compiled a Dictionary of the English Language, whimsical in places rather than scholarly, but important as a pioneer book of its kind. In a single week he wrote Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, the reflections of the author in story form. He edited the works of Shakespeare; and, in spite of his· scant knowledge of the sixteenth-century literature, did it so well that many of his sensible comments still appear in annotated editions of the plays. His best and most lasting work is his Lives of the Poets, brief accounts of the authors with critical comments on their writings. His criticisms are not always just, for Johnson was a man of prejudices; but most of the "lives" are well worth reading as the honest though prejudiced judgment of a powerful mind. Johnson's Style. Johnson's style is in marked contrast with that of Addison. He praised Addison's style, saying that "the person who would secure a perfect English style must give his days and nights to the study of Addison." But either Johnson did not follow his own advice or did not profit by the study, for his style is often pompous and heavy, crowded with Latin derivatives, and full of long and involved sentences. To be sure these long sentences with all their modifiers often have an effective rhythmic eloquence; and Johnson could be terse and simple when he chose, as the directness of his conversation related by Boswell and some of his later literary productions amply show. Yet in general his style is exceedingly artificial and bookish. Edmund Burke. One of the last of the eighteenth-century classicists was Edmund Burke. His works have not found a large place in literature, because he gave his attention to political affairs rather than to literary pursuits. He did not hold high political office, but was for long the brains of the Whig opposition to the efforts of George III to increase the royal prerogative. Most of his productions, therefore, are contributions to the literature of politics and government. His speeches on American Taxation (1774) and on Conciliation with America (1775) give his ideas on the American Revolution. The Nabob of Arcot's Debts and the Impeachment of Warren Hastings discuss political affairs in India. Reflections on the French Revolution (1790) and Letters on a Regicide Peace (1796) are his best contributions to the literature of the French Revolution. He was a practical man of reason and common sense, and therefore naturally a classicist. He believed in established institutions and in the slow development of civilization. He shunned what he thought were impractical doctrines and theories. He was against coercion in America simply because he thought coercion impracticable; and he opposed the French Revolution because it broke connections with the past and was based upon theory and not upon experience. He believed safety lay in stemming the tide of revolution in Europe, and therefore did what he could to marshal the forces of reaction, contributing much to the final English success at Trafalgar and Waterloo. Romantic Tendencies in Burke and Johnson. - Standing thus for the reasonable and the practical, he allied himself with the classicists in literature; yet he was not an uncompromising adherent of that school. The breadth of his sympathy and the fervor of his imagination gave him a kinship with the rising romanticists. Both Burke and Johnson, indeed, show signs of the new influences. In general they both followed in the way of the classicists, and championed the old ideas of art; but in critical ideas Johnson was not so thorough a formalist as his immediate predecessors, accepting, for instance, only with considerable modification and reservation the doctrine of the three dramatic unities, as the preface to his edition of Shakespeare clearly shows; and Burke departed from the practice of the classicists in mingling with his statistics and his philosophy brilliant flights of imagination and powerful emotional appeals. (d) THE NOVEL The Periodicals. The classical age of reason and common sense developed a type of prose fiction radically different from the old romances of chivalry, which were far too extravagant to appeal to a matter-of-fact age. The new tendency is seen in the periodical literature as early as The Tatler and The Spectator. The character sketching, at first abstract and general, becomes individual, personal, lifelike. Brief stories appear under such titles as The Civil Husband (Tatler, No. 53) and The Story of Miss Betty Cured of Her Vanity (Guardian, No. 159). The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers, a series of essays united by common characters and by a continuous story, is a real forerunner of the novel of life. Picaresque Stories. Another influence came from the Spanish picaresque stories, autobiographical accounts of the vagrant experiences of unscrupulous rogues, who mingle in real life, lying, cheating, and stealing, and who tell of their rogueries with impudent candor. Daniel Defoe's Colonel Jack is a typical English story of this kind. The hero is of gentle blood, but is brought up among thieves and pickpockets, with no adequate conception of right and wrong. He is kidnapped and taken to Virginia, where he rises to influence. He returns to England, a merchant, goes to the wars, behaves bravely, gets preferment, and is finally made colonel of a regiment. The Journal of the Plague Year illustrates the same kind of writing. Defoe had a way of making all his stories marvelously real by the massing of details and by a simple matter-of-fact style. His Robinson Crusoe has been one of the most widely read of English books. |