writers. In richness of fancy and melody of language le is no unwor thy rival of Jeremy Taylor, with whose noble description of the fina destruction of the earth Burnet's sublime painting will bear a comparison.

§ 13. This writer must not be confounded with GILBERT BURNET (1643-1715), born in Edinburgh, in 1643, and who was one of the most active politicians and divines during the period embracing the reigns of Charles II., James II., and the accession of William of Orange. By birth and personal predilections he occupies a middle space between the extreme Episcopalian and Presbyterian parties, and though a man of ardent and busy character, he was possessed of rare tolerance and candor. He was much celebrated for his talents as an extempore preacher, and was the author of a very large number of theclogical and political writings. Among these his History of the Reformation. is still considered as one of the most valuable accounts of that important revolution. The first volume of this was published in 1679, and the work was afterwards completed by the author. He also gave to the world an account of the Life and Death of the witty and infamous Rochester, whose last moments he attended as a religious adviser, and whom his pious arguments recalled to a sense of repentance. He at one time enjoyed the favor of Charles II., but soon forfeited it by the boldness of his remonstrances against the profligacy of the king and by his defence of Lord William Russell, whose execution was one of the great political crimes of that reign. Burnet also published an Exposition of the XXXIX Articles. On falling into disgrace at court he travelled on the Continent, and afterwards attached himself closely to the service of William of Orange at the Hague, where he became the religious adviser of the Princess Mary, afterwards Queen. At the Revolution Burnet accompanied the deliverer on his expedition to England, took a very active part in controversy and political negotiation, and was raised to the Bishopric of Salisbury, in which function he gave a noble example of the zeal, tolerance, and humanity which ought to be the chief virtues of a Christian pastor. He died in 1715, leaving the MS. of his most important work, the History of My Own Times, which he directed to be published after the lapse of six years. This work, consisting of Memoirs of the important transactions of which Burnet had been contemporary, is of a similar nature and not inferior value to Clarendon's, which represents the events of English history from a nearly opposite point of view. Burnet is minute, familiar, and gossiping, but lively and trustworthy in the main as to facts; and no one who desires to make acquaintance with a very critical and agitated period of our annals can dispense with the materials he has accumu lated. It is from him that we learn the true greatness and energy of William's character, and the milder virtues of his queen; and the very ardor of Burnet's predilections gives a vivacity and a value to his pic tures of men and things.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

thought by our metaphysicians to want precision. and logical reasoning; and upon the whole we must rank him, in philosophical acumen, far below Hobbes, Malebranche, and Locke, but also fa above any mere Aristotelians or retailers of Scotur and Aquinas." He was, however, most unfairly accused of favoring the atheists, because he fairly stated their arguments. He left an only daughter, who married Sir Francis Masham, and who is

(A.) — OTHER THEOLOGICAL WRITERS HENRY MORE (1614-1687), known by the name tf the Platonist, spent his whole life at Cambridge engaged in metaphysical and philosophical studies. He is a writer of genius and power, but he adopted the mystical views not only of the later Platonists, but even of the cabalistic writers. His most important works are The Mystery of Godliness, The Mystery of Iniquity, and A Discourse on the Immor-known as the friend of Locke (see p. 251). tality of the Soul. He also wrote a volume of Philosophical Poems.

RALPH CUDWORTH (1617-1688), a contemporary of More at Cambridge, and Regius Professor of Divinity at that University, is a writer of still greater power than More. In 1678 Cudworth published the first part of his great work, entitled The True Intellectual System of the Universe. "Cudworth," observes Mr. Hallam, "was one of those whom Hobbes had roused by the atheistic and immoral theories of the Leviathan; nor did any antagonist perhaps of that philosopher bring a more vigorous understanding to the combat. This understanding was not so much obstructed in its own exercise by a vast erudition, as it is sometimes concealed by it from the reader. Cudworth has passed more for a recorder of ancient philosophy, than for one who might stand in a respectable class among philosophers; and his work, though long, being unfinished, as well as full of digression, its object has not been fully apprehended. This object was to establish the liberty of human actions against the fatalists. Of these he lays it down that there are three kinds: the first atheistic; the second admitting a Deity, but one acting necessarily and without moral perfections; the third granting the moral attributes of God, but asserting all human actions to be governed by necessary laws which he has ordained. The first book of the Intellectual System, which alone is extant, relates wholly to the proof of the existence of a Deity against the atheistic fatalists, his moral nature being rarely or never touched; so that the greater and more interesting part of the work, for the sake of which the author projected it, is wholly wanting, unless we take for fragments of it some writings of the author preserved in the British Museum. Cudworth is too credulous and uncritical about ancient writings, defending all as genuine, even where his own age had been sceptical. His terminology is stiff and pedantic, as is the case with all our older metaphysicians, abounding in words which the English language has not recognzed. He is full of the ancients, but rarely quotes the schoolmen. IIobbes is the adversary with whom he most grapples; the materialism, the resolving all ideas into sensation, the low morality of that writer, were obnoxious to the animadversion of so strenuous an advocate of a more elevated philosophy. In some respects Cudworth has, as I conceive, much the advantage; in others, he will generally be

