The Position of Prose.—­The eighteenth century, until near its end, was, broadly speaking, an age of prose.  In excellence and variety the prose surpassed the poetry; but in this age (1780-1837) their position was reversed and poetry regained almost an Elizabethan ascendancy.  Much good prose was written, but it ranks decidedly below the enchanting romantic poetry.

Prose writers were laying the foundations for the new science of political economy and endeavoring to ascertain how the condition of the masses could be improved.  While investigating this subject, Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), an Episcopal clergyman, announced his famous proposition, since known as the Malthusian theorem, that population tends to increase faster than the means of subsistence.  Political economists and philosophers like Adam Smith (1723-1790), professor in the University of Glasgow, agreed on the “let-alone” doctrine of government.  They held that individuals could succeed best when least interfered with by government, that a government could not set aside natural law, but could only impede it and cause harm, as for instance, in framing laws to tempt capital into forms of industry less productive than others and away from the employment that it would naturally seek.  Many did not even believe in legislation affecting the hours of labor or the work of children.  This “let-alone” theory was widely held until the close of the nineteenth century.

In moral philosophy, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), lawyer and philosopher, laid down the principle that happiness is the prime object of existence, and that the basis of legislation should be the greatest happiness to the greatest number, instead of to the privileged few.  He measured the morality of actions by their efficiency in producing this happiness, and he said that pushpin is as good as poetry, if it gives as much pleasure.  He was followed by James Mill (1773-1836), who maintained that the morality of actions is measured by their utility.  The fault with many of the prevalent theories of government and morals lay in their narrow standards of immediate utility, their failure to measure remote spiritual effects.

[Illustration:  ROBERT SOUTHEY.]

The taste of the age encouraged poetry.  Scott, although a natural born writer of prose romance, made his early reputation by such poems as Marmion and The Lady of the Lake.  Robert Southey (1774-1843) usually classed with Wordsworth and Coleridge as one of the three so-called Lake Poets, wrote much better prose than poetry.  His prose Life of Nelson outranks the poetry in his Curse of Kehama.  It is probable that, had he lived in an age of prose ascendancy, he would have written little poetry, for he distinctly says that the desire of making money “has already led me to write sometimes in poetry what would perhaps otherwise have been better written in prose.”  This statement shows in a striking way the spirit of those times.  If Coleridge had not written such good poetry, his excellent critical prose would probably be more read to-day; but he doubtless continues to have a thousand readers for The Ancient Mariner to one for his prose.