1740-1780
The Colonial Expansion of England.--The most important movements in
English history during the second forty years of the eighteenth
century are connected with colonial expansion. In 1739 friction
between England and Spain over colonial trade forced Robert Walpole,
the prime minister, into a war which was not successfully prosecuted,
and which compelled him to resign in 1742. The humorous statement that
he "abdicated," contains a large element of truth, for he had been a
much more important ruler than the king. The contest with Spain was
merged in the unprofitable war of the Austrian Succession (1740-1778),
in which England participated.
The successors of Walpole were weak and inefficient; but in 1757
William Pitt, the Elder (1708-1778), although merely secretary of
state, obtained the ascendancy in the government. Walpole had tried in
vain to bribe Pitt, who was in politics the counterpart of Wesley in
religious life. Pitt appealed to the patriotism and to the sense of
honor of his countrymen, and his appeal was heard. His enthusiasm and
integrity, coupled with good judgment of men, enabled him to lead
England to become the foremost power of the world.
France had managed her colonial affairs in America and in India so
well that it seemed as if she might in both places displace England.
Pitt, however, selected good leaders and planned a comprehensive
method of warfare against France, both in Europe and in the colonies.
Between 1750 and 1760 Clive was making Great Britain mistress of the
vast empire of India. The French and Indian War (1754-1760) in America
resulted in favor of England. In 1759 Wolfe shattered the power of
France in Canada, which has since remained an English colony. England
was expanding to the eastward and the westward and taking her
literature with her. As Wolfe advanced on Quebec, he was reading
Gray's _Elegy_.
At the beginning of this century England owned one half of the island
of Great Britain and a few colonial settlements. Not until 1707 were
England and Scotland united. In 1763 England had vast dominions in
North America and India. She had become the greatest colonial power in
the world.
The New Religious Influence.--England could not have taken such a
commanding position unless the patriotism and morals of her citizens
had improved since the beginning of the century. The church had become
too lukewarm and respectable to bring in the masses, who saw more to
attract them in taverns and places of public amusement.
When religious influence was at the lowest ebb, two eloquent
preachers, John Wesley and George Whitefield, started a movement which
is still gathering force. Wesley did not ask his audience to listen to
a sermon on the favorite bloodless abstractions of the
eighteenth-century pulpit, such as Charity, Faith, Duty, Holiness,
--abstractions which never moved a human being an inch heavenward. His
sermons were emotional. They dealt largely with the emotion of
love,--God's love for man.
He did not ask his listeners to engage in intellectual disquisitions
about the aspects of infinity: He did not preach free-will metaphysics
or trouble his hearers with a satisfactory philosophical account of
the origin of evil. He spoke about things that reached not only the
understanding but also the feelings of plain men.
About the same time, Whitefield was preaching to the miners near
Bristol. As he eloquently told them the story of salvation he brought
tears to the eyes of these rude men and made many resolve to lead
better lives.
This religious awakening may have been accompanied with too much
appeal to the feelings and unhealthy emotional excitement; but some
vigorous movement was absolutely necessary to quicken the spiritual
life of a decadent age.
The American Revolution.--The second forty years of the eighteenth
century witnessed another movement of great importance to the
world,--the revolt of the American colonies (1775). When George III.
(1760-1820) came to the throne, he determined to be the real ruler of
his kingdom,--to combine in himself the offices of king, prime
minister, and cabinet. He undertook to coerce public opinion at home
and abroad. He repeatedly offended the American colonies by attempts
to tax them and to regulate their trade. They rebelled in 1775 and
signed their Declaration of Independence in 1776. Under the leadership
of George Washington, and with the help of France, they achieved their
independence. The battle of Yorktown (1781), won by Washington and the
French navy, was the last important battle of the American Revolution.
In spite of her great loss, England still retained Canada and her West
India possessions and remained the first colonial power.
CHANGE IN LITERARY STANDARDS: ROMANTICISM
What is Romanticism?--In order to comprehend the dominating spirit
of the next age, it is important to understand the meaning of the
romantic movement. Between 1740 and 1780 certain romantic influences
were at work in opposition to the teaching of the great classical
writer, Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was almost the literary dictator of
the age.
The best short definition of romanticism is that of Victor Hugo, who
calls it "liberalism in literature." This has the merit of covering
all kinds of romantic movements. "Liberalism" here means toleration of
departures from fixed standards, such as the classical couplet and
didactic and satiric subjects. Romanticism is characterized by less
regard for form than for matter, by a return to nature, and by
encouragement of deep emotion. Romanticism says: "Be liberal enough
not to sneer at authors when they discard narrow rules. Welcome a
change and see if variety and feeling will not add more interest to
literature."
In this period and the far more glorious one that followed,
romanticism made its influence felt for the better in four different
ways. An understanding of each of these will make us more intelligent
critics.
In the first place, the romantic spirit is opposed to the prosaic. The
romantic yearns for the light that never was on sea or land and longs
to attain the unfulfilled ambitions of the soul, even when these in
full measure are not possible. Sometimes these ambitions are so
unrelated to the possible that the romantic has in certain usage
become synonymous with the impractical or the absurd; but this is not
its meaning in literature. The romantic may not always be "of
imagination all compact," but it has a tendency in that direction. To
the romanticists a reality of the imagination is as satisfying as a
reality of the prosaic reason; hence, unlike the classicists, the
romanticists can enjoy _The Tempest_ and _A Midsummer Night's Dream_.
The imagination is the only power that can grasp the unseen. Any
movements that stimulate imaginative activity must give the individual
more points of contact with the part of the world that does not
obtrude itself on the physical senses, and especially with many facts
of existence that cold intellectual activity can never comprehend.
Hence, romanticism leads to greater breadth of view.
In the second place, the romantic is the opposite of the hackneyed.
Hence, too much repetition may take away a necessary quality from what
was once considered romantic. The epithets "ivory" and "raven," when
applied to "brow" and to "tresses," respectively, were at first
romantic; but much repetition has deprived them of this quality. If an
age is to be considered romantic, it must look at things from a point
of view somewhat different from that of the age immediately preceding.
This change may be either in the character of the thought or in the
manner of its presentation, or in both. An example of the formal
element of change which appeared, consists in the substitution of
blank verse and the Spenserian stanza for the classical couplets of
the French school. In the next age, we shall find that the subject
matter is no longer chiefly of the satiric or the didactic type.
In the third place, the highest type of romanticism encourages each
author to express himself in an individual way, to color the world
according to his own moods. This individual element often appears in
the ideals that we fashion and in our characteristic conceptions of
the spiritual significance of the world and its deepest realities. Two
writers of this period by investing nature with a spirit of melancholy
illustrate one of the many ways in which romantic thought seeks
individuality of expression.
In the fourth place, the romantic movement encouraged the portrayal of
broader experiences and especially the expression of deeper feeling.
The mid-eighteenth century novels of Richardson and Fielding were
strong agencies in this direction; and they were followed in the next
age by the even more intense appeal of the great romantic poets to
those thoughts and feelings that lie too deep for tears.
The classic school shunned as vulgar all exhibitions of enthusiasm and
strong emotion, such as the love of Juliet and the jealousy of
Othello; but the romanticists, knowing that the feelings had as much
value and power as the intellect, encouraged their expression.
Sometimes this tendency was carried to an extreme, both in fiction and
in the sentimental drama; but it was necessary for romanticism to call
attention to the fact that great literature cannot neglect the world
of feeling.
