His departure for America is a convenient date at which to stop and
survey Marryat’s literary work. After 1837, he did some things as good as
anything he had done before, and some at once unlike what he had already
written, and yet excellent of their kind. “Poor Jack” and “Percival
Keene” have touches of the old sea life, and flashes of fun, not inferior
to his earlier writing. The “Phantom Ship” has a character of its own;
the children’s stories of his last years are excellent. All these are
later than 1837. Still, if he had ceased to write entirely in that year,
his place in literature would be as high as it is. We should have “The
King’s Own,” “Peter Simple,” “Mr. Midshipman Easy,” “Japhet,” “Jacob
Faithful,” and “Snarley Yow,” and with these we should possess the best
of him. In those eight busy years Marryat had poured out the harvest of
his experience profusely. His beginning in literature had been singularly
fortunate. The time was favourable to writers of any originality
certainly. A brilliant magazine article made a reputation. There was
a marked readiness to recognize ability and reward it. What amount of
praise and pudding would be given in these days for another essay on
Milton it would be useless to guess, but undoubtedly it could hardly
be greater than the share which fell to Macaulay for his early effort.
Carlyle made a place for himself by a few articles. The wind which blew
for them blew for others also. As has almost always been the case in
great literary periods, the readiness of the reader to recognize and
admire was as strong as the productive power of the writer. The audience
met the playwright half way. Sir Walter Scott had prepared the market
for the novelist. He had enormously increased the taste for novels,
and whoever could write at all was the surer of a hearing, because
“Waverley” had made stories a necessity to readers. There is among the
more atrabilious kind of men of letters a secret belief that the sum of
popularity is a fixed quantity, of which whatever is earned by one man is
necessarily lost by another. That one nation’s gain is another’s loss in
commerce, was an accepted axiom with economists of the days of darkness
before Adam Smith. It has been given up on maturer consideration, and is
assuredly no more true in literature than international trade. A great
writer who gains a great popularity increases the chance of the smaller
men. Sir Walter and Jane Austen helped the Mrs. Meeke in whom Macaulay
delighted.
Marryat had profited amply by the opening. With great adaptability he
had thrown himself into the literary fight of his time. As has been
already said, he soon showed himself at home in the regular business
of literature--in writing for the press and in editing. To take the
satisfactory though vulgar test of money, he was able to make his market,
and put his price up. Nor was he at all reluctant to insist on the value
of his goods. “I do not,” he said in 1837, “write for sixteen guineas
a sheet now. I let them off for twenty guineas, as I do not wish to
run them hard; and I now have commenced with the _New Monthly_ at that
rate for one year certain, and the copyright secured to me. Times are
hard, and I do not wish to break the backs of the publishers, although
I ride over them roughshod. I have also made very much better terms for
my books. ‘Snarley Yow,’ comes out on the 1st of June. I have parted
very amicably with Saunders and Otley, who would not stand an advance.
I _will_ make hay when the sun shines; for every dog has his day, and
I presume my time will come as that of others.” Twenty guineas a sheet
was the exceptional price which Fraser was paying Carlyle in those very
years, and was five guineas above the usual rate. Obviously here was a
gentleman who knew that business was business. With this determination
to make the last penny there was to make, he naturally contributed his
chapter to the history of the quarrels of authors with their publishers.
“Although Captain Marryat,” says his daughter, “and his publishers
mutually benefited by their transactions with each other, one would
have imagined from the letters exchanged between them that they had
been natural enemies.” It is a mistake which is not uncommon in these
transactions, and particularly likely to arise when, as in this case, a
publisher frankly tells the author that he thinks him “eccentric,” and
an “odd creature,” and adds that he is himself “somewhat warm-tempered.”
Who the particular publisher was who sent these pieces of criticism and
self-criticism to Marryat we are not told. The answer he received might
supply a clue to the Marryatist who was prepared to follow it up with the
proper devotion.
“There was no occasion for you to make the admission that you
were somewhat warm-tempered. Your letter establishes the fact.
Considering your age, you are a little volcano, and if the
insurance were aware of your frequent visits to the Royal Exchange,
they would demand double premium for the building. Indeed, I have
my surmises _now_ as to the last conflagration.
