“Bless me, sir,” said Susannah, “the child’s in a fit”—“And where’s Mr Yorick?”—“Never where he should be,” said Susannah, “but his curate’s in the dressing-room, with the child upon his arm, waiting for the name—and my mistress bid me run as fast as I could to know, as Captain Shandy is the godfather, whether it should not be called after him.”
“Were one sure,” said my father to himself, scratching his eyebrow, “that the child was expiring, one might as well compliment my brother Toby as not—and ’t would be a pity in such a case, to throw away so great a name as Trismegistus upon him—But he may recover.”
“No, no”—said my father to Susannah, “I’ll get up”—“There’s no time,” cried Susannah, “the child’s as black as my shoe.” “Trismegistus,” said my father—“But stay—thou art a leaky vessel, Susannah,” added my father; “can’st thou carry Trismegistus in thy head the length of the gallery without scattering?”—“Can I?” cried Susannah, shutting the door in a huff—“If she can, I’ll be shot,” said my father, bouncing out of bed in the dark, and groping for his breeches.
Susannah ran with all speed along the gallery.
My father made all possible speed to find his breeches.
3. Horace Walpole (1717–97). Walpole was the son of Sir Robert Walpole, the famous Whig minister. He touched upon several kinds of literature, his letters being among the best of their kind. His one novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764), is of importance, for it was the first of the productions of a large school (sometimes called the “terror school”) of novelists who dealt with the grisly and supernatural as their subject. Walpole’s novel, which he published almost furtively, saying, like Chatterton, that the work was of medieval origin, described a ghostly castle, in which we have walking skeletons, pictures that move out of their frames, and other blood-curdling incidents. The ghostly machinery is often cumbrous, but the work is creditably done, and as a return to the romantic elements of mystery and fear the book is noteworthy.
4. Other Terror Novelists. (a) William Beckford (1759–1844). The one novel now associated with Beckford’s name is Vathek (1784). Beckford, who was a man of immense wealth and crazy habits, drew largely upon The Arabian Nights for material for the book. The central figure of the novel is a colossal creature, something like a vampire in disposition, who preys upon mankind and finally meets his doom with suitable impressiveness. Beckford had a wild, almost staggering, magnificence of imagination, and his story, though crude and violent in places, does not lack a certain reality.
(b) Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823). This lady was the most popular of the terror novelists, and published quite a large number of books that followed a fairly regular plan. Among such were her A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Romance of the Forest (1791), and the most popular of them all, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). Her stories took on almost a uniform plot, involving mysterious manuscripts, haunted castles, clanking chains, and cloaked and saturnine strangers. At the end of all the horrors Mrs. Radcliffe rather spoils the effect by giving away the secrets of them, and revealing the fact that the terrors were only illusions after all. Nowadays the novels appear tame, but they showed the way to a large number of other writers, for they were fresh to the public of their time.
(c) Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818). Lewis is perhaps the crudest of the terror school, and only one book of his, The Monk (1795), is worth recording. Lewis, who is lavish with his horrors, does not try to explain them. His imagination is grimmer and fiercer than that of any of the other writers of the same class, and his book is probably the “creepiest” of its kind.
5. Henry Mackenzie (1745–1831). This novelist is the most considerable of the sentimental school, who took Sterne for their master. His best-known work is The Man of Feeling (1771), in which maudlin sentiment has free play. To his contemporaries Mackenzie was known as “the Man of Feeling.”
6. Frances Burney (1752–1840), whose married name was Madame d’Arblay, is rather an important figure, for she exercised a considerable influence on her age. Her diaries and letters are clever and informative, and her two best novels, Evelina (1778) and Cecilia (1782), are lively and acute representations of fashionable society. Johnson, with his heavy jocularity, called her a “character-monger,” meaning that her chief effects were obtained in the portraying of character. In the construction of Evelina she returns to the clumsy letter-method of Richardson, but she has a wit of an agreeably acid flavor. She is no mean predecessor of Jane Austen. (See p. 354.)
1. His Life. Gibbon, who was born at Putney, was a sickly child, and, according to his own grateful acknowledgment, he owed his life to the exertions of his aunt, Catherine Porten. He had little regular schooling, but from his early years he was an eager reader of history. At the age of fifteen he entered Magdalen College, Oxford, an institution of which he always spoke afterward with aversion and contempt. “To the University of Oxford,” he writes, “I acknowledge no obligation, and she will as readily renounce me as a son, as I am willing to disclaim her as a mother.” His private historical studies led him to become a Roman Catholic when he was sixteen years old, to the great horror of his father, and resulted in his expulsion from the university. His father packed him off to Lausanne, in Switzerland, in the hope that the Protestant atmosphere of the place would wean him from his new faith.