Early Romantic Influences.--The reader and imitators of the great
romantic poet, Edmund Spenser, were growing in number. Previous to
1750, there was only one eighteenth-century edition of Spenser's works
published in England. In 1758 three editions of the _Faerie Queene_
appeared and charmed readers with the romantic enchantment of bowers,
streams, dark forests, and adventures of heroic knights.
James Thomson (1700-1748), a Scotch poet, used the characteristic
Spenserian form and subject matter for his romantic poem, _The Castle
of Indolence_ (1748). He placed his castle in "Spenser land":--
"A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky."
The influence of Shakespeare increased. In 1741 the great actor David
Garrick captivated London by his presentation of Shakespeare's plays.
Milton's poetry, especially his _Il Penseroso_, with its individual
expression of melancholy, its studious spirit, "commercing with the
skies and bringing all Heaven before the eyes," left a strong impress
on the romantic spirit of the age. The subject matter of his _Paradise
Lost_ satisfied the romantic requirement for strangeness and strong
feeling. In the form of his verse, James Thomson shows the influence
of Milton as well as of Spencer. Thomson's greatest achievement is
_The Seasons_ (1730), a romantic poem, written in Miltonic blank
verse. He takes us where--
"The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves
Put forth their buds."
He was one of the earliest poets to place Nature in the foreground, to
make her the chief actor. He reverses what had been the usual poetic
attitude and makes his lovers, shepherds, and harvesters serve largely
as a background for the reflection of her moods instead of their own.
The spring shower, the gusts sweeping over fields of corn, the sky
saddened with the gathering storm of snow, are the very fabric of his
verse. Unlike Wordsworth, Thomson had not sufficient genius to invest
Nature with an intelligent, loving, companionable soul; but his
pictures of her were sufficiently novel and attractive to cause such a
classicist and lover of the town as Dr. Samuel Johnson to say:--
"The reader of _The Seasons_ wonders that he never saw before what
Thomson shows him, and that he never yet has felt what Thomson
impresses."
Ossian and "The Castle of Otranto."--Two contemporary works proved a
romantic influence out of all proportion to the worth of their subject
matter.
Between 1760 and 1764 James Macpherson, a Highland schoolmaster,
published a series of poems, which he claimed to have translated from
an old manuscript, the work of Ossian, a Gaelic poet of the third
century. This so-called translation in prose may have been forged
either in whole or in part; but the weirdness, strange imagery,
melancholy, and "other-world talk of ghosts riding on the tempest at
nightfall," had a pronounced effect on romantic literature.
[Illustration: HORACE WALPOLE.]
_The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Romance_ (1765) by Horace Walpole
(1717-1797) tells a story of a Gothic castle where mysterious
labyrinths and trap doors lead to the strangest adventures. The term
"Gothic" had been contemptuously applied to whatever was medieval or
out of date, whether in architecture, literature, or any form of art.
The unusual improbabilities of this Gothic romance were welcomed by
readers weary of commonplace works where nothing ever happens. The
influence of _The Castle of Otranto_ was even felt across the
Atlantic, by Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810), the early American
novelist. Some less pronounced traces of such influence are
discernible also in the work of Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel
Hawthorne.
Mrs. Anne Radcliffe (1764-1823) was a successor of Walpole in the
field of Gothic romance. Her stories, _The Romance of the Forest_ and
_The Mysteries of Udolpho_, have their castle and their thrilling,
unnatural episodes. Lack of portrayal of character and excess of
supernatural incident were causing fiction to suffer severe
deterioration.
Percy's Reliques and Translation of Mallet's Northern
Antiquities.--In 1765 Thomas Percy (1729-1811) published _The
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, an epoch-making work in the
history of the romantic movement. The _Reliques_ is a collection of
old English ballads and songs, many of which have a romantic story to
tell. Scott drew inspiration from them, and Wordsworth acknowledged
his indebtedness to their influence. So important was this collection
that it has been called "the Bible of the Romantic Reformation."
In 1770 appeared Percy's translation of Mallet's _Northern
Antiquities_. For the first time the English world was given an easily
accessible volume which disclosed the Norse mythology in all its
strength and weirdness. As classical mythology had become hackneyed,
poets like Gray rejoiced that there was a new fountain to which they
could turn. Thor and his invincible hammer, the Frost Giants, Bifrost
or the Rainbow Bridge, Odin, the Valkyries, Valhal, the sad story of
Baldur, and the Twilight of the Gods, have appealed strongly to a race
which takes pride in its own mythology, to a race which today loves to
hear Wagner's translation of these myths into the music of _Die
Walküre, Siegfried_, and _Götterdämmerung_.
Thomas Chatterton, 1772-1770.--This Bristol boy was early in his
teens impressed with Percy's _Reliques_ and with the fact that
Macpherson's claim to having discovered _Ossian_ in old manuscripts
had made him famous. Chatterton spent much time in the interesting old
church of St.
Mary Redcliffe, of which his ancestors had been sextons for several
generations. He studied the manuscripts in an old chest and began to
write a series of poems, which he claimed to have discovered among the
parchments left by Thomas Rowley, a fifteenth-century monk.
Chatterton was unsuccessful in finding a publisher, and he determined
to go to London, where he thought that, like other authors, he could
live by his pen. In April, 1770, at the age of seventeen, he left
Bristol for London, where he took poison in August of the same year to
escape a slower death by starvation.
His romantic poetry and pathetic end appealed to all the great poets.
Wordsworth spoke of him as "the marvelous boy"; Coleridge called him
"young-eyed Poesy"; Shelley honored him in _Adonais_; and Keats
inscribed _Endymion_ to his memory. Traces of his influence may be
found in Coleridge and Keats.
The greatest charm of Chatterton's verse appears in unusual epithets
and unexpected poetic turns, such, for instance, as may be noted in
these lines from his best "Rowley" poem, _Aella, a Tragycal
Enterlude_:--
"Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note;
Quick in dance as thought can be."
"Hark! the raven flaps his wing
In the briar'd dell below;
Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing,
To the night-mares as they go."
While Chatterton did not leave enough verse of surpassing merit to
rank him as a great poet, his work nevertheless entitles him to be
chosen from among all his boyish peers to receive the laurel wreath
for song.
The Literature of Melancholy.--The choice of subjects in which the
emotion of melancholy was given full sway shows one direction taken by
the romantic movement. Here, the influence of Milton's _Il Penseroso_
can often be traced. The exquisite _Ode to Evening_, by William
Collins (1721-1759), shows the love for nature's solitudes where this
emotion may be nursed. Lines like these:--
"...be mine the hut,
That, from the mountain's side,
Views wilds and swelling floods,
And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires;
And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil,"
caused Swinburne to say: "Corot on canvas might have signed his _Ode
to Evening_."
[Illustration: THOMAS GRAY.]
The high-water mark of the poetry of melancholy of this period was
reached in Thomas Gray's (1716-1771) _Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard_ (1751). The poet with great art selected those natural
phenomena which cast additional gloom upon the scene. We may notice in
the very first stanza that the images were chosen with this end in
view:--
"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me"
Then we listen to the droning flight of the beetle, to the drowsy
tinklings from a distant fold, to the moping owl in an ivy-mantled
tower. Each natural object, either directly or by contrast, reflects
the mind of man. Nature serves as a background for the display of
emotion.
Gosse says in his _Life of Gray_: "The _Elegy_ has exercised an
influence on all the poetry of Europe, from Denmark to Italy, from
France to Russia. With the exception of certain works of Byron and
Shakespeare, no English poem has been so widely admired and imitated
abroad."
[Illustration: STOKE POGES CHURCHYARD (SCENE OF GRAY'S ELEGY).]
