CHAPTER VII. LITERATURE, ART, AND SCIENCE (1789-1815).
NEW SPIRIT IN LITERATURE.—In the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries, literature broke away from the artificial rules and the one-sided intellectual tone of the "classical" school,—that school which had prevailed through the influence of the French writers of the age of Louis XIV. The new era was marked by more spontaneity, and a return to nature, and by a more free rein given to imagination and feeling. "Romanticism," a general designation of the results of this new movement as contrasted with the "classical" period, sometimes ran out into extravagances of sentiment, and an exaggerated relish for the mediaeval spirit.
WRITERS IN ITALY AND IN FRANCE.—In Italy, there were few writers of distinction. Monti (1754-1828) was a poet full of harmony and elegance, a follower, but with unequal steps, of Alfieri. Another of the same school is the patriotic poet, Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827), a master of his native tongue. The poems of Pindemonte (1753-1828) are graceful and pathetic. Leopardi (1798-1837) mingles sublimity with pathos. Of the Italian historians of this period, Botta (1766-1837), who published a history of the American Revolution, and histories of Italy, is a clear writer, with a talent for vivid description. In France, Chateaubriand (1768-1848), who figured both in political life and as a prolific and brilliant author, by his Genius of Christianity and many other productions gained great celebrity,—more, however, by charms of style and sentiment, than by weight of matter. Madame de Staël (1766-1817) was the daughter of Necker. Between her and Napoleon there was a mutual hostility. She wrote Corinne, Delphine,—"in which she idealizes herself,"—a work on Germany, and various other productions. She was versatile, vigorous in thought, and humane in her temper and spirit. In philosophy, a believing and spiritual school, in opposition to materialism, was founded by Maine de Biran (1766-1824), Royer-Collard (1763-1846), and Benjamin Constant. De Maistre (1754-1821) wrote ably on the side of authority and of the Catholic Church.
ENGLISH POETRY.—Literature in England, especially in the department of poetry, casting off the trammels of the classical school, in which Dryden and Pope were foremost, entered on a new and splendid era. Whether it dwelt on external nature or human passions and experiences, it appealed to sensibility. It was no more exclusively, or in the main, an address to the understanding. Cowper (1731-1800) set the example of genuine naturalness, and of interest in nature and in every-day life. Robert Burns, a Scottish peasant (1759-1796), by his wonderful union of tenderness, passion, and humor, with poetic fancy and simplicity of diction, was more than the poet of a single nation. Wordsworth (1770-1850) blended in his poems a delight in rural and mountain scenery, with a deep vein of pensive thought and sentiment. If he wrote dull pages, even the severest critics allow that in The Excursion there are most beautiful "oases in the desert;" while in such poems as the Ode on the Power of Sound, the Intimations of Immortality from the Recollections of Childhood, and Laodamia, there are passages not excelled since Milton. A more sustained fervor of feeling and imagination belonged to Byron (1788-1824), who, notwithstanding his morbid egotism and offenses against morality, combined passion with beauty, and was never dull. Walter Scott (1771-1832) exhibited in his narrative poems the spirit of the romantic school, with none of its sentimentality or extravagance. Coleridge (1772-1834), the author of Christabel and The Ancient Mariner, was a highly original poet, as well as a philosopher. Southey (1774-1843), with less genius, was a man of letters, prolific both in verse and in prose. Shelley and Keats had a much higher gift of imagination. Campbell, Rogers, and Moore are names of distinction, although less illustrious than those of Wordsworth and Coleridge, Scott and Byron. Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), a poet and the author of Imaginary Conversations, and other prose writings, was master of a style of extraordinary power and purity.
ENGLISH PROSE WRITERS.—In novel-writing, Miss Austen, Miss Porter, and Miss Edgeworth preceded Walter Scott. Waverley, the first in the series of Scott's novels, appeared anonymously in 1814. In 1802 the Edinburgh Review, the first of the noted critical quarterlies, began its existence, under the editorship of Francis Jeffrey, and numbered among its writers Brougham, Sydney Smith, and Sir James Mackintosh. In 1809 the Quarterly Review, the organ of the Tories as the Edinburgh Review represented the Whigs, began, with Gifford for its editor. Among the essayists of that time, in a lighter vein, were John Wilson ("Christopher North"), poet and critic in one; and the genial humorist, the friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge, Charles Lamb. John Foster (1770-1843) was an original essayist on grave themes. In philosophy, Dugald Stewart (1753-1828), a clear and fluent expositor, and Thomas Brown (1778-1821), kept up the reputation of the Scottish school founded by Reid. Burke, Alison, and Jeffrey wrote on beauty, and on the taste for the beautiful. Mackintosh, a statesman of liberal opinions, wrote on ethics. Coleridge, inspired by the German thinkers Kant and Schelling, through his philosophical fragments and theological essays did much to create a new current in English philosophical and religious thought. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was less eminent as a metaphysician than as a contributor, through his writings, to legislative reform.