From his stay in Lausanne began Gibbon’s long and affectionate acquaintance with French language and learning, two sources from which he was to draw the chief inspiration for his masterpiece. He returned to England in 1758, and had a brief and mixed experience in the Militia; afterward he toured the Continent, visiting the famous salons of Paris and seeing Rome. Returning to England after some years, he entered Parliament (1774), hoping for political preferment. In this he was only moderately successful, for he was a lukewarm and rather cynical politician. He returned to Lausanne, where he completed his great work in June 1787. He finally came back to England, and died in lodgings in London.
2. His Works. His first projected book, A History of Switzerland (1770), was never finished. Then appeared the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). At nearly regular intervals of two years each of the other five volumes was produced, the last appearing in 1788. His Autobiography, which contains valuable material concerning his life, is his only other work of any importance, and it is written with all his usual elegance and suave, ironic humor.
To most judges The Decline and Fall ranks as one of the greatest of historical works, and is a worthy example of what a history ought to be. In time it covers more than a thousand years, and in scope it includes all the nations of Europe. It sketches the events leading up to the dissolution of the Roman Empire, and traces the rise of the states and nations that previously formed the component parts of the Roman world, concluding with the fall of Constantinople in the fifteenth century. For this great task Gibbon’s knowledge is adequate; recent specialized research has rarely been able to pick holes in his narrative. Moreover, he had also that infallible sense of proportion which is the mark of the born historian: he knows what and when to omit, to condense, or give in full. In consequence his gigantic narrative has the balance and the beauty that result from a single and indivisible mind directing it, and suggests in plan and workmanship a vast cathedral.
Exception has been taken to Gibbon’s humor, and with some reason. His skeptical bias, the product of his studies in French, pervades the entire work. This mental attitude need be no disadvantage to the historian, for it leads him to scrutinize his evidence very severely. But in the case of Gibbon it is troublesome at times, especially when he deals with the rise of the Christian faith. In the chapters devoted to the early Christians he sets the facts down solemnly, but all the time he is subtly and sneeringly ironical, a characteristic that aroused the great indignation of Johnson. At many other points when recording disagreeable incidents Gibbon reveals a sniggering nastiness of humor unworthy of so great a writer.
His prose style, deliberately cultivated as being most suited to his subject, is peculiar to himself. It is lordly and commanding, with a full, free, and majestic rhythm. Admirably appropriate to its gigantic subject, the style has nevertheless some weaknesses. Though it never flags, and rarely stumbles, the very perfection of it tends to monotony, for it lacks ease and variety. The extract shows the elaborate construction of the sentences and the rolling character of the rhythm:
Three days Mahomet and his companion were concealed in the cave of Thor, at the distance of a league from Mecca; and in the close of each evening, they received from the son and daughter of Abubeker a secret supply of intelligence and food. The diligence of the Koreish explored every haunt in the neighbourhood of the city; they arrived at the entrance of the cavern; but the providential deceit of a spider’s web and a pigeon’s nest is supposed to convince them that the place was solitary and inviolate. “We are only two,” said the trembling Abubeker. “There is a third,” replied the prophet; “it is God himself.” No sooner was the pursuit abated, than the two fugitives issued from the rock, and mounted their camels; on the road to Medina they were overtaken by the emissaries of the Koreish; they redeemed themselves with prayers and promises from their hands. In this eventful moment the lance of an Arab might have changed the history of the world. The flight of the prophet from Mecca to Medina has fixed the memorable era of the Hegira, which, at the end of twelve centuries, still discriminates the lunar years of the Mahometan nations.
1. David Hume (1711–76). Born and educated at Edinburgh, Hume first distinguished himself as a philosopher, publishing the Treatise on Human Nature (1739–40) and Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741). Later he turned to historical work, writing The History of England, in six volumes, which appeared between the years 1754 and 1762. At first the work was coldly received, for it traversed the popular Whig notions, but in time the book raised Hume to the position of the leading historian of the day. He died in the same year that witnessed the issue of the first volume of The Decline and Fall.
As a historian Hume makes no pretense at profound research, so that his work has little permanent value as history. He possesses a clear and logical mind and a swift and brilliant narrative style. In the history of literature his work is of importance as being the first of the popular and literary histories of the country.
2. William Robertson (1721–93). Robertson also was a Scot, being born in the country of Midlothian. After leaving the university he entered the Scottish Church. He had an active and successful career as a historian, producing among other works The History of Scotland (1759), The History of Charles V (1769), and The History of America (1777).
