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CHAPTER IX

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE (1700-1800)

I. AUGUSTAN OR CLASSIC AGE

HISTORY OF THE PERIOD.  The Revolution of 1688, which banished the last of the Stuart kings and called William of Orange to the throne, marks the end of the long struggle for political freedom in England.  Thereafter the Englishman spent his tremendous energy, which his forbears had largely spent in fighting for freedom, in endless political discussions and in efforts to improve his government.  In order to bring about reforms, votes were now necessary; and to get votes the people of England must be approached with ideas, facts, arguments, information.  So the newspaper was born,[182] and literature in its widest sense, including the book, the newspaper, and the magazine, became the chief instrument of a nation’s progress.

The first half of the eighteenth century is remarkable for the rapid social development in England.  Hitherto men had been more or less governed by the narrow, isolated standards of the Middle Ages, and when they differed they fell speedily to blows.  Now for the first time they set themselves to the task of learning the art of living together, while still holding different opinions.  In a single generation nearly two thousand public coffeehouses, each a center of sociability, sprang up in London alone, and the number of private clubs is quite as astonishing.[183] This new social life had a marked effect in polishing men’s words and manners.  The typical Londoner of Queen Anne’s day was still rude, and a little vulgar in his tastes; the city was still very filthy, the streets unlighted and infested at night by bands of rowdies and “Mohawks”; but outwardly men sought to refine their manners according to prevailing standards; and to be elegant, to have “good form,” was a man’s first duty, whether he entered society or wrote literature.  One can hardly read a book or poem of the age without feeling this superficial elegance.  Government still had its opposing Tory and Whig parties, and the Church was divided into Catholics, Anglicans, and Dissenters; but the growing social life offset many antagonisms, producing at least the outward impression of peace and unity.  Nearly every writer of the age busied himself with religion as well as with party politics, the scientist Newton as sincerely as the churchman Barrow, the philosophical Locke no less earnestly than the evangelical Wesley; but nearly all tempered their zeal with moderation, and argued from reason and Scripture, or used delicate satire upon their opponents, instead of denouncing them as followers of Satan.  There were exceptions, of course_;_ but the general tendency of the age was toward toleration.  Man had found himself in the long struggle for personal liberty; now he turned to the task of discovering