MATTHEW PRIOR. 1664-1721. Poet. Wrote (aided by Montagu) "The Country Mouse and the City Mouse" (a satire upon Dryden's Hind and Panther), "Carmen Seculare; "Solomon and Alma," etc.

JOHN GAY. 1688-1732. Poet. Wrote "The Shepherd's Week" (In six pastorals); also "The Beggar's Opera ;" and an opera called "Polly."

JAMES THOMPSON. 1700-1748. Poet. Wrote "The Sea" "The Castle of Indolence," etc. RICHARD SAVAGE.

sons;

derer," etc.

1696-1743. Poet. Wrote "The Wan

GEORGE FARQUHAR. 1678-1707. Dramatist.

COLLEY CIBBER. 1671—1751. Poet Laureate to George II. Actor and dramatist. Cibber condensed and revised many of Shakespeare's plays so as to adapt them better for the stage. Hls "acting version" of Shakespeare is the one used in theatres to-day.

JEREMY COLLIER. 1650-1726. Clergyman and moralist. Chiefly known for his attack on the dramatists of the Restoration.

JOHN ARBUTHNOT, M. D. 1675-1734. Wit and scholar. Wrote "History of John Bull" (a satire on the Duke of Marlborough.

EPHRAIM CHAMBERS. Chamber's Cyclopaedia.

1740. Scholar and founder of

HENRY ST. JOHN, Lord Bolingbroke. 1678-1751. Political writer and speaker.

FRANCIS ATTERBURY, Bishop of Rochester. 1662-1732. Intimate friend of Pope, Swift, etc., and celebrated for his sermons and letters.

RICHARD BENTLFY. 1661-1742. Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Regius Professor of Divinity. The greatest classical critic of his day in England.

JOSEPH BUTLER. D. D, 1692-1752. Wrote the "Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature."

PHILIP DODDRIDGE. 1702-1751. Dissenting Clergyman. Wrote "Evidences of Christianity," etc.

MINOR WRITERS.

SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE. 1650-1729. Poet and essayist. Wrote "The Creation (a philosophical poem) etc.

THOMAS TICKELL. 1686-1740. Wrote "Colin and Lucy" ( a ballad); and an Elegy on Addison; " translated the first book of Homer's "Iliad."

MRS. ELIZABETH ROWE. 1674-1737, and MRS. MARY ASTELL. 1668-1731. Wrote religious and moral books with a view to improving the condition of womankind.

MINOR DRAMATISTS.

Theophilus Cibber, Mrs. Charlotte Clarke, Thomas Southerne, Thomas D'Urfey, John Dennis, Mrs. Susannah Centlivre, Mrs. Catherine Cockburn, Robert Dodsley.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.

Earl of Shaftesbury; George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne; William Pulteney, Hon. Charles Boyle, Conyers Middleton, Ambrose Phillips, Nicholas Rowe, Rev. Robert Blair, John Hughes, George Granville, William Walsh, Elijah Fenton, Sir Samuel Garth, Gilbert West, William Broome, Isaac Browne, Thomas Cook.*

*The above are the only important writers of Pope's period.

XI.

DOCTOR JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES. [1709-1784.]

A glance at Johnson's nature, appearance and career Early days at Lichfield - Touched by Queen Anne for "King's Evil" Goes to Oxford University His singular marOpens a school - David Garrick as a pupil and comJohnson enters the literary world of London; its sad Richardson,

riage rade

condition · Starving authors in Grub Street the printer and novelist Genius and patronage Fashion and luxury of the town - Johnson writes for The Rambler and the Gentleman's Magazine - Compiles his famous dictionary Death of his wife Johnson receives a pension from George III. His first meeting with Boswell Davies' dinner and tea-parties —Leicester Square in 1766; a dinner with Sir Joshua Reynolds A midnight revel with "Beau" and "Lanky" Burke, the statesman and a nota

ble company.

F

Tom

ROM Pope we come to a man who ruled the Eng

lish world of letters for quarter of a century; and his very name, SAMUEL JOHNSON, calls up memories of a host of noted people among whom he lived as

oracle, critic, friend. When I look at his long and curious career I hesitate how to introduce him to you. Whether as the Lichfield schoolmaster, starved out and coming to London to seek his fortune, the struggling poet and literary hack in Grub Street, the busy editor in the great room over St. John's Gate, the rising essayist, the oracle of the coffee-house, the philosopher hidden in his garret at work, the autocrat of tea-parties and clubs, the faithful affectionate friend, the merciless critic, the quaint traveller, the angry loud-voiced pedant, the gentle Christian — he was so many things, he led so many lives, I may say, for he seemed to combine in his ponderous person character enough for a dozen men. In the days we are to know him best, we must picture him as a great, burly man, with a face scarred by illness, a nervous manner, a rolling gait, a rich, sonorous voice, and under a gruff manner the tenderest heart imaginable. We have to think of him ruling a club dinner, dining at a famous painter's in Leicester Square, supping at the "Mitre" tavern in Fleet Street, sought after, watched, respected, feared, the great man of letters and social lion, while around him are grouped statesmen, artists, poets, dramatists and novelists of the reign of George III. He is always the central figure, his voice the one that lingers longest in our ears; but

something must first be told you of his early days, before this season of social prosperity began, and during the time when authorship had sunk to a level very pitiful in that dismal region of Grub Street.

Samuel Johnson seems scarcely to have had any youth. He was born at Lichfield, in 1709. His father was a bookseller, well thought of, but poor. The boy was painfully delicate, nervous and inclined to indolence His school fellows, we are told, humoring his fancies, carried him to school, sometimes, two of them walking together and making a sort of chair for him, with their arms and shoulders. In those days it was still a superstition that a touch from the sovereign could heal certain diseases; and, believing in this, honest Michael Johnson carried his boy up to London, that he might see Queen Anne. When Dr. Johnson was an old man he used to recall the scene; the palace corridor, glittering and stately, the Queen, a fair lady, in a long black hood, and sparkling with jewels, who stretched out a round arm, touching his head with her hand. Unfortunately the cure did not follow. Johnson grew to manhood, and reached old age afflicted with nervous illness and a tendency to melancholy.

We must only glance over his young days. He went to Lichfield Grammar school, and then, through