Samuel Johnson.
We could scarcely understand how Dr. Johnson gained his immense influence and acknowledged chiefship in literature if we had only his works of various kinds before us. But he had a friend and biographer, James Boswell, Esq. (younger of Auchinleck in Ayrshire), and "Bozzy," by showing Johnson as he was and talked, explains his supremacy1. In an age when classical learning counted for something, Johnson was, especially in Roman literature, vastly learned. In a time when people who could tear themselves from cards, took little exercise, but sat and talked, over wine or over tea, or as they slowly sauntered, Johnson was probably the best and certainly the best reported of the talkers. While politicians like Burke, and painters like Sir Joshua Reynolds, and musicians like Burney (Fanny Burney's father), were men of letters, critics, talkers, a scholar and author who could talk like Johnson was certain of his reward, was sure to be at the front. Though he confessed himself not specially2 partial to clean linen3; though he did not eat in a neat and cleanly fashion; though he had the strange tricks which we know so well; though if his pistol missed fire in argument he knocked you down with the butt4; though he had curious prejudices, was at heart a Jacobite, and could be extremely rude, yet the excellence5 of his heart, his large sagacity, his immense knowledge and readiness, his humour, all of him that is immortally6 delightful7 to read about in Boswell's Life, won his forgiveness and his welcome from the most refined of men and women.[Pg 472] He thought himself a lady's man, he said, and a man of the world, and he was thoroughly8 a man's man, with heart, and tongue, and hands, if that were necessary.
As a playwriter, he had not great success, and his friend Goldsmith's comedies keep the stage, unlike Johnson's tragedy. Johnson's tale "Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia," has wisdom and humour enough, "wit enough to keep it sweet," but it never did nor ever can share the popularity of Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield".
Johnson's essays, in "The Rambler" and "The Idler," may still be but are seldom read: they are far less alive than the essays of Addison and Steele, and are weighed down by the ponderous9 harmonies of the Latinised style.
Of his books, "The Lives of the Poets," written in his old age, are, to some, we may hope to many, readers, entrancing. Here we find the Johnson of conversation. He is not, indeed, a scientific biographer, a searcher among old letters and old records. But his memory was rich in anecdotes10 of the half century before his own; his style contains many a humorous comment, and his criticism is often acute, and always honest, and unaffectedly tinged13, especially when he writes of the republican and puritan Milton, or of the dainty, yet, in poetry, revolutionary Gray, with all the literary and political prejudices that gave salt to his conversation. There may have been more enlightened critics, but none was ever more entertaining.
If his literary biographies are not of the most exact, they are occasionally minute enough. "Pope's weakness was so great, that he constantly wore stays, as I have been assured by a waterman (of Twickenham) who, in lifting him into his boat, had often felt them." Again, "Pope once slumbered15 at his own table while the Prince of Wales was talking of poetry". In his "Life of Swift" Johnson is by no means friendly, and publishes an anecdote11 which was indignantly denied. His life of his friend, Richard Savage16, a most detestable person, is an example of Johnson's loyalty17 and tolerance18. Supposing that Savage was the son of the Countess of Macclesfield, and was persecuted19 by her with incredible cruelty, yet his conduct in most ways was detestable, though Johnson, who candidly20 narrates21 the facts, good-humouredly condones[Pg 473] them. The conversation of Savage must, apparently22, have won the heart of "the great Lexicographer23". Even the Dictionary of the Doctor contains several of his good sayings, and perhaps the learning and persevering24 industry which Johnson displayed as a "drudge25" increased his reputation, and won for him friends and admirers, as much as his more literary works.
The outlines of his life are too well known to need more than a brief summary. His family was matter of interest to the Highlanders when he visited them, was he a MacIan of Glencoe or a Johnston of the Border? He was born at Lichfield (18 September, 1709), his father was a bookseller. His Oxford28 career, at Pembroke College, was embittered29 by poverty, but he retained a great affection for his college and University, which delighted to honour him. He kept a school without much profit, and, coming to London with Garrick in 1737, lived the life of Grub Street, doing translations, writing for Cave's "Gentleman's Magazine," compiling parliamentary debates in which he "took care not to let the Whig dogs have the best of it". Of his doings in 1745 Boswell could learn nothing, and there was a fancy that he was inclined to take part in what he called "a gallant30 enterprise," that of Prince Charles.
His "London," an imitation of Juvenal, was well thought of by Pope, and Scott took more pleasure in no modern poem than in Johnson's manly31, resolute32, and mournful "Vanity of Human Wishes," also based on Juvenal's satire33 (1749). The "Rambler" and "Idler," were his next works (with the Dictionary), and in 1759 he rapidly wrote "Rasselas," to pay the expenses of his mother's funeral. In 1762 he accepted, from a King who "gloried in the name of Briton," a pension of ￡300 yearly. He lived much, after this date, at the house of Mrs. Thrale and her husband, "my Master" as she called him, the rich brewer34. Here he was happy in the society of many wits, of the beautiful Sophy Streatfield, "with nose and notions à la Grecque," and of Fanny Burney, blessed in the success of "Evelina". Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney have left many reminiscences of him which complete the account by his young Scottish adorer and butt, Boswell.
Johnson founded the Club, and such was his influence that[Pg 474] the Club did not blackball Bozzy. With him Johnson made his difficult journey to the Western Islands of Scotland; so happily described both by Boswell and himself; stayed at Dunvegan Castle, was entertained by Flora35 Macdonald, met a learned minister in Skye who was a sceptic about Homer, inquired into the Second Sight; stayed at Inveraray Castle with the Duke of Argyll; and at St. Andrews was told that at Oxford they had nothing like the St. Andrews University Library. On hearing this Dr. Johnson, for once, made no reply.
His "Lives of the Poets" was written in 1779-1781, when he was 70 years of age and more. His cruel last illness was nobly borne; he died on 13 December, 1784, one of the best, greatest, wisest, and most humorous of Englishmen.
His "Lives," and the Life of him are among the works which time cannot stale; read ten times over they please the more, and more excellencies are discovered. No man of times past is known so well, and none was so well worth knowing. His critical tastes and rules are not ours, and perhaps even in his own day were falling out of fashion; but they are none the less historically valuable.
Oliver Goldsmith.
Dr. Johnson carried all his set with him into renown36, and though Oliver Goldsmith was a writer of versatile37 and charming genius, but for his friendship with Johnson he would have been much less successful in life, and less well loved and remembered after his death.
Like several great writers born in Ireland, Goldsmith was of an English family, but they had been so long settled in Ireland that they had become "more Irish than the Irish". Goldsmith's father had the care of Protestant souls at Pallasmore, County Longford, where (10 November, 1728) the poet was born. The father obtained a cure worth more than the "forty pounds a year" at Lissoy in West Meath, and Lissoy contributes some features to the Auburn of the "Deserted38 Village," an ideal village, in an ideal state of desertion. His father, according to Goldsmith's poetry and prose, was a most excellent man; more capable of teaching[Pg 475] his family how to spend large fortunes in benevolence40 than how to earn a maintenance,
More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.
He was the generous host of "all the vagrant41 train," of "the long-remembered beggar," an Irish Edie Ochiltree, of "the ruined spendthrift," who "claimed kindred," and came to "scorn," and of "the broken soldier".