…
“Your remark as to the money I have received may sound very well,
mentioned as an isolated fact; but how does it sound when it is put
into juxtaposition with the sums you have received? I, who have
found everything, receiving a pittance; while you, who have found
nothing but the shop to sell in, receiving such a lion’s share. I
assert again, it is slavery. I am Sinbad the Sailor, and you are
the Old Man of the Mountain (_sic_) clinging on my back, and you
must not be surprised at my wishing to throw you off the first
convenient opportunity.
“The fact is, you have the vice of old age very strong upon you,
and you are blinded by it; but put the question to your sons, and
ask them if they consider the present agreement fair. Let them
arrange with me, and do you go and read your Bible. We all have our
own ideas of Paradise, and if other authors think like me, the more
pleasurable portion of anticipated bliss is that there will be no
publishers there. That idea often supports me after an interview
with one of your fraternity.”
Author and publisher told one another “their fact” plainly enough in this
case, and one rather wonders what lies hid under the asterisks. In the
absence of information as to the proportion in which they respectively
shared the profits of the stories written before 1837, one cannot
undertake to say whether the unnamed publisher of fiery temper, advanced
age, and small stature, received a lion’s share or not. If so, it must
have represented a handsome sum, for Marryat was by no means one of the
worst treated of authors. Colburn gave him £400 for “Frank Mildmay.” For
“Mr. Midshipman Easy” he received £1,400, apparently in a lump sum. “The
Pirate” and “The Three Cutters,” published together, brought him in £750.
His other books were paid on the same scale, and he certainly did not
edit the _Metropolitan_ for nothing. His code of signals, which was not
literature (and perhaps on that account only the more lucrative), was
an appreciable income to him throughout his life. On the whole, Marryat
seems to have found the profession of author sufficiently remunerative.
His indignation with his publishers may be safely taken to be mainly a
proof that, in common with most writing-men of his generation, he was a
firm believer in the creed that authors are an ill-used body. This is
no longer quite so orthodox as it was. The wind is rather blowing the
other way, and it is becoming the right thing to say that authors have
themselves to thank for their ill-luck if they do not earn as much as
they ought, and must bear the burden like their fellow-men if they spend
more than they earn. This good sense may corrupt into a cant as others
have done, but it is good sense. Marryat--who would appear to have made
three thousand pounds or so in 1835, for taking “Mr. Midshipman Easy”
and the other two stories, with his copyrights and editorship, he can
hardly have made less--was in any case not an example of an ill-paid
author. If he had to complain of want of money it must have been because
he was a gentleman of extravagant habits, with a fatal weakness for
bad investments. To be sure, if an author were to be paid according
to the pleasure he has given others, and if “the shop” which makes a
profit on selling his work had to render some royalty on it for ever
and ever, then indeed was Marryat, together with all those whose work
is of the widely-read and lasting order, ill rewarded. But insuperable
difficulties bar the road to that ideal. Since paper, printing, and
advertisements must be provided, the provider of these necessary things
must share; since the novelist cannot hawk his own goods in a barrow, he
must pay somebody to do it for him; since the world’s copyright laws put
a limit on the duration of proprietary right in books, there must come
a time when they are at any man’s disposal to reprint. In the long run
the balance of profit must needs be in favour of the shop. To be sure,
the nation of authors may console itself by reflecting that it has its
revenge. There is much on which the shop makes no gain, first or last.
The first of Marryat’s books is one which, for reasons very neatly stated
by himself, may stand apart from the others. When he had given it three
successors, he thought fit to publish a proclamation on the subject of
his work in the _Metropolitan_, and in that document he described “Frank
Mildmay” as fairly as any honest critic could do for him.
