Mrs. Gaskell
Ever since Eve gave Adam of the forbidden fruit, "and he did eat," the
relative position of the sexes has rankled in the heart of man. The sons
of Adam proclaim loudly that they were given dominion over the earth and
all that the earth contained; but they have been ever ready to follow
blindly the beckoning finger of some fair daughter of Eve. Perhaps it is
a consciousness of this domination of the weaker sex that has led man to
proclaim in such loud tones his mastery over woman, having some doubts
of its being recognised by her unless asserted in bold language. At a
time when the novels of women received as warm a welcome from the public
and as large checks from the publishers as those of men, a writer whose
sex need not be given thus discussed their relative merits:
"What is woman, regarded as a literary worker? Simply an inferior
animal, educated as an inferior animal. And what is man? He is a
superior being, educated by a superior being. So how can they ever be
equal in that particular line?"
Granted the premises, there can be but one conclusion.
The perfect assurance with which men have asserted their own sufficiency
in all lines of art would be amusing if it had not been so disastrous in
distorting and warping at least three of them: music, the drama, and
prose fiction. As slow as the growth of spirituality, has been the
recognition of woman's mental and moral power. It seems almost
incredible that not many years ago only male voices were heard in places
of amusement. Deep, rich, full, and sonorous, no one disputes the beauty
of the male chorus; but modern opera would be impossible without the
soprano and alto voices, and Madame Patti, Madame Sembrich, and Madame
Lehman have proved that in natural gifts and in the technique of art
women are not inferior to their brethren.
By the same slow process women have won recognition on the stage. Even
in Shakespeare's time men saw no reason why women should acquire the
histrionic art. Imagine Juliet played by a boy! Yet Essex, Leicester,
Southampton, in the boxes, the groundlings in the pit, and Ben Jonson
sitting as critic of all, were well satisfied with it, for they were
used to it, just as men have accepted the heroines of their own novels,
though every woman they meet is a refutation of their truth. It only
needed a woman in a woman's part to open the eyes of the audience to all
they had missed before. Not until the Restoration, did any woman appear
on the English stage. The following lines given in the prologue written
for the revival of _Othello_, in which the part of Desdemona was acted
for the first time by a woman, show how quick critics were to see the
folly of the old custom:
For to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen,
With bone so large, and nerve so uncompliant,
When you call Desdemona, enter Giant.
As we cannot conceive of the English stage without such women as Mrs.
Siddons, Charlotte Cushman, and Ellen Terry, so we cannot conceive of
the English novel without such writers as Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen,
Mary Mitford, the Brontes, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot, each one
of whom carried some phase of the novel to so high a point that she has
stood pre-eminent in her own particular line. Too often we confuse art
with its subject-matter. If it requires as much skill to give interest
to the everyday occurrences of the home as to the thrilling adventures
abroad; to depict the life of women as the life of men; to reveal the
joys and sorrows of a woman's heart as the exultations and griefs of
man's; then these women deserve a place equal to that held by
Richardson, Fielding, Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray. Their art, as their
subject-matter, is different. With the exception of George Eliot, they
have not virility with its strength and power, but they have femininity,
no less strong and powerful, a quality possessed by Scott, but by no
other of these masculine writers, with the possible exception of
Dickens, and in him it is a femininity, which tends to run to
sentimentalism, a different characteristic.
* * * * *
Elizabeth Gaskell, one of the most feminine of writers, is so well known
as the author of _Cranford_, that delightful village whose only
gentleman dies early in the story, that many of its readers do not know
that its author was better known by her contemporaries through her
humanitarian novels; in which she discussed the great problems that face
the poor.
Mrs. Gaskell, whose maiden name was Stevenson, was born in Chelsea in
1810. She spent the greater part of her childhood and girlhood at the
home of her mother's family, Knutsford in Cheshire, the place she
afterward made famous under the name of Cranford. In 1832, she married
the Reverend William Gaskell, minister of the Unitarian chapel in
Manchester, and that city became her home. She took an active interest
in all the affairs of the city, and constantly visited the poor. Her
husband's father, besides being the professor of English History and
Literature in Manchester New College, a Unitarian institution, was a
manufacturer; thus Mrs. Gaskell had the opportunity of hearing both
sides of the controversy which was then waging between labour and
capital.
In the early forties, there was much suffering among the "mill-hands";
many were dying of starvation, and consequently there were many strikes
and uprisings. These conditions led to her writing her first novel,
_Mary Barton_. The book was written during the years 1845-1847, although
it was not published until 1848. The nucleus of it, Mrs. Gaskell wrote
to a friend, was John Barton. Since she herself was constantly wondering
at the inequalities of fortune, which permitted some to starve, while
others had abundance, how must it affect an ignorant man, himself on the
verge of starvation, and filled with pity for the sufferings of his
friends? Driven almost insane by the condition of society, and hoping to
remedy it, he commits a crime, which preys so upon his conscience that
it finally wears out his own life.
Mrs. Gaskell in this, her first novel, has left an undying picture of
that section of smoky Manchester where the mill-workers live: its
narrow lanes; small but not uncomfortable cottages, well supplied with
furniture in days when work was plentiful, but destitute even of a fire
when it was scarce; the undersized men and women, with irregular
features, pale blue eyes, sallow complexions, but with an intelligence
rendered quick and sharp by their life among the machinery, and by their
hard struggle for existence. The life of the poor had often furnished a
theme for the poets, but it was the life of shepherds and milkmaids,
above whom the blue sky arched, and whose labours were brightened by the
songs of the birds, and the colours and sweet odours of fruit and
flowers. But Mrs. Gaskell described the life of the poor in a town where
factory smoke obscured the light of the sun, and where the weariness of
labour was rendered more intense by the clanging factory bell, and the
constant whirr of machinery ringing in their ears. It is a gloomy
picture, but no gloomier than the reality.
Disraeli in _Sybil_ discussed the questions of labour and capital in
their relations to the history of England, with a broad intellectual
grasp of the sociological causes which produced these conditions. He
wrote in the interests of two classes, the Crown and the People, with
the hope that England might again have a free monarchy and a prosperous
people. It is a well illustrated treatise on government, but the
principles advocated or discussed always overshadow the characters. He
had no such intimate knowledge of the lives of the poor as had Mrs.