Careless their merits or their faults to scan
His pity gave ere charity began.
This pity was Goldsmith's own characteristic. When an exceedingly poor scholar at Trinity College, Dublin, his feats42 of charity matched those of St. Francis or St. Martin of Tours. He is said to have given away his blanket, and slept in the ticking of his bed.
A love of fine clothes was no less part of his nature than love of his neighbours, while he liked "the cards," and the bowl and tavern43 talk. He took his bachelor's degree in February, 1749: idled away a year or two at home, learned to play the flute44, failed to take holy orders, and, as a medical student, went to Edinburgh University (1752-1754) lived on the benevolence of an uncle, Contarine, and, on his way to Leyden, was taken in the company of five or six Scottish gentlemen in French service, who had been recruiting for King Louis in the Highlands. Alan Breck may have been in this adventure. Throughout 1755-1756, Goldsmith roamed about the Continent, supporting himself by his flute, and entertained by the hospitality of the Universities.
"Sir," said Johnson, "he disputed his way through Europe," as the Admirable Crichton had done, a hundred and seventy years earlier. At Padua, it is thought, if anywhere, he obtained his Doctor's degree: his adventures later gave him materials for essays, for the wandering scholar in "The Vicar of Wakefield," and for his poem, "The Traveller". "He was making himself all the time."
Returning to England in 1756, he lived as an usher45 in a small school; as a corrector for the press; as a kind of indentured46 reviewer and general hack47 to Griffiths the publisher; failed to pass as a naval48 surgeon; wrote with Smollett's literary gang, conducted[Pg 476] a weekly booklet or magazine, "The Bee," for a few numbers (1759); and published "An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe". He was much more successful (1760) with letters in "The Public Ledger," in the assumed character of a Chinese visitor to London.
In the former work Goldsmith complains that young genius effervesces49 at college and is unrewarded, while dull plodders fatten50. "The link" between "the great" and the literary "now seems entirely51 broken". "An author" is a thing only to be laughed at. "His person, not his jest, becomes the mirth of the company." Indeed Goldsmith's person was quaint52, his attire53, when in funds, was that of the bird of paradise; while his wit flowed from his pen, not from his tongue; his repartee54 was not ready; eager he was but apparently absent-minded in company. As for the publisher, "it is his interest to allow as little as possible for writing, and of the author to write as much as possible". Writers for the stage suffer from the competition of the dead. Like two or three men of genius of our day, Goldsmith asks "who will deliver us from Shakespeare?" from "these pieces of forced humour, far-fetched conceit55, and unnatural56 hyperbole which have been ascribed to Shakespeare." Here is scepticism! Managers make new authors wait some years before giving their plays a chance: a malady57 most incident to managers; and Garrick believed that he was attacked.
The not unnatural acrimony of a neglected man appears in some of the Chinese Letters (published in book form as "The Citizen of the World"), notably58 in the visit to Westminster Abbey. Goldsmith had a spite against the patronage59, given to the art of painting, and made his Chinaman share it. The same critic looks on Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" as a lewd60 compound of pertness, vanity, and obscene buffoonery.
The Chinaman also attacked the brutality61 of the criminal law (that of his own country being so mild), and generally inveighed62 against the state of society. The Letters are an unflattering picture of the times. By 1761 Johnson had made the acquaintance of Goldsmith, and henceforth Goldsmith had not to complain of neglect from wits and authors. In 1764 he published his moral[Pg 477] and contemplative poem "The Traveller"; with his "Deserted Village" it is perhaps the last good thing of the old school of poems in rhymed heroic couplets. The dedicatory preface to the author's brother, the Rev14. Henry Goldsmith, tells us that, as society becomes refined, painting and music "offer the feeble mind a less laborious63 entertainment" than poetry, which they supplant64, while "what criticisms have we not heard of late in favour of blank verse, and Pindaric Odes, anapests (sic) and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence65! Every absurdity66 has now a champion to defend it!"
Goldsmith, in social matters rather a Socialist67, is, in poetry, opposing the slowly dawning freedom, and upholding the school of Pope. But there is, in both of his longer poems, a kind of softness in the versification, and of sincerity68 in the sentiments and descriptions of Nature, which we miss in Pope, while each piece, as the man said of "Hamlet," "is made up of quotations," of lines which live in many memories like household words. The pictures of the parish clergyman, of the schoolmaster, of the harmless old rustic69 ale-house, in the "Deserted Village," may be called imperishable; and Goldsmith cries "back to the land" and denounces "landlordism," and forced migration70 to North America,
Where crouching71 tigers wait their hapless prey72.
Goldsmith, in fact, never revisited "the decent church," "the hawthorn73 bush," the harmless pot-house, and other scenes of his infancy74: in his poem he blends an ideal Irish with an ideal English village, and ascribes the result to a tyrannical, landlord with admirable pathetic success.
Of his other poems "The Haunch of Venison," imitated from Horace, and the witty75 and kind raillery of "Retaliation," in which his pen supplies the wit that often failed his tongue in the wit-combats of "the Club," are both in "anapests" and are the most important. The "Lament76 for Madame Blaise" is a lively adaptation from the French, and the "Elegy77 on the Death of a Mad Dog" is a most vivacious78 piece. As a ballad79 "Edwin and Angelina," though popular, is too unballad-like.
The works on which Goldsmith's fame depends are not his[Pg 478] essays, histories, or view of "Animated80 Nature," genially81 unscientific, but his "Vicar of Wakefield" (written earlier, but sold by Johnson for while Goldsmith was in a sponging house in 1764), and his two plays "The Good Natured Man," and "She Stoops to Conquer" (1768, 1773).
"The Vicar of Wakefield" drew the highest possible praise from Goethe, and the most furious of attacks from the critical pen of Mark Twain. Nobody says that it shines in construction, but its humour and sweetness, the goodness, the simplicity82, the true wisdom, and the learned foibles of the Vicar, with the humours of his wife, daughters, and wandering scholar son, an usher, a dweller83 in Grub Street, make "The Vicar of Wakefield" a book to be read once a year. "Finding that the best things had not been said on the wrong side, I resolved to write a book that should be wholly new... the learned world said nothing to my paradoxes84, nothing at all, sir." In the son's narrative85 Goldsmith has his usual flout86 at art and amateurs of art, and Pietro Perugino.
The plays are too well known for comment, with Croaker and Lofty, the Bailiffs, Tony Lumpkin, Mrs. Hardcastle, the revellers at the Three Pigeons, and young Marlow, they are at least as familiar on the amateur as on the professional boards. They brought to Goldsmith fame, some money and more credit, but he was still a drudge, still working for booksellers, and deep in debt, when his death on 4 April, 1774, made Reynolds for once lay down his brush, saddened the Club, and filled the stairs of his chambers87 in Brick Court with poor weeping women to whom he had been kind,—their only friend. "Nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit, nullum quod tetigit non ornavit," wrote Johnson in his epitaph, adding a new phrase to Latin proverbial philosophy.[1]
Edmund Burke.
"It seems probable," says Burke's biographer, Lord Morley, "that Burke will be more frequently and more seriously referred to within the next twenty years" (from 1899) "than he has been within the whole of the last eighty." Yet we do not find many[Pg 479] references to Burke, who, living, speaking, and writing through some thirty years of discontents and revolutions (the American and the French) and bringing to problems like our own a masculine judgment88, and a lucid89 and energetic style, might seem worthy90 of general study.
In a sketch91 of the history of literature space for the works of Burke, saturated92 with politics as they are, and only to be understood in the light of ample historical knowledge, cannot be provided. The speeches of most successful orators94 are brilliant, and persuasive95 for the hour, with crowds who wish to be persuaded. The speeches of Burke are sometimes, when his pity and indignation are stirred (as by the fate of Marie Antoinette, or the alleged96 infamies97 of Warren Hastings), rich in floral components98, in impassioned rhetoric99. But, as a rule, his best orations100 required to be read if they were to be appreciated; they are too full of thought and knowledge and too logically built to be generally effective at the moment.
Whatever our political opinions may be, we cannot but find Burke's "Speech on Moving His Resolutions for Conciliation101 with the Colonies" (22 March, 1775) a very great and noble literary work. For its purpose it was futile102; fierce peoples are not to be guided by all the eloquence103 and all the wisdom of the wise. "We are called upon, as it were by a superior warning Voice, again to attend to America; to attend to the whole of it together; and to review the subject with an unusual degree of care and calmness. Surely it is an awful subject; or there is none so on this side of the grave."
It was an awful subject; but it was also a party question. Knowledge, care, and calmness were, therefore, put out of action. On an infamous104 proposal to "reduce the high aristocratic spirit of Virginia and the southern colonies" by proclaiming the freedom of the black slaves and raising a servile war, Burke said: "Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them to their present masters? from that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman105 traffic?"—the[Pg 480] Slave Trade. The idea of sending, in the same ship, samples of fresh "black ivory" and a proclamation of freedom for all blacks, not unreasonably106 seemed absurd, to Burke.
This speech, so moving to the reader, is said to have driven members out of the House; the gestures of the orator93 being clumsy, his tones harsh, and his delivery hasty. Johnson said that his wit was "blunt"; Goldsmith, on the other hand, that he "cut blocks with a razor". He "to party gave up what was meant for mankind," but, save through party, mankind is not to be helped by the politicians.
To glance at the main facts of Burke's life, he appears to have been, as far as his name shows, of Norman but long Hibernicised stock on his father's side; of native Irish blood on that of his mother, a Miss Nagle, a Catholic. He was born in Dublin, apparently on 12 January, 1729. His father was a solicitor107. After two years at a small school kept by a learned Quaker, Burke went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he showed eager intellectual appetites, without paying much heed108 to the academic round of studies. In 1750 he went to London, to the Middle Temple, and studied law, but did not practise. In 1755 his father cut off his allowance, in 1756 he married. He cannot have made money by his "Vindication109 of Natural Society" (1756), written in the rhetorical manner of Bolingbroke. The book is an ironical110 reply to Bolingbroke's argument for "natural" against "revealed" religion. Transfer the view to society: our religion may have its anomalies, yet our society has far more and worse. Do you propose, therefore, to return to "natural society"? "Natural" society was then supposed by the wise and learned to be a happy go-as-you-please innocent communism. In fact, if savage society be "natural" society it is emmeshed in the strangest and most artificial, cruel, and filthy111 set of laws and customs: the marriage laws, when carried (as they sometimes are) to their logical conclusion, make marriage impossible! All this was not understood, but Burke, while arguing against a sudden and violent break-up of society, did perceive and state brilliantly, the glaring injustices112 of our society, as Goldsmith did in "The Deserted Village".
Burke's "Philosophical114 Inquiry115 into the Origin of Our Ideas[Pg 481] of the Sublime116 and Beautiful" (1756) is a study in the science of "?sthetics," a science which, if it has reached no very conspicuous117 results, is now pursued with instruments and by a method not extant in Burke's day. He only sought for "the Origin of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful". He went into the psychology118 of pain and pleasure, and found Beauty to be "some quality in bodies acting119 mechanically upon the human mind by the intervention120 of the senses". But what is the quality and why does it automatically produce the effect? The qualities which automatically excite in the mind the apperception of the beautiful are comparatively small, smooth, varied121 without angularity, delicate, and in colour clear and bright, but not strong or glaring. But a mountain, or fire, is beautiful yet—does not present the six qualities. Consequently we must not call a huge rough mountain beautiful but sublime.
Burke does not pretend to know "the ultimate cause" of the emotions produced in the mind, and he censures122 the daring of Sir Isaac Newton in accounting123 for things by Ether. But Ether seems to prosper124 in modern scientific thought.
We cannot follow Burke into metaphysics, but the ordinary reader may test, by experience, his description of a lover in the presence of the beloved. "As far as I could observe," says Burke, "the head reclines something on one side; the eyelids125 are more closed than usual, and the eyes roll gently with an inclination126 to the Object; the mouth is a little opened, and the breath drawn127 slowly, with now and then a low sigh; the whole body is composed, and the hands fall idly by the side." Thus it seems probable "that beauty acts by relaxing the solids of the whole system". On the other hand, the Sublime ought to string up the solids, and we do hear of sublime objects which "petrify128" the percipient. Burke sought, at all events, for the answer to his problem in the nature of man, in psychology.
The nature of Burke's financial resources, beyond what he made by writing in the new "Annual Register" (1759,—a hundred a year from Dodsley the publisher) is as mysterious as the address of his fellow-countryman, The Mulligan, in Thackeray's book. In 1759 the so-called "Single Speech Hamilton" employed him; in[Pg 482] 1761 he went to Ireland with Hamilton, who was secretary to Lord Halifax. Hamilton treated him badly, and in 1765 he became secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham, entered Parliament as member for Wendover, a pocket borough129, made his mark at once; wrote "Observations on the Present State of the Nation" (1769), and the admirable "Thoughts on the Present Discontents," a book always in season. How Burke, in 1768, contrived130 to buy Beaconsfield in Bucks131 (￡22,000) and to live at a rate of ￡2500 a year, the rental132 being ￡500, is a mystery deeper than that of "The Man in the Iron Mask". Apparently there was a suffering Marquis in the background: at least Burke owed large sums to Lord Rockingham, who forgave the debt. No discreditable source of Burke's fairy gold can be conjectured133 or conceived, as Goldsmith said he was
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit,
"too nice" meaning "too scrupulous134".
Burke did not hold office, save for one year (1782-1783). Though a Whig and a "Pro-American," Burke never liked, never approved of the French Revolution. Early in 1790, he spoke135 in Parliament, breaking away from those enthusiasts136 for Liberty in her wildest mood, Fox and Sheridan.
His "Reflections on the French Revolution" (1790) had a large sale and wide influence. People will judge Burke's influence, conduct and eloquence, at this time, in accordance with their politics and prejudices; his "Letters on a Regicide Peace," and other work of his last years cannot be discussed without partisanship137. He died on 9 July, 1797. "The age of chivalry138 is gone," is one of Burke's best-remembered phrases. When was there an age of chivalry? If no swords leaped from their sheaths for Marie Antoinette, in 1793, not one was drawn for Jeanne d'Arc in 1431, not one for Mary Stuart in 1587.
