Froissart observes clearly, but his observation is limited to the world of nobles and chivalry; he ignores the life, the sufferings and the joys of the people.
Ben Jonson, master of dignified declamatory drama, was the greatest of the post-Shakespeare school. We may justly say post-Shakespeare, though Jonson was nearly contemporaneous with the Bard of Avon, because the influence of such a man clearly belongs to an age in which the freedom and romantic magnificence of Shakespeare have been forgotten.
Gibbon is the first of historians. The "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" runs its course like some majestic river.
Burns is a microcosm of Scotland.
Burke—a stainless and beautiful character. A theorist in practice; a practical man in theory.
Burke's view of Rousseau was biased and unjust.
Though contemptuous of Wordsworth, Byron himself is a romantic of the romanticists. He was the guiding star of rebels the world over.
In the calm purity of his verse, Shelley is more classic than romantic. What ecstatic melody in his lyrics!
Dickens is often mawkish and often portrays oddities; but these oddities do exist, especially in London (e.g., Sam Weller, Mrs. Todgers, Jo, etc.), and Dickens unearthed them for the first time. How his heart warms for the poor and the wretched! He is the great poet of London life.
Macaulay is not a philosophic writer; but then the English genius is certainly non-philosophic.