“‘The Naval Officer’ was our first attempt, and it having been
our first attempt must be offered in extenuation of its many
imperfections; it was written hastily, and before it was complete
we were appointed to a ship. We cared much about our ship and
little about our book. The first was diligently taken charge of by
ourselves; the second was left in the hands of others, to get on
how it could. Like most bantlings put out to nurse, it did not get
on very well. As we happen to be in the communicative vein, it may
be as well to remark that being written in the autobiographical
style, it was asserted by good-natured friends, and believed in
general, that it was a history of the author’s own life. Now,
without pretending to have been better than we should have been in
our earlier days, we do most solemnly assure the public that, had
we run the career of vice of the hero of ‘The Naval Officer,’ at
all events, we should have had sufficient sense of shame not to
have avowed it. Except the hero and the heroine, and those parts
of the work which supply the slight plot of it as a novel, the
work in itself is materially true, especially in the narrative of
sea adventure, most of which did (to the best of our recollection)
occur to the author.… The ‘confounded licking’ we received for
our first attempt in the critical notices is probably well known
to the reader--at all events we have not forgotten it. Now, with
some, this severe castigation of their first offence would have
had the effect of their never offending again; but we felt that our
punishment was rather too severe; it produced indignation instead
of contrition, and we determined to write again in spite of all the
critics in the universe: and in the due course of nine months we
produced ‘The King’s Own.’ In ‘The Naval Officer’ we had sowed all
our wild oats, we had _paid off_ those who had ill-treated us, and
we had no further personality to indulge in.”
From which, even if internal evidence were not enough to prove it, we
learn that, between the paying off of the _Tees_ and the commissioning
of the _Ariadne_, Marryat decided to have a general jail delivery of his
old naval enemies, and that the result was “Frank Mildmay; or, The Naval
Officer.” It cannot be said that the book is better than its origin. If
Marryat had kept the promise he made in this proclamation of his to the
readers of the _Metropolitan_--if he had re-written this so-called novel,
he might, had he taken the right course, have made it one of the best of
his works. He had only to make it an autobiography without disguise, to
put in the good as well as the evil of his experience, to take care to
explain everything to his readers, as he could well have done, and he
would have given English literature a thing altogether unique--a naval
memoir. We are not rich in memoirs, at least, not in good ones. The
English hand is unhappy at that work. A man has only to turn to Ludlow,
or Sir Philip Warwick, to see how lamentably little Englishmen of parts
who lived through the most wonderful things could contrive to bring away
with them--how little at least of the life, the colour, the dramatic
swing of it all. Of the few we can show, which are not unfit to stand
with the Frenchmen, Clarendon, Pepys, Colley Cibber, Evelyn (and four
or five others), none were of the sea. “Cochrane’s Autobiography” maybe
quoted against me, but even this, good as it is in places, is drowned in
angry denunciations of human wickedness, and demonstrations that this
or the other thing ought to have been done by official backsliders, so
that what Cochrane did himself is almost crowded out. Besides, it is only
a fragment, and then _reste à savoir s’il n’est pas mort_. It has not
lived. One may, and must, use it for the history of the man and the time,
but who reads it for its intrinsic literary merit? The French seamen have
the better of us there. The memoirs of Forbin, of Duguay-Trouin, and even
the recently published journal of a much less famous man, Jean Doublet,
are capital reading. Marryat might, if he had so pleased, have done a
book which would have been to the memoirs of Forbin what the memoirs of
Clarendon are to the memoirs of Sully, to adopt the formula dear to Lord
Macaulay. He might have done what Sir Walter Scott praised Basil Hall for
attempting--have given in autobiographical form a picture of sea life,
which would have been interesting, not only to those who already love
the subject, but to all who love good reading. He did not so choose. He
carried out his mission in another form, and “Frank Mildmay” remained as
it first appeared.
That the book was so much of an autobiography was a misfortune for
Marryat. He might protest as much as he pleased that he was not Frank
Mildmay, and had not run a career of vice, but the impression left by
the book was and is disagreeable. Why should a man attribute his own
adventures to a tiger? Now, Frank Mildmay is a tiger--a very insolent,
callous, young cub. It shows Marryat to have been very inexperienced
indeed that he should have made such a mistake. He must have known that
the adventures would be recognized. The naval world is a small one,
and an exclusive. Naval officers live together by choice on shore as
they do by necessity at sea. Everything written about the profession
is talked over, and interpreted, when interpretation is needed. Every
incident in “Frank Mildmay” was no doubt recognized at once; and when
it was found that the things that had happened to the hero of the story
were the adventures of the author, it is not to be wondered at that the
two were thought to be also identical in character. Marryat, in fact,
committed with himself the very error of judgment into which Dickens was
led with Leigh Hunt, when he made Harold Skimpole a rascal, in order to
prove that he was not a caricature of his friend. But there is something
more than inexperience and error of judgment about “The Naval Officer.”
