BOLINGBROKE-ECHARD.

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lofty, but bears too many marks of labour to be agreeable. A still less favourable view must be taken of the metaphysical writings of Henry St John VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE (1672-1751), a man of brilliant and versatile powers, but unprincipled, and disposed to write rather for effect than for truth. Bolingbroke was a Secretary of State in the Tory Ministry at the conclusion of the reign of Queen Anne, and, after the accession of George I., in order to avoid a threatened impeachment, fled to France, where he was for a short time in the service of the Pretender. The remainder of his life was for the most part spent in England, but in a state of total exclusion from power; and, under these circumstances, mortified ambition prompted him to publish many political essays in which patriotism was assumed as a mere instrument for annoying the Ministry, and to write a number of philosophical discussions based on equally unsound principles, and highly adverse to religion. Yet though the matter of his writings be of little value, his style was singularly eloquent for the period, and at the same time highly polished.

HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND THEOLOGICAL WRITERS.

The intellectual strength of this age, as already mentioned, was exerted in lively comments upon artificial life, whether expressed in prose or verse. It produced few writers of eminence in any of the departments of literature now to be adverted to, and no respectable cultivators of those many inferior but useful branches of literary labour, by which the people at large are apt to be benefited. The only historical writer worthy of being mentioned was LAWRENCE ECHARD (1671-1730), a clergyman of the Church of England. He published in 1699, his Roman History; in 1702, his General Ecclesiastical History; in 1707, and subsequent years, his History of England; which were the first respectable compilations of the kind, and continued for a long time to be in very general use.

DR RICHARD BENTLEY (1661-1742), Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Archdeacon of Ely, distinguished himself as a commentator and critic. His editions of several Greek and Roman classics are still esteemed as masterpieces of verbal criticism, though in some instances he is held liable to censure for having taken too great liberties with the text of his author. The Grecian Antiquities of POTTER Archbishop of Canterbury, published in 1697-8, became the standard work on that subject; and BASIL KENNET, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, about the same time produced what has since been the standard work on Roman Antiquities. The earlier portion of the period was adorned by the lives of Tillotson, South, and other theologians, who more properly belonged to the preceding age. Apart from these, the period may be said to have produced few great divines. The most eminent by many degrees was DR SAMUEL CLARKE (1675-1729), rector of St James's, Westminster, a man of extraordinary mental endowments, and singularly virtuous character. He published Paraphrases on the Four Gospels, Sermons on the Attributes of God, a work on The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, and An Exposition of the Church Catechism, all of which rank among the best English theological works, though the author's ideas respecting the Trinity are somewhat different from those maintained by the Church. Dr Clarke was also a classical annotator, and his editions of Cæsar and The Iliad are still held as unrivalled. WILLIAM LOWTH (1661-1732), prebend of Winchester, and rector of Buriton, acquired permanent celebrity by his Vindication of the Divine Authority and Inspiration of the Scriptures, published in 1692; his Directions for the Profitable Reading of the Scriptures, 1705; and his Commentaries on the Books of the Prophets. He was also an excellent classical scholar, and in that capacity assisted several writers of inferior fame. FRANCIS ATTERBURY (1662-1731), bishop of Rochester, makes a great figure, both in the political and literary history of the time; having been so zealous

a partisan of the exiled house of Stuart, that he was himself banished in 1723; while his intimate friendship with Pope, Swift, and other Tory authors, has caused his name to be much mixed up with theirs. With the exception, however, of his letters to those gentlemen, which are admirable specimens of elegant familiarity, he produced no work which was calculated for lasting celebrity. BENJAMIN HOADLY, bishop of Bangor, (afterwards of Winchester,) (1676-1761,) was one of the most eminent theological writers of the age, on what is called the low side of the Church-that is to say, the side which makes the nearest approach to the Dissenters. The peculiar opinions by which Bishop Hoadly chiefly attracted notice, were, that the use of the Sacrament as a test for the admission of men to civil offices, was a prostitution of the sacred rite, that Christ was the true and ultimate head of the Christian Church, and that, consequently, all encouragements and discouragements of this world, were not what Christ approved of, tending to make men of one profession, not of one faith-hypocrites, not Christians. A sermon preached by him in 1717, upon these points, was the cause of the celebrated Bangorian Controversy, in which all the chiefs of both parties in the Church were engaged. As a controversialist, Bishop Hoadly enjoys the highest reputation; he was one of the few who ever conducted religious disputes in the mild spirit of a Christian gentleman. In general divinity, he was the author of Discourses on the Terms of Acceptance with God; a Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and a considerable number of sermons. His whole works fill three folio volumes. CHARLES LESLIE (1650-1722), originally a clergyman of the Church of Ireland, but who lost all his preferments at the Revolution for refusing to take the required oaths, distinguished himself as a controversial writer in favour of the views of the nonjurant, or Jacobite party, and by several works in defence of general religion, of which the

most valuable is his Short and Easy Method with the Deists, published in 1697.

SIXTH PERIOD.

1727-1780.

THE fifty-three years between 1727 and 1780, comprehending the reign of George II. and a portion of that of George III., produced more men of letters, as well as more men of science, than any epoch of similar extent in the literary history of England. It was also a time during which greater progress was made in diffusing literature among the people at large, than had been made, perhaps, throughout all the ages that went before it. Yet while letters, and the cultivators of letters, were thus abundant, it must be allowed that, if we keep out of view the rise of the species of fiction called the novel, the age was not by any means marked by such striking features of originality or vigour as some of the preceding eras. It was rather remarkable for polishing former styles, and improving the external figure of knowledge, than for creating much that was new.

THE POETS.

The above observations apply peculiarly to the poetry of the age, which may be described as in general very correct and very sensible, but tame in manner, and deficient in imagination and feeling. This was probably owing, in a great degree, to the admiration which Pope and his contemporaries continued, throughout the whole of this period, to draw from the people of England. Overawed, as it were, by the great success of those illustrious men,

the writers who flourished during the remaining part of the century, dared not trust to their own observations of nature, but wrote in slavish imitation of both the styles of thought and of verse which they found already so highly approved by the public taste. Something was owing to the state of cultivated society, and to the circumstances in which most of the poets were placed. During the era under notice, much of the attention of enlightened persons was devoted to the improvement of manners, to repressing the barbarisms of the ignorant, and extinguishing the vices of word and deed, which had become fashionable in the reign of Charles the Second. Polite society thus necessarily assumed a dainty, formal, and pedantic character; and whatever was hearty or natural, even though it might be quite innocent, was regarded with a kind of suspicion. As almost all the poets of the age were men of fashion, or at least habituated to the usages of good society, and chiefly resident amidst the artificial scenes of the metropolis, they could hardly fail to be affected by this prevailing disposition. To this cause, and to the supposed necessity of writing after models, as if any model were aught else than the accidental form into which a vigorous mind had thrown itself, is to be attributed the want of originality, passion, and imagination, which is so conspicuous in this period.

In the collected editions of the British poets, the works of upwards of seventy persons are classed between the years 1727 and 1780. Of these, however, comparatively few are worthy of particular notice. Young, Thomson, Gray, Collins, Akenside, Goldsmith, and Beattie, form a first rank. A second is composed of Somerville, Blair, Dyer, Green, Glover, Watts, Shenstone, Churchill, Falconer, Smollett, Armstrong, Langhorne, Bruce, Chatterton, Jones, Mickle, Johnson, Smart, Logan, the three Wartons, and Anstey. The remainder have produced several good pieces, but their works, as a whole, are not entitled to be kept prominently before the public eye. EDWARD YOUNG, a clergyman of the English Church,

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