The Revival139 of the Ballad.
Throughout the eighteenth century, despite the dominance of Pope and his followers140, and the poetry of the Town; despite the sturdy resistance of Johnson; despite Goldsmith's complaints against Odes and "anapests" and "blank verse" and "happy[Pg 483] negligence," there were streams of tendency making for literary freedom. Addison had lovingly praised both the blank verse of Milton, and the purely141 popular art of the ancient ballads142. Men were beginning to look back with personal interest at antiquity143; not only at Spenser, Chaucer, and Shakespeare, but at all the art and poetry of times past. As early as 1706-1711 Watson's "Choice Collection" of old Scottish poems was published: and Allan Ramsay gave old things mixed with new in his "Evergreen," and "Tea Table Miscellany" between 1724 and 1727; others appeared in d'Urfey's "Pills to Purge144 Melancholy145" (1719), others in "Old Ballads" (1723).
We have seen the antiquarianism of Gray, in his translations from the Norse, and his interest in Macpherson's so-called "Ossian" (1760-1763). Though there was no written Highland27 epic146 in existence, there were, and are, "Ossianic ballads" in Gaelic, late popular survivals of Irish poetry. Working in his own way on these, and on prose legends, apparently, Macpherson led men's fancies back to the racing147 "sounds" of the north; back to the Highland beliefs that had already fascinated Collins; and emancipated148 poetry from the chatter149 of the coffee-house and the tavern. The charlatanism150 of Macpherson disgusted Johnson; any one could write Ossianisms, he said, who abandoned his mind to it, but Macpherson, at least, pleased thousands, including so enthusiastic a student of Homer as Napoleon Bonaparte, and stimulated151 Gaelic researches.
In 1765 the publication of an old and famous manuscript folio by Bishop152 Percy ("The Reliques") not only gave a new and popular source of pleasure in ballads and old relics153, but caused a noisy controversy154, which, again, led to close research. Percy "restored," altered, added to, and omitted from his materials as taste and fancy prompted; arousing the wrath155 of the crabbed156 antiquary, Joseph Ritson, who denied that the manuscript folio existed. Had Percy published it as it stood (which Furnivall and Hales at last succeeded in doing) the book would have been unread except by a few antiquaries. Arranged by Percy, the ballads became truly popular. They were followed, from 1774, by Thomas Warton's "History of English Poetry," the work of an Oxford[Pg 484] Professor of Poetry (1757-1767) who, in a lazy University, was a serious student.
Nothing is more ruinous to literature than ignorance, excitedly absorbed in the momentary157 present. In the manner briefly158 described, men's minds became awake to the merits of the English literature of many remote ages, and even to the interest of chivalry and chivalrous159 romance, to the beauty of all art that had been discredited160 as "Gothic" and "barbarous".
Horace Walpole.
A man who, if in an amateur and dandified way, assisted the advance in literature, was the son of the famous and far from literary Whig Minister of George I. and George II., Sir Robert Walpole. Born at the end of September, 1717, Horace Walpole went to Eton in 1727, where he won the friendship of Gray and prided himself on avoiding cricket and fights with bargees. For Conway (Marshal Conway) and George Selwyn, famous later as an eccentric wit, he had a life-long affection. From Eton, Walpole went to King's College, Cambridge, where he studied French, Italian, and painting, being congenitally incapable161 of the mathematics, like Tennyson and Macaulay. His letters were already witty and amusing. He began his tour with Gray in 1739, and, at Rome, was "far gone in medals, lamps, idols163, prints, etc. ... I would buy the Coliseum if I could". Though he wrote fleeringly of his own tastes, he was, in fact, far in advance of his age in appreciation164 of the best old art, whether of classical Greece and Rome or of the early Italians. To collect, to study society, to write his famous correspondence with Horace Mann and many others—an informal social, political, and literary history of his time,—was the business of Walpole's long life. He gave himself dandified airs; he knew that he was not in the strict sense a scholar, but he had an eagerly inquiring mind, and we owe more to him than to Mr. Pepys. He practically began neo-Gothic architecture—with all its faults he meant well,—by the building of his Villa39, Strawberry Hill, and "in a concatenation accordingly" wrote the earliest pseudo-historic novel of supernatural terror, "The Castle of Otranto" (1764). Like stories of R. L. Stevenson, and Coleridge's "Kubla Khan," the tale is based on a dream.[Pg 485] The author found himself in a Gothic castle, and "on the uppermost bannister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour165". The rest, with its odd horrors and comic interludes of the servants, Walpole wrote without plan: making his characters natural, not "heroic," his events as much "supernatural" as he could.
From this fantasy came the novels of Mrs. Radcliffe (whose habit of explaining the supernatural away Walpole derided), and, from Mrs. Radcliffe, in part, came the impulse of Scott, and the moody166 heroes of Byron. From the mustard seed of "Otranto" grew "a tree with birds in all its boughs167".
Walpole's play "The Mysterious Mother," was even morbidly168 romantic in conception (1768). His "Historic Doubts" on Richard III. show a new spirit of historic scepticism, and a desire to trace accepted historical ideas to their ultimate sources of evidence. Such minute inquiry was not common, when Hume and Smollett were our historians. Walpole, who had succeeded to the Earldom of Orford, died on 2 March, 1797.
His "Anecdotes of Painting" and "Royal and Noble Authors" are all they aimed at being; his Letters, in extent, observation, inner knowledge of society, and wit, have no rivals in English, but his real position in literature and taste is that of a pioneer. The true, the essential Horace was very unlike Macaulay's splenetic portrait of him, and did not deserve Thackeray's nickname "Horace Waddlepoodle".
Under his many affectations he was a true friend and a good patriot169, a delightful wit and an agency in the advance of literature and taste. Between him and Dr. Johnson, of course, there was a gulf170 that neither man dreamed of trying to cross.
Laurence Sterne.
Laurence Sterne can scarcely be ranged in any species of writers. He was not a novelist, though his most humorous and exquisitely172 finished characters, Mr. Shandy, Uncle Toby, Corporal Trim, Obadiah, Dr. Slop, Yorick, and Mrs. Shandy appear in what professed173 to be a kind of novel, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy," Gent (1760-1767). These characters are really studies like those of Addison, but they appeared in a long[Pg 486] succession of volumes which obtained their great vogue174 first of all, perhaps, by wild eccentricity—with blank pages, asterisks175, erasions, and even pages of marbled paper; next, now by an undercurrent, now by an overflow176, of indecent or indecorous story or suggestion; thirdly, by the fact that these were the recreations of a country parson. These allurements177, were the first and transient causes of Sterne's popularity, these and a quantity of odd anecdotes, often borrowed wholesale178 from Burton's then forgotten "Anatomy179 of Melancholy," as the lewd anecdotes were taken from French collections of the sixteenth century. But while these baits, this "merriment of a parson," allured180 the town, every reader of taste had the noblest excuse for reading the book. It contained the grave and logical humours and exquisite171 intellectual caprices of Shandy the father; the patient, kind, dull tolerance of Mrs. Shandy (whose unexpected associations of ideas resemble those of Mrs. Nickleby), the gallantry, simplicity, and noble goodness of Uncle Toby (a person not wholly unlike a Colonel Newcome of the eighteenth century), the similar qualities of his more chivalrous Sancho, Corporal Trim; the wiles181 of the Widow Wadman; and, what is pleasing to reflective minds, the Curse of Ernulphus, bestowed182 "on him, Obadiah". "Our men swore terribly in Flanders," said Uncle Toby, but the ancient formul? of Catholic curses went far beyond our men. For the sentimental183 there was the death of Lefevre, which, in school reading books, but ineffectually appealed for tears to men now old.
