India, most anxious for repose; but that Prince was too well acquainted
with the consequences of this indulgence to permit them to enjoy it. He
had, after he passed the Indus, led them through the deserts of Sind to
the attack of a feudatory chief, who had established himself in the
government of that province. This ruler had courted Nadir Shah when he
first threatened the invasion of India, as he deemed such a measure
favorable to his views of independence; but when his possessions were
made over to the Persian monarch he changed his policy; and, lodging all
his treasure and property in the fortress of Amerkote, made a feeble
attempt at opposition; but his capital was taken and plundered, and he
was compelled to surrender himself to the mercy of the conqueror; who,
however, satisfied with his submission and the possession of his wealth,
restored him to the government of the province, which he agreed
henceforth to hold as a tributary to the crown of Persia.
After this expedition Nadir marched to Herat, where he made a proud
display of the jewels and plunder he had acquired in India; among which
the most remarkable was the celebrated throne of the Emperor of Delhi,
made in the shape of a peacock, and ornamented with precious stones of
every description. This gorgeous exhibition took place on June 4, 1740;
and on that day and several others the court, army, and populace were
amused with pageants, shows, and entertainments of every kind; but
Nadir, though satisfied that this public celebration of triumph was
calculated to raise his fame with his subjects and to gratify the vanity
of his soldiers, appears always to have dreaded the danger of inaction.
He moved his army from Herat; and after meeting his son, Reza Kuli, and
bestowing valuable presents upon him and the other princes of his
family, he moved toward Bulkh, where he had ordered preparations to be
made for his crossing the Oxus to punish the sovereign of Bokhara, who,
unmindful of his established alliance, had taken advantage of his
absence in India to make inroads into the province of Khorasan.
The motives which induced Nadir to proceed upon this expedition were
soon apparent. He had no desire to extend the boundary of his empire in
a direction where he knew it could not be maintained, but he wished to
visit upon the inhabitants of this part of Tartary those calamities
which they were in the annual habit of inflicting upon the frontier
provinces of Persia. Abul Fyze Khan, who was the ruler of the Usbegs at
this period, boasted a lineal descent from Genghis; but he appears to
have inherited none of the spirit of his great ancestor. He was
terrified into submission at the approach of Nadir, and sent his vizier
to deprecate the wrath of that monarch. The minister was well received,
but told that his master must immediately surrender if he desired to
save himself from destruction and his country from ruin. While these
negotiations were carried on the Persian army advanced by rapid marches
to Bokhara, and on August 23d, five days after they had crossed the
Oxus, encamped within twelve miles of that capital, where his short
expedition was brought to a close by the personal submission of Abul
Fyze Khan, who, attended by all his court, proceeded to the tents of
Nadir Shah, and laid his crown and other ensigns of royalty at the feet
of the conqueror, who assigned him an honorable place in his assembly;
and a few days afterward restored him to his throne on the condition
that the Oxus should remain, as it had been in former periods, the
boundary of the two empires. This treaty was cemented by an alliance
between the daughter of the ruler of Bokhara and the nephew of his
conqueror; and after its conclusion a great number of Tartars were, with
the concurrence of their own monarch, enrolled in the Persian army,
whose commander probably esteemed the services of these hardy warriors
as of more consequence to the peace of his own dominions and the
fulfilment of his future views of ambition than all the wealth he had
brought from India.
The arms of Nadir were next directed against the kingdom of Khaurizm,
which is situated to the westward of Bokhara, and stretches along both
banks of the Oxus to the shores of the Caspian Sea. The Prince of this
country, whose name was Ilburz, neither merited nor received such human
treatment as Abul Fyze Khan. He had committed frequent depredations upon
the Persian territories; and, conceiving that the strength of his
fortresses would secure him from vengeance, he resolved on resistance.
