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+Project Gutenberg's A History of English Prose Fiction, by Bayard Tuckerman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A History of English Prose Fiction
+
+Author: Bayard Tuckerman
+
+Release Date: March 13, 2005 [EBook #15350]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSE FICTION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Lynn Bornath, Leonard Johnson and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A HISTORY
+
+OF
+
+ENGLISH PROSE FICTION
+
+
+
+BY
+
+BAYARD TUCKERMAN
+
+
+
+NEW YORK & LONDON
+G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+The Knickerbocker Press
+1894
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT BY
+G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+1882
+
+
+
+
+TO
+MY FATHER,
+THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+It is attempted in this volume to trace the gradual progress of English
+Prose Fiction from the early romance to the novel of the present day,
+in such connection with the social characteristics of the epochs to
+which these works respectively belong, as may conduce to a better
+comprehension of their nature and significance.
+
+As many of the earlier specimens of English fiction are of a character
+or a rarity which makes any acquaintance with them difficult to the
+general public, I have endeavored so to describe their style and
+contents that the reader may obtain, to some degree, a personal
+knowledge of them.
+
+The novels of the nineteenth century are so numerous and so generally
+familiar, that, in the chapter devoted to this period, I have sought
+rather to point out the great importance which fiction has assumed, and
+the variety of forms which it has taken, than to attempt any exhaustive
+criticism of individual authors--a task already sufficiently performed
+by writers far more able to do it justice.
+
+THE AUTHOR.
+
+B.T.
+
+"_The Benedick._"
+NEW YORK, Aug. 22, 1882.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE ROMANCE OF CHIVALRY ........................................   1
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAUCER, TALES OF THE YEOMANRY, SIR T. MORE'S "UTOPIA"..........  42
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. LYLY, GREENE, LODGE, SIDNEY  .............  60
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE PURITANS, "THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS" ......................... 102
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE RESTORATION. ROGER BOYLE, MRS. MANLEY, MRS. BEHN ........... 112
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. SWIFT, ADDISON, DEFOE, RICHARDSON,
+FIELDING, SMOLLETT ............................................. 134
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CONTINUED. STERNE, JOHNSON, GOLDSMITH,
+AND OTHERS. MISS BURNEY AND THE FEMALE NOVELISTS.
+THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL ........................................... 220
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE NOVEL IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE NOVEL OF
+LIFE AND MANNERS. OF SCOTCH LIFE. OF IRISH LIFE.
+OF ENGLISH LIFE. OF AMERICAN LIFE. THE HISTORICAL
+NOVEL. THE NOVEL OF PURPOSE. THE NOVEL OF FANCY.
+USE AND ABUSE OF FICTION ...................................... 274
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE ROMANCE OF CHIVALRY.
+
+
+I
+
+In the midst of an age of gloom and anarchy, when Feudalism was slowly
+building up a new social organization on the ruins of the Roman Empire,
+arose that spirit of chivalry, which, in its connection with the
+Christian religion, forms so sharp a division between the sentiments of
+ancient and modern times. Following closely on the growth of chivalry
+as an institution, there came into being a remarkable species of
+fiction, which reflected with great faithfulness the character of the
+age, and having formed for three centuries the principal literary
+entertainment of the knighthood of Europe, left on the new
+civilization, and the new literature which had outgrown and discarded
+it, lasting traces of its natural beauty. Into the general fund of
+chivalric romance were absorbed the learning and legend of every land.
+From the gloomy forests and bleak mountains of the North came dark and
+terrible fancies, malignant enchanters, and death-dealing spirits,
+supposed to haunt the earth and sea; from Arabia and the East came
+gorgeous pictures of palaces built of gold and precious stones, magic
+rings which transport the bearer from place to place, love-inspiring
+draughts, dragons and fairies; from ancient Greece and Rome came
+memories of the heroes and mysteries of mythology, like old coins worn
+and disfigured by passing, through ages, from hand to hand, but still
+bearing a faint outline of their original character. All this mass of
+fiction was floating idly in the imaginations of men, or worked as an
+embellishment into the rude numbers of the minstrels, when the mediæval
+romancers gathered it up, and interweaving it with the traditions of
+Arthur and Charlemagne, produced those strange compositions which are
+so entirely the product and repository of the habits, superstitions,
+and sympathies of the Middle Ages that they serve to
+
+     "Hold the mirror up to Nature,
+      To show Vice its own image, Virtue its own likeness,
+      And the very age and body of the times,
+      His form and pressure."
+
+The men who wrote, and the men who read these romances, the first
+springs of our modern fiction, were influenced by two dominant ideas:
+"One religious, which had fashioned the gigantic cathedrals, and swept
+the masses from their native soil to hurl them upon the Holy Land; the
+other secular, which had built feudal fortresses, and set the man of
+courage erect and armed within his own domain."[1] These two ideas were
+outwardly expressed in the Roman Church and the Feudal System.
+
+During the anarchy of the Middle Ages, every man was compelled to look
+upon war as his natural occupation, if he hoped to preserve life or
+property. His land was held as a condition of military service. As long
+as there was no effective administration of justice, redress for the
+aggrieved lay in the sword alone. A military career had no rival in the
+eyes of the ambitious and the noble. There was no learning, no art, to
+share with skill in arms, the honors to which a youth aspired. Religion
+and love, the most powerful inspirations of his moral life, made force
+of arms the merit most worthy of their rewards. The growth of the
+people in the mechanical arts took the direction of improving the
+instruments of warfare; the increase of refinement and humanity tended
+less to diminish war than to make it more civilized, showy, and
+glorious. The armies of the Romans seem prosaic when we turn to the
+brilliant array of chivalry, to the ranks of steel-clad knights
+couching the lance to win fame, the smile of woman, or the reward of
+religious devotion;--men to whom war seemed a grand tournament, in
+which each combatant, from the king to the poorest knight, was to seek
+distinction by his strength and valor. It was through the senses, and
+especially through the eye, that the feudal imagination was moved.
+Every heart was kindled at the sight of shining armor, horses with
+brilliant trappings, gorgeous dress, and martial show. The magnificent
+Norman cathedrals struck the mind with devotional awe; the donjons and
+towers of the great baronial castles were suggestive of power and
+glory. To the impressibility of the senses was added the romantic
+spirit of adventure, which kept the knighthood of Europe in a constant
+ferment, and for lack of war, burst forth in tournaments, in private
+feuds, or in the extravagances of knight-errantry. The feudal system,
+growing up to meet the necessities of conquerors living on conquered
+territory, and founded on the principle of military service as a
+condition of land tenure, made of Europe a vast army. The military
+profession was exalted to an importance which crushed all effort of a
+more useful or progressive nature; the military class, including all
+who possessed land, and did not labor upon it, became an aristocracy
+despising peaceful occupations, whose most powerful prejudice was pride
+of birth, whose ruling passion was love of war. Under the influence of
+this military spirit, intellectual was subordinated to active life; a
+condition of ignorance and danger was sustained; an overwhelming
+reverence for the supernatural was produced, and there resulted that
+predominance of the imagination over the reason of man which forms the
+distinctive feature of Romantic Fiction.
+
+While the feudal system formed the framework of society, and, as much
+by inspiration as by law, governed the outward actions of men, the
+human mind was in complete, and almost universally willing, subjection
+to theological influence. The state of war, or of readiness for war,
+which was the inevitable accompaniment of feudal tenure, did much to
+sustain the state of profound ignorance and consequent superstition in
+which the people of mediæval times were plunged, both by preventing the
+pursuit of peaceful occupations and the growth of knowledge, and by
+increasing the element of danger in life, which always inclines the
+human mind to a belief in the supernatural. The same results were
+brought about by the character and aims of the Roman Church. The
+unswerving purpose of that church was to govern, temporally as well as
+spiritually. She sought to supply to men from her own store all the
+knowledge which was necessary for their welfare, and that knowledge was
+limited to dogmas and beliefs which would strengthen the power of the
+priesthood. A strict and absolute acceptance of the truths of
+Christianity as she defined them, and a humble obedience to the clergy
+were made the sole and necessary conditions of salvation. A questioning
+of those truths or a violation of that obedience was a crime before
+which murder and license faded into insignificance. The spirit of doubt
+and of inquiry which alone leads to knowledge, and through knowledge to
+civilization, was repressed by excommunication or in blood. As long as
+men continued in a state of helpless ignorance and willing credulity,
+the church was a fitting, even a beneficent, mistress and guide. For
+centuries she was the sole teacher and the sole external source of
+moral elevation. For centuries she alone pointed out the distinction
+between right and wrong, the beauty of virtue, and the ugliness of sin.
+Whatever there was in life to raise men above their earthly struggles,
+their evil passions, and the despair of a hard and dangerous existence,
+was supplied by her. The consolations of religion, the ennobling
+acquaintance with the character of Christ, and the hope of salvation
+through Him were incalculable blessings. Her aid in suppressing
+disorder and in establishing a respect for law and government is not to
+be overlooked. She presented in her own organization an example of
+authority, of system, and of obedience, which, despite many failings
+and abuses, was of great value to the world. But there is in human
+nature an irrepressible tendency toward growth and progress, and when
+this tendency began to show itself in the Middle Ages, it found in the
+theological spirit, then personated by the Roman Church, its most
+bitter and most powerful enemy. The church, which had hitherto been a
+teacher and guide, became the champion of barbarism and the genius of
+retrogression. Instead of adapting herself to the growing wants of
+mankind, instead of preserving her influence and power by inward
+progress proportionate to that which she saw advancing without, she
+sought, stationary herself, to keep the world stationary, and to stamp
+out in blood the progressive spirit of man. Hence it is that the
+blessings of our modern life have been achieved in spite of the Roman
+Church, which should have promoted them, and the history of modern
+civilization and modern knowledge is in so large a part the history of
+emancipation from the tyranny of the theological spirit,--that is, the
+clerical opposition to mental and material advancement, both of which
+are as necessary to moral advancement as they are to the happiness of
+men. This spirit has been the same in every country and in every age,
+when the spiritual has exceeded the secular power, and its lamentable
+effects may be traced as well in the gloomy Protestant theocracy of
+Scotland as in the Catholic Inquisition of Spain. During the period,
+however, when the romances of chivalry were principally written and
+enjoyed, the convulsions arising from attempts to burst the bonds by
+which the minds of men were restrained, had not yet been sensibly felt.