The Conflict between Romanticism and Classicism.--The influences of
this period were not entirely in the direction of romanticism. Samuel
Johnson, the literary dictator of the age, was unsparing in his
condemnation of the movement. The weight of his opinion kept many
romantic tendencies in check. Even authors like Gray were afraid to
adopt the new creed in its entirety. In one stanza of his _Hymn to
Adversity_ we find four capitalized abstractions, after the manner of
the classical school: Folly, Noise, Laughter, Prosperity; and the
following two lay figures, little better than abstractions:--
"The summer Friend, the flattering Foe."
These abstractions have little warmth or human interest. After Gray
had studied the Norse mythology, we find him using such strong
expressions as "iron-sleet of arrowy shower." Collins's ode on _The
Passions_ contains seventeen personified abstractions, from "pale
Melancholy" to "brown Exercise."
The conflict between these two schools continues; and many people
still think that any poetry which shows polished regularity must be
excellent. To prove this statement, we have only to turn to the
magazines and glance at the current poetry, which often consists of
words rather artificially strung together without the soul of feeling
or of thought.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN NOVEL
The Growth of Prose Fiction.--Authentic history does not take us
back to the time when human beings were not solaced by tales. The
_Bible_ contains stories of marked interest. _Beowulf_, the medieval
romances, the _Canterbury Tales_, and the ballads relate stories in
verse.
For a long time the knight and his adventures held the place of honor
in fiction; but the time came when improbable or impossible
achievements began to pall. The knight who meets with all kinds of
adventures and rescues everybody, is admirably burlesqued in _Don
Quixote_ by the Spanish author Cervantes, which appeared at the
beginning of the seventeenth century. This world-famous romance shows
by its ridicule that the taste for the impossible adventures of
chivalry was beginning to pall. The following title to one of the
chapters of _Don Quixote_ is sufficiently suggestive: "Chapter
LVIII.--Which tells how Adventures came crowding on Don Quixote in
Such Numbers that they gave him No Breathing Time."
Much prose fiction was written during the Elizabethan Age. We have
seen that Lyly's _Euphues_ and Sidney's _Arcadia_ contain the germs of
romance. Two of the novelists of the sixteenth century, Robert Greene
(1560?-1592) and Thomas Lodge (1558?-1625), helped to give to
Shakespeare the plots of two of his plays. Greene's novel _Pandosto_
suggested the plot of _The Winter's Tale_, and Lodge's _Rosalind_ was
the immediate source of the plot of _As You Like It_.
Although Greene died in want at the age of thirty-two, he was the most
prolific of the Elizabethan novelists. His most popular stories deal
with the passion of love as well as with adventure. He was also the
pioneer of those realistic novelists who go among the slums to study
life at first hand. Greene made a careful study of the sharpers and
rascals of London and published his observations in a series of
realistic pamphlets.
[Illustration: A BLIND BEGGAR ROBBED OF HIS DRINK. _From a British
Museum MS._]
Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) was the one who introduced into England the
picaresque novel in _The Unfortunate Traveller, or the Life of Jacke
Wilton_ (1594). The picaresque novel (Spanish, _picaro_, a rogue) is a
story of adventure in which rascally tricks play a prominent part.
This type of fiction came from Spain and attained great popularity in
England. Jacke Wilton is page to a noble house. Many of his sharp
tricks were doubtless drawn from real life. Nashe is a worthy
predecessor of Defoe in narrating adventures that seem to be founded
on actual life.
In spite of an increasing tendency to picture the life of the time,
Elizabethan prose fiction did not entirely discard the matter and
style of the medieval romances. All types of prose fiction were then
too prone to deal with exceptional characters or unusual events. Even
realists like Greene did not present typical Elizabethan life. The
greatest realist in the prose fiction of the Elizabethan Age was
Thomas Deloney (1543?-1600), who chose his materials from the everyday
life of common people. He had been a traveling artisan, and he knew
how to paint "the life and love of the Elizabethan workshop." He wrote
_The Gentle Craft_, a collection of tales about shoemakers, and _Jack
of Newberry_, a story of a weaver.
The seventeenth century produced _The Pilgrim's Progress_, a powerful
allegorical story of the journey of a soul toward the New Jerusalem.
Mrs. Aphra Behn (1640-1689), dramatist and novelist, shows the faults
of the Restoration drama in her short tales, which helped to prepare
the way for the novelists of the next century. Her best story is
_Oroonoko_ (1658), a tale of an African slave, which has been called
"the first humanitarian novel in English," and a predecessor of _Uncle
Tom's Cabin_.
Fiction in the First Part of the Eighteenth Century.--Defoe's
_Robinson Crusoe_ shows a great advance over preceding fiction. In the
hands of Defoe, fiction became as natural as fact. Leslie Stephen
rightly calls his stories "simple history minus the facts." Swift's
_Gulliver's Travels_ (1726) is artfully planned to make its
impossibilities seem like facts. _Robinson Crusoe_ took another
forward step in showing how circumstances and environment react on
character and develop the power to grapple with difficulties and
overcome them. Unlike the majority of modern novels, Defoe's
masterpiece does not contain a love story.
The essay of life and manners at the beginning of the eighteenth
century presents us at once with various pigments necessary for the
palette of the novelist. Students on turning to the second number of
_The Spectator_ will find sketches of six different types of
character, which are worthy to be framed and hung in a permanent
gallery of English fiction. The portrait of Sir Roger de Coverley may
even claim one of the places of honor on the walls.
Distinction between the Romance and the Modern Novel.--The romances
and tales of adventure which had been so long in vogue differ widely
from the modern novel. Many of them pay but little attention to
probability; but those which do not offend in this respect generally
rely on a succession of stirring incidents to secure attention. Novels
showing the analytic skill of Thackeray's _Vanity Fair_, or the
development of character in George Eliot's _Silas Marner_ would have
been little read in competition with stirring tales of adventure, if
such novels had appeared before a taste for them had been developed by
habits of trained observation and thought.
We may broadly differentiate the romance from the modern novel by
saying that the romance deals primarily with incident and adventure
for their own sake, while the novel concerns itself with these only in
so far as they are necessary for a faithful picture of life or for
showing the development of character.
Again, the novel gave a much more prominent position to that important
class of human beings who do the most of the world's work,--a type
that the romance had been inclined to neglect.
[Illustration: SAMUEL RICHARDSON. _From an original drawing_.]
Samuel Richardson, the First Modern English Novelist.--Samuel
Richardson (1689-1761) was born in Derbyshire. When he was only
thirteen years old some of the young women of the neighborhood
unconsciously began to train him for a novelist by employing him to
conduct their love correspondence. This training partly accounts for
the fact that every one of his novels is merely a collection of
letters, written by the chief characters to each other and to their
friends, to narrate the progress of events.
At the age of fifteen Richardson went to London and learned the
printer's trade, which he followed for the rest of his life. When he
was about fifty years old, some publishers asked him to prepare a
letter writer which would be useful to country people and to others
who could not express themselves with a pen. The idea occurred to him
of making these letters tell a connected story. The result was the
first modern novel, _Pamela_, published in four volumes in 1740. This
was followed by _Clarissa Harlowe_, in seven volumes, in 1747-48, and
this by _Sir Charles Grandison_, in seven volumes, in 1753.
The affairs in the lives of the leading characters are so minutely
dissected, the plot is evolved so slowly and in a way so unlike the
astonishing bounds of the old romance, that one is tempted to say that
Richardson's novels progress mere slowly than events in life. One
secret of his success depends on the fact that we feel that he is
deeply interested in all his characters. He is as much interested in
the heroine of his masterpiece, _Clarissa Harlowe_, as if she were his
own daughter. He has the remarkable power of so thoroughly identifying
himself with his characters that, after we are introduced to them, we
can name them when we hear selections read from their letters.