RICHARD CUMBERLAND (1632-1718), made Bishop of Peterborough by William III., is best known by his Latin work, De Legibus Naturæ Disquisitio Philosophica, published in 1672, in opposition to the philosophical principles of Hobbes. Cumberland was also the author of an Essay on Jewish Weights and Measures.

ROBERT LEIGHTON (1613-1684), Archbishop of Glasgow, whose commentary on the First Epistle of St. Peter may be regarded as a classic, both for profoundness of thought and felicity of expression. Attention has been drawn to it in modern times by Coleridge in his "Aids to Reflection."

THEOPHILUS GALE (1628-1678), Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, but ejected at the Restoration, is known by a learned work, called The Court of the Gentiles, published between 1669 and 1677, in which he attempts to prove that all heathen philosophy was borrowed from the Scriptures, or at least from the Jews.

GEORGE BULL (1634-1710), Bishop of St. David's, a great opponent of the Augustinian theology, and still regarded as one of the pillars of the Anglican Church. In his Harmonia Apostolica, published in 1669, he maintains that we are to interpret St. Paul by St. James, and not St. James by St. Paul, because St. James was the latest authority. Another of Bull'■ celebrated works was the Defensio Fidei Nicena published in 1685, for which he received the thanks of an assembly of the French clergy, through the influence of Bossuet.

JOHN OWEN (1616-1683), Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford under Cromwell, and one of the most eminent of the Independent divines, published a large number of theological works, of which An Exposition on the Epistle to the Hebrews is the best known. Owen's style is dull, heavy, and confused.

JOHN HOWE (1630-1705), chaplain to Cromwell, and also an eminent Independent divine, wrote various theological works, the style of which is for superior to Owen's.

JOIN FLAVEL (1627-1691), a Nonconformist divine at Dartmouth, whose theological writing are chiefly devotional, characterized by much fervor, and of the Calvinistic theology. They are still popular with persons of that school.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714). son of Philig Henry, and like his father an eminent Nonconform ist divine. He is best know by his Commentary

on the Bible, written in a perspicuous and pointed | Sweden, and held other high offices under the Prostyle.

In this age occurred "the great Marrow controversy," occasioned by a book of Edward Fisher, many works, but published only one, in 1696, entia Calvinistic minister in Wales, entitled The Mlar-tled Miscellanies, containing an account of popular row of Modern Divinity, 1645. This work was warmly received by a section of the church, while another portion rejected it. It gave rise to much disturbance and contest.

SIR MATTHEW HALE (1609-1676), the celebrated Chief-Justice of the King's Bench in the reign of The three writers mentioned above, who took an Charles II., wrote several works, many of them of a active part in this controversy, were severe and moral and religious character, of which his Consombre in their divinity; but there was a massive-templations, Moral and Divine, are the best known. ness of thought and a richness of expression which still make this age one of the most remarkable and valuable in the history of Christian theology.

CHAPTER XV.

POPE, SWIFT, AND THE AUGUSTAN POETS.

1. ALEXANDER POPE: his early life. Publication of his Pastorals, Essay on Criticism, Rape of the Lock, Windsor Forest. Versions from Chaucer. § 2. Translation of the Iliad and Odyssey. § 3. Publication of the Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady, the Epistle from Sappho to Phaon, the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard. His life at Twickenham. His edition of Shakspeare. Collection of Miscellanies. § 4. Publication of the Dunciad, of his Epistles, Essay on Man, and Imitations of Horace. § 5. His death, character, and other works. 56. Criticism of the Rape of the Lock. §7. JONATHAN SWIFT: his early life. His connection with Sir William Temple. § 8. Settles in Ireland. His Tale of a Tub. §9. Returns to England and joins the Tories. Made Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin. § 10. Takes up his residence in Ireland. Drapier's Letters. Travels of Gulliver. His Death. § 11. His relation to Stella and Vanessa. § 12. Criticism of the Travels of Gulliver. § 13. Of the Tale of a Tub, and other works. Comparison between Swift, Rabelais, and Voltaire. § 14. DR. JOHN ARBUTHNOT. His History of John Bull. § 15. MATTHEW PRIOR. § 16. JOHN GAY. The Beggar's Opera. § 17. GARTH, Parnell, and TICKELL. 18 EDWARD YOUNG. The Night Thoughts. § 19. ALLAN RAMSAY.

