THE VICTORIAN AGE
TIME-CHART OF THE CHIEF AUTHORS
_The thick line represents the period of important literary work._
1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900
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Tennyson |........|.║======================================================║ |
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Browning |........|.║=================================================║ | |
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Dickens |........|..║==================================║ | | |
(1812–70) | | | | | | | | |
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Thackeray |........|........|║=║=================║ | | | |
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Meredith | ║..|........|........|...║===================================║....|
(1828–1909) | | | | | | | | |
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Carlyle |........|.║============================║....|........|..║ | |
(1795–1881) | | | | | | | | |
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Macaulay |..║==============================║ | | | | |
(1800–59) | | | | | | | | |
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Ruskin |........|........|...║===========================================║.....|║
(1819–1900) | | | | | | | | |
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
=1. An Era of Peace.= The few colonial wars that broke out during
the Victorian epoch did not seriously disturb the national life.
There was one Continental war that directly affected Britain--the
Crimean War--and one that affected her indirectly though strongly--the
Franco-German struggle; yet neither of these caused any profound
changes. In America the great civil struggle left scars that were soon
to be obliterated by the wise statesmanship of her rulers. The whole
age may be not unfairly described as one of peaceful activity. In the
earlier stages the lessening surges of the French Revolution were still
left; but by the middle of the century they had almost completely died
down, and other hopes and ideals, largely pacific, were gradually
taking their place.
=2. Material Developments.= It was an age alive with new activities.
There was a revolution in commercial enterprise, due to the great
increase of available markets, and, as a result of this, an immense
advance in the use of mechanical devices. The new commercial energy was
reflected in the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was greeted as the
inauguration of a new era of prosperity.
=3. Intellectual Developments.= There can be little doubt that
in many cases material wealth produced a hardness of temper and an
impatience of projects and ideas that brought no return in hard cash;
yet it is to the credit of this age that intellectual activities
were so numerous. There was quite a revolution in scientific thought
following upon the works of Darwin and his school, and an immense
outburst of social and political theorizing which was represented in
England by the writings of men like Herbert Spencer and John Stuart
Mill. In addition, popular education became a practical thing. This
in its turn produced a new hunger for intellectual food, and resulted
in a great increase in the productions of the Press and of other more
durable species of literature.
LITERARY FEATURES OF THE AGE
The sixty years (1830–90) commonly included under the name of the
Victorian age present many dissimilar features; yet in several respects
we can safely generalize.
=1. Its Morality.= Nearly all observers of the Victorian age are
struck by its extreme deference to the conventions. To a later age
these seem ludicrous. It was thought indecorous for a man to smoke in
public and (much later in the century) for a lady to ride a bicycle.
To a great extent the new morality was a natural revolt against the
grossness of the earlier Regency, and the influence of the Victorian
Court was all in its favor. In literature it is amply reflected.
Tennyson is the most conspicuous example in poetry, creating the
priggishly complacent Sir Galahad and King Arthur. Dickens, perhaps the
most representative of the Victorian novelists, took for his model the
old picaresque novel; but it is almost laughable to observe his anxiety
to be “moral.” This type of writing is quite blameless, but it produced
the kind of public that denounced the innocuous _Jane Eyre_ as
wicked because it dealt with the harmless affection of a girl for a
married man.
=2. The Revolt.= Many writers protested against the deadening
effects of the conventions. Carlyle and Matthew Arnold, in their
different accents, were loud in their denunciations; Thackeray never
tired of satirizing the snobbishness of the age; and Browning’s cobbly
mannerisms were an indirect challenge to the velvety diction and
the smooth self-satisfaction of the Tennysonian school. As the age
proceeded the reaction strengthened. In poetry the Pre-Raphaelites, led
by Swinburne and William Morris, proclaimed no morality but that of
the artist’s regard for his art. By the vigor of his methods Swinburne
horrified the timorous, and made himself rather ridiculous in the eyes
of sensible people. It remained for Mr. Hardy (whom we reserve for the
next chapter) to pull aside the Victorian veils and shutters and with
the large tolerance of the master to regard men’s actions with open
gaze. To the present day, sometimes wisely, often unwisely, poet and
novelist have carried on the process; and the end is not yet.
=3. Intellectual Developments.= The literary product was
inevitably affected by the new ideas in science, religion, and
politics. _The Origin of Species_ (1859) of Darwin shook to its
foundations scientific thought. We can perceive the influence of such a
work in Tennyson’s _In Memoriam_, in Matthew Arnold’s meditative
poetry, and in the works of Carlyle. In religious and ethical thought
the “Oxford Movement,” as it was called, was the most noteworthy
advance. This movement had its source among the young and eager
thinkers of the old university, and was headed by the great Newman, who
ultimately (1845) joined the Church of Rome. As a religious portent
it marked the widespread discontent with the existing beliefs of the
Church of England; as a literary influence it affected many writers
of note, including Newman himself, Froude, Maurice, Kingsley, and
Gladstone.
=4. The New Education.= The Education Acts, making a certain
measure of education compulsory, rapidly produced an enormous reading
public. The cheapening of printing and paper increased the demand for
books, so that the production was multiplied. The most popular form
of literature was the novel, and the novelists responded with a will.
Much of their work was of a high standard, so much so that it has been
asserted by competent critics that the middle years of the nineteenth
century were the richest in the whole history of the novel.
=5. International Influences.= During the nineteenth century the
interaction among American and European writers was remarkably fresh
and strong. In Britain the influence of the great German writers was
continuous, and it was championed by Carlyle and Matthew Arnold.
Subject nations, in particular the Italians, were a sympathetic theme
for prose and verse. The Brownings, Swinburne, Morris, and Meredith
were deeply absorbed in the long struggle of the followers of Garibaldi
and Cavour; and when Italian freedom was gained the rejoicings were
genuine.
=6. The Achievement of the Age.= With all its immense production,
the age produced no supreme writer. It revealed no Shakespeare, no
Shelley, nor (in the international sense) a Byron or a Scott. The
general literary level was, however, very high; and it was an age,
moreover, of spacious intellectual horizons, noble endeavor, and bright
aspirations.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON (1809–92)
=1. His Life.= Alfred Tennyson, the son of a clergyman, was born at
his father’s living at Somersby in Lincolnshire. After some schooling
at Louth, which was not agreeable to him, he proceeded to Cambridge
(1828). At the university he was a wholly conventional person, and
the only mark he made was to win the Chancellor’s Prize for a poem
on Timbuctoo. He left Cambridge without taking a degree; but before
doing so he published a small volume of mediocre verse. During the
next twenty years he passed a tranquil existence, living chiefly with
his parents, and writing much poetry. Pleasant jaunts--to the Lake
District, to Stratford-on-Avon, and other places--varied his peaceful
life, and all the while his fame as a poet was making headway. In
1844 he lost most of his small means in an unlucky speculation, but
in the nick of time (1845) he received a Government pension. He was
appointed Poet Laureate (1850) in succession to Wordsworth, married,
and removed to Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight, which was his home for
the next twenty years. In his later years recognition and applause came
increasingly upon him, and he was regarded as the greatest poet of his
day. In 1884 he was created a baron, sat in the House of Lords, and for
a time took himself rather seriously as a politician, falling out with
Gladstone over the Irish question. He died at Aldworth, near Haslemere,
in Surrey, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
=2. His Poetry.= When he was seventeen years old Tennyson collaborated
with his elder brother Charles in _Poems by Two Brothers_ (1826).
