There is an exclamation in one of Gray's Letters--"Be mine to read eternal
new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon!"--If I did not utter a similar
aspiration at the conclusion of the last new novel which I read (I would
not give offence by being more particular as to the name) it was not from
any want of affection for the class of writing to which it belongs: for,
without going so far as the celebrated French philosopher, who thought
that more was to be learnt from good novels and romances than from the
gravest treatises on history and morality, yet there are few works to
which I am oftener tempted to turn for profit or delight, than to the
standard productions in this species of composition. We find there a close
imitation of men and manners; we see the very web and texture of society
as it really exists, and as we meet with it when we come into the world.
If poetry has "something more divine in it," this savours more of
humanity. We are brought acquainted with the motives and characters of
mankind, imbibe our notions of virtue and vice from practical examples,
and are taught a knowledge of the world through the airy medium of
romance. As a record of past manners and opinions, too, such writings
afford the best and fullest information. For example, I should be at a
loss where to find in any authentic documents of the same period so
satisfactory an account of the general state of society, and of moral,
political, and religious feeling in the reign of George II, as we meet
with in the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his friend Mr. Abraham Adams.
This work, indeed, I take to be a perfect piece of statistics in its kind.
In looking into any regular history of that period, into a learned and
eloquent charge to a grand jury or the clergy of a diocese, or into a
tract on controversial divinity, we should hear only of the ascendancy of
the Protestant succession, the horrors of Popery, the triumph of civil and
religious liberty, the wisdom and moderation of the sovereign, the
happiness of the subject, and the flourishing state of manufactures and
commerce. But if we really wish to know what all these fine-sounding names
come to, we cannot do better than turn to the works of those, who having
no other object than to imitate nature, could only hope for success from
the fidelity of their pictures; and were bound (in self-defence) to reduce
the boasts of vague theorists and the exaggerations of angry disputants to
the mortifying standard of reality. Extremes are said to meet: and the
works of imagination, as they are called, sometimes come the nearest to
truth and nature. Fielding in speaking on this subject, and vindicating
the use and dignity of the style of writing in which he excelled against
the loftier pretensions of professed historians, says that in their
productions nothing is true but the names and dates, whereas in his
everything is true but the names and dates. If so, he has the advantage on
his side.
I will here confess, however, that I am a little prejudiced on the point
in question; and that the effect of many fine speculations has been lost
upon me, from an early familiarity with the most striking passages in the
work to which I have just alluded. Thus nothing can be more captivating
than the description somewhere given by Mr. Burke of the indissoluble
connection between learning and nobility; and of the respect universally
paid by wealth to piety and morals. But the effect of this ideal
representation has always been spoiled by my recollection of Parson Adams
sitting over his cup of ale in Sir Thomas Booby's kitchen. Echard "On the
Contempt of the Clergy" is, in like manner, a very good book, and "worthy
of all acceptation:" but, somehow, an unlucky impression of the reality of
Parson Trulliber involuntarily checks the emotions of respect, to which it
might otherwise give rise: while, on the other hand, the lecture which
Lady Booby reads to Lawyer Scout on the immediate expulsion of Joseph and
Fanny from the parish casts no very favourable light on the flattering
accounts of our practical jurisprudence which are to be found in
Blackstone or De Lolme. The most moral writers, after all, are those who
do not pretend to inculcate any moral. The professed moralist almost
unavoidably degenerates into the partisan of a system; and the philosopher
is too apt to warp the evidence to his own purpose. But the painter of
manners gives the facts of human nature, and leaves us to draw the
inference: if we are not able to do this, or do it ill, at least it is our
own fault.
The first-rate writers in this class, of course, are few; but those few we
may reckon among the greatest ornaments and best benefactors of our kind.
There is a certain set of them who, as it were, take their rank by the
side of reality, and are appealed to as evidence on all questions
concerning human nature. The principal of these are Cervantes and Le Sage,
who may be considered as having been naturalised among ourselves; and, of
native English growth, Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, and Sterne.[132] As
this is a department of criticism which deserves more attention than has
been usually bestowed upon it, I shall here venture to recur (not from
choice, but necessity) to what I have said upon it in a well-known
periodical publication; and endeavour to contribute my mite towards
settling the standard of excellence, both as to degree and kind, in these
several writers....
