As eager runs the market-crowd, When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud; So Maggie runs, the witches follow, Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin! In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin ! [frightful [deuce (fiend) [aim * Witches, or any evil spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any farther than the middle of the next running stream. ISTORICAL and political writing flourished in England in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The government was now thoroughly settled on the Hanoverian dynasty, but the contest remained between the Whigs and Tories as to the administration. French prose-writers, some of whom, as Voltaire and Rousseau, had been stimulated by personal observation of the wealth and liberty of England, in turn exerted a powerful influence on English prose, both in regard to subjects and treatment, as French critics and poets had done on English poets in the early part of the century. The immense increase of the industry and commerce of Great Britain roused publicists to inquire into the laws regulating wealth. The political philosophy of Hume was taken up by his friend, Adam Smith, who in 1776 published "The Wealth of Nations," and thus laid the foundations of the science of political economy. There was at the same time a general stir of philanthropy and a new growth of interest in the condition of the poor. This was increased by the rise of Methodism and the diffusion of Rousseau's humanitarian ideas. When the new theories resulted in a violent revolution in France, the practical genius of Burke took alarm. Though he had eloquently pleaded the cause of the American Colonies, even after they had taken up arms, he now denounced the uprising of the French people with philosophical reasoning and poetic passion. His most mature and powerful work was his "Reflections on the French Revolution." His arguments were continued in his "Letters on a Regicide Peace" (1796-7). His greatest works belong to literature rather than oratory. Another writer of Irish birth who was associated with Burke in Parliament, won fame by his success as a dramatist. Richard B. Sheridan was a worthy follower of Congreve, and produced two brilliant comedies, "The Rivals" and "The School for Scandal," which hold the stage to the present day. With him the history of the elder English drama closes. Meantime in the field of poetry there was an abundance of pieces in heroic couplets and in blank verse, and even in odes of various forms. There were imitations of Pope's "Satires" and Thomson's "Seasons" and Waller's lyrics. Frigid allegories and stilted style supplied the place of genuine inspiration. Yet there was preparation for something better in the renewed study of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan poets, and the imitations of Spenser by Shenstone and Thomson. The interest in the romantic past was quickened by the publication of Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry" in 1765. There was renewed search in early records for wild natural stories of human life, and the pleasure in these was attended by a growing love of savage scenery. The poet Gray had already translated several ballads from the Norse. Macpherson's "Ossian," presented as a translation of Gaelic epic poems, tended to increase this effect, but had probably more influence on the Continent than in England. Cowper who, by his tendency to insanity, was withdrawn from much intercourse with the world, was induced to compose poetry as a relief to his own mind. His simple, easy style, devoid of all the fashionable affectations, was welcomed and achieved a marked innovation. His genuine love of nature enabled him to excel even Thomson in natural description. Nature was now painted for its own sake, and not as a background to human action. Cowper also shared in that interest in mankind which had begun to appear in various parts of Europe. He loved England, but he showed sympathy for men of other races, regarding all as one vast brotherhood. Hence he treated freedom, education, and pro VIII-21 gress with reference to the whole world. He was the precursor of Wordsworth. His contemporary, Crabbe, worked in a limited field. He set himself to tell "the short and simple annals of the poor." He rejected the fictions of a Golden Age as depicted by previous pastoral poets and determined to show the pathos and misery of the lives of English peasants, as he had seen and felt them. His work was minute and accurate, and its truth, easily ascertained, gained for it success. The revival of interest in the romantic past yet awaited the appearance of the great enchanter, who was to transform the whole world of fiction, to establish on a firm basis the new form of historical novels, and to make this department of literature supreme. Sir Walter Scott's infant mind had been fed on the ballads of the Scottish Border, and in his early manhood he had gathered a large collection of these. His imagination thus stimulated gave new life and new dress to the characters and events of medieval Scotch history. Beginning with the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," in 1805 he carried on a succession of narrative poems, full of wonderful invention and brilliant description of Highland and Lowland scenery. His love for his native land inspired him to make its names forever famous. When Byron came to contest the palm with the Scotch minstrel, the latter quietly turned to a new domain which was ever to remain his own. With astonishing rapidity his fertile mind, well stored with history and tradition, poured out for many years a grand series of historical romances. With accurate pictures of the past he combined dramatic presentation of characters of all classes of society. His swiftness of work gave to his story-telling an animated movement and intense personality. His richly endowed nature made him equally successful in humorous and pathetic, in gay and tragic scenes. Thus was the nineteenth century in English literature grandly inaugurated. BISHOP THOMAS PERCY. THE historian of literature, or of any department of it, is necessarily a literary workman, subdued, like the dyer's hand, to the element he works in, but occasionally one like Percy can create as well as color and model. In the return to nature, as marked in the poetry of Thomson and his contemporaries, Bishop Percy proved a potent force. He revived the ever-charming ballad romance, which had been buried under the pretentious structure of the severely chiseled poetry of Pope. When Percy had once reopened the old fountain of simple, natural poetry, it refreshed the heart of the people with the old enthusiasm for tales of love and valor, and all poets since then have sought the same inspiration. Thomas Percy was born in 1729, educated at Oxford, and took orders in the Church. In 1753 he was given a living in Northamptonshire. Here his literary work was mostly done, and in recognition of his services and fame he was in 1778 made Dean of Carlisle, and in 1782 Bishop of Dromore, in Ireland. Here he lived until his death in 1811, aged eighty-two. He was privileged to enjoy the friendship of Johnson and Goldsmith, and predicted the great career of Walter Scott. Scholarly tastes and capacity moved him to make an original translation of the "Song of Solomon" and Mallet's "Northern Antiquities;" he edited specimens of Icelandic poetry, and reprinted the "Household Book of the Earl of Northumberland" for 1512, which is the best authority upon the social life of that period. Other valuable antiquarian work he did, until all was eclipsed by his "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," which he published in 1765. To a number of old songs and ballads, somewhat modernized, he added a selection of lyrics by later hands. The historic ballads have had many editings since Percy showed the way, but his versions hold their own among the best. His poetical gift shows well in his own ballads, "The Hermit of Warkworth," "Nanny wilt thou Go with Me?" which, with slight variations, is a favorite song with the Scotch, and the charming piece of patchwork, "The Friar of Orders Gray." Scott gladly owned that his |