tion and of imagination; a distrust of enthusiasm and all illregulated action, and a corresponding confidence in sense and judgment; a remarkable interest in all political and social matters. As a result, a clear and idiomatic prose concerning itself mostly with matters of immediate daily interest; a poetry finished, pointed, urbane; and everywhere a disposition to regulate life in accordance with reasoned standards, and to give to it the moderation and grace of good society.

This general temper, of course, changed very rapidly after the middle of the century; indeed, we may see in the closing years of the Queen Anne period some indications. of that reaction which at the close of the century culminated in a revolution in all departments of thought. Let me note, in a single word, one or two of these marks of reaction.

One is a reaction from the hard and practical sense of the age to sentimentalism; an affectation of sentiment and emotion to take the place of the real; and this in different kinds of literature and in varied ways. It may be seen, for instance, in Young's poetry, where, without a ripple of real emotion, there is a constant tumid swell and roll of mere declamation, pompous reflections that are utterly dreary. The Night Thoughts is at once the hollowest and the most resonant of poems.

Contemporary with Young's work and Pope's latest writing was Hervey's Meditations Among the Tombs; it is now so entirely forgotten that Mr. Gosse in his History of Eighteenth Century Literature doesn't even deign to mention it; but it is said to have been the most popular book of the century, no less than seventeen editions having been issued in seventeen years. Any readers of this generation who have looked into it have probably been surprised to find it one of the most florid of books, full of sophomoric declamations of the very worst kind, and written in a tone of unctuous pathos very unedifying. In fiction a similar manner may be seen. Fielding represents the sturdy common sense of the age, but Richardson is morbidly sentimental, and

Richardson was the more popular. Sterne, a half generation later, is sentimentalism incarnate.

The other mark of reaction I note is a growing dislike for the stifling air and the prim conventionalities of city life. Now and then a man begins to look outside the town. Before the death of Pope one may already hear some first words of that new gospel of nature so soon to be preached by Rousseau. Indeed, even Dryden had some momentary moods of fanciful admiration for that ideal age of nature and freedom,

When wild in woods the noble savage ran,

as his line has it. Pope had succeeded in writing the worst nature poetry in the world, and was only prevented by some merciful special providence from attempting what he called "Indian Pastorals."

And already as early as 1726 we can see through all the academic diction of Thomson some of the beginnings of the vision and sympathy which by the close of the century were to find full expression in the poetry of Cowper and Burns, and of that greatest of all poets of nature,-Wordsworth.

THE LITERATURE OF THE AGE OF

QUEEN ANNE

II

POLITICS, PARTIES, AND PERSONS

One of Mr. Addison's pleasant gossiping papers in the Spectator begins thus:

I

About the middle of last winter I went to see an opera at the theatre in Hay Market, where I could not but take notice of two parties of very fine women, that had placed themselves in the opposite side boxes, and seemed drawn up in a kind of battle array one against another. After a short survey of them, I found they were patched differently; the faces on one hand being spotted on the right side of the forehead, and those upon the other on the left. quickly perceived that they cast hostile glances upon one another; and that their patches were placed in those different situations, as party signals to distinguish friends from foes. In the middle boxes, between these two opposite bodies, were several ladies who patched indifferently on both sides of their faces, and seemed to sit there with no other intention but to see the opera. Upon inquiry I found, that the body of Amazons on my right hand were Whigs, and those on my left Tories: and that those who had placed themselves in the middle boxes were a neutral party, whose faces had not yet declared themselves. These last, however, as I afterwards found, diminished daily, and took their party with one side or the other; insomuch that I observed in several of them, the patches, which were before dispersed equally, are now all gone over to the Whig or Tory side of the face. The censorious say that the men, whose hearts are aimed at, are very often the occasions that one part of the face is thus dishonoured, and lies under a kind of disgrace, while the other is so much set off and adorned by the owner; and that the patches turn to the right or to the left, according to the principles of the man who is most in favour. But whatever may be the motives of a few fantastical coquettes, who do not patch for the public good so much as for their own private advantage, it is certain, that there are several women of honour, who patch out of principle, and with an eye to the interest of their country. Nay, I am informed that some of them adhere so steadfastly to their party, and are so far from sacrificing their zeal for the public to their passion for any particular

person, that in a late draught of marriage articles a lady has stipulated with her husband, that whatever his opinions are, she shall be at liberty to patch on which side she pleases.

In this account of an odd mixture of fashion and politics I suppose Mr. Addison's playful humor has not exaggerated the facts at all, for there is abundant evidence to show how thoroughly the society of Queen Anne's time interested itself in party politics, divided itself up in accordance with party sympathies, and how all literature, gossip, and even fashion were colored by party prejudice or preference. A large portion of the literature of the time is avowedly and exclusively political. It is concerned, moreover, with the details of party politics; very seldom does any of the political writing of the age, even the best of it, like Swift's, rise into the region of general principles. The writing of Swift never has the large wisdom of such a man as Burke; it is concerned rather with the immediate questions of the hour, with personal and partisan questions, and does not often bring to their solution the wider truths of economics or government. So, too, the personal careers of all these men depended intimately upon the changing fortunes of the parties to which they belonged. Defoe, Steele, Addison, Swift,the position and the work of every one of these men depended, at some of the most decisive junctures of their lives, upon the ups and downs of party politics. It seems desirable, therefore, that, at the very outset of any study of these men and their writings, we should call freshly to mind the course of party politics during the reign of Anne, sketching rapidly the topics and the persons most prominent in the political movements of the time.

The writers of Queen Anne's time all range themselves as either Whigs or Tories. But when we ask ourselves, what were the differences between them, what were the questions they disputed so warmly, we find it not so easy to answer. We cannot discover any real question at issue between the two parties. Each goes on abusing the other, but one cannot exactly understand the charges. The truth is, I suppose, that there were really no clear principles at issue between the

two parties. The questions that once divided them had been pretty much settled by the logic of events; and yet the two parties lived on, divided by tradition, by differences upon matters of expediency, and by personal rivalries for place and power. It is very often so, you know, in political history. When a great political party has settled one issue, it doesn't die, but looks about for another; and between the settlement of the old issue and the discovery of a new one, there is usually an interval during which party lines are vaguely drawn, and you can hardly tell what principles are

at stake.

But it is to be noted that this is just the time when partisan controversy is sure to be most active and rancorous. For being really pretty much agreed as to principles, the parties have to transfer the contest to persons, and personal controversy in politics as everywhere else is the most bitter of all controversies. Then, too, at a time when parties are not widely divided, persons can change sides, if it serve their own interest to do so, without much change of principle or doctrine; and such desertion always provokes bitter censure, censure all the more bitter because the desertion can be plausibly defended. Dean Swift, for instance, once said in his own paper, the Examiner, "Let any one examine a reasonable honest man of either side, upon those opinions in religion and government, which both parties daily buffet each other about, he shall hardly find one material point in difference between them." And yet Dean Swift himself was the most terrible of party writers, and by almost all the Whigs was cursed as a renegade for a change of party which he could readily and effectively defend.

But while there were no very clear questions of controversy between the Whigs and Tories of Queen Anne's time, it was still true that these two parties represented, as two great parties in a state almost always do, two attitudes of the human mind on public affairs; the conservative and the radical; one represents motion, the other check; one holds to that which is old, the other wants what is new; one represents authority, the other liberty. Both are necessary al