The volume is a slight one, but in the light of his later work we
can already discern a little of the Tennysonian metrical aptitude
and descriptive power. His prize poem of _Timbuctoo_ (1829) is not
much better than the usual prize poem. His _Poems, Chiefly Lyrical_
(1830), published while he was an undergraduate, are yet immature, but
in pieces like _Isabel_ and _Madeleine_ the pictorial effect and the
sumptuous imagery of his maturer style are already conspicuous.
His volume of _Poems_ (1832) is of a different quality, and marks a
decided advance. In this book, which contains _Mariana in the South_
and _The Palace of Art_, we see the Tennysonian features approaching
perfection. _Poems_ (1833), with such notable items as _Œnone_ and
_The Lotos-Eaters_, advances still further in technique. Then in 1842
he produced two volumes of poetry that set him once and for all among
the greater poets of his day. The first volume contains revised forms
of some of the numbers published previously, the second is entirely
new. It opens with _Morte d’Arthur_, and contains _Ulysses_, _Locksley
Hall_, and several other poems that stand at the summit of his
achievement.
The later stages of his career are marked chiefly by much longer poems.
_The Princess_ (1847) is a serio-comic attempt to handle the theme
that was then known as “the new woman.” For the sake of his story
Tennyson imagines a ladies’ academy with a mutinously intellectual
princess at the head of it. For a space a tragedy seems imminent, but
in the end all is well, for the Princess is married to the blameless
hero. The poem is in blank verse, but interspersed are several
singularly beautiful lyrics. The humor is heavy, but many of the
descriptions are as rich and wonderful as any Tennyson ever attempted.
_In Memoriam_ (1850) caused a great stir when it first appeared.
It is a very long series of meditations upon the death of Arthur
Henry Hallam, Tennyson’s college friend, who died at Vienna in 1833.
Tennyson brooded over the subject for years; and upon this elegiac
theme he imposed numerous meditations on life and death, showing how
these subjects were affected by the new theories of the day. To a later
generation his ideas appear pallid enough; but at the time they marked
a great advance upon the notions of the past. The poem is adorned with
many beautiful sketches of English scenery; and the meter--now called
the _In Memoriam_ meter--which is quite rare, is deftly managed.
_Maud and Other Poems_ (1855) was received with amazement by the
public. The chief poem is called a “monodrama”; it consists of a series
of lyrics which reflect the love and hatred, the hope and despair, of
a lover who slays his mistress’s brother, and then flies broken to
France. The whole tone of the work is forced and fevered, and it ends
in a glorification of war and bloodshed. It does not add to Tennyson’s
fame.
Beginning in 1859, Tennyson issued a series of _Idylls of the
King_, which had considered and attempted a great theme that Milton
abandoned--that of King Arthur and the Round Table. Many doting
admirers saw in the _Idylls_ an allegory of the soul of man; but in
effect Tennyson drew largely upon the simple tales of Malory, stripping
them of their “bold bawdry” to please his public, and covering them
with a thick coating of his delicate and detailed ornamentation. It is
doubtful if this unnatural compound of Malory-Tennyson is quite a happy
one, but we do obtain much blank verse of noble and sustained power.
The only other poem of any length is _Enoch Arden_ (1864), which
became the most popular of all, and found its way in translation into
foreign languages. The plot is cheap enough, dealing with a seaman,
supposedly drowned, who returns and, finding his wife happily married
to another man, regretfully retires without making himself known. The
tale, as ever, is rich with Tennysonian adornment. In particular, there
is a description of the tropical island where Enoch is wrecked that is
among the highest flights of the poet:
The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns
And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven,
The slender coco’s drooping crown of plumes,
The lightning flash of insect and of bird,
The lustre of the long convolvuluses
That coiled around the stately stems, and ran
Even to the limit of the land, the glows
And glories of the broad belt of the world,
All these he saw; but what he fain had seen
He could not see, the kindly human face,
Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard
The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl,
The league-long roller thundering on the reef.
His last poems contain a harsher note, as if old age had brought
disillusion and a peevish discontent with the pleasant artifices that
had graced his prime. Even the later instalments of the _Idylls of the
King_ contain jarring notes, and are often fretful and unhappy in tone.
Among the shorter poems, _Locksley Hall Sixty Years after_ (1885) and
_The Death of Œnone_ (1892) are sad echoes of the sumptuous imaginings
of the years preceding 1842.
=3. His Plays.= Tennyson’s dramas occupied his later years. He wrote
three historical plays--_Queen Mary_ (1875), _Harold_ (1877), and
_Becket_ (1884). The last, owing chiefly to the exertions of Sir Henry
Irving, the actor-manager, was quite a stage success. None, however,
ranks high as a real dramatic effort, though all show much care and
skill. _The Falcon_ (1879) is a comedy based on a story from Boccaccio;
_The Cup_ (1880) is based on a story from Plutarch, and scored a
success, also through the skill of Irving. _The Foresters_ (1892),
dealing with the familiar Robin Hood theme, was produced in America.
=4. His Poetical Characteristics.= (_a_) _His Craftsmanship._ No one
can deny the great care and skill shown in Tennyson’s work. His method
of producing poetry was slowly to evolve the lines in his mind, commit
them to paper, and to revise them till they were as near perfection
as he could make them. Consequently we have a high level of poetical
artistry. No one excels Tennyson in the deft application of sound to
sense and in the subtle and pervading employment of alliteration and
vowel-music. Such passages as this abound in his work:
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro’ the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
_The Princess_
This is perhaps not the highest poetry, but shows only a kind of
manual, or rather aural, dexterity; yet as Tennyson employs it, it is
effective to a degree.
His excellent craftsmanship is also apparent in his handling of
English meters, in which he is a tireless experimenter. In blank verse
he is not so varied and powerful as Shakespeare, nor so majestical
as Milton, but in the skill of his workmanship and in his wealth of
diction he falls but little short of these great masters.
(_b_) _His Pictorial Quality._ In this respect Tennyson follows the
example of Keats. Nearly all of his poems, even the simplest, abound in
ornate description of natural and other scenes. His method is to seize
upon appropriate details, dress them in expressive and musical phrases,
and thus throw a glistening image before the reader’s eye:
The silk star-broider’d coverlid
Unto her limbs itself doth mould
Languidly ever; and, amid
Her full black ringlets downward rolled,
Glows forth each softly-shadowed arm
With bracelets of the diamond bright:
Her constant beauty doth inform
Stillness with love, and day with light.
_The Sleeping Beauty_
Till now the doubtful dusk reveal’d
The knolls once more where, couched at ease,
The white kine glimmered, and the trees
Laid their dark arms about the field:
And sucked from out the distant gloom
A breeze began to tremble o’er
The large leaves of the sycamore,
And fluctuate all the still perfume.
_In Memoriam_
Such passages as these reveal Tennyson at his best; but once again the
doubt arises as to whether they represent the highest poetry. They show
care of observation and a studious loveliness of epithet; but they lack
the intense insight, the ringing and romantic note, of the best efforts
of Keats.
(_c_) Tennyson’s _lyrical quality_ is somewhat uneven. The slightest
of his pieces, like _Blow, bugle, blow_, are musical and attractive;
but on the whole his nature was too self-conscious, and perhaps his
life too regular and prosperous, to provide a background for the true
lyrical intensity of emotion. Once or twice, as in the wonderful
_Break, break, break_ and _Crossing the Bar_, he touches real greatness:
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
This lyric has a brevity, unity, and simple earnestness of emotion that
make it truly great.
