly, which, though far inferior, was even more profitable, for being prohibited on the ground of political allusions, by the authority of the Lord Chamberlain, the opposition party, in order to spite the court, contributed so liberally to its publication that Gay is said to have cleared about 1100l. The poet, with that sanguine improvidence which characterized him, had previously met with severe losses in the famous South Sea mania; but grown wiser by experience, and profiting by the advice of friends who possessed more practical common sense than himself, he determined to husband the little fortune he had accumulated. He was received into the family of the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, where he seems

A. D. 1618-1765.] GARTH. PARNELL. TICKELL. YOUNG.

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to have been petted like some favorite lapdog, till his death in 1732. He was the author of a collection of Fables in easy octosyllable verse, which he wrote to contribute to the education of William Duke of Cumberland; and though these are the best-known and most frequently cited works of the kind in our language, they will be found immeasurably inferior in wit, profound sense, picturesqueness, and above all in the rare, precious quality of intense national spirit, to the immortal fables of La Fontaine and of Krinloff. They retain their popularity from their figuring in every collection of poetry for the young, their style rendering them peculiarly adapted for reading and learning by heart. Gay's songs and ballads, whether those introduced into the Beggars' Opera and other dramatic works, or those written separately, are among the most musical, touching, playful, and charming that exist in the language. The diction and subject are often of the most familiar kind, but the grace of the expression, and the flowing harmony of the verse, make them, whether pathetic or lively, masterpieces of skill. They have, too, invariably that rare and high attribute of the best song-writing, that the very march of the number irresistibly suggests the air to which they are to be sung.

§ 17. My space will only permit a cursory mention of SIR SAMUEL GARTH (died in 1718), a Whig physician of eminence, whose poem of The Dispensary, written on occasion of a squabble between the College of Physicians and the Apothecaries' Company, was half satirical and half a plea in favor of giving medical assistance to the poor; THOMAS PARNELL (1679-1718), a friend of Pope and Swift, who held a living in Ireland, and is known chiefly by his graceful but somewhat feeble tale of The Hermit, a versified parable founded on a striking story originally derived from the Gesta Romanorum; and THOMAS TICKELL (1686– 1740), celebrated for his friendship with the accomplished Addison, whose death suggested a noble elegy, the only work of Tickell which rises above the elegant mediocrity that marks the general tone of the minor poetry of that age. Tickell contributed papers to the Spectator, and also published a translation of the first book of the Iliad, which led to a misunderstanding between Addison and Pope (see p. 293). Tickell published a collected edition of Addison's works.

§ 18. I now come to EDWARD YOUNG (1681-1765), the most powerful of the secondary poets of the epoch. He began his career in the unsuccessful pursuit of fortune in the public and diplomatic service of the country. Disappointed in his hopes and somewhat soured in his temper, he entered the church, and serious domestic losses still further intensified a natural tendency to morbid and melancholy reflection. He obtained his first literary fame by his satire entitled the Love of Fame, the Universal Passion, written before he had abandoned a secular career. It is in rhyme, and bears considerable resemblance to the manner of Pope, though it is deficient in that exquisite grace and neatness which distinguish the latter. In referring the vices and follies of mankind chiefly to vanity and the foolish desire of applause, Young exhibits a false and narrow view of human motives; but there

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are many passages in the three epistles which compose this satire, that exhibit strong powers of observation and description, and a keen and vigorous expression which, though sometimes degenerating into that tendency to paradox and epigram which are the prevailing defect of Young's genius, are not unworthy of his great model. The Second Epistle, describing the character of women, may be compared, without altogether losing in the parallel, to Pope's admirable work on the same subject. But Young's place in the history of English poetry a place long a very high one, and which is likely to remain a far from unenviable one is due to his striking and original poem The Night Thoughts. This work, consisting of nine nights or meditations, is in blank verse, and consists of reflections on Life, Death, Immortality, and all the most solemn subjects that can engage the attention of the Christian and the philosopher. The general tone of the work is sombre and gloomy, perhaps in some degree affectedly so, for though the author perpetually parades the melancholy personal circumstances under which he wrote, overwhelmed by the rapidly-succeeding losses of many who were dearest to him, the reader can never get rid of the idea that the grief and desolation were purposely exaggerated for effect. In spite of this, however, the grandeur of Nature and the sublimity of the Divine attributes are so forcibly and eloquently depicted, the arguments against sin and infidelity are so concisely and powerfully urged, and the contrast between the nothingness of man's earthly aims and the immensity of his immortal aspirations is so pointedly set before us, that the poem will always make deep impression on the religious reader. The prevailing defects of Young's mind were an irresistible tendency to antithesis and epigrammatic contrast, and a want of discrimination that often leaves him utterly unable to distinguish between an idea really just and striking, and one which is only superficially so: and this want of taste frequently leads him into illustrations and comparisons rather puerile than ingenious, as when he compares the stars to diamonds in a seal-ring upon the finger of the Almighty. He is also remarkable for a deficiency in continuous elevation, advancing, so to say, by jerks and starts of pathos and sublimity. The march of his verse is generally solemn and majestic, though it possesses little of the rolling, thunderous melody of Milton; and Young is fond of introducing familiar images and expressions, often with great effect, amid his most lofty bursts of declamation. The epigrammatic nature of some of his most striking images is best testified by the large number of expressions which have passed from his writings into the colloquial language of society, such as "procrastination is the thief of time," "all men think all men mortal but themselves," and a multitude of others. A sort of quaint solemnity, like the ornamentation upon a Gothic tomb, is the impression which the Night Thoughts are calculated to make upon the reader in the present time; and it is a strong proof of the essential greatness of his genius, that the quaintness is not able to extinguish the solemnity.

§ 19. The poetry of the Scottish Lowlands found an admirable

representative at this time in Allan RamsaY (1686–1758), born in a humble class of life, and who was first a wigmaker, and afterwards a bookseller in Edinburgh. He was of a happy, jovial, and contented humor, and rendered great services to the literature of his country by reviving the taste for the excellent old Scottish poets, and by editing and imitating the incomparable songs and ballads current among the people. He was also the author of an original pastoral poem, the Gentle (or Noble) Shepherd, which grew out of two eclogues he had written, descriptive of the rural life and scenery of Scotland. The complete work appeared in 1725, and consists of a series of dialogues in verse, written in the melodious and picturesque dialect of the country, and interwoven into a simple but interesting love-story. The pictures of nature given in this charming work, equally faithful and ideal, the exact representation of real peasant life and sentiment, which Ramsay, with the true instinct of a poet, knew how to make strictly true to reality without a particle of vulgarity, and the light but firm delineations of character, render this poem far superior in interest, however inferior in romantic ideality, to the Pastor Fido, the Galatea, or the Faithful Shepherdess. The songs he has occasionally interspersed, though they may sometimes be out of place by retarding the march of the events, are often eminently beautiful, as are many of those scattered through Ramsay's voluminous collections, in which he combined the revival of older compositions with imitations and originals of his own. It is impossible to overrate the influence which Ramsay exerted in producing, in the following century, the unequalled lyric genius of his great successor, Burns. The treasures of tenderness, beautiful description, and sly humor which Ramsay transmitted from Dunbar, James I., David Lyndsay, and a thousand nameless national bards, were concentrated into one splendid focus in the writings of the author of a Tam O'Shanter.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

MINOR POETS.

RICHARD SAVAGE (1696-1743), so well known for Johnson's account of him, was the bastard child of Richard Savage, Earl Rivers, and the Countess of Macclesfield. He led a dissipated and erratic life, the victim of circumstances and of his own passions. In his miscellaneous poems the best are The Wanderer and The Bastard.

ANNE COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA (d. 1720). The writings of this lady, with all the smoothness and elegance of the age, gave indications of the better days that were coming upon English poetry. Between the Paradise Lost and the Seasons, Mr. Wordsworth says that there is not a "single new image of external nature," except in the Windsor Forest of Pope and the Nocturnal Reverie of the

DR. ISAAC WATTS (1674-1748) was born at Southampton, July 17, 1674, and educated among the dissenters by the Rev. Thomas Rowe. In 1698 he became minister of the Independent congregation at Stoke Newington, where he labored, under de

SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE (1658 ?-1729), a phy-poetess. She was the daughter of Sir William sician in extensive practice, and knighted by Wil- Kingsmill, Southampton. liam III. wrote several epic poems, of which The Creation, published in 1712, has been admitted into the collections of the British Poets. Johnson remarks, that "Blackmore, by the unremitted enmity of the wits, whom he provoked more by his virtue than his dulness, has been exposed to worse treat-clining health, until 1712, when he entered the house ment than he deserved." And he adds, that "the poem on Creation wants neither harmony of numbers, accuracy of thought, nor elegance of diction."

AMBROSE PHILIPS (1675-1749), educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, was a friend of Addison and Steele, but was violently attacked by Pope. He wrote three tragedies and some Pastorals, which were much admired at the time, but are now deservedly forgotten. "The pieces of Philips that please best," observes Johnson, "are those which, from Pope and Pope's adherents, procured him the name of Namby Pamby, the poems of short lines, by which he paid his court to all ages and characters, from Walpole, the steerer of the realm,' to Miss Pulteney in the nursery. The numbers are smooth and sprightly, and the diction is seldom faulty. They are not much loaded with thought, yet, if they had been written by Addison, they would have had admirers."

GEORGE GRANVILLE, LORD LANSDOWNE (1665-1735), some of whose poems are included in the collection of the British Poets, a distinction to which they are hardly entitled. His early pieces were commended by old Waller, whose faults he imitated. Pope designates him as "Granville the polite." His verses to Mira are best known.

of Sir Thomas Abney of Abney Park, and continued the guest of the baronet, and afterwards of his widow, preaching occasionally, but chiefly devoting himself to study and literature until his death on the 25th November, 1748. Dr. Watts's talents were of a high order, and his efforts bore him over a most extended field of study. His style is easy and graceful, and his poetic diction gives him a high place among the religious poets of England. His Psalms and Hymns, whilst full of imperfections, are yet acknowledged to contain some of the finest specimens of praise in the English tongue, whilst his prose writings, embracing theological, philosophical, and polemical works, have exercised an extensive and wholesome influence, especially upon the more popular classes of the community. "It was therefore, with great propriety," said Dr. Johnson, "that in 1728 he received from Edinburgh and Aberdeen an unsolicited diploma by which he became a Doctor of Divinity. Academical honors would have more value if they were always bestowed with equal judgment."

His chief works were- Logic, 1725, once used as a text book at Oxford. Astronomy and Geography, 1726. Works for Young Children. Essays and theological writings.

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