The Essay' is written in a very readable style for a work of abstruse analysis.

Another literary man of this generation, best known through his son, is Isaac Disraeli (1766-1848), author of 'Curiosities of Literature,' Literary Miscellanies,' 'Quarrels of Authors,' 'Calamities of Authors,' &c. His 'Literary Character,' an attempt to analyse the constituents of literary genius, was a favourite with Byron. In the writings of the elder Disraeli we meet with occasional touches of the felicity of expression so conspicuous in his more distinguished son.

HISTORY.

The most considerable history published in the early part of this period was Mitford's 'History of Greece.' William Mitford (1744-1827) was the son of an English proprietor near Southampton, served with Gibbon as an officer in the Hampshire militia, and sat for many years in Parliament. His History appeared in successive volumes at long intervals between 1784 and 1818. The writer was a stanch Conservative, and part of the success of the work, in those days of political apprehension, was due to the use he made of the proceedings and the disasters of the Grecian republics to point a moral against democracy. The work was very derisively reviewed by the young Whig Macaulay in one of his first efforts, and it was humorously pronounced by the Conservative De Quincey to be "choleric in excess, and as entirely partial, as nearly perfect in its injustice, as human infirmity would allow." Mitford's style is in general verbose, periodic, and heavy. There is, however, a certain animation in his narratives of striking events; and his expression sometimes receives a warm colour from the strength of his feelings as a political partisan. He is included by De Quincey among "orthographic mutineers," eccentrics in the matter of spelling.

His

The history of Greece was written also by John Gillies (17471836), an alumnus of Glasgow, and travelling tutor to a son of the Earl of Hopetoun, who in 1793 succeeded Robertson as historiographer-royal for Scotland, and figured in the literary society of "Modern Athens" during the first quarter of this century. 'History of Greece' was published in 1786. He published also translations from Aristotle, wrote upon Frederick the Great, and continued his history down to the reign of Augustus. All his works have been eclipsed, as regards both matter and manner.

MISCELLANEOUS.

William Cobbett (1762-1835) raised himself, by the force of his self-educated literary powers, from the station of a private soldier

to a seat in Parliament.

He could not remember a time when he did not earn his own living. An impulsive, self-willed lad, working with his father, a small farmer in Surrey, he first made an abortive attempt to go to sea; then ran away to London and obtained employment as an attorney's clerk; from that enlisted as a private soldier, and went abroad with his regiment. Obtaining his discharge after eight years' service, he emigrated to America in 1792, and soon distinguished himself as a violent political writer, standing up with a characteristic love of contradiction against the ruling democratic faction. The extreme virulence of his abuse soon made the States too hot for him: after two trials for libel and one conviction, with sweeping damages, he returned to England in 1800, and commenced political writer in London under his American nickname "Peter Porcupine." For a short time he wrote on the side of the Conservatives; but he soon quarrelled with them, and became, what he ever afterwards continued, an ultra-Radical. His famous paper, 'The Weekly Political Register,' was begun in 1802, and continued till his death. He exercised great influence upon the working classes, and raised intense hostility among those opposed to his opinions: he was several times prosecuted for libel, and in 1817 he had to recross the Atlantic to evade the pressure of a short-lived Act of Parliament, which he asserted to have been passed for his special annoyance. After several unsuccessful attempts to gain a seat in Parliament, he was returned for the borough of Oldham in 1832, but he lived only three years to enjoy his honours, and made no figure in the House. Besides his political writings, he composed a French Grammar and an English Grammar, and towards the close of his life wrote 'Rural Rides' and 'Advice to Young Men.'-Cobbett has been called "The Last of the Saxons," and the designation may be allowed if the essence of the Saxon character is taken to be dogged, impracticable, unaccommodating energy, and indomitable courage. Exceedingly impetuous, he needed only opposition to make his most random impulses persistent. He was a man destined to excite strong feelings wherever he went, troubling the political world as a strongly-charged electrical cloud troubles the atmosphere. He was a great master of clear and forcible idiomatic English. His 'Rural Rides' expounds the homely aspects of English scenery with much picturesqueness and graphic neatness of touch. In his political diatribes he indulged in a licence of invective and abuse almost incredible to newspaper readers of this generation, although it was not so much above the ordinary heat of his time.

A strong contrast to the pragmatic Cobbett was the amiable, indolent, speculative Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832). A native of Inverness-shire, he was a student, along with Robert

Hall, at King's College, Aberdeen; went to Edinburgh in 1784 to qualify for the practice of Physic; and in 1788 set out for London with a doctor's degree, to push his fortunes. He failed to establish himself in medical practice, and was obliged to depend for a livelihood mainly on his literary abilities. He was first brought into notice by his 'Vindicia Gallicæ,' a glowing defence of the French Revolution against the denunciations of Burke. Soon after, he abandoned medicine for law, and was called to the bar in 1795. In 1803 he distinguished himself by his defence of Peltier against a prosecution for a libel on Bonaparte. In 1804 he was appointed Recorder of Bombay. After seven years of

