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cess; and has only been found deficient I those studies which the learned have generally turned from in disdain. We would not be understood to say any thing in disparagement of scholarship and science; but the value of these instruments is apt to be over-rated by their possessors; and it is a wholesome mortification, to show them that the work may be done without them. We have long known that their employment does not insure

Upon the whole, we look upon the life and writings of Dr. Franklin as affording a striking illustration of the incalculable value of a sound and well directed understanding; and of the comparative uselessness of learning and laborious accomplishments. Without the slightest pretensions to the character of a scholar or a man of science, he has extended the bounds of human knowledge on a variety of subjects, which scholars and men of science had previously investigated without suc-its success.

(September, 1816.)

The Works of JONATHAN SWIFT, D. D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin. Containing Additional Letters, Tracts, and Poems not hitherto published. With Notes, and a life of the Author, by WALTER SCOTT, Esq. 19 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh: 1815.

By far the most considerable change which | that they are declined considerably from the has taken place in the world of letters, in our high meridian of their glory,' and may fairly days, is that by which the wits of Queen be apprehended to be hastening to their setAnne's time have been gradually brought ting. Neither is it time alone that has down from the supremacy which they had wrought this obscuration; for the fame of enjoyed, without competition, for the best part Shakespeare still shines in undecaying brightof a century. When we were at our studies, ness; and that of Bacon has been steadily some twenty-five years ago, we can perfectly advancing and gathering new honours during remember that every young man was set to the whole period which has witnessed the rise read Pope, Swift, and Addison, as regularly and decline of his less vigorous successors. as Virgil, Cicero, and Horace. All who had any tincture of letters were familiar with their writings and their history; allusions to them abounded in all popular discourses and all ambitious conversation; and they and their contemporaries were universally acknowledged as our great models of excellence, and placed without challenge at the head of our national literature. New books, even when allowed to have merit, were never thought of as fit to be placed in the same class, but were generally read and forgotten, and passed away like the transitory meteors of a lower sky; while they remained in their brightness, and were supposed to shine with a fixed and unalterable glory.

There are but two possible solutions for phenomena of this sort. Our taste has either degenerated-or its old models have been fairly surpassed; and we have ceased to admire the writers of the last century, only be cause they are too good for us-or because they are not good enough. Now, we confess we are no believers in the absolute and permanent corruption of national taste; on the contrary, we think that it is, of all faculties, that which is most sure to advance and improve with time and experience; and that, with the exception of those great physical or political disasters which have given a check to civilization itself, there has always been a sensible progress in this particular; and that All this, however, we take it, is now pretty the general taste of every successive generawell altered; and in so far as persons of our tion is better than that of its predecessors. antiquity can judge of the training and habits There are little capricious fluctuations, no of the rising generation, those celebrated doubt, and fits of foolish admiration or fastiwriters no longer form the manual of our stu- diousness, which cannot be so easily accountdious youth, or enter necessarily into the in-ed for: but the great movements are all prostitution of a liberal education. Their names, indeed, are still familiar to our ears; but their writings no longer solicit our habitual notice, and their subjects begin already to fade from our recollection. Their high privilieges and proud distinctions, at any rate, have evidently passed into other hands. It is no longer to them that the ambitious look up with envy, or the humble with admiration; nor is it in their pages that the pretenders to wit and eloquence now search for allusions that are sure to captivate, and illustrations that cannot be mistaken. In this decay of their reputation they have few advocates, and no imitators and from a comparison of many observations, it seems to be clearly ascertained,

gressive: and though the progress consists at one time in withholding toleration from gross faults, and at another in giving their high prerogative to great beauties, this alternation has no tendency to obstruct the general advance; but, on the contrary, is the best and the safest course in which it can be conducted.

We are of opinion, then, that the writers who adorned the beginning of the last century have been eclipsed by those of our own time; and that they have no chance of ever regaining the supremacy in which they have thus been supplanted. There is not, however, in our judgment, any thing very stupendous in this triumph of our contemporaries; and

