GEORGE BELL & SONS

LONDON: YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & Co.

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.

THE

AGE OF JOHNSON

(1748-1798)

BY

THOMAS SECCOMBE

LONDON

GEORGE BELL AND SONS

1902

INTRODUCTION

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. ESSAYISTS AND CRITICS.

Samuel Johnson-Oliver Goldsmith-Joseph Warton--

Thomas Warton---Thomas Gray-Minor Critics.

CHAPTER II. MEMOIRS AND LETTERS

Lord Chesterfield-Horace Walpole-James Boswell-

Thomas Holcroft-Samuel Burdy-Wolfe Tone-Madame

D'Arblay-Mrs. Thrale—Mrs. Trench-Thomas Twining.

CHAPTER III. POLITICAL WRITERS

Edmund Burke-Junius-Thomas Paine.

PAGE

ix

1

38

66

CHAPTER IV. STUDY AND RESEARCH.

I. Economists and Philosophers

88

Adam Smith-David Hume-David Hartley-Erasmus

Darwin.

II. Naturalists and Geographers

98

Gilbert White-James Bruce-Arthur Young-Thomas

Pennant - John Pinkerton-John Hawkesworth-

County Historians.

III. Classical Scholars and Humanists

105

Samuel Parr-Horne Tooke-Gilbert Wakefield

Richard Porson -- Jonathan Toup.

110

CHAPTER V. THE THEOLOGIANS.

William Paley-Joseph Priestley-Samuel Horsley-

Thomas Paine-Bishop Watson--Conyers Middleton-

William Warburton-Bishop Lowth-John Wesley-

Charles Wesley.

CHAPTER VI. THE HISTORIANS

Thomas Carte-George Lyttelton-David Hume-Tobias

Smollett-William Robertson-Edward Gibbon - Thomas

Somerville-Robert Watson-Robert Orme-Oliver Gold-

smith—Adanı Ferguson-Minor Historians.

127

CHAPTER VII. THE GREAT NOVELISTS

Samuel Richardson-Henry Fielding-Tobias Smollett-

Laurence Sterne.

CHAPTER VIII. MINOR NOVELISTS

PAGE

153

Fanny Burney-Henry Brooke-Henry Mackenzie-

Clara Reeve-Mrs. Radcliffe-Joseph Strutt--Thomas

Day-Hannah More.

CHAPTER IX. THE DRAMA.

Samuel Johnson-Edward Moore-John Home-Samuel

Foote-Arthur Murphy-James Townley-David Garrick

-George Colman-Hugh Kelly-Richard Cumberland—

Oliver Goldsmith-John O'Keeffe-Charles Macklin---

Frederic Reynolds—Richard Brinsley Sheridan-Thomas

Holcroft-John Tobin-W. H. Ireland.

CHAPTER X. THE POETS.

I. The Tradition of Pope.

Poets Laureate-William Whitehead-Henry James

Pye-Samuel Johnson-Charles Churchill—John Wol-

cot-Christopher Anstey-The Rolliad-The Anti-

Jacobin-William Gifford - Minor Satirists-Oliver

Goldsmith - William Falconer-Richard Glover-

James Grainger—Minor Bards-Erasmus Darwin.

189

199

222

II. The Transition

244

William Collins

Thomas Gray - The Wartons

Thomas Russell-Christopher Smart-William Cowper

-James Macpherson-Thomas Chatterton-William

Blake.

III. Allan Ramsay's School

285

The Hamiltons-Jean Elliot-James Beattie-Alex-

ander Ross-W. J. Mickle-John Logan-Michael

Bruce--Robert Fergusson.