(_d_) The extracts already given have sufficiently revealed the
qualities of his _style_. It can be quite simple, as in _The Brook_
and _Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue_; but his typical style shows
a slow and somewhat sententious progress, heavy with imagery and all
the other devices of the poetical artist. In particular, he is an
adept at coining phrases--“jewels five words long,” as he himself
aptly expressed it; and he is almost invariably happy in his choice of
epithet.
(_e_) His _reputation_ has already declined from the idolatry in which
he was held when he was alive. He himself foresaw “the clamour and the
cry” that was bound to arise after his death. To his contemporaries he
was a demigod; but younger men strongly assailed his patent literary
mannerisms, his complacent acceptance of the evils of his time, his
flattery of the great, and his somewhat arrogant assumption of the
airs of immortality. Consequently for twenty years after his death his
reputation suffered considerably. Once more reaction has set in, and
his detractors have modified their attitude. He is not a supreme poet;
and whether he will maintain the primacy among the singers of his own
generation, as he undoubtedly did during his lifetime, remains to be
seen; but, after all deductions are made, his high place in the Temple
of Fame is assured.
ROBERT BROWNING (1812–89)
=1. His Life.= Browning was born at Camberwell, his father being
connected with the Bank of England. The future poet was educated
semi-privately, and from an early age he was free to follow his
inclination toward studying unusual subjects. As a child he was
precocious, and began to write poetry at the age of twelve. Of his
predecessors Shelley in particular influenced his mind, which was
unformed and turbulent at this time with the growing power within.
After a brief course at London University, Browning for a short period
traveled in Russia (1833); then he lived in London, where he became
acquainted with some of the leaders of the literary and theatrical
worlds. In 1834 he paid his first visit to Italy, a country which was
for him a fitful kind of home. In 1845 he visited Elizabeth Barrett,
the poetess, whose works had strongly attracted him. A mutual liking
ensued, and then, after a private marriage, a sort of elopement
followed, to escape the anger of the wife’s stern parent. The remainder
of Browning’s life was occupied with journeys between England and
France and Italy, and with much poetical activity. His wife died at
Florence in 1861, leaving one son. Browning thereupon left the city
for good and returned to England, though in 1878 he went back once
more to Italy. His works, after suffering much neglect, were now being
appreciated, and in 1867 Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L.
He died in Italy, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
=2. His Poems and Plays.= His first work of any importance is
_Pauline_ (1833). The poem is a wild imitation of the more
extravagant outbursts of Shelley, whom it praises effusively. The work
is crude and feverish, and at the time it attracted little notice.
_Paracelsus_ (1835) reveals Browning’s affection for unusual
subjects. The poem, a very long one, is composed largely of monologues
of the medieval charlatan whose name forms the title. The work gave
the public its first taste of Browning’s famous “obscurity.” The style
is often harsh and rugged, but the blank verse contains many isolated
passages of great tenderness and beauty. There are in addition one or
two charming lyrics that are as limpid as well-water:
Thus the Mayne glideth
Where my love abideth.
Sleep’s no softer: it proceeds
On through lawns, on through meads,
On and on, whate’er befall,
Meandering and musical,
Though the niggard pasturage
Bears not on its shaven ledge
Aught but weeds and waving grasses
To view the river as it passes,
Save here and there a scanty patch
Of primrose too faint to catch
A weary bee.
His next effort was the play _Strafford_ (1837), which was written
at the suggestion of the actor Macready, and was fairly successful.
_Sordello_ (1840) established Browning’s reputation for obscurity. The
poem professes to tell the life-story of a Mantuan troubadour, but most
of it is occupied with long irrelevant speeches and with Browning’s
commentary thereon. _Pippa Passes_ (1841) is in form a drama. In
plot it is highly improbable, as it is based on several coincidences
that all happen in one day. The work is rather more terse than its
predecessors, and the purple patches are more numerous. Pippa’s songs,
moreover, are often of great beauty. In _Dramatic Lyrics_ (1842) there
are many examples of clear and forcible work, including his Cavalier
lyrics and such well-known pieces as _Home Thoughts from Abroad_.
Other works of this period include _The Return of the Druses_ (1843),
a play; _Dramatic Romances_ (1846), which shows the Browning obscurity
and virility at their best and worst; _Luria_ (1846), perhaps the
weakest of his tragedies, resembling _Othello_ in some respects;
_Men and Women_ (1855), consisting of dramatic monologues, some of
great power and penetration; _Dramatis Personæ_ (1864), containing
more monologues; _Balaustion’s Adventure_ (1871), a transcript from
Euripides; and the longest of all his works, _The Ring and the Book_
(1868–69), with which the period closes.
_The Ring and the Book_ is (the word is so apt as to be inevitable)
a literary “stunt.” It is the story of the murder of a young wife,
Pompilia, by her worthless husband, in the year 1698, and the same
story is told by nine different people, and continues for twelve books.
The result is a monument of masterly discursiveness.
In the later stages of his career Browning’s mannerisms are accentuated
in the dreary wildernesses of _Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_ (1871),
_Red Cotton Night-Cap Country_ (1873), _The Inn Album_ (1875), and _La
Saisiaz_ (1878). It is difficult to understand the use of such poems,
except to give employment to the Browning Societies that were springing
up to explain them. But his better qualities are shown in _Fifine at
the Fair_ (1872), which is still too long; _Dramatic Idylls_ (1879–80);
_Jocoseria_ (1883); _Ferishtah’s Fancies_ (1884); and _Parleyings with
Certain People_ (1887). His long life’s work has a powerful close in
_Asolando_ (1889), which, along with much of the tired disillusion of
the old man, has in places the firmness and enthusiasm of his prime.
The last verses he ever wrote describe himself in the character he most
loved to adopt:
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.
No, at noonday in the bustle of man’s worktime
Greet the unseen with a cheer!
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,
“Strive and thrive!” cry, “Speed,--fight on, fare ever
There as here!”
=3. Features of his Work.= (_a_) _His Style._ Browning’s style
has been the subject of endless discussion, for it presents a
fascinating problem. Within itself it reveals the widest range. Its
famous “obscurity” was so pronounced that it led to the production
of “Browning dictionaries” and other apparatus to disclose the deep
meanings of the master. This feature of his work is partly due to his
fondness for recondite subjects, to his compression and also to his
diffuseness of thought and language, and to his juggling with words
and meters. It often leads to such passages as the following, which is
nothing less than jockeying with the English language:
Now, your rater and debater
Is baulked by a mere spectator
Who simply stares and listens
Tongue tied, while eye nor glistens
Nor brow grows hot and twitchy,
Nor mouth, for a combat itchy,
Quivers with some convincing
Reply--that sets him wincing?
Nay, rather, reply that furnishes
Your debater with what burnishes
The crest of him, all one triumph,
As you see him rise, hear him cry “Humph!
Convinced am I? This confutes me.
Receive the rejoinder that suits me!
Confutation of vassal for prince meet--
Wherein all the powers that convince meet,
And mash my opponent to mincemeat!”
