point of literary skill, any one of Addison's papers is worth all Steele's put together. Steele is sketchy and rude, and mars the portraiture with patches of moralising. Addison fills in the minute touches with his most exquisite skill.1

men.

OTHER WRITERS.

THEOLOGY.

Towards the end of the seventeenth century the Church of England began to rest from her labours against Papacy, and to turn her forces against a new enemy. A new topic engaged all clergymen of a literary and controversial disposition, and the general tone of their sermons underwent a corresponding change. For such changes one cannot assign a definite year; it takes time to give a new direction to the energies of a large body of different We must be content to say that a religious revolution took place during the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth. If we dip into the writings of Churchmen twenty years before the end of the century, we find their polemic tracts burning with zeal against Papacy, and their sermons administering the consolations and warnings of Christianity, in full assurance of its divine origin. Twenty years after the end of the century we breathe a different atmosphere. The Church was then on the alert against a new antagonist-the all-absorbing topic was the controversy with the Deists. Tracts poured from the press; young aspirants to the bench were eager to break a lance with Toland or with Collins. Sermons were largely influenced by the prevailing controversy. Devotional ardour was replaced by polemical ardour, by a desire to "prove the reasonableness of Christianity. Whatever was the preacher's text, his anxiety was to "prove" that it was eminently suited to the condition of men, eminently calculated to make them happy. Sublimity and pathos were banished from the pulpit, and argument reigned in their stead. The great majority of the sermons preached in the eighteenth century were " tedious moral essays:" their favourite exhortations were "to abstain from

1 It is an example of the injustice done to Steele by the admirers of Addison, and also of the want of discrimination in their homage, that they give Addison credit for the amiability of the character as well as for the skill of the portraiture. There can be no doubt that, in this as in other cases, Addison profited greatly by his alliance with Steele; the original suggestiveness of discursive "Dick" gave many a hint for the elaborating skill of his friend. The laborious Dr Drake thinks it a subject for regret that Steele's first draughts do not com bine better with Addison's full and accurate picture; condescends to say that Nos. 107 and 109. carry on the costume and design of Addison with undeviat ing felicity;" and thinks it "an ingenious conjecture of Dr Aikin, that Addison intended, through the medium of Sir Roger's weakness, to convey an indirect satire on the confined notions and political prejudices of the country gentle

man!"

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vice, to cultivate virtue, to fill our station in life with propriety, to bear the ills of life with resignation, and to use its pleasures moderately."

Not a few of the theologians of this period might be grouped together as taking part in the trial of the Bible by common reason. Towards the end of the seventeenth century rationalism was predominant among learned students of religion, whether in the Church or out of it. By nearly all theologians it seemed taken for granted that the Bible was not to be received without question as the authoritative word of God, but was to be tried by its agreement with reason. Some accepted these evidences, some did not; orthodoxy was sharply assailed by heterodoxy, and issued numerous sharp replies. The controversy did nothing appreciable for the advancement of English style. None of the combatants could be called great masters of language.1

The three most distinguished Churchmen of this generation, Atterbury, Hoadley, and Clarke, did not win their reputation in the war against the Deists. Atterbury is known chiefly as a politician; Hoadley by his views regarding Church and State; Clarke as a scholar, and a writer on Natural Theology and Ethics. In literary power they are much inferior to the three great divines of the preceding age, Barrow, Tillotson, and South.