There is very little to warrant the common idea that Fielding was an
imitator of Cervantes, except his own declaration of such an intention in
the title-page of Joseph Andrews, the romantic turn of the character of
Parson Adams (the only romantic character in his works), and the
proverbial humour of Partridge, which is kept up only for a few pages.
Fielding's novels are, in general, thoroughly his own; and they are
thoroughly English. What they are most remarkable for, is neither
sentiment, nor imagination, nor wit, nor even humour, though there is an
immense deal of this last quality; but profound knowledge of human nature,
at least of English nature; and masterly pictures of the characters of men
as he saw them existing. This quality distinguishes all his works, and is
shown almost equally in all of them. As a painter of real life, he was
equal to Hogarth; as a mere observer of human nature, he was little
inferior to Shakspeare, though without any of the genius and poetical
qualities of his mind. His humour is less rich and laughable than
Smollett's; his wit as often misses as hits; he has none of the fine
pathos of Richardson or Sterne; but he has brought together a greater
variety of characters in common life, marked with more distinct
peculiarities, and without an atom of caricature, than any other novel
writer whatever. The extreme subtlety of observation on the springs of
human conduct in ordinary characters, is only equalled by the ingenuity of
contrivance in bringing those springs into play, in such a manner as to
lay open their smallest irregularity. The detection is always complete,
and made with the certainty and skill of a philosophical experiment, and
the obviousness and familiarity of a casual observation. The truth of the
imitation is indeed so great, that it has been argued that Fielding must
have had his materials ready-made to his hands, and was merely a
transcriber of local manners and individual habits. For this conjecture,
however, there seems to be no foundation. His representations, it is true,
are local and individual; but they are not the less profound and
conclusive. The feeling of the general principles of human nature,
operating in particular circumstances, is always intense, and uppermost in
his mind; and he makes use of incident and situation only to bring out
character.
It is scarcely necessary to give any illustrations. Tom Jones is full of
them. There is the account, for example, of the gratitude of the elder
Blifil to his brother, for assisting him to obtain the fortune of Miss
Bridget Alworthy by marriage; and of the gratitude of the poor in his
neighbourhood to Alworthy himself, who had done so much good in the
country that he had made every one in it his enemy. There is the account
of the Latin dialogues between Partridge and his maid, of the assault made
on him during one of these by Mrs. Partridge, and the severe bruises he
patiently received on that occasion, after which the parish of Little
Baddington rung with the story, that the school-master had killed his
wife. There is the exquisite keeping in the character of Blifil, and the
want of it in that of Jones. There is the gradation in the lovers of Molly
Seagrim; the philosopher Square succeeding to Tom Jones, who again finds
that he himself had succeeded to the accomplished Will. Barnes, who had
the first possession of her person, and had still possession of her heart,
Jones being only the instrument of her vanity, as Square was of her
interest. Then there is the discreet honesty of Black George, the learning
of Thwackum and Square, and the profundity of Squire Western, who
considered it as a physical impossibility that his daughter should fall in
love with Tom Jones. We have also that gentleman's disputes with his
sister, and the inimitable appeal of that lady to her niece.--"I was never
so handsome as you, Sophy: yet I had something of you formerly. I was
called the cruel Parthenissa. Kingdoms and states, as Tully Cicero says,
undergo alteration, and so must the human form!" The adventure of the same
lady with the highwayman, who robbed her of her jewels while he
complimented her beauty, ought not to be passed over, nor that of Sophia