The King of Bokhara had sent a mission to advise him to submit to the
arms of Nadir: he not only treated this friendly counsel with disdain,
but, in violation of laws which the most savage nations respect, he slew
those through whom it was conveyed. This conduct greatly irritated the
monarch of Persia, who, after he had defeated his army and made him
prisoner, doomed him and twenty of his chief officers to death. The
possessions of Ilburz were bestowed upon Taher Khan, a cousin of the
sovereign of Bokhara, and consequently a direct descendant of the
celebrated Genghis.
When the winter of this year was far advanced, Nadir marched to Khelat,
to which place he continued from his most early years to be much
attached. He had directed that its fortifications should be improved,
that a palace should be built, and that aqueducts should be constructed
to improve the fertility of its fields. He had also ordered that all his
treasures should be carried thither; and a peaceful retirement to this
cherished spot, after the toils and dangers of war were at an end, was
one of the most innocent of those dreams which amused the fancy of this
indefatigable conqueror.
After a short residence at Khelat Nadir proceeded to Mushed, which he
made the capital of his empire; and during three months that he remained
in this city his time was passed in constant festivities. Five monarchs
had been subdued in five years. The empire of Persia had not only been
rescued from a foreign yoke, but its limits had been extended as far as
the Oxus to the north and the Indus to the east; and the hero by whom
all this had been accomplished promised his exulting subjects that the
Turks should soon be driven from the banks of the Tigris and the
Euphrates; but honor required that, before any other expedition was
undertaken, Nadir should revenge the blood of his brother, Ibrahim Khan,
who had been slain in an attack of the Lesghis.
When the army was on its march to Daghestan an event occurred which cast
a dark cloud over all the fair prospects that dawned upon Persia, and
exhibited in the strongest view the miserable condition of those empires
whose fate hangs upon the disposition and talents of a despotic
sovereign. An advanced corps, chiefly composed of Afghans, had, by their
extraordinary valor, gained the greatest advantages over the Lesghis;
and Nadir was hastening by the way of Mazandaran to their support, when,
pursuing his march through one of the forests in that country, a ball
from an assassin, who had concealed himself behind a tree, wounded him
in the hand and killed his horse. The Prince, Reza Kuli, who was near
him, galloped toward the spot from which the shot had been fired; but
neither his efforts nor those of his guards that aided him could succeed
in the attempts to seize the fugitive, who, favored by the thickness of
the wood, effected his escape. He was afterward taken; and the historian
of Nadir asserts that he was the agent of a chief of a barbarous tribe
who cherished a secret resentment against the conqueror.
This accident, though it made a deep and indelible impression upon the
mind of Nadir, did not prevent his proceeding to attack the Lesghis; but
he never engaged in an enterprise of more hazard. These mountaineers
defended themselves with the most desperate bravery; and the rugged
nature of the whole country of Daghestan, which they inhabit, made it
almost impossible to subdue them. The bravest troops of the Persian army
were worn out with the fatigue of this harassing war; and the
preparations which the Russians began to make at Astrakhan, though
dictated by a fear that Nadir meant to invade their country after he had
subdued the Lesghis, gave the latter every encouragement to persevere in
their resistance; and the Persian monarch was compelled to retire from
this expedition with very partial success and very great loss.
Nadir had, from the day on which his life was attempted, entertained
suspicions of his eldest son, Reza Kuli. He summoned him to his
presence. The Prince instantly obeyed, and was on his arrival made
prisoner and deprived of sight. A respectable European writer, who went
to Persia two years after this event, asserts that the assassin who
fired at Nadir in the wood of Mazandaran was employed by the prince Reza
Kuli; who, he informs us, though brave and able, was violent and
oppressive. He had, this author asserts, on hearing that Nadir was dead
when on his expedition to India, declared himself king, and at the same
time put the unfortunate Shah Tamasp, who was confined at Subzawar, in
Khorasan, to death. The same writer assures us that Nadir, though
convinced of the guilt of his son, addressed him in the mildest and most
human terms, and offered him complete pardon if he would only confess
his crime and promise repentance; but that the fierce youth rejected
this offer, and said he gloried in the attempt he had made to rid the
world of a tyrant, and provoked his fate by the coarsest abuse of his
father and sovereign. It is probable that this author received the
account which he has given of this transaction from some person who was
desirous of palliating the guilt of a reigning tyrant; but we are
compelled to refuse our credit of this statement.