The length and slow development of his novels repel modern readers,
but there was so little genuinely interesting matter in the middle of
the eighteenth century that many were sorry his novels were no longer.
The novelty of productions of this type also added to their interest.
His many faults are largely those of his age. He wearies his readers
with his didactic aims. He is narrow and prosy. He poses as a great
moralist, but he teaches the morality of direct utility.
The drama and the romance had helped to prepare the way for the novel
of everyday domestic life. While this way seemed simple, natural, and
inevitable, Richardson was the first to travel in it. Defoe had
invested fictitious adventure with reality. Richardson transferred the
real human life around him to the pages of fiction. The ascendancy of
French influence was noteworthy for a considerable period after the
Restoration. England could now repay some of her debt. Richardson
exerted powerful influence on the literature of France as well as on
that of other continental nations.
[Illustration: HENRY FIELDING. _From the original sketch by
Hogarth_.]
Henry Fielding, 1707-1754.--The greatest novelist of the eighteenth
century, and one of the greatest that England ever produced, was Henry
Fielding, who was born in Sharpham Park, Somersetshire. After
graduating at the University of Leyden, he became a playwright, a
lawyer, a judge of a police court, and, most important of all, a
novelist, or a historian of society, as he preferred to style himself.
When Richardson's _Pamela_ appeared, Fielding determined to write a
story caricaturing its morality and sentiment, which he considered
hypocritical. Before he had gone very far he discovered where his
abilities lay, and, abandoning his narrow, satiric aims, he wrote
_Joseph Andrews_ (1742), a novel far more interesting than _Pamela_.
_Jonathan Wild the Great_ (1743) tells the story of a rogue who was
finally hanged. In 1749 appeared Fielding's masterpiece, _Tom Jones_,
and in 1751 his last novel, _Amelia_.
Richardson lacks humor, but Fielding is one of the greatest humorists
of the eighteenth century. Fielding is also a master of plot. From all
literature, Coleridge selected, for perfection of plot, _The
Alchemist, Oedipus Tyrannus_, and _Tom Jones_.
Fielding's novels often lack refinement, but they palpitate with life.
His pages present a wonderful variety of characters, chosen from
almost all walks of life. He could draw admirable portraits of women.
Thackeray says of Amelia, the heroine of the novel that bears her
name:--
"To have invented that character, is not only a triumph of art, but
it is a good action. They say it was in his own home that Fielding
knew her and loved her, and from his own wife that he drew the most
charming character in English fiction... I admire the author of
_Amelia_, and thank the kind master who introduced me to that sweet
and delightful companion and friend. _Amelia_, perhaps, is not a
better story than _Tom Jones_, but it has the better ethics; the
prodigal repents at least before forgiveness,--whereas that odious
broad-backed Mr. Jones carries off his beauty with scarce an
interval of remorse for his manifold errors and shortcomings... I
am angry with Jones. Too much of the plum cake and rewards of life
fall to that boisterous, swaggering young scapegrace."[1]
The "prodigal" to whom Thackeray refers is Captain Booth, the husband
of Amelia, and "Mr. Jones" is the hero of _Tom Jones_. Fielding's
wife, under the name of Sophia Western, is also the heroine of _Tom
Jones_. It is probable that in the characters of Captain Booth and Tom
Jones, Fielding drew a partial portrait of himself. He seems, however,
to have changed in middle life, for his biographer, Austin Dobson,
says of him: "He was a loving father and a kind husband; he exerted
his last energies in philanthropy and benevolence; he expended his
last ink in defence of Christianity."
Fielding shows the eighteenth-century love of satire. He hates that
hypocrisy which tries to conceal itself under a mask of morality. In
the evolution of the plots of his novels, he invariably puts such
characters in positions that tear away their mask. He displays almost
savage pleasure in making them ridiculous. Perhaps the lack of
spirituality of the age finds the most ample expression in his pages;
but Chaucer's Parish Priest and Fielding's Parson Adams are typical of
those persisting moral forces that have bequeathed a heritage of power
to England.
[Illustration: LAURENCE STERNE.]
[Illustration: UNCLE TOBY AND CORPORAL TRIM. _From a drawing by B.
Westmacott_.]
[Illustration: TOBIAS SMOLLETT.]
Sterne and Smollett.--With Richardson and Fielding it is customary
to associate two other mid-eighteenth century novelists, Lawrence
Sterne (1713-1768) and Tobias Smollett (1721-1771). Between 1759 and
1767 Sterne wrote his first novel, _The Life and Opinions of Tristram
Shandy, Gentleman_, which presents the delightfully comic and
eccentric members of the Shandy family, among whom Uncle Toby is the
masterpiece. In 1768 Sterne gave to the world that compound of
fiction, essays, and sketches of travel known as _A Sentimental
Journey through France and Italy_. The adjective "sentimental" in the
title should be specially noted, for it defines Sterne's attitude
toward everything in life. He is habitually sentimental in treating
not only those things fitted to awaken deep emotion, but also those
trivial incidents which ordinarily cause scarcely a ripple of feeling.
Although he is sometimes a master of pathos, he frequently gives an
exhibition of weak and forced sentimentalism. He more uniformly excels
in subtle humor, which is his next most conspicuous characteristic.
_Roderick Random_ (1748), _Peregrine Pickle_ (1751), and _The
Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_ (1771) are Smollett's best novels.
They are composed mainly of a succession of stirring or humorous
incidents. In relying for interest more on adventure than on the
drawing of character, he reverts to the picaresque type of story.
The Relation of Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and
Smollett to Subsequent Fiction.--Although the modern reader
frequently complains that these older novelists often seem heavy, slow
in movement, unrefined, and too ready to draw a moral or preach a
sermon, yet these four men hold an important place in the history of
fiction. With varying degrees of excellence, Richardson, Fielding, and
Sterne all have the rare power of portraying character from within, of
interpreting real life. Some novelists resort to the far easier task
of painting merely external characteristics and mannerisms. Smollett
belongs to the latter class. His effective focusing of external
peculiarities and caricaturing of exceptional individuals has had a
far-reaching influence, which may be traced even in the work of so
great a novelist as Charles Dickens. Fielding, on the other hand, had
great influence of Thackeray, who has recorded in _The English
Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_ his admiration for his earlier
fellow-craftsman.
Although subsequent English fiction has invaded many new fields,
although it has entered the domain of history and of sociology, it is
not too much to say that later novelists have advanced on the general
lines marked out by these four mid-eighteenth century pioneers. We may
even affirm with Gosse that "the type of novel invented in England
about 1740-50 continued for sixty or seventy years to be the only
model for Continental fiction; and criticism has traced in every
French novelist, in particular, the stamp of Richardson, if not of
Sterne, and of Fielding."
PHILOSOPHICAL, HISTORICAL, AND POLITICAL PROSE
Philosophy.--Although the majority of eighteenth-century writers
disliked speculative thought and resolutely turned away from it, yet
the age produced some remarkable philosophical works, which are still
discussed, and which have powerfully affected later thought. David
Hume (1711-1776) is the greatest metaphysician of the century. He
took for his starting point the conclusions of a contemporary
philosopher, George Berkeley (1685-1753).
Berkeley had said that ideas are the only real existing entities, that
matter is merely another term for the ideas in the Mind of the
Infinite and has no existence outside of mind. He maintained that if
every quality should be taken away from matter, no matter would
remain; _e.g._, if color, sweetness, sourness, form, and all other
qualities should be taken away from an apple, there would be no apple.
