eighteenth century may fairly be typified, if not precisely summarised, by what we have glanced at,-the writings of those orators and public men who reached their highest expression in the "Federalist," the conscious and imitative effort of the Hartford Wits, and the sporadic poetry of Philip Freneau. IX SUMMARY We have now glanced at the literary history of America during the first two centuries of American existence. In the seventeenth century, the century of immigration, when Americans felt themselves truly to be emigrant Englishmen, they expressed themselves only in such theological and historical work as may be typified by the "Magnalia" of Cotton Mather. During the eighteenth century, the century of independence, when Americans felt themselves still Englishmen, but with no personal ties to England, America produced in literature a theology which ran to metaphysical extremes, such vigorous common sense as one finds in the varied works of Franklin, and such writings as we have glanced at since. These two centuries added to English literature the names of Shakspere, Milton, Dryden, Swift, Addison, Pope, Johnson, and Burns. To match these names in America we can find none more eminent than those of Cotton Mather, Edwards, Franklin, the writers of the "Federalist," the Hartford Wits, and Freneau. As we have seen, the history of England during these two centuries was that of a steadily developing and increasing national experience. In comparison, the history of America reveals national inexperience. There is no need for further emphasis on the commonplace that lack of experience does not favour literary or artistic expression. BOOK III THE NINETEENTH CENTURY I ENGLISH HISTORY SINCE 1800 IN 1800 King George III., who had been forty years on the throne, was lapsing into that melancholy madness in which his sixty years of royalty closed. The last ten years of his reign were virtually part of his successor's, the Prince Regent, afterward George IV. In 1830 King William IV. succeeded his brother; his reign lasted only seven years. Since 1837 the sovereign of England has been Queen Victoria. During the nineteenth century, then, only three English sovereigns came to the throne. It chances that each of these represents a distinct phase of English history. The Regency, under which general name we may for the moment include also the reign of George IV., was the time when the insular isolation of England was most pronounced. In 1798 Nelson won the battle of the Nile. No incident more definitely marks the international position of England as the chief conservative defender of such traditions as for a while seemed fatally threatened by the French Revolution becoming incarnate in Napoleon. During the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century the conflict persisted, more and more isolating England and emphasising English conservatism. In 1805, Trafalgar, which finally destroyed the sea power of Napoleon, made the English Channel more than ever a frontier separating England from the rest of Europe. |