and her muff, nor the reserved coquetry of her cousin Fitzpatrick, nor the
description of Lady Bellaston, nor the modest overtures of the pretty
widow Hunt, nor the indiscreet babblings of Mrs. Honour. The moral of this
book has been objected to, without much reason; but a more serious
objection has been made to the want of refinement and elegance in two
principal characters. We never feel this objection, indeed, while we are
reading the book; but at other times we have something like a lurking
suspicion that Jones was but an awkward fellow, and Sophia a pretty
simpleton. I do not know how to account for this effect, unless it is that
Fielding's constantly assuring us of the beauty of his hero, and the good
sense of his heroine, at last produces a distrust of both. The story of
Tom Jones is allowed to be unrivalled: and it is this circumstance,
together with the vast variety of characters, that has given the History
of a Foundling so decided a preference over Fielding's other novels. The
characters themselves, both in Amelia and Joseph Andrews, are quite equal
to any of those in Tom Jones. The account of Miss Matthews and Ensign
Hibbert, in the former of these; the way in which that lady reconciles
herself to the death of her father; the inflexible Colonel Bath; the
insipid Mrs. James, the complaisant Colonel Trent, the demure, sly,
intriguing, equivocal Mrs. Bennet, the lord who is her seducer, and who
attempts afterwards to seduce Amelia by the same mechanical process of a
concert-ticket, a book, and the disguise of a great-coat; his little, fat,
short-nosed, red-faced, good-humoured accomplice, the keeper of the
lodging-house, who, having no pretensions to gallantry herself, has a
disinterested delight in forwarding the intrigues and pleasures of others
(to say nothing of honest Atkinson, the story of the miniature-picture of
Amelia, and the hashed mutton, which are in a different style,) are
masterpieces of description. The whole scene at the lodging-house, the
masquerade, etc., in Amelia, are equal in interest to the parallel scenes
in Tom Jones, and even more refined in the knowledge of character. For
instance, Mrs. Bennet is superior to Mrs. Fitzpatrick in her own way. The
uncertainty, in which the event of her interview with her former seducer
is left, is admirable. Fielding was a master of what may be called the
_double entendre_ of character, and surprises you no less by what he
leaves in the dark, (hardly known to the persons themselves) than by the
unexpected discoveries he makes of the real traits and circumstances in a
character with which, till then, you find you were unacquainted. There is
nothing at all heroic, however, in the usual style of his delineations. He
does not draw lofty characters or strong passions; all his persons are of
the ordinary stature as to intellect; and possess little elevation of
fancy, or energy of purpose. Perhaps, after all, Parson Adams is his
finest character. It is equally true to nature, and more ideal than any of
the others. Its unsuspecting simplicity makes it not only more amiable,
but doubly amusing, by gratifying the sense of superior sagacity in the
reader. Our laughing at him does not once lessen our respect for him. His
declaring that he would willingly walk ten miles to fetch his sermon on
vanity, merely to convince Wilson of his thorough contempt of this vice,
and his consoling himself for the loss of his AEschylus, by suddenly
recollecting that he could not read it if he had it, because it is dark,
are among the finest touches of _naivete_. The night-adventures at Lady
Booby's with Beau Didapper, and the amiable Slipslop, are the most
ludicrous; and that with the huntsman, who draws off the hounds from the
poor Parson, because they would be spoiled by following _vermin_, the most
profound. Fielding did not often repeat himself; but Dr. Harrison, in
Amelia, may be considered as a variation of the character of Adams: so
also is Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield; and the latter part of that work,
which sets out so delightfully, an almost entire plagiarism from Wilson's
account of himself, and Adams's domestic history.
Smollett's first novel, Roderick Random, which is also his best, appeared
about the same time as Fielding's Tom Jones; and yet it has a much more
modern air with it: but this may be accounted for from the circumstance
that Smollett was quite a young man at the time, whereas Fielding's manner
must have been formed long before. The style of Roderick Random is more
easy and flowing than that of Tom Jones; the incidents follow one another
more rapidly (though, it must be confessed, they never come in such a
throng, or are brought out with the same dramatic effect); the humour is
broader, and as effectual; and there is very nearly, if not quite, an
equal interest excited by the story. What, then, is it that gives the
superiority to Fielding? It is the superior insight into the springs of
human character, and the constant developement of that character through
every change of circumstance. Smollett's humour often arises from the
situation of the persons, or the peculiarity of their external
appearance; as, from Roderick Random's carrotty locks, which hung down
over his shoulders like a pound of candles, or Strap's ignorance of
London, and the blunders that follow from it. There is a tone of vulgarity
about all his productions. The incidents frequently resemble detached
anecdotes taken from a newspaper or magazine; and, like those in Gil Blas,
might happen to a hundred other characters. He exhibits the ridiculous
accidents and reverses to which human life is liable, not "the stuff" of
which it is composed. He seldom probes to the quick, or penetrates beyond
the surface; and, therefore, he leaves no stings in the minds of his
readers, and in this respect is far less interesting than Fielding. His
novels always enliven, and never tire us: we take them up with pleasure,
and lay them down without any strong feeling of regret. We look on and
laugh, as spectators of a highly amusing scene, without closing in with
the combatants, or being made parties in the event. We read Roderick
Random as an entertaining story; for the particular accidents and modes of
life which it describes have ceased to exist: but we regard Tom Jones as a
real history; because the author never stops short of those essential
principles which lie at the bottom of all our actions, and in which we
feel an immediate interest--_intus et in cute_. Smollett excels most as
the lively caricaturist: Fielding as the exact painter and profound
metaphysician. I am far from maintaining that this account applies
uniformly to the productions of these two writers; but I think that, as
far as they essentially differ, what I have stated is the general
distinction between them. Roderick Random is the purest of Smollett's
novels: I mean in point of style and description. Most of the incidents
and characters are supposed to have been taken from the events of his own
life; and are, therefore, truer to nature. There is a rude conception of
generosity in some of his characters, of which Fielding seems to have been
incapable, his amiable persons being merely good-natured. It is owing to
this that Strap is superior to Partridge; as there is a heartiness and
warmth of feeling in some of the scenes between Lieutenant Bowling and his
nephew, which is beyond Fielding's power of impassioned writing. The whole
of the scene on ship-board is a most admirable and striking picture, and,
I imagine, very little if at all exaggerated, though the interest it
excites is of a very unpleasant kind, because the irritation and
resistance to petty oppression can be of no avail. The picture of the
little profligate French friar, who was Roderick's travelling companion,
and of whom he always kept to the windward, is one of Smollett's most
masterly sketches. Peregrine Pickle is no great favourite of mine, and
Launcelot Greaves was not worthy of the genius of the author.
Humphry Clinker and Count Fathom are both equally admirable in their way.
Perhaps the former is the most pleasant gossiping novel that ever was
written; that which gives the most pleasure with the least effort to the
reader. It is quite as amusing as going the journey could have been; and
we have just as good an idea of what happened on the road, as if we had
been of the party. Humphry Clinker himself is exquisite; and his
sweetheart, Winifred Jenkins, not much behind him. Matthew Bramble, though
not altogether original, is excellently supported, and seems to have been
the prototype of Sir Anthony Absolute in the Rivals. But Lismahago is the
flower of the flock. His tenaciousness in argument is not so delightful as
the relaxation of his logical severity, when he finds his fortune
mellowing in the wintry smiles of Mrs. Tabitha Bramble. This is the
best-preserved and most severe of all Smollett's characters. The
resemblance to Don Quixote is only just enough to make it interesting to
the critical reader, without giving offence to any body else. The
indecency and filth in this novel are what must be allowed to all
Smollett's writings.--The subject and characters in Count Fathom are, in
general, exceedingly disgusting: the story is also spun out to a degree of
tediousness in the serious and sentimental parts; but there is more power
of writing occasionally shewn in it than in any of his works. I need only
refer to the fine and bitter irony of the Count's address to the country
of his ancestors on his landing in England; to the robber-scene in the
forest, which has never been surpassed; to the Parisian swindler who
personates a raw English country squire (Western is tame in the
comparison); and to the story of the seduction in the west of England. It
would be difficult to point out, in any author, passages written with more
force and mastery than these.
It is not a very difficult undertaking to class Fielding or Smollett;--the
one as an observer of the characters of human life, the other as a
describer of its various eccentricities. But it is by no means so easy to
dispose of Richardson, who was neither an observer of the one, nor a
describer of the other; but who seemed to spin his materials entirely out
of his own brain, as if there had been nothing existing in the world
beyond the little room in which he sat writing. There is an artificial
reality about his works, which is no where else to be met with. They have
the romantic air of a pure fiction, with the literal minuteness of a
common diary. The author had the strongest matter-of-fact imagination that
ever existed, and wrote the oddest mixture of poetry and prose. He does
not appear to have taken advantage of anything in actual nature, from one
end of his works to the other; and yet, throughout all his works,
voluminous as they are--(and this, to be sure, is one reason why they are
so,)--he sets about describing every object and transaction, as if the
whole had been given in on evidence by an eye-witness. This kind of high
finishing from imagination is an anomaly in the history of human genius;
and, certainly, nothing so fine was ever produced by the same accumulation
of minute parts. There is not the least distraction, the least
forgetfulness of the end: every circumstance is made to tell. I cannot
agree that this exactness of detail produces heaviness; on the contrary,
it gives an appearance of truth, and a positive interest to the story; and
we listen with the same attention as we should to the particulars of a
confidential communication. I at one time used to think some parts of Sir
Charles Grandison rather trifling and tedious, especially the long
description of Miss Harriet Byron's wedding-clothes, till I was told of
two young ladies who had severally copied out the whole of that very
description for their own private gratification. After that, I could not
blame the author.
The effect of reading this work is like an increase of kindred. You find
yourself all of a sudden introduced into the midst of a large family, with
aunts and cousins to the third and fourth generation, and grandmothers
both by the father's and mother's side;--and a very odd set of people they
are, but people whose real existence and personal identity you can no more
dispute than your own senses, for you see and hear all that they do or
say. What is still more extraordinary, all this extreme elaborateness in
working out the story, seems to have cost the author nothing; for it is
said, that the published works are mere abridgments. I have heard (though
this I suspect must be a pleasant exaggeration) that Sir Charles Grandison
was originally written in eight and twenty volumes.
Pamela is the first of Richardson's productions, and the very child of his
brain. Taking the general idea of the character of a modest and beautiful
country girl, and of the ordinary situation in which she is placed, he
makes out all the rest, even to the smallest circumstance, by the mere
force of a reasoning imagination. It would seem as if a step lost, would
be as fatal here as in a mathematical demonstration. The development of
the character is the most simple, and comes the nearest to nature that it
can do, without being the same thing. The interest of the story increases
with the dawn of understanding and reflection in the heroine: her
sentiments gradually expand themselves, like opening flowers. She writes
better every time, and acquires a confidence in herself, just as a girl
would do, writing such letters in such circumstances; and yet it is
certain _that no girl would write such letters in such circumstances_.
What I mean is this:--Richardson's nature is always the nature of
sentiment and reflection, not of impulse or situation. He furnishes his
characters, on every occasion, with the presence of mind of the author. He
makes them act, not as they would from the impulse of the moment, but as
they might upon reflection, and upon a careful review of every motive and
circumstance in their situation. They regularly sit down to write letters:
and if the business of life consisted in letter-writing, and was carried
on by the post (like a Spanish game at chess), human nature would be what
Richardson represents it. All actual objects and feelings are blunted and
deadened by being presented through a medium which may be true to reason,
but is false in nature. He confounds his own point of view with that of
the immediate actors in the scene; and hence presents you with a
conventional and factitious nature, instead of that which is real. Dr.
Johnson seems to have preferred this truth of reflection to the truth of
nature, when he said that there was more knowledge of the human heart in a
page of Richardson, than in all Fielding. Fielding, however, saw more of
the practical results, and understood the principles as well; but he had
not the same power of speculating upon their possible results, and
combining them in certain ideal forms of passion and imagination, which
was Richardson's real excellence.
It must be observed, however, that it is this mutual good understanding,
and comparing of notes between the author and the persons he describes;
his infinite circumspection, his exact process of ratiocination and
calculation, which gives such an appearance of coldness and formality to
most of his characters,--which makes prudes of his women, and coxcombs of
his men. Every thing is too conscious in his works. Every thing is
distinctly brought home to the mind of the actors in the scene, which is a
fault undoubtedly: but then it must be confessed, every thing is brought
home in its full force to the mind of the reader also; and we feel the
same interest in the story as if it were our own. Can anything be more
beautiful or more affecting than Pamela's reproaches to her "lumpish
heart," when she is sent away from her master's at her own request; its
lightness, when she is sent for back; the joy which the conviction of the
sincerity of his love diffuses in her heart, like the coming on of spring;
the artifice of the stuff gown; the meeting with Lady Davers after her
marriage; and the trial-scene with her husband? Who ever remained
insensible to the passion of Lady Clementina, except Sir Charles Grandison
himself, who was the object of it? Clarissa is, however, his masterpiece,
if we except Lovelace. If she is fine in herself, she is still finer in
his account of her. With that foil, her purity is dazzling indeed: and she
who could triumph by her virtue, and the force of her love, over the
regality of Lovelace's mind, his wit, his person, his accomplishments, and
his spirit, conquers all hearts. I should suppose that never sympathy more
deep or sincere was excited than by the heroine of Richardson's romance,
except by the calamities of real life. The links in this wonderful chain
of interest are not more finely wrought, than their whole weight is
overwhelming and irresistible. Who can forget the exquisite gradations of
her long dying-scene, or the closing of the coffin-lid, when Miss Howe
comes to take her last leave of her friend; or the heart-breaking
reflection that Clarissa makes on what was to have been her wedding-day?
Well does a certain writer exclaim--
"Books are a real world, both pure and good,
Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness may grow!"
Richardson's wit was unlike that of any other writer--his humour was so
too. Both were the effect of intense activity of mind--laboured, and yet
completely effectual. I might refer to Lovelace's reception and
description of Hickman, when he calls out Death in his ear, as the name of
the person with whom Clarissa had fallen in love; and to the scene at the
glove-shop. What can be more magnificent than his enumeration of his
companions--"Belton, so pert and so pimply--Tourville, so fair and so
foppish!" etc. In casuistry this author is quite at home; and, with a
boldness greater even than his puritanical severity, has exhausted every
topic on virtue and vice. There is another peculiarity in Richardson, not
perhaps so uncommon, which is, his systematically preferring his most
insipid characters to his finest, though both were equally his own
invention, and he must be supposed to have understood something of their
qualities. Thus he preferred the little, selfish, affected, insignificant
Miss Byron, to the divine Clementina; and again, Sir Charles Grandison, to
the nobler Lovelace. I have nothing to say in favour of Lovelace's
morality; but Sir Charles is the prince of coxcombs,--whose eye was never
once taken from his own person, and his own virtues; and there is nothing
which excites so little sympathy as this excessive egotism.
It remains to speak of Sterne; and I shall do it in few words. There is
more of _mannerism_ and affectation in him, and a more immediate reference
to preceding authors; but his excellences, where he is excellent, are of
the first order. His characters are intellectual and inventive, like
Richardson's; but totally opposite in the execution. The one are made out
by continuity, and patient repetition of touches: the others, by glancing
transitions and graceful apposition. His style is equally different from
Richardson's: it is at times the most rapid, the most happy, the most
idiomatic of any that is to be found. It is the pure essence of English
conversational style. His works consist only of _morceaux_--of brilliant
passages. I wonder that Goldsmith, who ought to have known better, should
call him "a dull fellow." His wit is poignant, though artificial; and his
characters (though the groundwork of some of them had been laid before)
have yet invaluable original differences; and the spirit of the execution,
the master-strokes constantly thrown into them, are not to be surpassed.
It is sufficient to name them;--Yorick, Dr. Slop, Mr. Shandy; My Uncle
Toby, Trim, Susanna, and the Widow Wadman. In these he has contrived to
oppose, with equal felicity and originality, two characters, one of pure
intellect, and the other of pure good nature, in My Father and My Uncle
Toby. There appears to have been in Sterne a vein of dry, sarcastic
humour, and of extreme tenderness of feeling; the latter sometimes carried
to affectation, as in the tale of Maria, and the apostrophe to the
recording angel; but at other times pure, and without blemish. The story
of Le Fevre is perhaps the finest in the English language. My Father's
restlessness, both of body and mind, is inimitable. It is the model from
which all those despicable performances against modern philosophy ought to
have been copied, if their authors had known any thing of the subject they
were writing about. My Uncle Toby is one of the finest compliments ever
paid to human nature. He is the most unoffending of God's creatures; or,
as the French express it, _un tel petit bon homme_! Of his bowling-green,
his sieges, and his amours, who would say or think any thing amiss!