Now, a quality is a mental representation based on a sensation, and
this quality varies as the sensation varies; in other words, the
object is not a stable immutable thing. It is only a thing as I
perceive it. Berkeley's idealistic position was taken to crush
atheistic materialism.
Hume attempted to rear on Berkeley's position an impregnable citadel
of skepticism. He accepted Berkeley's conclusion that we know nothing
of matter, and then attempted to show that inferences based on ideas
might be equally illusory. Hume attacked the validity of the reasoning
process itself. He endeavored to show that there is no such thing as
cause and effect in either the mental or the material world.
Hume's _Treatise of Human Nature_ (1739-1740), in which these views
are stated, is one of the world's epoch-making works in philosophy.
Its conclusion startled the great German metaphysician Kant and roused
him to action. The questions thus raised by Hume have never been
answered to the satisfaction of all philosophers.
Hume's skepticism is the most thoroughgoing that the world has ever
seen; for he attacks the certainty of our knowledge of both mind and
matter. But he dryly remarks that his own doubts disappear when he
leaves his study. He avoids a runaway horse and inquires of a friend
the way to a certain house in Edinburgh, relying as much on the
evidence of his eyes and on the directions of his friend as if these
philosophic doubts had never been raised.
Historical Prose.--In carefully elaborated and highly finished works
of history, the eighteenth century surpasses its predecessors. _The
History of England_ by David Hume, the philosopher, is the first work
of the kind to add to the history of politics and the affairs of state
an account of the people and their manners. This _History_ is
distinguished for its polished ease and clearness. Unfortunately, the
work is written from a partisan point of view. Hume was a Tory, and
took the side of the Stuarts against the Puritans. He sometimes
misrepresented facts if they did not uphold his views. His _History_
is consequently read more to-day as a literary classic than as an
authority.
[Illustration: EDWARD GIBBON. _From the painting by Sir Joshua
Reynolds_.]
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) is the greatest historian of the century.
His monumental work, _The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_, in six volumes, begins with the reign of Trajan, A.D. 98, and
closes with the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople in
1453. Gibbon constructed a "Roman road" through nearly fourteen
centuries of history; and he built it so well that another on the same
plan has not yet been found necessary. E.A. Freeman says: "He remains
the one historian of the eighteenth century whom modern research has
neither set aside nor threatened to set aside." In preparing his
_History_, Gibbon spent fifteen years. Every chapter was the subject
of long-continued study and careful original research. From the
chaotic materials which he found, he constructed a history remarkable
as well for its scholarly precision as for the vastness of the field
covered.
His sentences follow one another in magnificent procession. One feels
that they are the work of an artist. They are thickly sprinkled with
fine-sounding words derived from the Latin. The 1611 version of the
first four chapters of the _Gospel_ of John averages 96 per cent of
Anglo-Saxon words, and Shakespeare 89 per cent, while Gibbon's average
of 70 per cent is the lowest of any great writer. He has all the
coldness of the classical school, and he shows but little sympathy
with the great human struggles that are described in his pages. He has
been well styled "a skillful anatomical demonstrator of the dead
framework of society." With all its excellences, his work has,
therefore, those faults which are typical of the eighteenth century.
[Illustration: EDMUND BURKE. _From the painting by Sir Joshua
Reynolds, National Portrait Gallery_.]
Political Prose.--Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was a distinguished
statesman and member of the House of Commons in an important era of
English history,--a time when the question of the independence of the
American colonies was paramount, and when the spirit of revolt against
established forms was in the air. He is the greatest political writer
of the eighteenth century.
Burke's best productions are _Speech on American Taxation_ (1774) and
_Speech on Conciliation with America_ (1775). His _Reflections on the
Revolution in France_ is also noteworthy. His prose is distinguished
for the following qualities: (1) He is one of the greatest masters of
metaphor and imagery in English prose. Only Carlyle surpasses him in
the use of metaphorical language. (2) Burke's breadth of thought and
wealth of expression enable him to present an idea from many different
points of view, so that if his readers do not comprehend his
exposition from one side, they may from another. He endeavors to
attach what he says to something in the experience of his hearers or
readers; and he remembers that the experience of all is not the same.
(3) It follows that his imagery and figures lay all kinds of knowledge
under contribution. At one time he draws an illustration from
manufacturing; at another, from history; at another, from the butcher
shop. (4) His work displays intense earnestness, love of truth,
strength of logical reasoning, vividness of imagination, and breadth
of view, all of which are necessary qualities in prose that is to mold
the opinions of men.
It is well to note that Burke's careful study of English literature
contributed largely to his success as a writer. His use of Bible
phraseology and his familiarity with poetry led a critic to say that
any one "neglects the most valuable repository of rhetoric in the
English language, who has not well studied the English Bible... The
cadence of Burke's sentences always reminds us that prose writing is
only to be perfected by a thorough study of the poetry of the
language."
OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1728-1774
[Illustration: OLIVER GOLDSMITH. _From the painting by Sir Joshua
Reynolds, National Portrait Gallery_.]
Life and Minor Works.--Oliver Goldsmith was born of English parents
in the little village of Pallas in the center of Ireland. His father,
a poor clergyman, soon moved a short distance to Lissoy, which
furnished some of the suggestions for _The Deserted Village_.
Goldsmith went as a charity student to Dublin University, where, like
Swift, he graduated at the bottom of his class. Goldsmith tried in
turn to become a clergyman, a teacher, a lawyer, and a doctor, but
failed in all these fields. Then he wandered over the continent of
Europe for a year and accumulated some experiences that he used in
writing _The Traveler_. He returned to London in 1757, and, after an
ineffectual attempt to live by practicing medicine, turned to
literature. In this profession he at first managed to make only a
precarious living, for the most part as a hackwriter, working for
periodicals and filling contracts to compile popular histories of
England, Greece, Rome, and _Animated Nature_. He had so much skill in
knowing what to retain, emphasize, or subordinate, and so much genius
in presenting in an attractive style what he wrote, that his work of
this kind met with a readier sale than his masterpieces. Of the
_History of Animated Nature_, Johnson said: "Goldsmith, sir, will give
us a very fine book on the subject, but if he can tell a horse from a
cow, that I believe may be the extent of his knowledge of natural
history."
His first literary reputation was gained by a series of letters,
supposed to be written by a Chinaman as a record of his impressions of
England. These letters or essays, like so much of the work of Addison
and Steele, appeared first in a periodical; but they were afterwards
collected under the title, _Citizen of the World_ (1761). The
interesting creation of these essays is Beau Tibbs, a poverty-stricken
man, who derives pleasure from boasting of his frequent association
with the nobility.
[Illustration: GOLDSMITH GIVES DR. JOHNSON THE MS. OF THE VICAR OF
WAKEFIELD. _From a drawing by B. Westmacott_.]
It was not until the last ten years of his life that Goldsmith became
famous. He certainly earned enough then to be free from care, had he
but known how to use his money. His improvidence in giving to beggars
and in squandering his earnings on expensive rooms, garments, and
dinners, however, kept him always in debt.
One evening he gave away his blankets to a woman who told him a
pitiful tale. The cold was so bitter during the night that he had to
open the ticking of his bed and crawl inside. Although this happened
when he was a young man, it was typical of his usual response to
appeals for help. When his landlady had him arrested for failing to
pay his rent, he sent for Johnson to come and extricate him. Johnson
asked him if he had nothing that would discharge the debt, and
Goldsmith handed him the manuscript of _The Vicar of Wakefield_.
Johnson reported his action to Boswell, as follows:--
"I looked into it and saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon
return; and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds."
