s, in spite of the declamation of
Macaulay and the very literary enthusiasm of the artist of _Esmond_ and
_The Virginians_, they have fallen further into the background, and are
less than ever studied with regard. In theory the age of Anne is still
the Augustan age to us; but in theory only, and only to a certain extent.
What attracts us is its outside. We are in love with its houses and its
china and its costumes. We are not enamoured of it as it was but as it
seems to Mr. Caldecott and Mr. Dobson and Miss Kate Greenaway. We care
little for its comedy and nothing at all for its tragedy. Its verse is
all that our own is not, and the same may be said of its prose and
ours--of the prose of Mr. Swinburne and Mr. George Meredith and the prose
of Addison and Swift. Mr. Gladstone is not a bit like Bolingbroke, and
between _The Times_ and _The Tatler_, between _The Spectator_ (Mr.
Addison's), and _The Fortnightly Review_, there is a difference of close
upon two centuries and of a dozen revolutions--political, social,
scientific, and aesthetic. We may babble as we please about the
'sweetness' of Steele and the 'humour' of Sir Roger de Coverley, but in
our hearts we care for them a great deal less than we ought, and in fact
Mr. Mudie's subscribers do not hesitate to prefer the 'sweetness' of Mr.
Black and the 'humour' of Mr. James Payn. Our love is not for the
essentials of the time but only its accidents and oddities; and we
express it in pictures and poems and fantasies in architecture, and the
canonisation (in figures) of Chippendale and Sheraton. But it is
questionable if we might not with advantage increase our interest, and
carry imitation a little deeper. The Essayists, for instance, are often
dull, but they write like scholars and gentlemen. They refrain from
personalities; they let scandal alone, nor ever condescend to
eavesdropping; they never go out of their way in search of affectation or
prurience or melancholy, but are content to be merely wise and cheerful
and humane. Above all, they do their work as well as they can. They
seem to write not for bread nor for a place in society but for the
pleasure of writing, and of writing well. In these hysterical times life
is so full, so much is asked and so much has to be given, that tranquil
writing and careful workmanship are impossible. A certain poet has
bewailed the change in a charming rondeau:--

'More swiftly now the hours take flight!
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