1. His Life. Scott was born in Edinburgh, of an ancient stock of Border freebooters. At the age of eighteen months he was crippled for life by a childish ailment; and though he grew up to be a man of great physical robustness he never lost his lameness. He was educated at the High School of Edinburgh and at the university; and there he developed that powerful memory which, though it rejected things of no interest to it, held in tenacious grasp a great store of miscellaneous knowledge. His father was a lawyer, and Scott himself was called to the Scottish Bar (1792). As a pleader he had little success, for he was much more interested in the lore and antiquities of the country. He was glad, therefore, to accept a small legal appointment as Sheriff of Selkirkshire (1799). Just before this, after an unsuccessful love-affair with a Perthshire lady, he had married the daughter of a French exile. In 1806 he obtained the valuable post of Clerk of Session, but for six years he received no salary, as the post was still held by an invalid nominally in charge.
In 1812, on receipt of his first salary as Clerk of Session, he removed from his pleasant home of Ashiestiel to Abbotsford, a small estate near Melrose. For the place he paid £4000, which he characteristically obtained half by borrowing and half on security of the poem Rokeby, still unwritten. During the next dozen years he played the laird at Abbotsford, keeping open house, sinking vast sums of money in enlarging his territory, and adorning the house in a manner that was frequently in the reverse of good taste. In 1826 came the crash. In 1801 he had assisted a Border printer, James Ballantyne, to establish a business at Edinburgh. In 1805 Scott became secretly a partner. As a printing firm the concern was a fair success; but in an evil moment, in 1809, Scott, with another brother, John Ballantyne, started a publishing business. The new firm was poorly managed from the beginning; in 1814 it was only the publication of Waverley that kept it on its legs, but the enormous success of the later Waverley Novels gave it abounding prosperity—for the time. Then John Ballantyne, a reckless fellow, plunged heavily into further commitments, which entailed great loss; Scott in his easy fashion also drew heavily upon the firm’s funds; and in 1826 the whole erection tumbled into ruin. With great courage and sterling honesty Scott refused to take the course that the other principals accepted naturally, and compound with his creditors. Instead he attempted what turned out to be the impossible task of paying the debt and surviving it. His liabilities amounted to £117,000, and before he died he had cleared off £70,000. After his death the remainder was made good, chiefly from the proceeds of Lockhart’s Life, and his creditors were paid in full.
The gigantic efforts he made brought about his death. He had a slight paralytic seizure in 1830. It passed, but it left him with a clouded brain. He refused to desist from novel-writing, or even to slacken the pace. Other illness followed, his early lameness becoming more marked. After an ineffectual journey to Italy, he returned to Abbotsford, and died within sound of the river he loved so well.
2. His Poetry. Scott’s earliest poetical efforts were translations from the German. Lenore (1799), the most considerable of them, is crude enough, but it has much of his later vigor and clatter. In 1802 appeared the first two volumes of The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. In some respects the work is a compilation of old material; but Scott patched up the ancient pieces when it was necessary, and added some original poems of his own, which were done in the ancient manner. The best of his own contributions, such as The Eve of St. John, have a strong infusion of the ancient force and fire, as well as a grimly supernatural element.
In The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) there is much more originality. The work is a poem of considerable length, professing to be the lay of an aged bard who seeks shelter in the castle of Newark. As a tale the poem is confused and difficult; as poetry it is mediocre; but the abounding vitality of the style, the fresh and intimate local knowledge, and the healthy love of nature made it a revelation to a public anxious to welcome the new Romantic methods. The poem was a great and instant success, and was quickly followed up with Marmion (1808).
In popular estimation Marmion is held to be Scott’s masterpiece. The story deals with Flodden Field, and is intricate in detail, as Scott labors to obtain a dénouement. For several cantos the tale is cumbered with the masses of antiquarian and topical matter with which Scott’s mind was fully charged. Once the narrative is within touch of Flodden it quickens considerably. The conclusion, dealing with the death of Marmion and the close of the battle, is one of the triumphs of martial verse:
Next came The Lady of the Lake (1810), a still greater success, but clumsy in plot and heavy with unpoetical matter. The poem made the fortune of the Trossachs. In Rokeby (1813) the scene shifts to the North of England. As a whole this poem is inferior to its predecessors, but some of the lyrics have a seriousness and depth of tone that are quite uncommon in the spur-and-feather pageantry of Scott’s verse. The Bridal of Triermain (1813) and The Lord of the Isles (1814) mark a decline in quality.