[Illustration: CANONBURY TOWER, LONDON, WHERE GOLDSMITH WROTE SOME OF
HIS FAMOUS WORK.]
During his last years, Goldsmith sometimes received as much as £800 in
twelve months; but the more he earned, the deeper he plunged into
debt. When he died, in 1774, at the age of forty-five, he owed £2000.
He was loved because--
"...e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side."
His grave by the Temple Church on Fleet Street, London, is each year
visited by thousands who feel genuine affection for him in spite of
his shortcomings.
Masterpieces.--His best work consists of two poems, _The Traveler_
and _The Deserted Village_; a story, _The Vicar of Wakefield_; and a
play,_She Stoops to Conquer_.
The object of _The Traveler_ (1765), a highly polished moral and
didactic poem, was to show that happiness is independent of climate,
and hence to justify the conclusion:--
"Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centers in the mind."
_The Deserted Village_ (1770) also has a didactic aim, for which we
care little. Its finest parts, those which impress us most, were
suggested to Goldsmith by his youthful experiences. We naturally
remember the sympathetic portrait of the poet's father, "the village
preacher":--
"A man he was to all the country dear
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
* * * * *
His house was known to all the vagrant train;
He chid their wanderings but relieved their pain."
The lines relating to the village schoolmaster are almost as well
known as Scripture. Previous to this time, the eighteenth century had
not produced a poem as natural, sincere, and sympathetic in its
descriptions and portraits as _The Deserted Village_.
_The Vicar of Wakefield_ is a delightful romantic novel, which Andrew
Lang classes among books "to be read once a year." Goldsmith's own
criticism of the story in the _Advertisement_ announcing it has not
yet been surpassed:--
"There are an hundred faults in this Thing, and an hundred things
might be said to prove them beauties. But it is needless. A book
may be amusing with numerous errors, or it may he very dull without
a single absurdity. The hero of this piece unites in himself the
three greatest characters upon earth: he is a priest, an 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."
[Illustration: DR. PRIMROSE AND HIS FAMILY. _From a drawing by G.
Patrick Nelson._]
_The Vicar of Wakefield_ has faults of improbability and of plot
construction; in fact, the plot is so poorly constructed that the
novel would have been almost a failure, had other qualities not
insured success. The story lives because Dr. Primrose and his family
show with such genuineness the abiding lovable traits of human
nature,--kindliness, unselfishness, good humor, hope, charity,--the
very spirit of the _Sermon of the Mount_. Goethe rejoiced that he felt
the influence of this story at the critical moment of his mental
development. Goldsmith has added to the world's stock of kindliness,
and he has taught many to avoid what he calls "the fictitious demands
of happiness."
Goldsmith wrote two plays, both hearty comedies. The less successful,
_The Good-Natured Man_ (acted 1768), brought him in £500. His next
play, _She Stoops to Conquer_, a comedy of manners, is a landmark in
the history of the drama. The taste of the age demanded regular,
vapid, sentimental plays. Here was a comedy that disregarded the
conventions and presented in quick succession a series of hearty
humorous scenes. Even the manager of the theater predicted the failure
of the play; but from the time of its first appearance in 1773, this
comedy of manners has had an unbroken record of triumphs. A century
later it ran one hundred nights in London. Authorities say that it has
never been performed without success, not even by amateurs. Like all
of Goldsmith's best productions, it was based on actual experience. In
his young days a wag directed him to a private house for an inn.
Goldsmith went there and with much flourish gave his orders for
entertainment. The subtitle of the comedy is _The Mistakes of a
Night_; and the play shows the situations which developed when its
hero, Tony Lumpkin, sent two lovers to a pretended inn, which was
really the home of the young ladies to be wooed.
It is interesting to note that his contemporary, Richard Brinsley
Sheridan (1751-1816), produced, shortly after the great success of
_She Stoops to Conquer_, the only other eighteenth-century comedies
that retain their popularity, _The Rivals_ (1775) and _The School for
Scandal_ (1777), which contributed still further to the overthrow of
the sentimental comedy of the age.
General Characteristics.--Goldsmith is a romanticist at heart; but
he felt the strong classical influences of Johnson and of the earlier
school. In his poetry, Goldsmith used classical couplets and sometimes
classical subject matter, but the didactic parts of his poems are the
poorest. His greatest successes, such as the pictures of the village
preacher and the schoolmaster in _The Deserted Village_ and of Dr.
Primrose and his family in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, show the warm
human sympathy of the romantic school.
The qualities for which he is most noted are (1) a sane and saving
altruistic philosophy of life, pervaded with rare humor, and (2) a
style of remarkable ease, grace, and clearness, expressed in copious
and apt language.
_She Stoops to Conquer_ marks a change in the drama of the time,
because, in Dobson's phrase, it bade "good-bye to sham Sentiment."
"...this play it appears
Dealt largely in laughter and nothing in tears."
SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1709-1784
[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON. _From the painting by Sir Joshua
Reynolds_.]
[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON'S BIRTHPLACE. _From an old print_.]
Early Struggles.--Michael Johnson, an intelligent bookseller in
Lichfield, Staffordshire, was in 1709 blessed with a son who was to
occupy a unique position in literature, a position gained not so much
by his writings as by his spoken words and great personality.
Samuel was prepared for Oxford at various schools and in the paternal
bookstore, where he read widely and voraciously, but without much
system. He said that at the age of eighteen, the year before he
entered Oxford, he knew almost as much as at fifty-three. Poverty kept
him from remaining at Oxford long enough to take a degree. He left the
university, and, for more than a quarter of a century, struggled
doggedly against poverty. When he was twenty-five, he married a widow
of forty-eight. With the money which she brought him, he opened a
private school, but failed. He never had more than eight pupils, one
of whom was the actor, David Garrick.
In 1737 Johnson went to London and sought employment as a hack writer.
Sometimes he had no money with which to hire a lodging, and was
compelled to walk the streets all night to keep warm. Johnson reached
London in the very darkest days for struggling authors, who were often
subjected to the greatest hardships. They were the objects of general
contempt, to which Pope's _Dunciad_ had largely contributed.
During this period Johnson did much hack work for the _Gentleman's
Magazine_. He was also the author of two satirical poems, _London_
(1738) and _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749), which won much praise.
Later Years.--By the time he had been for ten years in London, his
abilities were sufficiently well known to the leading booksellers for
them to hire him to compile a _Dictionary of the English Language_ for
£1575. He was seven years at this work, finishing it in 1755. Between
1750 and 1760 he wrote the matter for two periodicals, _The Rambler_
(1750-1752) and _The Idler_ (1758-1760), which contain papers on
manners and morals. He intended to model these papers on the lines of
_The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_, but his essays are for the most part
ponderously dull and uninteresting.
In 1762, for the first time, he was really an independent man, for
then George III. gave him a life pension of £300 a year. Even as late
as 1759, in order to pay his mother's funeral expenses, Johnson had
been obliged to dash off the romance of _Rasselas_ in a week; but from
the time he received his pension, he had leisure "to cross his legs
and have his talk out" in some of the most distinguished gatherings of
the eighteenth century. During the rest of his life he produced little
besides _Lives of the English Poets_, which is his most important
contribution to literature. In 1784 he died, and was buried in
Westminster Abbey among the poets whose lives he had written.
A Man of Character.--Any one who will read Macaulay's _Life of
Johnson_[2] may become acquainted with some of Johnson's most striking
peculiarities; but these do not constitute his claims to greatness. He
had qualities that made him great in spite of his peculiarities. He
knocked down a publisher who insulted him, and he would never take
insolence from a superior; but there is no case on record of his
having been unkind to an inferior. Goldsmith said: "Johnson has
nothing of a bear but the skin." When some one manifested surprise
that Johnson should have assisted a worthless character, Goldsmith
promptly replied: "He has now become miserable, and that insures the
protection of Johnson."
