not only as a delineator of manners, but as a moral influence in society.

Career. — Fielding was of worthy stock, his father being a distinguished soldier under the Duke of Marlborough. After studying at Eton, he was sent to the University of London to study the Civil Law; but having pursued his studies there for two years, he was obliged to return home on account of the financial difficulties of his father. At the age of twenty-one he began writing for the stage as a means of living, and he produced a large number of indifferent plays, which yielded him no fame and little money. After a few years, not very creditably spent, he succeeded in winning the hand of a celebrated beauty, Miss Craddock, who brought him, besides other charms, the sum of £1500. He fell heir about the same time to an annuity of £200. The young couple retired to an estate in the country, but free living and gayety soon exhausted their means, and Fielding returned to London in the hope of doing something at the law. He entered upon the duties of the profession with great zeal, but violent attacks of the gout, brought on by his previous excesses, obliged him to relinquish the practice.

Origin of his Novels. — In this emergency, Fielding turned once more to literature, and after sundry attempts, in different lines of composition, he struck at length the true vein, and laid bare to the world a mine of heretofore undiscovered wealth in the production of his first great novel, Joseph Andrews. This was intended primarily as a satire on Richardson's Pamela, and met with a prodigious success. It was followed by Tom Jones, a work of still greater power, and the most consummate in plot of all his works. His third great novel, Amelia, came soon after, and though generally rated not quite so high as either of the others, had an immediate success superior to either.

Character as a Magistrate.—Besides his literary success, Fielding received from the Government an appointment as Justice of the Peace for the County of Middlesex, and by the vigor of his administration, aided by his knowledge of law and his native insight into criminal character, he did important service in repressing the robberies and crimes of various kinds which were then rampant.

Literary Character. — Fielding did a good many other things, and wrote many other works, among them no less than twenty-five Comedies; but the three great Novels which have been mentioned so far overtop all else that he did or wrote, that it scarcely deserves to be mentioned in the comparison. As an artist, in the delineation of human nature, it is conceded on all hands that Fielding has never been surpassed by any writer of English fiction. Yet there is a coarseness in his scenes, and often in his language, that makes a sad drawback to the pleasure of reading him.

"Fielding is the first of the British Novelists. His name is immortal as a painter of national manners. Of all the works of imagination to which English genius has given origin, his writings are most decidedly her own; all the actors in his narrative live in England, travel in England, quarrel and fight in England; and scarce an inci. dent occurs without its being marked by something which could not well have hap pened in any other country. In his power of strong and natural humor, and forcible

yet natural expression of character, the Father of the English Novel has not been approached even by his most successful followers. He is, indeed, as Byron terms him, The prose Homer of human nature."-Sir Walter Scott.

"Fielding, no doubt, began to write this novel [Joseph Andrews] in ridicule of Pamela, for which work one can understand the hearty contempt and antipathy which such an athletic and boisterous genius as Fielding's must have entertained. He could not do otherwise than laugh at the puny cockney bookseller, pouring out endless volumes of sentimental twaddle, and hold him up to scorn as a moll-coddle and a milksop. His genius had been nursed on sack-posset, and not on dishes of tea. His muse had sung the loudest in tavern choruses; had seen the daylight streaming in over thousands of emptied bowls, and reeled home to chambers on the shoulders of the watchmen. Richardson's goddess was attended by old maids and dowagers, and fed on muffins and bohea. Milksop!' roars Harry Fielding, clattering at the timid shop-shutters. Wretch! Monster! Mohock!' shrieks the sentimental author of Pamela, and all the ladies of his court cackle out an affrighted chorus."- Thackeray.

"In Tom Jones, Fielding has comprehended a larger variety of incidents and characters under a stricter unity of story than in Joseph Andrews; but he has given to the whole a tone of worldliness which does not mar the delightful simplicity of the latter. As an expression of the breadth and power of his mind, however, it is altogether his greatest work; and in the union of distinct pictorial representation with profound knowledge of practical life, it is unequalled by any novel in the language." -Whipple.