Gaskell. She conducts us to the homes of John Barton, George Wilson, and
Job Legh, shows the simplicity of their lives, and their sense of the
injustice under which they are suffering, and their helpfulness to each
other in times of need.
How simple and true is the friendship that binds Mary Barton, the
dressmaker's apprentice; Margaret, the blind singer; and Alice Wilson,
the aged laundress, whose mind is constantly dwelling on the green
fields and running brooks of her childhood's home. These women possess
the strength of character of the early Teutonic women. They are
reticent, not given to the exchange of confidences, but ready to help a
friend with all they have in the hour of need. When Margaret thinks that
the Bartons are in want of money, she says to Mary, "Remember, if you're
sore pressed for money, we shall take it very unkind if you do not let
us know." But she does not question her. Later when her great trouble
comes to Mary Barton, which she must bear alone, when she must free a
lover from the charge of murder without incriminating her father, she
shows presence of mind, clearness of vision, and both moral and physical
courage.
Jem Wilson, the hero of the story, is as strong as Mary Barton, the
heroine. Although Dickens was writing of the poor, he always found some
means to educate his heroes, and generally placed them among gentlemen.
Jem Wilson's education was received in the factory, and the little rise
he made above his fellows was due to his better understanding of
machinery. He was a working man, proud of his skill, and of his good
name for honesty and sobriety.
The plot of _Mary Barton_ is highly melodramatic, and its technique is
open to criticism. It should not be read, however, for the story, but
for the many home scenes in which we come into close sympathy with the
men and women of Manchester. There is no novel in which we feel more
strongly the heart-beats of humanity. It leaves the impression, not of
art, but of life.
Mrs. Gaskell turned again to the struggles between labour and capital
for the plot of her novel _North and South_. Between this story and
_Mary Barton_ she had written _Cranford_ and _Ruth_, but her mind seemed
to revert, as it were, from the peaceful village life to the stirring
mill-towns of Lancashire. The great contrast between life in the
counties of England presided over by the landed gentry, and that in the
counties where the manufacturers formed the aristocracy, suggested this
book. It was published in 1855, seven years after _Mary Barton_. The
plot of _North and South_ is better proportioned than is that of _Mary
Barton_. There are fewer characters, better contrasted. It is a brighter
picture, with more humour, but it does not leave so strong an impression
on the mind as does the earlier work. Both, however, are more accurate
than _Hard Times_, a book with which Dickens himself was highly
dissatisfied. He knew little of the life in the manufacturing districts,
but, in a spirit of indignation at the poverty brought on by grasping
manufacturers, he caricatured the entire class in the persons of Mr.
Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby. When these men are compared with the
manufacturers as represented in _North and South_, Mrs. Gaskell's more
intimate knowledge of them is at once apparent.
Mrs. Gaskell had been accused of taking sides with the working men, and
representing their point of view in _Mary Barton_. In _North and South_,
the hero, Mr. Thornton, is a rich manufacturer, a fine type of the
self-made man, but standing squarely on his right to do what he pleases
in his own factory. "He looks like a person who would enjoy battling
with every adverse thing he could meet with--enemies, winds, or
circumstances," was Margaret Hale's comment when she first met him.
"He's worth fighting wi', is John Thornton," said one of the leaders of
the strike. For although the condition of affairs in the mill-towns had
much improved since John Barton went to London as a delegate from his
starving townsmen, and was refused a hearing by Parliament, a large part
of the book is concerned with the story of a strike, which in its
outcome brought starvation to many of the men, and bankruptcy to some of
the masters, the acknowledged victors.
Higgins, one of the leaders of the working men, is a true Lancashire
man, and like Thornton, the leader of the masters, has many traits of
character as truly American as English. His sturdy independence is well
shown in Margaret's first interview with him. The daughter of a vicar in
the south of England, she had been accustomed to call upon the poor in
her father's parish. Learning that Higgins's daughter, Bessy, is ill she
expresses her desire to call upon her. "I'm none so fond of having
stranger folk in my house," Higgins informs her, but he finally relents
and says, "Yo may come if yo like."
But besides the conflict between the manufacturers and their employees,
with which much of the book is concerned, there is the sharp contrast
between the Hales, born and bred in the south of England, and the
mill-owners in whose society they are placed. Mr. Hale, indecisive,
inactive, in whom thought is more powerful than reality, is as helpless
as a child among these men of action, and utterly unable to cope with
the problems they are facing. Margaret, the refined daughter of a poor
clergyman, is contrasted with the proud Mrs. Thornton, the mother of a
wealthy manufacturer, who would make money, not birth, the basis of
social distinctions. But Margaret is even better contrasted with the
poor factory girl, Bessy Higgins, who turns to her for help and
sympathy. There is hardly a story of Mrs. Gaskell's which is not adorned
by the friendship of the heroine for some other woman in the book.
In both these novels, she taught that the only solution of the great
problem of capital and labour was a recognition of the fact that their
interests were identical, and that friendly intercourse was the only
means of breaking down the barrier that divided them.
Mrs. Gaskell was so versatile, she touched upon so many problems of
human life, that it is almost impossible to summarise her work. _Ruth_
considers the question of the girl who has been betrayed. Ruth is as
pure as Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and like her is a victim of
circumstances. A stranger who has taken her under her protection reports
that Ruth is a widow, and Ruth passively acquiesces in the deception,
hoping that her son may never know the disgrace of his birth. But the
truth comes to light, involving in temporary disgrace Ruth and her son,
and the household of Mr. Benson, the dissenting minister whose home had
been her place of refuge. But Mrs. Gaskell is always optimistic. By her
good deeds, Ruth wins the love and honour of the entire community. This
novel was loudly assailed. It was claimed that Mrs. Gaskell had condoned
immorality, and it was considered dangerous teaching that good deeds
were an atonement for such a sin. But if _Ruth_ found detractors, it
also found warm admirers, who recognised the broader teachings of the
story. Mrs. Jameson wrote to Mrs. Gaskell:
"I hope I do understand your aim--you have lifted up your voice against
'that demoralising laxity of principle,' which I regard as the ulcer
lying round the roots of society; and you have done it wisely and well,
with a mingled courage and delicacy which excite at once my gratitude
and my admiration."