Marryat can hardly have seen what a bad fellow he had drawn. Frank
Mildmay has not only those “sins of the devil,” which may be worse, but
are more dignified, than the sins of men--he errs not only by “pride and
rebellion,” but he is a mean scamp; and I am afraid that Marryat did not
see it. He was as blind to the faults of his bantling as Smollett was
to the ruffianism of Roderick Random, or Fielding to the very vulgar
inferiority of Tom Jones. Criticism seems to have opened his eyes, and
little as he liked the lesson, he took the warning; but it was only for
a time. Unfortunately he fell back on it. Percival Keene is just such
another--a very low fellow, with a kind of wild boar courage. It would
appear that Marryat did not see some things as plainly as one could wish
he had done. It is unnecessary to insist on the faults of construction
in a book which belonged to an altogether bastard genre. What merits
it had--and they were sufficient to give promise of a brilliant
novelist--were to be repeated in other books much more pleasant, and much
more capable of repaying examination.
The other nine books which Marryat published in these seven years were
“wholly fictitious in characters, in plot, and in events,” to quote
his own words. In fact, they were stories, and what truth there is in
them was not crudely taken from memory, but adapted and fitted into its
place. The essential accuracy of the picture they give of sea life has
never been questioned, at least it has never been challenged on serious
grounds. It is undoubtedly the case that critics of a certain well-known
stamp have been known to complain that no such series of adventures as
these stories contain were ever known to occur, and that the daily life
of a midshipman is not so amusing as Mr. Easy’s, nor so varied as Peter
Simple’s. A criticism which only amounts to this--that the stories are
stories, and not log-books, need hardly be seriously answered. Sailors
read them, and always have read them. They are as popular in the American
Naval School as they have been among English boys. To the skill with
which the stories were built, less justice has been done. It has always,
as it were, been taken for granted that Marryat owed everything to his
experience as a seaman, and that, except in so far as he had seen things
which other men had not seen, he was not of the race of novelists whose
work lives. Now this is heresy. In truth, the sea life owes more to
Marryat than he to the sea. No one meets Mr. Easy, or Terence O’Brien,
or Mr. Chucks, or Mr. Vanslyperken in this commonplace world. He meets
something out of which they may be made. Unquestionably his experience
was of inestimable value to Marryat--as all exceptional experience is to
all novelists. At the very beginning of his career he was complimented
by Washington Irving on his good luck. “You have a glorious field before
you, and one in which you cannot have many competitors, as so very few
unite the author to the sailor.” No doubt it was Marryat’s happiness
that he had so good a Sparta to cultivate--but, after all, the result
was primarily due to the skill of the cultivator. Speaking as one who
has a full share of the good English taste for reading about the things
of the sea, I am inclined to maintain that few kinds of books are more
tedious than sea stories which ask to be read and enjoyed simply because
they are sea stories. Battle, and storm, and shipwreck may be poured out
on you, and yet leave you cold. These things by themselves in fiction
are capable of being as tiresome as the once prevalent detective, or now
popular religious disputations. To compare the stock sea story with the
great books of travel--with Dampier, or with Anson’s Voyage, or with
Basil Ringrose--would be unfair. We do not need to compare the best of
one kind with the worst of another. But they will not stand reading even
with Captain Hacke’s dingy little compilation, or with the long winded
journal of Woodes Rogers. The reality of the latter is some compensation
for their undoubted dulness. At least in reading them one knows that one
is looking at a strange old life told by the men who lived it. When taken
by a workman and badly used, the adventures these actual adventurers
passed through and recorded become merely badly used material. A painter
was once shown the scrawlings of a youthful prodigy who had been covering
paper with pictures of ships and sailors. He was asked whether these
works did not show a genius for art. “No,” said the judicious artist,
“the boy has been reading sea stories, and his head is full of them. He
draws because he likes the things, not because he loves drawing.” The
verdict stated a great critical truth--and, however unpleasant it may be
to prodigies to learn that taste and faculty are not identical, and that
they must rely on their power of interpreting their subject, and not on
the subject itself, it is the case, nevertheless.
