he was himself censor; but these offences may fairly enough be considered the accidents of his time and his position.

Charles Blount (1654-1693), son of Sir Henry Blount, a Hertfordshire gentleman, author of Travels and various poetical pieces, came more than once into collision with L'Estrange. He rendered himself notorious by various deistical publications-among others, a history of opinions concerning the soul, and an exposition of his own views, under the title of Religio Laici.' A trick that he played on the licenser of books in 1693, led to the abolition of all restrictions on the freedom of the press. He committed suicide because the sister of his deceased wife, to whom he was passionately attached, would not marry him without the consent of the Church, and that was not to be obtained.

Walter Charleton (1619-1707), physician to Charles II., and a friend of Hobbes, besides several works on Theology, Natural History, Natural Philosophy, Medicine, and Antiquities, wrote 'A Brief Discourse concerning the Different Wits of Men' (1675). Traces of Hobbes's materialism appear in the work. He ascribes differences in character to differences in the form, size, and quality of the brain. His style is rather pedantic, chiefly from a peculiar habit of beginning his sentence with the predicate adjective ("Somewhat slow they are"-"Barren they are not," &c.); but he writes with vigour, clearness, and wit.

The witty, sagacious, and versatile George Saville, Marquis of Halifax (1630-1695), in the course of his active public life wrote some short treatises that show him to have been an easy master of the best English of the time. His 'Character of a Trimmer' (a humorous defence of moderate courses) is the most famous of these productions.

Robert Boyle (1627-1691), "the father of chemistry, and brother to the Earl of Cork," is the author of six quarto volumes of scientific observations and religious advices and meditations. He was one of the most active of the original members of the Royal Society. His favourite subjects were chemistry and pneumatics. His religious musings are very commonplace: it was to get clear of the annoyance of reading them aloud to a lady admirer that Swift wrote his famous parody, 'Meditation on a Broomstick.' His style is prolix and unmethodical.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the most distinguished of English mathematicians, inventor of the method of fluxions, and discoverer of gravitation and the dispersion of light, need only be mentioned here. He was born in Lincolnshire; like Hobbes, a premature and sickly child. His mechanical and mathematical powers were soon conspicuous. In 1669 he succeeded Barrow as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. In recognition of his services to science, he was appointed Warden of the Mint in 1695,

and Master in 1699. In 1703 he was elected President of the Royal Society, to which he had early been admitted as a member. In 1705 he received the honour of knighthood. His best-known mathematical work, the 'Principia,' or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, published in 1687, was written in Latin. In addition to his mathematical labours, he turned his ingenuity to thorny questions in Scripture, writing 'Observations on the Prophecies; the Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms;' and 'An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture;' which works were published after his death. His style is plain and clear.1

John Ray (1628-1705), the son of a blacksmith in Essex, was the great English naturalist of the century, and is regarded as one of the founders of botany. A work published in 1691, The Wisdom of God, manifested in the Works of the Creation,' was exceedingly popular until superseded by Paley's 'Natural Theology.' It is written with considerable neatness and spirit.

1 A vexed question in the life of Newton is whether or not his mind was deranged about the year 1693. Sir David Brewster, in his 'Life of Newton,' inclines to think that it was but a temporary excitement. In one of his letters Newton complains of not having slept an hour a-night for a fortnight together, and for five days together not a wink." About this time he wrote some incoherent letters, on which principally is founded the story of his madness.

66

342

CHAPTER VI.

FROM 1700 TO 1730.

THROUGHOUT last century this period was venerated as the Augus tan Age in English Literature, the idea being that it had reached a crowning pitch of refinement in the arts of composition, and that in this respect the Augustan Age was its prototype. The present century has not sanctioned the venerable title: our critics will not allow that Pope, Swift, and Addison are equal in literary power either to their great predecessors of the age of Elizabeth, or to their great successors of more recent times; and on that ground refuse them the dignified appellation of Augustan. We may agree with the criticism of this century and yet leave the Queen Anne celebrities in possession of their coveted title. In the quality of careful finish the Queen Anne men were undoubtedly as much superior to their predecessors as the Augustan men were to their predecessors. In other and more universally impressive qualities the Shakspeare period and the Byron period surpass both Queen Anne and Augustus-rising, if not "above all Greek," certainly "above all Roman fame."