_Pacchiarotto_
In contrast with this huddle of words, Browning can write clearly and
with perfect cohesion and directness, as may easily be seen in such
well-known poems as _How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix_,
_Time’s Revenges_, and _The Glove_. His middle style, common in his
blank verse and his lyrics, is somewhat like that of Byron in its fine
prosaic aptness:
This flower she stopped at, finger on lip,
Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim;
Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip,
Its soft meandering Spanish name:
What a name! Was it love or praise?
Speech half-asleep or song half-awake?
I must learn Spanish, one of these days,
Only for that slow sweet name’s sake.
_Garden Fancies_
(_b_) _His Descriptive Power._ In this respect Browning differs widely
from Tennyson, who slowly creates a lovely image by careful massing of
detail. Browning, however, makes one or two dashing strokes, and, by
his complete mastery of phrase, the picture is revealed:
Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech;
Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam,
That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown
He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye
By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue
That pricks deep into oakworts for a worm,
And says a plain word when she finds her prize.
_Caliban upon Setebos_
This love for the picturesque leads him into many crooked byways
of life, manners, and history, often with results that dismay his
warmest admirers. Frequently, however, the stubborn thistle of his
style blossoms into glossy purples. For example, in _The Ring and the
Book_, we often light upon a tender passage like the following, which
refreshes the whole arid page around it:
So, when the she-dove breeds, strange yearnings come
For the unknown shelter by undreamed-of shores,
And there is born a blood-pulse in her heart
To fight if needs be, though with flap of wing,
For the wool-flock or the fur-tuft, though a hawk
Contest the prize.
(_c_) _His Teaching._ Much play has been made with this side of his
writings. But, after analysis, his teaching can with fairness be summed
up in the simple exhortation to strive, hope, and fear not. A fair
proportion of his poems are inspired with the facile optimism that led
him to cry,
God’s in his heaven,
All’s right with the world,
but his sager mind let him perceive that much of the world was wrong.
He had generous enthusiasms, such as that for the cause of Italian
liberty; several strong prejudices, such as that against spiritualism;
but on the whole his is a fair reflex of the average mind of his day,
with the addition of much reading and observation and the priceless
boon of genuine poetical genius.
(_d_) _His Reputation._ Recognition was slow in coming, but like
Wordsworth he lived to see his name established high among his fellows.
He wrote too freely, and often too carelessly and perversely, and much
of his work will pass into oblivion; but the residue will be of quality
high enough to make his fame secure.
OTHER POETS
=1. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61)=, whose maiden name was
Elizabeth Barrett, was the daughter of a West India planter, and was
born at Durham. She began to write poems at the age of eight; her first
published work worth mentioning was _An Essay on Mind_ (1826),
which is of slight importance. When she was about thirty years old
delicate health prostrated her, and for the rest of her life she was
almost an invalid. In 1846, when she was forty, she and Robert Browning
were married, and stole off to Italy, where they made Florence their
headquarters. She was a woman of acute sensibilities, and was fervid
in the support of many good causes, one of which was the attainment
of Italian independence. On the death of Wordsworth in 1850 it was
suggested that the Laureateship should be conferred upon her, but the
project fell through. After a very happy married life she died at
Florence.
Only the chief of her numerous poetical works can be mentioned here.
After her first work noted above there was a pause of nine years; then
appeared _Prometheus Bound_ (1835). Other works are _The Seraphim_
(1838), _Sonnets from the Portuguese_ (1846), _Casa Guidi Windows_
(1851), _Aurora Leigh_ (1857), an immense poem in blank verse,
and _Last Poems_ (1861). She wrote many of her shorter pieces for
magazines, the most important contributions being _The Cry of the
Children_ (1841) for _Blackwood’s_ and _The Great God Pan_ (1860) for
the _Cornhill_. As a narrative poet Mrs. Browning is a comparative
failure, for in method she is discursive and confused, but she has
command of a sweet, clear, and often passionate style. She has many
slips of taste, and her desire for elevation sometimes leads her into
what Rossetti called “falsetto masculinity,” a kind of hysterical
bravado.
=2. Matthew Arnold (1822–88)= was a writer of many activities, but it
is chiefly as a poet that he now holds his place in literature. He
was the son of the famous headmaster of Rugby, and was educated at
Winchester, Rugby, and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained the
Newdigate Prize for poetry. Subsequently he became a Fellow of Oriel
College (1845). In 1851 he was appointed an inspector of schools, and
proved to be a capable official. His life was busily uneventful, and in
1886 he resigned, receiving a pension from the Government. Less than
two years afterward he died suddenly of heart disease.
His poetical works are not very bulky. _The Strayed Reveller_ (1848)
appeared under the _nom de plume_ of “A”; then followed _Empedocles
on Etna_ (1853), _Poems_ (1854), and _New Poems_ (1868). None of
these volumes is of large size, though much of the content is of a
high quality. For subject Arnold is fond of classical themes, to
which he gives a meditative and even melancholy cast common in modern
compositions. In some of the poems--as, for example, in the nobly
pessimistic _Scholar-Gipsy_--he excels in the description of typical
English scenery. In style he has much of the classical stateliness and
more formal type of beauty, but he can be graceful and charming, with
sometimes the note of real passion. His meditative poetry, like _Dover
Beach_ and _A Summer Night_, resembles that of Gray in its subdued
melancholy resignation, but all his work is careful, scholarly, and
workmanlike.
His prose works are large in bulk and wide in range. Of them all
his critical essays are probably of the highest value. _Essays in
Criticism_ (1865) contains the best of his critical work, which is
marked by wide reading and careful thought. His judgment, usually
admirably sane and measured, is sometimes distorted a little by his
views on life and politics. Arnold also wrote freely upon theological
and political themes, but these were largely topics of the day, and his
works on such subjects have no great permanent value. His best books of
this class are _Culture and Anarchy_ (1869) and _Literature and Dogma_
(1873).
=3. Edward Fitzgerald (1809–83)=, like Thomas Gray, lives in general
literature by one poem. This, after long neglect, came to be regarded
as one of the great things in English literature. He was a man of
original views and retiring habits, and spent most of his life in his
native Suffolk. In 1859 he issued the _Rubáiyát_ of the early Persian
poet Omar Khayyám. His version is a very free translation, cast into
curious four-lined stanzas, which have an extraordinary cadence, rugged
yet melodious, strong yet sweet. The feeling expressed in the verses,
with much energy and picturesque effect, is stoical resignation.
Fitzgerald also wrote a prose dialogue of much beauty called
_Euphranor_ (1851); and his surviving letters testify to his quiet and
caustic humor.
=4. Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–61)= was born at Liverpool, and educated
at Rugby, where Dr. Arnold made a deep impression upon his mind. He
proceeded to Oxford, where, like his friend Matthew Arnold, he later
became a Fellow of Oriel College. He traveled much, and then became
Warden of University Hall, London. This post he soon resigned, and
some public appointments followed. He died at Florence, after a long
pilgrimage to restore his failing health. His death was bewailed by
Arnold in his beautiful elegy _Thyrsis_.
Clough’s first long poem was _The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich_ (1848),
which is written in rough classical hexameters and contains some fine
descriptions of the Scottish Highlands. He wrote little else of much
value. His _Amours de Voyage_ (1849) is also in hexameters; _Dipsychus_
(1850) is a meditative poem. His poetry is charged with much of the
deep-seated unrest and despondency that mark the work of Arnold. His
lyrical gift is not great, but once at least, in the powerful _Say not
the Struggle Naught Availeth_, he soared into greatness.