Now with Marryat the faculty was always equal to the fusing and managing
of the materials. In “Japhet,” where he does not touch the sea at all,
he has yet contrived to impart life and interest to his puppets and
their doings. It may stand by “Con Cregan” in the long list of stories
which began with “Guzman de Alfarache,” and includes “Moll Flanders”
and “Peregrine Pickle.” In this case Marryat’s best knowledge was
not available and he had to rely on his power of re-using well-worn
materials. Where his experience and his ability combined, he attained to
a very considerable degree of narrative skill. Whether he had trained
himself by early reading or not (and indeed there is nothing to show that
he was a reader), he had early command of a very admirable narrative
style. It might be plausibly maintained that this was a heritage among
seamen. There is nothing in English literature at once more simple,
more manly, more perfectly adequate to its purpose than the language of
Dampier. In Marryat’s own time this power had not been lost by English
seamen. The navy may have been a rough school, but there was nothing
in its training which made men unable to use the pen, and use it well.
As an example of flowing, and also perfectly unaffected, description,
the account of the battle of the Nile, given by Captain Miller, of the
_Theseus_, is without fault. It deserves a place of honour in every
collection of English letters. The beauty of Collingwood’s letters is
acknowledged even by those who have thought fit to carp at his character.
Marryat brought this style to his literary work, and kept it unchanged
to the end. It is a style in which there is no straining. Marryat never
had recourse, as his contemporary, Michael Scott, was wont, to capital
letters, italics, and broken lines when he wished to impress his readers.
He never appears even to have been particularly anxious to impress. When
a wreck or a battle comes in his way, it is told as Captain Miller might
have told it. Therefore it has its effect, and convinces you, as the
narrative of the battle of the Nile does, that the thing described had
been seen, had been lived through. The most famous of his passages--the
club-hauling of the _Diomede_, the fight with the Russian frigate in “Mr.
Midshipman Easy”--the destruction of the French liner at the end of “The
King’s Own”--are too long for quotation; but in “Peter Simple” there is
one which is of not unmanageable length, and which shows the qualities of
his writing at their best. It is the account of the hurricane which threw
Peter on the coast of St. Pierre:--
“In half an hour I shoved off with the boats. It was now quite
dark, and I pulled towards the harbour of St. Pierre. The heat was
excessive and unaccountable; not the slightest breath of wind moved
in the heavens, or below; no clouds to be seen, and the stars were
obscured by a sort of mist: there appeared a total stagnation in
the elements. The men in the boats pulled off their jackets, for
after a few moments’ pulling, they could bear them no longer. As
we pulled in, the atmosphere became more opaque, and the darkness
more intense. We supposed ourselves to be at the mouth of the
harbour, but could see nothing, not three yards ahead of the boat.
Swinburne, who always went with me, was steering the boat, and I
observed to him the unusual appearance of the night.
“‘I’ve been watching it, sir,’ replied Swinburne, ‘and I tell you,
Mr. Simple, that if we only knew how to find the brig, I would
advise you to get on board of her immediately. She’ll want all her
hands this night, or I’m much mistaken.’
“‘Why do you say so?’ replied I.
“‘Because I think, nay, I may say that I’m sartain, we’ll have a
hurricane afore morning. It’s not the first time I’ve cruised in
these latitudes. I recollect in ’94----’
“But I interrupted him. ‘Swinburne, I believe that you are right.
At all events I’ll turn back; perhaps we may reach the brig before
it comes on. She carries a light, and we can find her out.’ I then
turned the boat round, and steered, as near as I could guess, for
where the brig was lying. But we had not pulled out more than two
minutes, before a low moaning was heard in the atmosphere--now
here, now there--and we appeared to be pulling through solid
darkness, if I may use the expression. Swinburne looked around him,
and pointed out on the starboard bow.
“‘It’s a coming, Mr. Simple, sure enough; many’s the living being
that will not rise on its legs to-morrow. See, sir.’
“I looked, and dark as it was, it appeared as if a sort of black
wall was sweeping along the water right towards us. The moaning
gradually increased to a stunning roar, and then at once it broke
upon us with a noise to which no thunder can bear a comparison.
The sea was perfectly level, but boiling, and covered with a white
foam, so that we appeared in the night to be floating on milk.
The oars were caught by the wind with such force, that the men
were dashed forward under the thwarts, many of them severely hurt.
Fortunately, we pulled with tholes and pins; or the gunwales and
planks of the boat would have been wrenched off, and we should
have foundered. The wind soon caught the boat on her broadside,
and, had there been the least sea, would have inevitably thrown
her over; but Swinburne put the helm down, and she fell off before
the hurricane, darting through the boiling water at the rate of
ten miles an hour. All hands were aghast; they had recovered
their seats, but were obliged to relinquish them, and sit down at
the bottom, holding on by the thwarts. The terrific roaring of
the hurricane prevented any communication except by gesture. The
other boats had disappeared; lighter than ours, they had flown
away faster before the sweeping element; but we had not been a
minute before the wind, before the sea rose in a most unaccountable
manner--it appeared to be by magic.
“Of all the horrors that ever I witnessed, nothing could be
compared to the scene of this night. We could see nothing, and
heard only the wind, before which we were darting like an arrow,
to where we knew not, unless it were to certain death. Swinburne
steered the boat, every now and then looking back as the waves
increased. In a few minutes we were in a heavy swell, that at one
minute bore us all aloft, and at the next almost sheltered us from
the hurricane; and now the atmosphere was charged with showers of
spray, the wind cutting off the summits of the waves, as if with a
knife, and carrying it along with it, as it were, in its arms.
“The boat was filling with water, and appeared to settle down
fast. The men baled with their hats in silence, when a large wave
culminated over the stern, filling us up to our thwarts. The next
moment we all received a shock so violent, that we were jerked from
our seats. Swinburne was thrown over my head. Every timber of the
boat separated at once, and she appeared to crumble from under us,
leaving us floating on the raging waters. We all struck out for
our lives, but with little hope of preserving them; but the next
wave washed us on the rocks, against which the boat had already
been hurled. That wave gave life to some, and death to others. Me,
in Heaven’s mercy, it preserved: I was thrown so high up, that I
merely scraped against the top of the rock, breaking two of my
ribs. Swinburne, and eight more, escaped with me, but not unhurt;
two had their legs broken, three had broken arms, and the others
were more or less contused. Swinburne miraculously received no
injury. We had been eighteen in the boat, of which ten escaped:
the others were hurled up at our feet; and the next morning we
found them dreadfully mangled. One or two had their heads literally
shattered to pieces against the rocks. I felt that I was saved,
and was grateful; but still the hurricane howled--still the waves
were washing over us. I crawled further up upon the beach, and
found Swinburne sitting down with his eyes directed seaward. He
knew me, took my hand, squeezed it, and then held it in his. For
some moments we remained in this position, when the waves, which
every moment increased in volume, washed up to us, and obliged
us to crawl further up. I then looked around me: the hurricane
continued in its fury, but the atmosphere was not so dark. I could
trace for some distance the line of the harbour, from the ridge of
foam upon the shore: and for the first time I thought of O’Brien
and the brig. I put my mouth close to Swinburne’s ear, and cried
out, ‘O’Brien!’ Swinburne shook his head, and looked up again at
the offing. I thought whether there was any chance of the brig’s
escape. She was certainly six, if not seven miles off, and the
hurricane was not direct on the shore. She might have a drift
of ten miles, perhaps; but what was that against such tremendous
power?”
Now this might have come straight from another Dampier. There is no
attempt to convince you of the force of the hurricane by laborious
descriptions of what it looked like. It is shown to be awful by the
effect it produces. The sentences go rapidly on. Their very simplicity
helps to convey the impression of the suddenness and overwhelming fury
of the storm. The effect would have been lost if the writer had stopped
to talk. The style seems to me to be the perfection of prose, for a tale
of adventure--the straightforward, almost colloquial report of one who
has gone through it all, carried to its very best--made into literature
without being obtrusively literary.
As the style is, so are the stories. A natural tact seems to have told
Marryat when he had gone far enough in search of the strange. His
heroes lead lives that are possible. He might, if he had chosen, have
rivalled Michael Scott’s wondrous pirates. Once, indeed, in “Percival
Keene,” he actually did it, but, as a rule, his pirate is a conceivable
good-for-nothing rather cowardly blackguard, such as came in the natural
course of things to swing at Kingston or at Execution Dock. Even Cain
himself, “The Pirate,” is within the bounds of probability as compared
with the wondrous Spanish Americans, or astounding Scotch gentlemen of
superhuman wickedness, who flourish in “Tom Cringle’s Log,” and the
“Cruise of the _Midge_.” Neither do incidents of the wilder and more
horrific kind appear in Marryat’s books. There is nothing in him, for
instance, like that scene of the “_Midge_ in the Hornets’ nest,” which
may, by the way, be commended to the attention of critics who think that
blood and horror have been recently imported into romance by a generation
which is supposed to have been corrupted by the French taste of the
decadence. The adventures of Marryat’s heroes might possibly and even
probably have befallen an officer of his time.
Of construction, except such as was imposed by an instinctive desire to
make the incidents follow one another in some sort of natural sequence,
there is little or no sign. When, as in “Peter Simple,” he tries to fit
one on to his story, it is no addition to the merits of the book. Who
cares a straw for Peter’s wicked uncle, for the changing of the children,
or for the unravelling of the very transparent mystery? It is too obvious
that Marryat took these things at random from the common fund of the
Minerva Press. What he took from nobody was his fun.
After all, it is this fun which is the living element in Marryat’s
work. Wit, or humour of the highest class, he cannot be said to have
possessed, though he was by no means destitute of the sympathy which
is inseparable from all true humour. The sketch of the mate, Martin,
in “Midshipman Easy,” is a sufficient defence against the charge of
want of feeling, if, indeed, it had ever been made. Many who have had
a more visible anxiety to be pathetic than Marryat have failed to draw
so touching a figure as this slight outline of the melancholy officer,
in whom the disappointments of years have crushed all hope, without
hardening or souring him. “No, no,” said the mate, when his acting order
as lieutenant was brought him as he lay wounded in his hammock, “I knew
very well that I never should be made. If it is not confirmed, I may
live; but if it is, I am sure to die.” And die he does, because hope
deferred has dried up the spring of life within him. In the character of
Mr. Chucks kindness and fun are mingled. He is respectable in spite of
his absurdities, and lovable because of them. In the Dominie in “Jacob
Faithful” there is an effort to produce a second Mr. Chucks, but it is
not successful. He is too plainly a reminiscence of another Dominie--a
fairly well-done copy, but only a copy. For the most part the fun of
Marryat belongs to the grotesque order. This, unquestionably, is not
the highest. But what is not the highest may yet be genuine, and _that_
Marryat’s fun, as the world has now recognized for half a century,
undoubtedly is. His gallery of “figures of fun” is a long one. Peter
Simple in the days before Terence O’Brien made a man of him; Jack Easy
before he had been converted from a belief in the equality of all men;
in a rougher way his father; Mr. Muddle; and, above all, Mr. Chucks,
have an intrinsic comic _vis_. The fun which they make, or which goes
on about them, is never mere horse-play. They are not mannikins of the
stamp of Smollett’s Pallet, created only to be knocked about, and to
make grimaces, but possible, and even probable, human beings--a little
distorted, a little exaggerated, put frequently into such positions as
are more fit for farce than comedy, but not on that account ceasing to be
real.
“Mr. Smallsole’s violence made Mr. Biggs violent, which made the
boatswain’s mate violent--and the captain of the forecastle violent
also; all which is practically exemplified by philosophy in the
laws of motion, communicated from one body to another; and as Mr.
Smallsole swore, so did the boatswain swear. Also the boatswain’s
mate, the captain of the forecastle, and all the men--showing the
force of example.
“Mr. Smallsole came forward.
“‘Damnation, Mr. Biggs, what the devil are you about? Can’t you
move here?’
“‘As much as we can, sir,’ replied the boatswain, ‘lumbered as the
forecastle is with idlers.’ And here Mr. Biggs looked at our hero
and Mesty, who were standing against the bulwark.
“‘What are you doing here, sir?’ cried Mr. Smallsole to our hero.
“‘Nothing at all, sir,’ replied Jack.
“‘Then I’ll give you something to do, sir. Go up to the mast-head,
and wait there till I call you down. Come, sir, I’ll show you the
way,’ continued the master, walking aft. Jack followed till they
were on the quarter-deck.
“‘Now, sir, up to the maintop gallant mast-head; perch yourself
upon the cross-trees--up with you.’
“‘What am I to go up there for, sir?’ inquired Jack.
“‘For punishment, sir,’ replied the master.
“‘What have I done, sir?’
“‘No reply, sir--up with you.’
“‘If you please, sir,’ replied Jack, ‘I should wish to argue this
point a little.’
“‘Argue the point!’ roared Mr. Smallsole--‘by Jove, I’ll teach you
to argue the point--away with you, sir.’
“‘If you please, sir,’ continued Jack, ‘the captain told me that
the articles of war were the rules and regulations by which every
one in the service was to be guided. Now, sir,’ said Jack, ‘I have
read them over till I know them by heart, and there is not one word
of mast-heading in the whole of them.’ Here Jack took the articles
out of his pocket and unfolded them.
“‘Will you go to the mast-head, sir, or will you not?’ said Mr.
Smallsole.
“‘Will you show me the mast-head in the articles of war, sir?’
replied Jack; ‘here they are.’
“‘I tell you, sir, to go to the mast-head: if not, I’ll be d----d
if I don’t hoist you up in a bread-bag.’
“‘There’s nothing about bread-bags in the articles of war, sir,’
replied Jack; ‘but I’ll tell you what there is, sir;’ and Jack
commenced reading,--
“‘All flag-officers, and all persons in or belonging to his
majesty’s ships or vessels of war, being guilty of profane oaths,
execrations, drunkenness, uncleanness, or other scandalous actions,
in derogation of God’s honour, and corruption of good manners,
shall incur such punishment as----’
“‘Damnation!’ cried the master, who was mad with rage, hearing that
the whole ship’s company were laughing.
“‘No, sir, not damnation,’ replied Jack; that’s when he’s tried
above; but according to the nature and degree of the offence.’
“‘Will you go to the mast-head, sir, or will you not?’
“‘If you please,’ replied Jack, ‘I’d rather not.’
“‘Then, sir, consider yourself under an arrest. I’ll try you by a
court-martial, by God. Go down below, sir.’
“‘With the greatest pleasure, sir,’ replied Jack; ‘that’s all right
and according to the articles of war, which are to guide us all.’
Jack folded up his articles of war, put them into his pocket, and
went down into the berth.”
Here is farce, but farce which almost borders on comedy. Given Jack
Easy with his natural pluck and his absurd training, suddenly put into
a man-of-war, and set to reconcile the practice of the service with
the ideal picture of it presented by the articles of war, and this is
precisely what might be expected to happen. The absurdity always arises
from the clash of the characters; and though it be farce, it is farce of
the highest order. Rarely does the grotesque lean to the horrible. The
death of Mr. Vanslyperken is a case in which it does; but Marryat was,
for the most part, content to amuse, and to amuse only.
How well he succeeded we all know. Which of us has not laughed with him
ever since we were boys? Mr. Chucks stands between Commodore Trunnion
and Mr. Micawber. The scene I have quoted above, and a dozen others,
live by the side of Pipe’s journey to the garrison with the nymph of the
road. The adventures in battle and wreck are very good, but they are not
the best. Romance of the brilliant order Marryat did not often try, and
when he did, he was at best but moderately successful. He was more of
the race of Defoe than of Dumas. But from Defoe, over whom no man ever
laughed, he was divided by his love of laughter, and power of drawing
it forth. His fun may be often mere animal spirits, but at least it
was spontaneous, and was by natural instinct literary. He did not toil
and labour to be funny. Even in his most hasty work he would hit off
a scene with neat pen-strokes, marking just enough and no more. Take,
for instance, the revenue officers in “The Three Cutters.” Lieutenant
Appleboy and his companions are introduced simply because he had seen
them, and as much for his own amusement as his readers. Marryat had seen
the types when he was doing preventive work himself in the _Rosario_, and
drew them out of his memory when he needed them. Some of his figures were
doubtless portraits--all of them had possibly some touch of portraiture.
But on his paper they have an interest altogether independent of their
originals. There are, as Mr. Saintsbury, speaking of the personalities of
Daudet, has said, two ways of drawing portraits in literature. The first
is to adapt your sitter into somebody else whom we love for his own sake.
The second is to give us an image for which we should care but little if
it was not meant for A or B. Of these two methods Marryat took the first.
If there was an original to Terence O’Brien we should like to have known
him; but, whether or not, we like Terence for his own sake. Was there a
boatswain in His Majesty’s Service who stood for Mr. Chucks? Possibly;
but what then? In Marryat’s stories are types as well as individuals.
They and their doings have an independent universal truth.