|ONE evening in the spring of the year 1751, the famous St. Dunstan, or
Devil Tavern, by Temple Bar,--over whose Apollo Chamber you might still
read the rhymed 'Welcome' of Ben Jonson; whence Steele had scrawled
hasty excuses to 'Prue' in Bury Street; and where Garth and Swift
and Addison had often dined together,--was the scene of a remarkable
literary celebration. A young married lady, not then so well-known as
she afterwards became, had written a novel called the 'Life of Harriot
Stuart,' which was either just published or upon the point of issuing
from the press. It was her first effort in fiction; and, probably
through William Strahan the printer, one of whose _employés_ she
married, she had sought and obtained the acquaintance of Samuel Johnson.
The great man thought very highly of her abilities: so much so, that he
proposed to his colleagues at the Ivy Lane Club (the predecessor of the
more illustrious Literary Club) to commemorate the birth of the book by
an 'all-night sitting.' Pompous Mr. Hawkins, who tells the story, says
that the guests, to the number of near twenty, including Mrs. Lenox
(for that was the lady's name), her husband, and a female acquaintance,
assembled at the Devil at about eight o'clock in the evening. The
supper is characterised as 'elegant,' a prominent feature in it being a
'magnificent hot apple-pye,' which, because, forsooth (the 'forsooth' is
Hawkins's), Mrs. Lenox was also a minor poet, her literary foster-father
had caused to be stuck with bay-leaves. Besides this, after invoking
the Muses by certain rites of his own invention, which should have been
impressive, but are not described, Johnson 'encircled her brows' with
a crown of laurel specially prepared by himself. These ceremonies
completed, the company began to spend the evening 'in pleasant
conversation, and harmless mirth, intermingled at different periods with
the refreshments of coffee and tea.' But there must have been stronger
potations as well, since the narrator, Hawkins, who had a 'raging
tooth,' and is therefore excusably inexplicit, speaks of the desertion
by some of those present of 'the colours of Bacchus;' and he expressly
mentions the fact that Johnson, whose face, at five o'clock, 'shone with
meridian splendour,' had confined himself exclusively to lemonade. By
daybreak, the 'harmless mirth' was beginning to be intermingled
with slumber, from which those who succumbed were only rallied with
difficulty by a fresh relay of coffee. At length, when St. Dunstan's
Clock was nearing eight, after waiting two hours for an attendant
sufficiently wakeful to compile the bill, the company dispersed.
Their symposium had been Platonic in its innocence; but to Hawkins,
demoralised by toothache, and sanctimonious by temperament, their issue
into the morning light of Fleet Street had all the aspect, and something
of the remorse of a tardily-terminated debauch. Before he could mentally
disinfect himself, he was obliged to take a turn or two in the Temple,
and breakfast respectably at a coffee-house.
Although she is now forgotten, Charlotte Lenox, the heroine of these
Johnsonian 'high jinks,' was once what Browning would have termed 'a
person of importance in her day.' Her father, Colonel James Ramsay, was
Lieutenant-Governor of New York. When his daughter was about fifteen, he
sent her to England, consigning her to the charge of a relative in this
country, who, by the time she reached it, was either dead or mad. Then
Colonel Ramsay himself departed this life, and she was left without
a protector. Lady Rockingham took her up, receiving her into her
household; but an obscure love-affair put an end to their connection;
and she subsequently found a fresh patroness in the Duchess of
Newcastle. She must also have tried the stage, since Walpole speaks
of her as a 'deplorable actress.' Her sheet anchor, however, was
literature. In 1747 Paterson published a thin volume of her poems,
dedicated to 'the Lady Issabella [sic] Finch,'--a volume in which she
certainly 'touched the tender stops of various quills,' since it recalls
most of the singers who were popular in her time. There are odes in
imitation of Sappho (with one 'p'); there is a pastoral after the manner
of Air. Pope; there is 'Envy, a Satire; 5 there is a versification of
one of Mr. Addison's 'Spectators.5 To this maiden effort, a few years
later, followed the novel above-mentioned, which is supposed to have
been more or less autobiographical; then came another novel, 'The Female
Quixote;' then 'Shakespeare Illustrated;' then a translation of Sully's
'Memoirs;' and then again more novels, plays, and translations. Mrs.
Lenox lived into the present century, supported at the last partly
from the Literary Fund, and partly by the Right Hon. George Rose, who
befriended her in her latter days, and ultimately, when she died, old
and very poor, in Dean's Yard, Westminster, paid the expenses of her
burial. She is said--by Mr. Croker, of course--to have been 'plain in
her person.' If this were so, she must have been considerably flattered
in the portrait by Reynolds which Bartolozzi engraved for Harding's
'Shakespeare.' It is also stated, on the authority of Mrs. Thrale, that,
although her books were admired, she herself was disliked. As regards
her own sex, this may have been true; but it is dead against the
evidence as regards the men. Johnson, for example, openly preferred her
before Mrs. Carter, Miss Hannah More, and Miss Burney; and he never, to
judge by the references in Boswell's 'Life,' wavered in his allegiance.
He wrote the Dedications to 'The Female Quixote' and 'Shakespeare
Illustrated;' he helped her materially (as did also Lord Orrery) in
her version of Père Brumoy's 'Théâtre des Grecs;' he quoted her in
the 'Dictionary;' he drew up, as late as 1775, the 'Proposals' for a
complete edition of her works, and he reviewed her repeatedly. What is
more, he introduced her to Richardson, by whom, upon the ground of her
gifts and her misfortunes (She 'has genius,' and she 'has been unhappy,'
said the sentimental little man), she was at once admitted to the inner
circle of the devoted listeners at North End and Parson's-Green. Another
of her admirers was Fielding, who, in his last book, the 'Journal of a
Voyage to Lisbon,' calls her 'the inimitable and shamefully distress'd
author of the Female Quixote.' Finally, Goldsmith wrote the epilogue to
the unsuccessful comedy of 'The Sister,' which she based in 1769 upon
her novel of 'Henrietta,'--an act which is the more creditable on his
part because the play belonged to the ranks of that genteel comedy which
he detested. A woman who could thus enlist the suffrage and secure
the sendee of the four greatest writers of her day must have possessed
exceptional powers of attraction, either mental or physical; and this of
itself is almost sufficient to account for the lack of a corresponding
enthusiasm in her own sex.
How she obtained her education, the scanty records of her life do not
disclose. But it is clear that she had considerable attainments; and she
obviously added to them a faculty for ingenious flattery, which, after
the fashion of that day, she exhibited in her books. In her best effort,
'The Female Quixote,' there is a handsome reference to that 'admirable
Writer,' Mr. Richardson; and Johnson is styled 'the greatest Genius in
the present Age.' 'Rail,' she makes one of her characters say elsewhere,
and painfully _à-propos de bottes_,--'Rail with premeditated Malice at
the "Rambler;" and for the want of Faults, turn even its inimitable
Beauties into Ridicule: The Language, because it reaches to Perfection,
may be called stiff, laboured, and pedantic; the Criticisms, when they
let in more light than your weak Judgment can bear, superficial and
ostentatious Glitter; and because those Papers contain the finest System
of Ethics yet extant, damn the queer Fellow, for over-propping
Virtue;'--in all of which, it is to be feared, the bigots of this iron
time will see nothing but the rankest logrolling. Yet it was not to Mrs.
Lenox that Johnson said, 'Madam, consider what your praise is worth.' On
the contrary, if Dr. Birkbeck Hill conjectures rightly, he wrote a not
unfavourable little notice of the book in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for
March, 1752,--a notice, which, if it does no more, at least compactly
summarises the scheme of the story.
'Arabella,' it says (the full title is 'The Female Quixote; or, the
Adventures of Arabella'), 'is the daughter of a statesman, born after
his retirement in disgrace, and educated in solitude, at his castle, in
a remote province. The romances which she found in the library after
her mother's death, were almost the only books she had read; from these
therefore she derived her ideas of life; she believed the business
of the world to be love, every incident to be the beginning of an
adventure, and every stranger a knight in disguise. The solemn manner in
which she treats the most common and trivial occurrences, the romantic
expectations she forms, and the absurdities which she commits
herself, and produces in others, afford a most entertaining series of
circumstances and events.' And then he goes on to quote, as coming from
one equally 'emulous of Cervantes, and jealous of a rival,' the opinion
which Mr. Fielding had expressed a few days earlier, in his 'Covent
Garden Journal,'--an opinion which, if, as Johnson asserts, he had at
this time no knowledge of the author of the book, does even more credit
to his generosity than to his critical judgment. For the author of | Tom
Jones' not only devotes rather more than two handsome columns to 'The
Female Quixote;' but, professing to give his report of it 'with no less
Sincerity than Candour,' gravely proceeds to show in what it falls short
of, in what it equals, and in what it excels (!) the master-piece of
which it is a professed imitation. According to him, the advantage of
Mrs. Lenox in the last respect (for the others may be neglected) lies
in the fact that it is more probable that the reading of romances would
turn the head of a young lady than the head of an old gentleman; that
the character of Arabella is more endearing than that of Don Quixote;
that her situation is more interesting; and that the incidents of
her story, as well as the story itself, are less 'extravagant and
incredible' than those of the immortal hero of Cervantes. Finally, he
sums up with the words which Johnson afterwards reproduced, in part, in
the 'Gentleman's Magazine:' 'I do very earnestly recommend it, as a most
extraordinary and most excellent Performance. It is indeed a Work of
true Humour, and cannot fail of giving a rational, as well as very
pleasing Amusement to a sensible Reader, who will at once be instructed
and very highly diverted. Some Faults perhaps there may be, but these
all leave the unpleasing Task of pointing them out to those who will
have more Pleasure in the Office. This Caution, however, I think proper
to premise, that no Persons presume to find many [He is speaking in his
assumed character of Censor of Great Britain]. For if they do, I promise
them the Critic and not the Author will be to blame.'
_Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli_. In spite of the verdict
of Johnson and Fielding,--that is to say, in spite of the verdict of the
Macaulay and Thackeray of the Eighteenth Century,--the Critic, it is
to be feared, must be blamed to-day. Were Fielding alone, one might
discount his opinion by assuming that he would naturally welcome a work
of art which was on his side rather than on that of Richardson; but this
would not account for the equally favourable opinion of Johnson. *
* Johnson had, if not a taste, at least an appetite, for the
old-fashioned romances which Mrs. Lenox satirised. Once, at
Bishop Percy's, he selected 'Fenxmarte of Hircania' (in
folio) for his habitual reading, and he read it through
religiously. Upon another occasion his choice fell upon
Burke's favourite, 'Palmerin of England.' 'History as She is
wrote' in 'Clelia' and 'Cleopatra;' the persistence of
Arabella in finding princes in gardeners, and rescuers in
highwaymen--are things not ill-invented. But repeated they
pall; and not all the insistence upon her natural good sense
and her personal charms, nor (as compared with such
concurrent efforts as Mrs. Eliza Haywood's 'Betsy
Thoughtless')
Nor could it be laid entirely to the novelty of the attempt, for 'Tom
Jones' and 'Clarissa' and 'Peregrine Pickle,' masterpieces all, had by
this time been written, and can still be read, which it is difficult
to say of 'The Female Quixote; or, the Adventures of Arabella.'
Mrs. Lenox's fundamental idea, no doubt, is a good one, although the
character of the heroine has its feminine prototypes in the 'Précieuses
Ridicules' of Molière and the Biddy Tipkin of Steele's 'Tender Husband.'
It may be conceded, too, that some of the manifold complications which
arise from her bringing every incident of her career to the touchstone
of the high-falutin' romances of the Sieur de la Calprenède, and that
'grave and virtuous virgin,' Madeleine de Scudéry, are diverting enough.
The lamentable predicament of the lover, Mr. Glanville, who is convicted
of imperfect application to the pages of 'Cassandra,' by his hopeless
ignorance of the elementary fact that the Orontes and Oroondates of that
performance are one and the same person; the case of the luckless dipper
into Thucydides and Herodotus at Bath who is confronted, to his
utter discomfiture, with the inoffensive tone of the book itself, can
reconcile us to a heroine who is unable to pass the sugar-tongs without
a reference to Parisatis, Princess of Persia, or Cleobuline, Princess
of Corinth;--who holds with the illustrious Mandana that, even after ten
years of the most faithful services and concealed torments, it is still
presumptuous for a monarch to aspire to her hand;--and who, upon the
slightest provocation, plunges into tirades of this sort: 'Had you
persevered in your Affection, and continued your Pursuit of that
Fair-one, you would, perhaps, ere this, have found her sleeping under
the Shade of a Tree in some lone Forest, as _Philodaspes_ did his
admirable _Delia_, or disguised in a Slave's Habit, as _Ariobarsanes_
saw his Divine _Olympia_; or bound haply in a Chariot, and have had the
Glory of freeing her, as _Ambriomer_ did the beauteous _Agione_; or in
a Ship in the Hands of Pirates, like the incomparable _Eliza_; or'--at
which point she is fortunately interrupted. In another place she fancies
her uncle is in love with her, and thereupon, 'wiping some Tears from
her fine Eyes,' apostrophises that elderly and astounded relative in
this wise--'Go then, unfortunate and lamented Uncle; go, and endeavour
by Reason and Absence to recover thy Repose; and be assured, whenever
you can convince me you have triumphed over these Sentiments which now
cause both our Unhappiness, you shall have no Cause to complain of
my Conduct towards you.' There is an air of unreality about all this,
which, one would think, should have impeded its popularity in its own
day. In the Spain of Don Quixote it is conceivable; it is intolerable
in the England of Arabella. But there are other reasons which help to
account for the oblivion into which the book has fallen. One is, that
by neglecting to preserve the atmosphere of the age in which it was
written, it has missed an element of vitality which is retained even by
such fugitive efforts as Coventry's 'Pompey the Little.' *
* This, like 'Betsy Thoughtless,' belongs to 1751.
Indeed, beyond the above-quoted references to Johnson and Richardson,
and an obscure allusion to the beautiful Miss Gunnings who, at this
date, divided the Talk of the Town with the Earthquake, there is
scarcely any light thrown upon contemporary life and manners throughout
the whole of Arabella's history. Another, and a graver objection (as
one of her critics, whose own admirable 'Amelia' had been but recently
published, should have known better than any one) is that, in spite of
the humour of some of the situations, the characters of the book are
colourless and mechanical. Fielding's Captain Booth and his wife,
Mrs. Bennet and Serjeant Atkinson, Dr. Harrison and Colonel Bath are
breathing and moving human beings: the Glanvilles and Sir Charleses and
Sir Georges of Mrs. Charlotte Lenox are little more than shrill-voiced
and wire-jointed 'High-Life' puppets.