Thus much of "Tristram Shandy" is as good as good can be, and might be collected, with explanatory passages, and exhibited without harm or offence to any reader. But, so presented, it would lose the attraction on which Sterne deliberately184 counted; the intermixture of insinuation and buffoonery with character and sentiment. Great parts of "Tristram Shandy," once, it seems, essential to its success, are now detrimental185 to its general diffusion186: all the more because the high and low tumbling is that of a clergyman.
The author (born 1713) was English by family and descent, grandson of a Cavalier English clergyman of the Great Rebellion,[Pg 487] and Archbishop of the Restoration. We meet his father, Roger Sterne, an ensign in a regiment187 of foot, in Thackeray's "Esmond," where, in his wild way, he makes a very sensible remark, when the exiled King, fighting for France, rides up to the English lines. For several years, Laurence Sterne followed the drums of his father's regiment, till, at 10 years old, a kinsman188 sent him to school at Halifax (1723), and the life of a camp where men swore terribly inspires his pictures of soldiers, but was not the most chaste189 school for a little boy.
In 1733, rather old, he went to Jesus College, Cambridge, and made the friendship of John Hall (Stevenson) of Skelton Castle. A humorist, a reckless liver, he had a great and unholy influence on Sterne, who took orders and two small livings in Yorkshire, and (1741) married a lady of some property, after a sentimental wooing. Sentiment did not last; Sterne, an accomplished190 philanderer191, became "passing weary of her love," and the pair were only kept together by Sterne's affection for his daughter, Lydia.
Not till 1760 did the first volume of "Tristram Shandy" appear: born of a casual spite against Dr. Slop (Dr. Burton, a Jacobite physician of York), "Tristram" instantly made Sterne a "lion" in London, a friend of the great, and a diner-out. In winter he wrote more "Shandy," and published sermons on the strength of his success; in the summer he worked at home, till a consumptive tendency sent him to the least desirable parts of Southern France (by way of Paris where he met everybody), and, later, to Italy. He died in London, alone (1768) save for the lodging-house keeper, and a footman, a Macdonald of the Keppoch branch, whose father followed Prince Charlie, and whose own childish adventures, in 1745, as he has described them, were a subject made for the hand of the expiring humorist.
He had kept on publishing, with varying success, new volumes of "Tristram Shandy" almost to the end, when he had the happy thought of beginning his "Sentimental Journey," with its bewildering mixture of the old favourite matter with pretty vignettes of southern scenes and manners, pictures with the prettiness and other qualities of the French painter, Greuze. Here we[Pg 488] have both the admired hungry donkey, fed by Sterne with macaroons, and the sentimentalized dead donkey, which provoked the scepticism of Mr. Samuel Weller. Sterne sketched192 the French as Hogarth did, but with infinitely193 more sensibility and sympathy, he is a classic in France, no less than in England. Sterne's letters and "Journal to Eliza," a very characteristic piece, are collected in Mr. Lewis Melville's "Life and Letters of Sterne". His biographer (Mr. H. D. Traill, 1882) says that Sterne "undergoes, I suspect, even more than an English classic's ordinary share of reverential neglect". If this be so, Sterne himself, with his acrobatic clowning, is to blame, but the loss lies on the readers of mature age who neglect this contemplator194 of human life, this creator of characters, this painter of manners irrevocably past.[2]
David Hume.
David Hume, a younger son of the laird of Ninewells in Berwickshire, was born in April, 1711. He attended lectures in the University of Edinburgh at a very early age, and, when about 17, devoted195 himself entirely to solitary196 study, classical, poetical197, and philosophic113. The ruling passion of his life was the desire of literary fame, of which, with all his success, he never obtained more than he wanted. Various attempts in other professions ended in his return to his studies; he was only 25 when he wrote his "Treatise198 of Human Nature," he published it in 1739; was disappointed by its reception; affected12 to disavow it, but reproduced, in more finished literary form, many of its doctrines199 in his later essays. The earlier essays, of 1741-1742, were successful: the Philosophical Essays (1748), were attacked by orthodox divines, whom the "Essay on Miracles" (of which the central idea occurred to Hume while arguing with a Jesuit in France) was not apt to conciliate. Some essays he left for posthumous200 publication; he was in evil odour on account of his opinions, and obtained no better post in Scotland than the keepership of the Advocates' Library. But in Scotland his geniality201, good[Pg 489] humour, and practical wisdom, made him dear even to those who thought his opinions dangerous. By great frugality202 he made himself independent of the great, while his "History of England" begun in 1754, though, like most honest histories it at first offended all parties, proved not unprofitable and greatly increased his reputation. In 1765, he was made Secretary of Legation in Paris; later he obtained the post of Under-Secretary for Home Affairs; and finally returned to Edinburgh "in opulence," as he said, with ￡1000 a year. He had many friends among the preachers of "the Moderate party," and died in 1776, contented203, and not without some parade, Dr. Johnson thought, of his philosophic fearlessness. In Paris he was highly popular; but, though England had done much for him, he used to express great dislike of the English. He laboured, none the less, to purge his style of Scotticisms, of which he drew up a list—"allenarly" and "alongst" are to be avoided; and he determined204 to write "a pretty girl enough" in place of "a pretty enough girl". Hume's philosophical ideas belong to the history, not of literature, but of philosophy. His position, in a continuation of Locke, was sceptical, and had immense influence in causing a reaction and a closer criticism, first in Germany, then in England. Professor Huxley, Hume's biographer, has exposed many of the fallacies in his "Essay on Miracles," and others are glaring. Of "The Natural History of Religion" he wrote unembarrassed by much knowledge of the subject, for early men, as far as we know, often reasoned otherwise than Hume thought that they would necessarily reason. Philosophy and history are always in a state of flux205, through the influence of criticism, of new discoveries, and of historical documents, with which Hume had little acquaintance. But a study of modern metaphysics must still begin with the works of Hume, though no one can go to his History for full and accurate information. Unable, or reluctant, to speak his mind quite freely, he adopted the ironical method, without the sometimes elephantine frivolity206 of Gibbon. Like his fellow-countryman, Dr. Robertson, he was no enthusiastic worshipper of the heroes of the Reformation; and, though nothing less than a Jacobite, he was Tory enough to be tolerant of the Stuart Kings, or rather to study them in the[Pg 490] light of the conditions under which they lived. It is in the same light that Hume and his philosophy must be regarded. His letters are among his most interesting works, and his attack on Macpherson's "Ossian," with his defence of the "Epigoniad," the Theban epic of his friend Professor Wilkie, in themselves give a correct and rather amusing view of his tastes and limitations.
Robertson.