In addition to the longer poems Scott composed many lyrics, and continued to write such till late in his career. Most of them are passable in a tuneful and picturesque fashion; and in a few, such as Proud Maisie and A Weary Lot is Thine, he attains to something finer and deeper. A ballad from Rokeby has an intensity that gives it a strongly lyrical cast. The conclusion is as follows:
As a poet Scott’s reputation has depreciated and continues to depreciate. His faults, like his merits, are all on the surface: he lacks the finer poetical virtues, such as reflection, melody, and delicate sympathy; he (in poetry) is deficient in humor; he records crude physical action simply portrayed. Even the vigor that is often ascribed to him exists fitfully, for he loads his narrative with overabundant detail, often of a technical kind. When he does move freely he has the stamp, the rattle, and the swing of martial music. One must nevertheless do credit to the service he did to poetry by giving new zest to the Romantic methods that had already been adopted in poetry.
3. His Prose. About 1814 Scott largely gave up writing poetry, and save for a few short pieces wrote no more in verse. There are two chief reasons for his desertion of the poetical form. With his native shrewdness he saw that he had marketed as much verse as the public could absorb; and, secondly, as he confessed in the last year of his life, Byron had “bet” him by producing verse tales that were fast swallowing up the popularity of his own. In 1814 Scott returned to a fragment of a Jacobite prose romance that he had started and left unfinished in 1805. He left the opening chapters as they stood, and on to them tacked a rapid and brilliant narrative dealing with the Forty-five. This made the novel Waverley, which was issued anonymously in 1814. Owing chiefly to its ponderous and lifeless beginning, the book hung fire for a space; but the remarkable remainder was almost bound to make it a success. After Waverley Scott went on from strength to strength: Guy Mannering (1815), The Antiquary (1816), The Black Dwarf (1816), Old Mortality (1816), Rob Roy (1818), The Heart of Midlothian (1818), The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), and The Legend of Montrose (1819). All these novels deal with scenes in Scotland, but not all with historical Scotland. They are not of equal merit, but even the weakest, The Black Dwarf, is astonishingly good. Scott now turned his gaze abroad, producing Ivanhoe (1820), the scene of which is pitched in early England; then turned again to Scotland and suffered failure with The Monastery (1820), though he triumphantly rehabilitated himself with The Abbot (1820), a sequel to the last. Henceforth he ranged abroad or stayed at home as he fancied in Kenilworth (1821), The Pirate (1822), The Fortunes of Nigel (1822), Peveril of the Peak (1823), Quentin Durward (1823), St. Ronan’s Well (1824), Redgauntlet (1824), The Betrothed (1825), and The Talisman (1825). By this time such enormous productivity was telling even on his gigantic powers. In the later books the narrative is often heavier, the humor more cumbrous, and the descriptions more labored.
Then came the financial deluge, and Scott began a losing battle against misfortune and disease. But even yet the odds were not too great for him; for in succession appeared Woodstock (1826), The Fair Maid of Perth (1828), Count Robert of Paris (1831), and Castle Dangerous (1831). The last works were dictated from the depths of mental and bodily anguish, and the furrows of mind and brow are all over them. Yet frequently the old spirit revives and the ancient glory is renewed.
It should never be forgotten that along with these literary] labors Scott was filling the office of Clerk of Session, was laboriously performing the duties of a Border laird, and was compiling a mass of miscellaneous prose. Among this last are his editions of Dryden (1808) and Swift (1814), heavy tasks in themselves; the Lives of the Novelists (1820); the Life of Napoleon (1827), a gigantic work that cost him more labor than ten novels; and the admirable Tales of a Grandfather (1827–29). His miscellaneous articles, pamphlets, journals, and letters are a legion in themselves.
4. Features of his Novels. (a) Rapidity of Production. Scott’s great success as a novelist led to some positive evils, the greatest of which was a too great haste in the composition of his stories. His haphazard financial methods, which often led to his drawing upon future profits, also tended to overproduction. Haste is visible in the construction of his plots, which are frequently hurriedly improvised, developed carelessly, and finished anyhow. As for his style, it is spacious and ornate, but he has little ear for rhythm and melody, and his sentences are apt to be shapeless. The same haste is seen in the handling of his characters, which sometimes finish weakly after they have begun strongly. An outstanding case of this is Mike Lambourne in Kenilworth.