=5. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82)= was the eldest of the
Pre-Raphaelite school of artists and poets. He himself was both artist
and poet. He was the son of an Italian refugee, and early became an
artist. In art, as in poetry, he broke away from convention when he saw
fit. His poetical works are small in bulk, consisting of two slight
volumes, _Poems_ (1870) and _Ballads and Sonnets_ (1881).
Of the high quality of these poems there can be little question. With
a little more breadth of view, and with perhaps more of the humane
element in him, he might have found a place among the very highest.
For he had real genius, and in _The Blessed Damozel_ his gifts are
fully displayed: a gift for description of almost uncanny splendor, a
brooding and passionate introspection, often of a religious nature,
and a verbal beauty as studied and melodious as that of Tennyson--less
certain and decisive perhaps, but surpassing that of the older poet in
unearthly suggestiveness. In his ballads, like _Rose Mary_ and _Troy
Town_, the same powers are apparent, though in a lesser degree; these
have in addition a power of narrative that is only a very little short
of the greatest. An extract appears on p. 515.
=6. Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–94)= was a younger sister of
the poet last named, and survived him by some years. Her life was
uneventful, like her brother’s, and was passed chiefly in London.
Her bent was almost entirely lyrical, and was shown in _Goblin
Market_ (1862), _The Prince’s Progress_ (1866), _A Pageant_ (1881),
and _Verses_ (1892). Another volume, called _New Poems_ (1896),
was published after her death, and contains much excellent early
work. Her poetry, perhaps less impressive than that of her brother
in its descriptive passages, has a purer lyrical note of deep and
sustained passion, with a somewhat larger command of humor, and a
gift of poetical expression as noble and comprehensive as his own.
They resemble each other in a curious still undertone of passionate
religious meditation joined to a fine simplicity of diction.
=7. William Morris (1834–96)= produced a great amount of poetry, and
was one of the most conspicuous figures in mid-Victorian literature. He
was born near London, the son of a wealthy merchant, and was educated
at Marlborough and Oxford. His wealth, freeing him from the drudgery
of a profession, permitted him to take a lively and practical interest
in the questions of his day. Upon art, education, politics, and social
problems his great energy and powerful mind led him to take very
decided views, sometimes of an original nature. Here we are concerned
only with his achievement in literature.
At an early period he was drawn into the Pre-Raphaelite movement,
for he was keenly alive to its studied beauty and rather extreme
medievalism. _The Defence of Guenevere_ (1858), written in this
manner, was received with neglect. The poems are laboriously fantastic,
but they show great beauty and a sense of restrained passion. _The
Life and Death of Jason_ (1866) is a long narrative poem on a
familiar theme, written in the heroic couplet in a manner suggestive
of Chaucer, but easy and melodious to an extent that makes the tale
almost monotonous. _The Earthly Paradise_ (1868–70) develops this
narrative method still further, and is a collection of twenty-four
tales on various subjects of classical and medieval origin. In meter
the poems vary, but the couplet is prominent. In range and vivacity
the work is extraordinary, and the framework into which the tales are
set is both ingenious and beautiful. _Poems by the Way_ (1891)
contains some fine miscellaneous pieces. A brief extract from his poems
will be found on p. 514.
Morris also busied himself with the composition of long prose tales,
produced in great quantity during the later years of his life. The
tales are written in a curious headlong, semi-rhythmical, semi-archaic
style. Much reading of it tends to give the reader mental indigestion,
but the vigor and skill of the prose are very considerable. Some of the
tales are _The House of the Wolfings_ (1889), _The Roots of the
Mountains_ (1890), _The Story of the Glittering Plain_ (1891),
and _The Sundering Flood_ (1898).
=8. Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)= had a long life and his
poetical work was in proportion to it. Of aristocratic lineage, he was
educated at Eton and Oxford. He left Oxford (1860) without taking a
degree, and for the rest of his life wrote voluminously, if not always
judiciously. He was a man of quick attachments and violent antagonisms,
and these features of his character did much to vitiate his prose
criticisms, of which he wrote a large number. In his later years, from
1879 onward, he lived with his friend Theodore Watts-Dunton at Putney
Hill, where he died.
_Atalanta in Calydon_ (1865), an attempt at an English version of an
ancient Greek tragedy, was his first considerable effort in poetic
form, and it attracted notice at once. At a bound the young poet had
attained to a style of his own: tuneful and impetuous movement, a
cunning metrical craftsmanship, and a mastery of melodious diction.
The excess of these virtues was also its bane, leading to diffuseness,
breathlessness, and incoherence. _Poems and Ballads_ (1866), a second
extraordinary book, was, owing to its choice of unconventional
subjects, criticized as being wicked. In it the Swinburnian features
already mentioned are revealed in a stronger fashion. Only a few of his
later poetical works can be mentioned here: _Songs before Sunrise_
(1871), a collection of poems chiefly in praise of Italian liberty,
some of them of great beauty, but marred by his reckless defiance of
the common view; _Erectheus_ (1876), a further and less successful
effort at Greek tragedy; and _Tristram of Lyonesse_ (1882), a narrative
of much passion and force, composed in the heroic couplet. Some of
his shorter poems were reproduced in two further series of _Poems and
Ballads_ in 1878 and 1889, but they are inferior to those of his prime.
Swinburne wrote a large number of plays, of which the most noteworthy
are _The Queen Mother and Rosamond_ (1860), with which he began his
career as an author; three plays on the subject of Mary Queen of Scots,
called _Chastelard_ (1865), _Bothwell_ (1874), and _Mary Stuart_
(1881); _Locrine_ (1887); and _The Sisters_ (1892). The gifts of
Swinburne are lyrical rather than dramatic, and his tragedies, like
those of most of his contemporaries, are only of literary importance.
His blank verse is strongly phrased, and in drama his diffuseness--that
desire for mere sound and speed which was his greatest weakness--has
little scope.
=9. Arthur Edward O’Shaughnessy (1844–81)= was born in London, of Irish
descent. In 1861 he joined the staff of the British Museum Library,
where a promising career was cut short by his early death. He wrote
little, and his books came close upon each other: _The Epic of Women_
(1870), _Lays of France_ (1872), _Music and Moonlight_ (1874), and
_Songs of a Worker_ (1881), the last appearing after his death. His
longer poems have a certain haziness and incoherence, but the shorter
pieces have a musical and attractive style and a certain half-mystical
wistfulness. His ode beginning “We are the music-makers” is often
quoted, and other poems quite as good are _A Neglected Heart_ and
_Exile_.
CHARLES DICKENS (1812–70)
=1. His Life.= Dickens was born near Portsea, where his father
was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office. Charles, the second of eight
children, was a delicate child, and much of his boyhood was spent at
home, where he read the novels of Smollett, Fielding, and Le Sage. The
works of these writers were to influence his own novels very deeply.
At an early age also he became very fond of the theater, a fondness
that remained with him all his life, and affected his novels to a
great extent. In 1823 the Dickens family removed to London, where
the father, an improvident man of the Micawber type, soon drew them
into money difficulties. The schooling of Charles, which had all
along been desultory enough, was temporarily suspended. The boy for a
time worked in a blacking factory while his father was an inmate of
the debtors’ prison of the Marshalsea. After a year or so financial
matters improved; the education of Charles was resumed; then in 1827
he entered the office of an attorney, and in time became an expert
shorthand-writer. This proficiency led (1835) to an appointment as
reporter on the _Morning Chronicle_. In this capacity he did much
traveling by stage-coach, during which a keen eye and a retentive
memory stored material to exploit a greatness yet undreamed of.