Francis Atterbury (1662-1732), Bishop of Rochester, was an uncompromising champion of the High Church and Tory party. The son of a rector in Buckinghamshire, he was sent to Westminster School and to Christ Church. As a scholar, he was, according to Macaulay, more brilliant than profound. He took part in the celebrated "Battle of the Books." He was tutor to Charles Boyle, the editor of 'Phalaris,' and is generally understood to have written the reply to Bentley's first short criticism of the Letters (1694). He distinguished himself greatly in 1700 by supporting the High Church view of the powers of the Lower House of Convocation. He is supposed to have borne a chief part in framing the speech pronounced by Sacheverell at the bar of the House of Lords. When the Tories rose into power, he was made Dean of Christ Church, and afterwards Bishop of Rochester. After the accession of George, he was suspected of intriguing with the Pretender, and formally banished in 1723. He died in France. He was a bold, turbulent man, having an ambition that would not rest short of the highest power; eloquent, a dazzling master of controversial fence; so audacious in his statements and clever in his personalities, that on two occasions he vanquished his superiors in learning, and made the worse appear the better reason. "Such arguments

1 The best succinct account of the religious thought of this generation and the following is contained in Mr Mark Pattison's "Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 1688-1750," one of the Essays and Reviews.'

as he had he placed in the clearest light. Where he had no arguments, he resorted to personalities, sometimes serious, generally ludicrous, always clever and cutting. But whether he was grave or merry, whether he reasoned or sneered, his style was always pure, polished, and easy." His diction is not quite so pure as Swift's or Addison's; and it is easy in the sense of fluent and racy, not in the sense of languid.

Benjamin Hoadley or Hoadly (1676-1761), successively Bishop of Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester, wrote against the pretensions of High Churchmen and Tories. On more than one occasion he crossed swords with Atterbury. His most famous work was a sermon preached before George I. soon after his elevation to the bench, on the 'Nature of the Kingdom of Christ.' The text-" My kingdom is not of this world"--was a good clue to the contents. He strongly advocated the subordination of the Church to the State. The sermon made a great sensation. It drew upon the author a formal censure from the Lower House of Convocation, whose independent privileges had been maintained by Atterbury; and it originated what is known as the Bangorian controversy, an engagement of some forty or fifty pamphlets. His collected works occupy three volumes, published by his son in 1773. His style is in general vigorous and caustic; he seems careless of elegance, and his dry sarcasms have lost their interest.

6

The other eminent divine of the period is Dr Samuel Clarke (1675-1729), the pupil and friend of Newton. As a scholar, he translated Rohault's Physics' into English, Newton's 'Optics' into Latin, edited Cæsar's Commentaries,' and published the first twelve books of the Iliad' with a Latin version. As a theologian, he is known chiefly by an illusory attempt to give a mathematical demonstration of the existence of God, which he undertook upon the suggestion of Sir Isaac Newton. In the Boyle Lectures (1704-5) he promulgated an ethical system whose chief proposition is that goodness and virtue consist in the observance of certain "eternal fitnesses." In 1715 he joined Newton in a famous controversy with Leibnitz, who had represented the Newtonian philosophy as both false and subversive of religion. His views on the Trinity and on some other points hindered his advancement in the Church. As regards style, Clarke's sermons may almost be said to have been the models of the Scotch "moderate" school of preachers heavy, prolix, argumentative, full of practical good sense, and possessing none of the ardour familiar to us under the name "Evangelical."

The leading "Deists" (so-called) were Toland, Collins, Woolston, and Tindal. With these might be reckoned Shaftesbury: only he, from his rank (as Mr Pattison thinks), was refuted

with less warmth, and had not the same notoriety as a controversialist.

John Toland (1669-1722) was born near Londonderry, of Catholic parents, took a degree at Glasgow, and studied afterwards at Leyden and Oxford. His Christianity not Mysterious,' 1696, caused none the less excitement that its quarrel with orthodoxy was chiefly concerning the word "mysterious." He accepted the Bible theory of the origin of sin, only labouring to make out that there was nothing mysterious about it. He did not repudiate miracles; he only held that there was nothing mysterious in an all-powerful Being breaking through the order of nature. Professor Ferrier styles him "but a poor writer," and charges him with "dulness, pedantry, vanity, and indiscretion."