It is doubtful if Scott would have done any better if he had taken greater pains. He himself admitted, and to a certain extent gloried in, his slapdash methods. So he must stand the inevitable criticisms that arise when his methods are examined.
(b) His contribution to the novel is very great indeed. To the historical novel he brought a knowledge that was not pedantically exact, but manageable, wide, and bountiful. To the sum of this knowledge he added a life-giving force, a vitalizing energy, an insight, and a genial dexterity that made the historical novel an entirely new species. Earlier historical novels, such as Clara Reeve’s Old English Baron (1777) and Miss Porter’s Scottish Chiefs (1810), had been lifeless productions; but in the hands of Scott the historical novel became of the first importance, so much so that for a generation after his time it was done almost to death. It should also be noted that he did much to develop the domestic novel, which had several representatives in the Waverley series, such as Guy Mannering and The Antiquary. To this type of fiction he added freshness, as well as his broad and sane handling of character and incident.
(c) His Shakespearian Qualities. Scott has often been called the prose Shakespeare, and in several respects the comparison is fairly just. He resembles Shakespeare in the free manner in which he ranges high and low, right and left, in his search for material. On the other hand, in his character-drawing he lacks much of the Elizabethan’s deep penetration, though he has much of Shakespeare’s genial, tolerant humor, in which he strongly resembles also his great predecessor Fielding. It is probably in this large urbanity that the resemblance to Shakespeare is observed most strongly.
(d) His Style. The following extract will give some idea of Scott’s style at its best. It lacks suppleness, but it is powerful, solid, and sure. In his use of the Scottish vernacular he is exceedingly natural and vivacious. His characters who employ the Scottish dialect, such as Cuddie Headrigg or Jeanie Deans, owe much of their freshness and attraction to Scott’s happy use of their native speech:
Fergus, as the presiding judge was putting on the fatal cap of judgment, placed his own bonnet upon his head, regarded him with a steadfast and stern look, and replied in a firm voice: “I cannot let this numerous audience suppose that to such an appeal I have no answer to make. But what I have to say you would not bear to hear, for my defence would be your condemnation. Proceed, then, in the name of God, to do what is permitted to you. Yesterday and the day before you have condemned loyal and honourable blood to be poured forth like water. Spare not mine. Were that of all my ancestors in my veins, I would have perilled it in this quarrel.” He resumed his seat, and refused again to rise.
Evan Maccombich looked at him with great earnestness, and, rising up, seemed anxious to speak; but the confusion of the court and the perplexity arising from thinking in a language different from that in which he was to express himself, kept him silent. There was a murmur of compassion among the spectators, from the idea that the poor fellow intended to plead the influence of his superior as an excuse for his crime. The judge commanded silence, and encouraged Evan to proceed.
“I was only ganging to say, my lord,” said Evan, in what he meant to be an insinuating manner, “that if your excellent Honour and the honourable court would let Vich Ian Vohr go free just this once, and let him gae back to France, and no to trouble King George’s government again, ony six o’ the very best of his clan will be willing to be justified in his stead; and if you’ll just let me gae down to Glennaquoich, I’ll fetch them up to ye mysell, to head or hang, and you may begin wi’ me the very first man.”
Waverley
1. Her Life. Jane Austen was the daughter of a Hampshire clergyman. She was educated at home; her father was a man of good taste in the choice of reading material, and Jane’s education was conducted on sound lines. Her life was unexciting, being little more than a series of pilgrimages to different places of residence, including the fashionable resort of Bath (1801). On the death of the rector his wife and two daughters removed to the neighbourhood of Southampton, where the majority of Jane Austen’s novels were written. Her first published works were issued anonymously, and she died in middle age, before her merits had received anything like adequate recognition.
2. Her Novels. The chronology of Miss Austen’s novels is not easy to follow, for her earliest works were the last to be published. In what follows we shall take the books approximately in their order of composition, not of publication.