The range of Robertson’s subject-matter shows that he could have been no deep student of any particular epoch of history. He aimed at a plain and businesslike narrative of events, taking the average man’s view of the facts he chronicled, and, with perhaps the exception of his pronounced bias in favor of Mary Queen of Scots, he is never conspicuously personal in his opinions.
3. James Boswell (1740–95) was born in Edinburgh of a good Scottish family. He studied law, but his chief delight was the pursuit of great men, whose acquaintance he greedily cultivated.
He lives in literature by his supreme effort, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), which ranks as one of the best biographies in existence. Boswell sought and obtained Johnson’s friendship; endured any humiliation for the sake of improving it; and for twenty-one years, by means of an astonishing amount of patience, pertinacity, and sheer thick-skinned imperviousness to slight and insult, obtained an intimate personal knowledge of Johnson’s life and habits. Boswell has suffered at the hands of Macaulay, who has pictured him as being a knavish buffoon. No doubt he had glaring faults; but on the other hand he had great native shrewdness, a vigorous memory, a methodical and tireless industry which made him note down and preserve many details of priceless value, and a natural genius for seizing upon points of supreme literary importance. All these gifts combine to make his book a masterpiece.
The following extract illustrates Boswell’s acute perception, his eye for detail, and his limpid and vivacious style:
That the most minute singularities which belonged to him, and made very observable parts of his appearance and manner, may not be omitted, it is requisite to mention, that while talking or even musing as he sat in his chair, he commonly held his head to one side towards his right shoulder, and shook it in a tremulous manner, moving his body backwards and forwards, and rubbing his left knee in the same direction, with the palm of his hand. In the intervals of articulating he made various sounds with his mouth, sometimes as if ruminating, or what is called chewing the cud, sometimes giving half a whistle, sometimes making his tongue play backwards from the roof of his mouth, as if clucking like a hen, and sometimes protruding it against his upper gums in front, as if pronouncing quickly under his breath, too, too, too: all this accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a smile. Generally when he had concluded a period, in the course of a dispute, by which time he was a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath like a whale. This I suppose was a relief to his lungs; and seemed in him to be a contemptuous mode of expression, as if he had made the arguments of his opponent fly like chaff before the wind.
The Life of Samuel Johnson.
Burke shares with Gibbon the place of the greatest prose stylist of the period now under review. He is, moreover, recognized as one of the masters of English prose.
1. His Life. Born in Dublin, Burke was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and then removed to London to study law in the Middle Temple. He soon showed that his real bent lay toward politics and literature, and it was not long before he published some books that attracted a good deal of attention and admitted him into the famous Johnson Club. In politics he attached himself to the Whig party, obtained some small appointments, and became member for Wendover (1765). Both as an orator and as a pamphleteer he was a powerful advocate for his party, and very soon his splendid gifts won for him a leading place in the House of Commons. His style of oratory, often labored, rhetorical, and theatrical, exposed him to much censure and ridicule, and his speeches were frequently prolonged to the point of dullness. But at its best his eloquence was powerful in attack and magnificent in appeal, rising to the very summit of the orator’s art. When the Whigs attained to office in 1783 Burke was appointed Paymaster of the Forces. He was leader in the prosecution of Warren Hastings, making a speech of immense length and power (1788). On the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 he left his party and attacked the revolutionaries with all his great energy. In 1794, broken in health, he retired from Parliament, but continued to publish pamphlets till his death in 1797.
2. His Works. The considerable sum of Burke’s achievement can for the sake of convenience be divided into two groups: his purely philosophical writings, and his political pamphlets and speeches.
(a) His philosophical writings, which comprise the smaller division of his product, were composed in the earlier portion of his career. A Vindication of Natural Society (1756) is a parody of the style and ideas of Bolingbroke, and, though it possesses much ingenuity, it has not much importance as an original work. A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756) is his most considerable attempt at philosophy. As philosophy the book is only middling, for its theory and many of its examples are questionable, but it has the sumptuous dressing of Burke’s language and style.
(b) His political works are by far his most substantial claim to fame. In variety, breadth of view, and illuminating power of vision they are unsurpassed in the language. The chief of the many works are Thoughts on the Present Discontents (1770), a resounding attack on the Tory Government then in power; Reflections on the French Revolution (1790), which marked his departure from his old party and his fierce challenge to the extreme revolutionary policy; Letter to a Noble Lord (1796); and Letters on a Regicide Peace (1797). In addition we have much purely oratorical work, such as the notable speeches on the American question and his great philippic against Warren Hastings.