The scene of _Sylvia's Lovers_ is laid in Whitby, at a time when the
press-gang was kidnapping men for the British navy. It is a story of the
loves, jealousies, and sorrows of sailors, shopkeepers, and small
farmers, among whom Sylvia moves as the central figure. Du Maurier, who
illustrated the second edition of this novel, was so charmed with the
heroine that he named his daughter Sylvia for her. This story, like
_Ruth_, has much of the sentimentalism so fashionable in the middle of
the nineteenth century. The leading canon of criticism at that time was
the power with which a writer could move the emotions of the reader, and
the novelist was expected either to convulse his readers with laughter
or dissolve them into tears. There are many funny scenes in _Sylvia's
Lovers_, but the key-note is pathos. Like many novels of Dickens, there
are death-bed scenes introduced only for the luxury of weeping over
sorrows that are not real, and there are melodramatic situations as in
her other books. Parts of this novel suggested to Tennyson the poem of
_Enoch Arden_.
But, however powerful may be the novels dealing with the questions that
daily confront the poor, there is a perennial charm in the society of
people who dwell amid rural scenes. Mrs. Gaskell has written several
short stories of the pastoral type. Such a story is _Cousin Phillis_. It
is a beautiful idyl and reminds one of the old pastorals in which ladies
and gentlemen played at shepherds and shepherdesses. Cousin Phillis
cooks, irons, reads Dante, helps the haymakers, falls in love, and mends
a broken heart, and is brave, true, and unselfish. Her father is what
one would expect from such a daughter. He cultivates his small farm,
finds rest from his labours in reading, and neglects none of the many
duties which belong to him as the dissenting minister of a small
village.
_Cranford_ and _Wives and Daughters_ have this in common, that the scene
of both is laid in the village of Knutsford. The former is a rambling
story of events in two or three households, and of the social affairs in
which all the village is concerned. It is without doubt the favourite of
Mrs. Gaskell's novels. _Wives and Daughters_ was Mrs. Gaskell's last
story, and was left unfinished at her death. It shows a great artistic
advance over her earlier work. The plot is more natural; it has not so
many sharp contrasts, which George Eliot criticised in Mrs. Gaskell's
stories. The characters are also more subtle. Molly, the daughter of the
village doctor, is an unselfish, thoughtful girl, but with none of that
unreal goodness which Dickens sometimes gave to his heroines. When she
receives her first invitation to a child's party, and her father is
wondering whether or not she can go, her speech is characteristic of her
nature:
"Please, Papa,--I do wish to go--but I don't care about it."
Molly feels very keenly, and longs for things with all the strength of
an ardent nature, but she always subordinates herself and her wishes to
others. In the character of Cynthia, Mrs. Gaskell makes a plea for the
heartless coquette. Cynthia is beautiful, she likes to please those in
whose company she finds herself, but quickly forgets the absent. It is
not her fault that young men's hearts are brittle, for it is as natural
for her to smile, and be gay and forget, as it is for Molly to love, be
silent, and remember. So it is Cynthia who has the lovers, while Molly
is neglected. Clare, Cynthia's mother, is more selfish than her
daughter, but she has learned the art of seeming to please others while
thinking only of pleasing herself. She is as crafty as Becky Sharp, but
softer, more feline, and more subtle; a much commoner type in real life
than Thackeray's diplomatic heroine.
Mr. A. W. Ward, in the biographical introduction to the Knutsford
Edition of her novels, says of her later work:
"When Mrs. Gaskell had become conscious that if true to herself, to her
own ways of looking at men and things, to the sympathies and hopes with
which life inspired her, she had but to put pen to paper, she found what
it has been usual to call her later manner--the manner of which
_Cranford_ offered the first adequate illustration, and of which _Cousin
Phillis_ and _Wives and Daughters_ represent the consummation."
The same critic compares the later work of Mrs. Gaskell with the later
work of George Sand and finds that "in their large-heartedness" they are
similar. He also gives George Sand's tribute to her English
contemporary. "Mrs. Gaskell," she said, "has done what neither I nor
other female writers in France can accomplish: she has written novels
which excite the deepest interest in men of the world, and yet which
every girl will be the better for reading."
It is not often that a novelist finds another writer to take up and
enlarge her work as did Mrs. Gaskell. Her novels contain the germ of
much of George Eliot's earlier writings. _The Moorland Cottage_
suggested many parts of _The Mill on the Floss_. Edward and Maggie
Brown--the former important, consequential and dictatorial, the latter
self-forgetful, eager to help others, and by her very eagerness prone to
blunders--were developed by George Eliot into the characters of Tom and
Maggie Tulliver. The weak and fretful mothers in the two books are much
alike, while the love story and the catastrophe have the same general
outline.
They both drew largely from the working people of the North or of the
Midlands, and both constantly introduced Dissenters. Silas Marner
belongs to the manufacturing North, and the people of Lantern Yard are
of the same class as those of Manchester and Milton. Felix Holt and Adam
Bede belong to the same type as Jem Wilson and Mr. Thornton, while
Esther Lyon is not unlike Margaret Hale. Both often presented life from
the point of view of the poor.
Both were interested in the development of character, and in the
changes which it underwent for good or evil under the influence of
outward circumstances. But George Eliot had greater intellectual power
than Mrs. Gaskell. She had the broader view and the deeper insight. Mrs.
Gaskell could never have conceived the plots nor the characters of
_Romola_ nor _Middlemarch_. She constantly introduced extraneous matter
to shape her plots according to her will, while with George Eliot the
fate of character is as hard and unyielding as was the fate of
predestination in the sermons of the old Calvinistic divines. Mrs.
Gaskell, like Dickens, introduced death-bed scenes merely to play upon
the emotions. George Eliot was never guilty of this defect; with her,
character is a fatalism that is inexorable.
