Sir Isaac Newton.

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the Copernican hypothesis, the nature of comets and new stars, the satellites of Jupiter, the oval shape of Saturn, the spots on the sun and the turning on its own axis, the inequalities and selenography of the moon, the several phases of Venus and Mercury, the improvement of telescopes and grinding of glasses for that purpose, the weight of air, the possibility or impossibility of vacuities and Nature's abhorrence thereof, the Torricellian experiment in quicksilver, the descent of heavy bodies and the degrees of acceleration therein, with divers other things of like nature, some of which were then but new discoveries, and others not so generally known and embraced as now [1696] they are; with other things appertaining to what has been called the New Philosophy, which, from the times of Galileo at Florence, and Sir Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam) in England, hath been much cultivated in Italy, France, Germany, and other parts abroad, as well as with us in England." This comprehensive survey well shows the growing interest taken in science. Charles II. was fond of dabbling in chemistry, and his courtiers followed suit, till it became considered gentlemanly to have a tincture of scientific knowledge. The increased orderliness and method of English style which now began to prevail may in some measure be attributed to the scientific spirit abroad, which was intolerant of confusion and carelessness of arrangement. To this period. belongs the greatest name in the history of science, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), who cannot be altogether omitted even in a purely literary history. He succeeded Barrow, whose pupil he had been, as Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, and published his great work, the "Principia,” in 1687. It was written in Latin. Besides his scientific works, he found time to write on ancient chronology, on the Scripture prophecies, and "An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture." These were published posthumously, and are interesting for the light they throw on his religious opinions. Their style is not specially remarkable in any way.

8

Swift, Addison, Steele, Arbuthnot, Bolingbroke, Berkeley, Butler; Pope, Prior, Gay, Young, Churchill, Gray, Collins, and Akenside.

URING the reign of Queen Anne and the two first Georges, the government of England was in a very unsettled condition. Jacobitism, till finally crushed in 1745-46, flourished among men who held high places of trust, and was so prevalent among the community at large that the restoration of the Stuart line was looked upon by all sagacious observers as no unlikely event. It was a time of the grossest political immorality, when men shifted sides unhesitatingly for the most selfish motives, and when both the great political parties lived in constant fear of having their secrets betrayed by traitors. Party spirit ran high, and Whigs and Tories alike strained every nerve to win the voice of the public to their side. Both employed armies of hack writers to advocate their cause, and both were ready to shower gifts and offices upon any writer of mark and talent who should employ himself in their defence. The pen was then a much more powerful political agent than it is now. Parliamentary report ing was forbidden, and thus the speech delivered in Parliament, which in our day, by the reports of it in the newspapers, affects the minds of millions, could at the best only influence the three or four hundred members who might happen to hear it. Recess oratory and great political manifestoes at party gatherings were little practised, nor would they have been

attended by any widespread results though they had been practised, for there was not yet such a thing as copious newspaper reports of speeches. A well-written pamphlet, or a series of vigorous articles in one of the political periodicals which came into fashion in Queen Anne's time, was as powerful an auxiliary in either averting the ruin of a ministry or in hastening it to its fall as a great oration defending his policy by a Prime Minister or a scathing denunciation of the plans of the Government by an Opposition leader is in the present day. Under these circumstances, and considering the munificent rewards popular and telling party writers often had bestowed. upon them, it is not surprising that the literature of the time with which we are now dealing should have been pre-eminently a party literature. Almost every eminent prose writer of the period-Defoe, Swift, Addison, Steele, and others-ranged himself on the side of the Whig or the Tory party, and employed his pen in its defence. The effect of this on prose style was on the whole favourable, giving it greater energy, precision, and lucidity than it had yet possessed. But it had also its evil results. Something of the want of moral elevation and breadth of view which distinguished the politics of the age communicated itself to the literature: with all its many good qualities, the so-called Augustan period of English literature has about it a worldly air and an absence of any spiritual insight.