3. Features of his Work. Though the occasion of Burke’s political writings has vanished, the books can still be read with profit and pleasure. Burke was the practical politician, applying to the problems of his day the light of a clear and forcible intelligence; yet, above this, he had an almost supreme faculty for discerning the eternal principles lying behind the shifting and troubled scenes of his time. He could distill from the muddy liquid of contemporary party strife the clear wine of wisdom, and so deduce ideas of unshakable permanence. Thus pages of his disquisition, scores of his dicta, can still be applied almost without qualification to the problems of any civilized state and time. A good deal of the writing is of an inferior quality; it can be flashy, labored, and dull; but as a whole it possesses the foundations of sanity and wisdom.
We have in addition the permanent attraction of Burke’s style. His prose is marked by all the devices of the orator: much repetition, careful arrangement and balance of parts, copious use of the rhetorical figures (such as metaphor, simile, epigram, and exclamation), variation of the sentence, homely illustrations, and a swift but steady rhythm. When he overdoes these devices he is garish and vulgar, but for the most part his style impresses the reader with an effect of elevation, strength, and noble perspicuity.
In the extract now given, note that the actual vocabulary does not abound in long Latinized words as in the case of Johnsonese. The ornate effect is produced rather by the elevation of the sentiment and the sweeping cadence of the style.
On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings, and which is as void of solid wisdom as it is destitute of all taste and elegance, laws are to be supported only by their own terrors, and by the concern which each individual may find in them from his own private speculations, or can spare to them from his own private interests. In the groves of their Academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows! Nothing is left which engages the affections on the part of the commonwealth. On the principles of this mechanic philosophy, our institutions can never be embodied, if I may use the expression, in persons, so as to create in us love, veneration, admiration, or attachment. But that sort of reason which banishes the affections is incapable of filling their place. These public affections, combined with manners, are required sometimes as supplements, sometimes as correctives, always as aids, to law. The precept given by a wise man, as well as a great critic, for the construction of poems is equally true as to states: “Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto.” There ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
Reflections on the French Revolution
1. Adam Smith (1723–90). This author was born at Kirkcaldy, in Fifeshire, and completed his education at Glasgow and Oxford. He was appointed professor at Glasgow University, whence he issued his famous book The Wealth of Nations (1776).
In the history of economics the work is epoch-making, for it lays the foundations of modern economic theory. In the history of literature it is noteworthy because it is another example of that spirit of research and inquiry that was abroad at this time, playing havoc with literary convention as well as with many other ideas. The book is also a worthy example of the use of a plain businesslike style in the development of theories of far-reaching importance.
2. William Paley (1743–1805) may be taken as the typical theological writer of the age. He was a brilliant Cambridge scholar, and obtained high offices in the Church, finally becoming an archdeacon. His chief books are Moral and Political Philosophy (1785), Horæ Paulinæ (1790), and A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794). His style is lively and attractive, and he possessed much vigor of character and intellect.
3. The Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) was of the famous Stanhope family. In his day he was an illustrious wit and man of fashion, and held high political offices. He is an example of the aristocratic amateur in literature, and he wrote elegant articles for the fashionable journals, such as The World.
His Letters to his Son, which were published shortly after his death in 1773, caused a great flutter. They appeared diabolically cynical and immoral, and as such they were denounced by Johnson. No doubt they affect the tired cynicism of the man of the world, but that does not prevent them from being keen and clever, and underneath their bored indifference to morality they reveal a shrewd judgment of men and manners. (See p. 342.)
4. William Godwin (1756–1836) is a prominent example of the revolutionary man of letters of the time. He was the son of a dissenting minister, and intended to follow the same profession, but very soon drifted away from it. He then devoted himself to the pursuit of letters, in which he developed his extreme views on religion, politics, sociology, and other important themes. His Political Justice (1793) was deeply tinged with revolutionary ideas, and had a great effect on many young and ardent spirits of the age, including Shelley. His novel Caleb Williams (1794) was a dressing of the same theories in the garb of fiction. Godwin is worth notice because he reveals the spread of the revolutionary doctrines that were so strongly opposed by Burke.
5. Gilbert White (1720–93) deserves mention as the first naturalist who cast his observations into genuine literary form. He was born at Selborne, Hampshire, studied at Oxford, and took holy orders. He settled at his native place, and published The Natural History of Selborne (1789). The book is a series of genuine letters written to correspondents who are interested in the natural history of the place. White reveals much closeness and sympathy of observation, and he can command a sweet and readable style. He shows the “return to nature” in a practical and praiseworthy form. (See p. 355.)