Her first novel was Northanger Abbey, which was finished in 1798, but not published till 1818, after her death. The book begins as a burlesque of the Radcliffe type of the terror novel, which was then all the rage. The heroine, after a visit to Bath, is invited to an abbey, where she imagines romantic possibilities, but is in the end ludicrously undeceived. The incidents in the novel are ingloriously commonplace, and the characters flatly average. Yet the treatment is deft and touched with the finest needle-point of satiric observation. The style is smooth and unobtrusive, but covers a delicate pricking of irony that is agreeable and masterly in its quiet way. Nothing quite like it had appeared before in the novel.
In Pride and Prejudice (1797) the same methods are to be seen. We have the same middle-class people pursuing the common round. The heroine is a girl of spirit, but she has no extraordinary qualities; the pride and prejudice of rank and wealth are gently but pleasingly titillated, as if they are being subjected to an electric current of carefully selected intensity. In unobtrusive and dexterous art the book is considered to be her masterpiece.
Sense and Sensibility (1798) was her third novel, and it followed the same general lines as its predecessors. Then came a long pause, for she could find no publisher to issue her work. The first to see print was the last mentioned, which appeared in 1811. Stimulated to further effort, in quick succession she wrote Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816), and Persuasion (1818). The latter group are of the type of the others; if there is development it is seen in the still more inflexible avoidance of anything that is unusual or startling. The novels are all much the same, yet subtly and artistically different.
3. Features of her Novels. (a) Her Plots. Her plots are severely unromantic. Her first work, beginning as a burlesque of the horrible in fiction, finishes by being an excellent example of her ideal novel. As her art develops, even the slight casualties of common life—such an incident, for example, as the elopement that appears in Pride and Prejudice—become rarer; with the result that the later novels, such as Emma, are the pictures of everyday existence. Only the highest art can make such plots attractive, and Jane Austen’s does so.
(b) Her characters are developed with minuteness and accuracy. They are ordinary people, but are convincingly alive. She is fond of introducing clergymen, all of whom strike the reader as being exactly like clergymen, though each has his own individual characteristics. She has many characters of the first class, like the servile Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice, the garrulous Miss Bates in Emma, and the selfish and vulgar John Thorpe in Northanger Abbey. Her characters are not types, but individuals. Her method of portrayal is based upon acute observation and a quiet but incisive irony. Her male characters have a certain softness of thew and temper, but her female characters are almost unexceptionable in perfection of finish.
(c) Her place in the history of fiction is remarkable. Her qualities are of a kind that are slow to be recognized, for there is nothing loud or garish to catch the casual glance. The taste for this kind of fiction has to be acquired, but once it is acquired it remains strong. Jane Austen has won her way to a foremost place, and she will surely keep it.
We add a short extract to illustrate her clear and careful style, her skill in handling conversation, and the quiet irony of her method.
(Catherine Morland, the heroine of the novel, is introduced to the society of Bath, where she cuts rather a lonely figure till she meets a young man called Tilney—“not quite handsome, but very near it.” The following is part of their conversation at a dance.)
After chatting some time on such matters as naturally arose from the objects around them, he suddenly addressed her with—“I have hitherto been very remiss, madam, in the proper attentions of a partner here; I have not yet asked you how long you have been in Bath; whether you were ever here before; whether you have been at the Upper Rooms, the theatre, and the concert; and how you like the place altogether. I have been very negligent—but are you now at leisure to satisfy me in these particulars? If you are I will begin directly.”
“You need not give yourself that trouble, sir.”
“No trouble, I assure you, madam.” Then forming his features into a set smile, and affectedly softening his voice, he added, with a simpering air, “Have you been long in Bath, madam?”
“About a week, sir,” replied Catherine, trying not to laugh.
“Really!” with affected astonishment.
“Why should you be surprised, sir?”
“Why, indeed!” said he, in his natural tone; “but some emotion must appear to be raised by your reply, and surprise is more easily assumed, and not less reasonable, than any other.—Now let us go on. Were you never here before, madam?”
“Never, sir.”
“Indeed! Have you yet honoured the Upper Rooms?”
“Yes, sir, I was there last Monday.”
“Have you been to the theatre?”
“Yes, sir, I was at the play on Tuesday.”
“To the concert?”
“Yes, sir, on Wednesday.”
“And are you altogether pleased with Bath?”
“Yes—I like it very well.”
“Now I must give one smirk, and then we may be rational again.”
