the conventionalism of the former period,
it becomes 'unnatural' and the literary forms become a survival instead
of a genuine creation. The history of eighteenth century literature
illustrates this by showing how as the social changes give new influence
to the middle classes and then to the democracy, the aristocratic class
which represented the culture of the opening stage is gradually pushed
aside; its methods become antiquated and its conventions cease to
represent the ideals of the most vigorous part of the population. The
return to Nature with Pope and Addison and Swift meant, get rid of
pedantry, be thoroughly rational, and take for your guide the bright
common sense of the Wit and the scholar. During Pope's supremacy the Wit
who represents the aristocracy produces some admirably polished work;
but the development of journalism and Grub Street shows that he is
writing to satisfy the popular interests so keenly watched by Defoe in
Grub Street. In the period of Richardson and Fielding Nature has become
the Nature of the middle-class John Bull. The old romances have become
hopelessly unnatural, and they will give us portraits of living human
beings, whether Clarissa or Tom Jones. The rationalism of the higher
class strikes them as cynical, and the generation which listens to
Wesley must have also a secular literature, which, whether sentimental
as with Richardson or representing common sense with Fielding, must at
any rate correspond to solid substantial matter-of-fact motives,
intelligible to the ordinary Briton of the time. In the last period, the
old literary conventions, though retaining their old literary prestige,
are becoming threadbare while preserving the old forms. Even the
Johnsonian conservatism implies hatred for cant, for mere foppery and
sham sentimentalism; and though it uses them, insists with Crabbe upon
keeping in contact with fact. We must be 'realistic,' though we can
retain the old literary forms. The appeal to Nature, meanwhile, has come
with Rousseau and the revolutionists to mean something different--the
demand, briefly, for a thorough-going reconstruction of the whole
philosophical and social fabric. To the good old Briton, Whig or Tory,
that seemed to be either diabolical or mere Utopian folly. To him the
British constitution is still thoroughly congenial and 'natural.'
Meanwhile intellectual movement has introduced a new element. The
historical sense is being developed, as a settled society