Previously, in 1833, some articles which he called _Sketches by
Boz_ had appeared in _The Monthly Magazine_. They were brightly
written, and attracted some notice.
In 1836 Messrs. Chapman and Hall, a firm of publishers, had agreed to
produce in periodical form a series of sketches by Seymour, a popular
black-and-white artist. The subjects were of a sporting and convivial
kind, and to give them more general interest some story was needed to
accompany them. Dickens was requested to supply the “book,” and thus
originated _The Pickwick Papers_ (1836). Before the issue of the
second number of the prints Seymour committed suicide, and Hablot
K. Browne, who adopted the name of “Phiz,” carried on the work. His
illustrations are still commonly adopted for Dickens’s books.
_The Pickwick Papers_ was a great success; Dickens’s fame was secure,
and the rest of his life was that of a busy and successful novelist.
He lived to enjoy a reputation that was unexampled, surpassing even
that of Scott; for the appeal of Dickens was wider and more searching
than that of the Scottish novelist. He varied his work with much
traveling--among other places to America (1842), to Italy (1844), to
Switzerland (1846), and again to America (1867). His popularity was
exploited in journalism, for he edited _The Daily News_ (1846), and
founded _Household Words_ (1849) and _All the Year Round_ (1859). In
1858 Dickens commenced his famous series of public readings. These were
actings rather than readings, for he chose some of the most violent or
affecting scenes from his novels and presented them with full-blown
histrionic effect. The readings brought him much money, but they
wore him down physically. They were also given in America, with the
greatest success. He died in his favorite house, Gad’s Hill Place, near
Rochester, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
=2. His Novels.= _Sketches by Boz_ (1833), a series dealing with London
life in the manner of Leigh Hunt, is interesting, but trifling when
compared with _The Pickwick Papers_ (1836), its successor. The plot of
the latter book is rudimentary. In order to provide an occasion for
Seymour’s sketches Dickens hit upon the idea of a sporting club, to
be called the Pickwick Club. As the book proceeds this idea is soon
dropped, and the story becomes a kind of large and genial picaresque
novel. The incidents are loosely connected and the chronology will not
bear close inspection, but in abundance of detail of a high quality,
in vivacity of humor, in acute and accurate observation, the book is
of the first rank. It is doubtful if Dickens ever improved upon it.
Then, before _Pickwick_ was finished, _Oliver Twist_ (1837) appeared
piecemeal in _Bentley’s Miscellany_; and _Nicholas Nickleby_ (1838)
was begun before the second novel had ceased to appear. The demand for
Dickens’s novels was now enormous, and he was assiduous in catering for
his public. For his next novels he constructed a somewhat elaborate
framework, calling the work _Master Humphrey’s Clock_; but he sensibly
abandoned the notion, and the books appeared separately as _The Old
Curiosity Shop_ (1840), which was an immense success, and _Barnaby
Rudge_ (1841), a historical novel. In 1842 he sailed to America,
where his experiences bore fruit in _American Notes_ (1843) and
_Martin Chuzzlewit_ (1843). These works were not complimentary to the
Americans, and they brought him much unpopularity in the United States.
_A Christmas Carol_ (1843) and _Dombey and Son_ (1848) appeared next,
the latter being written partly at Lausanne. Then in 1849 he started
_David Copperfield_, which contains many of his personal experiences
and is often considered to be his masterpiece, though for many critics
_The Pickwick Papers_ retains its primacy.
From this point onward a certain decline is manifest. His stories
drag; his mannerisms become more apparent, and his splendid buoyancy
is less visible. _Bleak House_ (1852) and _Hard Times_ (1854) were
written for his _Household Words_; _Little Dorrit_ (1856) appeared in
monthly parts; _A Tale of Two Cities_ (1859) and _Great Expectations_
(1860) were for _All the Year Round_. After producing _Our Mutual
Friend_ (1864) he paid his second visit to America, and was received
very cordially. He returned to England, but did not live to finish _The
Mystery of Edwin Drood_, which was appearing in monthly parts when he
died.
=3. Features of his Novels.= (_a_) _Their Popularity._ At the age of
twenty-six Dickens was a popular author. This was a happy state of
affairs for him, and to his books it served as an ardent stimulus. But
there were attendant disadvantages. The demand for his novels was so
enormous that it often led to hasty and ill-considered work: to crudity
of plot, to unreality of characters, and to looseness of style. It led
also to the pernicious habit of issuing the stories in parts. This in
turn resulted in much padding and in lopsidedness of construction. The
marvelous thing is that with so strong a temptation to slop-work he
created books that were so rich and enduring.
(_b_) _His Imagination._ No English novelist excels Dickens in the
multiplicity of his characters and situations. _Pickwick Papers_,
the first of the novels, teems with characters, some of them finely
portrayed, and in mere numbers the supply is maintained to the very end
of his life. He creates for us a whole world of people. In this world
he is most at home with persons of the lower and middle ranks of life,
especially those who frequent the neighborhood of London.
(_c_) _His Humor and Pathos._ It is very likely that the reputation of
Dickens will be maintained chiefly as a humorist. His humor is broad,
humane, and creative. It gives us such real immortals as Mr. Pickwick,
Mrs. Gamp, Mr. Micawber, and Sam Weller--typical inhabitants of the
Dickensian sphere, and worthy of a place in any literary brotherhood.
Dickens’s humor is not very subtle, but it goes deep, and in expression
it is free and vivacious. His satire is apt to develop into mere
burlesque, as it does when he deals with Mr. Stiggins and Bumble. As
for his pathos, in its day it had an appeal that appears amazing to a
later generation, whom it strikes as cheap and maudlin. His devices are
often third-rate, as when they depend upon such themes as the deaths of
little children, which he describes in detail. His genius had little
tragic force. He could describe the horrible, as in the death of Bill
Sikes; he could be painfully melodramatic, as in characters like Rosa
Dartle and Madame Defarge; but he seems to have been unable to command
the simplicity of real tragic greatness.
(_d_) His _mannerisms_ are many, and they do not make for good in his
novels. It has often been pointed out that his characters are created
not “in the round,” but “in the flat.” Each represents one mood, one
turn of phrase. Uriah Heep is “’umble,” Barkis is “willin’.” In this
fashion his characters become associated with catch-phrases, like the
personages in inferior drama. Dickens’s partiality for the drama is
also seen in the staginess of his scenes and plots.
(_e_) In time his _style_ became mannered also. At its best it is not
polished nor scholarly, but it is clear, rapid, and workmanlike, the
style of the working journalist. In the early books it is sometimes
trivial with puns, Cockneyisms, and tiresome circumlocutions. This
heavy-handedness of phrase remained with him all his life. In his more
aspiring flights, in particular in his deeply pathetic passages, he
adopted a lyrical style, a kind of verse-in-prose, that is blank verse
slightly disguised. We add a passage of this last type. It can be
scanned in places like pure blank verse:
For she was dead. There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest.
The solemn stillness was no marvel now.
She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace
of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from
the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who
had lived and suffered death.
Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries
and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to
favour. “When I die, put near me something that has loved the
light, and had the sky above it always.” Those were her words.