Northanger Abbey
1. Maria Edgeworth (1767–1849). This novelist was born in County Longford, Ireland. Her life is largely the catalogue of her books, which are numerous, varied, and in quality very unequal. Her best novels deal with Irish life. They were warmly praised by Scott, who declared that they gave him ideas for his own stories. Castle Rackrent (1800) is successful in its dealing with Irish characters; Lenora (1806) shows a good deal of power; Tales of Fashionable Life (1809) contains much of her best work, including The Absentee, which is commonly considered her masterpiece. Other works are Patronage (1814), Harrington (1817), and Ormand (1817). Her type of fiction is lively and agreeable, except when she indulges in a shallow kind of moralizing. In her day her popularity ran a close second to Scott’s, but now only a slight flicker survives.
2. John Galt (1779–1839) was born in Ayrshire, and there he passed the early years of his life, afterward removing to Greenock. He studied for the Bar, but delicate health drove him abroad. After much traveling he settled in Scotland, and produced a large amount of literary work. He engaged unsuccessfully in business transactions, then took once more to writing novels and to journalism. He died at Greenock, where his career had commenced.
The best of his novels are The Ayrshire Legatees (1820), in the form of a letter-series, containing much amusing Scottish narrative; The Annals of the Parish (1821), his masterpiece, which is the record of a fictitious country minister, doing in prose very much what Crabbe had done in verse; The Entail (1821); and The Provost (1822). Galt had a vigorous style and abundant imagination, with a great deal of humor and sympathetic observation. He is too haphazard and uneven to be a great novelist, though he has value as a painter of Scottish manners.
3. William Harrison Ainsworth (1805–82) was an early imitator of Scott. He wrote a great number of novels, which cover many periods of English history. The first was Sir John Chiverton (1825), but he scored his great success with the Dick Turpin romance Rookwood (1834). A few of the many others were Jack Sheppard (1839), an immense success, The Tower of London (1840), Old St. Paul’s (1841), Windsor Castle (1843), The Star Chamber (1854), The Constable of the Tower (1861), and Preston Fight (1875). Ainsworth possesses little of Scott’s genius, for his handling of history is crude and heavy, and consists of throwing in large, undigested lumps of history. He is feeble in his treatment of his characters, but when he is in the right vein he can give the reader a vigorous narrative and a fair quality of description.
4. George P. R. James (1801–60) was another follower of the method of Scott, and he was responsible for a hundred and eighty-nine volumes, chiefly novels. He was born in London; traveled abroad; settled down to novel-writing; on the strength of some serious historical work was appointed Historiographer Royal; entered the consular service; and died at Venice.
Richelieu (1828), which bears a strong resemblance to Quentin Durward, was his earliest, and is by many considered to be his best, novel. Others include Darnley (1830), De l’Orme (1830), The Gipsy (1835), and Lady Montague’s Page (1858). As was almost inevitable with such mass-production, he makes his novels on a stock pattern. He is fond of florid pageantry, and can be rather ingeniously mysterious in his plots. He has little power in dealing with his characters, and no imaginative grasp of history. In style he is undistinguished, but fluent and clear.
5. Charles Lever (1806–72). Lever was born in Dublin, was educated at Trinity College and Göttingen, and became a physician. The success of his novels caused him to desert his profession, and in the course of time (1842) he became editor of The Dublin University Magazine, which had published his first stories. In his latter years he lived abroad, was appointed consul in Sardinia (1858), and after some other changes died when consul at Trieste.
Harry Lorrequer (1839), his first novel, made a great hit. It is a novel of the picaresque type, dealing with the adventures of the hare-brained but lovable hero. Charles O’Malley (1841) is of the same species, and others are Jack Hinton (1842) and Tom Burke of Ours (1844). The scenes of these novels are pitched in Ireland; there is little plot, what there is consisting of the scrapes of the heroes; the humor is rough-and-tumble, though agreeably lively; and the heroes, who are all much the same, are amiable fellows, with a propensity for falling into trouble and falling out of it. A later class of Lever’s novels was more of the historical cast, and includes The O’Donovan (1845) and The Knight of Gwynne (1847). Others dealt with the Continent, and include The Dodd Family Abroad (1854) and The Fortunes of Glencore (1857). These latter are more stable and serious, and as novels are better than the earlier groups.