"sickly vegetation" in India, he returned with an impaired constitution; entered Parliament; was appointed Professor of Law in the East India College at Haileybury; wrote philosophical dissertations for the Encyclopædia Britannica,' and miscellaneous articles for the 'Edinburgh Review;' and remained for twenty years a very acceptable member of general society. The great literary ambition of his life was to write the History of England: for this he had accumulated many materials, but he left only a fragment on the Causes of the Revolution of 1688. He wrote also for 'Lardner's Cyclopædia' a Life of Sir Thomas More, and an abridgment of English History, carried down as far as the Reformation. Mackintosh was an amiable and able man, humorously introspective and tolerant, fond of reading and of society, and an observant critic both of books and of men. Easy, goodhumoured indolence, aggravated by his residence in India, stood between him and durable reputation. His fame, like Dr Parr's, rests chiefly on perishable traditions of his conversational power: he had no Boswell to preserve specimens for us, and we have only such reports as the testimony of Sydney Smith-" His conversation was more brilliant and instructive than that of any human being I ever had the good fortune to be acquainted with." His rank is not high either as a philosopher or as a historian: he was naturally averse to vigorous exertion, whether in reasoning or in research; his authority was weakened, as he himself knew and admitted, by an amiable propensity to eulogistic declamation.

Miscellaneous writing received a new impulse in the early part of the nineteenth century by the establishment of the Reviews and the Magazines namely, 'Edinburgh Review' in 1802; Quarterly Review' in 1808; 'Blackwood's Magazine' in 1817; London Magazine' in 1820; and 'Westminster Review' in 1823. We give some account of a few of the principal writers in our concluding chapter.

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CHAPTER X.

SELECT WRITERS OF THE EARLY PART OF THIS CENTURY.

THEOLOGY.

Thomas Chalmers, D.D., LL.D., (1780-1847), is the most celebrated name among the preachers of the Church of Scotland. A native of Anstruther, in the county of Fife, he was sent at the age of twelve to the University of St Andrews, and was licensed to preach in 1799. In 1802 he was presented to the charge of Kilmany in Fife. During his college course, and the first six years of his ministry, he seems to have held no serious views in religion; in fact, he seems to have entered the Church in heartless scepticism, simply as a means of securing a livelihood. His favourite studies were scientific. In the interval between his obtaining licence and his coming of age, he studied chemistry, natural philosophy, and moral philosophy under the Edinburgh professors of the time. During the winter after his presentation to Kilmany, he taught the mathematical class in the University as assistant to a superannuated professor: during the following winter, having quarrelled with the University authorities, he set up opposition lectures in the town; and not satisfied with lecturing in the winter at St Andrews, he also lectured on chemistry to his parishioners at Kilmany during the summer. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Professorship of Mathematics at St Andrews, and subsequently for a similar post in the University of Edinburgh. He was lieutenant and chaplain to a regiment of Volunteers. He published a book on The Extent and Stability of the National Resources.' Altogether his life was at this time most laborious and eccentric. His composition of the article "Christianity" for the Edinburgh.

Encyclopædia' seems to have been a turning-point in his career. The death of a sister in 1808, and a lingering illness in the following year, are also mentioned as circumstances that helped to fix his thoughts more upon the peculiar work of the ministry. From about that time dates the beginning of his fame as a preacher. In 1815 he accepted a call to the Tron Church in Glasgow. During the eight years of his ministry there, he acquired as a preacher and a social reformer, a wider reputation than had ever before attended the labours of a minister of the Church of Scotland. His Astronomical Discourses' raised universal admiration; and when he visited London, the leading wits of the day, and notably Canning and Wilberforce, "formed part of his congregation wherever he preached, and vied with one another in their anxiety to do him honour in society." His 'Commercial Discourses' also had an enormous circulation. As a social reformer he was known by his advocacy of Malthusianism, his extraordinary energy in organising the voluntary contributions for the relief of the poor, and his personal efforts to "excavate the practical heathenism of our large cities." In 1823 he was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy in St Andrews; in 1827 declined an offer of a chair of Moral Philosophy in University College, London; and in 1828 accepted a Divinity Professorship in Edinburgh. The first extra-official work of his professorial life was a continuation of papers on the 'Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns,' begun before he left Glasgow: this was soon followed in the same direction by a course of lectures on Political Economy, which, when published in 1832, were highly praised by the authorities in that subject. He also published his lectures on Natural Theology and on Christian Evidences, and wrote the Bridgewater Treatise on "the adaptation of the world to the mental constitution of man. In addition to his professorial and literary labours, he played a prominent part in the Courts of the Church: he was particularly distinguished by his schemes for Church extension, and by the lead that he took in the controversies terminating in the Disruption. He was chosen by acclamation Moderator of the first Free Church Assembly, and spent his latter years as Principal of the Free Church College in Edinburgh. He had no small influence in raising and establishing what is known as the Sustentation Fund. His collected works fill thirty-four duodecimo volumes.

We have mentioned his extraordinary fame as a preacher. His appearance is described as being by no means prepossessing; he had a hard voice and a broad pronunciation; his gestures were uncouth; and, unlike Robert Hall, he brought a written sermon to the pulpit, and confined his eyes to the manuscript. The charm seems to have lain in his fervid nervous energy. The hearers were laid hold of by his extraordinary concentrated em