This, being an age of transition, is an age of unrest, of advance and retreat, of half-lights and dubious victories. But if we bring together the different types of literature, and mark how they have developed during the period, we can see that the trend of the age is quite clear.
1. Poetry. In 1740 we have Pope still alive and powerful, and Johnson an aspiring junior; in 1800, with Burns and Blake, Romanticism has unquestionably arrived. This great change came gradually, but its stages can be observed with some precision.
(a) The first symptom of the coming change was the decline of the heroic couplet, the dominance of which passed away with its greatest exponent, Pope. Toward the middle of the century a large number of other poetical forms can be observed creeping back into favor.
(b) The change was first seen in the free use of the Pindaric ode in the works of Gray and Collins, which appeared in the middle years of the century. The Pindaric ode is a useful medium for the transitional stage, for it has the double advantage of being “classical” and of being free from the more formal rules of couplet and stanza. Gray’s The Bard (1757) and Collins’s ode The Passions (1747) are among the best of the type.
(c) Another omen was the revival of the ballad, which was due to renewed interest in the older kinds of literature. The revived species, as seen in Goldsmith’s The Hermit and Cowper’s John Gilpin, has not the grimness and crude narrative force of the genuine ballad, but it is lively and often humorous. Another ballad-writer was Thomas Percy (1729–1811), who, in addition to collecting the Reliques (1765), composed ballads of his own, such as The Friar of Orders Grey. Chatterton’s Bristowe Tragedy has much of the fire and somberness of the old ballads.
(d) The descriptive and narrative poems begin with the old-fashioned London (1738) of Johnson; the development is seen in Goldsmith’s Traveller (1764) and Deserted Village (1770), in which the heroic couplet is quickened and transformed by a real sympathy for nature and the poor; the advance is carried still further by the blank-verse poems of Cowper (The Task) and Crabbe (The Village) and the Spenserian stanzas of minor poets like Shenstone (The Schoolmistress).
(e) Finally there is the rise of the lyric. The Pindarics of Collins and Gray are lyrics in starch and buckram; the works of Chatterton, Smart, Macpherson, Cowper, and, lastly, of Burns and Blake show in order the lyrical spirit struggling with its bonds, shaking itself free, and finally soaring in triumph. Romanticism has arrived.
2. Drama. In this period nothing is more remarkable than the poverty of its dramatic literature. Of this no real explanation can be given. The age was simply not a dramatic one; for the plays that the age produced, with the exceptions of a few notable examples of comedy, are hardly worth noticing.
Tragedy comes off worst of all. The sole tragedy hitherto mentioned in this chapter is Johnson’s Irene (1749), which only the reputation of its author has preserved from complete oblivion. A tragedy which had a great vogue was Douglas (1754), by John Home (1722–1808). It is now almost forgotten. Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) produced some historical blank-verse tragedies, such as Count Basil (1798) and De Montfort (1798). Her plays make fairly interesting reading, and some of their admirers, including Scott, said that she was Shakespeare revived.
Among the comedies we have the sprightly plays of Goldsmith, already noticed, Fielding’s Tom Thumb, and the work of Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816).
Sheridan was an Irishman, and became a prominent wit and politician. His wit is admirably revealed in his three brilliant prose comedies. The Rivals (1775), The School for Scandal (1777), and The Critic (1779). The three all resemble the best of the Restoration comedies, without the immorality that taints their models. The plots are ingenious and effective, though they depend largely on a stagy complexity of intrigue; the characters, among whom are the immortal figures of Mrs. Malaprop, Bob Acres, and Sir Fretful Plagiary, are stage types, but they are struck off with daring skill; and the dialogue is often a succession of brilliant repartees. The worst that can be said against the plays is that they are artificial, and that the very cleverness of them becomes fatiguing. With the work of Sheridan the artificial comedy reaches its climax.
3. Prose. The prose product of the period is bulky, varied, and of great importance. The importance of it is clear enough when we recollect that it includes, among many other things, possibly the best novel in the language (Tom Jones), the best history (The Decline and Fall), and the best biography (The Life of Doctor Johnson).
(a) The Rise of the Novel. There are two main classes of fictional prose narratives, namely, the tale or romance and the novel. The distinction between the two need not be drawn too fine, for there is a large amount of prose narrative that can fall into either group; but, broadly speaking, we may say that the tale or romance depends for its chief interest on incident and adventure, whereas the novel depends more on the display of character and motive. In addition, the story (or plot, or fable) of the novel tends to be more complicated than that of the tale, and it often leads to what were called by the older writers “revolutions and discoveries”—that is, unexpected developments in the narrative, finishing with an explanation that is called the dénouement. The tale, moreover, can be separated from the romance: the plot of the tale is commonly matter-of-fact, while that of the romance is often wonderful and fantastic.