+The church was still the controlling intellectual influence. A dark
+cloud of ignorance and superstition hung over Europe, to be dispelled
+at last by the new growth of learning, and the consequences following
+upon it. The best intelligence of the time was confined to the clergy,
+who used it skilfully to maintain their authority. By every device they
+sought to usurp to themselves the sole power of ministering to popular
+wants. Nothing which could strike the mind through the senses was
+neglected. They offset tournaments by religious shows and pageantry,
+rivalled the attractions of the harp by sacred music, and to wean their
+flocks from the half dramatic entertainments of the minstrels, they
+invented the Miracle Play and the Mystery. The church forced herself on
+the attention of every man without doors or within, by the friars
+black or gray who met him at every turn, by the imposing monasteries
+which formed a central figure in every landscape, and by the festivals
+and processions of priests which made the common occasions for the
+assemblage of the people. The constant recurrence of holy days and
+fasts called the mind to the consideration of spiritual things, and the
+rough superstition of the time was deeply excited when the approach of
+death in a household brought the priestly train with lighted tapers,
+and the awe-inspiring ceremonies with which the lingering soul was sent
+on its way.
+
+The military nature of feudalism explains the predominance of warlike
+incidents in romantic fiction, and the character of the Roman Church
+gives us an insight into the causes which, in addition to the ignorance
+of the time, induced men to refer all remarkable events to supernatural
+influence, and prepared their minds for the unquestioning belief in the
+fictions which are so important a characteristic of the romances of
+chivalry. The low standard of morality also, which is reflected in the
+same pages, is due quite as much to the predominance of the dogmatic
+over the moral element of Christianity, as to the unrefined and rude
+conditions of life.
+
+There is much that is picturesque and brilliant in the times, but much
+more that is terrible. The nobles and knights, who lived sword in hand
+behind their battlements and massive walls, were the rulers of the
+country. Their ungoverned passions and their love of fighting for its
+own sake or for that of revenge, were perpetual dangers to internal
+peace. There was no power sufficient to keep them in check. The
+lawlessness and anarchy caused by the ceaseless quarrels between baron
+and baron, found but a feeble remedy in the laws of King or Church. Of
+the darkness of the earlier Middle Ages Von Sybel[2] gives a graphic
+picture: "Monarchies sank into impotence; petty lawless tyrants
+trampled all social order under foot, and all attempts after scientific
+instruction and artistic pleasures were as effectually crushed by this
+state of general insecurity as the external well-being and material
+life of the people. This was a dark and stormy period for Europe,
+merciless, arbitrary, and violent. It was a sign of the prevailing
+feeling of misery and hopelessness that, when the first thousand years
+of our era were drawing to their close, the people in every country in
+Europe looked with certainty for the destruction of the world. Some
+squandered their wealth in riotous living, others bestowed it, for the
+good of their souls, on churches and convents; weeping multitudes lay
+day and night about the altars; some looked forward with dread, but
+most with secret hope, toward the burning of the earth and the falling
+in of heaven." Gradually some order and security succeeded this chaos.
+The church exerted all her strength in subduing violence, and the
+character of her remedies are illustrative of the evils they were
+intended to abate. The truce of God set apart the days between Thursday
+and Monday of each week as a time of peace, when private quarrels
+should be suspended. The peace of the king forbade the avenging of an
+alleged injury until forty days after its commission. The Council of
+Clermont ordered that every noble youth on attaining the age of twelve
+years should take an oath to defend the oppressed, the widows, and the
+orphans.[3] Much superfluous energy was exhausted in the crusades. In
+England the growth of the universities and the study and development of
+law aided the establishment of social order, while the spread of
+commerce and the improvements in husbandry brought with wealth some
+refinement and luxury. The baronage wrested from the crown those
+liberties which finally became the common property of all. Trade pushed
+the inhabitants of the towns into prominence as an important class
+whose influence was thrown entirely into the scale of peace and quiet,
+on which its prosperity depended. No element of change was more
+essential, and none was greater in its civilizing effects than the
+development of the chivalric spirit into an institution of which the
+laws and customs were observed from England to Sicily. Its influence
+worked directly upon the disturbing classes of society. Only time and
+the slow march of civilization could calm the restlessness and the
+martial spirit of the powerful, but chivalry introduced into warfare
+knightly honor and generosity, and into social life a courtesy and
+gallantry which formed a strong ally to religion in bringing out the
+better sentiments of humanity. At a time when force was greater than
+law, when the weak and defenceless were at the mercy of the powerful,
+when women were never safe from the attacks of the brutal, a body of
+men who were sworn to redress wrongs, to succor the oppressed, and to
+protect women and children, could not fail to be highly beneficial and
+to win the reverence of mankind. To be a good knight was to be the salt
+of the earth. The church gave easy absolution to the champion of the
+weak,--the soldier of God. Women smiled upon the cavalier whose
+profession was her service, and whose deeds, as well as the glitter of
+his arms and the fascination of his martial appearance, flattered her
+pride and gratified her imagination.
+
+Yet, in considering the period of chivalry, we must not yield too much
+to the attraction of its brilliant show, its high flown sentiments, and
+knightly valor. Beneath religion there ever lurked a bigoted
+superstition; beneath valor, cruelty; beneath love, mere brutal
+passion. The sympathies of the order were much confined to the higher
+classes, and there was little feeling for the sufferings of the common
+people. The reign of Edward the Third embraces the most brilliant days
+of chivalry. About that period is spread a mist of manly gallantry and
+feminine charms which conceals the darkness beneath. The Black Prince,
+after winning his spurs at Cressy, carried fire and sword among the
+peaceful and defenceless inhabitants of Garonne, gratifying a greed of
+gain by blood and rapine. The gallant deeds of Sir Walter de Manny, of
+Sir John Chandos, the fame of Edward himself, only make darker by
+contrast the desolation and suffering by which their glory was
+purchased. The poetic illusion inspired by Froissart's chronicles of
+knightly deeds and manners is rudely torn when we read Petrarch's
+description of France after the battle of Poitiers; "I could not
+believe that this was the same France which I had seen so rich and
+flourishing. Nothing presented itself to my eyes but a fearful
+solitude, land uncultivated, houses in ruins. Even the neighborhood of
+Paris showed everywhere the marks of desolation and conflagration. The
+streets are deserted, the roads overgrown with weeds, the whole is a
+vast solitude."[4]
+
+It is among the Northern conquerors that we must look for the origin of
+the spirit of chivalry, which consisted first and chiefly in manly
+valor exerted to obtain the favor of woman. Of this there is no trace
+in any ancient civilization. Among the barbarous tribes of the North,
+physical strength and military prowess were the qualities most
+essential in a man, and woman naturally looked upon them as the merit
+she most loved, especially as they were needed for her own protection.
+But this condition is natural to all barbarous and warlike peoples, and
+cannot by itself account for that sentiment which we call chivalric. To
+the valor of the Goths were joined an extraordinary reverence and
+respect for their women, due, as these feelings always must be, to
+feminine chastity. The virtue for which the Northern women were
+distinguished elevated them to a position to which the females of other
+uncivilized nations never approached. It gave them a large influence in
+both public and private affairs, and made them something to be won, not
+bought. To obtain his wife the Northern warrior must have deserved her,
+he must have given proofs that he was worthy of the woman who had
+preserved her chastity inviolate, and for whom love must be mingled
+with respect.[5] It is curious to observe how exactly these sentiments,
+which existed at so early a period among the Gothic nations, were
+continued into feudal times. Take, as one instance, the exclamation of
+Regner Lodbrog, the famous Scandinavian chieftain, who about the year
+860 rescued a princess from a fortress in which she was unjustly
+confined, and received her hand as his reward: "I made to struggle in
+the twilight that yellow haired chief, who passed his mornings among
+the young maidens and loved to converse with widows. He who aspires to
+the love of young virgins ought always to be foremost in the din of
+arms!"[6] Compare to this a scene at Calais about the middle of the
+fourteenth century. Edward III had just accomplished an adventure of
+chivalry. Serving under the banner of Sir Walter de Manny as a common
+knight, he had overcome in single combat the redoubted Sir Eustace de
+Ribeaumont, who had brought the king twice on his knees during the
+course of the battle. Edward that evening entertained all his French
+prisoners as well as his own knights at supper, and at the conclusion
+of the feast he adjudged the prize of valor for that day's fighting to
+Sir Eustace de Ribeaumont, and removing a chaplet of pearls from his
+own head, he placed it on that of the French knight, with the
+significant words[7]: "Sir Eustace, I present you with this chaplet as
+being the best combatant this day, either within or without doors; and
+I beg of you to wear it this year for love of me. I know that you are
+lively and amorous, and love the company of ladies and damsels;
+therefore say wherever you go that I gave it to you." But the chivalry
+of the Goths was only the seed of the plant which flourished so
+luxuriantly under better conditions in later times. The feudal system
+fostered the growth of the sentiment into the institution, as a
+palliative to anarchy and as an ornament to life, while the Church,
+always eager to absorb enthusiasm and power into her own ranks, adopted
+the institution as the Holy Order, and adding religious devotion to the
+inspiration of love, directed the energies of chivalry into the work of
+civilization, and made the knight the champion of the weak, in addition
+to his character as a valiant soldier.
+
+It is difficult in considering a period so remote and so peculiar as
+that of chivalry, to fix the limit between the actual and the
+imaginary, between the character of the ideals which men placed before
+themselves, and the extent to which these ideals were realized. That
+the writings of the romancers were exaggerations of actual manners
+rather than inventions, is shown by the descriptions of the habits and
+inmates of mediæval castles, which form so interesting a portion of
+Froissart's chronicles, and give such striking and life like
+illustrations of the society which at once inspired and enjoyed the
+romances of chivalry. The castle of the Earl of Foix and the Earl
+himself would have seemed quite natural in the pages of a romance:
+"Ther was none more rejoysed in dedes of armes than the erle dyde: ther
+was sene in his hall, chambre, and court, knightes and squyers of
+honour going up and downe, and talking of armes and amours; all honour
+ther was found, all maner of tidyngs of every realme and countre ther
+might be herde, for out of every countree ther was resort, for the
+valyantness of this erle." Of "armes and amours" the knights and ladies
+loved to talk, and arms and amours formed the burden of the ponderous
+tomes which the Earl of Foix caused to be read before him. The
+adventures of knights-errant, and their obligation to render aid and
+comfort to "all distressed ladies and damsels," have a charming
+illustration in the championship of the cause of Isabel, Queen of
+Edward the Second of England, by Sir John of Hainault, and the words
+used by the latter in undertaking the enterprise were the echo of the
+chivalric feeling of the time. As soon as the arrival of Queen Isabel
+in Hainault was known, "this Sir John, being at that time very young
+and panting for glory, like a knight-errant mounted his horse, and,
+accompanied by a few persons, set out from Valenciennes for
+Ambreticourt, where he arrived in the evening and paid the Queen every
+respect and honour." Notwithstanding the remonstrances and objections
+which were raised against his undertaking so perilous an adventure as
+the invasion of England, "the gallant knight would not change his
+purpose, saying, 'that he could die but once; that the time was in the
+will of God; and that all true knights were bound to aid, to the utmost
+of their power, all ladies and damsels driven from their kingdoms
+comfortless and forlorn.'" To suppose that the romances formed an
+accurate reflection of actual life would show an entire ignorance of
+their nature; but there can be no doubt that these fictions were the
+natural outcome of existing thought and manners; that they were
+sufficiently life-like to interest; and that they increased and
+intensified the habits and ideas in which they had their origin.
