5. William Cobbett (1762–1835) was born at Farnham, Surrey, and was the son of a farm-laborer. He enlisted in the Army, rose to be sergeant-major, emigrated to America, where he took to journalism, and returned to England, to become actively engaged in politics. In 1835 he was elected to Parliament, but was not a success as a public man. He was a man of violent opinions, boxed the political compass, and died an extreme Radical.
He was an assiduous journalist, beginning with Peter Porcupine’s Journal (1801). His other paper was his Political Register, which he began in 1802 and carried on till 1835. His further literary work is contained in his Rural Rides in England. He writes with an unaffected simplicity that reminds the reader of Bunyan, and his descriptions of contemporary England are clear and forcible.
6. The historians belonging to this period are both numerous and important, but we can mention only a few.
(a) Henry Hart Milman (1791–1868) was educated at Eton and Oxford, and afterward wrote some plays, including the tragedy Fazio (1817). His chief historical works are The History of the Jews (1829) and The History of Latin Christianity (1856). Milman is a solid and reliable historian, with a readable style.
(b) George Grote (1794–1871) was a London banker, and entered politics. His History of Greece (1846–56) is based on German research, and is well informed and scholarly. The work, however, is sometimes considered to be too long and tedious in its detail.
(c) Henry Hallam (1777–1859) was a member of the Middle Temple, but he practiced very little. He wrote on both literary and historical subjects, and contributed to The Edinburgh Review. His historical works include A Constitutional History of England (1827) and An Introduction to the Literature of Europe (1838–39). Hallam acquired a great and deserved reputation for solid scholarship. Like Gibbon, he tried to attune his style to his subject, and wrote in a grave and impressive manner, but, lacking the genius of Gibbon, he succeeded only in making his style lifeless and frigid.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS
The amount of actual development during this period was not so great as the immense output. Authors were content with the standard literary forms, and it was upon these as models that the development took place.
1. Poetry. (a) This was indeed the golden age of the lyric, which reflected the Romantic spirit of the time in liberal and varied measure. It comprised the exalted passion of Shelley, the meditative simplicity of Wordsworth, the sumptuous descriptions of Keats, and the golden notes of Coleridge. It is to be noted that in form the lyric employed the ancient externals of the stereotyped meters and rhymes. There was some attempt at rhymeless poems in the work of Southey and the early poems of Shelley, but this practice was never general.
(b) With descriptive and narrative poems the age was richly endowed. One has only to recall Byron’s early work, Keats’s tales, Coleridge’s supernatural stories, and Scott’s martial and historical romances to perceive how rich was the harvest. Once more the poets work upon older methods. The Spenserian stanza is the favorite model, but the ballad is nearly as popular. These older types suffered some change, as was almost inevitable with such inspired minds at work upon them. The Spenserian manner was loosened and strengthened; it was given richer and more varied beauties in The Eve of St. Agnes, and a sharper and more personal note in the Childe Harold of Byron. In the case of Wordsworth we observe the frequent use of blank verse for meditative purposes, as in The Prelude.