ENGLISH ESSAYS WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY J. H. LOBBAN LONDON: MDCCCXCVI BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 153 FIFTH AVENUE A HARVARD "As we read in these delightful volumes of the Tatler and Spectator the past age returns, the England of our ancestors is revivified. The Maypole rises in the Strand again in London; the churches are thronged with daily worshippers; the beaux are gathering in the coffee-houses; the gentry are going to the drawing-room; the ladies are thronging to the toy-shops; the chairmen are jostling in the streets; the footmen are running with links before the chariots, or fighting round the theatre doors."— THACKERAY: English Humourists. CONTENTS. VI. A Scene of Domestic Felicity (Tatler, No. 95), VII. A Death-bed Scene (Tatler, No. 114), VIII. The Trumpet Club (Tatler, No. 132), · IX. On the Death of Friends (Tatler, No. 181), - x. The Spectator Club (Spectator, No. 2), XI. The Ugly Club (Spectator, No. 17), XII. Sir Roger and the Widow (Spectator, No. 113), XIII. The Character of Ned Softly (Tatler, No. 163), XIV. Nicolini and the Lions (Spectator, No. 13), xv. Fans (Spectator, No. 102), XVI. Sir Roger at the Assizes (Spectator, No. 122), XVII. The Vision of Mirza (Spectator, No. 159), XVIII. The Art of Grinning (Spectator, No. 173), XIX. Sir Roger at the Abbey (Spectator, No. 329), ALEXANDER POPE- xxv. On Dedications (Guardian, No. 4), XXVI. On Epic Poetry (Guardian, No. 78), GEORGE COLMAN and BONNEL THORNTON— XXXII. Literary Courage (Rambler, No. 137), XXXIII. Dick Minim (Idler, No. 60), xxxv. National Prejudice (Citizen of World, No. 4), XXXVI. The Man in Black (Citizen of World, No. 26), - 170 XXXVII. A Club of Authors (Citizen of World, No. 30), 173 XXXVIII. Beau Tibbs (Citizen of World, No. 70), XXXIX. A City Night Piece (Citizen of World, No. 117), 185 INTRODUCTION. A LOOSE sally of the mind; an irregular, indigested piece; not a regular and orderly composition "—such is Johnson's definition of an essay. The first of these phrases admirably describes the typical eighteenth-century essay, but the term has so wide an application, embracing the maxims of Bacon, the philosophy of Locke, and the loose sallies of Steele and Addison, that the necessity is at once obvious of drawing some broad lines of demarcation among its various significances. The difficulty of making any such division is probably greater in the case of the essay than with any other generic name employed in literature, but three leading senses may be noted in which the term is used. It may be modestly applied to an elaborately finished treatise; or, with more direct reference to its primary meaning, it may denote the brief, general treatment of any topic, an author's preliminary skirmish with his subject; while again, it may mean a short discursive article on any literary, philosophical, or social subject, viewed from a personal or a historical standpoint. It is with essays of the last kind that this volume deals, and its scope is still farther limited by the exclusion of professedly critical papers. Literary criticism is a subject of so much importance and interest that |