Chapter VII: Literature, Art, and Science (1789-1815)

NEW SPIRIT IN LITERATURE.--In the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries, literature broke away from the artificial rules and the one-sided intellectual tone of the "classical" school,--that school which had prevailed through the influence of the French writers of the age of _Louis XIV._ The new era was marked by more spontaneity, and a return to nature, and by a more free rein given to imagination and feeling. "Romanticism," a general designation of the results of this new movement as contrasted with the "classical" period, sometimes ran out into extravagances of sentiment, and an exaggerated relish for the mediaeval spirit.

WRITERS IN ITALY AND IN FRANCE.--In Italy, there were few writers of distinction. _Monti_ (1754-1828) was a poet full of harmony and elegance, a follower, but with unequal steps, of _Alfieri_. Another of the same school is the patriotic poet, _Ugo Foscolo_ (1778-1827), a master of his native tongue. The poems of _Pindemonte_ (1753-1828) are graceful and pathetic. _Leopardi_ (1798-1837) mingles sublimity with pathos. Of the Italian historians of this period, _Botta_ (1766-1837), who published a history of the American Revolution, and histories of Italy, is a clear writer, with a talent for vivid description. In France, _Chateaubriand_ (1768-1848), who figured both in political life and as a prolific and brilliant author, by his _Genius of Christianity_ and many other productions gained great celebrity,--more, however, by charms of style and sentiment, than by weight of matter. Madame _de Staël_ (1766-1817) was the daughter of _Necker_. Between her and _Napoleon_ there was a mutual hostility. She wrote _Corinne, Delphine_,--"in which she idealizes herself,"--a work on _Germany_, and various other productions. She was versatile, vigorous in thought, and humane in her temper and spirit. In philosophy, a believing and spiritual school, in opposition to materialism, was founded by _Maine de Biran_ (1766-1824), _Royer-Collard_ (1763-1846), and _Benjamin Constant_. _De Maistre_ (1754-1821) wrote ably on the side of authority and of the Catholic Church.

ENGLISH POETRY.--Literature in England, especially in the department of poetry, casting off the trammels of the classical school, in which _Dryden_ and _Pope_ were foremost, entered on a new and splendid era. Whether it dwelt on external nature or human passions and experiences, it appealed to sensibility. It was no more exclusively, or in the main, an address to the understanding. _Cowper_ (1731-1800) set the example of genuine naturalness, and of interest in nature and in every-day life. _Robert Burns_, a Scottish peasant (1759-1796), by his wonderful union of tenderness, passion, and humor, with poetic fancy and simplicity of diction, was more than the poet of a single nation. _Wordsworth_ (1770-1850) blended in his poems a delight in rural and mountain scenery, with a deep vein of pensive thought and sentiment. If he wrote dull pages, even the severest critics allow that in _The Excursion_ there are most beautiful "oases in the desert;" while in such poems as the _Ode on the Power of Sound_, the _Intimations of Immortality from the Recollections of Childhood_, and _Laodamia_, there are passages not excelled since Milton. A more sustained fervor of feeling and imagination belonged to _Byron_ (1788-1824), who, notwithstanding his morbid egotism and offenses against morality, combined passion with beauty, and was never dull. _Walter Scott_ (1771-1832) exhibited in his narrative poems the spirit of the romantic school, with none of its sentimentality or extravagance. _Coleridge_ (1772-1834), the author of _Christabel_ and _The Ancient Mariner_, was a highly original poet, as well as a philosopher. _Southey_ (1774-1843), with less genius, was a man of letters, prolific both in verse and in prose. _Shelley_ and _Keats_ had a much higher gift of imagination. _Campbell, Rogers_, and _Moore_ are names of distinction, although less illustrious than those of _Wordsworth_ and _Coleridge_, _Scott_ and _Byron_. _Walter Savage Landor_ (1775-1864), a poet and the author of _Imaginary Conversations_, and other prose writings, was master of a style of extraordinary power and purity.

ENGLISH PROSE WRITERS.--In novel-writing, Miss _Austen_, Miss _Porter_, and Miss _Edgeworth_ preceded _Walter Scott_. _Waverley_, the first in the series of _Scott's_ novels, appeared anonymously in 1814. In 1802 the _Edinburgh Review_, the first of the noted critical quarterlies, began its existence, under the editorship of _Francis Jeffrey_, and numbered among its writers _Brougham, Sydney Smith_, and _Sir James Mackintosh_. In 1809 the _Quarterly Review_, the organ of the Tories as the Edinburgh Review represented the Whigs, began, with _Gifford_ for its editor. Among the essayists of that time, in a lighter vein, were _John Wilson_ ("Christopher North"), poet and critic in one; and the genial humorist, the friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge, _Charles Lamb_. _John Foster_ (1770-1843) was an original essayist on grave themes. In philosophy, _Dugald Stewart_ (1753-1828), a clear and fluent expositor, and _Thomas Brown_ (1778-1821), kept up the reputation of the Scottish school founded by _Reid_. _Burke, Alison_, and _Jeffrey_ wrote on beauty, and on the taste for the beautiful. _Mackintosh_, a statesman of liberal opinions, wrote on ethics. _Coleridge_, inspired by the German thinkers _Kant_ and _Schelling_, through his philosophical fragments and theological essays did much to create a new current in English philosophical and religious thought. _Jeremy Bentham_ (1748-1832) was less eminent as a metaphysician than as a contributor, through his writings, to legislative reform.

AMERICAN WRITERS.--In America, the political writings of _Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Jay, Madison, Marshall_, and _Ames_, have a permanent value. Their letters and the letters of _Washington_ are written in clear and manly English. _Lindley Murray_ (1745-1826) published (1795) an _English Grammar_, which superseded all others. In theology, there were a number of vigorous thinkers and writers, such as the younger President _Edwards, Samuel Hopkins, Bellamy, Emmons, J. M. Mason_, and _Dwight_. Dwight's System of Theology was much read in England and Scotland. Belles-lettres literature in America was in its infancy. There was a triad of poets,--_Trumbull_, a humorous writer (1750-1831), _Joel Barlow_ (1755-1812), and _Dwight_ (1752-1817); all of them survivors of the school of _Pope_. Their patriotic feeling was their chief merit, but _Barlow_ and _Dwight_ each wrote one excellent hymn.

GERMAN AUTHORS.--One of the most versatile and stimulating of German writers was _Herder_ (1744-1803). Full of imagination and spirit, he made his quickening influence felt as a theologian, critic, philosopher, and philologist. His name is in some measure eclipsed by the fame of his two great associates at Weimar, _Goethe_ (1749-1832) and _Schiller_ (1759-1805). By the universality of his genius, which was equally exalted in the sphere of criticism and of original production, Goethe is, by common consent, the foremost of German authors. His dramas, especially _Tasso_, _Egmont_, and _Faust_, and his pastoral epic, _Hermann and Dorothea_, are the most celebrated of his poems; but many of his minor pieces are marked by exquisite harmony and beauty. _Schiller_, with less repose and a less profound artistic feeling, yet from his humane impulses and fire of emotion stands closer to the popular heart. _Körner_ (1791-1813), and _Arndt_ (1769-1860), the author of the song, "Where is the German's Fatherland," were patriotic lyrists of high merit. _Uhland_ (1787-1862) is a ballad-writer, not surpassed in this species of composition by any of his contemporaries. The "Romantic School," with its predilection for the Middle Ages, included _Novalis_, _Tieck_, and also the two brothers _Schlegel_, who were critics rather than poets. One of the most unique and original of the German writers was _Jean Paul Richter_ (1763-1825), essentially a philosopher and moralist, yet with a pervading element of humor and pathos.

GERMAN PHILOSOPHY.--In philosophy, the first name in the order of time and of merit is that of _Immanuel Kant_ (1724-1804). The _Critique of Pure Reason_ is the most important of his productions. He showed, against _Hume_, that the ideas of cause, substance, self, etc., are not products of imagination, or due to a mere custom of thought, but are from within, and are _necessary_ and _universal_. In the _Critique of the Practical Reason_ he found the real basis of faith in God, free-will, and immortality, in our moral nature. On all the topics which he treated, he was both earnest and profound. On the basis of a portion of his teaching, subsequent speculative philosophers reared a system of idealism and pantheism. Of these, the most celebrated are _Fichte_ (1762-1814), who held that the world external to the mind has no existence; _Schelling_ (1775-1854), who taught that nature and mind are at bottom one and the same substance, in different manifestations; and _Hegel_ (1770-1831), who resolved all being into a realm of ideas, a self-existent and self-developing thought-world.

Among the numerous writers in other departments in this period, the brothers _Alexander von Humboldt_ and _William von Humboldt_ were eminent,--the former in natural science and as an explorer; the latter in political sciences, criticism and philology.

PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.--In Italy, a great sculptor--the greatest since _Michael Angelo_--appeared in the person of _Canova_ (1757-1822); who, however, was equaled by an Englishman, _John Flaxman_ (1755-1826). An eminent follower of _Canova_ was _Thorwaldsen_ (1770-1844), a Dane. _Dannecker_, a German sculptor (1758-1844), excelled in portrait statues. Another German sculptor, the founder of a school, was _Rauch_ (1774-1857), whose statues are faithful, yet idealized, likenesses. A famous French painter in this period was _David_, whose pictures, in the classic style, lack force and warmth. Many of his scholars attained to high proficiency in the art. _Horace Vernet_ (1789-1863) and _Paul Delaroche_ (1797-1856) chose their subjects from modern European history. The modern German school of painting was founded by _Overbeck, Von Schadow_, and _Cornelius_. The greatest English painter after _Hogarth_ was _Sir Joshua Reynolds_ (1723-1792), whose portraits have seldom, if ever, been surpassed. Almost or quite on a level with him was _Gainsborough_ (1727-1788). _Benjamin West_ (1738-1820) was by birth an American, as was _Copley_, an artist of superior talents (1739-1815). _Lawrence_ (1769-1830) was a British painter whose portraits have a high historical value. The greatest of the English landscape painters was _Turner_ (1775-1851).

