THE LATER WRITERS.
Charles Lamb. Thomas Hood. Thomas de Quincey. Other Novelists. Writers
on Science and Philosophy.
CHARLES LAMB.--This distinguished writer, although not a novelist like
Dickens and Thackeray, in the sense of having produced extensive works of
fiction, was, like them, a humorist and a satirist, and has left
miscellaneous works of rare merit. He was born in London, and was the son
of a servant to one of the Benches of the Inner Temple; he was educated at
Christ's Hospital, where he became the warm friend of Coleridge. In 1792
he received an appointment as clerk in the South Sea House, which he
retained until 1825, when, owing to the distinction he had obtained in the
world of letters, he was permitted to retire with a pension of £450. He
describes his feelings on this happy release from business, in his essay
on _The Superannuated Man_. He was an eccentric man, a serio-comic
character, whose sad life is singularly contrasted with his irrepressible
humor. His sister, whom he has so tenderly described as Bridget Elia, in a
fit of insanity killed their mother with a carving-knife, and Lamb devoted
himself to her care.
He was a poet, and left quaint and beautiful album verses and minor
pieces. As a dramatist, he is known by his tragedy _John Woodvil_, and the
farce _Mr. H----_, neither of which was a success. But he has given us in
his _Specimens of Old English Dramatists_ the result of great reading and
rare criticism.
But it is chiefly as a writer of essays and short stories that he is
distinguished. The _Essays of Elia_, in their vein, mark an era in the
literature; they are light, racy, seemingly dashed off, but really full of
his reading of the older English authors. Indeed, he is so quaint in
thought and style, that he seems an anachronism--a writer of the
Elizabethan period returned to life in this century. He bubbles over with
puns, jests, and repartees; and although not popular in the sense of
reaching the multitude, he is the friend and companion of congenial
readers. Among his essays, we may mention the stories of _Rosamund Gray_
and _Old Blind Margaret_. _Dream Children_ and _The Child Angel_ are those
of greatest power; but every one he has written is charming. His sly hits
at existing abuses are designed to laugh them away. He was the favorite of
his literary circle, and as a talker had no superior. After a life of
care, not unmingled with pleasures, he died in 1834. Lamb's letters are
racy, witty, idiomatic, and unlabored; and, as most of them are to
colleagues in literature and on subjects of social and literary interest,
they are important aids in studying the history of his period.
THOMAS HOOD.--The greatest humorist, the best punster, and the ablest
satirist of his age, Hood attacked the social evils around him with such
skill and power that he stands forth as a philanthropist. He was born in
London in 1798, and, after a limited education, he began to learn the art
of engraving; but his pen was more powerful than his burin. He soon began
to contribute to the _London Magazine_ his _Whims and Oddities_; and, in
irregular verse, satirized the would-be great men of the time, and the
eccentric legislation they proposed in Parliament. These short poems are
full of puns and happy _jeux de mots_, and had a decided effect in
frustrating the foolish plans. After this he published _National Tales_,
in the same comic vein; but also produced his exquisite serious pieces,
_The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies_, _Hero and Leander_, and others, all
of which are striking and tasteful. In 1838 he commenced _The Comic
Annual_, which appeared for several years, brimful of mirth and fun. He
was editor of various magazines,--_The New Monthly_, and _Hood's
Magazine_. For _Punch_ he wrote _The Song of the Shirt_, and _The Bridge
of Sighs_. No one can compute the good done by both; the hearts touched;
the pockets opened. The sewing women were better paid, more cared for,
elevated in the social scale; and many of them saved from that fate which
is so touchingly chronicled in _The Bridge of Sighs_. Hood was a true poet
and a great poet. _Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg_ is satire, story,
epic, comedy, in one.
If he owed to Smollett's _Humphrey Clinker_ the form of his _Up the
Rhine_, he has equalled Smollett in the narrative, in the variety of
character, and in the admirable cacography of Martha Penny. His
caricatures fasten facts in the memory, and every tourist up the Rhine
recognizes Hood's personages wherever he lands.
After a life of ill-health and pecuniary struggle, Hood died, greatly
lamented, on the 3d of May, 1845, and left no successor to wield his
subtle pen.
THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859).--This singular author, and very learned and
original thinker, owes much of his reputation to the evil habit of
opium-eating, which affected his personal life and authorship. His most
popular work is _The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, which
interests the reader by its curious pictures of the abnormal conditions in
which he lived and wrote. He abandoned this noxious practice in the year
1820. He produced much which he did not publish; and his writings all
contain a suggestion of strength and scholarship, a surplus beyond what he
has given to the world. There are numerous essays and narratives, among
which his paper entitled _Murder considered as One of the Fine Arts_ is
especially notable. His prose is considered a model of good English.
The death of Dickens and Thackeray left England without a novelist of
equal fame and power, but with a host of scholarly and respectable pens,
whose productions delight the popular taste, and who are still in the tide
of busy authorship.
Our purpose is already accomplished, and we might rest without the
proceeding beyond the middle of the century; but it will be proper to make
brief mention of those, some of whom have already departed, but many of
whom still remain, and are producing new works, who best illustrate the
historical value and teachings of English literature, and whose writings
will be read in the future for their delineations of the habits and
conditions of the present period.
OTHER NOVELISTS.
_Captain Frederick Marryat_, of the Royal Navy, 1792-1848: in his sea
novels depicts naval life with rare fidelity, and with, a roystering
joviality which makes them extremely entertaining. The principal of these
are _Frank Mildmay_, _Newton Forster_, _Peter Simple_, and _Midshipman
Easy_. His works constitute a truthful portrait of the British Navy in the
beginning of the eighteenth century, and have influenced many
high-spirited youths to choose a maritime profession.
_George P. R. James_, 1806-1860: is the author of nearly two hundred
novels, chiefly historical, which have been, in their day, popular. It was
soon found, however, that he repeated himself, and the sameness of
handling began to tire his readers. His "two travellers," with whom he
opens his stories, have become proverbially ridiculous. But he has
depicted scenes in modern history with skill, and especially in French
history. His _Richelieu_ is a favorite; and in his _Life of Charlemagne_
he has brought together the principal events in the career of that
distinguished monarch with logical force and historical accuracy.
_Benjamin d'Israeli_, born 1805: is far more famous as a persevering,
acute, and able statesman than as a novelist. In proof of this, having
surmounted unusual difficulties, he has been twice Chancellor of the
Exchequer and once Prime Minister of England. Among his earlier novels,
which are pictures of existing society, are: _Vivian Gray_, _Contarini
Fleming_, _Coningsby_, and _Henrietta Temple_. In _The Wondrous Tale of
Alroy_ he has described the career of that singular claimant to the
Jewish Messiahship. _Lothair_, which was published in 1869, is the story
of a young nobleman who was almost enticed to enter the Roman Catholic
Church. The descriptions of society are either very much overwrought or
ironical; but his knowledge of State craft and Church craft renders the
book of great value to the history of religious polemics. His father,
_Isaac d'Israeli_, is favorably known as the author of _The Curiosities of
Literature_, _The Amenities of Literature_, and _The Quarrels of Authors_.
_Charles Lever_, 1806-1872: he was born in Dublin, and, after a partial
University career, studied medicine. He has embodied his experience of
military life in several striking but exaggerated works,--among these are:
_The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer_, _Charles O'Malley_, and _Jack
Hinton_. He excels in humor and in picturesque battle-scenes, and he has
painted the age in caricature. Of its kind, _Charles O'Malley_ stands
pre-eminent: the variety of character is great; all classes of military
men figure in the scenes, from the Duke of Wellington to the inimitable
Mickey Free. He was for some time editor of the _Dublin University
Magazine_, and has written numerous other novels, among which are: _Roland
Cashel_, _The Knight of Gwynne_, and _The Dodd Family Abroad_; and, last
of all, _Lord Kilgobbin_.
_Charles Kingsley_, born 1809: this accomplished clergyman, who is a canon
of Chester, is among the most popular English writers,--a poet, a
novelist, and a philosopher. He was first favorably known by a poetical
drama on the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, entitled _The Saint's
Tragedy_. Among his other works are: _Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet_;
_Hypatia, the Story of a Virgin Martyr_; _Andromeda; Westward Ho! or the
Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh_; _Two Years Ago_; and _Hereward, the Last
of the English_. This last is a very vivid historical picture of the way
in which the man of the fens, under the lead of this powerful outlaw, held
out against William the Conqueror. The busy pen of Kingsley has produced
numerous lectures, poems, reviews, essays, and some plain and useful
sermons. He is now Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.