There is little doubt that the modern novel has its roots in the medieval romances, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and those dealing with the legends of King Arthur. Another source of the novel were the collections of ballads telling of the adventures of popular heroes of the type of Robin Hood. These romances were written in verse; they were supplied with stock characters, like the wandering knight, the distressed damsel, and the wicked wizard; they had stock incidents, connected with enchanted castles, fiery dragons, and perilous ambushes; and their story rambled on almost interminably. They were necessary to satisfy the human craving for fiction, and they were often fiction of a picturesque and lively kind.
The age of Elizabeth saw the rise of the prose romance. We have examples in the Euphues (1579) of Lyly and the Arcadia of Sidney. As fiction these tales are weighed down with their fantastic prose styles, and with their common desire to expound a moral lesson. Their characters are rudimentary, and there is little attempt at a plot and love-theme. Yet they represent an advance, for they are fiction.
They are interesting from another viewpoint. They show us that curious diffidence that was to be a drag on the production of the novel even as late as the time of Scott. Authors were shy of being novelists for two main reasons: first, there was thought to be something almost immoral in the writing of fiction, as it was but the glorification of a pack of lies; and, secondly, the liking for fiction was considered to be the craving of diseased or immature intellects, and so the production of it was unworthy of reasonable men. Thus if a man felt impelled to write fiction he had to conceal the narrative with some moral or allegorical dressing.
A new type of embryo novel began to appear at the end of the sixteenth century, and, becoming very popular during the seventeenth, retained its popularity till the days of Fielding and Smollett.
This class is known as the picaresque novel, a name derived from the Spanish word picaron, which means a wandering rogue. As the name implies, it is of Spanish origin. For hero it takes a rascal who leads a wandering life, and has many adventures, most of them of a scandalous kind. The hero is the sole link between the different incidents, and there is much digression and the interposing of other short narratives. In Spain the picaresque type originated in parodies of the old romances, and of such parodies the greatest is the Don Quixote (1604) of Cervantes. In France the type became common, the most famous example of it being the Gil Blas (1735) of Le Sage.
In England the picaresque novel had an early start in Jack Wilton, or The Unfortunate Traveller, by Nash, (1567–1601), whose work often suggests that of Defoe. Nash’s work is crude, but it has vigor and some wit. A later effort in the same kind is The English Rogue (1665), by Richard Head. The book is gross and scandalous to an extreme degree, but it has energy, and, as it takes the hero to many places on the globe, the reader obtains interesting glimpses of life in foreign parts.
Another type that came into favor was the heroic romance. This was based on the similar French romances of Mademoiselle Scudéri (1607–1701) and others. This class of fiction was the elegant variety of the grosser picaresque novel, and it was much duller. The hero of a heroic romance was usually of high degree, and he underwent a long series of romantic adventures, many of them supernatural. There was much love-making, involving long speeches containing “noble sentiments, elegantly expressed.” The length of these romances was enormous; the Grand Cyrus of Mademoiselle Scudéri ran to ten large volumes. Popular English specimens were Ford’s Parismus, Prince of Bohemia (1598) and Parthenissa (1654), by Roger Boyle. It is worth noting that the artificial heroic romance collapsed about the end of the seventeenth century, whereas the picaresque class, which in spite of its grave faults was a human and interesting type of fiction, survived and influenced the novel in later centuries.
By the end of the seventeenth century the novel is dimly taking shape. Aphra Behn (1640–89) wrote stories that had some claims to plot, character-drawing, and dialogue. Her Orinooko, or The Royal Slave shows some power in describing the persecution of a noble negro, a kind of Othello, at the hands of brutal white men. The work of Bunyan (1628–88) was forced to be allegorical, for the Puritans, of whom he was one, abhorred the idea of writing fiction, which they regarded as gilded lies. Yet The Pilgrim’s Progress abounds in qualities that go to make a first-rate novel: a strong and smoothly working plot, troops of human and diverse characters, impressive descriptive passages, and simple dialogue dramatically sound. His other works, notably The Life and Death of Mr. Badman, are also very close to the novel proper.
In the eighteenth century we see another development in the Coverley papers (1711) of Steele and Addison. There is little plot in this essay-series, and only a rudimentary love-theme; but the allegorical fabric is gone, there is much entertaining character-sketching, and the spice of delicate humor. We should note also that we have here the beginnings of the society and domestic novel, for the papers deal with ordinary people and incidents.
