THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CONTINUED.
I.--THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL.
II.--STERNE, JOHNSON, GOLDSMITH, AND OTHERS.
III.--MISS BURNEY, AND THE FEMALE NOVELISTS.
IV.--THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL.
I.
We have observed in the earlier works of fiction of the eighteenth
century, together with great coarseness of thought and manners, the
reflection of a strong moral and reforming tendency. As early as the
reign of William III, Parliament had requested the king to issue
proclamations to justices of the peace, instructing them to put in
execution the neglected laws against open licentiousness.[184] In 1698,
Collier published his "Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of
the English Stage," a powerful and effective protest against the
depravity of the drama. At about the same time had been formed the
Societies for the Reformation of Manners, which energetically attacked
the more flagrant forms of crime. "England, bad as she is," wrote Defoe
in 1706, "is yet a reforming nation; and the work has made more
progress from the court even to the street, than, I believe, any nation
in the world can parallel in such a time and in such circumstances."
Toward the middle of the century, these tendencies took effect in the
Methodist Revival, a movement destined to exert a profound influence
on society. Accompanying this revival, or resulting from it, were many
important reforms. The corruption of political life gradually
diminished. A new patriotism and unselfishness began to appear in
public men. A spirit of philanthropy arose which corrected some of the
worst social abuses. Under the leadership of the noble John Howard, the
prisons, so long the abandoned haunts of squalor, oppression, and
misery, were considerably redeemed from their shameful condition. Beau
Nash marked the progress of peaceful and law-abiding habits by formally
forbidding the wearing of swords wherever his fashionable authority was
recognized. In the fiction of the latter half of the eighteenth century
is illustrated a gradual transition of morals and taste from the
unbridled coarseness of the century's earlier years to the comparative
refinement of our own times.
There lived in Sussex about the time of the Methodist revival, a
thriving shopkeeper named Thomas Turner. He had received a good
education, and in early life had been a schoolmaster. On reading
"Clarissa" he had exclaimed, what would have gladdened the heart of
Richardson: "Oh, may the Supreme Being give me grace to lead my life in
such a manner as my exit may in some measure be like that divine
creature's!" His literary tastes were so pronounced and varied that in
the space of six weeks he had read Gray's "Poems," Stewart "On the
Supreme Being," the "Whole Duty of Man," "Paradise Lost and Regained,"
"Othello," the "Universal Magazine," Thomson's "Seasons," Young's
"Night Thoughts," Tournefort's "Voyage to the Levant," and "Perigrine
Pickle." This scholarly tradesman kept a diary, in which he recorded
his thoughts, his studies, and his amusements with a frankness which
deserves the thanks of posterity. Some passages of his diary, in their
illustration of the combination of licence, coarseness, and moral
earnestness characteristic of the writer's time may greatly assist us
in appreciating the power and influence of the religious revival.[185]
"I went to the audit and came home drunk. But I think never to exceed
the bounds of moderation more. * * * "Sunday, 28th, went down to Jones',
where we drank one bowl of punch and two muggs of bumboo; and I came
home again in liquor. Oh, with what horrors does it fill my heart, to
think I should be guilty of doing so, and on a Sunday, too! Let me once
more endeavour, never, no never, to be guilty of the same again. * * * I
read part of the fourth volume of the _Tatler_; the oftener I read it,
the better I like it. I think I never found the vice of drinking so well
exploded in my life, as in one of the numbers." In January, 1751,
"Mr. Elless (the schoolmaster), Marchant, myself, and wife sat down to
whist about seven o'clock, and played all night; very pleasant, and I
think I may say innocent mirth, there being no oaths nor imprecations
sounding from side to side, as is too often the case at cards."
February 2, "we supped at Mr. Fuller's, and spent the evening with a
great deal of mirth, till between one and two. Tho, Fuller brought my
wife home on his back, I cannot say I came home sober, though I was far
from being bad company. I think we spent the evening with a great deal
of pleasure." March 7th, a party met at Mr. Joseph Fuller's,
"drinking," records our diarist, "like horses, as the vulgar phrase
is, and singing, till many of us were very drunk, and then we went to
dancing, and pulling of wigs, caps, and hats; and thus we continued in
this frantic manner, behaving more like mad people than they that
profess the name of Christians." Three days after, the same amusements
are enjoyed at the house of Mr. Porter, the clergyman of the parish,
except "there was no swearing and ill words, by reason of which Mr.
Porter calls it innocent mirth, but I in opinion differ much
therefrom." Mr. Turner had no great reason to respect the opinion of
clergymen on such matters. Soon after, "Mr. ----, the curate of
Laughton, came to the shop in the forenoon, and he having bought some
things of me (and I could wish he had paid for them), dined with me,
and also staid in the afternoon till he got in liquor, and being so
complaisant as to keep him company, I was quite drunk. How do I detest
myself for being so foolish!" A little later, Mr, Turner attended a
vestry meeting, at which "we had several warm arguments, and several
vollies of execrable oaths oftentime redounded from almost all parts of
the room.
"About 4 P.M. I walked down to Whyly. We played at bragg the first part
of the even. After ten we went to supper, on four broiled chicken, four
boiled ducks, minced veal, cold roast goose, chicken pastry, and ham.
Our company, Mr. and Mrs. Porter, Mr. and Mrs. Coates, Mrs. Atkins,
Mrs. Hicks, Mr. Piper and wife, Joseph Fuller and wife, Tho. Fuller and
wife, Dame Durrant, myself and wife, and Mr. French's family. After
supper our behaviour was far from that of serious, harmless mirth; it
was downright obstreperious, mixed with a great deal of folly and
stupidity. Our diversion was dancing or jumping about, without a violin
or any musick, singing of foolish healths, and drinking all the time
as fast as it could be well poured down; and the parson of the parish
was one among the mixed multitude. If conscience dictates right from
wrong, as doubtless it sometimes does, mine is one that I may say is
soon offended: for, I must say, I am always very uneasy at such
behavior, thinking it not like the behaviour of the primitive
Christians, which, I imagine, was most in conformity to our Saviour's
gospel.
"Thursday, Feb, 25th. This morning, about six o'clock, just as my wife
was got to bed, we was awaked by Mrs. Porter, who pretended she wanted
some cream of tartar; but as soon as my wife got out of bed, she vowed
she should come down. She found Mr. Porter (the clergyman), Mr. Fuller,
and his wife, with a lighted candle, and part of a bottle of port wine
and a glass. The next thing was to have me down stairs, which being
apprised of, I fastened my door. Up stairs they came, and threatened to
break it open; so I ordered the boys to open it, when they poured into
my room; and as modesty forbid me to get out of bed, so I refrained;
but their immodesty permitted them to draw me out of bed, as the phrase
is, topsy-turvey; but, however, at the intercession of Mr. Porter, they
permitted me to put on * * * my wife's petticoats; and in this manner
they made me dance, without shoes and stockings, until they had emptied
a bottle of wine, and also a bottle of my beer. * * * About three
o'clock in the afternoon, they found their way to their respective
homes, beginning to be a little serious, and, in my opinion, ashamed of
their stupid enterprise and drunken perambulation. Now let any one call
in reason to his assistance, and reflect seriously on what I have
before recited, and they will join me in thinking that the precepts
delivered from the pulpit on Sunday, though delivered with the greatest
ardour, must lose a great deal of there efficacy by such examples."
Such were the amusements and such the moral reflections of a country
tradesman in the middle of the last century, Fielding, Smollett, and
the other novelists described the same kind of life: the same
succession of brawls, drunken sprees, cock-fights, boxing matches, and
bull-baitings. It would be difficult to imagine a state of society more
ripe for a revival. Mr. Thomas Turner had moral and religious
aspirations, but these could not be satisfied by the clergyman of his
parish or the curate of Laughton, the companions of his debauches but
not the sharers of his remorse. When the clergy were sincere and moral,
they were still too cold and commonplace to seriously influence their
flocks. The sermons of the time were at best, moral essays, teaching
little, as Mr. Lecky says, "that might not have been taught by
disciples of Socrates and Confucius." They might encourage honesty and
temperance where those virtues already existed, but they had no spell
to arouse religious feelings, nor to reclaim the vicious. How great,
then, must have been the effect of the impassioned eloquence of a
Whitefield, which could draw tears from thousands of hardened colliers,
upon such a society as that of Mr. Turner and his friends, accustomed
only to the discourses of their boon companion, the Rev. Mr. Porter.
The prevailing licence and the prevailing moral consciousness were
elements especially adapted to the work of the religious revivalist.
The effect of the sermons of Berridge is thus described by an
eye-witness[186]:
I heard many cry out, especially children, whose agonies were
amazing. One of the eldest, a girl of ten or twelve years old, was
full in my view, in violent contortions of body, and weeping aloud,
I think incessantly, during the whole service. * * * While poor
sinners felt the sentence of death in their souls, what sounds of
distress did I hear! Some shrieking, some roaring aloud. The most
general was a loud breathing, like that of people half strangled
and gasping for life. And indeed, almost all the cries were like
those of human creatures dying in bitter anguish. Great numbers
wept without any noise; others fell down as dead; some sinking in
silence; some with extreme noise and violent agitation. I stood on
the pew seat, as did a young man in an opposite pew--an
able-bodied, fresh, healthy countryman. But in a moment, when he
seemed to think of nothing less, down he dropped with a violence
inconceivable. The adjoining pews seemed shook with his fall. I
heard afterward the stamping of his feet, ready to break the boards
as he lay in strong convulsions at the bottom of the pew. * * *
Among the children who felt the arrows of the Almighty I saw a
sturdy boy about eight years old, who roared above his fellows, and
seemed, in his agony, in struggle with the strength of a grown man.
His face was red as scarlet; and almost all on whom God laid his
hand turned either red or almost black. * * * A stranger, well
dressed, who stood facing me, fell backward to the wall; then
forward on his knees, wringing his hands and roaring like a bull.
His face at first turned quite red, then almost black. He rose and
ran against the wall till Mr. Keeling and another held him. He
screamed out "Oh! what shall I do? what shall I do? Oh, for one
drop of the blood of Christ!"
These were violent remedies, but they were applied to a powerful
disease. If the revivalists did harm by the religious terrorism which
they excited, they yet had a powerful and wide-spread influence for
good. They awakened religious feelings among the people, and diffused
a new earnestness among the clergy. A spirit of philanthropy was born
with their teachings which has gone on growing until it now extends a
protecting arm even to brutes. The societies for the prevention of
cruelty to children and to animals are part of a great philanthropic
movement which began at the end of the eighteenth century, which has
carried into practical, every-day life the spirit of Christianity, and
has given to the words mercy and charity, the signification of real and
existing virtues. Horses, dogs, even rats, are now more safe from
wanton brutality than great numbers of men and women in the eighteenth
century. To any one who studies that period, the stocks, the whipping
post, the gibbet, cock fights, prize-fights, bull-baitings, accounts of
rapes, are simply the outward signs of an all-pervading cruelty. If he
opens a novel, he finds that the story turns on brutality in one form
or other. It is not only in such novels as those of Fielding and
Smollett, which are intended to describe the lower classes of society,
and in which blackened eyes and broken heads are relished forms of wit,
that the modern reader is offended by the continual infliction of pain.
Goldsmith gives Squire Thornhill perfect impunity from the law and from
public opinion in his crimes. Mackenzie does not think of visiting any
legal retribution on his "Man of the World." Godwin wrote "Caleb
Williams" to show with what impunity man preyed on man, how powerless
the tenant and the dependent woman lay before the violence or the
intrigue of the rich. And it is not only that a crime should be
committed with perfect security which would now receive a severe
sentence at the hands of an ordinary judge and jury which surprises the
reader of to-day, but that scenes which would now shock any person of
common humanity or taste, were, in the last century, especially
intended to amuse. In Miss Burney's "Evelina," Captain Mirvan
continually insults and maltreats Mme. Duval, the grandmother of the
heroine, in a manner which would not only be inconceivable in a
gentleman tolerated in society, but in a blackguard, not entirely
bereft of feelings of decency or good-nature. While she is a guest in
his own house, he torments her with false accounts of the sufferings of
a friend; sends her on a futile errand to relieve those sufferings in a
carriage of his own, and then, disguised as a highwayman, he assaults
her with the collusion of his servants, tears her clothes, and leaves
her half dead with terror, tied with ropes, at the bottom of a ditch.
When Mme. Duval relates her ill-treatment to her granddaughter, Evelina
could only find occasion to say: "Though this narrative almost
compelled me to laugh, yet I was really irritated with the captain, for
carrying his love of tormenting--sport, he calls it to such harshness
and unjustifiable extremes." And Miss Burney expected, no doubt with
reason, that her reader would be amused by all this.
In the same work a nobleman and a fashionable commoner are described
as settling a bet by a race between two decrepit women over eighty
years of age. "When the signal was given for them to set off, the
poor creatures, feeble and frightened, ran against each other: and
neither of them being able to support the shock, they both fell on
the ground. * * * Again they set off, and hobbled along, nearly even
with each other, for some time, yet frequently, to the inexpressible
diversion of the company, they stumbled and tottered. * * * Not long
after, a foot of one of the poor women slipped, and with great force
she came again to the ground. * * * Mr. Coverley went himself to help
her, and insisted that the other should stop. A debate ensued, but the
poor creature was too much hurt to move, and declared her utter
inability to make another attempt. Mr. Coverley was quite brutal; he
swore at her with unmanly rage, and seemed scarce able to refrain even
from striking her." It would be impossible perhaps to find a party of
the upper ranks gathered at a country house at the present time,
composed of persons who could have endured, without remonstrance, such
treatment of a pair of superannuated horses; yet Miss Burney describes
the efforts and sufferings of these old women as affording
inexpressible diversion to the ladies and gentlemen who figure in her
novel, and she evidently expects the reader to be equally entertained.
"Evelina" was written by a young woman who saw the best society, who
was maid of honor to Queen Charlotte, who was universally admired for
her delicacy and her talents, and whose novels are among the most
refined of the time.
The higher ranks were much less influenced by the religious revival
than the lower. Although certainly not less in need of reformation,
they were far less inclined to welcome it. The fashionable indifference
to religion was an obstacle which Wesley found much more difficult to
overcome than the brutal ignorance of the inmates of Newgate. After
listening to a sermon by Whitefield, Bolingbroke complimented the
preacher by saying that he had "done great justice to the divine
attributes." The Duchess of Buckingham's remarks on the preaching of
the Methodists, in a letter to Lady Huntingdon, are an amusing
commentary on the times. "I thank your ladyship for the information
concerning the Methodist preachers. Their doctrines are most
repulsive, and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect
toward their superiors, in perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks
and do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told that you
have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl the earth.
This is highly offensive and insulting, and I cannot but wonder that
your ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with
high rank and good-breeding."[187] High rank and good-breeding,
however, in the society of which the Duchess of Buckingham was so
proud, were not considered inconsistent with habitual drunkenness,
indecency, and profanity. The vices which "the common wretches that
crawl the earth" practised in addition to these, her Grace would have
had difficulty in mentioning.
Still, in the latter half of the eighteenth century is to be traced a
continual improvement, which is reflected in contemporary fiction. As a
remarkable example of the change which took place may be mentioned the
instance of the Earl of March. "As Duke of Queensberry, at nearer
ninety than eighty years of age, he was still rolling in wealth, still
wallowing in sin, and regarded by his countrymen as one whom it was
hardly decent to name, because he did not choose, out of respect for
the public opinion of 1808, to discontinue a mode of existence which in
1768 was almost a thing of course" among the higher ranks.[188]
[Footnote 184: Wilson's "Memoirs of Daniel Defoe."]
[Footnote 185: For the diary of Thomas Turner, see "Glimpses of our
Ancestors," by Charles Fleet, pp. 31-52.]
[Footnote 186: For these manifestations, see Wesley's "Journal," and
Lecky's "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," vol. II, chap.
ix.]
[Footnote 187: Lecky, "Hist. of England in the 18th Century," vol. ii,
chap. 9.]
[Footnote 188: See Trevelyan's "Early History of Charles James Fox,"
Harper's ed., p. 75.]
II.
In 1759, were published the first two volumes of "Tristram Shandy," a
singular and brilliant medley of wit, sentiment, indecency, and study
of character. Laurence Sterne was a profligate clergyman, a dishonest
author, and an unfaithful husband. He wrote "Tristram Shandy," and he
wrote a great many sermons. He descended to the indulgence of low
tastes, and rose to an elevated strain of thought, with equal facility.
He was a man who knew the better and followed the worse. His talents
made him a welcome guest at great men's tables, where he paid for his
dinner by amusing the company with a brilliant succession of witticisms
and indecent anecdotes, which, to his hearers, derived an additional
piquancy from the fact that they proceeded from the mouth of a divine.
But although the man was in many respects contemptible, although he
disgraced his priestly character by his profligacy, and his literary
character by a shameless plagiarism,[189] he possessed in a high degree
a quality which must give him a distinguished place in English fiction.
His borrowed plumage and his imitation of Rabelais' style apart, Sterne
had originality, a gift at all times rare, and always, perhaps,
becoming rarer. As a humorist, he is to be classed with Fielding and
Smollett, but as a novelist, his position in the history of fiction is
separate and unique.
"Tristram Shandy" has all the elements of a novel except the plot. The
author has no story to tell. His aim is to amuse the reader by odd and
whimsical remarks on every subject and on every personage whose
peculiarities promise material for humor and satire. Sterne is
perpetually digressing, moralizing commenting on every trivial topic
which enters into his story, until the story itself is completely lost,
if, indeed, it can be said ever to have been begun. The absence of
arrangement is so marked that it is very difficult to turn to a passage
which in a previous perusal has struck the eye. The eccentricity and
whimsicality of the book contributed greatly to its immediate
popularity. But the same characteristics which seem brilliant when
novel, soon become dull when familiar, and although "Tristram Shandy"
will always afford single passages of lasting interest to the lover of
literature, the work as a whole is not a little tedious when read
continuously from cover to cover.
In the course of his literary medley, Sterne introduces his reader to a
group of characters amongst the most odd and original in fiction. Mr.
Shandy, with his syllogisms and his hypotheses, his "close reasoning
upon the smallest matters"; Yorick, the witty parson, whose epitaph,
_Alas! Poor Yorick!_ expresses so tenderly the amiable faults for which
he suffered; Captain Shandy, that combination of simplicity,
gentleness, humanity, and modesty, are all creations which deserve to
rank with the most individual and happily conceived of fictitious
personages. Sterne makes a character known to the reader by a
succession of delicate touches rather than by description. He seems to
enter into an individual, and make him betray his peculiarities by
significant actions and phrases. Thus Mr. Shandy exposes at once the
nature of his mind and the vigor of his "hobby-horse," when he
exclaims to his brother Toby: "What is the character of a family to an
hypothesis?"