6. Frederick Marryat (1792–1848) followed the Smollett tradition of writing sea-stories. He was born in London, entered the Navy at an early age (1806), and saw some fighting just before the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars. He saw further service in different parts of the world, rose to be a captain, and spent much of his later life writing the novels that have given him his place in literature.
His earliest novel was The Naval Officer (1829), a loose and disconnected narrative, which was followed by The King’s Own (1830), a much more able piece of work. From this point he continued to produce fiction at a great rate. The best of his stories are Jacob Faithful (1834), Peter Simple (1834), Japhet in Search of a Father (1836), Mr. Midshipman Easy (1836), and Masterman Ready (1841). All his best books deal with the sea, and have much of its breeziness. Marryat has a considerable gift for plain narrative, and his humor, though it is often coarse, is entertaining. His characters are of the stock types, but they are lively and suit his purpose, which is to produce a good yarn.
7. Michael Scott (1789–1835) was another novelist whose favorite theme was the sea. Scott was not a sailor like Marryat, but a merchant, first in Jamaica and then in his native city of Glasgow. His two tales, Tom Cringle’s Log (1829) and The Cruise of the Midge (1834), were published in Blackwood’s Magazine. They have attempts at fine writing which Marryat did not aspire to, and are none the better for it, for Scott seldom succeeds in being impressive. His actual nautical details lack the intimacy and freshness of Marryat’s. He was, however, a gifted story-teller, and his tales are rarely dull.
8. Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81), Lord Beaconsfield, was a Londoner of Jewish race, and after many struggles and failures rose to be leader of the Tory party in Parliament and Prime Minister. His political career does not concern us here.
He began his literary career as a novelist. Vivian Grey (1826) soon set the fashionable world talking of its author. It dealt with fashionable society, it was brilliant and witty, and it had an easy arrogance that amused, incensed, and attracted at the same time. The general effect of cutting sarcasm was varied, but not improved, by passages of florid description and sentimental moralizing. His next effort was The Voyage of Captain Popanilla (1829), a modern Gulliver’s Travels. The wit is very incisive, and the satire, though it lacks the solid weight of Swift’s, is sure and keen. Disraeli wrote a good number of other novels, the most notable of which were Contarini Fleming (1831), Henrietta Temple (1837), Coningsby (1844), Sybil (1845), and Tancred (1847). These last books, written when experience of public affairs had added depth to his vision and edge to his satire, are polished and powerful novels dealing with the politics of his day. At times they are too brilliant, for the continual crackle of epigram dazzles and wearies, and his tawdry taste leads him to overload his ornamental passages. Disraeli also carried further the idea of Captain Popanilla by writing Alroy (1832), Ixion in Heaven (1833), and The Infernal Marriage, which are half allegorical, half supernatural, but wholly satirical romances. In style the prose is inflated, but the later novels sometimes have flashes of real passion and insight.
9. Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1805–73) was the son of General Bulwer. On the death of his mother he succeeded to her estate and took the name of Lytton, later becoming Lord Lytton. He was at first educated privately, and then at Cambridge, where he won a prize for English verse. He had a long and successful career both as a literary man and as a politician. He entered Parliament, was created in turn a baronet and a peer, and for a time held Cabinet rank.
His earliest efforts in literature were rather feeble imitations of the Byronic manner. His first novel was Falkland (1827), which was published anonymously, and then came Pelham (1828). These are pictures of current society, and are immature in their affectation of wit and cynicism. They contain some clever things, but they lack the real merit of the early novels of Disraeli. Another of the same kind was Devereux (1829). Paul Clifford (1830) changed the scene to the haunts of vice and crime, but was not at all convincing. Lytton now took to writing historical novels, the best of which were The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), Rienzi (1835), and Harold (1848). They are rather garish, but clever and attractive, and they had great popularity. He did not neglect the domestic novel, writing The Caxtons (1849) and My Novel (1853); and the terror and supernatural species were ably represented by A Strange Story (1862) and The Coming Race (1871). Lytton is never first-rate, but he is astonishingly versatile, and, considering the speed of his production, his books are of a high quality. His plays, such as Richelieu (1839) and Money (1840), had great success.
