t. Alban Hall, was
removed to the archbishopric of Dublin in 1831. Though not a great
philosopher, he was an acute logician, and his _Logic_, published in
1826, entitled him to a high place among the thinkers of his generation.
But it was not merely as a teacher and writer that Whately promoted the
cause of philosophy in Oxford. He was one of the leaders in that
organisation of studies which made philosophy one of the principal
studies, if not the principal study, of the abler students in that
university, and gave elementary logic a place in the ordinary
"pass-man's" curriculum.

The best work of Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen appeared in the early
part of the nineteenth century. Maria Edgeworth's novel, _Castle
Rackrent_, was published in 1800, and rapidly followed by other tales
descriptive of Irish life; four of Jane Austen's novels, _Sense and
Sensibility_, _Pride and Prejudice_, _Mansfield Park_, and _Emma_, were
published between 1811 and 1816, while _Northanger Abbey_ and
_Persuasion_ appeared after her death in 1817. All her work displays a
power of minute analysis of character shared by few, if any, of our
other novelists. Both authors deserve gratitude not only for having
inspired Scott with a new idea of novel-writing, but for having
exercised a purifying influence on the moral tone of English romance.

The most typical feature of English literature in the earlier years of
the nineteenth century was the extraordinary development of the
periodical and newspaper press. The eighteenth century was the golden
age of pamphlets. When the "governing classes" represented but a
fraction of the population, mostly concentrated in London, the practical
effect of such political appeals as those issued by Swift or Burke was
incredibly great, and not to be measured by their limited circulation.
The rise of journalism as a power in politics may be roughly dated from
the notoriety of Wilkes' _North Briton_, and of the letters of "Junius"
in the _Public Advertiser_. Thenceforward, newspapers, at first mere
chronicles of passing events, inevitably grew to be organs of political
opinion, and had now almost superseded pamphlets, as addressed to a far
larger circle of readers. Notwithstanding the heavy stamp duties, as
well as duties on paper and advertisements, six daily journals were
published in London, of which the _Times_ was already the greatest.
Cobbett's _Weekly Political Register_, commenced in 1802, was diffusing
new i