To history 'Hume brought style and philosophy, but inadequate research, and his work has con sequently suffered from the charge of inaccuracy. But though it is marred by a partisan spirit, and is almost a Tory evangel, the historical sense is true,-the method luminous, and the recognition of the life of the people as more important than statistics of dynasties introduces a new concep tion of historical composition which Macaulay and Green were not slow to appreciate. Smollett supplemented his fellow countryman's work, and Robertson wrote of Charles V. and of America. It is Gibbon. however, who is the commanding figure in history. His stupendous plan was sup ported by equal resolution and fidelity. Learned, philosophic. stately. the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a work which in its somewhat grandiose but still authoritative periods has not a little of the dignity of the epic. But perhaps the book of the greatest practical value, a legiti mate response to the wide industrial awakening, is Adam Smith's Wealth of Yations, the begin ning of the science of political economy. In ora tory the century was even more commanding, and Chatham, Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, and Burke arc names which in this sphere are paramount, though Horace Walpole preferred Chesterfield, and Bolingbroke gained considerable prominence. Of Burke, indeed, it is difficult to determine whether he was greater as a writer or as an orator. lie began as a man of letters, and such, despite his political activity, he essentially re mained. Though it is commonly believed that his speeches must have been better read than heard, Macaulay in his most energetic manner pictures the effect of his oratory in the Hastings trial as overpowering. Unhappily for his reputation as an amiable man, his vehemence of invective (as against the Duke of Bedford) was second only, if indeed second. to that of 'Junius.' The com panion of the most cultured men and women of his time, he was perhaps the greatest of them all, and never more himself than when he be friended the starving poet Crabbe.
In the eighteenth century we find the be ginning of the periodical essay. which en joyed high favor as a literary form, and became the vehicle of sonic of the best writ ing of the whole range of English prose. (See EssAV.) In 1709 Steele established the Tat ler, in which he began the publication of short articles on literary and social topics. Soon lie had the hearty eo:Iperation of his old school fellow'. Addison. NVII0 was peculiarly fitted for such work. Together they founded the Spertator 1171 I ) , in whirl] appeared the chivalrous Sir Roger de Cove•ley, N•ho may dispute Robinson Crusoe's title to the position of the first charaeter in English prose fiction. Steele's essays were marked by ease and naturalness, and some what atoned for the vicious taste of Ilse senti mental drama to which he unworthily lent his name. Addison brought to prose a grace and an ease which it had sea reels' known except in Shake speare, and when his rampaign and his Pala arc forgottt.n. the elegant simplicity of his essays will still charm new generations. A wonderful contrast, in both person and manner, is that between these genial humorists and the 1110011y Dean of Saint Patrick's. Swift ninst always be remembered as a man of great force of mind and character, set awry by disappointment and suffering. Conscious of high endowments, he was inspired by his sense of injustice and neglect to write tit/Hirer's Truce/s, the classic of injured merit and of angry revolt against the shallow discriminations of society and government. Ills morbid spirit became terrible in the intensity of its hate for mankind. With Swift the style was the man—fearless, aggressiNe, sturdy. he made warm friends and inspired a singular devo tion in two women; beneath that rugged exterior there must have been a naturally tender heart, which would have leaped to meet a brotherly recognition.
For homely simplicity and directness, the nervous style of Defoe at his best has rarely been excelled. His numerous pamphlets and his VVI'se are practically unknro.vn to the general reader; but Robinson. Crusoe, the classic of the race of boys, is a masterpiece of adventure. His other stories, little read, differ from the modern novel in the absence of a plot, but resemble a special phase of it in being written with a pur pose—ill his case to enforce the morality of the middle class, to which be belonged and for which he wrote. Sterne's chief work, Tristram Shandy,
is as far as Defoe's tales from possessing the co herence and the regulated progress of events which mark the modern novel; it is capricious and uneven, while, unlike Defoe, Sterne de liberately rebels against the moral standards which Addison, for instance, had enforced on his generation. But his humor, which has caused him to be classed now' with Rabelais, now with Cervantes, his finished sentimentalism, as dis tinguished from genuine sentiment, and his power of creating characters endowed with an absolute reality—all these unite to give him a conspicuous and very special place.
The novel proper began with Richardson, though it is probable that he was unconscious of erecting a new literary genre, which was des tined to overshadow all others in multiplicity and popularity. His method seems to have meant to him a sort of expansion of the drama : he calls Clarissa Flarlotre 'a dramatic narrative.' There is in him much of the 'tedious prolixity of the French romances: but he pos-essed the faculty of interesting the reader, partly by a quality which has lost its appeal for us, but to which Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. for example, bears abundant witness—his realistic fidelity to the types of character and the manners of his own time. But even had Richardson no merits of his own, we should still he grateful to him for pro yoking Fielding to enter upon the writing of fiction. Fielding's variety of experience. his ap prenticeship in the drama and in periodical litera ture, his accurate observation. united with his native capacity in all kinds of literary endeavor, admirably fitted him for the scope of the novel. Great in plot, he had the power to marshal all details and to conduct them master fully to the daouenrent. Ile is another of the great humorists. and he is still modern. Before Tont Jones appeared, a new writer of fiction had published Roderick Random. Smollett had mind' the same reason for cynicism as Swift, he fancied, and the accent of his work is pessimistic. He is said to have had greater influence on the develop ment of fiction than any other writer of his time. II is work, smacks of t he far-away period of Cervantes and Le Sage, and does not enthral like that of Fiolling,ltoldsmith'scharmiug idyllic story of The our of Wakefield appeared hi 171;il, and. winning Goethe at mice, has since won the world by its "happy reinforcement of the theme of domestic bliss and tranquillity." Sharply contrasted with its grateful simplicity is John son's Rass,/as, the style of which is eharacteris tically ponderous. It is interesting at least as the sole attempt of the great autocrat in a form for which his aptitude was anything but conspicu ous. Dere also belong Miss Burney's Erelina and Cecilia, both of which are said to have been as eagerly received as Scott's work was subse quently to be. Assuredly it would be a tribute to any author to have Johnson. Burke, and Rey nolds become so far absorbed that they were un willing I () put the book down, the two latter spend ing the whole night on it. here, too, should be men tioned Godwin, for his COO) Winionts, as well as for his abstract. philosophie work; llorace Walpole, for his Castle of Otranto no less than for his Anecdotes of Painting, Memoirs, and su premely fascinating letters: Lewis, for his Monk; Mrs. Inchhald, for her ,Simple Story: and Mrs. Radcliffe, for her Hysterics of Udolpho. The first of all this company in sheer power is easily Henry Fielding, while for grace as inimi table as it is distinctive Goldsmith leads: Miss Burney excelled in the depiction of domestic char acter; with Walpole begins the novel of mystery; from Lewis and Mrs. Radcliffe we receive those 'tales of terror' which were afterwards wrought out with such consummate craftsmanship by Poe; and with Godwin the 'novel with a purpose' enters upon its long career. It should be noted that here woman first appears conspicuously in English literature; and not alone in fiction. as becomes evident when we consider Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Mary Wollstoneeraft.