1. His Life. Lamb was born in London, his father being a kind of factotum to a Bencher of the Middle Temple. The boy, who was a timid and retiring youth, was educated at Christ’s Hospital, where he was a fellow-pupil of Coleridge, whose early eccentricities he has touched upon with his usual felicity. He would have entered the Church, but an impediment in his speech made such a course impossible; instead he obtained a clerkship first in the South Sea House, then (1792) in the East India House, where the remainder of his working life was spent. There was a strain of madness in the family which did not leave him untouched, for in 1795–96 he was under restraint for a time. In the case of his sister, Mary Lamb, the curse was a deadly one. In September 1796 she murdered her mother in a sudden frenzy, and thereafter she had intermittent attacks of insanity. Lamb devoted his life to the welfare of his afflicted sister, who frequently appears in his essays under the name of Cousin Bridget. After more than thirty years’ service Lamb retired (1825) on a pension, and the last ten years of his life were passed in blessed release from his desk. He was a charming man, a delightful talker, and one of the least assuming of writers. His reputation, based upon his qualities of humor, pathos, and cheery goodwill, is unsurpassed in our literature.
2. His Essays. Lamb started his literary career as a poet, producing short pieces of moderate ability, including the well-known The Old Familiar Faces and To Hester. He attempted a tragedy, John Woodvil (1801), in the style of his favorite Elizabethan playwrights, but it had no success on the stage. His Tales from Shakespeare (1807), written in collaboration with his sister, are skillfully done, and are agreeable to read. His critical work, narrow in scope, is remarkable for its delicate insight and good literary taste. All these writings, however, are of little importance compared with his essays.
The first of his essays appeared in The London Magazine in 1820, when Lamb was forty-five years old. It was signed “Elia,” a name taken almost at random as that of an old foreigner who used to haunt the South Sea House. The series continued till October 1822, and was published as The Essays of Elia (1823). A second series lasted from May 1824 to August 1825, and was published under the title of The Last Essays of Elia (1833).
The essays are unequaled in English. In subject they are of the usual miscellaneous kind, ranging from chimneysweeps to old china. They are, however, touched with personal opinions and recollections so oddly obtruded that interest in the subject is nearly swamped by the reader’s delight in the author. No essayist is more egotistical than Lamb; but no egotist can be so artless and yet so artful, so tearful and yet so mirthful, so pedantic and yet so humane. It is this delicate clashing of humors, like the chiming of sweet bells, that affords the chief delight to Lamb’s readers.
It is almost impossible to do justice to his style. It is old-fashioned, bearing echoes and odors from older writers like Sir Thomas Browne and Fuller; it is full of long and curious words; and it is dashed with frequent exclamations and parentheses. The humor that runs through it all is not strong, but airy, almost elfish, in note; it vibrates faintly, but in application never lacks precision. His pathos is of much the same character; and sometimes, as in Dream-Children, it deepens into a quivering sigh of regret. He is so sensitive and so strong, so cheerful and yet so unalteringly doomed to sorrow.
The extract given below deals with the playhouse, which was one of his greatest passions. The reader can easily observe some of the above-mentioned features of his style.
In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable manager who abolished them!—with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at the door—not that which is left—but between that and an inner door in shelter—O when shall I be such an expectant again!—with the cry of nonpareils, an indispensable playhouse accompaniment in those days. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the theatrical fruiteresses then was, “Chase some oranges, chase some num-parels, chase a bill of the play;”—chase pro chuse. But when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed—the breathless anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe’s Shakespeare—the tent scene with Diomede—and a sight of that plate can always bring back in a measure the feeling of that evening.—The boxes at that time, full of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit; and the pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling—a homely fancy—but I judged it to be sugar-candy—yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy!—The orchestra lights at length arose, those “fair Auroras!” Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again—and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time. The curtain drew up—I was not past six years old—and the play was Artaxerxes!
My First Play
1. His Life. De Quincey was born at Manchester, where his father was a rich merchant. The elder De Quincey left considerable property, but De Quincey himself was improvident and unreliable in his financial affairs. He was educated first at Manchester Grammar School and then at Oxford. There he studied for a long time (1803–8), distinguishing himself by his ability in Greek. While he was an undergraduate (1804) he first became acquainted with opium, soaking his tobacco in the drug and then smoking it in order to alleviate the pains of neuralgia. His money was always easily spent, and his early struggles were a painful effort to make both ends meet. He earned a precarious livelihood by journalism, and lived for a long time (1809–30) in the Lake District, becoming intimate with the local literary celebrities. During this time his devotion to the drug was excessive, but he produced a large amount of work. Then, becoming loosely attached to the staff of Blackwood’s Magazine, he removed to Edinburgh. In this neighborhood he remained till the end of his long life, and was buried in the Scottish capital.
