Blake (1757-1827),* and by Robert Burns (17591796) until it culminates in the poets of the socalled Lake School, William Wordsworth (17701850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), and Robert Southey (1774-1843). With the three writers last named, and with Sir Walter Scott, who represents a phase of the movement of which we have not yet spoken, the break with the classical or critical school of Pope becomes complete. This entire movement was the expression in England of an impulse to abandon a too literal and subservient imitation of the classic writers for such an independent expression as their own genius prompted. In Germany a like movement took place in the "Sturm und Drang" (Storm and Pressure) school of Herder and others (in 1770-1782), and later in the Romantic school especially distinguished for its enthusiasm for the Middle Ages. A corresponding school arose in France during the early half of the present century, of which the great poet was Victor Hugo, the great critic Sainte-Beuve. These modern or anti-classic writers, whether in Germany, England, or France, are styled Romanticists, or writers belonging to the Romantic school. By Romantic, used in this technical sense, is meant the distinctively new spirit, in literature or art, of the modern world, Romantic. relying mainly on itself for its subjects, its inspiration, and its rules of art, Definition of and denying that classic cases of binding authority. * See p. 273, supra. precedents are in all Thus the drama of the For elaborate discussion of the meaning of Romantic, v. Phelps' Beginning of the English Romantic Movement. Elizabethans is often called the English Romantic drama, because, unlike that of the French, it disregarded certain dramatic principles of the Greeks; while Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, and the other writers of that group, are styled Romantic, because they were animated by a modern spirit, because they trusted to inspiration rather than to precedent, and opposed the Classic school of Pope. One great element of this Romantic movement, first in England and afterward in Germany, was a delight in the popular songs and ballads, a natural and spontaneous poetic form hitherto ignored as outside the bounds of literature. The English and Scottish ballads, simple and genuine songs coming straight from the hearts of the people, untinged by classic conventionality and unmodified by foreign standards, were collected in Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). After this many similar collections were published, and about this time poets began to reproduce the ballad form. The most noteworthy of these early imitations are the ballads of Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), amazing works of genius which their boy author pretended to have found among some ancient records of Bristol. The same tendency is shown in the Ossian of James Macpherson (1762), a professed translation of some Gaelic epic poems, and in such simple ballads as Goldsmith's Hermit,* Shenstone's Jemmy Dawson (1745), and Mickle's Mariner's Wife. Coleridge's Ancient Mar * Goldsmith was accused of taking the idea of this ballad from "The Friar of Orders Gray" (Percy's Reliques); which appeared in the same year (1765). He claims to have read iner and Christabel are a noble outcome of the old ballad literature, and from it also sprang the best poetry of Walter Scott. When we classify and arrange all these stupendous changes in the external conditions of men's lives, and in men's mental and spiritual estimate Summary. of life's meaning and purpose, the great and peculiar place of the eighteenth century in history begins to take shape in our minds. We see that it bears a relation to our modern civilization similar to that which the fourteenth century held to the Renaissance. Looked at from the external or material side, we are able to feel the force of Mr. Frederic Harrison's words: "Everyone can state for himself the hyperbolic contrast between the material condition we see to-day and the material condition in which society managed to live over two or three centuries ago, nay, ten, or twenty, or a hundred centuries ago. . . The last hundred years,” that is, since about 1770 or 1780, " have seen in England the most sudden change in our material and external life that is recorded in history."* When we endeavor to grasp this transition period, not only externally, but from every side, we see that its beginning dates from the last years of the administration of Walpole, or from about 1730 or 1740. To that decade we have referred the rise or growth of a new spirit in religion, politics, literature, and even music. The Hermit to Bishop Percy before the publication of the Friar." 44 * Essay on "The Nineteenth Century," in The Choice of Books, p. 424, etc. Its close is marked by England's entrance upon her long struggle with France for the prize of half the world. Between 1755 and 1765 we place those improvements in transportation and manufactures, we begin the "industrial revolution," and at the end of this decade Watt's utilization of steam adds its tremendous impetus to the movement. From about this time the advance toward democ racy becomes more rapid and apparent. We enter the era of a bold opposition to authority in John Wilkes and the Letters of Junius; of the admission of reporters to the House of Commons and the consequent increase in the power of the press; of the American and French revolutions, and of the outburst in literature of the revolutionary spirit. Finally, we may group many of these changes about two centers: (a) that longing for a more simple and natural life and the revolt against accepted standards which accompanied a renaissance of the more religious and ideal elements in society; (b) that feeling of compassion for suffering, that sense of the worth of the individual, which we associate with the growth of democracy. The two great historic movements of the century define themselves as: 1. The expansion of England into a world power. 2. The rise of democracy, with all those industrial and social changes which accompany and forward it. The effect of these movements on literature has been great in the past and is likely to be enormous in the future. OLIVER GOLDSMITH.-1728-1774 Goldsmith's relation to the literary and social movements just sketched is both interesting and important, yet so great is the purely human attraction of his life and character that our thoughts instinctively turn first to the man himself. There are few men in the annals of English literature with whom we have a greater sense of companionship. His very "frailties," as Dr. Johnson compassionately called them, his heedless extravagance, his harmless and childlike vanity, but stir our sympathies and endear him to us the more. Blundering, inconsequent, and pathetic as his life is, it is illuminated by a purity and simple goodness of nature which no hard experiences were able to soil or impair. Careless for himself, he cared-if often impulsively and inconsiderately-for others. He had a wonderful power of loving, and Thackeray has ventured to pronounce him "the most beloved of English writers." To know and love Goldsmith is to strengthen our own love of goodness; to increase our confidence in human nature; to grow more gentle and pitiful toward weakness and error. Moreover, to know Goldsmith is to increase our appreciation of his works, for his works are but a partial expression of the man himself. Although his family is said to have been originally of English stock, Oliver Goldsmith was Irish in disposition as well as by birth. He was born in November, 1728, at Pallas, an insignificant village in County Longford, remote from the main highways of travel, where his father, Life in |