led him to translate it at once into typical "Johnsonese," "It has not sufficient vitality to preserve it from putrefac tion." The second form sounds almost like a parody of the first, but it is typical of Johnson's method. Boswell's We have already emphasized the fact that Johnson was greater as a man than as a writer, greater in his inspired conversation than in his formal literary expression. The immortal proof of this is contained in Boswell's Life of Johnson. James Boswell was a Scotchman of good family and education; but he made himself the humble friend and follower of Johnson for a series of years, noting with patience and fidelity his words, his acts, and his peculiarities of character. In this unique fashion he gathered the materials that enabled him to create the greatest biography ever written. The portrait of Johnson is drawn at full length, and with an intimacy of knowledge that would have been impossible to any other than such a combination of toady and hero-worshipper as Boswell seems to have been. His success is so great because he was willing to lose himself in his subject. Here Johnson lives and talks forever for many to whom his written works are little more than a name. The conflict between Classicism and Individualism is nowhere more marked than in Oliver Goldsmith. From all Oliver that we know of him, he seems to have had the genius and the instincts of a decidedly original poet; and it is reasonable to suppose that he would have been much more nearly in harmony with the new movements if it had not been for external influences. His natural tendency in this direction, however, was restrained by the classical spirit that was still so strong in the age and more particularly by his close personal association with Dr. Johnson. The two representative poems of Goldsmith are The Traveller and The Deserted Village. The former reflects his experiences as a scholarly His Poetry vagabond on the continent, and mingles beautiful poetic description with the didactic purpose of giving "a prospect of society." The poem well illustrates Goldsmith's romantic personality; but it is, nevertheless, largely classical in style and in general conception. The Deserted Village bewails the decay of the peasantry, and describes the lovely village now forsaken by its former cheerful inhabitants. The pictures of the village preacher and the village schoolmaster show Goldsmith at his best. He is a true poet, uniting vivid imagination with a fine sense of beauty, delicate and tender sentiment with an exquisite gift of humor. Here, as in The Traveller, he is classical in style and didactic in intention; but he shows romantic feeling, is a genuine lover of nature, and by his unaffected sympathy with the poor and humble connects himself with the democratic tendency. Of the last, these lines from The De serted Village are typical: Princes and lords may flourish or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made; Goldsmith's charming prose fiction, The Vicar of Wakefield, has been already mentioned in connection with our discussion of the development of the novel. It Goldsmith's Writings is one of the very finest creations of his literary Prose genius, if not his masterpiece. In addition to this and to his poems, he wrote a great amount of miscel laneous prose, much of it the work of a hack writer laboring for his daily bread, but nearly all of it touched with the charm of his delightful style. For ease, for grace, and for delicate humor, Goldsmith has no superior among the prose-writers of the century. His style has all the classical virtues, but it has beyond these that inimitable magic which only genius can compass. While he does not pass beyond the legitimate bounds of prose, he conveys the im. pression that his nature was essentially that of a born poet. Among the products of his pen, we have periodical literature, history, biography, natural science, learning, and politics; but his most characteristic prose work outside of his single novel is to be found in his charming miscellaneous Essays. In this field of miscellaneous prose, Goldsmith produced no single work that is noteworthy as a product of artistic imagination. It is the style alone that makes it literature; but for the sake of the style, it will continue to be read and cherished. As in the case of his novel, Goldsmith has known how to make his style express the personal qualities of one of the most lovable men in English literature; and for this reason, if for no other, it would still hold its charm. Goldsmith's The versatility of Goldsmith's genius is well shown by the fact that he was a great poet, a great novelist, a great master of prose style, and we may add a great dramatist. In drama his work consists of two famous comedies, The Good-Natured Man and She Stoops to Conquer. The latter was probably the best comedy produced since the Restoration, surpassed in the eighteenth century by no other dramatic work save that of Sheridan. Far cleaner and healthier than any of the Restoration dramas, it is not less witty and far more good-natured. It is as bright, as gay, as humorous, as sweet as Goldsmith himself. David Hume The development of prose in the Age of Johnson is illustrated by many names and by many varieties of writing. Especially by service in the fields of philosophy, history, and politics was it decidedly advanced and broadened. Among philosophers, David Hume was probably the most eminent, both for style and for matter. His philosophical views do not especially concern us here; but his use of prose in philosophical discussion shows him to have been a man of considerable literary ability so far as concerns the mere matter of expression. His style is clear, hard, keen, and comparatively colorless. It was well adapted for his philosophical purpose. His History of England illustrates the use of his literary powers in another field. The greatest historian of the age, how ever, was Edward Gibbon, author of The History Edward of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon His historical task was a stupendous one; his work covered some fourteen hundred years of history, ranging over the whole extent of the Roman Empire and even to the regions beyond. The great labor was accomplished with such patience, industry, and skill that his work has not yet been superseded. In his way Gibbon is a master of style. Classical, cold, and intellectual, he had yet a great historical imagination, and his language moves with the stately pomp of a Roman triumph. Hume and Gibbon must suffice as representatives of a large company of miscellaneous writers. Beyond and above these, three men stand out as unquestionably greatest among the prose-writers of the age. Johnson and Goldsmith, we have already considered. The third and in many respects the greatest is Edmund Burke, philosophical thinker, maker if not writer of history, splendid master of political prose. Burke Like all the great prose-writers of the eighteenth century, Burke strongly felt the influence of classical tendencies. Yet he was not a slave to them. Like Edmund Johnson, he was decidedly individual, and gave to his style the coloring of his own habits of thought. There seems to have been a more or less conscious effort on the part of both these great writers to heighten and adorn in a more modern fashion the style which Classicism had tended to make plain and simple. This was not in any sense a return to the poetic prose of the seventeenth century; for these men heartily desired to retain all that Classicism had achieved for prose style. It was rather an effort to broaden the range and increase the impressiveness of style, without destroying any measure of its practical efficiency. Burke's method of doing this was far different from that of Johnson. He was a great rhetorician, a man of splendid imagination; and his style often becomes gorgeous with imagery, rich and massy as cloth of gold. His literary methods were those of the orator; for most of his productions were written to be spoken, and others felt the influence of his oratorical habits. Yet he was not an effective speaker. Contrary to the general rule in the case of great orators, he repelled his immediate hearers, but charmed those who read his speeches in print. Of all great orators, therefore, he probably holds the largest place in literature. Other men live in traditions as to the effect which their speeches produced, while for the reader of a later day the charm has largely gone out of their words. Burke continues to live in the actual literary vitality which his speeches still retain. It is as though he had talked over the heads of his living auditors and had spoken to posterity. All this is probably due in large measure to the fact that his peculiar gifts were in reality not so much those of the orator as those of the superb rhetorician. Style So far as the development of Burke's style is concerned, it seems to have reversed the usual order. Most men Burke's tend to be more emotional and ornate in their earlier writings, and to become more intellectual and plain as they become more mature. There is doubtless a steady growth of intellectual power in Burke's work; but his earlier style is comparatively plain, while his most gorgeous passages occur in his later writings. This contrast is made still more emphatic by a consideration of his subject-matter. One of his earliest works was a treatise on the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and |