Johnson, coming home late at night, would frequently slip a coin into
the hand of a sleeping street Arab, who, on awakening, was rejoiced to
find provision thus made for his breakfast. He spent the greater part
of his pension on the helpless, several of whom he received into his
own house.
There have been many broader and more scholarly Englishmen, but there
never walked the streets of London a man who battled more courageously
for what he thought was right. The more we know of him, the more
certain are we to agree with this closing sentence from Macaulay's
_Life of Johnson_: "And it is but just to say that our intimate
acquaintance with what he would himself have called the
anfractuosities of his intellect and of his temper serves only to
strengthen our conviction that he was both a great and a good man."
A Great Converser and Literary Lawgiver.--By nature Johnson was
fitted to be a talker. He was happiest when he had intelligent
listeners. Accordingly, he and Sir Joshua Reynolds, the artist,
founded the famous Literary Club in 1764. During Johnson's lifetime
this had for members such men as Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith,
Charles James Fox, James Boswell, Edward Gibbon, and David Garrick.
Macaulay says: "The verdicts pronounced by this conclave on new books
were speedily known over all London, and were sufficient to sell off a
whole edition in a day, or to condemn the sheets to the service of the
trunk maker and the pastry cook... To predominate over such a society
was not easy; yet even over such a society Johnson predominated."
He was consulted as an oracle on all kinds of subjects, and his
replies were generally the pith of common sense. So famous had Johnson
become for his conversations that George III. met him on purpose to
hear him talk. A committee from forty of the leading London
booksellers waited on Johnson to ask him to write the _Lives of the
English Poets_. There was then in England no other man with so much
influence in the world of literature.
Boswell's Life of Johnson.--In 1763 James Boswell (1740-1795), a
Scotchman, met Johnson and devoted much time to copying the words that
fell from the great Doctor's lips and to noting his individual traits.
We must go to Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, the greatest of all
biographies, to read of Johnson as he lived and talked; in short, to
learn those facts which render him far more famous than his written
works.
[Illustration: JAMES BOSWELL.]
Leslie Stephen saw: "I would still hope that to many readers Boswell
has been what he has certainly been to some, the first writer who gave
them a love of English literature, and the most charming of all
companions long after the bloom of novelty has departed. I subscribe
most cheerfully to Mr. Lewes's statement that he estimates his
acquaintances according to their estimate of Boswell."
A Champion of the Classical School.--Johnson was a powerful adherent
of classicism, and he did much to defer the coming of romanticism. His
poetry is formal, and it shows the classical fondness for satire and
aversion to sentiment. The first two lines of his greatest poem, _The
Vanity of Human Wishes_--
"Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind from China to Peru,"
show the classical couplet, which he employs, and they afford an
example of poetry produced by a sonorous combination of words.
"Observation," "view," and "survey" are nearly synonymous terms. Such
conscious effort centered on word building subtracts something from
poetic feeling.
His critical opinions of literature manifest his preference for
classical themes and formal modes of treatment. He says of
Shakespeare: "It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with
an unwieldy sentiment, which he cannot well express ... the equality
of words to things is very often neglected."
Although there is much sensible, stimulating criticism in Johnson's
_Lives of the Poets_, yet he shows positive repugnance to the pastoral
references--the flocks and shepherds, the oaten flute, the woods and
desert caves--of Milton's _Lycidas_. "Its form," says Johnson, "is
that of a pastoral, easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting."
General Characteristics.--While he is best known in literary history
as the great converser whose full length portrait is drawn by Boswell,
Johnson left the marks of his influence on much of the prose written
within nearly a hundred years after his death. On the whole, this
influence has, for the following reasons, been bad.
[Illustration: CHESHIRE CHEESE INN, FLEET STREET, LONDON.]
First, he loved a ponderous style in which there was an excess of the
Latin element. He liked to have his statements sound well. He once
said in forcible Saxon: "_The Rehearsal_! has not wit enough to keep
it sweet," but a moment later he translated this into: "It has not
sufficient vitality to preserve it from putrefaction." In his
_Dictionary_ he defined "network" as "anything reticulated or
decussated at equal distances with interstices between the
intersections." Some wits of the day said that he used long words to
make his _Dictionary_ necessary.
In the second place, Johnson loved formal balance so much that he used
too many antitheses. Many of his balancing clauses are out of place or
add nothing to the sense. The following shows excess of antithesis:--
"If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues
longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of
Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses
expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with
frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight."
As a rule, Johnson's prose is too abstract and general, and it awakens
too few images. This is a characteristic failing of his essays in _The
Rambler_ and _The Idler_. Even in _Rasselas_, his great work of
fiction, he speaks of passing through the fields and seeing the
animals around him; but he does not mention definite trees, flowers,
or animals. Shakespeare's wounded stag or "winking Mary-buds" would
have given a touch of life to the whole scene.
Johnson's latest and greatest work, _Lives of the English Poets_, is
comparatively free from most of these faults. The sentences are
energetic and full of meaning. Although we may not agree with some of
the criticism, shall find it stimulating and suggestive. Before
Johnson gave these critical essays to the world, he had been doing
little for years except talking in a straightforward manner. His
constant practice in speaking English reacted on his later written
work. Unfortunately this work has been the least imitated.
SUMMARY
The second part of the eighteenth century was a time of changing
standards in church, state, and literature. The downfall of Walpole,
the religious revivals of Wesley, the victories of Clive in India and
of Wolfe in Canada, show the progress that England was making at home
and abroad. Even her loss of the American colonies left her the
greatest maritime and colonial power.
There began to be a revolt against the narrow classical standards in
literature. A longing gradually manifested itself for more freedom of
imagination, such as we find in _Ossian, The Castle of Otranto_,
Percy's _Reliques_, and translations of the Norse mythology. There was
a departure from the hackneyed forms and subjects of the preceding age
and an introduction of more of the individual and ideal element, such
as can be found in Gray's _Elegy_ and Collins's _Ode to Evening_. Dr.
Johnson, however, threw his powerful influence against this romantic
movement, and curbed somewhat such tendencies in Goldsmith, who,
nevertheless, gave fine romantic touches to _The Deserted Village_ and
to much of his other work. This period was one of preparation for the
glorious romantic outburst at the end of the century.
In prose, the most important achievement of the age was the creation
of the modern novel in works like Richardson's _Pamela_ and _Clarissa
Harlowe_, Fielding's _Tom Jones_, Sterne's _Tristram Shandy_,
Smollett's _Humphrey Clinker_, and Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_.
There were also noted prose works in philosophy and history by Hume
and Gibbon, in politics by Burke, in criticism by Johnson, and in
biography by Boswell. Goldsmith's comedy of manners, _She Stoops to
Conquer_, won a decided victory over the insipid sentimental drama.
REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY
HISTORICAL
For contemporary English history, consult Gardiner,[3] Green, Walker,
or Cheney. For the social side, see Traill, V. Lecky's _History of the
Eighteenth Century_ is specially full.
LITERARY
_The Cambridge History of English Literature_.
Courthope's _History of English Poetry_, Vol. V.
Seccombe's _The Age of Johnson_.
Gosse's _History of English Literature in the Eighteenth Century_.
Stephen's _English Literature in the Eighteenth Century_.
Minto's _Manual of English Prose Literature_.
Symons's _The Romantic Movement in English Poetry_.
Beers's _English Romanticism_.