_John Trumbull_ (1756-1843), an American, painted spirited battle-pieces, and miniature portraits of decided artistic merit. _Washington Allston_ (1779-1843), another American painter, produced works admired for their warmth of color, and for the refined feeling expressed in them.

MUSIC.--The great German musicians _Haydn_ and _Mozart_ were followed by an equal or greater genius in music, _Beethoven_ (1770-1827). At the head of the school of German song-writers is _Schubert_ (1797-1828). One of the most popular of the German composers was _Weber_ (1786-1826).

PHYSICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCE.--The most brilliant discoveries in astronomy were made by the French philosopher _Laplace_, whose _Mécanique Céleste_ made an epoch in that science. _Dr. Thomas Young_ (1773-1829) did much to explain the true theory of the tides, and to confirm the undulatory theory of light. Others eminent in the progress of optics are _Fresnel_ (1788-1827), _Biot_, _Arago_,--all French physicists,--and _Sir David Brewster_. _Lavoisier_ (1743-1794) infused a new spirit into chemical science. _Priestley_ (1733-1804) discovered oxygen and other gases. _Dalton_ (1766-1844) is the author of the atomic theory of the composition of matter. _Sir Humphry Davy_ added to chemical knowledge, and, simultaneously with _George Stephenson_, invented the safety-lamp for miners. _Berzelius_ (1779-1848), a Swedish chemist, and _Gay-Lussac_ (1778-1850), a Frenchman, are great names in the history of this science. _Galvani_, the discoverer of animal electricity, and _Volta_, the inventor of the galvanic pile, stimulated others to fruitful experiments in this branch of study. _Lamarck_ (1744-1829) was one of the first of the modern advocates of the origin of species by development. _Cuvier_ (1769-1832), the greatest naturalist of modern times, made most important observations in comparative anatomy, and "established many of the positive laws of geology and paleontology." Geology first assumed the place of a science through the labors of _Werner_ (1750-1817), a German mineralogist. There were two classes of geologists,--the _Neptunians_, or _Wernerians_, who ascribed rocks to aqueous deposition exclusively; and the _Vulcanians_, or _Huttonists_,--adherents of the view of _Dr. Hutton_ (1726-1797) of Edinburgh,--who attributed many of them to the action of fire. The _Geological Society_ of _London_ was founded in 1807. Among discoveries of practical utility in science, the discovery of vaccination for the prevention of small-pox, by _Jenner_ (1749-1823), an English physician, is one of the most remarkable.

LITERATURE: See the lists on pp. 16, 359, 497; also President
A. D. White's list, with critical notes, attached to Morris's _The
French Revolution and First Empire_ (in "Epochs of history"), and
Adams's Manual: the Histories of Alison (Tory), Louis Blanc, Carlyle,
Jomini, Fyffe, Stephens, Mahan, Chuquet. Aulard, Lavisse et Rambaud,
_Histoire Gènèrale_ VIII., IX. Michelet (7 vols.), Mignet,
Morris, Von Sybel (4 vols.), Thiers, Taine, L. Haüsser; Madame de
Rémusat's _Memoirs_; Metternich's _Memoirs_ (5 vols.),
Joyneville, _Life and Times of Alexander I_. (3 vols.); Seeley,
_Life of Stein_; Lowell, _Eve of the French Revolution_; on
Napoleon, Rose, Lanfrey, Sloane.

De Tocqueville's _L'Ancien Règime et la Révolution_; P. Janet's
_Philosophie de la Révolution Française_; Quinet, _La
Rèvolution_; The Essays on the Revolution, by Burke, Mackintosh,
Croker; Macaulay's Essays on Mirabeau and Barère; Lamartine's _The
Girondists_; A. Young's _Travels in France in 1787-88-89_
(London, 1794); Oncken, _Das Zeitalter der Revolution des
Kaiserreiches_ (2 vols.); Sorel, _L'Europe et la Rèvolution
Française_ (5 vols.); Debidour, _Rapports de l'Église et de
l'Etat en France_; Vandal, _Napoléon et Alexandre
1st_. Treitschke _Deutsche Geschichte im neunzehnten
Fahrhundert_ (4 vols.).

Taine, _History of English Literature_; Mrs. Oliphant,
_Literary History of England in the end of the 18th and beginning
of the 19th centuries_; Allibone, _Dictionary of British and
American Authors_; Wendell, _A Literary History of America_.

PERIOD V. FROM THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA (1815) TO THE PRESENT TIME.