The flattering historian of Nadir expressly informs us that that
sovereign was deceived, by the gross misrepresentations of infamous men,
into the commission of this great crime. The European physician who
attended that monarch during the latter years of his life asserts the
innocence of Reza Kuli. He adds that Nadir was so penetrated with
remorse after the deed of horror was done that he vented his fury on all
around him; and fifty noblemen, who had witnessed the dreadful act, were
put to death on the pretext that they should have offered their lives as
sacrifices to save the eyes of a prince who was the glory of their
country. It is also to be remarked that the impressions which have been
transmitted regarding a fact comparatively recent are all against Nadir,
who is believed to have had no evidence of his son's guilt but his own
suspicions. From the moment that his life had been attempted in
Mazandaran that monarch had become gloomy and irritable. His bad
success against the Lesghis had increased the natural violence of his
temper and, listening to the enemies of Reza Kuli, he, in a moment of
rage, ordered him to be blinded.
"Your crimes have forced me to this dreadful measure," was, we are told,
the speech that Nadir made to his son. "It is not my eyes you have put
out," replied Reza Kuli, "but those of Persia." The prophetic truth of
this answer sunk deep into the soul of Nadir; and we may believe his
historian, who affirms that he never afterward knew happiness nor
desired that others should enjoy it. All his future actions were deeds
of horror, except the contest which he carried on against the Turks for
three years; and even in it he displayed none of that energy and heroic
spirit which marked his first wars with that nation.
The Persian army had made unsuccessful efforts to reduce the cities of
Basra, of Bagdad, and of Mussul. Nadir marched early in the succeeding
year to meet a large Turkish force which had advanced to near Erivan;
and we are told that he desired to encounter his enemies in battle on
the same plain where he had ten years before acquired such renown; but
their general, subdued by his own fears, fled and was massacred by his
soldiers; who, thrown into confusion at this event, were easily routed
by the Persians. This was the last victory of Nadir, and it was gained
merely by the terror of his name. Sensible of his own condition he
hastened to make peace. His pretensions regarding the establishment of a
fifth sect among orthodox Mahometans and the erection of a fifth pillar
in the Mosque of Mecca were abandoned. It was agreed that prisoners on
both sides should be released; that Persian pilgrims going to the holy
cities of Mecca and Medina should be protected; and that the whole of
the provinces of Irak and Azerbaijan should remain with Persia, except
an inconsiderable territory that had belonged to the Turkish government
in the time of Shah Ismail, the first of the Suffavean kings.
The conduct of Nadir to his own subjects during the last five years of
his reign had been described, even by a partial historian, as exceeding
in barbarity all that has been recorded of the most bloody tyrants. The
acquisition of the wealth of India had at first filled the mind of this
monarch with the most generous and patriotic feelings. He had proclaimed
that no taxes should be collected from Persia for three years. But the
possession of riches had soon its usual effect of creating a desire for
more; and while the vast treasures he had acquired were hoarded at the
fort of Kelat, which, with all the fears of a despot, he continually
labored to render inaccessible, he not only paid his armies, but added
to his golden heaps, from the arrears of remitted revenue, which he
extorted with the most inflexible rigor.