the greater wonder with us, is, that it was so beth, it received a copious infusion of classical long delayed, and left for them to achieve. images and ideas: but it was still intrinsically For the truth is, that the writers of the former romantic-serious-and even somewhat lofty age had not a great deal more than their judg- and enthusiastic. Authors were then so few ment and industry to stand on; and were in number, that they were looked upon with always much more remarkable for the few- a sort of veneration, and considered as a kind ness of their faults than the greatness of their of inspired persons; at least they were not beauties. Their laurels were won much more yet so numerous, as to be obliged to abuse by good conduct and discipline, than by en- each other, in order to obtain a share of disterprising boldness or native force;-nor can tinction for themselves;-and they neither it be regarded as any very great merit in those affected a tone of derision in their writings, who had so little of the inspiration of genius, nor wrote in fear of derision from others. to have steered clear of the dangers to which They were filled with their subjects, and dealt that inspiration is liable. Speaking generally with them fearlessly in their own way; and of that generation of authors, it may be said the stamp of originality, force, and freedom, that, as poets, they had no force or greatness is consequently upon almost all their producof fancy-no pathos, and no enthusiasm ;- tions. In the reign of James I., our literature, and, as philosophers, no comprehensiveness, with some few exceptions, touching rather depth, or originality. They are sagacious, no the form than the substance of its merits, apdoubt, neat, clear, and reasonable; but for pears to us to have reached the greatest perthe most part cold, timid, and superficial. fection to which it has yet attained; though They never meddle with the great scenes of it would probably have advanced still farther nature, or the great passions of man; but in the succeeding reign, had not the great nacontent themselves with just and sarcastic tional dissensions which then arose, turned representations of city life, and of the paltry the talent and energy of the people into other passions and meaner vices that are bred in channels-first, to the assertion of their civil that lower element. Their chief care is to rights, and afterwards to the discussion of avoid being ridiculous in the eyes of the their religious interests. The graces of literawitty, and above all to eschew the ridicule ture suffered of course in those fierce contenof excessive sensibility or enthusiasm-to be tions; and a deeper shade of austerity was at once witty and rational themselves, with thrown upon the intellectual character of the as good a grace as possible; but to give their nation. Her genius, however, though less capcountenance to no wisdom, no fancy, and no tivating and adorned than in the happier days morality, which passes the standards current which preceded, was still active, fruitful, and in good company. Their inspiration, accord- commanding; and the period of the civil wars, ingly, is little more than a sprightly sort of besides the mighty minds that guided the good sense; and they have scarcely any in- public councils, and were absorbed in public vention but what is subservient to the pur- cares, produced the giant powers of Taylor, poses of derision and satire. Little gleams and Hobbes, and Barrow-the muse of Milof pleasantry, and sparkles of wit, glitter ton-the learning of Coke-and the ingenuity through their compositions; but no glow of of Cowley. feeling-no blaze of imagination-no flashes of genius, ever irradiate their substance. They never pass beyond "the visible diurnal sphere," or deal in any thing that can either lift us above our vulgar nature, or ennoble its reality. With these accomplishments, they may pass well enough for sensible and polite writers,-but scarcely for men of genius; and it is certainly far more surprising, that persons of this description should have maintained themselves, for near a century, at the head of the literature of a country that had previously produced a Shakespeare, a Spenser, a Bacon, and a Taylor, than that, towards the end of that long period, doubts should have arisen as to the legitimacy of the title by which they laid claim to that high station. Both parts of the phenomenon, however, we dare say, had causes which better expounders might explain to the satisfaction of all the world. We see them but imperfectly, and have room only for an imperfect sketch of what we see.

Our first literature consisted of saintly legends, and romances of chivalry,-though Chaucer gave it a more national and popular character, by his original descriptions of external nature, and the familiarity and gaiety of his social humour. In the time of Eliza

The Restoration introduced a French court under circumstances more favourable for the effectual exercise of court influence than ever before existed in England: but this of itself would not have been sufficient to account for the sudden change in our literature which ensued. It was seconded by causes of far more general operation. The Restoration was undoubtedly a popular act;—and, indefensible as the conduct of the army and the civil leaders was on that occasion, there can be no question that the severities of Cromwell, and the extravagancies of the sectaries, had made republican professions hateful, and religious ardour ridiculous, in the eyes of a great proportion of the people. All the eminent writers of the preceding period, however, had inclined to the party that was now overthrown; and their writings had not merely been accommodated to the character of the government under which they were produced, but,were deeply imbued with its obnoxious principles, which were those of their respective authors. When the restraints of authority were taken off, therefore, and it became profitable, as well as popular, to discredit the fallen party, it was natural that the leading authors should affect a style of levity and derision, as most opposite to that of their op

ponents, and best calculated for the purposes and to this praise they are justly entitled.

they had in view. The nation, too, was now for the first time essentially divided in point of character and principle, and a much greater proportion were capable both of writing in support of their own notions, and of being influenced by what was written. Add to all this, that there were real and serious defects in the style and manner of the former generation; and that the grace, and brevity, and vivacity of that gayer manner which was now introduced from France, were not only good and captivating in themselves, but had then all the charms of novelty and of contrast; and it will not be difficult to understand how it came to supplant that which had been established of old in the country,-and that so suddenly, that the same generation, among whom Milton had been formed to the severe sanctity of wisdom and the noble independence of genius, lavished its loudest applauses on the obscenity and servility of such writers as Rochester and Wycherly.

This change, however, like all sudden changes, was too fierce and violent to be long maintained at the same pitch; and when the wits and profligates of King Charles had sufficiently insulted the seriousness and virtue of their predecessors, there would probably have been a revulsion towards the accustomed taste of the nation, had not the party of the innovators been reinforced by champions of more temperance and judgment. The result seemed at one time suspended on the will of Dryden-in whose individual person the genius of the English and of the French school of literature may be said to have maintained a protracted struggle. But the evil principle prevailed! Carried by the original bent of his genius, and his familiarity with our older models, to the cultivation of our native style, to which he might have imparted more steadiness and correctness-for in force and in sweetness it was already matchless he was unluckily seduced by the attractions of fashion, and the dazzling of the dear wit and gay rhetoric in which it delighted, to lend his powerful aid to the new corruptions and refinements; and in fact, to prostitute his great gifts to the purposes of party rage or licentious ribaldry.

This was left for them to do, and they did it well. They were invited to it by the circumstances of their situation, and do not seem to have been possessed of any such bold or vigorous spirit, as either to neglect or to outgo the invitation. Coming into life immediately after the consummation of a bloodless revolution, effected much more by the cool sense, than the angry passions of the nation, they seem to have felt that they were born in an age of reason, rather than of feeling or fancy; and that men's minds, though considerably divided and unsettled upon many points, were in a much better temper to relish judicious argument and cutting satire, than the glow of enthusiastic passion, or the richness of a luxuriant imagination. To those accordingly they made no pretensions; but, writing with infinite good sense, and great grace and vivacity, and, above all, writing for the first time in a tone that was peculiar to the upper ranks of society, and upon subjects that were almost exclusively interesting to them, they naturally figured, at least while the manner was new, as the most accomplished, fashionable, and perfect writers which the world had ever seen; and made the wild, luxuriant, and humble sweetness of our earlier authors appear rude and untutored in the comparison. Men grew ashamed of admiring, and afraid of imitating writers of so little skill and smartness; and the opinion became general, not only that their faults were intolerable, but that even their beauties were puerile and barbarous, and unworthy the serious regard of a polite and distinguishing age.

These, and similar considerations, will go far to account for the celebrity which those authors acquired in their day; but it is not quite so easy to explain how they should have so long retained their ascendant. One cause undoubtedly was, the real excellence of their productions, in the style which they had adopted. It was hopeless to think of surpassing them in that style; and, recommended as it was, by the felicity of their execution, it required some courage to depart from it, and to recur to another, which seemed to have been so lately abandoned for its sake. The age which succeeded, too, was not the The sobriety of the succeeding reigns al-age of courage or adventure. There never layed this fever of profanity; but no genius arose sufficiently powerful to break the spell that still withheld us from the use of our own peculiar gifts and faculties. On the contrary, it was the unfortunate ambition of the next generation of authors, to improve and perfect the new style, rather than to return to the old one;-and it cannot be denied that they did improve it. They corrected its gross indecency-increased its precision and correctness -made its pleasantry and sarcasm more polished and elegant-and spread through the whole of its irony, its narration, and its reflection, a tone of clear and condensed good sense, which recommended itself to all who had, and all who had not any relish for higher beauties.

was, on the whole, a quieter time than the reigns of the two first Georges, and the greater part of that which ensued. There were two little provincial rebellions indeed, and a fair proportion of foreign war; but there was nothing to stir the minds of the people at large, to rouse their passions, or excite their imaginations-nothing like the agitations of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, or of the civil wars in the seventeenth. They went on, accordingly, minding their old business, and reading their old books, with great patience and stupidity: And certainly there never was so remarkable a dearth of original talent-so long an interregnum of native genius-as during about sixty years in the middle of the last century. The dramatic This is the praise of Queen Anne's wits-art was dead fifty years before-and poetry

seemed verging to a similar extinction. The which it gave occasion-the genius of Edfew sparks that appeared, too, showed that mund Burke, and some others of his land of the old fire was burnt out, and that the altar genius-the impression of the new literature must hereafter be heaped with fuel of another of Germany, evidently the original of our quality. Gray, with the talents, rather of a lake-school of poetry, and many innovations critic than a poet-with learning, fastidious-in our drama-the rise or revival of a more ness, and scrupulous delicacy of taste, instead evangelical spirit, in the body of the people of fire, tenderness, or invention-began and -and the vast extension of our political and ended a small school, which we could scarce-commercial relations, which have not only ly have wished to become permanent, admir- familiarized all ranks of people with distant able in many respects as some of its produc- countries, and great undertakings, but have tions are being far too elaborate and artifi- brought knowledge and enterprise home, not cial, either for grace or for fluency, and fitter merely to the imagination, but to the actual to excite the admiration of scholars, than the experience of almost every individual.—All delight of ordinary men. However, he had these, and several other circumstances, have the merit of not being in any degree French, so far improved or excited the character of and of restoring to our poetry the dignity of our nation, as to have created an effectual seriousness, and the tone at least of force and demand for more profound speculation, and energy. The Whartons, both as critics and more serious emotion than was dealt in by as poets, were of considerable service in dis- the writers of the former century, and which, crediting the high pretensions of the former if it has not yet produced a corresponding race, and in bringing back to public notice supply in all branches, has at least had the the great stores and treasures of poetry which effect of decrying the commodities that were lay hid in the records of our older literature. previously in vogue, as unsuited to the altered Akenside attempted a sort of classical and condition of the times. philosophical rapture, which no elegance of language could easily have rendered popular, but which had merits of no vulgar order for those who could study it. Goldsmith wrote with perfect elegance and beauty, in a style | of mellow tenderness and elaborate simplicity. He had the harmony of Pope without his quaintness, and his selectness of diction without his coldness and eternal vivacity. And, last of all, came Cowper, with a style of complete originality, and, for the first time, made it apparent to readers of all descriptions, that Pope and Addison were no longer to be the models of English poetry.

Of those ingenious writers, whose charac teristic certainly was not vigour, any more than tenderness or fancy, SWIFT was indisputably the most vigorous-and perhaps the least tender or fanciful. The greater part of his works being occupied with politics and personalities that have long since lost all interest, can now attract but little attention, except as memorials of the manner in which politics and personalities were then conducted. In other parts, however, there is a vein of peculiar humour and strong satire, which will always be agreeable-and a sort of heartiness of abuse and contempt of mankind, In philosophy and prose writing in general, which produces a greater sympathy and anithe case was nearly parallel. The name of mation in the reader than the more elaborate Hume is by far the most considerable which sarcasms that have since come into fashion. occurs in the period to which we have al- Altogether his merits appear to be more unique luded. But, though his thinking was English, and inimitable than those of any of his conhis style is entirely French; and being natu- temporaries; and as his works are connected rally of a cold fancy, there is nothing of that in many parts with historical events which it eloquence or richness about him, which char- must always be of importance to understand, acterizes the writings of Taylor, and Hooker, we conceive that there are none, of which a and Bacon-and continues, with less weight new and careful edition is so likely to be ac of matter, to please in those of Cowley and ceptable to the public, or so worthy to engage Clarendon. Warburton had great powers; the attention of a person qualified for the and wrote with more force and freedom than undertaking. In this respect, the projectors the wits to whom he succeeded-but his of the present publication must be considered faculties were perverted by a paltry love of as eminently fortunate-the celebrated perparadox, and rendered useless to mankind by son who has here condescended to the funcan unlucky choice of subjects, and the arro- tions of an editor, being almost as much gance and dogmatism of his temper. Adam distinguished for the skill and learning re Smith was nearly the first who made deeper quired for that humbler office, as for the reasonings and more exact knowledge popu- creative genius which has given such unexlar among us; and Junius and Johnson the ampled popularity to his original compositions first who again familiarized us with more and uniting to the minute knowledge and glowing and sonorous diction-and made us feel the tameness and poorness of the serious style of Addison and Swift.

This brings us down almost to the present times in which the revolution in our literature has been accelerated and confirmed by the concurrence of many causes. The agitations of the French revolution, and the discussions as well as the hopes and terrors to

patient research of the Malones and Chalmerses, a vigour of judgment and a vivacity of style to which they had no pretensions. In the exercise of these comparatively humble functions, he has acquitted himself, we think. on the present occasion, with great judgment and ability. The edition, upon the whole, is much better than that of Dryden. It is less loaded with long notes and illustrative quota

tions; while it furnishes all the information fax; and, under that ministry, the members that can reasonably be desired, in a simple of which he courted in private and defended and compendious form. It contains upwards in public, he received church preferment to of a hundred letters, and other original pieces the value of near 4001. a year (equal at least of Swift's never before published-and, among to 1200l. at present), with the promise of still the rest, all that has been preserved of his farther favours. He was dissatisfied, howcorrespondence with the celebrated Vanessa. ever, because his livings were not in England; Explanatory notes and remarks are supplied and having been sent over on the affairs of with great diligence to all the passages over the Irish clergy in 1710, when he found the which time may have thrown any obscurity; Whig ministry in a tottering condition, he and the critical observations that are prefixed temporized for a few months, till he saw that to the more considerable productions, are, their downfal was inevitable; and then, withwith a reasonable allowance for an editor's out even the pretext of any public motive, partiality to his author, very candid and in- but on the avowed ground of not having been genious. sufficiently rewarded for his former services, he went over in the most violent and decided manner to the prevailing party; for whose gratification he abused his former friends and benefactors, with a degree of virulence and rancour, to which it would not be too much to apply the term of brutality; and, in the end, when the approaching death of the Queen, and their internal dissensions made his services of more importance to his new friends, openly threatened to desert them also, and retire altogether from the scene, unless they made a suitable provision for him; and having, in this way, extorted the deanery of St. Patrick's, which he always complained of as quite inadequate to his merits, he counselled measures that must have involved the country in a civil war, for the mere chance of keeping his party in power; and, finally; on the Queen's death, retired in a state of despicable despondency and bitterness to his living, where he continued, to the end of his life, to libel liberty and mankind with unrelenting and pitiable rancour-to correspond with convicted traitors to the constitution they had sworn to maintain-and to lament as the worst of calamities, the dissolution of a ministry which had no merit but that of having promised him advancement, and of which several of the leading members immediately indemnified themselves by taking office in the court of the Pretender.

The Life is not every where extremely well written, in a literary point of view; but is drawn up, in substance, with great intelligence, liberality, and good feeling. It is quite fair and moderate in politics; and perhaps rather too indulgent and tender towards individuals of all descriptions-more full, at least, of kindness and veneration for genius and social virtue, than of indignation at baseness and profligacy. Altogether, it is not much like the production of a mere man of letters, or a fastidious speculator in sentiment and morality; but exhibits throughout, and in a very pleasing form, the good sense and large toleration of a man of the world-with much of that generous allowance for the

"Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise," which genius too often requires, and should therefore always be most forward to show. It is impossible, however, to avoid noticing, that Mr. Scott is by far too favourable to the personal character of his author; whom we think, it would really be injurious to the cause of morality to allow to pass, either as a very dignified or a very amiable person. The truth is, we think, that he was extremely ambitious, arrogant, and selfish; of a morose, vindictive, and haughty temper; and, though capable of a sort of patronizing generosity towards his dependants, and of some attachment towards those who had long known and flattered him, his general demeanour, both in public and private life, appears to have been far from exemplary. Destitute of temper and magnanimity and, we will add, of principle, in the former; and, in the latter, of tenderness, fidelity, or compassion.

The transformation of a young Whig into an old Tory-the gradual falling off of prudent men from unprofitable virtues, is, perhaps, too common an occurrence, to deserve much notice, or justify much reprobation. But Swift's desertion of his first principles was neither gradual nor early-and was accomplished under such circumstances as really require to be exposed a little, and cannot well be passed over in a fair account of his life and character. He was bred a Whig under Sir William Temple-he took the title publicly in various productions; and, during all the reign of King William, was a strenuous, and indeed an intolerant advocate of Revolution principles and Whig pretensions. His first patrons were Somers, Hortland, and Hali

As this part of his conduct is passed over a great deal too slightly by his biographer; and as nothing can be more pernicious than the notion, that the political sins of eminent persons should be forgotten in the estimate of their merits, we must beg leave to verify the comprehensive sketch we have now given, by a few references to the documents that are to be found in the volumes before us. Of his original Whig professions, no proof will probably be required; the fact being notorious, and admitted by all his biographers. Abundant evidence, however, is furnished by his first successful pamphlet in defence of Lord Somers, and the other Whig lords impeached in 1701;-by his own express declaration in another work (vol. iii. p. 240), that "having been long conversant with the Greek and Latin authors, and therefore a lover of liberty, he was naturally inclined to be what they call a Whig in politics;-by the copy of verses in which he deliberately designates himself "a Whig, and one who wears a gown;"-by his exulting statement to Tisdal, whom he

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