_Charlotte Bronté_, 1816-1855: if of an earlier period, this gifted woman
would demand a far fuller mention and a more critical notice than can be
with justice given of a contemporary. She certainly wrote from the depths
of her own consciousness. _Jane Eyre_, her first great work, was received
with intense interest, and was variously criticized. The daughter of a
poor clergyman at Haworth, and afterwards a teacher in a school at
Brussels, with little knowledge of the world, she produced a powerful book
containing much curious philosophy, and took rank at once among the first
novelists of the age. Her other works, if not equal to _Jane Eyre_, are
still of great merit, and deal profoundly with the springs of human
action. They are: _The Professor_, _Villette_, and _Shirley_. Her
characters are portraits of the men and women around her, painted from
life; and she speaks boldly of motives and customs which other novelists
have touched very delicately. She had two gifted sisters, who were also
successful novelists; but who died young. Miss Bronté died a short time
after her marriage to Mr. Nichol, her father's curate. _Mrs. Elizabeth
Gaskell_, her near friend, and the author of a successful novel called
_Mary Barton_, has written an interesting biography of Mrs. Nichol.
_George Eliot_, born 1820: under this pseudonym, Miss Evans has written
several works of great interest. Among these are: _Adam Bede_; _The Mill
on the Floss_; _Romola_, an Italian story; _Felix Holt_; and _Silas
Marner_. Simple, and yet eminently dramatic in scene, character, and
interlocution, George Eliot has painted pictures from middle and common
life, and is thus the exponent of a large humanity. She is now the wife of
the popular author, G. H. Lewes.
_Dinah Maria Muloch_ (Mrs. Craik), born 1826: a versatile writer. She is
best known by her novels entitled _John Halifax_ and _The Ogilvies_.
_Wilkie Collins_, born 1824: he is the son of a landscape-painter, and is
renowned for his curious and well-concealed plots, phantom-like
characters, and striking effects. Among his novels the best known are:
_Antonina_, _The Dead Secret_, _The Woman in White_, _No Name_,
_Armadale_, _The Moonstone_, and _Man and Wife_. There is a sameness in
these works; and yet it is evident that the author has put his invention
on the rack to create new intrigues, and to mystify his reader from the
beginning to the end of each story.
_Charles Reade_, born 1814: he is one of the most prolific writers of the
day, as well as one of the most readable in all that he has written. He
draws many impassioned scenes, and is as sensuous in literature as Rubens
in art. Among his principal works are: _White Lies_, _Love Me Little, Love
Me Long_; _The Cloister and The Hearth_; _Hard Cash_, and _Griffith
Gaunt_, which convey little, if any, practical instruction. His _Never Too
Late to Mend_ is of great value in displaying the abuses of the prison
system in England; and his _Put Yourself in His Place_ is a very powerful
attack upon the Trades' Unions. A singular epigrammatic style keeps up the
interest apart from the story.
_Mary Russell Mitford_, 1786-1855: she was a poet and a dramatist, but is
chiefly known by her stories. In the collection called _Our Village_, she
has presented beautiful and simple pictures of English country life which
are at once touching and instructive.
_Charlotte Mary Yonge_, born 1823: among the many interesting works of
this author, _The Heir of Redclyff_ is the first and best. This was
followed by _Daisy Chain_, _Heartsease_, _The Clever Woman of the Family_,
and numerous other works of romance and of history,--all of which are
valuable for their high tone of moral instruction and social manners.
_Anthony Trollope_, born 1815: he and his brother, Thomas Adolphus
Trollope, are sons of that Mrs. Frances Trollope who abused our country in
her work entitled _The Domestic Manners of the Americans_, in terms that
were distasteful even to English critics. Anthony Trollope is a successful
writer of society-novels, which, without being of the highest order, are
faithful in their portraitures. Among those which have been very popular
are: _Barchester Towers_, _Framley Parsonage_, _Doctor Thorne_, and _Orley
Farm_, He travelled in the United States, and has published a work of
discernment entitled _North America_. His brother Thomas is best known by
his _History of Florence to the Fall of the Republic_.
_Thomas Hughes_, born 1823: the popular author of _Tom Brown's School-Days
at Rugby_, and _Tom Brown at Oxford_,--books which display the workings of
these institutions, and set up a standard for English youth. The first is
the best, and has made him famous.
WRITERS ON SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.