Anthony Collins (1676-1729), a gentleman of independent fortune, with an Eton and Cambridge education, and the training of a barrister, an esteemed young friend of Locke, wrote several works that engaged him in controversy with the most eminent divines of the time. In 1707 he discussed the value of testimony, making polemical capital out of the 30,000 doubtful readings that Dr John Mill had set down in his edition of the New Testament. In 1710, in a 'Vindication of the Divine Attributes,' he contended that predestination is incompatible with "freedom" of the human will, and that the will is not "free." In 1713 his 'Discourse on Free Thinking' claimed unlimited permission to discuss the problems of religion. In 1724 appeared his most notorious work'Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion;' this publication was replied to by all the talent of the Church. "The moral character of this writer stands extremely high for temperance, humanity, and benevolence; and both as a magistrate and a man he acquired general esteem." Though not orthodox, he was religious; he declared on his deathbed that he had endeavoured to serve both God and his country. His style is simple, clear, and concise; he has none of the iconoclastic violence of other objectors to established faith.

In 1726, amid the storm of hostile criticism, there appeared on the side of Collins a Moderator between an Infidel and an Apostate. This was Thomas Woolston (1669-1733), Fellow and Tutor of Sidney Sussex, Cambridge. Woolston had long made theology his favourite study, but till more than fifty had shown no symptoms of acute heterodoxy. He had indeed taken up Origen's view of the Old Testament as a spiritual allegory, and in 1723 had made acrimonious attacks on the clergy. But now he pushed the idea of allegory into the New Testament, maintaining that the miracles also were fictitious allegories. In the four following years, in Six Discourses on the Miracles of Christ,' he assailed the gospel narrative with ridicule. He also issued some ironical

defences of Christian tenets. His manner was offensive; he was prosecuted for blasphemy, fined, and imprisoned.

In the last year of this period, 1730, Matthew Tindal (16571733), a Fellow of All Souls, published a dialogue, 'Christianity as old as the Creation, or the Gospel a republication of the Religion of Nature.' This is perhaps the most elaborate of the deistical works of the period. The author holds the startling doctrine that Christianity is useless where it is not mischievous; that man has always been able to distinguish right and wrong with regard to his special circumstances; and that to lay down a system of general rules is certain to conduct to error.

The Deists were opposed by the whole force of the clergy, as well as by a considerable number of laymen. Among those that more particularly distinguished themselves apart from such champions as Hoadley, Clarke, and Bentley, who achieved distinction in other fields-may be mentioned Charles Leslie (16501722), author of a famous work provoked chiefly by Toland, entitled 'Short and Easy Method with the Deists;' John Norris (1657-1711), rector of Bemerton, one of the earliest critics of Locke, who replied to Toland's 'Christianity not Mysterious;' Peter Brown, Bishop of Cork, also a critic of Locke and Toland; Edward Chandler (d. 1750), Bishop of Lichfield, who in 1725 wrote a 'Defence of Christianity' against Collins; Thomas Sherlock (1678-1761), Bishop of London, who wrote a "Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus' in reply to Woolston. But the most able apologists belong to our next period; they came forward to repel the assault made by Tindal. The fight began to rage hotly about 1720, after the subsidence of the Bangorian controversy; Tindal's work was the culminating charge, after which the battle became fainter.

PHILOSOPHY.

Bernard de Mandeville (1670-1733) is famed as the author of 'The Fable of the Bees, or private Vices public Benefits.'1 "This work is a satire upon artificial society, having for its chief aim to expose the hollowness of the so-called dignity of human nature." He endeavours with cynical humour to explain away all alleged cases of disinterested conduct. He regards pride and vanity as

1 The received bibliography of this Fable is inaccurate. It appeared originally in 1706 (not in 1714, the received date), as a small sixpenny pamphlet of doggerel verses, entitled "The Grumbling Hive; or Knaves turned Honest.' Soon after, it was pirated, and hawked about the streets in a halfpenny sheet. In 1714 the author republished it with some two hundred small pages of remarks, and an Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue :'-the whole under the title-The Fable of the Bees, or private Vices public Benefits.' In 1723 the work was entirely recast, but the title, 'The Fable of the Bees,' was not then given to it for the first time.