_The Old Curiosity Shop_
We give also a specimen of the typical Dickensian style. The reader
should observe in it the qualities of ease, perspicuity, and humor:
The particular picture on which Sam Weller’s eyes were fixed,
as he said this, was a highly coloured representation of a
couple of human hearts skewered together with an arrow, cooking
before a cheerful fire, while a male and female cannibal in
modern attire: the gentleman being clad in a blue coat and white
trousers, and the lady in a deep red pelisse with a parasol
of the same: were approaching the meal with hungry eyes, up a
serpentine gravel path leading thereunto. A decidedly indelicate
young gentleman, in a pair of wings and nothing else, was
depicted as superintending the cooking; a representation of the
spire of the church in Langham Place, London, appeared in the
distance; and the whole formed a “valentine,” of which, as a
written inscription in the window testified, there was a large
assortment within, which the shopkeeper pledged himself to
dispose of, to his countrymen generally, at the reduced rate of
one and sixpence each.
_The Pickwick Papers_
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811–63)
=1. His Life.= Thackeray was born at Calcutta, and was descended
from an ancient Yorkshire family. His father having died in 1816, the
boy was sent to England for his education; and on the voyage home
he had a glimpse of Napoleon, then a prisoner on St. Helena. His
school was the Charterhouse, and his college was Trinity College,
Cambridge, which he entered in 1829. Both at school and college he
struck his contemporaries as an idle and rather cynical youth, whose
main diversions were sketching and lampooning his friends and enemies.
For a time Thackeray had some intention of becoming an artist, and
studied art in Paris. Then the loss of his entire fortune drove him
into journalism for a living. He contributed both prose and light
verse to several periodicals, including _Punch_ and _Fraser’s
Magazine_, winning his way slowly and with much difficulty, for
his were gifts that do not gain ready recognition. It was not till
nearly the middle of the century that _Vanity Fair_ (1847) brought
him some credit, though at first the book was grudgingly received.
Thenceforward he wrote steadily and with increasing favor until his
death, which occurred with great suddenness. Before his death he had
enjoined his executors not to publish any biography, so that of all
the major Victorian writers we have of him the scantiest biographical
materials.
=2. His Novels.= For a considerable number of years Thackeray was
groping for a means of expression, and wavered between verse, prose,
and sketching. His earliest literary work consisted of light and
popular contributions to periodicals. The most considerable of these
are _The Yellowplush Papers_ (1837), contributed to _Fraser’s Magazine_
and dealing with the philosophy and experiences of Jeames, an imaginary
footman, and _The Book of Snobs_ (1846), which originally appeared in
_Punch_ as _The Snob Papers_. Snobs, who continued to be Thackeray’s
pet abhorrence, are defined by him as those “who meanly admire mean
things,” and in this early book their widespread activities are closely
pursued and harried. _The History of Samuel Titmarsh_ (1841), _The
Great Hoggarty Diamond_ (1841), and _The Fitzboodle Papers_ (1842)
appeared first in _Fraser’s Magazine_. They are deeply marked with
his biting humor and merciless observation of human weaknesses, but
they found little acceptance. _The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon_ (1842) is
a distinct advance. It is a species of picaresque novel, telling of
the adventures of a gambling rascal, an amiable scapegrace who prowls
over Europe. In range the book is wider, and the grasp of incident and
character is more sure. In _Vanity Fair_ (1847) the genius of Thackeray
reaches high-water mark. In theme it is concerned chiefly with the
fortunes of Becky Sharp, an adventuress. In dexterity of treatment, in
an imaginative power that both reveals and transforms, and in a clear
and mournful vision of the vanities of mankind the novel is among the
greatest in the language. _Pendennis_ (1848) continues the method of
_Vanity Fair_. Partly autobiographical, it portrays life as it appears
to the author. Thackeray refuses to bow to convention and precedent,
except when these conform to his ideals of literature. In this book
Thackeray openly avows his debt to Fielding, the master whom he equals
and in places excels. _Henry Esmond_ (1852) is a historical novel
of great length and complexity, showing the previous excellences of
Thackeray in almost undiminished force, as well as immense care and
forethought, a minute and accurate knowledge of the times of Queen
Anne, and an extraordinary faculty for reproducing both the style and
the atmosphere of the period. By some judges this book is considered to
be his best. His novel _The Newcomes_ (1854) is supposed to be edited
by Pendennis. In tone it is more genial than its predecessors, but it
ends tragically with the death of the aged Colonel Newcome. With _The
Virginians_ (1857) the list of the great novels is closed. This book,
a sequel to _Henry Esmond_, is a record of the experiences of two lads
called Warrington, the grandsons of Henry Esmond himself. In the story,
a pale shadow of her former self, appears Beatrix Esmond, the fickle
heroine of the earlier book.
In 1860 Thackeray was appointed first editor of _The Cornhill
Magazine_, and for this he wrote _Lovel the Widower_ (1860), _The
Adventures of Philip_ (1861), and a series of essays, charming and
witty trifles, which were reissued as _The Roundabout Papers_ (1862).
Both in size and in merit these last novels are inferior to their
predecessors. At his death he left an unfinished novel, _Denis Duval_.
Like Dickens, Thackeray had much success as a lecturer on both
sides of the Atlantic, though in his methods he did not follow his
fellow-novelist. Two courses of lectures were published as _The English
Humourists_ (1852) and _The Four Georges_ (1857). All his life he
delighted in writing burlesques, the best of which are _Rebecca and
Rowena_ (1850), a comic continuation of _Ivanhoe_, and _The Legend of
the Rhine_ (1851), a burlesque tale of medieval chivalry.
=3. His Poetry.= On the surface Thackeray’s verse appears to be
frivolous stuff, but behind the frivolity there is always sense,
often a barb of reproof, and sometimes a note of sorrow. _The Ballads
of Policeman X_ is an early work contributed in numbers to _Punch_.
Others, such as _The White Squall_ and _The Ballad of Bouillabaisse_,
have more claim to rank as poetry, for they show much metrical
dexterity and in places a touch of real pathos.
=4. Features of his Works.= (_a_) _Their Reputation._ While Dickens
was in the full tide of his success Thackeray was struggling through
neglect and contempt to recognition. Thackeray’s genius blossomed
slowly, just as Fielding’s did; for that reason the fruit is more
mellow and matured, and perhaps on that account it will last the
longer. Once he had gained the favor of the public he held it, and
among outstanding English novelists there is none whose claim is so
little subject to challenge.
(_b_) _His Method._ “Since the writer of _Tom Jones_ was buried,” says
Thackeray in his preface to _Pendennis_, “no writer of fiction among us
has been permitted to depict to the best of his power a MAN. We must
shape him and give him a certain conventional temper.” Thackeray’s
novels are a protest against this convention. He returns to the
Fielding method: to view his characters steadily and fearlessly, and to
set on record their failings as well as their merits and capacities.
In his hands the results are not flattering to human nature, for most
of his clever people are rogues and most of his virtuous folk are
fools. But whether they are rogues, or fools, or merely blundering
incompetents, his creations are rounded, entire, and quite alive and
convincing.