William Robertson (1721-1793) the son of a parish minister in Midlothian, was also a minister of the Church of Scotland, and the leader of the moderate party, as against the enthusiastic spiritual descendants of the Covenanters. The moderates aimed at taste, learning, and the acquisition of a style free from Scottish idioms. This style Robertson displayed (1759) in his history of Scotland. A topic could scarcely be more unpopular than his, the publisher said, but his book had a very wide success south of the Border, and his later works on the reign207 of Charles V. and on American history were not less popular. His manner is calm, reflective, and studiously destitute208 of enthusiasm. Both he and Hume viewed the religious history of their country with a critical tranquillity209 very unlike the spirit introduced by Carlyle. His defect lay, not in the art of clear and definite presentation, but in limited knowledge of original documents.
Edward Gibbon.
"The old reproach, that no British altars had been erected210 to the Muse211 of History, was recently disproved," says Gibbon, "by the first performances of Robertson and Hume, the histories of Scotland and the Stuarts.... The perfect composition, the nervous language, the well-turned periods of Dr. Robertson, inflamed212 me to the ambitious hope that I might one day tread in his footsteps: the calm philosophy, the careless inimitable beauties of his friend and rival" (Hume) "often forced me to close the volume with a mixed sensation of delight and despair." After ten years' work by Gibbon at his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" "a letter from Mr. Hume" (1776) "overpaid[Pg 491] the labour, but I have never presumed to accept a place in the triumvirate of British historians."
The fondness of Caledonian patriotism213 cannot accept the compliment paid to Robertson and Hume by the modesty214 of the author of "The Decline and Fall". The works of the two Scottish historians, though still very readable, and distinguished215 in style, are superseded216 by histories much more learned and based on documents not accessible to the Scots. But the monumental edifice217 of Gibbon is "a possession for ever".
Born at Putney, early in May, 1737, Edward Gibbon came of an ancient though not historically distinguished family, whose wealth was impaired218 by the connexion of his grandfather with the South Sea Bubble, and by his father's lack of economy. Gibbon's health, in boyhood, was bad, and his education irregular: he was a sufferer in an age when "the schoolboy may have been whipped for misapprehending a passage" (in Ph?drus) "which Bentley could not restore, and which Burman could not explain". Thus he writes in his Autobiography220: in this work he affects to compose with artless effort, but the rounded periods of his great book come unbidden to his pen, or rather, he devoted elaborate care to the six drafts of his memoirs221.
In two years passed at Westminster School, Gibbon did not master Greek and Latin. His next three years were passed in wide desultory222 reading, in translation of the classics, and in modern history, which from boyhood was his passion. Going to Magdalen College, Oxford, before he was 15, "with a stock of erudition that might have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of ignorance of which a schoolboy would have been ashamed," he was disgusted by the indolent ignorance of the Fellows of his college, "decent easy men," at whose table as a gentleman commoner he dined. In close grammatical study under his tutor he found neither profit nor pleasure; he lived in or out of Oxford as he pleased; read Catholic books, professed himself a Catholic—"the offence," says Blackstone, "amounts to High Treason". It amounted to petty treason; Gibbon's father removed him from Magdalen to the tuition of Mallet223, a free-thinker, and thence he was carried to Lausanne and the house of a Calvinist minister,[Pg 492] who in two years brought him within the Presbyterian fold. After such a series of theological adventures it is not strange that Gibbon's aversion to Christianity declares itself wherever he has a chance of sneering224 at that religion. He returned to England in 1758, after sighing as a lover and obeying as a son, when his father commanded him to resign his passion for Mademoiselle Curchod, later Madame Necker, the mother of Madame de Sta?l. At Lausanne he had studied very widely and with elaborate organization of his work: in England he still read, "never handled a gun, seldom mounted a horse," but devoted himself to his duties as an officer in the Hampshire militia225. Here he acquired some practical knowledge of military affairs which was valuable to him in his remarks on the discipline of the Roman Army: he meditated226 several historical topics; returned to the Continent, and at Rome (15 October, 1764) conceived, as he has told us in imperishable words, the idea of writing "The Decline and Fall," "as I sat musing162 amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing Vespers in the temple of Jupiter". The distractions227 of society, and of politics, for he had a seat in Parliament, and belonged to White's, Boodle's, Brooks's and The Club of Dr. Johnson, did not draw Gibbon from his great ambition. He had studied style till, in conversation, "his polish was occasionally finical... he moved to flutes228 and hautboys". George Colman the Younger has left a portrait of Gibbon in verse, which is corroborated229, as far as his manner in conversation went, by a letter of his own (1764).
His person looked as funnily obese230
As if a Pagod, growing large as Man,
Had rashly waddled231 off its chimney-piece,
To visit a Chinese upon a fan.
Such his exterior232, curious 'twas to scan!
And oft he rapped his snuff-box, cocked his snout,
And ere his polished periods he began,
Bent219 forwards, stretching his forefinger233 out,
And talked in phrase as round as he was round about.
Roundness, meditated balance, are the characteristics of Gibbon's style. "Before he wrote a note or a letter he arranged completely[Pg 493] in his mind what he wished to express." He says: "It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it in my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of my pen till I had given the last polish to my work". As one consequence, "my first rough manuscript, without any intermediate copy, has been sent to the press". Gibbon's History, in the vast whole, as well as in each sentence, was thus premeditated, under his ruling philosophic idea of what such a history should be. He had completely assimilated his mass of materials, and each topic was reduced to its proper dimensions, without encumbering234 details, while all marched to the flutes and hautboys of his rounded music. We may think it occasionally monotonous235, and marvel236 that so many periods should conclude with a clause introduced by the preposition "of". But this is a trifling237 criticism, he had chosen his vehicle; and, though we should not imitate his style, yet a style it is, admirably adapted to its purpose. His reading was enormous in every branch of learning, including the science of coins; he constantly refers "to the medals as well as the historians". It may be curious to note that while he devotes four pages to the criticism of the iron cage of Bajazet (1402) he neglects to mention that such cages or huches were commonly used for the safeguarding of important prisoners of war by the contemporary chivalry of France and England.