The combination of sentiment, pathos, and humor which Sterne sometimes
reached with remarkable success, is particularly apparent in every
incident which concerns the celebrated Captain Toby Shandy, for the
creation of which character this author may most easily be forgiven his
indecencies and his literary thefts. Uncle Toby's sympathy with
Lefevre, a poor army officer, on his way to join his regiment, who died
in an inn near Shandy's house, is exquisitely painted throughout, and
the colloquy between the captain and his faithful servant, Corporal
Trim, when the death of the officer is imminent, is probably the finest
passage which ever fell from the skilful pen of Laurence Sterne:
A sick brother-officer should have the best quarters, Trim; and if
we had him with us,--we could tend and look to him.--Thou art an
excellent nurse thyself, Trim: and what with thy care of him, and
the old woman's, and his boy's, and mine together, we might recruit
him again at once, and set him upon his legs.
--In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, smiling, he
might march.--He will never march, an' please your Honour, in this
world, said the Corporal.--He _will_ march, said my uncle Toby,
rising up from the side of the bed with one shoe off.--An' please
your Honour, said the Corporal, he will never march but to his
grave. He _shall_ march, cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot
which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch,--he _shall_
march to his regiment.--He cannot stand it, said the Corporal.--He
shall be supported, said my uncle Toby.--He'll drop at last, said
the Corporal, and what will become of his boy? He _shall not_ drop
said my uncle Toby, firmly,--Ah, well-a-day!--do what we can for
him, said Trim, maintaining his point,--the poor soul will
die.--_He shall not die, by G--_, cried my uncle Toby.
--The _accusing spirit_, which flew up to Heaven's chancery with
the oath, blushed as he gave it in;--and the _recording angel_, as
he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it out
for ever.[190]
"Ye, who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue
with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform
the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day
will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas,
Prince of Abyssinia." Thus begins the famous tale which Dr. Johnson
made the repository of so much of his wisdom, and so beautiful an
example of English style. Rasselas and his royal brothers and sisters
live in a secluded portion of the earth known as the Happy Valley,
where, completely isolated from the world, they await their succession
to the crown of the imaginary land of Abyssinia, surrounded by every
luxury which can make life agreeable, and shut off from all knowledge
of those evils which can make it painful. The aim of the story is to
show the vanity of expecting perfect happiness, and the folly of
sacrificing present advantages for the delusive promises of the future.
The scene opens in the Happy Valley, where there is all that labor or
danger can procure or purchase, without either labor to be endured or
danger to be dreaded. Rasselas illustrates the habitual discontent of
man by wearying of the monotonous happiness of his royal home, and,
together with his sister Nekayah, who shares his ennui, and Imlac, a
man of learning, he escapes from the abode of changeless joys and
perpetual merriment.
Once beyond the barriers of the Happy Valley, Rasselas and Nekayah
seek in the various ranks and conditions of men the abode of true
happiness. It is sought in vain amidst the hollow and noisy pleasures
of the young and thoughtless; in vain among philosophers, whose
theories so ill accord with their practice; in vain among shepherds,
whose actual life contrasts so painfully with the descriptions of the
poet; in vain in crowds, where sorrow lurks beneath the outward smile;
in vain in the cell of the hermit, who counts the days till he shall
once more mix with the world. The task becomes more hopeless with each
new disappointment. Rasselas pursues his investigation among the higher
ranks, in courts and cities; Nekayah, hers among the poor and humble,
in the shop and the hamlet. But when the brother and sister meet to
share their experiences, they both have the same tale to tell of human
discontent. Finally, in returning disappointed to Abyssinia, they
illustrate the tendency among men to look back with regret on the early
pleasures of life, abandoned for the impossible happiness which
discontent had taught them to seek.
On this slight thread of narrative, Johnson strung his thoughts with
great felicity. The characters, by the different view which they
entertain of life, are distinct and individual. The book is filled with
pregnant and beautiful passages, which leave a deep impression on the
reader. The words in which Imlac describes to the Prince and Princess
the dangers of an unrestrained imagination, might, with equal
propriety, find a place in a scientific treatise on the causes of
insanity, and in a collection of beautiful literary extracts:
To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination out upon the
wing, is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent
speculation. When we are alone, we are not always busy; the labour
of excogitation is too violent to last long; the ardour of inquiry
will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing
external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own
thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is
pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity,
and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present
moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible
enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The
mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all
combinations, and riots in delights which nature and fortune, with
all their bounty, cannot bestow.
In time, some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all
other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in
weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favorite conception,
and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended with
the bitterness of truth. By degrees, the reign of fancy is
confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time, despotic. Then
fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon
the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish.[191]
The resemblance between Johnson's "Rasselas" and Voltaire's "Candide"
is so marked, that had either author seen the other's work, he must
have been suspected of imitation. But while both these great minds were
writing at nearly the same time on the same theme of human misery, the
lessons they taught differed in a manner which is strongly illustrative
of the differences between the two men and their respective
surroundings. French scepticism and distrust of divine power led
Voltaire to impute human griefs to the incapacity of the Creator. But
Johnson, writing "Rasselas" in an hour of sorrow, to obtain means to
pay for his mother's funeral, taught that that happiness, which this
world can not afford, should be sought in the prospect of another and a
better.[192]
All readers of Boswell know how the "Vicar of Wakefield" found a
publisher. How Goldsmith's landlady arrested him for his rent, and how
he wrote to Johnson in his distress. How the kind lexicographer sent a
guinea at once, and followed to find the guinea already changed, and a
bottle of Madeira before the persecuted but philosophical author. How
Johnson put the cork in the bottle, and after a hasty glance at the MS.
of the "Vicar of Wakefield," went out and sold it for sixty pounds. And
how triumphantly Goldsmith rated his landlady.
In the hands of that bookseller, who purchased the novel as much out of
charity as in hope of profit, the "Vicar of Wakefield" remained
neglected, until the publication of "The Traveler" had made the author
famous. This interval would have afforded Goldsmith ample time to
correct the obvious inconsistencies and faults which his work
contained. But in the spirit of a man who depended on his pen for his
bread, he made no effort to improve what had already brought him all
this remuneration for which he could hope. This is the more to be
regretted, that very little revision would have been sufficient, to
make the "Vicar of Wakefield" as perfect in its construction as in its
style and spirit. "There are a hundred faults in this thing," says the
preface, "and a hundred things might be said to prove them beauties.
But it is needless. A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it
may be very dull without a single absurdity. The hero of this piece
unites in himself the three greatest characters upon earth;--he is a
priest, a husbandman, and the father of a family. He is drawn as ready
to teach, and ready to obey--as simple in affluence, and majestic in
adversity."
These few words are not an inaccurate statement of the merits and
demerits of the "Vicar of Wakefield." Faults there are, certainly. The
improbability of Sir William Thornhill's being able to go about among
his own tenantry _incognito_, without other disguise than a change of
dress; the inconsistency of the philanthropist's allowing his
villainous nephew to retain possession of the wealth which he used only
to assist him in his crimes; and, finally, the impossibility of that
nephew's being so nearly of an age with Sir William himself, when he
must have been the son of a younger brother, are all blemishes which
Goldsmith might easily have removed, had he not relied on the opinion
which he expressed in Chapter xv, "the reputation of books is raised,
not by their freedom from defect, but by the greatness of their
beauties."
Such a rule would be an obviously dangerous one for an author to
follow. But Goldsmith's confidence in the beauties of his novel was
fully justified by the verdict of the world. No novelist has more
deeply imbued his work with his own genius and spirit, and none have
had a more beneficent genius, nor a more beautiful spirit to impart
than the author of "The Deserted Village." The exquisite style, the
delicate choice of words, the amiability of sentiment, so peculiarly
his own, and so well suited to express the simple beauty of his
thoughts, give a charm to the work which familiarity can only endear.
Dr. Primrose, preserving his simplicity, his modesty, and his nobility
of character alike when surrounded by the pleasures of his early and
prosperous home, when struggling with the hardships of his ruined
fortune, and when rewarded at last by the surfeit of good-fortune which
follows his trial, stands high among the most noble conceptions of
English fiction. "We read the 'Vicar of Wakefield,'" said the great Sir
Walter, "in youth and in age. We return to it again and again, and
bless the memory of an author who contrives so well to reconcile us to
human nature."
Goethe, when in his eighty-first year, declared that Goldsmith's novel
"was his delight at the age of twenty, that it had in a manner formed a
part of his education, influencing his tastes and feelings throughout
life, and that he had recently read it again from beginning to end,
with renewed delight, and with a grateful sense of the early benefit
derived from it." "Rogers, the Nestor of British literature, whose
refined purity of taste and exquisite mental organization rendered him
eminently calculated to appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of
all the books, which, through the fitful changes of three generations
he had seen rise and fall, the charm of the 'Vicar of Wakefield' had
alone continued as at first; and could he revisit the world after an
interval of many more generations, he should as surely look to find it
undiminished." So wrote Washington Irving; and if the reader is
inclined to look for the causes of the extraordinary endurance of
Goldsmith's work, he can find them nowhere better stated than in the
words of John Forster: "Not in those graces of style, nor even in that
home-cherished gallery of familiar faces can the secret of its
extraordinary fascination be said to consist. It lies nearer the heart.
A something which has found its way _there_; which, while it amused,
has made us happier; which, gently interweaving itself with our habits
of thought, has increased our good-humour and charity; which,
insensibly it may be, has corrected wilful impatiences of temper, and
made the world's daily accidents easier and kinder to us all; somewhat
thus should be expressed, I think, the charm of the 'Vicar of
Wakefield.'"
In 1760 was published "Chrysal, the Adventures of a Guinea," by Charles
Johnstone, the author of several deservedly forgotten novels.[193] The
first volume was sent to Dr. Johnson for his opinion, who thought, as
Boswell tells us, that it should be published--an estimate justified by
the considerable circulation which the book enjoyed.