§ 1. SENSE, vigor, harmony, and a kind of careless yet majestic regularity were the characteristics of that powerful school of poetry which was introduced into England at the Restoration, and of which Dryden is the most eminent type. These qualities were, in the so-called Augustan reign of Queen Anne, succeeded by a still higher polish, and an elegance sometimes degenerating into effeminacy. The slender and somewhat enervate grace of the Corinthian order succeeds the more masculine beauties of the Ionic. Far above all the poets of this epoch shines the brilliant name of ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744). He was born in London of a respectable Catholic family of good descent, in 1688. His father had been engaged in trade as a linen-draper, and retired to a pleasant country house at Benfield, near Windsor, so that the childish imagination of the future poet imbibed impressions of rural beauty from the lovely scenery of the Forest. The boy was of almost dwarfish stature, and so deformed that his after life was one long disease," which not only precluded the possibility of his embracing any active profession, but could be preserved only by constant care and nursing. Like many other deformed and diminutive persons, he possessed a singularly intellectual and expressive countenance, and his eyes were remarkable for their tenderness and fire. He & chibited an extraordinary precocity of intellect, and the literary ambition by which he was devoured even from his early boyhood at once pointed out the poetical career to which he was destined. He has said of himself, "I lisped in numbers,

for the numbers came,” and the earliest attempts at poetry were made by him when he had hardly emerged from the nursery. His father had acquired a competent fortune, which enabled the boy poet to indulge that taste for study and poetical reading which continued to be the passion of his life. At the age of twelve he was so struck with reverence for the glory of Dryden, that he is said to have persuaded a friend to accompany him to Will's Coffee-house, which the glorious veteran was in the habit of frequenting, and to obtain a glance of the illustrious patriarch, whose death took place in that year. At sixteen he commenced his literary career by composing a collection of Pastorais and by translating portions of Statius, which were published in 1709. From this period his activity was unremitting, and an uninterrupted succession of works, equally varied in their subjects and exquisite in their ́finish, placed him at the head of the poets of his age. His Essay on Criticism, published in 1711, and highly praised by Addison, was perhaps the first poem that fixed his reputation, and gave him a foretaste of that immense popularity which he enjoyed during his whole life. The precepts of this work are the same as those inculcated by Horace, and repeated by Boileau, and all the poets and critics of the classical school, but they are expressed by Pope with such a union of force and delicacy, such ripeness of judgment and such grace of expression and melody of verse, that the poem appears less like the effort of a young writer than the result of consummate experience and practice in composition. It is to this period of Pope's career that we must ascribe the conception and first sketch of the most original and charming production not only of Pope, but of the century in which he lived; a perfect gem, or masterpiece, equally felicitious in its plan and execution; one of those happy thoughts that are to be attributed half to genius and half to rare and favorable accident. This was the mockheroic poem The Rape of the Lock, justly described by Addison as merum sal, a delicious little thing," to which I shall presently recur and analyze in detail. This poem is the victorious rival of the Lutrin and of Vert-vert, and is indeed incomparably superior to every heroic comic composition that the world has hitherto seen. In 1713 appeared his pastoral eclogues entitled Windsor Forest, in which beauty of versification and neatness of diction do all they can to compensate for the absence of that deep feeling for nature which the poetry of the eighteenth century did not possess. The plan of this work is principally borrowed from Denham's Cooper's Hill, but Pope has hardly any pasvage to be compared with those few but unequalled lines which have preserved the vitality of the latter work. The freque it descriptions introduced by Pope, though beautiful in their way, have the same arti. ficial air which forms so fatal a defect in almost all pastoral poetry, from Virgil to Sannazzaro. In 1715 Pope published several modernized versions from Chaucer, as if he were desirous in all things to parallel his great master Dryden. He produced the Temple of Fame, and the not over moral story of January and May, which is in substance the Merchant's Tale of the great patriarch of our literature.

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