(_c_) _His Humor and Pathos._ Much has been made of the sneering
cynicism of Thackeray’s humor, and a good deal of the criticism is
true. It was his desire to reveal the truth, and satire is one of his
most potent methods of revelation. His sarcasm, a deadly species, is
husbanded for deserving objects, such as Lord Steyne and (to a lesser
degree) Barnes Newcome. In the case of people who are only stupid, like
Rawdon Crawley, mercy tempers justice; and when Thackeray chooses to
do so he can handle a character with loving tenderness, as can be seen
in the case of Lady Castlewood and of Colonel Newcome. In pathos he
is seldom sentimental, being usually quiet and effective. But at the
thought of the vain, the arrogant, and the mean people of the world
Thackeray barbs his pen, with destructive results.
(_d_) His _style_ is very near to the ideal for a novelist. It is
effortless, and is therefore unobtrusive, detracting in no wise from
the interest in the story. It is also flexible to an extraordinary
degree. We have seen how in _Esmond_ he recaptured the Addisonian
style; this is only one aspect of his mimetic faculty, which in his
burlesques finds ample scope. We add a typical specimen of his style:
As they came up to the house at Walcote, the windows from within
were lighted up with friendly welcome; the supper-table was
spread in the oak-parlour; it seemed as if forgiveness and love
were awaiting the returning prodigal. Two or three familiar
faces of domestics were on the look-out at the porch--the old
housekeeper was there, and young Lockwood from Castlewood in
my lord’s livery of tawny and blue. His dear mistress pressed
his arm as they passed into the hall. Her eyes beamed out on
him with affection indescribable. “Welcome,” was all she said:
as she looked up, putting back her fair curls and black hood. A
sweet rosy smile blushed on her face: Harry thought he had never
seen her look so charming. Her face was lighted with a joy that
was brighter than beauty--she took a hand of her son who was in
the hall waiting his mother--she did not quit Esmond’s arm.
_Henry Esmond_
GEORGE MEREDITH (1828–1909)
Of the later Victorian novelists Meredith takes rank as the most
noteworthy.
=1. His Life.= The known details of Meredith’s earlier life are
still rather scanty, and he himself gives us little enlightenment. He
was born at Portsmouth, and until he was sixteen he was educated in
Germany. At first he studied law, but, rebelling against his legal
studies, took to literature as a profession, contributing to magazines
and newspapers. Like so many of the eager spirits of his day, he was
deeply interested in the struggles of Italy and Germany to be free.
For some considerable time he was reader to a London publishing house;
then, as his own books slowly won their way, he was enabled to give
more time to their composition. In 1867 he was appointed editor of
_The Fortnightly Review._ He died at his home at Boxhill, Surrey.
=2. His Poetry.= During all his career as a novelist Meredith published
much verse. _Chillianwallah_ (1849), his first published work, contains
much spirited verse; other works are _Modern Love_ (1862), _Ballads and
Poems_ (1887), and _Poems_ (1892). Like his novels, much of Meredith’s
poetry is almost willfully obscure, as it undoubtedly is in _Modern
Love_; but in the case of such poems as _The Nuptials of Attila_ he
is clear and vigorous. He loved nature and the open air, and in poems
like the beautiful _Love in the Valley_ such affection is brightly
visible. Like Swinburne, he was always eager to champion the cause of
the oppressed.
=3. His Novels.= Meredith’s first novel of importance is _The Ordeal
of Richard Feverel_ (1859). Almost at one stride he attains to his
full strength, for this novel is typical of much of his later work. In
plot it is rather weak, and almost incredible toward the end. It deals
with a young aristocrat educated on a system laboriously virtuous;
but youthful nature breaks the bonds, and complications follow. Most
of the characters are of the higher ranks of society, and they are
subtly analyzed and elaborately featured. They move languidly across
the story, speaking in a language as extraordinary, in its chiseled
epigrammatic precision, as that of the creatures of Congreve or Oscar
Wilde. The general style of the language is mannered in the extreme; it
is a kind of elaborate literary confectionery--it almost seems a pity
on the part of the hasty novel-reader to swallow it in rude mouthfuls.
Nevertheless, behind this appearance of artificiality there ranges a
mind both subtle and sure, an elfish, satiric spirit, and a passionate
ideal of artistic perfection. Such a novel could hardly hope for a
ready recognition; but its ultimate fame was assured.
The next novel was _Evan Harrington_ (1860), which contains some
details of Meredith’s own family life; then followed _Emilia in
England_ (1864), the name of which was afterward altered to _Sandra
Belloni_, in which the scene is laid partly in Italy. In _Rhoda
Fleming_ (1865) Meredith tried to deal with plebeian folks, but with
indifferent success. The heroines of his later novels--Meredith was
always careful to make his female characters at least as important as
his male ones--are aristocratic in rank and inclinations. _Vittoria_
(1867) is a sequel to _Sandra Belloni_, and contains much spirited
handling of the Italian insurrectionary movement. Then came _The
Adventures of Harry Richmond_ (1870), in which the scene is laid in
England, and _Beauchamp’s Career_ (1874), in which Meredith’s style
is seen in its most exaggerated form. In _The Egoist_ (1879), his
next novel, Meredith may be said to reach the climax of his art. The
style is fully matured, with much less surface glitter and more depth
and solidity; the treatment of the characters is close, accurate,
and amazingly detailed; and the Egoist himself, Sir Willoughby
Patterne--Meredith hunted the egoist as remorselessly as Thackeray
pursued the snob--is a triumph of comic artistry. The later novels
are of less merit. _The Tragic Comedians_ (1880) is chaotic in plot
and over-developed in style; and the same faults may be urged against
_Diana of the Crossways_ (1885), though it contains many beautiful
passages; _One of our Conquerors_ (1890) is nearly impossible in plot
and style, and _The Amazing Marriage_ (1895) is not much better.
We add a short typical specimen of Meredith’s style. Observe the
studied precision of phrase and epithet, the elaboration of detail, and
the imaginative power.
She had the mouth that smiles in repose. The lips met full on
the centre of the bow and thinned along to a lifting dimple;
the eyelids also lifted slightly at the outer corners and
seemed, like the lip into the limpid cheek, quickening up the
temples, as with a run of light, or the ascension indicated
off a shoot of colour. Her features were playfellows of one
another, none of them pretending to rigid correctness, nor
the nose to the ordinary dignity of governess among merry
girls, despite which the nose was of fair design, not acutely
interrogative or inviting to gambols. Aspens imaged in water,
waiting for the breeze, would offer a susceptible lover some
suggestion of her face; a pure smooth-white face, tenderly
flushed in the cheeks, where the gentle dints were faintly
intermelting even during quietness. Her eyes were brown, set
well between mild lids, often shadowed, not unwakeful. Her hair
of lighter brown, swelling above her temples on the sweep to
the knot, imposed the triangle of the fabulous wild woodland
visage from brow to mouth and chin, evidently in agreement
with her taste; and the triangle suited her; but her face was
not significant of a tameless wildness or of weakness; her
equable shut mouth threw its long curve to guard the small
round chin from that effect; her eyes wavered only in humour,
they were steady when thoughtfulness was awakened; and at such
seasons the build of her winter-beechwood hair lost the touch
of nymph-like and whimsical, and strangely, by mere outline,
added to her appearance of studious concentration. Observe the
hawk on stretched wings over the prey he spies, for an idea of
this change in the look of a young lady whom Vernon Whitford
could liken to the Mountain Echo, and Mrs Mountstuart Jenkinson
pronounced to be “a dainty rogue in porcelain.”
_The Egoist_
OTHER NOVELISTS