Although these do not come strictly within the scope of English
literature, they are so connected with it in the composition of general
culture, and give such a complexion to the age, that it is well to mention
the principal names.
_Sir William Hamilton_, 1788-1856: for twenty years Professor of Logic and
Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. His voluminous lectures on
both these subjects were edited, after his death, by Mansel and Veitch,
and have been since of the highest authority.
_William Whewell_, 1795-1866: for some time Master of Trinity College,
Cambridge. He has written learnedly on many subjects: his most valuable
works are: _A History of the Inductive Sciences_, _The Elements of
Morality_, and _The Plurality of Worlds_. Of Whewell it has been pithily
said, that "science was his forte, and omniscience his foible."
_Richard Whately, D.D._, 1787-1863: he was appointed in 1831 Archbishop
of Dublin and Kildare, in Ireland. His chief works are: _Elements of
Logic_, _Elements of Rhetoric_, and _Lectures on Political Economy_. He
gave a new impetus to the study of Logic and Rhetoric, and presented the
formal logic of Aristotle anew to the world; thus marking a distinct epoch
in the history of that much controverted science.
_John Ruskin_, born 1819: he ranks among the most original critics in art;
but is eccentric in his opinions. His powers were first displayed in his
_Modern Painters_. In his _Seven Lamps of Architecture_ he has laid down
the great fundamental principles of that art, among the forms of which the
Gothic claims the pre-eminence. These are further carried out in _The
Stones of Venice_. He is a transcendentalist and a pre-Raphaelite, and
exceedingly dogmatic in stating his views. His descriptive powers are very
great.
_Hugh Miller_, 1802-1856: an uneducated mechanic, he was a brilliant
genius and an observant philosopher. His best works are: _The Old Red
Sandstone_, _Footprints of the Creator_, and _The Testimonies of the
Rocks_. He shot himself in a fit of insanity.
_John Stuart Mill_, born 1806: the son of James Mill, the historian of
India. He was carefully educated, and has written on many subjects. He is
best known by his _System of Logic_; his work on _Political Economy_; and
his _Treatise on Liberty_. Each of these topics being questions of
controversy, Mr. Mill states his views strongly in respect to opposing
systems, and is very clear in the expression of his own dogmas.
_Thomas Chalmers, D.D._, 1780-1847: this distinguished divine won his
greatest reputation as an eloquent preacher. He was for some time
Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of St. Andrew's, and wrote
on _Natural Theology_, _The Evidences of Christianity_, and some lectures
on _Astronomy_. But all his works are glowing sermons rather than
philosophical treatises.
_Richard Chevenix Trench, D.D._, born 1807: the present Archbishop of
Dublin. He has written numerous theological works of popular value, among
which are _Notes on the Parables, and on Miracles_. He has also published
two series of charming lectures on English philology, entitled _The Study
of Words_ and _English Past and Present_. They are suggestive and
discursive rather than philosophical, but have incited many persons to
pursue this delightful study.
_Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D._, born 1815: Dean of Westminster. He was
first known by his excellent biography of Dr. Arnold of Rugby; but has
since enriched biblical literature by his lectures on _The Eastern Church_
and on _The Jewish Church_. He accompanied the Prince of Wales on his
visit to Palestine, and was not only eager in collecting statistics, but
has reproduced them with poetic power.
_Nicholas Wiseman, D.D._, 1802-1865: the head of the Roman Catholic Church
in England. Cardinal Wiseman has written much on theological and
ecclesiastical questions; but he is best known to the literary world by
his able lectures on _The Connection between Science and Revealed
Religion_, which are additionally valuable because they have no sectarian
character.
_Charles Darwin_, born 1809: although he began his career at an early age,
his principal works are so immediately of the present time, and his
speculations are so involved in serious controversies, that they are not
within the scope of this work. His principal works are: _The Origin of
Species by means of Natural Selection_, and _The Descent of Man_. His
facts are curious and very carefully selected; but his conclusions have
been severely criticized.
_Frederick Max Müller_, born 1823: a German by birth. He is a professional
Oxford, and has done more to popularize the Science of Language than any
other writer. He has written largely on Oriental linguistics, and has
given two courses of lectures on _The Science of Language_, which have
been published, and are used as text-books. His _Chips from a German
Workshop_ is a charming book, containing his miscellaneous articles in
reviews and magazines.