But Mrs. Gaskell had a more hopeful view of life than had George Eliot.
The Unitarians believe in man and have faith in the clemency of God.
This makes them a cheerful people. However dark the picture that Mrs.
Gaskell paints, we have faith that conditions will soon be better, and
at the close of the book we see the dawn of a brighter day. George Eliot
had taken the suggestions of Mrs. Gaskell and amplified them with many
details that the woman of lesser genius had omitted. But to each was
given her special gift. If George Eliot's characters stand out as more
distinct personalities, they are drawn with less sympathy. George
Eliot's men and women are often hard and sharp in outline; Mrs.
Gaskell's, no matter how poor or ignorant, are softened and refined.
It was this quality that made it possible for her to write that
inimitable comedy of manners, _Cranford_. Her other novels with their
deep pathos, strong passion, and dramatic situations must be read to
show the breadth of her powers, but _Cranford_ will always give its
author a unique place in literature. Imagine the material that furnished
the groundwork of this story put into the hands of any novelist from
Richardson to Henry James. It seems almost like sacrilege to think what
even Jane Austen might have said of these dear elderly ladies. As for
Thackeray, their little devices to keep up appearances would have seemed
to him instances of feminine deceit, and he might have put even Miss
Jenkyns with her admiration of Dr. Johnson into his _Book of Snobs_.
What tears Dickens would have drawn from our eyes over the love story of
Miss Matty and Mr. Holbrook. How George Eliot would have mourned over
the shallowness of their lives. Henry James would have squinted at them
and their surroundings through his eye-glass until he had discovered
every faded spot on the carpet or skilful darn in the curtain. Miss
Mitford would have appreciated these ladies and loved them as did Mrs.
Gaskell, only she would have been so interested in the flowers and
birds and clouds that she would have forgotten all about the Cranford
parties, and would probably have ignored the presence in their midst of
the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson, the sister-in-law of an earl. So we must
conclude that only Mrs. Gaskell could make immortal this village of
femininity, where to be a man was considered almost vulgar, but into
which she has introduced one of the most chivalrous gentlemen in the
person of Captain Browne, and one of the most faithful of lovers in the
person of Mr. Holbrook, while no book has a more lovable heroine than
fluttering, indecisive Miss Matty, over whose fifty odd years the
sorrows of her youth have cast their lengthening shadows.
_Mary Barton_ is a work of genius. Only a woman of high ideals could
have drawn the character of Margaret Hale, an earlier Marcella, or Molly
Gibson, or Mr. Thornton, or Mr. Holman. Only a woman of deep insight
could have created a woman like Ruth: a book which in its problem and
its deep earnestness reminds one of _Aurora Leigh_. But her readers will
always love Mrs. Gaskell for the sake of the gentle ladies of
_Cranford_.
CONCLUSION
Mrs. Gaskell died on the twelfth of November, 1865. Of the novelists who
have been considered in this book only three survived her, Mrs. Bray,
Mrs. S. C. Hall, and Harriet Martineau, but they added little to prose
fiction after that date. During the third quarter of the nineteenth
century, however, the number of books written by women continued to
increase each year. Julia Kavanagh was the author of several novels, the
first of which _The Three Paths_, was published in 1848; all her stories
were written with high moral aim and delicacy of feeling. _Uncle Tom's
Cabin_, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in 1850, is probably the
most powerful novel ever written to plead the cause of oppressed
humanity. Dinah Maria Muloch Craik kept up the interest in the domestic
novel; her most popular book, _John Halifax, Gentleman_, has lost none
of its charm for young women, even if it does not meet the requirements
of a classic. Mrs. Henry Wood is still remembered as the author of the
melodramatic _East Lynne_, but her best stories are the _Johnny Ludlow
Papers_, which deal with character alone; her popularity is attested by
the fact that more than a million copies of her books have been issued.
Charlotte Yonge's forgotten novels were classed among the _Church
Stories_, because they contain so much piety and devotion. Of a
different type was Miss de la Ramee, who wrote under the name of Ouida;
she had fine gifts of word-painting, but a fondness for the questionable
in conduct. Miss Braddon, the author of _Lady Audley's Secret_, excelled
in complicated plots. Mrs. Oliphant has been a most versatile writer,
and followed almost every style of prose fiction; her domestic stories
are generally considered her best. Anne Thackeray, better known as Mrs.
Ritchie, the daughter of the great novelist, has written several novels,
all of which have a delightfully feminine touch. Miss Rhoda Broughton
has entertained the reading public by love stories which hold the
attention until the marriage takes place. But all these women fade into
insignificance beside George Eliot, whose first story, _The Sad Fortunes
of the Rev. Amos Barton_, appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_ in 1857,
and whose last novel, _Daniel Deronda_, was published nearly twenty
years later, in 1876.
It seems strange that any reader of her books should have thought them
the product of a man's brain, as was at first believed. For,
notwithstanding her power in developing a plot, her breadth of view, and
her mental grasp, her genius is essentially feminine. She excelled in
analysis of character, in attention to details, in ethical teaching, and
in artistic truthfulness, the qualities in which women have been
pre-eminent. Only a woman's pen could have drawn such characters as
Dinah Morris, Maggie Tulliver, and Dorothea Casaubon, or could have
followed the minute and subtle influences under which the plot of
_Middlemarch_ is shaped. George Eliot has left a larger portrait gallery
of women than any other novelist. Not only has she drawn different
grades of society, but, what is perhaps a more difficult task, she has
drawn the different grades of spiritual greatness and moral littleness.
She brought the psychological novel to a degree of perfection which has
never been surpassed.
Mrs. Oliphant has thus written of George Eliot's place in literature:
"Another question which has been constantly put to this age, and which
is pushed with greater zeal every day, as to the position of women in
literature and the height which it is in their power to attain, was
solved by this remarkable woman, in a way most flattering to all who
were and are fighting the question of equality between the two halves of
mankind; for here was visibly a woman who was to be kept out by no
barriers, who sat down quietly from the beginning of her career in the
highest place, and, if she did not absolutely excel all her
contemporaries in the revelation of the human mind and the creation of
new human beings, at least was second to none in those distinguishing
characteristics of genius."
