Johnson came up to London precisely at the time when the condition of a man of letters was most miserable and degraded. It was a dark night between two sunny days.... A writer had little to hope from the patronage of powerful individuals. The patronage of the public did not yet furnish the means of comfortable subsistence.... If he had lived thirty years earlier he would have sat in parliament, and would have been entrusted with embassies to the High Allies.
Macaulay
9. State how far the principles set out in the passage below are followed in the novel of the eighteenth century.
A novel is a large diffused picture, comprehending the characters of life, disposed in different groups and exhibited in various attitudes, for the purposes of an uniform plan. This plan cannot be executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a principal personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene, by virtue of his own importance.
Smollett, Ferdinand, Count Fathom
10. “The eighteenth century established a prose style.” (Craik.) Discuss this statement on some such lines as the following: (a) Was there no “established” style in prose before the eighteenth century? (b) Who “established” it then? (c) What are the peculiarities of the new prose style? (d) What are the purposes for which it was used? (e) Has it been perpetuated? (f) Who has used it?
11. Matthew Arnold calls Burns “a beast with splendid gleams.” Why a “beast”? And what does he mean by the “gleams”? Is the criticism fair to Burns?
12. Account for the great development of the novel during the eighteenth century.
13. Who are most obviously the “transitional” poets of the century? In what sense are they transitional?
14. Give a historical account of the rise of the lyric during the eighteenth century.