+
+The combination of qualities and motives which we are accustomed to
+express in the general term of chivalry was the mediæval ideal of
+virtue, and as such was in practice inevitably subject to imperfection
+and inconsistency. The Roman _virtus_ was simply courage. Chivalry
+meant courage and skill in arms, united to gentle birth, to courtesy,
+to gallantry, and to a faithful observance of the laws of combat; the
+whole inspired by military glory, religious enthusiasm, or devotion to
+women. We should admire the greatness and nobility of this ideal,
+standing out as it does against a background of lawlessness and
+ignorance, rather than complain that in practice its valor often
+degenerated into ferocity, its Christianity into narrow bigotry, its
+worship of women into license and brutality. Chivalry, supplying a
+standard of excellence adapted by its nature to excite the admiration
+of men, did much to refine and civilize the rude age in which it arose;
+and this result is not belittled by the fact that that standard was
+pitched above the possibility of human attainment. Chivalry was the
+spontaneous expression of what was best in the time, and gave sentiment
+and charm to lives otherwise hard and barren. Its very exaggerations
+and grotesqueness illustrate the eagerness with which it was received,
+and the greatness of the want which it supplied. This was an ideal,
+too, separate and distinct from any that had been known before,
+possessing enduring characteristics of greatness and beauty which have
+never ceased to command sympathy and admiration. Though changed in
+outward form, and appearing under different manifestations, the
+chivalry of the Middle Ages is essentially the chivalry of to-day, but
+it now exerts a moral and intellectual, instead of a physical force.
+
+The new dignity which woman assumed in connection with the growth of
+chivalry was owing considerably to a cause separate from the Northern
+sentiment concerning them, and as the position of women is an important
+part of the social condition we are now examining, a glance at this
+other cause will not be without value or interest. It is indeed
+remarkable that in the Middle Ages woman should for the first time have
+attained her true rank, and that the highest conception of the female
+character which the world had yet known should have been developed in
+so rude and ferocious a time. The estimation in which women were held
+among Eastern nations was little lower than their position among the
+Jews. Where polygamy exists, and where purchase-money is paid to the
+father of the bride, women never attain to high appreciation or
+respect. Beauty rather than virtue was the ideal of Greece. The women
+of that country, living in continual seclusion, deprived alike of
+opportunities for attaining culture or exerting influence, became
+narrowed in thought and intelligence, and passed their lives in
+obscurity under the control of their husbands or sons.[8] Roman history
+gives us examples of female excellence and distinction, and represents
+women during some periods in a better position than had previously been
+known. But the female sex was never accorded among the Romans the
+general respect for its peculiar virtues, and the consideration for its
+weakness which forms one of the brightest pages of modern civilization.
+With the spread of Christianity, there was for centuries no
+improvement. The low standard by which the Jews had judged the sex
+exerted a strong and an evil influence. The spirit of asceticism,
+rapidly gaining ground in the Roman Church, pointed out absolute
+chastity in both sexes as the only praiseworthy condition of life, made
+marriage only an excusable sin, and recognized in that relationship,
+merely its use for the propagation of the species. Views so absurd and
+unnatural could not fail in producing the most evil results. Woman came
+to be regarded by the church as the origin of all sin, the favorite
+medium of the temptations of the Devil, the sanctity and happiness of
+marriage were interfered with, and the priesthood, debarred from that
+condition, showed themselves not insensible to the charms they so
+fiercely denounced, and presented to their flocks demoralizing examples
+of profligacy. The Northern invaders brought with them their own ideas
+concerning women, rough and crude, but containing the germ of much
+good. Being met by Christianity, they embraced it in large numbers,
+unreflectingly, at the command of their leaders. But in embracing it
+they changed it to suit themselves. Their minds were unfit for the
+reception of the dogmas of the church, or for the realization and
+worship of an invisible being. They seized on the ideas of Christ, the
+Virgin Mary, and the Saints, and worshipped in a great degree their old
+gods under the new names. But of the new objects of worship, Mary most
+struck their imaginations and won their affection. The meek and
+forgiving Christ was unsuited to their fierce and warlike dispositions.
+But Mary, the beautiful, the tender, the merciful mother of God became
+the object of an enthusiastic adoration, and with the worship of Mary
+the position of the whole sex was elevated. The brutish and unnatural
+teachings of the Fathers were overridden by the new and noble ideas
+which were springing up. Doctrines such as that of the Immaculate
+Conception rapidly won ground, and Catholic Mariolatry, taking root in
+the fertile soil of Northern chivalry, worked benefits which have
+lasted down to our own time, and conferred great blessings upon it.
+
+The purely military character of feudalism impressed itself on the
+habits of the time, and moulded domestic life, amusements and education
+in strict accordance with it. The castles of the great lords and
+knights were "academies of honour" for the children of their dependents
+and less wealthy neighbors; the court yards became the scene of martial
+exercises, and the presence of noble women within the walls afforded an
+opportunity for the cultivation of gentle manners, and for the growth
+of that feeling of reverence for the fair sex which was to form so
+important an element in the boys' later life. The "gentle damoiseau,"
+confided at the age of seven or eight to the care of a knight whose
+reputation for prowess and courtesy ensured a good example, learned
+modesty and obedience in the performance of menial services, then
+considered honorable; in the court-yard of the castle he was
+instructed in horsemanship, and in the use of the lance, the bow, and
+the sword. In the dangers and hardships of the chase the principal
+occupation in time of peace,--he was inured to fatigue, hunger, and
+pain; he learned to sound the horn at the different stages of the hunt,
+to dress the game when killed, and to carve it on the table.[9] He
+waited upon the ladies in their apartments as upon superior beings,
+whose service, even the most menial, was an honor. While yet a
+damoiseau, and before he had attained the rank of squire, the youth was
+expected to choose one girl who should receive his special admiration
+and service, in whose name his future knightly deeds should be
+performed, who should be his inspiration in battle, the reward of his
+valor, and the object of his gallantry. In the loves of Amadis and
+Oriana, so famous in romance, we have a simple and charming description
+of the first budding of the chivalric sentiment. "Oriana was about ten
+years old, the fairest creature that ever was seen; wherefore she was
+called the one 'without a peer.' * * * The Child of the Sea (Amadis)
+was now twelve years old, but in stature and size he seemed fifteen,
+and he served the queen; but now that Oriana was there, the queen gave
+her the Child of the Sea, that he should serve her, and Oriana said
+that 'it pleased her'; and that word which she said the child kept in
+his heart, so that he never lost it from his memory, and in all his
+life he was never weary of serving her, and his heart was surrendered
+to her; and this love lasted as long as they lasted, for as well as he
+loved her did she also love him. But the Child of the Sea, who knew
+nothing of her love, thought himself presumptuous to have placed his
+thoughts on her, and dared not speak to her; and she, who loved him in
+her heart, was careful not to speak more with him than with another;
+but their eyes delighted to reveal to the heart what was the thing on
+earth that they loved best. And now the time came that he thought he
+could take arms if he were knighted; and this he greatly desired,
+thinking that he would do such things that, if he lived, his mistress
+should esteem him."[10]
+
+Life in a Norman castle was at best hard and comfortless. In summer it
+was enlivened by hunting and hawking, by tournaments and pageantry. The
+gardens which usually surrounded a castle formed a resource for the
+female portion of the inhabitants, who are often represented in the
+illuminations of the time as occupied in tending the flowers or in
+making garlands. But in winter there were few comforts to lessen the
+suffering, and few resources to vary the monotony of life. The passages
+in the romances which hail the return of spring, are full of
+thankfulness and delight. Chess, dice, and cards, as well as many
+frolicsome games, served, with the aid of the minstrels, to afford
+amusement. The women had their occupations of spinning, sewing, and
+embroidery, while some of the accomplishments they cultivated may be
+inferred from the following passage in the folio of old Sir Joshua
+Barnes: "And now the ladies themselves, with many noble virgins, were
+meditating the various measures their skilful feet were to make, the
+pleasant aires their sweet voices should warble, and those soft
+divisions their tender fingers should strike on the yielding
+strings."[11] Life was lacking in physical comforts, and still more in
+refinement. The dining-hall became at night the sleeping place of a
+promiscuous crowd of retainers. There was a very imperfect separation
+of the sexes at any time. Men and women ate with their fingers, and
+threw the refuse of their meal on the table, or amidst the straw on the
+floor, to be devoured by the cats and dogs which swarmed about. Read
+the directions for ladies' table manners given by Robert de Blois: "If
+you eat with another (_i.e._, in the same plate), turn the nicest bits
+to him, and do not go picking out the finest and largest for yourself,
+which is not courteous. Moreover, no one should eat greedily a choice
+bit which is too large or too hot, for fear of choking or burning
+herself. * * * Each time you drink wipe your mouth well, that no grease
+may go into the wine, which is very unpleasant to the person who drinks
+after you. But when you wipe your mouth for drinking, do not wipe your
+eyes or nose with the table-cloth, and avoid spilling from your mouth
+or greasing your hands too much."[12] The same authority on manners and
+etiquette warns ladies against scolding and disputing, against swearing
+and getting drunk, and against some other objectionable actions which
+betray a great lack of feminine modesty. The "Moral Instructions" of
+the Chevalier de la Tour Landry present a picture of coarseness and
+immorality among both men and women, which shows how incompatible was
+the barrack-like existence of feudal times with the practice of any
+sort of self-restraint or purity of life.
