en marshalled on the nightly plain
The glittering host bestud the sky,
One star alone of all the train
Can fix the sinner's wandering eye.

_Bishop Percy_, 1728-1811: Dr. Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, deserves
particular notice in a sketch of English Literature not so much for his
own works,--although he was a poet,--as for his collection of ballads,
made with great research and care, and published in 1765. By bringing
before the world these remains of English songs and idyls, which lay
scattered through the ages from the birth of the language, he showed
England the true wealth of her romantic history, and influenced the
writers of the day to abandon the artificial and reproduce the natural,
the simple, and the romantic. He gave the impulse which produced the
minstrelsy of Scott and the simple stories of Wordsworth. Many of these
ballads are descriptive of the border wars between England and Scotland;
among the greatest favorites are _Chevy Chase, The Battle of Otterburne,
The Death of Douglas_, and the story of _Sir Patrick Spens_.

_Anne Letitia Barbauld_, 1743-1825: the hymns and poems of Mrs. Barbauld
are marked by an adherence to the artificial school in form and manner;
but something of feminine tenderness redeems them from the charge of being
purely mechanical. Her _Hymns in Prose for Children_ have been of value in
an educational point of view; and the tales comprised in _Evenings at
Home_ are entertaining and instructive. Her _Ode to Spring_, which is an
imitation of Collins's _Ode to Evening_, in the same measure and
comprising the same number of stanzas, is her best poetic effort, and
compares with Collins's piece as an excellent copy compares with the
picture of a great master.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE LATER DRAMA.

The Progress of the Drama. Garrick. Foote. Cumberland. Sheridan. George
Colman. George Colman, the Younger. Other Dramatists and Humorists.
Other Writers on Various Subjects.

THE PROGRESS OF THE DRAMA.

The latter half of the eighteenth century, so marked, as we have seen, for
manifold literary activity, is, in one phase of its history, distinctly
represented by the drama. It was a very peculiar epoch in English annals.
The accession of George III., in 1760, gave promise, from the character of
the king and of his consort, of an exemplary reign. George III. was the
first monarch of the house of Hanover who may be justly called an English
king in