We are too near the nineteenth century to decide as to the relative
positions of its great novelists. At one time George Eliot was placed at
the head of all writers of fiction, with Dickens and Thackeray as rivals
for the second place. But she was dethroned by Thackeray, and there are
signs that the final kingship will be given to Charles Dickens, unless
Scott receives it instead.
Fashions in novels change at least every fifty years. Exciting plots and
situations, strong emotional scenes, sharp contrasts, are not demanded
by present readers, who also turn away with disgust from the saintly
heroine and the irreclaimable villain. Of the many volumes of fiction
written in the eighteenth century only two are in general circulation
to-day, _Robinson Crusoe_ and _The Vicar of Wakefield_. But all those
once popular novels, even if their very names are now forgotten, have
done their work in shaping the thought and morals of their own and
succeeding generations.
INDEX
_Abbott, The_, 137
_Absentee, The_, 61, 112-113, 122
_Ada Reis_, 203
_Adam Bede_, 84, 289, 295
Addison, Joseph, 21, 28
_Adeline Mowbray, or the Mother and Daughter_, 150-153
_Adventures of an Atom_, 23
_Afflicted Parent, The, or the Undutiful Child Punished_, 125
_Age of Wordsworth, The_, 193
_Agnes Grey_, 258-259, 261, 265
Ainsworth, William Harrison, 216, 239
Alderson, Miss, _see_ Opie, Amelia
_Amorous Friars, or the Intrigues of a Convent_, 42
_Amos Barton_, 294
_Amours of Prince Tarquin and Miranda_, 18
_Antiquary, The_, 102, 104
_Arabian Nights_, 15, 233
Arblay, Madame D', _see_ Burney, Frances
_Arblay, Madame D', Essay on_, 57-58, 61, 168-169
Arden, Enoch, 187
Arnold, Matthew, 257
_Artless Tales_, 139
_Athenaeum, The_, 194, 256
_Aurora Leigh_, 292
Austen, Jane, 39, 45, 60, 101, 157-178, 179, 180, 191, 195, 196,
216, 263, 270, 276, 291
Baillie, Joanna, 154, 155
Balzac, Honore de, 170
_Banker's Wife, The_, 225
Barbauld, Mrs. Anna Letitia, 121
Barrett, Miss, _see_ Browning, Elizabeth
_Barring Out, The_, 125
_Bas Bleu_, 62, 63
_Beauty Put to its Shifts, or the Young Virgin's Rambles_, 42
Behn, Aphra, 1, 13-19
_Belford Regis_, 193-196
_Belinda_, 121, 177
_Beside the Bonny Brier Bush_, 137
_Betsy Thoughtless, Miss, The History of_, 36-39, 46, 48
_Bithynia, An Adventure in_, 233
_Blackwood's Magazine_, 107, 294
Blake, William, 2
_Blazing World, Description of a New World Called the_, 6-7
Blessington, Lady, 232, 233
Blind Harry the Minstrel, 143, 144
Bonheur, Rosa, 1
_Book of Snobs, The_, 291
Boswell, James, 138
Bousset, 3
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth, 294
Bray, Ann Eliza, 216, 225-230, 232, 293
_Bride of Lammermoor, The_, 256
Bronte, Anne, 249, 250, 257-261
Bronte, Charlotte, 85, 174, 210, 249, 250, 256, 258, 261-273
Bronte, Emily, 248, 249-257, 258, 267, 270, 271, 273
Brontes, The, 247-273, 276
_Brooke and Brooke Farm_, 242
Broughton, Rhoda, 294
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 81, 103, 190, 242
Brunton, Alexander, 156
Brunton, Mary, 41, 149, 153-156, 262
_Bubbled Knights, or Successful Contrivances_, 42
Bulwer, Edward, Lord Lytton, 200, 216, 223
Burke, Edmund, 46, 54, 62
Burney, Charles, 46
Burney, Frances, 39, 45-61, 168, 176, 177, 181, 195
Byron, Lord (George Gordon), 109, 200-206, 210-213, 257
_Caleb Williams_, 73
_Camilla, or a Picture of Youth_, 59-60, 176, 177
_Canterbury Tales, The_, 106-110
_Caroline Evelyn, The History of_, 47
Carter, Elizabeth, 62
_Castle of Otranto, The_, 88
_Castle Rackrent_, 111-112, 117
_Castles of Athlyn and Dunbayne_, 89
Cavendish, Margaret, _see_ Newcastle, Duchess of
Cavendish, William, _see_ Newcastle, Duke of
_Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb_, 217-219
_Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress_, 54-59, 60, 61, 78, 176, 177
_Celestina_, 80
_Chap-Books_, 67
Chapone, Hester, 62
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 106
_Cheap Repository, The_, 67-71
_Childe Harold_, 200, 219
Clarendon, Earl of (Edward Hyde), 10
_Clarissa Harlowe_, 8, 26, 30, 171
_Clelia_, 32
_Clubman, The_, 219
_Coelebs in Search of a Wife_, 71-72
Coleridge, Ernest Hartley, 109
Collier, Jeremy, 61
Colman, George, 42, 43, 46
_Confessions of a Pretty Woman_, 233
Congreve, William, 217
Cooper, James Fenimore, 16
Corneille, 3
_Cottagers of Glenburnie, The_, 16
Cottin, Sophie, Madame de, 262
_Court Gazette_, 20
_Courtenay of Walreddon; a Romance of the West_, 227
_Cousin Phillis_, 286-287, 288, 292
Crabbe, George, 263
Craik, Dinah Maria Muloch, 293
Craik's _English Prose_, 245
_Cranford_, 277, 281, 287, 288, 291-292
Crewe, Catherine, 232
_Cry of the Children, The_, 242
Curtis, George William, 174