We have here to do only with prose; and, in that department, even the doctrine that the Queen Anne men are superior to their predecessors in elaborate finish may be assailed with plausible, if not destructive casuistry. Defoe was probably as careless and hurried in composition as any author that ever lifted pen in the Elizabethan or in any other age. Addison probably committed more errors in syntax than Thomas Fuller. Swift finished his great compositions with extreme care, but he learned the habit of painstaking from his master Sir William Temple. One cannot be too careful in making sweeping generalisations about the characteristics of a period. Probably all that can be affirmed with safety about Queen Anne prose is that, taken as a whole, the prose

written by this generation contained fewer grammatical errors, and was, within certain limits, more varied in expression than the prose written by the preceding generation; and this can probably be affirmed of any generation of writers in the history of our literature. We are too apt to attribute the characteristics of a leading writer to his age; because Addison wrote with refined wit and elegant simplicity, and had a certain number of imitators, we are not to ascribe these qualities to the whole prose literature of the reign of Queen Anne.

DANIEL DEFOE, 1661-1731.

One of the most indefatigable and productive of our prose writers, pamphleteer, journalist, writer of Commercial Treatises, of Religious Treatises, of History, and of Fiction. He is so well known as the author of 'Robinson Crusoe' that many think of him in no other capacity; and forget, if they ever hear of, the extraordinary number and variety of his works. He is reputed author of 250 distinct publications. He was nearly sixty years old when he published his first novel; and before that time he had written some hundred and fifty treatises on politics, religion, commerce, and what not.

He is sometimes represented as an illiterate London tradesman with no education but what he gave himself after leaving school. His own account is that he was educated by his father, a well-to-do butcher in St Giles's, Cripplegate, with a view to the Dissenter ministry, and that he studied for five years with that express aim. At whatever time or times he had picked up his knowledge, he was well informed, and even accomplished: being (by his own account) master of five languages-including Latin; widely read in books of history and travel; and acquainted with such science as was known in his day.

His life was stirring and eventful, although comparatively few of the incidents are known. His enemies taunted him with beginning business as a hosier. This he denied, describing himself as a trader. From other authority we know that in course of business he visited Portugal, and perhaps other parts of the Continent. Whatever his trade may have been, he was too volatile to stick to it. An ardent politician, he wrote in 1683 a political pamphlet on the war between the Turks and the Austrians; and in 1685 rode out (at least so he says) and joined the western rising for the Duke of Monmouth. In 1692 he had to compound with his creditors. It is a fair conjecture that about this time he began to

He is sometimes called the first author by profession; but this is hardly correct. Fuller had little to depend upon but the sale of his works, and Birkenhead, Needham, and L'Estrange, lived by their literary services to a party.

cherish, with or without encouragement, hopes of patronage from the Minister of State. Some friends offering to settle him as a factor at Cadiz, he preferred his prospects at home. Another business speculation was unsuccessful: he started a pantile work, but, according to his own account, it lost him £3000. In 1695 he was appointed accountant to the commissioners for managing the duties on glass; and held that office till the duty was abolished in 1699. In 1701 his metrical satire 'The True-Born Englishman' -an energetic defence of King William, the Dutch, and the Revolution-brought him into high favour with the King. In 1702 an ironical proposal-The Shortest Way with the Dissenters'gave such offence that he was put in the pillory, fined, and imprisoned. During his imprisonment he collected and revised twenty-one of the numerous tracts that he had written up to that date, and projected a weekly periodical called the 'Review,' the prototype of the Tatler' and the 'Spectator.' The first number of the Review' was published on 19th February 1704, and it was continued single-handed for eight years. In 1704, through the intervention of Harley, he was not only released, but was taken into the confidence of Government, and employed on secret services. In 1706-7 he spent four months in Edinburgh as an agent for promoting the Union, and his skilful advocacy of the commercial advantages of the measure is supposed to have exercised no small influence on the happy result. Through the changes of administration during the latter years of Queen Anne, he continued in the secret service of Government, all the time writing periodicals and pamphlets with his characteristic prolific industry. Nor did he lose this profitable connection with the ruling powers on the accession of George I. and the Whigs. Till a discovery made by Mr William Lee in 1869, it was supposed that at this date he retired from politics, and wrote his more elaborate works: his 'Family Instructor' (1715), 'Religious Courtship' (1722), Complete English Tradesman' (1726), Political History of the Devil' (1726); and his novels-the foundation of his literary fame-'Robinson Crusoe' (1719), 'Captain Singleton' (1720), Duncan Campbell' (1720), Moll Flanders' (1721), 'Colonel Jack' (1721), 'Journal of the Plague' (1722), 'Roxana' (1724), Memoirs of a Cavalier' (undated). But it seems that for several years after 1715 he played a very double game; being paid by the Whig statesmen to insinuate himself into the staff of an extreme Jacobite paper, Mist's Journal,' and repress its most obnoxious attacks. In one of the newly-discovered letters he says, "I ventured to assure his Lordship the Sting of that mischievous Paper should be entirely taken out, though it was granted that the style should continue Tory, as it was, that the Party might be amused, and not set up another, which would have destroyed the design. And this