tics, and the handmaid of religious controversy. We leave behind us the passion of Lear, or the rapt visions of Paradise Lost, to pass into a new world of fashion and wit, of logic and vituperation. SELECTION FROM DRYDEN. A SONG For St. Cecilia's Day, 1687. I. From harmony, from heavenly harmony And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high, Arise, ye more than dead. Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, In order to their stations leap, From harmony, from heavenly harmony This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man. II. What passion cannot Music raise and quell? And, wondering, on their faces fell Less than a god they thought there could not dwell That spoke so sweetly and so well. What passion cannot Music raise and quell? III. The trumpet's loud clangor Excites us to arms, With shrill notes of anger, And mortal alarms. The double double double beat Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat. IV. The soft complaining flute In dying notes discovers The woes of hopeless lovers, Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. V. Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs, and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains, and height of passion, For the fair, disdainful dame. VI. But oh! what art can teach, The sacred organ's praise? Notes inspiring holy love, To mend the choirs above. VII. Orpheus could lead the savage race; But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher : An angel heard, and straight appear'd Grand Chorus. As from the power of sacred lays So when the last and dreadful hour THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS. With new popular needs and a wider reading public, came important changes in literature and in the position of the author. Before this, authorship, as Changed Author. a recognized calling, did not exist outside of Position of the the writers for the stage; but from about the reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714) we note the signs of change. During the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. the successful playwright reached a large public, but for the writer of books the circle of readers was comparatively small. Men did not attempt to make a living by authorship alone, and writing was accordingly an occasional occupation, an amusement, or a mere graceful accomplishment. Hooker was a clergyman; Bacon unhappily gave to knowledge only such time as he could spare from law and politics; Raleigh and Sidney represent the large class of courtiers and gentlemen who wrote in the elegant leisure of brilliant and active lives, while Milton in his prose, with Prynne and Collier, are examples of those who used books as a means of controversy. That large reading public which in our own day enables the author to live solely by his pen did not then exist, and before the Civil War books were commonly published through some powerful patron. But as wealth and leisure increased, the general intelligence widened, and the author gradually gained the support of a large number of readers. Publishing became more profitable, and in the reign of Charles II. the number of publishing houses greatly increased. In Queen Anne's reign a close connection existed between literature and politics, and many authors were encouraged by the gift of government positions." * The author was still dependent on a powerful patron, but he was gradually struggling towards direct reliance on the public support. During Anne's reign the greater towns, and especially London, became more and more centres of social and intellectual activity. Coffeehouses. were established in great numbers, and there the leading men in politics, literature, or fashion, habitually met to smoke and discuss the latest sensations over the novel luxury of coffee. Such friction made men's minds more alert, witty, and alive to the newest thing. Before 1715 there were nearly two thousand of these coffeehouses in London alone, representing an immense variety of social classes and political opinions. With the spread of intelligence and the life of the club and coffeehouse the *"The splendid efflorescence of genius under Queen Anne was in a very great degree due to ministerial encouragement, which smoothed the path of many whose names and writings are familiar in countless households where the statesmen of that day are almost forgotten. Among those who obtained assistance from the government, either in the form of pensions, appointments, or professional promotion, were Newton and Locke, Addison, Swift, Steele, Prior, Gay, Rowe, Congreve, Tickell, Parnell, and Phillips, while a secret pension was offered to Pope, who was legally disqualified by his religion from receiving government favours."—"Eng. in the 18th Cent.," by W. E. H. Lecky, vol. vi. p. 462. Sidney's "Eng. in the 18th Cent.," vol. i. p. 186. ton, "New View of London," vol. i. p. 30, there were According to Halnearly three thousand coffeehouses in England in 1708. See Lecky's "Eng. in the 18th Cent.," vol. i. p. 616. More rise of periodical literature is directly connected. over, the liberty of the press, for which Milton strove, had been established since 1682, so that Rise of Periodmany things favored the rise of journalism. ical Literature. The first daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, was started in 1702, and The Tatler (1709), part newspaper and part magazine, began a distinctly new order of periodical literature.* The Tatler came out on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; it was sold for a penny, and in addition to theatre notices, advertisements, and current news, it contained an essay which often treated lightly and good-humoredly of the day. Such a paper was precisely what the new conditions of town life required. The floating talk of the clubs and coffeehouses was caught by the essayist and compressed into a brief, witty, and graceful literary form. In the place of ponderous sentences, moving heavily under their many-syllabled words and their cumbrous weight of learning, we have a new prose, deft, quick, sparkling, and neither too serious. nor too profound. It is as though the age had abandoned the massive broadsword of an earlier time, to play at thrust and parry with the foils. The creators of this new periodical literature are Sir Richard Steele and his friend Joseph Addison. Richard Steele (1672-1729) was a warm-hearted, lovable, and impulsive Irishman. Left fatherless before he was six years old, he gained admission Steele. to the Charterhouse school in London, through the influence of his uncle. Here he met Addison, his junior by two months, but greatly his senior in discretion; and the two schoolboys began a beautiful and almost lifelong friendship. Thackeray writes of this period of Steele's life: "I am afraid no good * A good account of this will be found in Courthope's “Life of Addison," chap. i., in Eng. Men of Letters Series. |