EXTRACTS.
1.

A cheerful temper, joined with innocence, will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured. It will lighten sickness, poverty, and affliction, convert ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and render deformity itself agreeable.

II.

'Tis not in mortals to command success,

But we'll do more, Sempronius; we 'll deserve it.

III.

When vice prevails and impious men bear sway,
The post of honor is the private station.

IV.

The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years,
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,

Cato.

Cato.

The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.

Cato.

OTHER AUTHORS OF THIS AGE.

POETS.

DR. EDWARD YOUNG (1684-1765), author of Night Thoughts.

JAMES THOMSON (1700-1748), author of The Seasons, and The Castle of Indolence.

WM. COLLINS (1720-1756), a fine lyric poet, author of Ode to the Passions, How Sleep the Brave, etc. He died insane.

MATTHEW PRIOR (1664-1721), author of Solomon, Alma, and many fine lyrics.

JOHN GAY (1688-1732), author of The Beggar's Opera, and Fables.

PROSE WRITERS.

SIR RICHARD STEELE (1671-1729), one of the writers for The Tatler and The Spectator. Nearly equal to Addison as an essayist.

JONATHAN SWIFT, Dean of St. Patrick's (1667-1745), a man of masculine and versatile genius, author of Gulliver's Travels, The Tale of a Tub, etc. DANIEL DEFOE (1661-1731), author of Robinson Crusoe.

DR. PHILIP Doddridge (1702-1751), a devout preacher, author of Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, Family Expositor, Hymns, etc.

AMERICAN: Jonathan Edwards, the great Metaphysician.

THE

PERIOD VII.-AGE OF JOHNSON.

1750-1800.

(Part of the Reigns of Geo. II. and Geo. III.)

`HE Age of Johnson occupies the last half of the eighteenth century. Like the preceding, it was critical rather than creative, and cared less about what was said than about the manner of saying it. There was, however, a higher moral tone, with greater sincerity of manner-a result greatly owing to the influence of Johnson. In poetry, the improvement was very marked. The artificialities of Pope and his imitators were abandoned, and there was a gradual return to nature and the human heart as the true sources of poetic inspiration. This improvement was begun by Thomson in the preceding age, and carried to a glorious consummation near the close of this, by Burns, Goldsmith, and Cowper. The principal events of this age were the French Revolution, the American Revolution, and the trial of Warren Hastings. The authors will be divided into two classes :—

I. THE POETS, represented by Goldsmith, Gray, Burns, and Cowper.

II. THE PROSE WRITERS, represented by Johnson and Burke.

I. POETS OF THE AGE OF JOHNSON.

GOLDSMITH. 1728-1774.

Oliver Goldsmith was one of the brilliant galaxy of which Johnson was the centre. He was an Irishman, full of oddities and eccentricities, and remarkable alike for his strength and his weakness. He is equally an object of laughter and of love, of pity and admiration. His style much resembles Addison's, being pure, easy, graceful, and abounding in quaint and delightful humor. (See Irving's Life of Goldsmith.)

His works may be divided into (1) Poetical, (2) Historical, and (3) Miscellaneous. His principal poems are The Traveller and

The Deserted Village. The historical works are mainly compilations. Among these are a History of England, History of Rome, History of Greece, History of Animated Nature, etc. His miscellaneous works embrace The Vicar of Wakefield (a novel), She Stoops to Conquer (a comedy), Letters from a Citizen of the World, and others.

The Deserted Village, the Vicar of Wakefield, and She Stoop to Conquer, are among the masterpieces of the English Language.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.

IV.

The Deserted Village.

Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country ever is at home.

V.

The Traveller.

And as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.
The Deserted Village.

GRAY. 1716-1771.

Thomas Gray was one of the most learned men of his day, and most of his life was that of a literary recluse. His most celebrated poem (and, indeed, one of the most celebrated ever written) is his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. The best of his other poems are Ode to Eton College, Ode to Adversity, The Bard, and Progress of Poesy.

EXTRACT.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.-Elegy.

BURNS. 1759-1796.

Robert Burns, the great Scottish song writer, was born in 1759. and died in 1796. Much of his life was passed on a farm; hence he is often called "the Ayrshire Plowman." He loved and lost Mary Campbell,—his "Highland Mary"-and afterwards married Jean Armour. Burns was a man of strong passions and weak will; hence he was unable to resist temptation, and fell into habits of intemperance which kept him in poverty and cut short a brilliant But with all his failings, he was a man of noble instincts and generous disposition, and his memory is cherished by all lovers of song with genuine admiration. No other name can so arouse the enthusiasm of a Scotchman as that of Robert Burns.

career.

Burns has written a few narrative and didactic poems, but he is essentially a lyric poet, and as such has never been surpassed. Unlike Pope and his imitators, he was a true child of Nature— listened to her teachings, sympathized with her moods, and obeyed her promptings.

His "songs gushed from his heart

As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start."

Hence his words find a ready response in the universal heart, and his Highland Mary, Bonny Doon, Auld Lang Syne, and a hundred other songs, have a perennial freshness, and have become household words wherever the English language is spoken.

Among the best of Burns's poems (in addition to his songs, which are "too numerous to mention"), are The Cotter's Saturday Night, Tam O'Shanter, Twa Dogs, To a Mouse, To a Mountain Daisy and Man was Made to Mourn.

By a remarkable coincidence, Cowper's birth and death occurred exactly a century after those of Dryden. He was of noble blood, was liberally educated, and was intended for public life; but being of a morbidly sensitive nature, and subject to attacks of insanity, he passed his life in retirement. Being a great sufferer, he wrote for diversion, and thus became a great poet. Much of his success was due to the tender care and judicious counsel of two excellent women,-Mary Unwin and Lady Austin.

Cowper is distinguished for his poems and his letters. Among the best of the former are—Lines on My Mother's Picture, The Task (a long poem in 6 books), his Hymns, and the humorous Dallad of John Gilpin. His letters are among the finest specimens of epistolary style in the language. They have fitly been called "talking letters."