_Daniel Deronda_, 294
Dante, Alighieri, 286
David Copperfield, 164
_David Simple_, 26-31
_Deerbrook_, 243
Defoe, Daniel, 146
_De Foix, or Sketches of the Manners and Customs of the Fourteenth
Century_, 226
_Desmond_, 74-77, 80
_Destiny_, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186-187
Diana of the Crossways, 103
Dickens, Charles, 56, 69, 76, 77, 87, 102, 116, 164, 231, 236, 240,
247, 264, 268, 269, 277, 281, 282, 286, 290, 291, 296
_Discipline_, 155
Disraeli, Benjamin, 87, 200, 216, 247, 269, 279
Dombey and Son, 225
_Domestic Manners of the Americans_, 235-236
Dryden, John, 13
_Duchess of Malfi, The_, 256
Du Maurier, 285
_East Lynne_, 293
Edgeworth, Maria, 102, 111-128, 130, 131, 133, 155, 179, 180, 181,
182, 183, 196, 197, 216, 243, 276
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, 115, 118, 119, 121, 124
_Eighteenth Century, History of the_, 44
Elia, _see_ Lamb, Charles
Eliot, George, 84, 109, 119, 164, 174, 276, 277, 289-291, 294-296
Emma, 161-162, 166-167, 168, 170
_Emmeline_, 155
_Ennui_, 113, 122
_Enoch Arden_, 286
_Epipsychidion_, 214
_Essay on Irish Bulls_, see _Irish Bulls, Essay on_
_Essay on Madame D'Arblay_, see _Arblay, Madame D', Essay on_
_Ethelinda_, 79
Evans, Marian, _see_ Eliot, George
_Evelina, or a Young Lady's Entrance into the World_, 39, 46, 47-54,
55, 59, 61, 78, 164, 176, 177
Evelyn, John, 5
_Evening Chronicle_, 231
_Examiner_, 22
_Fair Jilt, The_, 18
_Falkland_, 200, 216
_Falkner_, 214
_Fantom, Mr.: or the History of the New-Fashioned Philosopher,
and his Man William_, 68, 72
Felix Holt, 289
_Female Education, Strictures on the Modern System of_, 71
_Female Quixote, The_, 32-35
Ferrier, Susan Edmonstone, 179-188, 189, 216
Fielding, Henry, 16, 24, 25, 26, 27, 34, 48, 101, 116, 277
Fielding, Sarah, 23, 24, 26-31
_Fits of Fitz-Ford_, 227
_Flies in Amber_, 233
_Florence Macarthy_, 129
_Fortnightly Review_, 185
Fox, Charles James, 40
_Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus_, 206-207, 215
_Fraser's Magazine_, 231
Froissart's _Chronicles_, 226
Gait, John, 216
Garnett, Sir Richard, 214
Garrick, David, 41, 46, 62
Garrison, William Lloyd, 245
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, 247, 267, 269, 270, 274-293
Genlis, Stephanie Felicite, Comtesse de, 118, 262
_Gentleman's Magazine, The_, 101
Gibbon, Edward, 54
_Glenarvon_, 200-203
Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, _see_ Wollstonecraft, Mary
Godwin, William, 73, 150, 179, 205, 210, 221
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 174
Goldsmith, Oliver, 79
Gore, Catherine Grace Frances, 216-225, 233
Gosse, Edmund, 170
_Grand Cyrus, The_, 15, 32, 121
_Gulliver's Travels_, 23
Guy Mannering, 102
_Hackney Coachman, The_, 70
Hall, Anna Maria (Mrs. S. C.), 72, 179, 196-199, 216, 293
Hall, S. C., 140
Hamilton, Elizabeth, 133-137
_Hamiltons, The_, 224
Hamlet, 271
_Hard Times_, 282
Hardy, Thomas, 86, 170
_Harriet Stuart, The Life of_, 31
Harry, Blind, the Minstrel, _see_ Blind Harry the Minstrel
Haywood, Eliza, 24, 36-39, 48
_Heir of Selwood, The_, 223, 225
Helen, 119
_Henrietta_, 35
_Henry de Pomeroy_, 227
_Henry Esmond_, 145
_Heptameron_, The, 2
Herford, C. H., 193
_Hints towards Forming the Character of a Young Princess_, 71
Homer, 2, 11, 175
Horace, 217
_Hour and the Man, The_, 242, 244-245
Huet, Bishop, Pierre Daniel, 46
_Humphry Clinker_, 8, 24, 44
_Hungarian Brothers_, 139
_Ibrahim_, 32, 121
_Ida, or the Woman of Athens_, 131
_Impetuous Lover, The, or the Guiltless Parricide_, 43
Inchbald, Elizabeth, 41, 73, 82-87, 105, 119, 221, 262
_Inheritance, The_, 181, 182-183, 184, 185, 187-188
_Irish Bulls, Essay on_, 115-116
_Irish Peasantry, Stories of the_, 197, 198
_Italian, The_, 91, 94, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101
Ivanhoe, 164
Jackson, Helen Hunt (H. H.), 16
James, G. P. R., 216, 239
James, Henry, 291
Jameson, Mrs. (Anna), 285
_Jane Eyre_, 41, 82, 85, 250, 261, 263, 264-267, 270, 272
_Jealous Wife, The_, 233
Jeffrey, Francis, 180
Joan of Arc, 1
_John Halifax, Gentleman_, 293
_Johnny Ludlow Papers_, 294
Johnson, R. Brimley, 245
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 30, 31, 32, 39, 42, 46, 48, 55, 60, 62, 103, 128,
138, 291
_Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, The Life and Adventures of_, 237-239, 242
Jonson, Ben, 275
_Joseph Andrews_, 16, 36, 52
_Journey to Bath_, 41
Jules Verne, _see_ Verne, Jules
Kauffman, Angelica, 103
Kavanagh, Julia, 293
_King Lear_, see _Lear_
Knox, John, 188
_Kruitzener, or the German's Tale_, 108-109
_Lady Audley's Secret_, 294
_Lady Clare_, 183
_Lady of Lyons, The_, 223
_Lady's Magazine_, 190
Lafayette, Madame de, 3, 19, 41, 262