AMERICAN WRITERS.—In America, the political writings of Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Jay, Madison, Marshall, and Ames, have a permanent value. Their letters and the letters of Washington are written in clear and manly English. Lindley Murray (1745-1826) published (1795) an English Grammar, which superseded all others. In theology, there were a number of vigorous thinkers and writers, such as the younger President Edwards, Samuel Hopkins, Bellamy, Emmons, J. M. Mason, and Dwight. Dwight's System of Theology was much read in England and Scotland. Belles-lettres literature in America was in its infancy. There was a triad of poets,—Trumbull, a humorous writer (1750-1831), Joel Barlow (1755-1812), and Dwight (1752-1817); all of them survivors of the school of Pope. Their patriotic feeling was their chief merit, but Barlow and Dwight each wrote one excellent hymn.
GERMAN AUTHORS.—One of the most versatile and stimulating of German writers was Herder (1744-1803). Full of imagination and spirit, he made his quickening influence felt as a theologian, critic, philosopher, and philologist. His name is in some measure eclipsed by the fame of his two great associates at Weimar, Goethe (1749-1832) and Schiller (1759-1805). By the universality of his genius, which was equally exalted in the sphere of criticism and of original production, Goethe is, by common consent, the foremost of German authors. His dramas, especially Tasso, Egmont, and Faust, and his pastoral epic, Hermann and Dorothea, are the most celebrated of his poems; but many of his minor pieces are marked by exquisite harmony and beauty. Schiller, with less repose and a less profound artistic feeling, yet from his humane impulses and fire of emotion stands closer to the popular heart. Körner (1791-1813), and Arndt (1769-1860), the author of the song, "Where is the German's Fatherland," were patriotic lyrists of high merit. Uhland (1787-1862) is a ballad-writer, not surpassed in this species of composition by any of his contemporaries. The "Romantic School," with its predilection for the Middle Ages, included Novalis, Tieck, and also the two brothers Schlegel, who were critics rather than poets. One of the most unique and original of the German writers was Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825), essentially a philosopher and moralist, yet with a pervading element of humor and pathos.
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY.—In philosophy, the first name in the order of time and of merit is that of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The Critique of Pure Reason is the most important of his productions. He showed, against Hume, that the ideas of cause, substance, self, etc., are not products of imagination, or due to a mere custom of thought, but are from within, and are necessary and universal. In the Critique of the Practical Reason he found the real basis of faith in God, free-will, and immortality, in our moral nature. On all the topics which he treated, he was both earnest and profound. On the basis of a portion of his teaching, subsequent speculative philosophers reared a system of idealism and pantheism. Of these, the most celebrated are Fichte (1762-1814), who held that the world external to the mind has no existence; Schelling (1775-1854), who taught that nature and mind are at bottom one and the same substance, in different manifestations; and Hegel (1770-1831), who resolved all being into a realm of ideas, a self-existent and self-developing thought-world.
Among the numerous writers in other departments in this period, the brothers Alexander von Humboldt and William von Humboldt were eminent,—the former in natural science and as an explorer; the latter in political sciences, criticism and philology.
PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.—In Italy, a great sculptor—the greatest since Michael Angelo—appeared in the person of Canova (1757-1822); who, however, was equaled by an Englishman, John Flaxman (1755-1826). An eminent follower of Canova was Thorwaldsen (1770-1844), a Dane. Dannecker, a German sculptor (1758-1844), excelled in portrait statues. Another German sculptor, the founder of a school, was Rauch (1774-1857), whose statues are faithful, yet idealized, likenesses. A famous French painter in this period was David, whose pictures, in the classic style, lack force and warmth. Many of his scholars attained to high proficiency in the art. Horace Vernet (1789-1863) and Paul Delaroche (1797-1856) chose their subjects from modern European history. The modern German school of painting was founded by Overbeck, Von Schadow, and Cornelius. The greatest English painter after Hogarth was Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), whose portraits have seldom, if ever, been surpassed. Almost or quite on a level with him was Gainsborough (1727-1788). Benjamin West (1738-1820) was by birth an American, as was Copley, an artist of superior talents (1739-1815). Lawrence (1769-1830) was a British painter whose portraits have a high historical value. The greatest of the English landscape painters was Turner (1775-1851).
John Trumbull (1756-1843), an American, painted spirited battle-pieces, and miniature portraits of decided artistic merit. Washington Allston (1779-1843), another American painter, produced works admired for their warmth of color, and for the refined feeling expressed in them.
MUSIC.—The great German musicians Haydn and Mozart were followed by an equal or greater genius in music, Beethoven (1770-1827). At the head of the school of German song-writers is Schubert (1797-1828). One of the most popular of the German composers was Weber (1786-1826).
PHYSICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCE.—The most brilliant discoveries in astronomy were made by the French philosopher Laplace, whose Mécanique Céleste made an epoch in that science. Dr. Thomas Young (1773-1829) did much to explain the true theory of the tides, and to confirm the undulatory theory of light. Others eminent in the progress of optics are Fresnel (1788-1827), Biot, Arago,—all French physicists,—and Sir David Brewster. Lavoisier (1743-1794) infused a new spirit into chemical science. Priestley (1733-1804) discovered oxygen and other gases. Dalton (1766-1844) is the author of the atomic theory of the composition of matter. Sir Humphry Davy added to chemical knowledge, and, simultaneously with George Stephenson, invented the safety-lamp for miners. Berzelius (1779-1848), a Swedish chemist, and Gay-Lussac (1778-1850), a Frenchman, are great names in the history of this science. Galvani, the discoverer of animal electricity, and Volta, the inventor of the galvanic pile, stimulated others to fruitful experiments in this branch of study. Lamarck (1744-1829) was one of the first of the modern advocates of the origin of species by development. Cuvier (1769-1832), the greatest naturalist of modern times, made most important observations in comparative anatomy, and "established many of the positive laws of geology and paleontology." Geology first assumed the place of a science through the labors of Werner (1750-1817), a German mineralogist. There were two classes of geologists,—the Neptunians, or Wernerians, who ascribed rocks to aqueous deposition exclusively; and the Vulcanians, or Huttonists,—adherents of the view of Dr. Hutton (1726-1797) of Edinburgh,—who attributed many of them to the action of fire. The Geological Society of London was founded in 1807. Among discoveries of practical utility in science, the discovery of vaccination for the prevention of small-pox, by Jenner (1749-1823), an English physician, is one of the most remarkable.
LITERATURE: See the lists on pp. 16, 359, 497; also President
A. D. White's list, with critical notes, attached to Morris's The
French Revolution and First Empire (in "Epochs of history"), and
Adams's Manual: the Histories of Alison (Tory), Louis Blanc, Carlyle,
Jomini, Fyffe, Stephens, Mahan, Chuquet. Aulard, Lavisse et Rambaud,
Histoire Gènèrale VIII., IX. Michelet (7 vols.), Mignet,
Morris, Von Sybel (4 vols.), Thiers, Taine, L. Haüsser; Madame de
Rémusat's Memoirs; Metternich's Memoirs (5 vols.),
Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I. (3 vols.); Seeley,
Life of Stein; Lowell, Eve of the French Revolution; on
Napoleon, Rose, Lanfrey, Sloane.
De Tocqueville's L'Ancien Règime et la Révolution; P. Janet's
Philosophie de la Révolution Française; Quinet, La
Rèvolution; The Essays on the Revolution, by Burke, Mackintosh,
Croker; Macaulay's Essays on Mirabeau and Barère; Lamartine's The
Girondists; A. Young's Travels in France in 1787-88-89
(London, 1794); Oncken, Das Zeitalter der Revolution des
Kaiserreiches (2 vols.); Sorel, L'Europe et la Rèvolution
Française (5 vols.); Debidour, Rapports de l'Église et de
l'Etat en France; Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre
1st. Treitschke Deutsche Geschichte im neunzehnten
Fahrhundert (4 vols.).
Taine, History of English Literature; Mrs. Oliphant, Literary History of England in the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries; Allibone, Dictionary of British and American Authors; Wendell, A Literary History of America.