Chrysal is an elementary spirit, whose abode is in a piece of gold
converted into a guinea. In that form the spirit passes from man to
man, and takes accurate note of the different scenes of which it
becomes a witness. This is a natural and favorable medium for a satire,
which Johnstone probably owed, in some measure, both to the "Diable
Boiteux" of Gil Blas, and the "Adventures of a Halfpenny" of Dr.
Bathurst. The circulation of the guinea enables the author to describe
the characteristics of its possessors as seen by a truthful witness,
and he has taken advantage of his opportunity to produce one of the
most disgusting records of vice in literature. A depraved mind only
could find any pleasure in reading "Chrysal," and whoever is obliged to
read it from cover to cover for the purpose of describing it to others,
must find himself, at the end of his task, in sore vexation of spirit.
Human depravity is never an agreeable subject for a work of
entertainment, and while Swift's genius holds the reader fascinated
with the horror of his Yahoos, the ability of a Manley or a Johnstone
is not sufficient to aid the reader in wading through their vicious
expositions of corruption. It must be said that Johnstone had some
excuse. If he were to satirize society at all, it was better that he
should do it thoroughly; that he should expose official greed and
dishonesty, the orgies of Medenham Abbey, the infamous extortions of
trading justices, in all their native ugliness. It must be said that
the time in which he lived presented many features to the painter of
manners which could not look otherwise than repulsive on his canvas.
But his zeal to expose the vices of his age led him into doing great
injustice to some persons, and into grossly libelling others. He
imputed crimes to individuals of which he could have had no knowledge;
and he shamefully misrepresented the Methodists and the Jews. If
Johnstone had wished to see how offensive a book he might write, and
how disgusting and indecent a book the public of his day would read and
applaud, he might well have brought "Chrysal" into the world. If he had
intended, by exposing crime, to check it, he had better have burned his
manuscript. He has added one other corruption to those he exposed, and
one other evidence of the lack of taste and decency which characterized
his time. No man can plead the intention of a reformer as an excuse for
placing before the world the scenes and suggestions of unnatural crime
which sully the pages of "Chrysal," and if men do, in single instances,
fall below the level of brutes, he who gloats over their infamy and
publishes their contagious guilt deserves some share of their odium.
The novels of Henry Mackenzie have a charm of their own, which may be
largely attributed to the fact that their author was a gentleman.
Whoever has read, to any extent, the works of fiction of the eighteenth
century, must have observed how perpetually he was kept in low company,
how rarely he met with a character who had the instincts as well as the
social position of a gentleman. A tone of refined sentiment and dignity
pervades "The Man of Feeling," which recalls the "Vicar of Wakefield,"
and introduces the reader to better company and more elevated thoughts
than the novels of the time usually afford. "The Man of Feeling" is
hardly a narrative. Harley, the chief character, is a sensitive,
retiring man, with feelings too fine for his surroundings. The author
places him in various scenes, and traces the effect which each produces
upon his character. The effect of the work is agreeable, though
melancholy, and the early death of Harley completes the delineation of
a man too gentle and too sensitive to battle with life.
In his next novel Mackenzie described the counterpart of Harley, "The
Man of the World." Almost any writer of the present day who took a man
of the world for his hero, would draw him as a calm, philosophical
person, neither very good nor very bad,--one who took the pleasures and
troubles of life as they came, without quarrelling with either. But the
man of the world as Mackenzie paints him, and as the eighteenth century
made him, was quite another individual. Sir Thomas Sindall is a villain
of the heroic type. Not one, simply, who does all the injury and
commits all the crimes which chance brings in his way. He labors with a
ceaseless persistency, and a resolution which years do not diminish, to
seduce a single woman. Without any apparent passion, he finally
accomplishes his object by force, after having spent several years in
ruining her brother to prevent his interference. The long periods of
time, the great expenditure of vital energy, and the exhaustless fund
of brutality which are consumed by the fictitious villains of the
eighteenth century in gratifying what would seem merely a passing
inclination, astonish the reader of to-day. The crime of rape, rarely
now introduced into fiction, and rarely figuring even in criminal
courts, is a common incident in old novels, and as commonly, remains
unpunished. In Sir Thomas Sindall, Mackenzie meant to present a
contrast to the delicate and benevolent character of Harley. Both are
extremes, the one of sensibility, the other of brutality. Harley was a
new creation, but Sindall quite a familiar person, with whom all
readers of the novels of the last century have often associated.
It was suggested very sensibly to Mackenzie, that the interest of most
works of fiction depended on the _designing_ villainy of one or more
characters, and that in actual life calamities were more often brought
about by the innocent errors of the sufferers. To place this view
before his readers, Mackenzie wrote "Julia de Roubigné," in which a
wife brings death upon herself and her husband by indiscreetly, though
innocently, arousing his jealousy. Sir Walter Scott ranked this novel
among the "most heart-wringing histories" that ever were written--a
description which justly becomes it. Mackenzie's aim was less to weave
a complicated plot, than to study and move the heart; and to the lover
of sentiment his novels may still be attractive.
The "Fool of Quality," by Henry Brooke, has had a singular history. The
author was a young Irishman of a fine figure, a well-stored mind, and a
disposition of particular gentleness. He was loved by Pope and
Lyttleton, caressed by the Prince of Wales, and honored by the friendly
interest of Jonathan Swift. Married before he was twenty-one to a young
girl who presented him with three children before she was eighteen, his
life was a constant struggle to provide for a family which increased
with every year. After a long period of active life, passed in literary
occupations, he retired to an obscure part of Ireland, and there died,
attended by a daughter, the only survivor of twenty-two children, who
remembered nothing of her father "previous to his retirement from the
world; and knew little of him, save that he bore the infirmities and
misfortunes of his declining years with the heroism of true
Christianity, and that he was possessed of virtues and feelings which
shone forth to the last moment of his life, unimpaired by the
distractions of pain, and unshaken amid the ruins of genius."[194]
The "Fool of Quality" was first published in 1766, and received a
moderate share of public attention. Its narrative was extremely slight.
Harry, the future Earl of Moreland, was stolen from his parents by an
uncle in disguise; and the five volumes of the work consist almost
entirely of an account of the education of the child, and the various
incidents which affected or illustrated his mental growth. One day John
Wesley chanced to meet with it, and although he required his followers
"to read only such books as tend to the knowledge and love of God," he
was tempted to look into this particular novel. The "whimsical title"
at first offended him, but as he proceeded, he became so enthusiastic
over the moral excellence of the work, that he expunged some offensive
passages it contained, and republished it for the benefit of the
Methodists. "I now venture to recommend the following treatise," said
Wesley to his people, "as the most excellent in its kind that I have
seen either in the English or any other language. * * * It perpetually
aims at inspiring and increasing every right affection; at the
instilling gratitude to God and benevolence to man. And it does this
not by dry, dull, tedious, precepts, but by the liveliest examples that
can be conceived; by setting before your eyes one of the most beautiful
pictures that ever was drawn in the world. The strokes of this are so
delicately fine, the touches so easy, natural, and affecting, that I
know not who can survey it with tearless eyes, unless he has a heart of
stone. I recommend it, therefore, to all those who are already, or who
desire to be, lovers of God and man." It was not as a good novel that
Wesley either enjoyed or republished the "Fool of Quality." He
recommended it for the excellence of its moral, and the "Fool of
Quality" would have been allowed to slumber forever on Methodist
book-shelves, had it not been revived by a man who was an equally good
judge of a moral and a work of fiction.
But, in regard to this novel, it must be admitted that Charles
Kingsley's judgment was seriously at fault. He saw both its qualities
and its faults, but he did not realize that a good purpose will not
make up for a poor execution. The causes of the neglect of the book,
said the Canon in his preface, are to be found "in its deep and grand
ethics, in its broad and genial humanity, in the divine value which it
attaches to the relations of husband and wife, father and child, and to
the utter absence, both of that sentimentalism and that superstition
which have been alternately debauching of late years the minds of the
young. And if he shall have arrived at this discovery, he will be able
possibly to regard at least with patience those who are rash enough to
affirm that they have learnt from this book more which is pure, sacred,
and eternal, than from any which has been published since Spenser's
'Fairy Queen.'"[195] On the testimony of Wesley and of Kingsley, all
the merits of a moral nature which they claim for the "Fool of Quality"
will readily be accorded to it. But it is very doubtful that such
qualities would necessarily interfere with the success of a work of
fiction. The real reason why very few who can help it will read this
novel, lies in those characteristics which Kingsley himself admitted
would appear to the average reader. "The plot is extravagant as well as
ill-woven, and broken, besides, by episodes as extravagant as itself.
The morality is quixotic, and practically impossible. The sermonizing,
whether theological or social, is equally clumsy and obtrusive. Without
artistic method, without knowledge of human nature and the real world,
the book can never have touched many hearts and can touch none
now."[196]
It is singular that Kingsley should have expected that a book with so
many and so evident faults could have remained popular simply because
its moral was a good one. If he had sat down to warn the world against
Henry Brooke's novel, he could hardly have expressed himself with more
effect. Whatever merit it may have is buried under a mass of dulness
almost impossible to penetrate, and a silliness pervades the characters
and the conversations which makes even the lighter portions unreadable.
The "Fool of Quality" has all the drawbacks of a novel of purpose in an
exaggerated form. The improvement of his reader is a laudable object
for a novelist. But it is an object which can be successfully carried
out in a work of art, only very indirectly. An author may have a great
influence for good, but that influence can be obtained, not by
deliberate sermonizing, but only by tone of healthy sentiment which
insensibly elevates the reader's mind.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the number and variety of
works of fiction rapidly increased. William Beckford, whom Byron calls
in "Childe Harold," "Vathek, England's wealthiest son," wrote in his
twentieth year the oriental romance "Vathek," which excited great
attention at the time. It was composed in three days and two nights,
during which the author never took off his clothes. Byron considered
this tale superior to "Rasselas." It represented the downward career of
an oriental prince, who had given himself up to sensual indulgence, and
who is allured by a Giaour into the commission of crimes which lead him
to everlasting and horrible punishments. "Vathek" gives evidence of a
familiarity with oriental customs, and a vividness of imagination which
are remarkable in so youthful an author. The descriptions of the Caliph
and of the Hall of Eblis are full of power. But in depth of meaning,
and in that intrinsic worth which gives endurance to a literary work,
it bears no comparison to "Rasselas." The one affords an hour's
amusement; the other retains its place among those volumes which are
read and re-read with constant pleasure and satisfaction.
The novels of Richard Cumberland, "Henry," "Arundel," and "John de
Lancaster," contain some well-drawn characters and readable sketches of
life. But Cumberland had little originality. He aimed without success
at Fielding's constructive excellence, and imitated that great master's
humor, only to reproduce his coarseness. The character of Ezekiel Daw,
the Methodist, in "Henry," is fair and just, and contrasts very
favorably with the libellous representations of the Methodist preachers
in Graves' "Spiritual Quixote," and other contemporary novels. Another
writer of fiction of considerable prominence in his day, but of none in
ours, was Dr. Moore, whose "Zeluco" contained some very lively "Views
of human nature, taken from life and manners, foreign and domestic,"
but also some very disagreeable exhibitions of human degradation and
vice.
The influence of the French Revolution in England is apparent in the
works of several novelists who wrote at the end of the eighteenth
century. Thomas Holcroft embodied radical views in novels now quite
forgotten.[197] Robert Bage has left four works containing opinions of
a revolutionary character--"Barham Downs," "James Wallace," "The Fair
Syrian," and "Mount Henneth." These novels are written in the form of a
series of letters and have little narrative interest. The author has
striven, sometimes successfully, at a powerful delineation of
character, but his works are too evidently a vehicle for his political
and philosophical opinions. He represents with unnatural consistency
the upper classes as invariably corrupt and tyrannical, and the lower
as invariably honest and deserving. His theories are not only
inartistically prominent, but are worthless and immoral. He looks upon
a tax-gatherer as a thief, and condones feminine unchastity as a
trivial and unimportant offence.
The novelist most deeply embued with the doctrines of the French
Revolution was William Godwin--a man of great literary ambition, and
less literary capacity. His "Life of Chaucer" has the merits of a
compilation, but not those of an original literary work. His political
and social writings were merely reproductions of French revolutionary
views, and were entirely discredited by Malthus' attacks upon them. The
same lack of originality and of independent power characterized
Godwin's novels. They all have a patch-work effect, and in all may be
found the traces of imitation. "St. Leon" and "Mandeville"[198] are
dull attempts in the direction of the historical novel. "Fleetwood, or
the New Man of Feeling" embodies some of the author's social views, and
contains evidence of an imitation of Fielding and Smollett, in which
only their coarseness is successfully copied.
But Godwin gave one book to the world which has acquired a notoriety
which entitles it to a more extended notice than its intrinsic merits
would otherwise justify. "Caleb Williams" was first published in 1794,
and was widely read. Lord Byron is said to have threatened his wife
that he would treat her as Falkland had treated Caleb Williams, and
this fact brought the novel into prominence with the Byron controversy,
and occasioned its republication in the present century. The author
tells us that his object was "to comprehend a general review of the
modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism by which man becomes the
destroyer of man." And this was to be done "without subtracting from
the interest and passion by which a performance of this sort (a novel)
ought to be characterized." In both his didactic and his artistic
purpose the author must be said to have failed. The story is briefly as
follows: Falkland, who is represented as a man whose chief thought and
consideration consist in guarding his honor from stain, stabs Tyrrel,
his enemy, in the back, at night. He then allows two innocent men to
suffer for the murder on the gallows. His aim, during the remainder of
his life, is to prevent the discovery of his crime and the consequent
disgrace to his name. Caleb Williams enters his employment as a
secretary, discovers the secret with the greatest ease, and promises
never to betray his patron. Williams soon becomes weary of his
position, and attempts to escape. He is accused by Falkland of robbery
and is imprisoned. He escapes from prison, and wanders about the
country, always pursued by the hirelings of his master who use every
means to render his life miserable. Finally he openly accuses Falkland
of his crime, who confesses it and dies. The story is full of the most
evident inconsistencies. There is no adequate reason for Tyrrel's
hatred of Falkland, which leads to the murder. It is inconceivable that
a man of Falkland's worship of honor should commit so dastardly a
crime, and should suffer two innocent men to pay its penalty. The
facility with which Falkland allows his secretary to discover a secret
which would bring him to the gallows is entirely inconsistent with the
strength of mind which the author imputes to his hero. Finally, the
confession of crime, after so many years of secrecy, and when
conscience must have been blunted by time and habit, is without
adequate cause. The characters are very slightly sketched, and excite
neither interest nor sympathy. Emily Melville resembles Pamela too
closely, and Tyrrel is a poor reproduction of Squire Western.
Godwin tells us that, when thinking over "Caleb Williams," he said to
himself a thousand times: "I will write a tale, that shall constitute
an epoch in the mind of the reader, that no one, after he has read it,
shall ever be exactly the same man that he was before." The effort, and
straining after effect which this confession implies, are evident
throughout the work. The reader's curiosity is continually excited by
the promise of new interest and new developments, but he is as
continually disappointed. The main idea of the story is certainly a
striking one, but it is feebly carried out. The constitution of society
cannot be effectively attacked by so improbable and exceptional an
illustration of tyranny as the persecution of Caleb Williams.
[Footnote 189: It would be difficult to find a more bare-faced and
impudent literary theft than the case in which Sterne appropriated to
himself the remonstrance of Burton ("Anatomy of Melancholy"), against
that very plagiarism which he (Sterne) was then committing. Burton
said: "As apothecaries, we make new mixtures, every day pour out of one
vessel into another * * * We weave the same web, still twist the same
rope again and again." Sterne says, with an effrontery all his own:
"Shall we forever make new books, as apothecaries make new medicines,
by pouring only out of one vessel into another? Are we forever to be
twisting and untwisting the same rope--forever in the same track?
forever at the same pace?" For Sterne's plagiarism, see Dr. Ferriar's
"Essay and Illustrations," also Scott's "Life of Sterne."]
[Footnote 190: "Tristram Shandy," orig. ed., vol. viii, chap. 8.]
[Footnote 191: "Rasselas," chap. xliv. Contrast with Porter on "The
Human Intellect," pp. 371-2.]
[Footnote 192: See Scott's "Memoir of Johnson."]
[Footnote 193: "The Reverie," "The History of Arbaces," "The Pilgrim,"
"The History of John Juniper."]
[Footnote 194: The facts of Brooke's life are taken from the
introduction to the "Fool of Quality," by Rev. Charles Kingsley, New
York, 1860.]
[Footnote 195: Charles Kingsley, preface to the "Fool of Quality."]
[Footnote 196: Kingsley's preface to "Fool of Quality."]
[Footnote 197: "Alwyn," "Anna St. Ives," "Hugh Trevor," "Bryan
Perdue."]
[Footnote 198: Published in 1817, when the author was far advanced in
years.]
III.
The publication of "Evelina," in 1778, made a sensation which the
merits of the work fully justified. The story of Miss Burney's[199]
early life, her furtive attempts at fictitious composition, the great
variety of artistic and political characters who passed in review
before her observant eyes at Dr. Burney's house have been made familiar
by her own diary and letters. Petted and admired by Johnson, Mrs.
Thrale, and the brilliant literary society of which they formed the
centre, she lived sufficiently far into the present century to see the
works of her early friends enrolled among the classics or consigned to
oblivion, and to recognize that the approval of posterity had been
added to the early fame of her own writings. As a very young girl,
unnoticed by the distinguished persons who frequented her father's
house, she had studied with careful attention the characters and
manners of those who talked and moved about her. A strong desire to
reproduce the impressions which filled her mind induced Miss Burney in
her sixteenth year to devote her stolen hours of seclusion to
fictitious composition. Discouraged in her early efforts by her
stepmother, her habits of observation remained active, and took form,
when the authoress was twenty five years old, in the famous novel of
"Evelina." The book was issued secretly and anonymously, the publisher
even being ignorant of the writer's true name. But the immediate
popularity and admiration which greeted the work soon led to its open
acknowledgment by the happy young authoress.
And "Evelina" fully deserved the praise and interest which it obtained
and still excites. The aim was to describe the difficulties and
sensations of a young girl just entering life. The heroine chosen by
Miss Burney was one whose circumstances particularly well suited her to
form the centre of a varied collection of characters and of a
comprehensive picture of contemporary society. Well connected on her
father's side, Evelina moved in fashionable circles with the Mirvan
family. On account of the origin of her mother she was brought into
close contact with humbler personages, with Madame Duval and the
Brangtons. Hence this novel presents to the reader a variety of social
scenes which gives it a value possessed by no other work of fiction of
the eighteenth century. No novelist has described so well or so fully
the aspect of the theatres, of Vauxhall and Ranelagh, of Bath in the
season, of the ridottos and assemblies of the London fashionable world.
The shops, the amusements and the manners of the middle classes are
made familiar to Evelina by her association with the Brangtons, and add
greatly to the breadth of this valuable picture of metropolitan life.
With a feminine attention to detail, and a quick perception of salient
characteristics, Miss Burney described the world about her so
faithfully and picturesquely as to deserve the thanks of every student
of social history. The novel of "Evelina," the letters of Horace
Walpole and Mrs. Delany corroborate each other, and may be
appropriately placed on the same shelf in a well-ordered library.
In the painting of manners Miss Burney was eminently successful. But
she was hardly less so in a point in which excellence could not have
been expected in so youthful a writer. The plot of "Evelina" is
constructed with a skill worthy of a veteran. Fielding alone, of the
eighteenth century novelists, can be said to surpass Miss Burney in
this respect. The whole story of the mischances and misunderstanding of
Evelina's intercourse with Lord Orville, the skill with which the
various personages are brought into contact with each other and made to
contribute to the final _dénoument_, compose a truly artistic success.
The introduction of Macartney and his marriage to the supposed daughter
of Sir John Belmont form a very happy and effective invention.
In regard to her sketches of character, it may be objected that Miss
Burney lacked breadth of treatment, that she dwelt on one distinctive
characteristic at the expense of the others. But still, Lord Orville,
though somewhat too much of a model, and Mrs. Selwyn, though somewhat
too habitually a wit, are vivid and life-like characters. The Brangtons
and Sir Clement Willougby are nature itself, and the girlish nature of
Evelina is betrayed in her letters with great felicity.
It is no small triumph for Miss Burney, who has had so many and so
deserving competitors in the department of literature to which she
contributed, that her novels should have remained in active
circulation for more than a century after their publication. "Cecilia"
has much the same merits which distinguished "Evelina," and the two
novels bid fair to hold their own as long as English fiction retains
its popularity. Johnson considered Miss Burney equal to Fielding. But
although she possessed qualities similar to his--constructive power and
picturesqueness--she possessed them in a lesser degree. In the
management of the difficulties of the epistolary form of novel-writing,
she surpassed Richardson in verisimilitude and concentration.
Some readers of the present day object to Miss Burney's novels that
they contain so many references to "delicacy" and "propriety" that an
air of affectation is produced. But at the time when "Evelina" was
written, a perpetual discretion in actions and words was absolutely
necessary to a young woman who did not wish to be subjected to
libertine advances. Society is now so much more generally refined that
there is far less danger of such misconstruction, and far less need for
a young girl to be always on her guard. A sound objection, on the
ground of taste, may be made against the excessively prolonged account
of Captain Mirvan's brutalities. The effect might have been as well
produced in a much shorter space, and the reader spared the
uninteresting scenes which now fill so many repulsive pages. For this
defect, however, we must blame the times more than the author.
Charlotte Lennox was the daughter of Sir James Ramsay, Lieutenant
governor of New York, where she was born in 1720. When fifteen years of
age she was sent to London, and there supported herself by her pen.
Johnson said that he had "dined at Mrs. Garrick's with Mrs. Carter,
Miss Hannah More, and Miss Fanny Burney: three such women are not to be
found. I know not where I could find a fourth, except Mrs. Lennox, who
is superior to them all." Such high praise was not called forth by Mrs.
Lennox's novels, which have little originality or power. "The Female
Quixote" is an entertaining satire on the old French romances, but
"Sophia," and "Euphemia" are without any special interest.
A writer of more ability, whose name is still remembered by
novel-readers, is Mrs. Inchbald. She was overcome in early life by an
enthusiasm for the stage; ran away from home to find theatrical
employment, and remained for many years a popular London actress.
Although possessed of great and durable beauty, and the object of
constant attention from aristocratic admirers, it is believed that her
reputation continued unsullied. Her poverty, largely caused by a
worthless husband, obliged her to perform the most menial labors. She
rejoiced on one occasion that the approach of warmer weather released
her from the duty of making fires, scouring the grate, sifting the
cinders, and of going up and down three pair of long stairs with water
or dirt. All this Mrs. Inchbald thought that she could cheerfully bear,
but the labor of being a fine lady the remainder of the day was almost
too much for her. "Last Thursday," she wrote to a friend, "I finished
scouring my bed-chamber, while a coach with a coronet and two footmen
waited at the door to take me an airing."
The same courage and industry were carried by Mrs. Inchbald into her
literary labors, the profits of which enabled her to live with
considerable comfort toward the end of her life. She left a large
number of plays, many of which had been acted with success, and two
novels, "A Simple Story," published in 1791, and "Nature and Art,"
published five years later. Neither of these works has much merit from
a critical point of view. They are faulty in construction, and give
frequent evidence of the authoress' lack of education.
Yet, in her ability to excite the interest and to move the feelings of
her reader, Mrs. Inchbald met with great success. Her novels are of the
pathetic order, and appeal to the sympathies with a sometimes powerful
effect. Maria Edgeworth was deeply moved by the "Simple Story." "Its
effect upon my feelings," she said after reading it for the fourth
time, "was as powerful as at the first reading; I never read _any_
novel--I except none,--I never read any novel that affected me so
strongly, or that so completely possessed me with the belief in the
real existence, of all the persons it represents. I never once
recollected the author whilst I was reading it; never said or thought,
_that's a fine sentiment_,--or, _that is well expressed_--or, _that is
well invented_; I believed all to be real, and was affected as I should
be by the real scenes, if they had passed before my eyes; it is truly
and deeply pathetic."
The sisters, Harriet and Sophia Lee, wrote a number of stories gathered
together under the rather unfortunate title of "The Canterbury Tales,"
which had a long-continued popularity. "The Young Lady's Tale," and
"The Clergyman's Tale" were written by Sophia; all the others, together
with the novel "Errors of Innocence," belonged to Harriet. These
stories have great narrative interest, and contain some powerfully
drawn characters. Byron was deeply affected by some of them. Of the
"German's Tale," he confessed: "It made a deep impression on me, and
may be said to contain the germ of much that I have since written." It
not only contained the germ of "Werner," but supplied the whole
material for that tragedy. All the characters of the novel are
reproduced by Byron except "Ida," whom he added. The plan of Miss Lee's
work is exactly followed, as the poet admitted, and even the language
is frequently adopted without essential change.
Charlotte Smith was a woman of talent and imagination who was driven to
literature for aid in supporting a large family abandoned by their
spendthrift father. She was among the most prolific novelists of her
time, but only one work, "The Old Manor House," enjoyed more than a
passing reputation, or has any claim to particular mention here. The
chief merit of Charlotte Smith's novels lies in their descriptions of
scenery, an element only just entering into the work of the novelist.
Clara Reeve and the celebrated Mrs. Radcliffe did much to sustain the
prominent position which women were taking in fictitious composition,
and their works will be commented upon in connection with the romantic
revival, to which movement they were eminent contributors.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the number and variety of
works of fiction increased with remarkable rapidity. The female sex
supplied its full share, both in amount and in excellence of work. But
those who desire to see the advent of women into new walks of active
life on the ground that their presence and participation add to the
purity of every occupation they adopt, can find no illustration of the
theory in the connection of women with fictitious composition. Mrs.
Behn, Mrs. Manley, and Mrs. Heywood, the earliest female novelists,
produced the most inflammatory and licentious novels of their time. At
a later period, during the eighteenth century, although some female
writers exhibited a very exceptional refinement, the majority showed in
this respect no marked superiority to their masculine contemporaries.
In our own time, whoever would make a list of those novels which are
most evidently immoral in their teachings and licentious in their tone,
would be obliged to seek them almost quite as much among the works of
female writers, as among those of the rougher sex.
To write a really excellent novel, is among the most difficult of
literary feats. But to write a poor one has often been found an easy
undertaking. The apparent facility of fictitious composition has
deceived great numbers of literary aspirants, and has filled the
circulating libraries with a vast collection of thoroughly worthless
productions. This unfortunate fecundity, to which the department of
fiction is subject, began to be conspicuous at the end of the
eighteenth century,[200] and excited much opposition to novels of all
kinds. Hannah More, in her essays on female education, inveighed
against the evil in terms which are quite as applicable at the present
day. "Who are those ever multiplying authors, that with unparalleled
fecundity are overstocking the world with their quick-succeeding
progeny? They are _novel-writers_; the easiness of whose productions is
at once the cause of their own fruitfulness, and of the almost
infinitely numerous race of imitators to whom they give birth. Such is
the frightful facility of this species of composition, that every raw
girl, while she reads, is tempted to fancy that she can also write. And
as Alexander, on perusing the Iliad, found by congenial sympathy the
image of Achilles stamped on his own ardent soul, and felt himself the
hero he was studying; and as Correggio, on first beholding a picture
which exhibited the perfection of the graphic art, prophetically felt
all his own future greatness, and cried out in rapture: 'And I, too, am
a painter!' So a thorough-paced novel-reading miss, at the close of
every tissue of hackneyed adventures, feels within herself the stirring
impulse of corresponding genius, and triumphantly exclaims: 'And I,
too, am an author!' The glutted imagination soon overflows with the
redundance of cheap sentiment and plentiful incident, and, by a sort of
arithmetical proportion, is enabled by the perusal of any three novels,
to produce a fourth; till every fresh production, like the prolific
progeny of Banquo, is followed by
'Another, and another, and another!'"
[Footnote 199: Afterward Madame D'Arblay.]
[Footnote 200: See the "Progress of Romance," by Clara Reeve, for the
names of many now forgotten novels, for which room cannot be spared
here.]
IV.
The writers who took the chief part in originating and sustaining the
romantic revival in English fiction were Horace Walpole, Clara Reeve,
and Mrs. Radcliffe. As we have called upon the testimony of Walpole so
often in this work, and as we are now to consider him as an author,
some account of his personal appearance may be of interest. "His
figure," says Miss Hawkins, "was not merely tall, but long and slender
to excess; his complexion, and particularly his hands, of a most
unhealthy paleness. His eyes were remarkably bright and penetrating,
very dark and lively:--his voice was not strong, but his tones were
extremely pleasant, and, if I may so say, highly gentlemanly. I do not
remember his common gait; he always entered a room in that style of
affected delicacy which fashion had then made almost natural; _chapeau
bras_ between his hands as if he wished to compress it, or under his
arm; knees bent, and feet on tiptoe, as if afraid of a wet floor. His
dress in visiting was most usually, in summer, when I most saw him, a
lavender suit, the waistcoat embroidered with a little silver, or of
white silk worked in the tambour, partridge silk stockings, and gold
buckles, ruffles and frill generally lace. I remember, when a child,
thinking him very much under-dressed, if at any time, except in
mourning, he wore hemmed cambric. In summer, no powder, but his wig
combed straight, and showing his very smooth, pale forehead, and queued
behind; in winter, powder."
Posterity has cause to regret that Horace Walpole, of all men best
fitted by personal knowledge and ability to draw a picture of the
brilliant society of his time, should have contributed no work in the
department of realistic fiction. Had the keen observation and
experience of the world so conspicuous in his letters been brought to
bear on a narrative of real life not less ably constructed than that of
"The Castle of Otranto," an addition of no little value to the social
history of the eighteenth century must have been the result. But
although Walpole attempted no novel in which he might have depicted the
fashionable life of which he was so faithful a chronicler, he yet tried
an experiment in fiction for which he was peculiarly qualified by his
antiquarian studies and his fondness for the arts and customs of feudal
times.
The object of "The Castle of Otranto" was to unite the characteristic
elements of the ancient romance with those of the modern novel. It was
attempted to introduce into a narrative constructed with modern order
and sequence, such supernatural events as controlled the incidents of
romantic fiction. To accomplish this result, it was necessary that the
_mise en scène_ should be impressive and awe-inspiring, that the
reader's mind should be insensibly prepared by strange surroundings for
extraordinary incidents. In his selection of age and scene, Walpole was
highly judicious. He chose the feudal period, when superstition
accorded the most ready belief to supernatural agencies. He introduced
his reader to a huge, gloomy castle, furnished with towers, donjons,
subterranean passages, and trapdoors. He took for his hero, Manfred, a
fierce and cruel knight, who had obtained his lands by duplicity and
blood; whose chief aim in life was to continue his posterity in
possession of wrongfully acquired power. He added subordinate
characters of a kind to aid the effect of supernatural phenomena: a
monk in a neighboring convent, who threatened Manfred with divine
visitation for his crimes; superstitious servants, whose easy fears
exaggerated every unusual sound or foot-fall. He gave an interest to
his narrative by the love passages of Manfred's daughters which were
perpetually at the mercy of the fate which hung over the castle. He
introduced his supernatural effects in the form of a gigantic gauntlet
seen on the stair-rail; a gigantic helmet which crushed the son and
heir of the house as he was about to be married and to carry out his
father's hopes; a skeleton monk who urged the rightful owner of the
castle to take his own from the usurper's hands.
In attempting to make a regularly constructed narrative depend on
supernatural agencies, Walpole undoubtedly succeeded as far as success
was possible. But it may be said without hesitation that real success
was unattainable. The very merits of "The Castle of Otranto" sustain
this decision. The experiment had a fair trial. The narrative of
Manfred's crimes and the punishments visited upon them, the characters
and actions of subordinate personages are all managed with skill; while
the supernatural agencies are introduced at the proper times and have
the expected effects. But the real test of success in such an attempt
must lie in the impression made on the reader's mind. And this
impression may be of two kinds. Let us imagine a group of young people
sitting about the dying embers of a fire on a winter's evening,
listening to a ghost story. The black darkness, the sound of the wind
howling without, accord with the low tones, the dim light, and the tale
of horror within. The minds of the listeners insensibly cast off their
ordinary trains of thought, and give themselves up to the unreal
impressions of the moment. The incredible circumstances of the
apparition are accepted without question or criticism; the impression
of the supernatural occurrences is alone thought of and enjoyed. But
now, let the same tale be read aloud after breakfast, from a newspaper,
with the affidavits of the witnesses of the apparition duly attached,
and only laughter can be the result.
Now let us apply the same test to romance. We open the "Morte d'Arthur";
we find ourselves at once in an unreal, almost nameless land; we meet
with knights whom we only know apart by their armor, and queens ambling
through pathless forests on white palfreys; we attend brilliant
tournaments and witness superhuman deeds of arms. Our minds, untroubled
by scepticism and thoughtless of unreality, yield themselves to the
poetical illusion. Who stops to think of the incredible when Sir
Bedivere hurls into the lake the dying Arthur's sword Excalibur?
Then Sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly took
it up, and went to the water side, and there he bound the girdle
about the hilts, and then he threw the sword as far into the water
as he might, and there came an arm and an hand above the water, and
met it, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and
then vanished away the hand with the sword in the water.
But when we are introduced to the castle of Otranto, when we know its
dimensions and appearance, when we have become acquainted with its
inmates, and have been made to realize that they are flesh and blood
like ourselves, we cannot receive without a shock the account of the
supernatural occurrences by which they are affected. It is as if we
listened to a ghost story in the glare of daylight, and in the full
activity of our critical faculties.
"Thou art no lawful prince," said Jerome; "thou art no prince--go,
discuss thy claim with Frederic; and when that is done----" "It is
done," replied Manfred; "Frederic accepts Matilda's hand, and is
content to waive his claim, unless I have no male issue." As he
spoke these words three drops of blood fell from the nose of
Alfonso's statue.
"The Castle of Otranto" is an entertaining, well-constructed romance
which may absorb the attention of young people, and indeed of all
readers who delight in tales of superstitious horror. But looked upon
as a work of art, it contains discordant elements. The realistic manner
in which the scene and characters are made known, the exactitude with
which the incidents are combined, are in constant opposition to that
poetical ideality without which the supernatural cannot take possession
of the mind. In reading the "Morte d'Arthur" we are insensibly
penetrated by an atmosphere of the marvellous which makes a giant a
natural companion, and a magic sword a necessary part of a warrior's
outfit. But Manfred and his family are so essentially human, and their
surroundings are so realistic, that the reader's sense of congruity is
shocked by the introduction of a bleeding statue or a skeleton monk.
This was evident to Miss Clara Reeve, who hoped to attain success in
the attempt to unite the romance and the novel by limiting all
supernatural occurrences to the verge of probability. It is obvious
that the line would be difficult to draw. Miss Reeve drew it at ghosts.
In the "Old English Baron," she took a story similar to that of
Walpole. She presented to the reader a castle whose real owner had been
murdered, and of which the rightful heir, ignorant of his birth, lived
as a dependent on the wrongful possessor. The story turned on the
revelation of the secret by the ghost of the murdered knight.
"God defend us!" said Edmund; "but I verily believe that the person
that owned this armor lies buried under us." Upon this a dismal,
hollow groan was heard, as if from underneath. A solemn silence
ensued, and marks of fear were visible upon all three; the groan
was thrice heard.
To the average mind of the present day Clara Reeve's ghost is not less
improbable and incredible than Walpole's gigantic helmet. If the reader
is prepared by the poetic nature of a narrative for the influence of
the supernatural, he will receive all marvels with equal ease; but if
he be not prepared, if his mind be occupied during the greater part of
the work with actual and ordinary occurrences, any supernatural event
is rejected. Miss Reeve introduced far less of the incredible than her
predecessor, but she did not approach Walpole in the adaptation of her
scenes to supernatural effects. It requires less imagination to see a
figure walk out of a portrait in the gloomy castle of Otranto, than to
hear the groan of Miss Reeve's spectre.
The incompatibility of the real and the unreal in the same work is
sufficiently shown by the course pursued by the different writers who
took part in the romantic revival. Walpole had boldly introduced a
skeleton monk, and had crushed one of his characters by a gigantic
helmet which fell from the sky. Clara Reeve's sense of congruity was
shocked by so strong a contrast between the usual and the
extraordinary, and therefore limited herself to a single supernatural
effect, which might inspire fear while yet remaining within the bounds
of superstitious credulity. The next and greatest contributor to the
romantic revival still further modified the methods of her
predecessors, and in so modifying them, testified her doubts of their
efficacy. Mrs. Radcliffe's plan was not to summon a spectre from his
resting-place and to make him move among flesh and blood personages.
She simply described the superstitious fears of her heroes and
heroines, and sought to make her reader share in them. She excited the
imagination by highly wrought scenes of horror, but instead of
ascribing those scenes to the intervention of supernatural beings, she
showed them to proceed from natural causes. The terror felt, by her
fictitious characters and shared by the reader, was not so much
inspired by real dangers from without, as by superstitious fear within.
The following passage will illustrate Mrs. Radcliffe's method of
dealing with the supernatural:
From the disturbed slumber into which she then sunk, she was soon
awakened by a noise, which seemed to arise within her chamber; but
the silence that prevailed, as she tearfully listened, inclined her
to believe that she had been alarmed by such sounds as sometimes
occur in dreams, and she laid her head again upon the pillow.
A return of the noise again disturbed her, it seemed to come from
that part of the room which communicated with the private
staircase, and she instantly remembered the odd circumstance of the
door having been fastened during the preceding night by some
unknown hand. The late alarming suspicion concerning its
communication also occurred to her. Her heart became faint with
terror. Half raising herself from the bed, and gently drawing aside
the curtain, she looked toward the door of the staircase, but the
lamp that burnt on the hearth spread so feeble a light through the
apartment, that the remote parts of it were lost in shadow. The
noise, however, which she was convinced came from the door,
continued. It seemed like that made by the undrawing of rusty
bolts, and often ceased, and was then renewed more gently, as if
the hand that occasioned it was restrained by a fear of discovery.
While Emily kept her eyes fixed on the spot, she saw the door move,
and then slowly open, and perceived something enter the room, but
the extreme duskiness prevented her perceiving what it was. Almost
fainting with terror, she had yet sufficient command over herself
to check the shriek that was escaping from her lips, and, letting
the curtain drop from her hand, continued to observe in silence the
motions of the mysterious figure she saw. It seemed to glide along
the remote obscurity of the apartment, then paused, and, as it
approached the hearth, she perceived, in the stronger light, what
appeared to be a human figure. Certain remembrances now struck upon
her heart, and almost subdued the feeble remains of her spirit. She
continued, however, to watch the figure, which remained for some
time motionless, but then, advancing slowly toward the bed, stood
silently at the feet, where the curtains, being a little open,
allowed her still to see it; terror, however, had now deprived her
of the power of discrimination, as well as that of utterance.[201]
This scene is an excellent example of Mrs. Radcliffe's power of
depicting and exciting fear. The loneliness of Emily in the castle, her
dread of real dangers inclining her mind to expect the unreal, are
shown with an art of which neither Walpole nor Reeve were capable. But,
while these writers would have introduced a real spectre as the
disturber of Emily's slumber, Mrs. Radcliffe is contented with the
terror she has aroused, and hastens to explain its cause.
Having continued there a moment, the form retreated towards the
hearth, when it took the lamp, held it up, surveyed the chamber for
a few moments, and then again advanced towards the bed. The light
at that instant awakening the dog that had slept at Emily's feet,
he barked loudly, and, jumping to the floor, flew at the stranger,
who struck the animal smartly with a sheathed sword, and springing
towards the bed, Emily discovered--Count Morano.
These passages afford evidence of both the strength and the weakness of
Mrs. Radcliffe's work. She chose a scene calculated to inspire horror,
she subjected to its influence a lonely female, and she then described
with blood-curdling minuteness each detail which could enhance the
sense of hidden danger which it was her purpose to excite. While the
reader follows such portions of her writings, he is carried by the
force and picturesqueness of Mrs. Radcliffe's language into a condition
of sympathy with the fears of the fictitious personage. But the moment
that the scene of horror is past, that the hidden danger is revealed,
that, it turns out to be no ghost but only a Count Morano, all Mrs.
Radcliffe's power is required to prevent an anti-climax. This weakness
is very different from that of Walpole or Reeve. They failed to excite
the feeling of superstitious fear. Mrs. Radcliffe excited it, but she
destroyed its effect by revealing the inadequacy of its cause. The
works of Walpole, Clara Reeve, and particularly of Mrs. Radcliffe,
contain very decided merits. They made a school which has found many
admirers and has given a vast deal of pleasure. But the school was
founded on wrong principles and could not endure. It is impossible for
the mind to enjoy the supernatural while it is chained down to
every-day life by realistic descriptions of scenes and persons. And it
is equally impossible to permanently please by fear-inspiring
narratives, when the reader is aware that all the while there is no
sufficient cause for the hero's terror.
But what Mrs. Radcliffe attempted, she carried out with a very great
skill. She placed the scenes of her narratives in Sicily, in Italy, or
the south of France, and made good use of the warm natures and vivid
imaginations which are born of southern climates. Every aid which an
effective _mise en scène_ could supply to her supernatural effects was
most skilfully brought into play. Lonely castles, secret passages,
gloomy churches, and monkish superstitions,--all were adapted to the
tale of unknown dangers and fearful predicaments which Mrs. Radcliffe
had to tell. She kept up with remarkable strength a supernatural tone
which insensibly aids the imagination. In her descriptions of scenery,
she chose nature in its most awe-inspiring forms, and instilled into
the reader's mind the same sense of the insignificance of man, under
the influence of which her heroes and heroines so continually remain.
We are reminded of Buckle's description of the effect of nature upon
human imagination and credulity when we notice the striking manner in
which Mrs. Radcliffe moulded the surroundings of her heroes and
heroines, and made their minds susceptible to superstitious terror.
From Beaujeu the road had constantly ascended, conducting the
travellers into the higher regions of the air, where immense
glaciers exhibited their frozen horrors, and eternal snow whitened
the summits of the mountains. They often paused to contemplate
these stupendous scenes, and, seated on some wild cliff, where only
the ilex or the larch could flourish, looked over dark forests of
fir, and precipices where human foot had never wandered, into the
glen--so deep that the thunder of the torrent, which was seen to
foam along the bottom was scarcely heard to murmur. Over these
crags rose others of stupendous height and fantastic shape; some
shooting into cones; others impending far over their base, in huge
masses of granite, along whose broken ridges was often lodged a
weight of snow, that, trembling even to the vibration of a sound,
threatened to bear destruction in its course to the vale. Around on
every side, far as the eye could penetrate, were seen only forms of
grandeur the long perspective of mountain tops, tinged with
ethereal blue, or white with snow; valleys of ice, and forests of
gloomy fir. * * * The deep silence of these solitudes was broken
only at intervals by the scream of the vultures, seen cowering
round some cliff below, or by the cry of the eagle sailing high in
the air; except when the travellers listened to the hollow thunder
that sometimes muttered at their feet.[202]
Lewis in "The Monk," and Maturin in "The Family of Montorio," carried
the principles of the Radcliffe school beyond the verge of absurdity.
Their novels are wild melodramas, the product of distorted
imaginations, in which endless horrors are mingled with gross
violations of decency. "The Monk" and "The Family of Montorio" had a
great reputation in their day, and in contemporary criticism we find
their praise sung and their immortality predicted. But, while they
illustrate, on the one hand, the temporary vogue an author may acquire
by highly-wrought clap-trap and flashy flights of imagination, they
show very plainly, in the oblivion which has overtaken them, how little
such characteristics avail in the race for enduring fame.
[Footnote 201: "The Mysteries of Udolpho," chap. xix.]
[Footnote 202: "The Mysteries of Udolpho," ch. iv.]
V.
At the end of the eighteenth century, the novel had become established
as a popular form of literature, and the number of its votaries had
begun to assume the proportions which have since made novelists by far
the most numerous literary body. Some writers, perhaps, have been
omitted who deserved mention as much as some who have been commented
upon. But all have been spoken of, it is believed, who contributed any
new ideas or methods to the art of fictitious composition.
The novel had, indeed, taken the place of the stage to a very great
extent. If we compare the productions of the dramatist with those of
the novelist, as regards both quantity and merit, during the last
hundred and fifty years, we shall perceive a great preponderance in
favor of the writer of fiction. Although there are some respects in
which the novel cannot compete with the drama, there are obvious
reasons why the former should be much better adapted than the latter to
modern requirements. Great changes have come over the audience. With
the progress of civilization, life has become less and less dramatic,
and affords fewer striking scenes and violent ebullitions of passion.
It not only furnishes far less material for stage effects, but also
supplies little of that sympathy which the dramatist must find in the
minds of his audience. While life has become less dramatic, it has
become far more complex, and requires a broader treatment in its
delineation than the restrictions of the stage can allow.
As we look back upon the fiction of the eighteenth century it is
evident that the novel, like the play, is capable of great uses and of
great abuses, according to the spirit in which it is written. In the
hands of Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Goldsmith, and Miss Burney, it
reached a high position as a work of art. It retained, indeed, much of
the manner of the story of adventure, inasmuch as the interest was more
commonly made to depend on the fortunes of a chosen hero than on the
development of a well constructed plot. But "Robinson Crusoe," "Tom
Jones," "The Vicar of Wakefield," and "Evelina," are works which
deserve and possess the interest of the present time. Such books as
these are to be cherished as precious legacies from the years that have
gone before. They have given, in the course of their long active
circulation, an incalculable amount of pleasure. They have supplied
posterity with a picturesque view of the life and manners of their
ancestors which could not be acquired from any other source. But while
the fiction of the eighteenth century includes much that is valuable
from a literary and from a historical point of view, it includes also a
great quantity of worthless and injurious writing. By far the larger
number of novels published were of a kind likely to exert an evil
influence on their readers. Their coarseness and licentiousness had a
strong tendency to disseminate the morbid thoughts and unregulated
passions which dictated their production. So general was the feeling
that a work of fiction would probably contain immoral and debasing
views of life, that the novel and the novelist, were both looked upon
askance. "In the republic of letters," said Miss Burney, "there is no
member of such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his
brethren of the quill, as the humble novelist; nor is his fate less
hard in the world at large, since, among the whole class of writers
perhaps not one can be named of which the votaries are more numerous
but less respectable." Miss Edgeworth, in the beginning of the present
century, felt it necessary to call her first novel "a moral tale,"
because so much folly, error, and vice are disseminated in books
classed "under the denomination of novels." A great part of the fiction
of the last century, as indeed of our own time, possesses neither the
value of a work of art nor that belonging to the description and
preservation of contemporary manners. Nor could the excuse of the
amusement they afforded be called up in their favor. No amusement is
worth having which is not healthy and innocent. The general prejudice
which formerly existed against novels very much lessened their
circulation, and lessened the evil done by licentious productions.
Careful parents did not allow a novel in their children's hands which
had not passed an examination--a precaution now too generally
neglected.
But notwithstanding all the trash, and worse than trash, which has gone
into circulation under the broad and attractive term of novel, it is
evident that the English speaking public on both sides of the Atlantic
demand purity in the works of fiction which are submitted to its
judgment. While no literary work can present a greater claim to
permanent favor than a really good novel, none is more certain to be
quite ephemeral than a bad one, whether its badness consist in the
manner or the matter. For more than a hundred years "The Vicar of
Wakefield" has held its own, while hundreds of novels which created
more sensation at the time of their appearance have fallen into
everlasting oblivion. And this triumph is not only due to literary
excellence, but to the human excellence of the conception which
Goldsmith gave to the world.