Lamb, Lady Caroline, 200-204
Lamb, Charles, 8, 12, 193
Lamb, William (Lord Melbourne), 200, 201, 202, 203, 204
_Landlady's Tale, The_, 109
Lang, Andrew, 102
Lanier, Sidney, 25
_Last Man, The_, 210-212
_Lazy Lawrence_, 125, 126
_Lear, King_, 256
Lee, Harriet, 88, 105-110
Lee, Sophia, 88, 105-110, 139
Lennox, Charlotte, 24, 31-36
_Letters of the Duchess of Newcastle_, 7-8
_Letters to Young Ladies_, 62
Lewis, Matthew Gregory, 101
"Library of Old Authors," Russell Smith, 12
_Life of the Duke of Newcastle_, see _Newcastle, Life of the Duke of_
_Lights and Shadows of Irish Life_, 197-198
_Lilly Dawson, The Story of_, 232
_Literary Gazette_, 202
_Lodore_, 212-214
Longueville, Duchesse de, 3
_Lucius_, 22
Lytton, Bulwer, _see_ Bulwer, Edward (Lord Lytton)
Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 57, 61, 113, 168
Machiavelli, Niccolo, 207
Mackay, Sheriff, 143
_Magyar, The, and the Moslem_, 233
_Man and Superman_, 160
_Manchester Strike, A_, 243
Manley, Mary, 1, 19-23, 36
_Mansfield Park_, 61, 162-164, 171, 172
Marcella, 292
Margaret, Queen of Navarre, 2
_Marriage_, 181, 182, 184
Marsh, Anne, 231
Martineau, Harriet, 231, 232, 242-246, 269, 293
_Mary Barton_, 269, 278-281, 282, 283, 289, 292
Masson, David, 179
Maturin, Charles Robert, 101
_Mazeppa_, 206
Memoires du Comte de Comminges, 262
_Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de la vertu_, 42
_Memoirs of a Certain Island Adjacent to Utopia_, 36
_Michael Armstrong, The Life and Adventures of_, 241
_Middlemarch_, 290, 295
_Midsummer Eve, a Fairy Tale of Love_, 198-199
_Mill on the Floss_, The, 289, 295
Mitford, Mary Russell, 81, 144, 179, 183, 189-196, 216, 221, 227,
276, 291, 292
_Monastery, The_, 137, 271
_Monk, The_, 101
Montagu, Elizabeth, 62
Montagu, Mary Wortley, 233
_Monthly Review_, 77
_Monumental Effigies of Great Britain_, 226
Moore, Thomas, 131
_Moorland Cottage, The_, 289
More, Hannah, 62-72, 73
Morgan, Lady, 111, 197, 216
_Music, History of_, 46
_Mysteries of Udolpho, The_, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 99, 101, 104, 105,
141
_Nature and Art_, 85-86
_Nature's Pictures Drawn by Fancy's Pencil_, 7
_New Atalantis_, 19-23
Newcastle, Duchess of, 1, 3-13
Newcastle, Duke of, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
_Newcastle, Life of the Duke of_, 10-12
_Noctes Ambrosianae_, 183
_Nocturnal Reverie_, 79
North, Christopher (John James Wilson), 183, 185
_North and South_, 281-284, 289, 292
_Northanger Abbey_, 101, 160-161, 177
_Notre Dame de Paris_, 256
"Novelists' Library," 121
_Novels by Eminent Hands_, 217
_Nun, The, or the Perjured Duty_, 18
_O'Briens, The, and the O'Flahertys_, 129, 130-131
_O'Donnel_, 129-130
_Odyssey_, 113
_Old English Baron, The_, 88, 89
_Old Manor House, The_, 77-78, 79, 80
Oliphant, Mrs. Margaret, 294, 295
Opie, Mrs. Amelia, 41, 73, 149-153, 156, 216, 262
_Orange Girl of St. Giles's, The_, 69-70
Ormond, 113-115
_Oroonoko_, 13-18, 237, 242
_Orphans, The_, 126
_Othello_, 276
Ouida, 294
_Our Village_, 189, 190-193, 195, 196, 243
Owenson, Sydney, _see_ Morgan, Lady
_Pamela_, 8, 17, 18, 24, 31, 35, 46, 78, 164, 266
_Paradise Lost_, 72, 79
Pardoe, Julia, 231-234
_Pastor's Fireside, The_, 146
_Patronage_, 119
_Pelham_, 200
_Pendennis_, 200
_Perkin Warbeck, The Fortunes of_, 214
_Persuasion_, 158, 162-164, 167, 170, 172
Phillips, Wendell, 244
_Pickwick Papers_, 56
_Pilgrimages to English Shrines_, 72
_Pin Money_, 222-223
Plato, 11
_Political Economy Tales_, 242-243
_Polly Honeycomb_, 42, 43
Pope, Alexander, 22, 79, 160
Porter, Anna Maria, 133, 137-140, 216
Porter, Jane, 133, 137, 138, 140-148, 216
_Preferment, or My Uncle the Earl_, 220
Prevost, Abbe, 42
_Pride and Prejudice_, 157, 158-159, 161, 164, 166, 170, 171, 173,
175, 176, 178
Princess of Cleves, The, 41, 262
_Professor, The_, 270
_Quarterly Review_, 131, 147, 148
Radcliffe, Ann, 88, 89-105, 108, 179, 270
Rambouillet, Marquise de, 3
Ramee, Louise de la, _see_ Ouida
Ramsey, Charlotte, _see_ Lennox, Charlotte
_Rape of the Lock_, 22
_Rasselas_, 46
_Recess, The_, 105-106
Reeve, Clara, 88-89
_Refugee in America, The_, 237
Richardson, Samuel, 8, 9, 17, 24, 26, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 48, 101,
154, 171, 277, 291
_Rights of Man_, 64
_Rights of Woman, Vindication of the_, see _Vindication of the
Rights of Woman_
Ritchie, Mrs., 126, 294
_Rival Beauties, The_, 233
_Rivals, The_, 41, 43
_Rob Roy_, 102
_Robinson Crusoe_, 146, 296
Rogers, Samuel, 201
_Romance of the Forest, The_, 91, 92, 93, 97, 101
_Romance of the Harem, The_, 233
_Romance of the West, A_, 228
Romeo and Juliet, 275
_Romola_, 290
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 73, 118
Ruskin, 195
_Ruth_, 281, 284-285, 286, 292
_St. Ronan's Well_, 174
Saintsbury, George, 185, 186
Sand, George, 262, 263, 288
Sappho, 1
Schlosser, 44
Scott, Sir Walter, 18, 36, 102, 103, 104, 105, 118, 128, 141, 144,
155, 164, 173, 179, 180, 181, 184, 216, 225, 228, 229, 230,
264, 271, 277, 296
_Scottish Chiefs, The_, 142-145
Scuderi, Mlle. de, 3, 19, 32, 33, 35, 120, 121
_Seasons, The_, 79
_Secret Intrigues of the Count of Caramania, The_, 36
_Selborne, The Natural History and Antiquities of_, 191
_Self-Control_, 154-155, 156
_Sense and Sensibility_, 159-160, 161, 170, 171
Sevigne, Madame, de, 3
Shakespeare, William, 5, 103, 128, 168, 169, 170, 174, 271, 275
_Shakespeare, Essay on the Genius of_, 62
Shaw, Bernard, 160
Shelley, Mary, 200, 204-215, 262
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 204, 205, 206, 208, 210-214
_Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, The_, 68, 69, 72
Sheridan, Mrs. Frances, 24, 39-42
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 40, 41
_Shirley_, 267-270
_Sicilian Romance, The_, 91, 93, 94
_Sidney Biddulph, The Memoirs of Miss_, 39-42, 74
_Silas Marner_, 289
_Simple Story, A_, 82-84, 262
_Simple Susan_, 126-127
_Simple Tales_, 153
_Sir Charles Grandison_, 8, 37, 53
_Sir Edward Seaward's Narrative_, 146-148
_Sister, The_, 35
_Sketches by Boz_, 241
_Sketches of English Character_, 219-220
_Sketches of Irish Character_, 196-197
Smith, Charlotte, 41, 73-82, 87, 102, 103, 105, 191, 221
Smith Russell, "Library of Old Authors," _see_ "Library of
Old Authors"
Smollett, Tobias, 8, 23, 24, 88, 101, 179
_Soldier of Lyons, The, a Tale of the Tuileries_, 223
Sothern, Thomas, 13, 15
Souza, Madame de, 262
_Spectator Papers_, 7, 29
Stael, Madame de (Anne Louise Necker), 262, 263
Steele, Richard, 21, 22, 28
Sterne, Laurence, 24, 25, 88, 102, 169
_Stories of the Irish Peasantry_, see _Irish Peasantry,
Stories of the_
Stothard, Charles, 226
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 15, 238, 293
Swift, Jonathan, 22, 23
Swinburne, Charles Algernon, 256
_Sybil_, 269, 279
_Sylvia's Lovers_, 285-286
Taine, 25
_Talba, The, or Moor of Portugal_, 226
_Tale of Two Cities_, 145
_Tales of Fashionable Life_, 119-120
_Tales of my Landlord, The_, 181
_Tales of Real Life_, 153
_Tales that Never Die_, 127
_Tatler, The_, 22, 29
_Tenant of Wildfell Hall, The_, 259-261
Tencin, Mme. de, 262
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 183, 286
Tess of the D'Urbervilles, 284
Thackeray, Anna Isabella, _see_ Ritchie, Mrs.
Thackeray, William Makepeace, 87, 102, 116, 120, 164, 176, 216,
217, 231, 237, 247, 264, 277, 288, 291, 296
_Thaddeus of Warsaw_, 140-141
_Theresa Marchmont_, 217
_Thomas the Rhymer_, 104
Thrale, Mrs. (Mrs. Piozzi), 48
_Three Paths, The_, 293
_Tintern Abbey_, 93
Tolstoi, Count Leo, 86, 170
_Tom Jones_, 26, 37, 53, 141
Tourgenieff, 170
_Trelawny of Trelawne; or the Prophecy: a Legend of Cornwall_, 228
Trollope, Anthony, 234, 239
Trollope, Frances, 231, 232, 234-242, 243, 269
_Udolpho, The Mysteries of_, see _Mysteries of Udolpho, The_
_Uncle Tom's Cabin_, 15, 238, 293
_Undine_, 254
_Valperga: or the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of
Lucca_, 207-210
_Vanity Fair_, 164, 288
_Venetia_, 200
Verne, Jules, 6
_Vicar of Wakefield, The_, 46, 79, 296
_Vicar of Wrexhill, The_, 240
_Village Politics: Addressed to all Mechanics, Journeymen, and
Labourers in Great Britain. By Will Chip, a Country
Carpenter_, 64-65
_Villette_, 270-273
_Vindication of the Rights of Woman_, 74, 149, 204
Vivian, 119, 122
_Vivian Grey_, 200, 216, 217, 219
Voltaire, Francois, 73
Wallace, 143
Walpole, Horace, 88, 89
_Wanderer, The, or Female Difficulties_, 59, 60
Ward, A. W., 288
Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 267
_Warleigh, or the Fatal Oak; a Legend of Devon_, 227
_Waste Not, Want Not_, 125
_Waverley_, 45, 60, 137, 144, 155, 178
_Waverley Novels_, 102, 117, 145, 216
Welsh, Charles, 67, 127
_Werner, or the Inheritance_, 109
_Westminster Review_, 221, 224
White, Gilbert, 191
_White Hoods, The_, 226
_Whole Duty of Man_, 64
_Widow Barnaby_, 239
_Widow Married, The_, 239
_Widow Wedded, The, or the Barnabys in America_, 239
_Wild Irish Girl, The_, 129
_Will Chip, a Country Carpenter_, see _Village Politics_
_Winchelsea, Lady_, 79
_Window in Thrums, The_, 137
_Windsor Forest_, 79
_Wives and Daughters_, 287-288, 292, 293
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 73, 74, 149, 150, 204, 205, 210
Wood, Mrs. Henry, 293
Wordsworth, William, 79, 93, 127, 165, 241
_Wuthering Heights_, 249, 256, 258, 261, 265, 267, 271
_Wycherley, William_, 13
_Yere-Batan-Serai_, 234
Yonge, Charlotte Mary, 294