2. His Works. De Quincey is one of the authors whose work is to be rigorously sifted. He wrote a large amount of prose; most of it is hack-work, a fair proportion is of good quality, and a small amount is of the highest merit. He wrote no book of any great length, in this respect resembling another opium-eater, Coleridge.
The book that made his name was his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821), which appeared in The London Magazine. The work, which is chaotic in its general plan, is a series of visions that melt away in the manner of dreams. Much is tawdry and unreal, but the book contains passages of great power and beauty. The remainder of his work is a mass of miscellaneous production, the best of which is The English Mail-coach, Suspiria de Profundis, and Murder considered as One of the Fine Arts.
A great part of his work is dreary and diffuse, and vitiated by a humor that is extremely flat and ineffective. He displays a wide range of knowledge, though it is often flawed with inaccuracy. In style he is apt to stumble into vulgarity and tawdriness; but when inspiration descends upon him he gives to the English tongue a wonderful strength and sweetness. In these rare moments he plunges into an elaborate style and imagery, but never loses grip, sweeping along with sureness and ease. In rhythm and melody he is almost supreme; he can “blow through bronze” and “breathe through silver,” and be impressive in both.
The passage we now give is among his most impressive efforts. It has the unity and passion of the lyric, and its effect is both thrilling and profound. Observe the studied rhythm, often ejaculatory, the deep and solemn beauty, and the simplicity of diction. This is poetic prose at its best:
As a final specimen, I cite one of a different character, from 1820.
The dream commenced with a music which now I often heard in dreams—a music of preparation and of awakening suspense; a music like the opening of the coronation anthem, and which, like that, gave the feeling of a vast march—of infinite cavalcades filing off—and the tread of innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty day—a day of crisis and of final hope for human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse, and labouring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where—somehow, I knew not how—by some beings, I knew not whom—a battle, a strife, an agony was conducting—was evolving like a great drama, or piece of music; with which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my confusion as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its possible issue. I, as is usual in dreams (where, of necessity, we make ourselves central to every movement), had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. I had the power, if I could raise myself, to will it; and yet again had not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. “Deeper than ever plummet sounded,” I lay inactive.
Then, like a chorus, the passion deepened. Some great interest was at stake; some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms: hurryings to and fro: trepidations of innumerable fugitives, I knew not whether from the good cause or the bad: darkness, and lights: tempest, and human faces; and at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that were worth all the world to me, and but a moment allowed,—and clasped hands, and heart-breaking partings, and then—everlasting farewells! and with a sigh, such as the caves of hell sighed when Sin uttered the abhorred name of Death, the sound was reverberated—everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again reverberated—everlasting farewells!
And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud—“I will sleep no more!”
The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
The period now under review is very rich in critical and miscellaneous work. Of the writers of literary criticism Hazlitt may be taken as representative.
1. His Life. Hazlitt was born in Shropshire, the son of a Unitarian minister. His first intention was to be a painter, but he abandoned the idea and took to letters as a profession. He was a friend of Coleridge, with whom he shared an ardent admiration for revolutionary principles. This enthusiasm, and others of a similar nature, Hazlitt was not slack in expressing; and this habit, added to a brawling acerbity of temper, made his life largely a series of quarrels and controversies.
2. His Works. His output was very large, and included many political works. Those that are of importance here are The Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (1817), Lectures on the English Poets (1818), and The Spirit of the Age (1825). His longest work was the Life of Napoleon (1828) but it was of no great value.
Hazlitt’s criticism, though it is limited in scope to English literature, shows great ability, shrewd insight, and sanity in its enthusiasms. It is far more precise and equable than that of Coleridge, broader and more incisive than Lamb’s, and much more reasoned and scientific than De Quincey’s. It is often spoilt by his political views, but when they are allowed for it can be trusted to a great degree.
His style is admirable for his purpose. It is readable and clear, and when necessary it can rise into expressing the keen zest that Hazlitt felt for the good and the wholesome in English literature. The following extract is of interest as a comparison of Addison and Steele: