THE MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD. 1750 to 1830. Chapter I. THE BEGINNING OF MODERN LITERATURE. Century Eng THE history of England during the greater part of the eighteenth century is the history of the most rapid and sweeping changes in almost every depart- Changes in ment of the nation's life-political, social, Eighteenth and intellectual. Long before the century's land. close, the brilliant, corrupt, heartless, and skeptical England of Pope, Bolingbroke, and Walpole had utterly disappeared, and in its place we find a changed nation, living under totally different social and industrial conditions, and holding diametrically opposite ideas of life. As we should expect, this fresh national life utters itself in new forms of literature, and with the rise of modern England we reach the beginning of a literary period surpassed only by that of the Elizabethans. Before approaching this modern literature, we must speak briefly of some of the historical and social changes with which it is intimately associated. Underlying many of these changes we find one great motive cause. England was becoming tired of cynicism, skepticism, and the reliance on mere reason. At heart the nation was too deeply emotional and religious for such a mood as that which came with the Restoration to endure long; somehow in the desert men felt the gathering rush of new feelings, and there arose within them the longing of the prodigal to arise and return, as their hearts were again stirred with pity, with enthusiasm, and with faith. Robert Wal 1745). A comparison of England under Walpole and under Pitt helps us to realize the growth of this faculty for enthusiasm. The administration of Robert pole (b. 1676, d. Walpole (1721-1742) was an interval of profound peace, during which the energies of England were largely given to trade and to the development of her internal resources. There was little to agitate the nation, but wealth enormously increased.* Walpole, the guiding spirit during this prosperous period, was the embodiment of prosaic commonplace. Country-bred, shrewd, and narrow minded, he had great business ability, but was essentially incapable of approaching life from its ideal or imaginative side. Openly corrupt in his political methods, and openly incredulous as to the possibility of conducting practical politics by other means, he laughed at appeals to the higher nature as "schoolboy flights," and declared that men would come out of these rhapsodies about patriotism and grow wiser. Such traits are characteristic of the early eighteenth century England; we recognize points of kinship between them and the literary spirit of Pope. But before the fall of Walpole better political ideas began to take form in the so-called Patriot party, and by 1757 William Pitt, the animating spirit of the new movement, was virtually at the head of affairs. Pitt, the Great Commoner, brings purer political methods and a broader outlook for England. With his burning eloquence, his intense patriotism, his reliance on the English people, he represents the new enthusiasm and the new democracy. After the fall of Walpole, England's period of peace was * Green's "Hist. Eng. People," vol. iv. pp. 126-160, may be read in class. suddenly broken, and during the years of Pitt's supremacy she towered above the other nations, thrilling her people's hearts with a new patriotism as they saw her laying in India and in America the foundations of a world empire. The new sympathies that stirred the heart of England are seen in the great wave of religious feeling that came with the rise of Methodism. In the midst The Rise of Methodism. of the cold, intellectual speculation of Bolinbroke and the skepticism of Hume, we are startled by the passionate appeal of Whitfield and Wesley to the conscience and to the heart. By 1738 the work of these men was fairly begun, and their marvelous eloquence. and intense conviction struck deep into the souls of thousands. Butler in his Analogy between Natural and Revealed Religion (1736), relied, for his support of Christi anity, on close and definite reasoning, but the preaching of Whitfield made the tears trickle down the grimy faces of the Bristol colliers. And this influence went far outside of the ranks of the Methodists themselves; it helped to arouse the Church of England, which had grown indifferent and lethargic, to a full and earnest life. Man. The effects of this revival of a more spiritual life in the midst of an unbelieving, immoral, and often brutal society are seen in the growth of a practical charity, The Deeper and in an increasing sense of human brother- Sympathy with hood and of the inherent dignity of man. The novel sense of pity becomes wide and heartfelt enough to take in not men only, but all wantonly hurt and suffering creatures. An awakened humanity suppresses the cruel sport of bull-baiting; it softens the barbarous rigor of the criminal laws. John Howard endures the noisome horrors of the English prisons, that he may lighten the unspeakable sufferings of the captive; William Wilberforce labors for the abolition of slavery. |