Phelps's _Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement_.
Nutt's _Ossian and Ossianic Literature_.
Jusserand's _The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare_.
Cross's _The Development of the English Novel_.
Minto's _Defoe_ (E.M.L.)
Dobson's _Samuel Richardson_. (E.M.L.)
Dobson's _Henry Fielding_. (E.M.L.)
Godden's _Henry Fielding, a Memoir_.
Stephen's _Hours in a Library_ (Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding).
Thackeray's _English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_ (Fielding,
Smollett, Sterne, Goldsmith).
Gosse's _Life of Gray_. (E.M.L.)
Huxley's _Life of Hume_. (E.M.L.)
Morrison's _Life of Gibbon_. (E.M.L.)
Woodrow Wilson's _Mere Literature_ (Burke).
Boswell's _Life of Johnson_.
Stephen's _Life of Johnson_. (E.M.L.)
Macaulay's _Essay on Croker's Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson_.
Irving's, Forster's, Dobson's, Black's (E.M.L.), or B. Frankfort
Moore's _Life of Goldsmith_.
SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
The Romantic Movement.--In order to note the difference in feeling,
imagery, and ideals, between the romantic and the classic schools, it
will be advisable for the student to make a special comparison of
Dryden's and Pope's satiric and didactic verse with Spenser's _Faerie
Queene_, Milton's _Il Penseroso_, and with some of the work of the
romantic poets in the next period. What is the difference in the
general atmosphere of these poems? See if the influence of _Il
Penseroso_ is noticeable in Collins's _Ode to Evening_ (Ward[4], III.,
287; Bronson, III., 220; _Oxford_, 531; Manly, I., 273; _Century_,
386) and in Gray's _Elegy_ (Ward, III., 331; Bronson, III., 238;
_Oxford_, 516; Manly, I., 267; _Century_, 398).
What element foreign to Dryden and Pope appears in Thomson's _Seasons_
(Ward, III., 173; Bronson. III., 179; Manly, I., 255; _Century_,
369-372).
What signs of a struggle between the romantic and the classic are
noticeable in Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_ (Ward, III., 373-379;
Bronson, III., 282; Manly, I., 278; _Century_, 463). Pick out the
three finest passages in the poem, and give the reasons for the
choice.
Read pp. 173-176 of _Ossian (Canterbury Poets_ series, 40 cents;
Chambers, II.; Manly, II., 275), and show why it appealed to the
spirit of romanticism.
For a short typical selection from Walpole's _Castle of Otranto_, see
Chambers. II. Why is this called romantic fiction?
In Percy's _Reliques_, read the first ballad, that of _Chevy Chase_,
and explain how the age could turn from Pope to read such rude verse.
In place of Mallet's _Northern Antiquities_, twentieth-century readers
will prefer books like Guerber's _Myths of Northern Lands_ and Mabie's
_Norse Stories Retold from the Eddas_.
From Chatterton's _Aella_ read nine stanzas from the song beginning:
"O sing unto my roundelay." His _The Bristowe Tragedy_ may be compared
with Percy's _Reliques_ and with Coleridge's _The Ancient Mariner_.
Selections from Chatterton are given in Bronson, III., Ward, III.,
_Oxford_, Manly, I., and _Century_.
The Novel.--Those who have the time to study the beginnings of the
novel will be interested in reading, _Guy, Earl of Warwick_ (Morley's
_Early Prose Romances_) or _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Retold in
Modern Prose, with Introduction and Notes_, by Jessie L. Weston
(London: David Nutt, two shillings).
Two Elizabethan novels: Lodge's _Rosalynde_ (the original of
Shakespeare's _As You Like It_) and Greene's _Pandosto_ (the original
of _The Winter's Tale_) are published in _The Shakespeare Classics_,
edited by Gollancz (Duffield & Company, New York, $1 each). _Pandosto_
may be found at the end of the Cassell _National Library_ edition of
_The Winter's Tale_ (15 cents). Selections from Lodge's _Rosalynde_
are given in Craik, I., 544-549. These should be compared with the
parallel parts of _As You Like It_. Selections from Nashe's _The
Unfortunate Traveller_ are given in Craik, I., 573-576, and selections
from Sidney's _Arcadia_ in the same volume, pp. 409-419. Deloney's
_The Gentle Craft_ and _Jack of Newberry_ are given in his _Works_,
edited by Mann (Clarendon Press).
For the preliminary sketching of characters that might serve as types
in fiction, read _The Spectator_, No. 2, by Steele. Defoe's _Robinson
Crusoe_ will be read entire by almost every one.
In Craik, IV., read the following selections from these four great
novelists of the middle of the eighteenth century; from Richardson,
pp. 59-66; from Fielding, pp. 118-125; from Sterne, pp. 213-219; and
from Smollett, pp. 261-264 and 269-272. Manly, II., has brief
selections.
Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_ should be read entire by the student
(_Eclectic English Classics_, or _Gateway Series_, American Book
Company). Selections may be found in Craik, IV., 365-370.
Sketch the general lines of development in fiction, from the early
romance to Smollett. What type of fiction did _Don Quixote_ ridicule?
Compare Greene's _Pandosto_ with Shakespeare's _Winter's Tale_, and
Lodge's _Rosalynde_ with _As You Like It_. In what relation do Steele,
Addison, and Defoe stand to the novel? Why is the modern novel said to
begin with Richardson?
Philosophy.--Two selections from Berkeley in Craik, IV., 34-39, give
some of that philosopher's subtle metaphysics. The same volume, pp.
189-195, gives a selection from Hume's _Treatise of Human Nature_. Try
stating in your own words the substance of these selections.
Gibbon.--Read Aurelian's campaign against Zenobia, which constitutes
the last third of Chap. XI. of the first volume of _The Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire_. Other selections may be found in Craik,
IV., 460-472; _Century_, 453-462.
What is the special merit of Gibbon's work? What period does he cover?
Compare his style, either in description or in narration, with
Bunyan's.
Burke.--Let the student who has not the time to read all the speech
on _Conciliation with America (Eclectic English Classics_, or _Gateway
Series_, American Book Company, 20 cents) read the selection in Craik,
IV., 379-385, and also the selection referring to the decline of
chivalry, from _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (Craik, IV.,
402).
Point out in Burke's writings the four characteristics mentioned on p.
331. Compare his style with Bacon's, Swift's, Addison's, and Gibbon's.
Goldsmith.--Read his three masterpieces: _The Deserted Village, The
Vicar of Wakefield (Eclectic English Classics_, or _Gateway Series_,
American Book Company), _She Stoops to Conquer_ (Cassell's _National
Library_; _Everyman's Library_).
Select passages that show (a) altruistic philosophy of life, (b)
humor, (c) special graces of style. What change did _She Stoops to
Conquer_ bring to the stage? What qualities keep the play alive?
Johnson.--Representative selections are given in Craik, IV.,
141-185. Those from _Lives of the English Poets_ (Craik, IV., 175-182;
_Century_, 405-419) will best repay study. Let the student who has the
time read Johnson's _Dryden_ entire. As much as possible of Boswell's
_Life of Johnson_ should be read (Craik, IV., 482-495; Manly, II.,
277-292).
Compare the style of Johnson with that of Gibbon and Burke. For what
reasons does Johnson hold a high position in literature? What special
excellences or defects do you note in his _Lives of the English
Poets_? Why is Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ a great work?
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VII:
[Footnote 1: _The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_.]
[Footnote 2: To be found in _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, or in
Macaulay's collected _Essays_.]
[Footnote 3: For full titles, see p. 50.]
[Footnote 4: For full titles, see p. 6.]