SARAH FIELDING, 1714-1768, a sister of the novelist, was a woman of learning, and a contributor to the literature of her day. She wrote The Adventures of David Simple; Familiar Letters between the Characters in David Simple; The Governess, or Little Female Academy; The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia; The History of Ophelia; The History of the Countess of Delwin; The Cry, a Domestic Fable, sometimes attributed to Patty Fielding; Xenophon's Memoirs of Socrates, translated from the Greek.

Smollett.

Tobias George Smollett, 1721-1771, is permanently associated in fame with Richardson and Fielding. His three novels, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, and Humphrey Clinker, if not equal to the three great novels of Fielding, are superior to the three of Richardson, and occupy a prominent place in the literature of the age.

Early Life. Smollett was a native of Scotland. He studied at Dumbarton and Glasgow, and entered the navy as surgeon's mate, and took part in the Carthagena expedition. After residing some time in the West Indies, where he married, he settled in London, in 1746.

Literary Career.-In 1748 appeared Roderick Random, in which the author embodied many of his experiences in the navy. In 1751 appeared Peregrine Pickle. After the publication of these two works, Smollett attempted to resume the practice of medicine, and published

a pamphlet on the use of Medical Waters, but did not meet with success. In 1753 he published The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom; in 1755 his Translation of Don Quixote, based upon that of Jarvis, and in 1757-8 his History of England. The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, in imitation of Don Quixote, appeared in 1762. His Translation of Gil Blas appeared in 1771; in 1771, the year of his death, appeared also Humphrey Clinker. Besides these larger works, Smollett published a few plays, only one of which, The Reprisals, was successful, and two volumes of Travels through France and Italy. His History and Adventures of an Atom, published in 1769, was a satire upon the Government. Smollett was editor of The Critical Review, and also started The Briton, a Tory organ, which was crushed by John Wilkes's North Briton.

Character.- Smollett was involved in several literary and other quarrels, and was imprisoned for three months for a libel on Admiral Knowles. Smollett appears to have been a man of warm and generous feelings, but easily provoked, and not over tolerant of contradiction. He never courted the favor of the rich and great, but worked and fought his way through life in perfect independence. He is permanently associated with Fielding and Richardson as one of the trio of great English novelists of the eighteenth century, and like them he has the merits and the vices of the age.

Novels. Smollett's writings are even more licentious than those of Fielding. In judging the novelist, however, it should be kept in mind that he merely reflects the spirit of the age. The gentlemen and ladies of those days indulged in actions and language which would not be tolerated in the present century. If we would blame Smollett for writing of intrigues and amours, we have only to remember that a lady of quality, Lady Vane, paid him for the record of her deeds. It seems quite certain, at least, that the works of Smollett, Fielding and Richardson were no worse than their readers, but probably much better, and that their general influence upon those readers was wholesome. Whether the readers of to-day would be benefited by their perusal is quite another question.

Literary Merits.- Smollett, like Fielding, is a vigorous and skilful depicter of life and character. He has not Fielding's profound insight into human nature, but he has an equal eye with Fielding for the vagaries and vicissitudes of society, and as nimble a pen to record them. His plots are not so elaborate as Fielding's, and his style is by no means so sustained. But Smollett delights without wearying. He is a fascinating story-teller. The characters of Peregrine Pickle, Roderick Random, Strap, and many others, have been placed in the great English gallery of character. pieces.

"The novel of Humphrey Clinker is, I do think, the most laughable story that has ever been written since the goodly art of novel-writing began. Winifred Jenkins and Tabitha Bramble must keep Englishmen on the grin for ages to come; and in their letters and the story of their lives there is a perpetual fount of sparkling laughter as inexhaustible as Bladud's Well."-Thackeray.

Smollett is also the author of several poems which, in the opinion of Campbell, possess more delicacy than his novels, but have less strength.

Sterne.

Laurence Sterne, 1713-1768, is celebrated as a humorist and sentimentalist. His two chief works, Tristram Shandy and The Sentimental Journey, are among the best known of all the works of this period.

Early Life. Sterne was born in Ireland, of parents who had just emigrated to that country from Scotland. His father was lieutenant in the army. Young Sterne was put to school at Halifax, and afterwards sent to Oxford, where he took his degree of B. A. in 1736. He entered the Church of England, and obtained the living of Sutton, in Yorkshire, where he passed twenty years in rural obscurity. He had to preach on Sunday, but the rest of the week was spent in "reading, painting, fiddling, and shooting."

Works. In 1759 appeared the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy, and Sterne had become famous. He was the literary lion of London. Henceforth his parish was quite neglected, and he spent nearly all his time in London or on the continent, leading a life of idleness and gayety and even of dissipation. Tristram Shandy was not completed until the year before the author's death. The Sentimental Journey appeared about the beginning of 1768. Sterne had also published in the meanwhile four volumes of sermons. He died at his lodgings in London, comparatively deserted by his numerous admirers.

Character as a Writer.—There are not many similar instances in English literature of a man's becoming so suddenly and so generally famous by his first work of fiction. Everybody laughed and wept alternately over the wit and pathos of the new author, and the modest closed their eyes to the licentiousness that disfigured the pages. Many generations have come and gone since then, and sentimentalism is long since out of favor, but Old Shandy, Uncle Toby, and Trim have become standard names in English literature. Sterne has been accused and convicted, again and again, of having stolen from Rabelais, Montaigne, Scarron, Bacon, Donne, and the entire body of French and English authors; his style has been shown to be borrowed, his sentiment weak and thin, his wit affected. Yet somehow he still survives, he is still read and enjoyed by each successive generation of readers, and no one of his judges has ever yet succeeded in showing satisfactorily how an author, who stole every idea, and had no positive merit of his own, has nevertheless succeeded in holding his ground against all criticism and anathema. The truth is that Sterne was a prodigious reader, but had the happy gift of recreating his gathered materials into entirely new forms. There never was anything like Tristram Shandy before in English letters, and there certainly has been nothing since.

"His style is at times the most rapid, the most happy, the most idiomatic, of any that is to be found. It is the pure essence of English conversational style. His works consist only of morceaux,- of brilliant passages. I wonder that Goldsmith, who ought to have known him better, should call him a 'dull fellow.' His wit is poignant though

artificial; and his characters (though the groundwork of some of them had been laid before) have yet invaluable original differences; and the spirit of the execution, the master-strokes constantly thrown into them, are not to be surpassed. It is sufficient to name them: - Yorick, Dr. Slop, Mr. Shandy, My Uncle Toby, Trim, Susanna, and the Widow Wadman. In these he has contrived to oppose, with equal felicity and originality, two characters, one of pure intellect and the other of pure good nature, in My Father and My Uncle Toby. There appears to have been in Sterne a vein of dry, sarcastic humor, and of extreme tenderness of feeling; the latter sometimes carried to affectation, as in the tale of Maria, and the apostrophe to the recording angel, but at other times pure and without blemish. The story of Le Fevre is perhaps the finest in the English language. My Father's restlessness of body and of mind is inimitable. My Uncle Toby is one of the finest compliments ever paid to human nature. He is the most unoffending of human creatures; or, as the French express it, un tel petit bon homme. Of his bowling green, his sieges, and his amours, who would say or think anything amiss." — Hazlitt.

III. THE POETS.

Goldsmith.

Oliver Goldsmith, 1728-1774, is one of the most conspicuous ornaments of the period now under consideration. He excelled about equally in poetry and prose. Of the vast mass of his prose writings, however, the greater part has ceased to be of interest. The only one, in fact, that is now generally read is The Vicar of Wakefield. But his poems, though inconsiderable in amount, have a perpetual charm. There are, indeed, few poems in the language that have a better prospect of a permanent place in its literature than The Deserted Village.

Early Life. Goldsmith was a native of Ireland, the son of a clergyman of the Established Church. In boyhood he had the small-pox, by which his face was permanently disfigured. At the age of seventeen, through the liberality of a kind-hearted uncle, he entered Trinity College, Dublin. Here he gained few distinctions, his habits of study, like all his other habits, being wrecked by improvidence. On one occasion, however, he won a small prize, of the value of thirty shillings: "This turn of success and sudden influx of wealth proved too much for the head of our poor student. He forthwith gave a supper and dance at his chamber, to a number of young persons of both sexes from the city, in direct violation of college rules. The unwonted sound of the fiddle reached the ears of the implacable Wilder [the tutor]. He rushed to the scene of unhallowed festivity, inflicted corporal chastise