that called forth sympathy and self-sacrifice, the nobleness and joy of service; the very condition of human life being that "all must serve," because "all need service."

The objections against the existence and rule of God in the world had their source, Pope says, in the egotism of the time, which looks upon all things as existing only for each man's own gratification, "which thinks all made for one, not one for all," and which looking around Nature says only— "See all things for my use."

He concludes the argument by explaining that the search after material enjoyment, or after exemption from the imperfections of this present state, was not the end of life, or its reward; and he illustrates this by referring to Sydney, Falkland, and "Marseilles' good bishop," who won suffering and death as the crown of their steadfastness to love and duty. It is not in earthly things that the joys of life are found, nor is it in the giving or withdrawal of them that God rewards and punishes man—

"But sometimes virtue starves whilst vice is fed.

What then? Is the reward of virtue bread?

That vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil;
The knave deserves it when he tills the soil;
The good man may be weak, be indolent,
His claim is not to plenty, but content.
What nothing earthly gives or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy
Is virtue's prize. A better would you fix?
Then give humility a coach and six,
Justice a conqueror's sword, or Truth a gown,
Or Public Spirit its great cure, a crown.

Weak foolish man! Will Heaven reward us there
With the same trash mad mortals wish for here?
Rewards that either would to virtue bring

No joy, or be destructive of the thing.
To whom can riches give repute or trust,
Content or pleasure, but the good and just?
Judges and Senates have been bought for gold,
Esteem and love were never to be sold.

O fool to think God hates the worthy mind,

The lover and the love of human kind,

Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear,
Because he lacks a thousand pound a year.”

Thus "whatever is, is right," in that all things work together for good, because they are designed to nourish the higher life of the soul, and must not therefore be judged from their accordance with lower desires, and happiness is to be found in the life of love :

"See the sole bliss Heaven could on all bestow,

Which who but feels, can taste; but thinks, can know.

Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind,

The bad must miss; the good untaught will find.
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,

But looks thro' Nature up to Nature's God;
Pursues that chain, which links the immense design,
Joins heaven and earth and mortal and divine;
Sees that no being any bliss can know,

But touches some above, and some below;
Learns from this union of the rising whole,
The first, last, purpose of the human soul,
And knows where faith, law, morals, all began,
All end, in love of God, and love of man.
For him alone hope leads from goal to goal,
And opens still, and opens on his soul;
Till lengthened on to faith, and unconfined,
It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind.
He sees why Nature plants in man alone
Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown.

Wise is her present, she connects in this
His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss ;
At once his own bright prospect to be blest,
And strongest motives to assist the rest;
Self-love thus changed to social, to divine,
Gives thee to make thy neighbour's blessing thine.
Is this too little for the boundless heart?

Extend it, let thy enemies have part:

Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense,
In one close system of benevolence;

Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree,

And height of bliss but height of Charity."

The objections which Pope met rested on lower grounds than those which disturbed men's minds in Milton's days, and Pope does not rise like Milton to "the height of the great argument." Milton showed the victory of God's love over moral evil; Pope showed the victory of human love over physical evil; but both in their way strove to

The later years of Pope's life were much disturbed by the attacks of the critics and small poets whom he had offended, and to these he replied by bitter, and sometimes unjust, satires. This war of words and angry feelings seems to us now a miserable abuse of literary skill and art; but in those days, when every man wore a sword, and thought it his duty to fight and slash his friend if he offended him, it appears to have been considered also a point of so-called honour for every writer to return reviling for reviling.

The "long disease" of Pope's life made it at last impossible for him to continue to write any longer. He died on the 30th of May, 1744.

CHAPTER XIX.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-1774).

We have seen how the energy of the life pent up in the minds and hearts of men was beginning to rise against the outside bondage which kept it down. The intellectual life of the mind could no longer be suppressed under political or social laws, nor the feelings of the heart be frozen by the coldness of selfish, worldly customs and aims. When anything has been forced out of its own true direction, we know how it will spring too far on the opposite side directly the restraint is broken through; and so it was now with the new life of thought and feeling. Having burst through the false bondage, the true rule of faith and duty were for a while cast off also; and the fresh, strong vigour showed itself at first rather in the distortion of reaction than in the completeness of growth.

In England thought had always been more or less free, but in France it had been long crushed under the most despotic Government, joined with the tyranny of a corrupt Church which misrepresented the religion of Christ. It was here, therefore, that the reaction was the most powerful. The writer who gave clearest and strongest expression to the new life of thought bursting through the dead forms was Voltaire. In France, too, the reaction against the selfishness and luxury of the age was also felt the most strongly, because it was here that self-indulgence and regardlessness of human suffering prevailed the most; and the

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writer who gave the most powerful expression to the rising life of the feelings was Rousseau. Both writers expressed the necessary exaggerations of reaction; and while Voltaire claimed freedom for the intellect, independent of faith, Rousseau claimed free action for every impulse of feeling, independent of duty.

In Germany, meantime, there was a revolt going on against the French influence in literature. Bödmer first, and later Lessing, showed that there could be no vigorous growth of literature among any people which did not spring from the literature of its own life; and they asserted that Shakespeare in the drama, and Milton in poetry, were more true followers of the classics than the French, because, while the French imitated classic forms, these English writers had worked according to classic principles; for the Greeks made the inner truth the essential part of literature, and the forms grew around it, according to the genius of their nation and language. The casting-off in Germany of the French influence was the beginning of a true, vigorous, national literature, of which Goethe and Schiller were two of the greatest writers.

We must now see the influence of these writers on our English literature. Although Voltaire had no special follower of any great distinction in English literature, his influence in casting off false restraints upon thought led to a more courageous search for truth, and gave freedom and energy to the expression of it even if it were contrary to the prejudices and self-interest of the world. Rousseau's influence was more directly seen in some of the English writers of the time, who followed him in looking upon everything from the side of feeling. Of these writers, one of the principal was Laurence Sterne. He wrote a novel called "Tristram Shandy," and an account of his travels in France, which he called "The Sentimental Journey." Sterne reflected Rousseau's exaggerated expression of feeling, and,