1689—1761. Samuel Richardson.
1707-1754. Henry Fielding.
1728—1774. Oliver Goldsmith.
1737—1794. Edward Gibbon.
1719. Publication of Robinson Crusoe.
1740. Publication of Pamela, the first English novel.
to show that a new period had opened; indeed, the writings during the entire Colonial Age are of singular uniformity. The period stands rather for the birth of a new idea, one of wonderful meaning, on which Our national and our literary history depends, — the idea of Union.
Scarcely three months from the time of his coronation, William declared war the first English against Louis XIV. of France, who was then meditating on a splendid course of conquest which aimed at nothing less than universal domain.
The war known in history as King William's War was the American echo of the conflict that followed.
New France or New England. — (Parkman's France and England in North America.) During the preceding period the French had left the English to hold the Atlantic coast, and had pushed up the St. Lawrence, through the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi, until, under the names of Louisiana and New York, they laid claim to fully one-half of the present territory of the United States. No sooner had war been declared than the English Colonies awoke to a realization that they were completely surrounded on the north and west by the French. Immediately the armics of New France began to press upon the English frontiers. It became evident that it was the ambition of France "to grasp the entire continent."
The Second Colonial Period witnessed a desperate and bloody struggle between England and France for
