[From _Fraser's Magazine_, January, 1838]
If[1] against the inroads of the evangelical party the orthodox church
has need of a defender, it hardly would wish, we should think, to be
assisted _tali auxilio_. Mrs. Trollope has not exactly the genius which
is best calculated to support the Church of England, or to argue upon so
grave a subject as that on which she has thought proper to write.
[1] _The Vicar of Wrexhill_. By Mrs. Trollope. London, 1837.
With a keen eye, a very sharp tongue, a firm belief, doubtless, in the
high church doctrines, and a decent reputation from the authorship of
half-a-dozen novels, or other light works, Mrs. Trollope determined on
no less an undertaking than to be the champion of oppressed Orthodoxy.
These are feeble arms for one who would engage in such a contest, but
our fair Mrs. Trollope trusted entirely in her own skill, and the weapon
with which she proposed to combat a strong party is no more nor less
than this novel of _The Vicar of Wrexhill_. It is a great pity that the
heroine ever set forth on such a foolish errand; she has only harmed
herself and her cause (as a bad advocate always will), and had much
better have remained home, pudding-making or stocking-mending, than have
meddled with matters which she understands so ill.
In the first place (we speak it with due respect for the sex), she is
guilty of a fault which is somewhat too common among them; and having
very little, except prejudice, on which to found an opinion, she makes
up for want of argument by a wonderful fluency of abuse. A woman's
religion is chiefly that of the heart, and not of the head. She goes
through, for the most part, no tedious process of reasoning, no dreadful
stages of doubt, no changes of faith: she loves God as she loves her
husband--by a kind of instinctive devotion. Faith is a passion with her,
not a calculation; so that, in the faculty of believing, though they far
exceed the other sex, in the power of convincing they fall far short of
them.
Oh! we repeat once more, that ladies would make puddings and mend
stockings! that they would not meddle with religion (what is styled
religion, we mean), except to pray to God, to live quietly among their
families, and move lovingly among their neighbours! Mrs. Trollope, for
instance, who sees so keenly the follies of the other party--how much
vanity there is in Bible Meetings--how much sin even at Missionary
Societies--how much cant and hypocrisy there is among those who
desecrate the awful name of God, by mixing it with their mean interests
and petty projects--Mrs. Trollope cannot see that there is any hypocrisy
or bigotry on her part. She, who designates the rival party as false,
and wicked, and vain--tracing all their actions to the basest motives,
declaring their worship of God to be only one general hypocrisy, their
conduct at home one fearful scene of crime, is blind to the faults on
her own side. Always bitter against the Pharisees, she does as the
Pharisees do. It is vanity, very likely, which leads these people to use
God's name so often, and to devote all to perdition who do not coincide
in their peculiar notions. Is Mrs. Trollope less vain than they when she
declares, and merely _declares_, her own to be the real creed, and
stigmatises its rival so fiercely? Is Mrs. Trollope serving God, in
making abusive licencious pictures of those who serve Him in a different
way? Once, as Mrs. Trollope has read--it was a long time ago!--there was
a woman taken in sin; the people brought her before a great Teacher of
Truth, who lived in those days. Shall we not kill her? said they; the
laws command that all adulteresses be killed. We can fancy a Mrs.
Trollope in the crowd, shouting, "oh, the wretch! oh, the abominable
harlot! kill her, by all means--stoning is really too good for her!" But
what did the Divine Teacher say? He was quite as anxious to prevent the
crime as any Mrs. Trollope of them all; but he did not even make an
allusion to it--he did not describe the manner in which the poor
creature was caught--He made no speech to detail the indecencies which
she committed, or to raise the fury of the mob against her--He said "let
the man who is without sin himself throw the first stone!" Whereupon the
Pharisees and Mrs. Trollope slunk away, for they knew they were no
better than she. There was as great a sin in His eyes as that of the
poor erring woman--it was the sin of pride.
Mrs. Trollope may make a licentious book, of which the heroes and
heroines are all of the evangelical party; and it may be true, that
there are scoundrels belonging to that party as to every other; but her
shameful error has been in fixing upon the evangelical _class_ as an
object of satire, making them necessarily licentious and hypocritical,
and charging everyone of them with the vices which belong to only a very
few of all sects....
There are some books, we are told, in the libraries of Roman Catholic
theologians, which, though written for the most devout purposes, are so
ingeniously obscene as to render them quite dangerous for common eyes.
The groom, in the old story, had never learned the art of greasing
horses' teeth, to prevent their eating oats, until the confessor, in
interrogating him as to his sins, asked him the question. The next time
the groom came to confess, he _had_ greased the horses' teeth. It was
the holy father who taught him, by the very fact of warning him against
it. By which we mean, that there are some scenes of which it is better
not to speak at all.
Our fair moralist, however, has no such squeamishness. She will show up
these odious evangelicals; she will expose them and chastise them,
wherever they be. So have we seen, in that beautiful market in Thames
Street, whither the mariners of England bring the glittering produce of
their nets--so have we seen, we say, in Billingsgate, a nymph attacking
another of her sisterhood. How keenly she detects and proclaims the
number and enormity of her rival's faults! How eloquently she enlarges
upon the gin she has drunk, the children she has confided to the parish,
the watchmen whose noses she has broken, and the bridewells which she
has visited in succession! No one can but admire the lady's eloquence
and talent in conducting the case for the prosecution; no one will,
perhaps, doubt the guilt of the hapless object on whom her wrath is
vented. But, with all her rage for morality, had not that fair accused
have better left the matter alone? That torrent of slang and oath, O
nymph! falls ill from thy lips, which should never open but for a soft
word or a smile; that accurate description of vice, sweet orator [-tress
or-trix]! only shows that thou thyself art but too well acquainted with
scenes which thy pure eyes should never have beheld. And when we come to
the matter in dispute--a simple question of mackerel--O, Mrs. Trollope!
Why, why should you abuse other people's fish, and not content yourself
with selling your _own_....
There can be little doubt as to the cleverness of this novel, but,
coming from a women's pen, it is most odiously and disgustingly
indecent. As a party attack, it is an entire failure; and as a
representation of a very large portion of English Christians, a shameful
and wicked slander.