The genuine novel is very near indeed in the works of Defoe (1659–1731). His novels are of the picaresque type in the case of Captain Singleton (1720), Moll Flanders (1722), and Colonel Jack (1722). They have many of the faults of their kind: the characters are weakly drawn, the plots are shaky and sprawling, and much of the incident is indecorous; yet they have a virile and sustaining interest that is most apparent in the best parts of Robinson Crusoe (1719).
Then, toward the middle of the century, came the swift and abundant blossoming of the novel, raising the type to the rank of one of the major species of literature. The time was ripe for it. The drama, which had helped to satisfy the natural human desire for a story, was moribund, and something had to take its place. Here we can only summarize very shortly the work of the novelists already discussed in this chapter. Richardson’s Pamela (1740) had the requisites of plot, characters, and dialogue, and these of high merit; but the diffidence of the early fiction-writer possessed him, and he had to conceal the novel-method under the clumsy disguise of a series of letters. Fielding’s robust common sense had no such scruples, and his Tom Jones (1749) shows us the novel in its maturity. Later novelists could only modify and improve in detail; with Fielding the principles of the novel were established.
The modifications of Fielding’s immediate successors can be briefly noticed. Smollett reverted to the picaresque manner, but he added the professional sailor to fiction, and gave it types of Scottish character that Scott was to improve upon; Sterne made the novel sentimental and fantastic, and founded a sentimental school; the Radcliffe novels, popular toward the end of the century, made fiction terrific; while in The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) Goldsmith showed us what the novel can do in respect of a simple yet effective plot, human and lovable personages, dialogue of a dramatic kind, and a tender and graceful humor. Johnson’s Rasselas (1759), which reverted to the methods of Euphues, was pure reaction, but it possesses an interest as a reversion to a long-dead type.
(b) The Rise of the Historical Work. The development of history came late, but almost necessarily so. The two main requirements of the serious historian are knowledge of his subject and maturity of judgment. Before the year 1750 no great historical work had appeared in any modern language. Raleigh’s History of the World (1614) is not a real history; it is only the fruit of the mental exertions of an imprisoned man who seeks relaxation. Clarendon’s History of the Great Rebellion, which was not published till 1704, is largely the record of his own personal experiences and opinions. He makes little attempt at an impartial and considered judgment or at placing the rebellion in its proper perspective.
The general advance in knowledge and the research into national affairs which were the features of eighteenth-century culture quickly brought the study of history into prominence. France led the way, and the Scots, traditionally allied to the French, were the first in Britain to feel the influence. Hence we have Hume’s History of England (1754) and the works of Robertson. These books excelled in ease and sense, but the knowledge displayed in them was not yet sufficient to make them epoch-making. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall (1776) in knowledge, in method, and in literary style is as near perfection as human frailty can attain. Thus within twenty or thirty years the art of writing history in English advanced from a state of tutelage to complete development.
(c) Letter-writing. The habit of writing letters became very popular during the eighteenth century, and flourished till well into the nineteenth, when the institution of the penny post made letter-writing a convenience and not an art. It was this popularity of the letter that helped Richardson’s Pamela into public favor.
A favorite form of the letter was a long communication, sometimes written from abroad, discussing some topic of general interest. Such a letter was semi-public in nature, and was meant to be handed round a circle of acquaintances. Frequently a series of letters was bound into book-form. Collections of this kind were the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762), written to Pope and others from Constantinople, and of Thomas Gray, from the Lake District and the Continent. Sometimes the letters contain comments on political and social matters, as in the famous compositions of Lord Chesterfield to his son, which we have already noticed. We give an extract from one of Chesterfield’s letters, for it is valuable as an example of witty and polished prose. A letter of the type of Chesterfield’s is really an essay which is given a slightly epistolary form.
London, May 27, 1753
... You are now but nineteen, an age at which most of your countrymen are illiberally getting drunk in Port at the University. You have greatly got the start of them in learning; and, if you can equally get the start of them in the knowledge and manners of the world, you may be very sure of outrunning them in Court and Parliament, as you set out so much earlier than they. They generally begin but to see the world at one-and-twenty; you will by that age have seen all Europe. They set out upon their travels unlicked cubs; and in their travels they only lick one another, for they seldom go into any other company. They know nothing but the English world, and the worst part of that too, and generally very little of any but the English language; and they come home, at three or four-and-twenty, refined and polished (as is said in one of Congreve’s plays) like Dutch skippers from a whale-fishing. The care which has been taken of you, and (to do you justice) the care you have taken of yourself, has left you, at the age of nineteen only, nothing to acquire but the knowledge of the world, manners, address, and those exterior accomplishments. But they are great and necessary acquisitions, to those who have sense enough to know their true value; and your getting them before you are one-and-twenty, and before you enter upon the active and shining scene of life, will give you such an advantage over all your contemporaries, that they cannot overtake you: they must be distanced. You may probably be placed about a young prince, who will probably be a young king. There all the various arts of pleasing, the engaging address, the versatility of manners, the brilliant, the Graces, will outweigh and yet outrun all solid knowledge and unpolished merit. Oil yourself therefore, and be both supple and shining, for that race, if you would be first, or early, at the goal.
