The writings of Christopher North (Professor Wilson) are characterized by the quaintest humor and the most practical shrewdness combined with tender and passionate emotion (d. 1854). Those of Charles Lamb (d. 1835) it is impossible to describe intelligibly to those who have not read them. Some of his scenes are in sentiment, imagery, and style the most anomalous medleys by which readers were ever alternately perplexed and amused, moved and delighted.
No man of his time influenced social science so much as Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Of his immediate pupils James Mill is the ablest, Cobbett, a vigorous and idiomatic writer of English, in the course of his long life advocated all varieties of political principle. In political science we have the accurate McCulloch; Malthus, known through his Theory of Population; and Ricardo, the most original thinker in science since Adam Smith.
Foster (1770-1843) had originality and a wider grasp of mind than the other two. Hall (1761-1831) is more eloquent, but in oratorical power Chalmers (1780-1847) was one of the great men of our century, which has produced few comparable to him in original keenness of intuition, and who combined so much power of thought with so much power of impressive communication.
In philosophy, Dugald Stewart (1753-1828) is one of the most attractive writers. Thomas Brown (1778-1820), his successor in the chair of Edinburgh, exhibited a subtlety of thought hardly ever exceeded in the history of philosophy; probably no writings on mental philosophy were ever so popular.
Equally worthy of a place in the annals of their era are those dissertations on the History of Philosophy contributed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica by Playfair, Leslie, and Mackintosh, and a system of Ethics by Bentham. Among the speculations in mental philosophy must also be placed a group of interesting treatises on the "Theory of the Sublime and Beautiful," a matter deeply important to poetry and the other fine arts, represented by Alison's essays on Taste, Jeffrey's on Beauty, and by contributions from Stewart, Thomas Brown, and Payne Knight.
In political economy John Mill is one of the most powerful and original minds of the nineteenth century. The pure sciences of mind have been enriched by important accessions; logic has been vigorously cultivated in two departments; on the one hand by Mill and Whewell, the former following the tendencies of Locke and Hobbes, the latter that of the German school; on the other hand, Archbishop Whately has expounded the Aristotelian system with clearness and sagacity, and De Morgan has attempted to supply certain deficiencies in the old analysis. But by far the greatest metaphysician who has appeared in the British empire during the present century is Sir William Hamilton. In his union of powerful thinking with profound and varied erudition, he stands higher, perhaps, than any other man whose name is preserved in the annals of modern speculation.
REVIEWS AND MAGAZINES.—A most curious and important fact in the literary history of the age is the prominence acquired by the leading Reviews and Magazines. Their high position was secured and their power founded beyond the possibility of overturn by the earliest of the series, the "Edinburgh Review." Commenced in 1802, it was placed immediately under the editorship of Francis Jeffrey, who conducted it till 1829. In the earlier part of its history there were not many distinguished men of letters in the empire who did not furnish something to its contents; among others were Sir Walter Scott, Lord Brougham, Malthus, Playfair, Mackintosh, and Sydney Smith. Differences of political opinion led to the establishment of the "London Quarterly," which advocated Tory principles, the Edinburgh being the organ of the Whigs. Its editors were first Gifford and then Lockhart, and it numbered among its contributors many of the most famous men of the time. The "Westminster Review" was established in 1825 as the organ of Jeremy Bentham and his disciples.
"Blackwood's Magazine," begun 1817, has contained articles of the highest literary merit. It was the unflinching and idolatrous advocate of Wordsworth, and some of its writers were the first translators of German poetry and the most active introducers of German taste and laws in poetical criticism.
The best efforts in literary criticism—the most brilliant department of recent literature, have been with few exceptions essays in the periodicals. Among the essayists the name of Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850) stands highest. In his essays selected for republication we find hardly any branch of general knowledge untouched, and while he treated none without throwing on them some brilliant ray of light, he contributed to many of them truths alike valuable and original. His criticisms on Poetry are flowing and spirited, glittering with a gay wit and an ever-ready fancy, and often blossoming into exquisite felicities of diction. While Macaulay uses poets and their works as hints for constructing picturesque dissertations on man and society, and while poetical reading prompts Wilson to enthusiastic bursts of original poetry, Jeffrey, fervid in his admiration of genius, but conscientiously stern in his respect for art, tries poetry by its own laws, and his writings are invaluable to those who desire to learn the principles of poetical criticism. A high place among the critical essayists must also be assigned to William Hazlitt, who in his lectures and elsewhere did manful service towards reviving the study of ancient poetry, and who prompts to study and speculation all readers, and not the least those who hesitate to accept his critical opinions.
PHYSICAL SCIENCE.—The spirit of philosophical inquiry and discovery is increasing in England, and is everywhere accompanied by a growing tendency to popularize all branches of science, and to bring them before the general mind in an attractive form.