It is, of course, impossible, it would not be easy for the most learned of historians, to criticize in a few words a historical work of such vast survey, and concerned with so many and such various topics, with the affairs of so many races and religions, throughout so many centuries. The faults which have been chiefly criticized are Gibbon's total inability to be generous towards Christianity; and the bad taste of some of his notes; which appear to be the refreshments238 of a natural fatigue239. In his day, he says, "History was the most popular species of composition," and he "is at a loss how to describe the success of the work, without betraying the vanity of the writer". He ended his task, and he has described his emotions when all was done, on 27 June, 1787, at Lausanne, the place of his boyish exile and of his solitary affair of the heart. He died in 1794, having been mainly busy with the[Pg 494] drafts of his Autobiography. These drafts, with his most interesting letters, have been published by the piety240 of the Earl of Sheffield, the grandson of his devoted friend, John Holroyd, first Lord Sheffield. In his early letters Gibbon is no purist, "I tipped the boy with a crown," he says, an early use of a familiar modern term.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), like Burke and Goldsmith, was an Irishman by birth; his family provided Prince Charles, in Sir Thomas Sheridan, with a most inefficient241 tutor, and an unfortunate comrade in war. Sheridan's own family was Protestant, his grandfather was a friend of Dean Swift in Ireland, and a humorist. His son, though in Dr. Johnson's set, was regarded by the great lexicographer as a prodigy242 of natural dullness, highly cultivated and improved by art. Educated at Harrow, young Richard never gave any cause for the complaint that he was dull. At twenty-one he eloped from Bath with the beautiful Miss Linley, a charming singer, the Saint Cecilia of Reynolds's painting. In 1775, Sheridan produced "The Rivals" at Covent Garden; one of the few plays of the eighteenth century which still live on the stage, and perhaps can never cease to amuse, thanks to Mrs. Malaprop's exquisitely well-chosen derangement243 of epithets244, and the unexpected variety of her parts of speech. Malapropisms may be styled a mechanical form of humour, but Mrs. Malaprop's own are happily expressive245 of her character. To know Lydia Languish246 is to love her; and Sir Lucius O'Trigger scarcely caricatures the ideas of his duelling fellow-countrymen; whilst Bob Acres is the most sympathetic of all the comic poltroons of the stage, though too sanguine247 in his belief that "damns have had their day". Sir Anthony Absolute is a delightful variation on the stock character of the Angry Father; and these diverting figures make the sentimental parts of the serious lovers, Falkland and Julia, rather ungrateful. "The School for Scandal" may be called conventional in the contrast of hypocrisy248 and reckless goodness of heart in Joseph and Charles Surface; but convention is permitted to the stage, while Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, with the happy high spirits of the whole farcical comedy, and the varieties[Pg 495] in the candour of the scandal-mongers, make the play at least the rival of "The Rivals," as it is far more provocative249 of mirth than the wit of Congreve. "The Critic," again, in its delicious nonsense and satire of authors, actors, and critics—Sir Fretful Plagiary is as diverting as realistic—infinitely surpasses its old model, "The Rehearsal250". We laugh aloud as we read, and are convulsed as we look on when the piece is acted. Who forgets the nod of Lord Burleigh in the drama of the Armada, and the exquisite reason for which the characters cannot behold251 the galleons252 of Spain, and the romantic demeanour of the two Tilburinas, and the Governor who remains253 fixed254, while the Father is moved? Of Sheridan's other plays "St. Patrick's Day" is not seen on the stage, while "The Duenna" does not "attain255 unto the first Three".
As manager and owner of Drury Lane Theatre, Sheridan proved himself to be not more skilled in finance than Balzac; in debt always, he somehow kept afloat. You would have said that "he was not the stuff they make Whigs of"; any more than Charles Fox. In Parliament, however (1780), he attached himself to that statesman's party; attacked Warren Hastings, and amused the Prince of Wales (George IV.) who certainly appreciated literary genius, from Sheridan and Scott to Miss Austen.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
Born a Pierrepont, daughter of the Earl of Kingston (1689-1762) and wife of Edward Wortley Montagu, Lady Mary, a toast at eight, lived through the great age of Anne and Pope, her absurd admirer before he was her shameless satirist256. She was equally celebrated257 for her beauty, her wit, and her introduction of inoculation258 against small-pox, from Constantinople, where her husband was English ambassador (1716). Her light verses are sparkling and malicious259; her fame rests on her letters, from the East, from England among the wits, to her sister (who married the Jacobite Earl of Mar26, and lived in France), and, in later life, to Lady Bute, from Avignon, with its Jacobite colony, and from Italy, where she read and remarked on the great novelists of the day. Even Walpole's letters are scarcely more entertaining, and more brilliant records of society in the eighteenth century do not exist. Lady[Pg 496] Mary was not sentimental, and laughed at Pope's lightning-stricken lovers; or rather at the artificiality of Pope's sentiment concerning them.
Junius.
Stat Nominis Umbra. Because we do not know who wrote the letters of political invective260 signed "Junius," and published by Woodfall in "The Public Advertiser" (1768-1773), much has been written about the mystery of the author's identity. From Sir Philip Francis (who seems to be the favourite, like Matthioli for the Man in the Iron Maskship) to the wicked Lord Lyttelton and Edward Gibbon, there have been about a score of candidates. Matthioli was certainly not the Man in the Iron Mask, and perhaps Sir Philip Francis was not Junius, who gives himself—very cleverly if he were Sir Philip,—the air of being some great one. The letters, except to the professed historian, are repulsive261. The worst quality of satire, spite masquerading as virtuous262 indignation, is their chief characteristic, their style is that of antithetical rhetoric, highly inflated263; their subject is party politics and personal invective.
[1] There was scarce a literary form which he did not touch, none which he touched did he fail to adorn264.
[2] The writer observes that Sterne is unmentioned in Mr. Pancoast's "Introduction to English Literature," Third Edition, Enlarged, New York, 1907. "Alas265, poor Yorick!"
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supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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immortally
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| 不朽地，永世地，无限地 | |
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delightful
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thoroughly
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ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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anecdotes
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| n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
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anecdote
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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tinged
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rev
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slumbered
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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loyalty
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tolerance
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persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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candidly
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narrates
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apparently
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lexicographer
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persevering
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drudge
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mar
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highland
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Oxford
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embittered
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gallant
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manly
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resolute
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satire
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brewer
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flora
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renown
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versatile
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deserted
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villa
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benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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41
vagrant
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| n.流浪者，游民；adj.流浪的，漂泊不定的 | |
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42
feats
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| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
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43
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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44
flute
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| n.长笛；v.吹笛 | |
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45
usher
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|
| n.带位员，招待员；vt.引导，护送；vi.做招待，担任引座员 | |
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46
indentured
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| v.以契约束缚（学徒）( indenture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47
hack
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| n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳 | |
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48
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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49
effervesces
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| v.冒气泡，起泡沫( effervesce的第三人称单数 ) | |
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50
fatten
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| v.使肥，变肥 | |
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51
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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52
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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53
attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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54
repartee
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|
| n.机敏的应答 | |
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55
conceit
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| n.自负，自高自大 | |
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56
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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57
malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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58
notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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59
patronage
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|
| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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60
lewd
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| adj.淫荡的 | |
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61
brutality
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|
| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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62
inveighed
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| v.猛烈抨击，痛骂，谩骂( inveigh的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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63
laborious
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|
| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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64
supplant
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| vt.排挤；取代 | |
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65
negligence
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|
| n.疏忽，玩忽，粗心大意 | |
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66
absurdity
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|
| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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67
socialist
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|
| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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68
sincerity
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|
| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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69
rustic
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|
| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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70
migration
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|
| n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙 | |
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71
crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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72
prey
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|
| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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73
hawthorn
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| 山楂 | |
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74
infancy
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|
| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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75
witty
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|
| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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76
lament
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|
| n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹 | |
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77
elegy
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|
| n.哀歌，挽歌 | |
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78
vivacious
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|
| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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79
ballad
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|
| n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲 | |
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80
animated
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|
| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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81
genially
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|
| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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82
simplicity
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|
| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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83
dweller
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| n.居住者，住客 | |
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84
paradoxes
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|
| n.似非而是的隽语，看似矛盾而实际却可能正确的说法( paradox的名词复数 )；用于语言文学中的上述隽语；有矛盾特点的人[事物，情况] | |
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85
narrative
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|
| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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86
flout
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| v./n.嘲弄，愚弄，轻视 | |
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87
chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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88
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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89
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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90
worthy
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|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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91
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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92
saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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93
orator
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| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
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94
orators
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| n.演说者，演讲家( orator的名词复数 ) | |
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95
persuasive
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|
| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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96
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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97
infamies
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| n.声名狼藉( infamy的名词复数 )；臭名；丑恶；恶行 | |
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98
components
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| （机器、设备等的）构成要素，零件，成分； 成分( component的名词复数 )； [物理化学]组分； [数学]分量； （混合物的）组成部分 | |
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99
rhetoric
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|
| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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100
orations
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| n.（正式仪式中的）演说，演讲( oration的名词复数 ) | |
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101
conciliation
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| n.调解，调停 | |
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102
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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103
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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104
infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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105
inhuman
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|
| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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106
unreasonably
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|
| adv. 不合理地 | |
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107
solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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108
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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109
vindication
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|
| n.洗冤，证实 | |
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110
ironical
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|
| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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111
filthy
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|
| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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112
injustices
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|
| 不公平( injustice的名词复数 )； 非正义； 待…不公正； 冤枉 | |
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113
philosophic
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|
| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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114
philosophical
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|
| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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115
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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116
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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117
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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118
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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119
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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120
intervention
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| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
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121
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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122
censures
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| v.指责，非难，谴责( censure的第三人称单数 ) | |
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123
accounting
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| n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表 | |
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124
prosper
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| v.成功，兴隆，昌盛；使成功，使昌隆，繁荣 | |
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125
eyelids
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|
| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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126
inclination
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|
| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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127
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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128
petrify
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| vt.使发呆；使…变成化石 | |
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129
borough
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| n.享有自治权的市镇；(英)自治市镇 | |
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130
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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131
bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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132
rental
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| n.租赁，出租，出租业 | |
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133
conjectured
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| 推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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134
scrupulous
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| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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135
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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136
enthusiasts
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| n.热心人，热衷者( enthusiast的名词复数 ) | |
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137
Partisanship
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| n. 党派性, 党派偏见 | |
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138
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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139
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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140
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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141
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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142
ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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143
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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144
purge
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| n.整肃，清除，泻药，净化；vt.净化，清除，摆脱；vi.清除，通便，腹泻，变得清洁 | |
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145
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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146
epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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147
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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148
emancipated
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|
| adj.被解放的，不受约束的v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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149
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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150
charlatanism
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|
| n.庸医术，庸医的行为 | |
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151
stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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152
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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153
relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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154
controversy
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|
| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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155
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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156
crabbed
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|
| adj.脾气坏的；易怒的；（指字迹）难辨认的；（字迹等）难辨认的v.捕蟹( crab的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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157
momentary
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|
| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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158
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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159
chivalrous
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|
| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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160
discredited
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| 不足信的，不名誉的 | |
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161
incapable
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|
| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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162
musing
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|
| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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163
idols
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|
| 偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像 | |
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164
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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165
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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166
moody
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|
| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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167
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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168
morbidly
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| adv.病态地 | |
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169
patriot
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| n.爱国者，爱国主义者 | |
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170
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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171
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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172
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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173
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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174
Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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175
asterisks
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| n.星号，星状物( asterisk的名词复数 )v.加星号于( asterisk的第三人称单数 ) | |
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176
overflow
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| v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出 | |
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177
allurements
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| n.诱惑( allurement的名词复数 )；吸引；诱惑物；有诱惑力的事物 | |
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178
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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179
anatomy
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| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
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180
allured
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| 诱引，吸引( allure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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181
wiles
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| n.（旨在欺骗或吸引人的）诡计，花招；欺骗，欺诈( wile的名词复数 ) | |
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182
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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183
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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184
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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185
detrimental
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| adj.损害的，造成伤害的 | |
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186
diffusion
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| n.流布；普及；散漫 | |
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187
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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188
kinsman
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| n.男亲属 | |
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189
chaste
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| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
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190
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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191
philanderer
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| n.爱和女人调情的男人，玩弄女性的男人 | |
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192
sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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193
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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194
contemplator
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| 沉思者，静观者 | |
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195
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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196
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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197
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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198
treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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199
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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200
posthumous
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| adj.遗腹的；父亡后出生的；死后的，身后的 | |
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201
geniality
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| n.和蔼，诚恳；愉快 | |
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202
frugality
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| n.节约，节俭 | |
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203
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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204
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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205
flux
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| n.流动；不断的改变 | |
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206
frivolity
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| n.轻松的乐事，兴高采烈；轻浮的举止 | |
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207
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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208
destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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209
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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210
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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211
muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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212
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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213
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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214
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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215
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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216
superseded
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| [医]被代替的，废弃的 | |
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217
edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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218
impaired
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| adj.受损的；出毛病的；有（身体或智力）缺陷的v.损害，削弱( impair的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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219
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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220
autobiography
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| n.自传 | |
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221
memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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222
desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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223
mallet
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| n.槌棒 | |
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224
sneering
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| 嘲笑的，轻蔑的 | |
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225
militia
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| n.民兵，民兵组织 | |
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226
meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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227
distractions
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| n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱 | |
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228
flutes
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| 长笛( flute的名词复数 )； 细长香槟杯（形似长笛） | |
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229
corroborated
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| v.证实，支持（某种说法、信仰、理论等）( corroborate的过去式 ) | |
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230
obese
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| adj.过度肥胖的，肥大的 | |
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231
waddled
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| v.（像鸭子一样）摇摇摆摆地走( waddle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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232
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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233
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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234
encumbering
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的现在分词 ) | |
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235
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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236
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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237
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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238
refreshments
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| n.点心,便餐;(会议后的)简单茶点招 待 | |
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239
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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240
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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241
inefficient
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| adj.效率低的，无效的 | |
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242
prodigy
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| n.惊人的事物，奇迹，神童，天才，预兆 | |
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243
derangement
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| n.精神错乱 | |
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244
epithets
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| n.（表示性质、特征等的）词语( epithet的名词复数 ) | |
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245
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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246
languish
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| vi.变得衰弱无力，失去活力，（植物等）凋萎 | |
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247
sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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248
hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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249
provocative
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| adj.挑衅的，煽动的，刺激的，挑逗的 | |
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250
rehearsal
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| n.排练，排演；练习 | |
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251
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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252
galleons
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| n.大型帆船( galleon的名词复数 ) | |
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253
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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254
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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255
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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256
satirist
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| n.讽刺诗作者，讽刺家，爱挖苦别人的人 | |
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257
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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258
inoculation
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| n.接芽；预防接种 | |
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259
malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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260
invective
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| n.痛骂，恶意抨击 | |
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261
repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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262
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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263
inflated
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| adj.（价格）飞涨的；（通货）膨胀的；言过其实的；充了气的v.使充气（于轮胎、气球等）( inflate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）膨胀；（使）通货膨胀；物价上涨 | |
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264
adorn
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| vt.使美化，装饰 | |
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265
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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