A type of letter which is frankly a work written for publication is well represented by the famous Letters of Junius, which caused a great stir in their day. They are what are called “open letters”—that is, they are for general perusal, while they gain additional point by being addressed to some well-known personage. The public, as it were, has the satisfaction of looking over the shoulder of the man to whom they are addressed. “Junius” is now supposed to have been Sir Philip Francis (1740–1818), though the identity of the writer was long concealed. They began to appear in The Public Advertiser in 1769, and by their immensely destructive power they shook the Government to its base. In force and fury they resemble Swift’s Drapier’s Letters, but they tend to become petty and spiteful.
The more intimate and private letters of this period, of which there is a large and interesting collection, are of a deeper significance to us now, for they contain a human interest by revealing the nature of the people who wrote them. In The Life of Doctor Johnson Boswell published many of Johnson’s letters, the most famous of which is that containing the snub to Chesterfield. It is quoted in the exercises attached to this chapter. Horace Walpole, as we have already noted (p. 323), left a voluminous correspondence which for wit, vivacity, and urbane and shallow common sense is quite remarkable. The private letters of Cowper are attractive for their easy and unaffected grace and their gentle and pervasive humor. We add an extract from a letter by Cowper. The style of it should be compared with that of Chesterfield.
(To William Hayley.)
Weston, February 24, 1793
... Oh! you rogue! what would you give to have such a dream about Milton, as I had about a week since? I dreamed that being in a house in the city, and with much company, looking toward the lower end of the room from the upper end of it, I descried a figure which I immediately knew to be Milton’s. He was very gravely, but very neatly attired in the fashion of his day, and had a countenance which filled me with those feelings which an affectionate child has for a beloved father, such, for instance, as Tom has for you. My first thought was wonder, where he could have been concealed so many years; my second, a transport of joy to find him still alive; my third, another transport to find myself in his company; and my fourth, a resolution to accost him. I did so, and he received me with a complacence, in which I saw equal sweetness and dignity. I spoke of his Paradise Lost, as every man must, who is worthy to speak of it at all, and told him a long story of the manner in which it affected me, when I first discovered it, being at that time a schoolboy. He answered me by a smile and a gentle inclination of his head. He then grasped my hand affectionately, and with a smile that charmed me, said, “Well, you for your part will do well also”; at last recollecting his great age (for I understood him to be two hundred years old), I feared that I might fatigue him by much talking; I took my leave, and he took his, with an air of the most perfect good breeding. His person, his features, his manner, were all so perfectly characteristic, that I am persuaded an apparition of him could not present him more completely. This may be said to have been one of the dreams of Pindus,[169] may it not?... With Mary’s kind love, I must now conclude myself, my dear brother, ever yours,
Lippus[170]
(d) The Periodical Essay. Compared with the abundance of the earlier portion of the century, the amount produced later seems of little importance. The number of periodicals, however, was as great as ever. Johnson wrote The Rambler and The Idler, and contributed also to The Adventurer and others; Goldsmith assisted The Bee during its brief career. The Connoisseur, to which Cowper contributed for a space, The Mirror and The Lounger, published in Edinburgh by Mackenzie, “the Man of Feeling,” The Observer and The Looker On all imitated The Spectator with moderate success, but show no important development in manner or matter.
(e) Miscellaneous Prose. The amount of miscellaneous prose is very great indeed, and a fair proportion of it is of high merit. We have already given space to the political and philosophical writings of Burke, whose work is of the highest class, as represented in The Sublime and Beautiful and Reflections on the French Revolution. Political writing of a different aim is seen in Godwin’s Political Justice; and the religious writings of Paley, the critical writings of Percy, and the natural history of Gilbert White are all to be included in this class.
1. Poetry. In poetical style the transitional features are well marked. The earlier authors reveal many artificial mannerisms—for example, extreme regularity of meter and the frequent employment of the more formal figures of speech, such as personification and apostrophe. The Pindaric odes of Gray and Collins are examples of the transitional style: