16

Progress of Literature in different Ages.

tient classicks in their pristine beauty, and in establishing among the learned a taste for the compositions of Greece and Rome, which has never since expired.

If we, in like manner, attentively view the literature of the Seventeenth Century, we shall find that, however it was adorned with its Poets, and other writers, it certainly derived a pre-eminent character from its advances in science, and fairly merits the designation of an age of Philosophy, when, both in England, and on the Continent, it could boast the names of Bacon, of Boyle, of Locke, of Halley, of Newton, of Malbranche, of Descartes, of Leibnitz, of Galileo, of Kepler, of the Bernouillis, of Torricelli, of Pascal, of Keil, of Grotius, of Puffendorff, and of Wolff,-great characters who flourished respectively within this period.

The period in question may likewise justly be thought (in England at least, and perhaps we may add in France) to have received a very decided and prominent feature from the genius and writings of such men as Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, Tillotson, Barrow, Cudworth, Usher, Lightfoot, Leigh ton, Wilkins, Jeremy Collier, Chillingworth, Stilling fleet, Clark, Bossuet, Boardulouc, Massillon, Saurin, Flechiere, Fenelon, with various others, who at once reflected credit on the religion they professed, and adorned and enriched that department of literature to which they peculiarly attached themselves.

Carrying our views forward to the predominant features of the Eighteenth Century, it may be affirmed that the period which matured the genius, and witnessed the career of Pope, of Addison, of Young, of Gray, of Akenside, of Thomson, of Goldsmith, of Cowper, of Collins, of the Wartons, of Reynolds, of Melmoth, of John son, of Hawksworth, of Hume, of Robertson, of Burke, of Gibbon, with a variety of others of the first rank in our own country; and of Voltaire, of Rollin, of the Rousseaus, of Montesquieu, of Raynal, of Diderot, of D'Alembert, of Arnauld Berquin, of Schiller, of Goethe, of the Gesners, and of Klopstock, with numerous others on the Continent, who sustained these departments with brilliance and success, is properly designated the age of Poets, Critics, Moral Writers, and Historians.

[Jan.

we

The celebrated names which have here enumerated were not, it is true, contemporary, but appeared through a series or period of years, which, from their concentration, and decided eminence in their respective intellectual walks, may be thought to receive a complexion and a name from their lucubrations.

It is likewise true that, although in the present speculative arrangement we have conceived that a sufficient and predominating colour has been imparted, respectively, to the periods enumerated for the classification we have made, Poets, Artists, Historians, and Philosophers, of considerable and even of the highest eminence, have yet flourished anomalous to the order in which, under the present bypothesis, they are made to appear.

Shakspeare, Milton, and Dryden, flourished in the Seventeenth Century, the Corneilles, the Racines, and the Boileaus, did the same;-as did also Otway, Butler, Denham, Cowley, Roscommon, Clarendon, Temple, La Bruyere, and Fontenelle; but these, however great and powerful their genius, were not, perhaps, from their number alone sufficient to impart a predominant name and character to the century in which they lived.

Philosophy, likewise, is here placed midway between the infant efforts of intellectual cultivation, and the period of its most advanced knowledge; and it may perhaps be said that the votaries of science, numerically considered, have far more abounded in the 18th than in the 17th century ;-but it may be replied that it was the 17th which elicited those grand discoveries, and furnished that profound and intense standard of thinking which has stimulated the minds of after investigators, and opened the way to the present enlightened state of scientific enquiry. In glancing through the course of these three centuries, into which we have speculatively divided the literature of modern times, it will be seen that, though on the whole, with scarcely perhaps an exception, the light of human knowledge, and the genius of literature have been gradually advancing, yet that particular genius has appeared in the literary hemisphere capriciously scattered in very unequal degrees of excellence. Yours, &c. E. P.

(To be continued.)

Mr.

1821.]

T

Appleby, Leicestershire.-Mask by Marston.

Mr. URBAN, Nov. 29. THE villages of Great and Little Appleby are situate partly in Leicestershire and partly in Derbyshire; that portion of them which is in the former county being in the hundred and deanery of Sparkenhoe. They are distant about six miles from Ashby de la Zouch, nine from Tam worth, 10 from Burton-upon-Trent, and nearly 9 from Atherston.

At the time of the Domesday Survey, the Abbey of Burton held lands in Appleby, which at the Dissolution came to the family of Brereton of Cheshire; who sold the same to the tenants early in the seventeenth century.

The manor of Great Appleby was purchased by Sir Wolstan Dixie (knighted in 1604); who gave it to the trustees of Market Bosworth School, which bis great uncle had founded; and in their possession it still remains. The manor of Little Appleby is possessed by George Moore, Esq. who has a handsome house; his family having been seated here since the reign of Elizabeth.

A curious old moated house at Ap. pleby has been described and engraved in your vol. LXXXIX. i. 209.

The lordships of, Great and Little Appleby contain about 2500 acres. The country is a fine champaign, principally of grazing land. The situation is very healthy in 1808, seven persons were living here, all able to work, whose united ages amounted to 593 years.

Several years ago, one Joseph Green fell from the battlements of the church steeple, without receiving any injury. The same man, in striking the centre of a cellar, had more than 1000 bricks fell upon him, and was very little hurt.

The Church, (see Plate II.) dedicated to St. Michael, consists of a nave and two spacious ailes covered with lead, and a chancel covered with tiles. The North aile of the chancel belongs to the Free School at Bosworth. The Spire is handsome, near 52 feet high, and contains a good peal of six bells, of modern date, and a clock. From the battlements is a most beautiful view of the circumja. cent country.

The chancel rests on three pointed arches; and the nave on five pointed GENT. MAG. January, 1821.

17

arches, each with clustered columns and ring capitals.

The advowson was purchased about 1600, by Mr. Wm. Mould; and in that family it continued till 1736, when it passed by an heiress into the Dawson family; the present possessor being Edward Dawson, of Whatton House, Esq.

In 1697, Sir John Moore, Knt. and Alderman of London, erected a Free School here for the education of boys in the parish of Appleby and the neighbouring villages; which, by the Statutes in 1706, was made free for all England. The foundation is under the direction of 13 governors; and since 1708 above 2000 persons have been educated here. The celebrated Dr. Johnson would have been elected Master of this School in 1738, could he have obtained the degree of M.A.

Mr. Glover, celebrated for the perfection to which he has carried the art of drawing in water-colours, commenced his career in life as a Writingmaster in this School.

In 1800, that part of Appleby which is in Leicestershire, contained 116 inhabited houses, and 3 uninhabited. There were 167 families, consisting of 223 males and 255 females, total 478; of whom 223 were chiefly employed in agriculture, and 204 in trade, &c. In the Derbyshire part, there were 98 inhabited houses, and 4 uninhabited. The families were 99; males 299, females 228; total 457. Of these 182 were chiefly employed in agricul ture, and 238 in trade, &c. N. R. S.

The Lorde and Ladye of HUNTING

DON'S Entertainment of their right
noble mother, ALICE Countess Dow-
ager of DERBY.

From a MS in the Library of the Earl of
Bridgewater (see our Review, p. 44.)

THIS

curious Entertainment, written by Marston, begins with the following laconic dedication, which may stand as a proper counterpart to the prologue of the players in Hamlet.

"To the Right Noble Ladye Alice Countess Dowager of Derby,

"Madam,

"If my slight Muse may sute your noble merit,

My hopes are crown'd, and I shall cheere

my spirit;

But

rinna, having chaunged her habitt all to white, mett her, and whilst a consorte softly played, spake thus: