The prose writers of the last half of the century were OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-1774), who published the Vicar of Wakefield in 1766; EDWARD GIBBON (1737-1794), who wrote The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797), best known to-day for his Speech on Conciliation with America; and SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784), whose Lives of the Poets is the best specimen of eighteenth-century classical criticism.
The most noteworthy achievement of the century was the victory of romanticism (p. 88) over classicism. Pope's polished satiric and didactic verse, neglecting the primrose by the river's brim, lacking deep feeling, high ideals, and heaven-climbing imagination, had long been the model that inspired cold intellectual poetry. In the latter part of the century, romantic feeling and imagination won their battle and came into their own heritage in literature. ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796) wrote poetry that touched the heart. A classicist like Dr. Johnson preferred the town to the most beautiful country scenes, but WILLIAM COWPER (1731-1800) says:—
"God made the country, and man made the town."
Romantic poetry culminated in the work of WILLIAM WORDSWORTH and SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, whose Lyrical Ballads (1798) included the wonderful romantic poem of The Ancient Mariner, and poems by Wordsworth, which brought to thousands of human souls a new sense of companionship with nature, a new feeling
"… that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes,"
and that all nature is anxious to share its joy with man and to introduce him to a new world. The American poets of this age, save Freneau in a few short lyrics, felt but little of this great impulse; but in the next period we shall see that William Cullen Bryant heard the call and sang:—
"Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy
Existence than the winged plunderer
That sucks its sweets."
The romantic prose was not of as high an order as the poetry. Writers of romances like WALPOLE'S Castle of Otranto and GODWIN'S Caleb Williams did not allow their imaginations to be fettered by either the probable or the possible. In America the romances of Charles Brockden Brown show the direct influence of this school.
LEADING HISTORICAL FACTS
The French and Indian War accomplished two great results. In the first place, it made the Anglo-Saxon race dominant in North America. Had the French won, this book would have been chiefly a history of French literature. In the second place, the isolated colonies learned to know one another and their combined strength.