Nadir knew that the attack which he had made upon the religion of his
country had rendered him unpopular, and that the priests, whom he
peculiarly oppressed, endeavored to spread disaffection. This made him
suspect those who still adhered to the tenets of the Shiah sect, or, in
other words, almost all the natives of Persia. The troops in his army
upon whom he placed most reliance were the Afghans and Tartars, who were
of the Sunni persuasion. Their leaders were his principal favorites; and
every pretext was taken to put to death such Persian chiefs as possessed
either influence or power. These proceedings had the natural effect of
producing rebellion in every quarter, and the spirit of insurrection
which now displayed itself among his subjects changed the violence of
Nadir into outrageous fury. His murders were no longer confined to
individuals: the inhabitants of whole cities were massacred; and men, to
use the words of his historian, left their abodes, and took up their
habitations in caverns and deserts, in the hope of escaping his savage
ferocity. We are told--and the events which preceded render the tale not
improbable--that when on his march to subdue one of his nephews who had
rebelled in Sistan, he proposed to put to death every Persian in his
army. There can be little doubt that his mind was at this moment in a
state of frenzy which amounted to insanity. Some of the principal
officers of his court, who learned that their names were in the list of
proscribed victims, resolved to save themselves by the assassination of
Nadir. The execution of the plot was committed to four chief men who
took advantage of their stations, and, under the pretext of urgent
business, rushed past the guards into the inner tents, where the tyrant
was asleep. The noise awoke him; and he had slain two of the meaner
assassins, when a blow from Salah Beg deprived him of existence.
FIRST MODERN NOVEL
A.D. 1740
EDMUND GOSSE
"Let me make the ballads of a nation," said Fletcher of Saltoun,
"and I care not who makes the laws." The place which the ancient
ballads held in forming the characters of the people is in our day
more than filled by the novels. Everybody reads them, especially in
the younger generation, and every character is more or less moulded
by the sentiments and teachings they contain.
The novel has been almost entirely a modern English development. Two
centuries ago our ancestors did not read fiction: they had
practically none to read. So that the production of the first
English novel in 1740, leading as it has to the present state of
affairs, may fairly be counted a most important event in the history
of our race. Nowadays ten thousand novels are published every year,
and for some of these is claimed the enormous circulation of half a
million copies.
There is nothing offensive to the dignity of literary history in
acknowledging that the most prominent piece of work effected by
literature in England during the eighteenth century is the creation--for
it can be styled nothing less--of the modern novel. In the seventeenth
century there had been a very considerable movement in the direction of
prose fiction. The pastoral romances of the Elizabethans had continued
to circulate; France had set an example in the heroic stories of D'Urfé
and La Calprenède, which English imitators and translators had been
quick to follow, even as early as 1647. The _Francion_ of Sorel and the
_Roman Bourgeois_ of Furetière--the latter, published in 1666, of
especial interest to students of the English novel--had prepared the way
for the exact opposite to the heroic romance; namely, the realistic
story of every-day life. Bunyan and Richard Head, Mrs. Behn and
Defoe--each had marked a stage in the development of English fiction.
Two noble forerunners of the modern novel, _Robinson Crusoe_ and
_Gulliver's Travels_, had inflamed the curiosity and awakened the
appetite of British readers; but, although there were already great
satires and great romances in the language, the first quarter of the
eighteenth century passed away without revealing any domestic genius in
prose fiction, any master of the workings of the human heart. Meanwhile
the drama had decayed. The audiences which had attended the poetic plays
of the beginning and the comedies of the close of the seventeenth
century now found nothing on the boards of the theatre to satisfy their
craving after intellectual excitement. The descendants of the men and
women who had gone out to welcome the poetry of Shakespeare and the wit
of Congreve were now rather readers than play-goers, and were most ready
to enjoy an appeal to their feelings when that appeal reached them in
book form. In the playhouse they came to expect bustle and pantomime
rather than literature. This decline in theatrical habits prepared a
domestic audience for the novelists, and accounts for that feverish and
apparently excessive anxiety with which the earliest great novels were
awaited and received.
Meanwhile the part taken by Addison and Steele in preparing for this
change of taste must not be overlooked, and the direct link between
Addison, as a picturesque narrative essayist, and Richardson, as the
first great English novelist, is to be found in Pierre de Marivaux
(1688-1763), who imitated the _Spectator_, and who is often assumed,
though somewhat too rashly, to have suggested the tone of _Pamela_. Into
this latter question we shall presently have need to inquire again. It
is enough to point out here that when the English novel did suddenly and
irresistibly make its appearance, it had little in common with the
rococo and coquettish work which had immediately preceded it in France,
and which at first, even to judges so penetrating as the poet Gray, was
apt to seem more excellent because more subtle and refined. The rapidity
with which the novel became domiciled among us, and the short space of
time within which the principal masterpieces of the novelists were
produced, are not more remarkable than the lassitude which fell upon
English fiction as soon as the first great generation had passed away.
The flourishing period of the eighteenth-century novel lasted exactly
twenty-five years, during which time we have to record the publication
of no less than fifteen eminent works of fiction.
These fifteen are naturally divided into three groups. The first
contains _Pamela_, _Joseph Andrews_, _David Simple_, and _Jonathan
Wild_. In these books the art is still somewhat crude, and the science
of fiction incompletely understood. After a silence of five years we
reach the second and greatest section of this central period, during
which there appeared in quick succession _Clarissa_, _Roderick Random_,
_Tom Jones_, _Peregrine Pickle_, _Amelia_, and _Sir Charles Grandison_.
As though invention had been exhausted by the publication of this
incomparable series of masterpieces, there followed another silence of
five years, and then were issued, each on the heels of the other,
_Tristram Shandy_, _Rasselas_, _Chrysal_, _The Castle of Otranto_, and
_The Vicar of Wakefield_. Five years later still, a book born out of due
time appeared, _Humphrey Clinker_, and then, with one or two such
exceptions as _Evelina_ and _Caleb Williams_, no great novel appeared
again in England for forty years, until, in 1811, the new school of
fiction was inaugurated by _Sense and Sensibility_. The English novel,
therefore, in its first great development, should be considered as
comprised within the dates 1740 and 1766; and it may not be
uninstructive, before entering into any critical examination of the
separate authors, to glance at this chronological list of the first
fifteen great works of English fiction.
The novels contained in the catalogue just given, however widely they
differed from one another in detail, had this in common: that they dealt
with mental and moral phenomena. Before 1740 we possessed romances,
tales, prose fiction of various sorts, but in none of these was essayed
any careful analysis of character or any profound delineation of
emotion. In Defoe, where the record of imaginary fact was carried on
with so much ingenuity and knowledge, the qualities we have just
mentioned are notably absent; nor can it be said that we find them in
any prose-writer of fiction earlier than Richardson, except in some very
slight and imperfect degree in Aphra Behn, especially in her Rousseauish
novel of _Oroonoko_.
The first great English novelist, Samuel Richardson (1689-1761), was
born and bred in Derbyshire. He records of himself that when still a
little boy he had two peculiarities: he loved the society of women best,
and he delighted in letter-writing. Indeed, before he was eleven, he
wrote a long epistle to a widow of fifty, rebuking her for unbecoming
conduct. The girls of the neighborhood soon discovered his insight into
the human heart, and his skill in correspondence, and they employed the
boy to write their love-letters for them. In 1706 Richardson was
apprenticed to a London printer, served a diligent apprenticeship, and
worked as a compositor until he rose, late in life, to be master of the
Stationers' Company. He was fifty years of age before he showed symptoms
of any higher ambition than that of printing correctly acts of
Parliament and new editions of law-books. In 1739 the publishers,
Rivington and Osborne, urged him to compose for them a volume of
_Familiar Letters_, afterward actually produced as an aid to illiterate
persons in their correspondence. Richardson set about this work, gave it
a moral flavor, and at last began to write what would serve as a caution
to young serving-women who were exposed to temptation. At this point he
recollected a story he had heard long before, of a beautiful and
virtuous maid-servant who succeeded in marrying her master; and then,
laying the original design aside, Richardson, working rapidly, wrote in
three months his famous story of _Pamela_.