Among the men of letters who entered the bustling arena of political controversy was the greatest and most original writer of his time, Jonathan Swift, one of the most powerful, most imperious, and most puzzling figures our literary history presents. He was born in Dublin in 1667. It was only by the accident of birth that he was an Irishman. He was descended from an old Yorkshire family, and had no Irish blood in his veins. Even he, though wiser and more far-sighted in regard to Ireland than almost any of his contemporaries, always spoke of the native Irish with that indiscriminating contempt which has since born such bitter fruit. Swift was a posthumous chill, and his mother having been left very slenderly provided

for. the expenses of his education were defrayed in what appears to have been a sufficiently grudging fashion by his uncle Godwin. He was educated at the school of Kilkenny, and then at Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained his degree speciali gratia in 1685. In 1689 he became private secretary to Sir William Temple, whose wife was a relative of his mother's. All things considered, Swift entered the world under very promising auspices. Temple (1628–1699) was a veteran diplomatist and statesman, who had taken a leading part in negotiating the Triple Alliance, and he was universally looked up to and consulted in his old age as one of the most wary, sagacious, and politic of men. As an author he ranks high, not so much because his works show great power or genius, as because he was one of the first to obtain a mastery over the great and difficult art of English prose composition. "Sir William Temple," Johnson is reported to have said, “was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose. Before his time they were careless of arrangement, and did not mind whether a sentence ended with an important word or an insignificant word. or with what part of speech it was concluded." In the household of Temple at Moor Park, Swift had ample opportunity for increasing his store of knowledge, and, besides, he was admitted behind the scenes of political life, and even had the honour on one occasion of acting as Temple's mouthpiece in advising King William regarding the policy he should pursue as to the Triennial Bill. Yet he felt his position very galling. He was a dependant, his proud, imperious, self-confident nature chafed bitterly against the chains of servitude, however richly gilded they might be; and Temple, a man of cold, selfish, precise disposition, was a master whose behests it was not always easy to obey with cheerfulness. With but a brief interval, during which, apparently in despair of ever obtaining any lay promotion from his patron, he committed the great mistake of his life by taking orders, Swift remained with. Temple till his death in 1699. It was during his residence at Moor Park that he first became acquainted with the woman, then a little girl, whose name is indissolubly connected with

his.

Swift's" Tale of a Tub."

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Esther Johnson, better known as Stella, was only about six years old when Swit saw her first. He constituted himself her tutor, "directing," he says, "what books she should read, and perpetually instructing her in the principles of honour and virtue, from which she never swerved in any one action or moment of her life."

In 1699 Swift went to Ireland with Lord Berkeley as private chaplain. From him he expected high ecclesiastical promotion, but his hopes were, as usual, doomed to disappointment. To his bitter grief and mortification, he had to be content with the livings of Laracor and Rathbeggin in the county of Meath, to which he was appointed in 1700. He performed his duties as a clergyman in a manner which, if it would now be considered perfunctory, was probably more exemplary than was then usual, though he often left his "parish, with an audience of half a score," to go to England, there to advance his fortunes by becoming acquainted with wits and statesmen. His first publication, "A Discourse on the Contests and Dissensions between the Nobles and Commons at Athens and Rome," which appeared in 1701, had a political intent, being meant to check the impeachment of Somers, Halifax, Oxford, and Portland for their share in the Partition Treaty. When he visited England in 1702, he avowed the authorship of this tract, and thus won the regard of the leading Whig statesmen and their political allies. In 1704 he published anonymously the "Tale of a Tub," which appears to have lain for about seven or eight years in MS. His authorship of it was never acknowledged, but it was generally known that he was the writer, and the work proved the one insurmountable obstacle to his professional preferment. In vigour and poignancy of satire, in grave irony, in masculine force and intensity, the "Tale of a Tub" has never been surpassed. On one occasion, when in his old age he happened to come across a copy of the work, Swift exclaimed, "Good God! what a genius I had when I wrote that book!" But it was thought to have an irreligious tendency, and Swift's natural love of obscenity appears strongly in many parts of it, so that while it made him known as a