+
+Of such a character, then, was the audience which the mediæval
+romancers had to please. A class essentially military, ferocious, and
+accustomed to shedding blood, yet preserving in their violence a
+certain observance of laws of honor and courtesy; setting before
+themselves more often an ideal of glory and nobility, than an object of
+plunder or conquest; cultivating a consideration and gallantry toward
+women, remarkable in view of the necessarily rough and unrefined
+circumstances of their life; highly imaginative and adventurous;
+rejoicing in brilliancy of dress and show; filling the monotony of
+peace by tournaments, martial games, and the entertainments of the
+minstrels.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Taine: History of Eng. Lit., Van Laun's trans. chap. 3,
+pt. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 2: "Hist. of Crusades," p. 11; Sir E. Strachey, Introd. to
+"Morte d'Arthur."]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mill's "Chivalry."]
+
+[Footnote 4: Quoted in Green's "Short History of the English People."
+p. 224.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Warton's "Hist. of English Poetry," Dissert. i.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Quoted by Warton, "Hist. of Poetry," Dis. i.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Froissart's "Chronicles," v. ii, p. 248, Johnes' Trans.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Lecky's "History of Morals," chap. 5, vol. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Scott's "Essay on Chivalry."]
+
+[Footnote 10: "Amadis of Gaul," Southey's ed. vol. 1, p. 40. This
+romance belongs to a late period of romantic fiction, but the passage
+cited is a good illustration of mediæval sentiment.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Sir J. Barnes' "History of Edward III."]
+
+[Footnote 12: Wright's "Manners and Sentiments in the Middle Ages,"
+p. 276.]
+
+
+
+II.
+
+The romances of chivalry sprang to life a logical production of the
+times. Their authors seized on the character of a king and a
+warrior--their highest conception of greatness, in the persons of
+Charlemagne and Arthur. Regardless of anachronism, they represented
+their heroes as the centre of a chivalric court, accoutred in the arms,
+and practising the customs of later centuries; they created in fact a
+new Arthur and a new Charlemagne, adapted to the new times. They
+brought to light the almost forgotten characters of antiquity. They
+represented Jason and Alexander invested with chivalric attributes and
+affected by mediæval superstitions. Hercules, according to them,
+performed his labors, not because of the wrath of Juno or the command
+of Jove, but, like a true knight-errant, to gain the favor of a
+Boeotian princess. Virgil the poet was transformed into Virgil the
+enchanter. The chief heroes were surrounded with restless knights,
+whose romantic adventures afforded unlimited range to the imagination,
+and delighted the chivalric mind. The romancers mingled with their
+endless tales of "arms and amours," the superstitions and myths which
+occupied the minds of men to the exclusion of all real knowledge and
+inquiry. The gloomy and terrible fictions which had adorned the songs
+of Northern scalds, the bright and fanciful imagery contained in the
+tales of Arabia and the East which the crusaders brought back with them
+into Europe, the superstitions of Christianity itself, were given only
+a greater influence in the lives of fictitious heroes than they were
+supposed to have in those of living men. Perfectly suited to the times,
+and in fact born of them, the romances took at once a powerful hold on
+the popular imagination. The characters of Arthur, of Launcelot and of
+Tristram became the objects of an ardent admiration, and the standards
+of excellence to which many strove to attain. The most exaggerated
+ideas of chivalry contained in the romances were adopted in actual
+life. Knights and ladies took upon themselves adventures and cultivated
+manners, which vied in extravagance with those of imaginary beings. The
+personality of King Arthur was so intensely realized, that for
+centuries it was believed that he would one day return from beyond the
+grave to resume his glorious rule. On his tomb were supposed to be
+inscribed the words:
+
+      Hic jacet Arthurus rex, quondam rexque futurus.
+
+Henry II visited his legendary grave at Glastonbury, and named his
+grandson Arthur. Edward I held a Round Table at Kenilworth. Remarkable
+features of nature--rocks, caves, and mounds were associated in the
+popular mind with the achievements of Arthur, and many are connected
+with them by name at the present day.
+
+But the romances relating to Arthur were far more than the reflection
+of passing thoughts and customs destined to perish with the
+generations who read them. They embodied the ideals of the English race
+six centuries ago, and although appearing in a different form, those
+ideals are still our own. The examples presented in romantic fiction of
+manly courage, of self-sacrificing devotion, of simplicity of
+character, and of chivalric consideration for the weakness of the
+female sex, may excite our admiration and sympathy, as well as that of
+a fierce and untutored knighthood. These tales were the product of the
+English mind in its boyhood, and it is to the youth of our day that
+they are best adapted and most attractive; but the rationalism of the
+nineteenth century may find in their spirit of simple faith, of
+unquestioning belief and trust, much that is beautiful in human life
+which modern thought and science have swept away. It is on account of
+the enduring character of the ideals, of which the Arthurian legends
+were the spontaneous expression, that these works, although contained
+in a rude form, without artistic plan or literary merit to give them
+permanence, have never wholly passed from the acquaintance of men. The
+rude force and beauty of mediæval fiction has been deeply felt by many
+of the greatest minds which have contributed to modern literature. To
+the perusal of the story of Launcelot and Guenever Dante ascribes the
+coming of Paolo and Francesca _al doloroso passo_. While the other
+works of Ariosto have fallen into obscurity, his "Orlando Furioso" has
+achieved a lasting fame. One of the greatest poems in the German
+language, the "Oberon" of Wieland, is almost a reproduction of a
+chivalric romance. The reader of Milton is often reminded of
+
+                              Uther's son,
+      Begirt with British and Armoric knights.
+
+Spenser transferred romantic fiction into the region of allegory, and
+gave to English literature the immortal "Faery Queen." In our own day
+the "Idyls" of Tennyson have made the legends of Arthur a part of our
+common thought, and the Knights of the Round Table familiar in almost
+every household. The romances of chivalry fall naturally into three
+general classes: those relating to Charlemagne and his peers; those
+relating to classical and mythological heroes; and, finally, the tales
+connected with King Arthur. The strong similarity which exists in the
+character and incidents of these three classes makes an acquaintance
+with one of them sufficient for the purpose of this work. The "Morte
+d'Arthur" and the romances of which it forms a compendium will therefore
+be chiefly considered, as being the most interesting in their bearing
+on English fiction.
+
+In the early part of the twelfth century, Walter Mapes, Archdeacon of
+Oxford, while travelling in France, became possessed of a book written
+in the British or Armoric language, which treated of the history of
+kings of Britain, and was undoubtedly even at that time of considerable
+antiquity. Little is known concerning this curious work. It related the
+fabulous martial deeds of British kings, of whose existence there is no
+previous record, their victories over giants and dragons, and the
+various supernatural influences to which they were subject. Hence comes
+the story of King Lear and of Jack the Giant-Killer, and here are first
+met the characters of King Arthur and the enchanter Merlin. This book
+having been translated into Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth, a
+Benedictine monk, at once attained a great popularity and reputation;
+and for several centuries was universally accepted as true history. A
+number of metrical romances soon appeared to gratify the taste which
+Geoffrey's chronicle had excited, and in the first half of the
+thirteenth century the same stories began to be written in prose. From
+this time until the middle of the fifteenth century most of what we now
+call romantic fiction was produced, although many imitations and
+translations appeared in England for more than a century afterward. The
+exact dates of the different romances and the names of their authors
+cannot be positively established, as the early copies were undated, and
+the names prefixed to them are believed to be fictitious. During this
+period were given to the world, among many others, the romances of
+Merlin the Enchanter, of Launcelot du Lac, of Meliadus, of his son
+Tristram, of Gyron le Courtoys, of Perceval le Gallois, and, finally,
+that of the Saint Gréal, in which the whole body of knights-errant are
+represented, probably by some monkish writer, in the search for the
+Holy Cup which had held the blood of Christ. At last Sir Thomas Malory,
+a London knight, well read in chivalric literature, combined these
+tales in the volume he called the "Morte d'Arthur," an excellent
+specimen of a chivalric romance, which was printed by Caxton in 1485,
+and has since appeared in many editions down to the present day.
+
+The influence of the supernatural appears in the very beginning of the
+"Morte d'Arthur," and throughout we trace its controlling effect upon
+the incidents of the story. It is by the help of Merlin's magic that
+King Uther Pendragon slays the Duke of Cornwall, and assuming the
+likeness of his rival, obtains possession of his wife Igraine, "a faire
+ladye, and a passing wyse," from which union Arthur is born. On the
+death of Uther, when the chief nobles and knights are summoned to
+London by the Archbishop of Canterbury to choose a new king, it is
+Merlin's art which discovers to them a sword imbedded in a great rock
+in the churchyard of St. Paul's bearing the inscription: "Whoso pulleth
+this sword out of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all
+England"; and it is by the same supernatural aid that the stripling
+Arthur, whose birth is unknown, fulfils the task which all had essayed
+in vain. By the friendly influence of Merlin, Arthur receives his
+famous sword Excalibur from the hands of the Lady of the Lake, with the
+scabbard whose wearer can lose no blood; he defeats with great
+slaughter the hosts of the eleven kings who dispute his throne; and
+obtains in marriage the celebrated Guenever, who brings him in dowry
+the Table Round. But Merlin, who could do so much for others, had the
+power only to foresee, and not to avert, his own impending fate.
+Enamoured of a fickle damsel, who soon tires of his love, the great
+enchanter discloses his secrets to her, and with a sad farewell and
+final advice to Arthur, he suffers himself to be imprisoned forever in
+the rock which his own magic had wrought, by the spell which he had
+intrusted to his treacherous mistress. The friendly arts of Merlin are
+succeeded by the machinations of the malicious fairy Morgana, and the
+watchful care of the the Lady of the Lake. To excite the childlike
+wonder of his readers, the romancer turns knights to stone, or makes
+them invisible; he introduces enchanted castles, vessels that steer
+themselves, and the miraculous properties of the Saint Gréal, Arthur
+and Tristram fight with dragons and giants. The loves of Tristram and
+Isoud arise from the drinking of an amorous potion. The chastity of
+knight and damsel is determined by the magic horn, whose liquor the
+innocent drink, but the guilty spill; and by the enchanted garland,
+which blooms on the brow of the chaste, but withers on that of the
+faithless. Inventions such as these were regarded as facts, or at least
+as possible occurrences, by the readers of romantic fiction. Men
+believed what they were told, and to doubt, to inquire were
+intellectual efforts which they knew not how to make, and which all the
+influences of their life opposed their making. There were no fictions
+in the romances more improbable than the accounts of foreign parts
+brought back by travellers. Sir John of Mandeville was not doubted when
+he wrote that he had met with a race of men who had only one eye, and
+that in the middle of the forehead, or a people with only one foot and
+that one large enough to be used as a parasol. The knight who had
+mastered the art of reading looked upon such stories as curious facts.
+His religion was a religion of miracles, and, ignorant of natural laws,
+he was accustomed to refer any unusual occurrence to the influence of
+supernatural beings, a habit of thought which presented an ever-ready
+solution to mysteries and problems otherwise inexplicable.
+
+The entire credence accorded to the supernatural features of the
+romance gave to it a power and an interest which has now, of course,
+disappeared; but the influence of the supernatural upon the work is so
+strong, that even the modern reader, wandering with Launcelot and
+Tristram in a world of wonders, meets a giant without surprise, and
+feels at home in an enchanted castle.
+
+When Arthur is finally established on his throne, the knights of the
+Round Table begin their wonderful career of adventure and gallantry.
+With them the reader roams over a vague and unreal land called Britain
+or Cornwall, in full armor, the ever ready lance in rest. At almost
+every turn a knight is met who offers combat, and each detail of the
+conflict--the rush of the horses, the breaking of lances, the final
+hand-to-hand with swords--is described with a minuteness which only the
+military enthusiasm of the Middle Ages could thoroughly appreciate.
+Sometimes our hero meets a damsel who tells a tale of wrong, and leads
+the knight to champion her cause; again, he encounters some old
+companion in arms, breaks a lance upon him by way of friendly
+salutation, and wanders with him in search of adventures, inquiring of
+a chance peasant or dwarf, of a wrong to be avenged, or a danger to be
+incurred. The reader attends tournaments, of which every blow and every
+fall are chronicled. He becomes familiar with the respective merits and
+prowess of a hundred different champions. He learns the laws of
+judicial combat, and the intricate rules of the chivalric code. With
+imagination aroused and sympathies excited he enters a life of
+alternate combat and love, almost real in the consistency of its
+improbability. Three gallant knights, Sir Gawaine, Sir Marhaus, and Sir
+Uwaine set out together in search of adventures.
+
+    At the last they cam in to a grete forest that was named the
+    countreye and foreste of Arroy and the countrey of straunge
+    auentures. In this countrey, said syr Marhaus cam neuer knyghte syn
+    it was crystened, but he fonde straunge auentures, and soo they
+    rode, and cam in to a depe valey ful of stones, and ther by they
+    sawe a fayr streme of water, aboue ther by was the hede of the
+    streme, a fayr fontayne, & thre damoysels syttynge therby. And
+    thenne they rode to them, and eyther salewed other, and the eldest
+    had a garland of gold aboute her hede, and she was thre score
+    wynter of age, or more, and her here[13] was whyte under the
+    garland. The second damoysel was of thirty wynter of age, with a
+    serkelet of gold aboute her hede. The thyrd damoysel was but xv
+    year of age, and a garland of floures aboute her hede. When these
+    knyghtes had soo beholde them, they asked hem the cause why they
+    sat at that fontayne; we be here, sayd the damoysels for thys
+    cause, yf we may see ony erraunt knyghtes to teche hem unto
+    straunge auentures, and ye be thre knyghtes that seken auentures,
+    and we be thre damoysels, and therfore eche one of yow must chose
+    one of us. And whan ye haue done soo, we wylle lede yow vnto thre
+    hyhe wayes, and there eche of yow shall chese a wey and his
+    damoysel wyth hym. And this day twelue monethe ye must mete here
+    ageyn and god sende yow your lyues, and ther to ye must plyzte your
+    trouthe. This is wel said, sayd Syr Marhaus. * * * Thenne euery
+    damoysel took her knyght by the raynes of his brydel, and broughte
+    him to the thre wayes, and there was their othe made to mete at the
+    fontayne that day twelue moneth and they were lyvynge, and soo they
+    kyst and departed, and eueryche knyghte sette his lady behynde
+    him.[14]
+
+Sir Alysandre le Orphelin holds a piece of ground against all comers. A
+damsel called La Belle Alice proclaims at Arthur's court that whoever
+overthrows him, shall have herself and all her lands. Many knights
+undertake the adventure, but all are defeated by Sir Alysandre.
+
+    And whanne La Beale Alys sawe hym juste soo wel, she thought hym a
+    passynge goodly knyght on horsbak. And thenne she lepte out of her
+    pauelione, and toke Syr Alisandre by the brydel, and thus she sayd;
+    Fayre knyght, I require the of thy knyghthode, shewe me thy vysage.
+    I dar wel, sayd Sir Alysander shewe my vysage. And then he put of
+    his helme, and she sawe his vysage, she said; O swete Jhesu! the I
+    must loue and neuer other. Thenne shewe me your vysage, said he.
+    Thenne she unwympeled her vysage. And whanne he saw her, he sayde,
+    here haue I fond my loue and my lady. Truly fayre lady, said he, I
+    promise yow to be your knyghte, and none other that bereth the lyf.
+    Now, gentil knyghte, said she, telle me your name. My name is, said
+    he, Alysander le Orphelyn. Now damoysel, telle me your name, said
+    he. My name is, said she, Alys la Beale Pilggrym. And whan we be
+    more at oure hertes ease both ye and I shalle telle other of what
+    blood we be come. Soo there was grete loue betwyxe them. And as
+    they thus talked, ther came a knyghte that hyght Harsouse le
+    Berbuse, and axed parte of sir Alysanders speres. Thenne Sir
+    Alysander encountred with hym, and at the fyrst Sir Alysander smote
+    hym ouer his hors croupe.[15]
+
+Sir Tristram is thus welcomed at Arthur's court:
+
+    Thenne Kynge Arthur took Sir Tristram by the hand, and wente to the
+    table round. Thenne came Quene Guenever and many ladyes with her,
+    and alle the ladyes sayden at one voyce, welcome Sir Tristram,
+    welcome, said the damoysels, welcome said knightes, welcome said
+    Arthur, for one of the best knyghts and the gentylst of the world,
+    and the man of moost worship, for all manner of hunting thou berest
+    the pryce, and of all mesures of blowynge thou art the begynninge,
+    and of alle the termes of huntynge and haukinge ye are the
+    begynner, of all Instrumentes of musyke ye are the best, therefor
+    gentyl knyght, said Arthur, ye are welcome to this courte.[16]
+
+The description of the combat between King Arthur and Accolon is
+perhaps the most interesting of the kind which the "Morte d'Arthur"
+contains. Accolon of Gaul had by the aid of Morgan le Fay obtained
+possession of Arthur's enchanted sword and scabbard.[17]
+
+    And thenne they dressyd hem on bothe partyes of the felde, & lete
+    their horses renne so fast that eyther smote other in the myddes of
+    the shelde, with their speres hede, that bothe hors and man wente
+    to the erthe. And thenne they sterte up bothe, and pulled oute
+    their swerdys, * * * And so they went egrely to the battaille, and
+    gaf many grete strokes, but alweyes Arthurs swerd bote[18] not like
+    Accolon's swerd. But for the most party euery stroke that Accolon
+    gaf he wounded sore Arthur, that it was merucylle he stode. And
+    alweyes his blood fylle from him fast. When Arthur behelde the
+    ground so sore bebledde he was desmayed, and thenne he demed
+    treason that his swerd was chaunged, for his swerd boote not
+    styl[19] as it was wont to do, therefore he dredde hym sore to be
+    dede, for euer hym seemed that the swerd in Accolons hand was
+    Excalibur, for at euery stroke that Accolon stroke he drewe blood
+    on Arthur. Now knyghte, said Accolon unto Arthur, kepe the wel from
+    me, but Arthur ansuered not ageyne, and gat hym suche a buffet on
+    the helme that he made hym to stoupe nygh fallynge doune to the
+    earthe. Thenne Sir Accolon with drewe hym a lytel, and cam on with
+    Excalibur on hyghe, and smote Syr Arthur suche a buffet that he
+    felle nyhe to the erthe. Thenne were they wroth bothe, and gaf eche
+    other many sore strokes, but alweyes Syr Arthur lost so muche blood
+    that it was merucille he stode on his feet, but he was so ful of
+    knighthode, that knyghtly he endured the payne. And Syr Accolon
+    lost not a dele of blood, therefore he waxed passynge lyghte, and
+    Syr Arthur was passynge feble, and wende veryly to have dyed, but
+    for al that he made countenaunce as though he myghte endure, and
+    helde Accolon as shorte as he myght. But Accolon was bolde by cause
+    of Excalibur that he waxed passynge hardy. * * * And therewith he
+    cam fyersly upon Arthur, and syre Arthur was wrothe for the blood
+    that he had lost, and smote Accolon on hyhe upon the helme soo
+    myztely that he made hym nyhe to falle to the erthe. And therewith
+    Arthurs swerd brast at the crosse and felle in the grasse amonge
+    the blood, and the pommel and the sure handels he helde in his
+    handes. When syr Arthur sawe that, he was in grete fere to dye, but
+    alweyes he helde vp his shelde and lost no ground nor bated no
+    chere. Thenne syre Accolon beganne with wordes of treason, and sayd
+    knyghte thow arte overcome, and mayste not endure, and also thow
+    arte wepenles, and thow hast loste moche of thy blood, and I am ful
+    lothe to slee the, therfor yelde the to me as recreaunt. Nay, saide
+    syre Arthur I maye not so, for I haue promysed to doo the bataille
+    to the vttermost by the feythe of my body whyle me lasteth the lyf,
+    and therfor I had leuer to dye with honour than to lyve with shame.
+    And yf it were possyble for me to dye an C tymes, I had leuer to
+    dye so ofte, than yelde me to the, for though I lacke wepen, I
+    shalle lacke no worship. And yf thou slee me wepenles that shalle
+    be thy shame. Wel, sayd Accolon, as for the shame I wyl not spare.
+    Now kepe the from me, for thow arte but a dede ma. And therwith
+    Accolon gaf hym suche a stroke that he felle nyghe to the erthe,
+    and wolde haue had Arthur to haue cryed hym mercy. But syre Arthur
+    pressed unto Accolon with his sheld and gaf hym with the pomel in
+    his hand suche a buffet that he wente thre strydes abak. * * * And
+    at the next stroke Syr Accolon stroke hym suche a stroke that by
+    the damoysels enchauntement the swerd Excalibur felle oute of
+    Accolons hande to the erthe. And therwith alle syre Arthur lyghtely
+    lepte to hit, and gate hit in his hand, and forwith al he knewe
+    that it was his suerd Excalibur, & sayd thow hast ben from me al to
+    long, & moche dommage hast thow done me. * * * And therwith syr
+    Arthur russhed on hym with hys myghte, and pulled hym to the erthe,
+    and thenne russhed of his helme, and gaf hym suche a buffet on the
+    hede that the blood cam oute at his eres, his nose & his mouthe.
+    Now wyll I slee the said Arthur. Slee me ye may wel, said Accolon,
+    and it please yow, for ye ar the best knyghte that euer I fonde,
+    and I see wel that god is with yow.
+
+The knights of the Round Table had much more difficulty in dealing with
+one another than in overcoming the most redoubtable giants. Sir
+Launcelot arrived at a giant's castle,[20] and "he looked aboute, and
+sawe moche peple in dores and wyndowes that sayd fayre knyghte thow art
+unhappy. Anone with al cam there vpon hym two grete gyaunts wel armed
+al sauf the hedes, with two horryble clubbes in theyr handes. Syre
+Launcelot put his sheld afore hym and put the stroke aweye of the one
+gyaunt, and with his swerd he clafe his hede a sondre. Whan his felaw
+sawe that, he ran awey as he were wood, for fere of the horryble
+strokes, & laucelot after hym with al his myzt & smote hym on the
+sholder, and clafe hym to the nauel. Thenne Syre Launcelot went in to
+the halle, and there came afore hym thre score ladyes and damoysels,
+and all kneled unto hym, and thanked God and hym of their
+delyveraunce." The horrors of battle as recounted by the romancers lose
+much of their painfulness by the enjoyment which the combatants take in
+them, and by the facility with which the most terrible wounds are
+healed. The mediæval passion for conflict and violence could hardly be
+more strikingly illustrated than by the words of the mother of
+Tristram, who had just given birth to her son in the midst of a forest,
+and being far from human aid, sees that her end is near. "Now lete me
+see my lytel child for whome I haue had alle this sorowe. And whan she
+sawe hym she said thus, A my lytel sone, thou hast murthered thy moder,
+and therfore I suppose, thou that art a murtherer soo yong, thou arte
+ful lykely to be a manly man in thyn age."[21]
+
+From the recital of combats we turn to tales of love. The most
+interesting of these relate to Launcelot and Guenever, and to Tristram
+and Isould. They differ in many respects, and yet share the noteworthy
+feature that both the women are already married, and their lovers are
+connected by ties of relationship or of great intimacy with the
+husbands whom they wrong. Arthur, however, is made to preserve,
+throughout the story of his deception, the same dignity and the same
+respect which he had always possessed, and in the loyalty of his
+character never admits a doubt of his wife's virtue; while King Mark,
+the husband of Isould, loses the sympathy of the reader by his
+treachery and cowardice, and is always conscious of Isould's
+infidelity. Guenever and Launcelot feel the deeper and the nobler
+passion, as theirs is inspired solely by each other's merit, while that
+of Isould and Tristram is inflamed by an amorous potion. The immorality
+of these love stories was not in the Middle Ages the same immorality
+which it would be considered at present. The conditions of life were
+all opposed to self restraint. The standard of morals was set by the
+church, and according to her interpretation of Christianity, continence
+was so subsidiary to orthodoxy, that what would now be considered a
+crime, was in the Middle Ages an irregularity which need not weigh on
+the conscience. Evidence of this is amply supplied by the social
+history of the time, and the fact is fully illustrated by the
+romances. The authors of these compositions, from their tendency to
+idealization, held up to their readers a higher view of virtue in every
+respect than was practised in actual life, and in their writings,
+conjugal infidelity is of constant occurrence. The fictitious
+personages who indulge in licence are but dimly conscious of
+wrong-doing, and almost the only evidence of a realization of their
+fault is in the Quest of the Saint Gréal, when Launcelot and other
+noble knights acknowledge that the attainment of the sacred prize is
+not for them as being "sinful men," and the quest is achieved by the
+spotless Sir Galahad, who, impersonating the purifying influence of
+Christianity, forms the most striking character conceived by the
+fertile imagination of the Middle Ages. The virtue of constancy was far
+more admired than that of chastity, and it is said of Guenever, whose
+sin had brought such calamity upon the Round Table, that "as she was a
+true lover, so she had a good end."
+
+Launcelot and Tristram vie with one another in the deeds of chivalry
+which they accomplish in honor of their ladies, and the intimacy which
+exists between the two knights and their mistresses adds much to the
+interest of the story. A fine touch in the loves of Tristram and Isould
+is the introduction of Sir Palomides, a valiant knight, almost the
+equal of Tristram in prowess, who loves Isould as passionately as his
+successful rival, but finds no favor to reward a long career of
+devotion. The passions of jealousy and hatred on the one hand, and
+knightly courtesy and honor on the other, which alternately sway the
+two warriors, and struggle for the mastery in their relations with each
+other, form a touching picture, and show that the romancers could
+occasionally rise above the description of conflicts to a study of the
+heart and character of men.
+
+That our lovers felt a deep and absorbing passion, there can be no
+doubt. Sir Dynas, the Seneschal, tells the Queen la Belle Isould that
+Sir Tristram is near: "Thenne for very pure joye la Beale Isould
+swouned, & whan she myghte speke, she said, gentyl knyghte Seneschall
+help that I myghte speke with him, outher my herte will braste." They
+meet, and then "to telle the joyes that were between la Beale Isoud and
+sire Tristram, there is no tongue can telle it, nor herte thinke it,
+nor pen wryte it." When Tristram thought Isoud unfaithful, he "made
+grete sorowe in so much that he fell downe of his hors in a swoune, and
+in suche sorowe he was in thre dayes and thre nyghtes." When he left
+her, Isoud was found "seke in here bedde, makynge the grettest dole
+that ever ony erthly woman made." "Sire Alysander beheld his lady Alys
+on horsbak as he stood in her pauelione. And thenne was he soo
+enamoured upon her that he wyst not whether he were on horsbak or on
+foote." Sir Gareth falls in love at first sight: "and euer the more syr
+Gareth behelde that lady, the more he loued her, and soo he burned in
+loue that he was past himself in his reason, and forth toward nyghte
+they wente unto supper, and sire Gareth myghte not ete for his loue was
+soo hot that he wyst not wher he was."
+
+The Roman war introduced into the "Morte d'Arthur" is a curious
+illustration of the vagueness of the historical groundwork of the
+romances of chivalry. The memory of Roman power was still too great to
+permit a warrior to achieve greatness without having matched his
+strength against that of Rome, and thus we have the singular spectacle
+of King Arthur with his adventurous knights, clad in mail, passing
+easily through "Almayne" into Italy, conquering giants by the way, and
+reducing the Emperor Lucius to dependence.
+
+The story of the Saint Gréal originally formed a distinct romance, but
+it was the dull production of some ascetic monk, who thought that the
+knights of the Round Table were too much occupied with secular
+pursuits, and who found no greater encomium to pass upon Sir Galahad,
+than to call him a "maid." But the idea of the Christian knighthood
+setting out to seek the Holy Cup was "marvellous and adventurous," and
+so well suited to please the mediæval mind that we find this quest
+introduced into several of the romances of chivalry, and it appears,
+though in an incomplete form, in the "Morte d'Arthur." The adventures
+met with by the knighthood are much the same as when they were pursuing
+a less lofty object. Sir Galahad occupies the intervals between his
+serious occupations with rolling his father Sir Launcelot and other
+noble knights into the dust in the usual unsaintly fashion. The
+supernatural element is stronger perhaps in the story of the Saint
+Gréal than in any other romance, and the monkish inspiration of the
+work is everywhere manifest. When Sir Galahad rescues the inmates of
+the Castle of Maidens by overthrowing their oppressors, the romancer
+points out that the Castle of Maidens "betokeneth the good souls that
+were in prison before the incarnation of Jesu Christ." It is here also
+that we learn that "Sir Launcelot is come but of the eighth degree from
+our Lord Jesu Christ, and Sir Galahad is of the ninth degree from our
+Lord Jesu Christ; therefore I dare say that they may be the greatest
+gentlemen of the world."
+
+When we have read of the "byrth, lyf and actes of Kyng Arthur, of his
+noble knyghtes of the rounde table, theyr mervayllous enquests and
+aduentures, th' achyeuyng of the sangréal," we come to the "dolorous
+deth and departyng out of this world of them." It is indeed a "pytous
+hystory." Long drawn out as the romance is, serious tax though it
+sometimes be on the reader's patience, the author succeeds in making us
+so familiar with all his heroes, in inspiring us with so deep and
+active a sympathy with them, that it is with a real sadness that we
+read of the dissensions brought about by the loves of Launcelot and
+Guenever, the deserted Round Table, the separation of life-long
+companions, and the fraternal war between Sir Launcelot, Sir Gawaine,
+and King Arthur. Their love for each other was so strong that it is not
+wholly quenched even in the sanguinary struggles which follow, and it
+bursts forth in full vigor when death comes upon them in the midst of
+their fury. Sir Gawaine is the first to go, using his last strength to
+write to Sir Launcelot begging his forgiveness: "I byseche the, Sir
+Launcelot, to retorne ageyne vnto this realme, and see my tombe, &
+praye some prayer more or lesse for my soule."
+
+    Whan syr Arthur wyst that syre Gawayne was layd so lowe he went
+    vnto hym, and there the kyng made sorowe oute of mesure, and took
+    sire Gawayne in his armes, and thryes[22] he there swouned. And
+    thenne whan he awaked, he sayd, allas Sir Gawayne my sisters sone,
+    here now thou lyggest[23], the man in the world that I loued moost,
+    and now is my joye gone, for now my neuewe syre Gawayne I will
+    discouer me vnto your persone, in syr Launcelot & you I had moost
+    my joye and myn affyaunce, & now haue I lost my joye of you bothe,
+    wherefor all myn erthely joye is gone from me.[24]
+
+We turn from the death of Sir Gawaine only to witness the mortal blow
+dealt to King Arthur; to see his famous sword Excalibur, which he had
+borne so nobly and so long, returned to the Lady of the Lake; and the
+almost lifeless body of the great king carried away over the water by
+the fairy queens, disappearing at last beneath the horizon. Guenever
+would seen to have deserved a harder fate than simply to retire to a
+nunnery of which she is made the abbess. Sir Launcelot dies a holy man
+and a monk, saying masses for the souls of his old companions in arms.
+With his death the old glory of the Round Table passes away forever.
+
+    And whan syr Ector herd suche noyse & lyghte in the quyre of joyous
+    Garde, he alyghted and put his hors from hym, and came in to the
+    quyre, & there he sawe men synge the seruyse full lamentably. And
+    alle they knewe syre Ector, but he knewe not them. Thenne went syr
+    Bors to syr Ector, & tolde him how there laye hys broder syr
+    Launcelot dede, and then syr Ector threwe his shelde, hys swerde &
+    helme from hym. And whan he behelde syr Launcelot's vysage, he
+    felle donne in a sowne. And when he awakyd it were harde for any
+    tonge to telle the doleful complayntes that he made for his broder.
+    A, syr Launcelot, he sayd, thou were head of all Crysten knyztes,
+    and now I dare saye, sayd syr Ector, thou syr Launcelot, ther thou
+    lyest, that thou were neuer matched of none erthely knyghtes
+    handes. And thou were the curtoyste knyghte that ever bare shelde.
+    And thou were the truest frend to thy louer that euer bestradde
+    hors, & thou were the truest louer of a synfull man that euer loued
+    woman. And thou were the kyndest man that euer stroke wyth swerde.
+    And thou were the goodelyest persone that euer came among prees of
+    knyghtes. And thou were the mekest man & the gentylest that euer
+    ete in halle amonge ladyes. And thou were the sternest knyghte to
+    thy mortall foo that euer put spere in the reyst. Thenne there was
+    wepyng & dolour oute of mesure.[25]
+
+The literary form of the "Morte d'Arthur" admits of description rather
+than of criticism. A noble and forcible simplicity of expression
+pervades the old Norman French in which the romances of chivalry were
+first written, which is well reflected in the English of Sir Thomas
+Malory. Of plot there is none. The same vagueness pervades the course
+of the narrative, which is characteristic of the historical groundwork,
+the geography, and the time of action. Most of the incidents depend on
+chance. Life in the Middle Ages was a very serious affair, and in the
+romances there was almost no attempt at wit or humor. In the "Morte
+d'Arthur," perhaps the only passage which might have raised a laugh among
+the early readers of the romance, is that in which King Arthur's fool
+Dagonet is clad in Sir Mordred's armor, and in that disguise is made to
+chase before him the coward King Mark. The authors of the romances of
+chivalry never attempted delineation of character. Their heroes are
+good knights or bad knights, and in either case possess only the
+particular qualities which would place them in one of these categories.
+The female characters are still more slightly drawn, and show no
+distinct attributes except beauty and a capacity to love.
+
+In laying down the "Morte d'Arthur," and bidding farewell to the
+Middle Ages with their heroes of chivalry, we come to the end of a most
+picturesque period of English history,--a period marked by lights and
+shadows, rather than by distinct forms. There was ferocity, and there
+was courtesy; there was brilliant show and rude coarseness; there were
+scenes of blood and scenes of noble chivalry. In the next chapter we
+shall notice the tendencies which were at work to replace this state of
+society by a better. But to the Middle Ages will always be traced much
+that is distinctive of English character, and in the history of fiction
+we may fairly allow to the knights of romance the legendary charm and
+fascination which hang about their bright helmets in the long vista of
+departed years.
+
+
+[Footnote 13: Hair.]
+
+[Footnote 14: "Morte d'Arthur." Southey's reprint from Caxton's ed.,
+1485, chaps. xix and xx. book 4.]
+
+[Footnote 15: "Morte d'Arthur," book 10, chap. xxxix.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Southey's "Morte d'Arthur," vol. 2, p. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 17: "Morte d'Arthur," book 4, chap. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Hit, cut.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Cut not steel.]
+
+[Footnote 20: "Morte d'Arthur," book 6, ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 21: "Morte d'Arthur," book 8, ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 22: Thrice.]
+
+[Footnote 23: Liest.]
+
+[Footnote 24: "Morte d'Arthur," book 22, chap. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 25: "Morte d'Arthur," book 22, chap. xiii.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAUCER. POPULAR TALES. MORE'S "UTOPIA."
+
+
+In the history of English intellectual development between the vague
+ignorance of the Middle Ages and the new growth of learning in the
+sixteenth century, stands the great figure of Chaucer. The first
+English writer possessing dramatic power, he is the first also to unite
+with the art of story-telling, the delineation and study of human
+character. In his translation of the "Romaunt of the Rose" he belongs
+to the Middle Ages,--a period of uncontrolled imagination, of
+unsubstantial creations, of external appearances copied without
+reflection. In his "Canterbury Tales" he belongs to the present,--when
+Reason asserts her authority, gives the stamp of individual reality to
+the characters of fiction, and studies the man himself behind his
+outward and visible form.
+
+The creations of romantic fiction were unreal beings distinguished by
+different names, by the different insignia on their shields, and by the
+degree in which they possessed the special qualities which formed the
+ideal of mediæval times. The story of their lives was but a series of
+adventures, strung together without plan, the overflow of an active but
+ungoverned imagination. The pilgrims to the shrine of Canterbury are
+men and women, genuine flesh and blood, as thoroughly individual and
+distinct as the creations of Shakespeare and of Fielding. They dress,
+they talk, each one after his own manner and according to his position
+in life, telling a story appropriate to his disposition and suitable to
+his experience. The knight, with armor battered in "mortal battailles"
+with the Infidel, describes the adventures of Palamon and Arcite, a
+tale of chivalry. The lusty young squire, bearing himself well, "in
+hope to stonden in his lady grace," tells an Eastern tale of love and
+romance. The prioress, "all conscience and tendre herte," relates the
+legend of "litel flew of Lincoln," murdered by the Jews for singing his
+hymn to the Virgin. The clerk of Oxford, who prefers to wealth and
+luxury his "twenty bookes clad in blak or reede," contributes the story
+of the patient Griselda.
+
+The "Canterbury Tales" are so familiar that an extended notice of them
+here would be superfluous, especially as we are dealing with narratives
+in prose form. But in seeking to trace the origin and progress of the
+English novel as it is now written, we must record the first appearance
+of its special characteristics in the works of Chaucer. Here are first
+to be seen real human beings, endowed with human virtues and subject to
+human frailties; here fictitious characters are first represented amid
+the homely scenes of daily life; here they first become living
+realities whose nature and dispositions every one may understand, and
+with whose thoughts every one may sympathize. We must notice, also, the
+significant fact that of the thirty-two pilgrims who jogged along
+together that April day, four were of a military character, eleven
+belonged to the clergy, and seventeen were of the common people. A
+century before Chaucer's time, when the feudal spirit was still
+all-powerful, there were but two classes of men thought worthy of
+consideration, the knighthood and the clergy; and in the romances of
+chivalry knights and priests exclusively composed the _dramatis
+personæ_. But the slow progress of the masses, in whom lies the chief
+strength of a nation, becomes visible in Chaucer's time. In the towns
+the tradesmen were rising to wealth and consideration. In the country
+the yeomanry--the laborers and farmers--were throwing off their
+serfdom, and emerging from the chrysalis of obscurity in which they had
+long been hidden. At Cressy and Poitiers the English archers disputed
+with the knighthood the honors of victory. While Chaucer was planning
+the "Canterbury Tales," introducing into his gallery of contemporary
+portraits more figures of tradesmen than of knights or priests, the
+Peasant Revolt took place; the common people, long trodden in the dust,
+rose in defence of their rights as men, and John Ball, the "mad priest
+of Kent," asked questions of the yeomen about him which showed how
+surely the Middle Ages were becoming a part of the past. "By what right
+are they whom we call lords greater folk than we? * * * If we all came
+of the same father and mother, of Adam and Eve, how can they say or
+prove that they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain
+for them by our toil what they spend in their pride?" * * * "When Adam
+delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"[26] As in the history
+of Chaucer's time, so in his "Canterbury Tales" we perceive the decline
+of feudal and priestly tyranny which had gone hand in hand: the one
+keeping up a perpetual state of war and violence; the other limiting
+and enfeebling the human intellect, the activity of which could alone
+raise mankind out of barbarism.
+
+The passion for war and for a military life which had kept Europe in a
+state of constant disturbance during the Middle Ages, which had brought
+about the Hundred Years' struggle between England and France, and which
+had found its worst issue in the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth
+century, had, in the sixteenth century largely spent its force. The
+pomp and luxury of chivalry had lessened the activity of military
+feelings. The expense entailed by chivalric pageantry had diminished
+the power of the nobles over their dependents. Many feudal barons were
+obliged to sell liberty and privileges to part of their bondsmen to
+obtain the wherewithal to maintain the remainder. The gradual growth of
+the towns and of trade produced a class which, having all to lose and
+nothing to gain by war, threw its influence against disorder. The
+advance in the study and practice of law diminished habits of violence
+by furnishing legal redress. But the most powerful agent in destroying
+the old warlike taste was the invention of gunpowder. In the Middle
+Ages the whole male population had been soldiers in spirit and in fact.
+But the application of gunpowder to the art of war made it necessary
+that men should be especially trained for the military profession. A
+limited number were therefore separated from the main body of the
+people, who occupied themselves exclusively with military affairs,
+while the remainder were left to pursue the hitherto neglected arts of
+peace. The love of war and the indifference to human suffering so long
+nourished by feudalism could only be thoroughly extinguished by
+centuries of gradual progress. The heads of queens and ministers of
+state falling from the block attest the strength of these feelings in
+Henry the Eighth's time. They were, however, fast losing ground before
+the new growth of learning. Their decline is illustrated by the fiction
+of the sixteenth century, as their full power was depicted in the early
+romances of chivalry.
+
+In the sixteenth century, chivalry as an institution, and even as an
+influential ideal had entirely passed away. The specimens of romantic
+fiction which were read during the reigns of Henry the Eighth and of
+Elizabeth could no longer appeal to an entirely warlike and
+superstitious class. They were modified to meet new tastes, and in the
+process became superior in literary merit, but inferior in force and
+interest. This is especially true of the romances translated from the
+Spanish. Amadis of Gaul and Palmerin of England show merits of
+narrative sequence and elegance of expression which did not belong to
+the earlier romances, of which the "Morte d'Arthur" formed a
+compendium. But the chivalry of Amadis and Palmerin was polished,
+refined and exaggerated till it became entirely fanciful and lost the
+old fire and spirit. In the so-called tales of chivalry produced or
+adapted by English writers during this century there is no trace of the
+poetry and interest of chivalric sentiments. In "Tom-a-Lincoln," the
+Red Rose Knight, the noble King Arthur is represented as an old dotard,
+surrounded by knights who bear no resemblance in person or in the
+nature of their adventures to their prototypes of romantic fiction.[27]
+
+The ideal character of the yeomanry succeeded to the ideal character
+of the knighthood; Robin Hood and his merry companions took the place
+in the popular mind which belonged to King Arthur and his knights of
+the Table Round. The yeomen of England were imbued with a spirit of
+courage and liberty unknown to the same class on the continent of
+Europe, and their love of freedom and restless activity of disposition
+found a reflection in the person of their hero. Supposed to have lived
+in the thirteenth century, his name and achievements have been sung in
+countless rhymes and ballads, and have remained dear to the common
+people down to the present day. The patron of archery, the embodiment
+of the qualities most loved by the people--courage, generosity,
+faithfulness, hardihood,--the places he frequented, the well he drank
+from, have always retained his name, and his bow, with one of his
+arrows, was preserved with veneration as late as the present
+century.[28] The ideal of the yeomanry was similar to that of chivalry
+in the love of blows fairly given and cheerfully taken, in the love of
+fighting for fighting's sake. It was similar in the courtesy which was
+always a characteristic of Robin Hood; in the religious devotion which
+caused the outlaw to hear three masses every morning before setting out
+on his depredations; in the gallantry which restrained him from
+molesting any party which contained a woman.[29] But the tales relating
+to Robin Hood differ from those of the Round Table in their entire
+freedom from affectation and from supernatural machinery. They
+breathe, too, an open-air spirit of liberty and enjoyment which was
+pleasing and comprehensible to the dullest intellect, and which made
+them, in the broadest sense, popular. The good-humored combativeness of
+the yeoman sympathized with every beating which Robin Hood received,
+and with every beating which he gave. In Robin's enmity to the clergy,
+in his injunction to his followers,
+
+     "Thyse byshopppes and thyse archebyshoppes,
+      Ye shall them bete and bynde,"
+
+the people applauded resistance to the extortion of the church. In
+Robin's defiance of the law and its officers, they applauded resistance
+to the tyranny of the higher classes. Waylaying sheriffs and priests,
+or shooting the king's deer in Sherwood Forest, the famous outlaw and
+his merry men, clad all in green, were the popular heroes. On Robin
+Hood's day the whole population turned gaily out to celebrate his
+festival, never weary of singing or hearing the ballads which
+commemorated his exploits. Robin was a robber, but in times of disorder
+highway robbery has always been an honorable occupation, and the
+outlaws of Sherwood Forest were reputed to give to the poor what they
+took from the rich. Diligent enquiries have been made to ascertain
+whether the personage known as Robin Hood had a real existence, but
+without positive results. The story of his life is purely legendary,
+and the theories in regard to him have never advanced beyond
+hypothesis. It is exceedingly probable that such a man lived in the
+twelfth or thirteenth century, and that the exploits of other less
+prominent popular heroes were connected with his name and absorbed in
+his reputation. The noble descent which has often been ascribed to him
+is in all likelihood the result of the mediæval idea, that the great
+virtues existed only in persons of gentle birth. This very prevalent
+opinion is often apparent in the romances of chivalry, where knights of
+exceptional valor, who had supposed themselves to be basely descended,
+almost invariably turn out to be the long-lost offspring of a famous
+and noble person. Like the tales of chivalry, the narratives of Robin
+Hood's adventures were sung and recited in metrical form long before
+they found their way into prose. The following extract forms a part of
+the first chapter of the story called the "Merry Exploits of Robin
+Hood," which had a considerable circulation in the sixteenth century.
+
+    "Robin Hood's Delights; or, a gallant combate fought between Robin
+    Hood, Little John, and William Scarlock, and three of the keepers
+    of the King's deer, in the forest of Sherwood, in Nottinghamshire."
+
+    "On a midsummer's day, in the morning, Robin Hood, being
+    accompanied with Little John and William Scarlock, did walk forth
+    betimes, and wished that in the way they might meet with some
+    adventures that might be worthy of their valour; they had not
+    walked long by the forrest side, but behold three of the keepers of
+    the king's game appeared, with their forrest-bills in their hands,
+    and well appointed with faucheons and bucklers to defend
+    themselves. Loe here (saith Robin Hood) according to our wish we
+    have met with our mates, and before we part from them we will try
+    what mettle they are made off. What, Robin Hood, said one of the
+    keepers; I the same, reply'd Robin. Then have at you, said the
+    keepers; here are three of us and three of you, we will single out
+    ourselves one to one; and bold Robin, I for my part am resolved to
+    have a bout with thee. Content, with all my heart, said Robin Hood,
+    and Fortune shall determine who shall have the best, the outlaws
+    or the keepers; with that they did lay down their coats, which
+    were all of Lincoln Green, and fell to it for the space of two
+    hours with their brown bills, in which hot exercise Robin Hood,
+    Little John and Scarlock had the better, and giving the rangers
+    leave to breathe, demanded of them how they liked them; Why! good
+    stout blades i'faith, saith the keeper that fought with Robin, we
+    commend you. * * * I see that you are stout men, said Robin Hood,
+    we will fight no more in this place, but come and go with me to
+    Nottingham, (I have silver and gold enough about me) and there we
+    will fight it out at the King's Head tavern with good sack and
+    claret; and after we are weary we will lay down our arms, and
+    become sworn brothers to one another, for I love those men that
+    will stand to it, and scorn to turn their backs for the proudest
+    Tarmagant of them all. With all our hearts, jolly Robin, said the
+    keepers to him; so putting up their swords and on their doublets,
+    they went to Nottingham, where for three days space they followed
+    the pipes of sack, and butts of claret without intermission, and
+    drank themselves good friends."
+
+The story of "George-a-Green," the brave Pindar of Wakefield is very
+similar to that of Robin Hood. George was as fond as his more noted
+friend of giving and taking hard knocks, and it is his skilful and
+judicious use of the quarter-staff in fulfilling the duties of his
+office, which gives rise to the incidents of the story. A curious relic
+of chivalry appears in the passage where Robin Hood the outlaw, and
+George a-Green the pound-keeper, meet to decide with their
+quarter-staves the relative merit of their sweethearts.[30]
+
+Of the stories relating to the yeomanry the most important was the
+"Pleasant Historic of Thomas of Reading; or, The Sixe Worthie Yeomen of
+the West," by Thomas Deloney, a famous ballad-maker of the 16th
+century. It is the narrative of the life and fortunes of a worthy
+clothier of Henry the First's time, telling how he rose to wealth and
+prosperity, and was finally murdered by an innkeeper. There is
+interwoven a relation of the unhappy loves of the "faire Margaret,"
+daughter of the exiled Earl of Shrewsbury, and of Duke Robert, the
+King's brother, which ends in the Duke losing his eyes, and the fair
+Margaret being immured in a convent. The story illustrates some curious
+old customs, and is written in an unaffected and easy style, which
+makes it still very readable. A passage describing the churching feast
+of the wife of one of the "Sixe worthie yeomen," makes a natural and
+humorous picture of contemporary manners.
+
+    Sutton's wife of Salisbury, which had lately bin deliuered of a
+    sonne, against her going to church, prepared great cheare; at what
+    time Simon's wife of Southhampton came thither, and so did diuers
+    others of the clothiers' wiues, onely to make merry at this
+    churching feast: and whilest these dames sate at the table, Crab,
+    Weasell and Wren waited on the board, and as the old Prouerbe
+    speaketh, Many women, many words, so tell it out at that time; for
+    there was such prattling that it passed: some talkt of their
+    husbands' frowardnes, some shewed their maids' sluttishnes,
+    othersome deciphered the costlines of their garments, some told
+    many tales of their neighbours: and to be briefe there was none of
+    them but would have talke for a whole day.
+
+    But when Crab, Weazell and Wren saw this, they concluded betwixt
+    themselves, that as oft as any of the women had a good bit of meate
+    on their trenchers, they offering a cleane one should catch that
+    commodity, and so they did; but the women being busie in talke,
+    marked it not, till at the last one found leisure to misse her
+    meate * * * The women seeing their men so merry, said it was a
+    sign there was good ale in the house.[31]
+
+As the decline of disorder and of martial tastes had given men the
+opportunity to lead other than military lives, so the decline of the
+theological spirit enabled them to attain that diffusion of knowledge
+without which there could be no civilization. The Roman clergy, during
+many centuries, partly from conscientious motives, and partly to
+maintain their own power, had suppressed intellectual and material
+advancement, and had kept men in a state of gross ignorance and
+superstition. In England the church gradually lost her old influence by
+her internal rottenness: she was unable to resist the new growth of
+learning which sprung up in the first half of the sixteenth century;
+and her power for evil was destroyed by the Reformation. The
+superstitions, however, which she had nourished, lingered long after
+her power had passed away, and these have given birth to some curious
+specimens of fiction. The natural tendency of an ignorant and
+superstitious people was to ascribe superior mental ability to
+intercourse with Satan, and to imagine that any unusual learning must
+be connected with the occult sciences. These ideas are illustrated by
+the stories relating to Friar Bacon and to Virgil which were printed
+during the sixteenth century, and which embodied the legends regarding
+these great men which had passed current for two hundred years. The
+same ignorant indifference to useful learning which made Roger Bacon,
+the great philosopher of the thirteenth century, "unheard, forgotten,
+buried," represented him after his death as a conjurer doing tricks for
+the amusement of a king. "The Famous Historie of Frier Bacon," is
+written in a clear and simple style, very similar to that of "Thomas of
+Reading," and recounts: "How Fryer Bacon made a Brazen Head to speake,
+by the which hee would have walled England about with Brasse"; "how
+Fryer Bacon by his arte took a towne, when the king had lyen before it
+three months, without doing to it any hurt"; with much more of the same
+sort. This story would be without interest, were it not for the
+introduction of the Friar's servant, one Miles, whose futile attempts
+at seconding his master's efforts, and sometimes at imitating them,
+occasion some very amusing scenes. Friar Bungay, the famous conjurer of
+Edward the Fourth's time, appears as Bacon's assistant.
+
+Virgil was treated in the same way. The age which turned Hercules into
+a knight-errant, very consistently represented the poet and philosopher
+as a magician. All through the Middle Ages the name of Virgil had been
+connected with necromancy. "The authors," says Naudeus,[32] "who have
+made mention of the magic of Virgil are so many that they cannot be
+examined one after another, without loss of much time." On the title
+page of the "Lyfe of Virgilius," we learn that: "This boke treateth of
+the lyfe of Virgilius, and of his deth, and many mervayles that he dyd
+in hys lyfe tyme by whychcrafte and nygramancye thorowgh the helpe of
+the devyls of Hell." Some of the "mervayles" being: "Howe Virgilius
+made a lampe that at all tymes brenned"; "howe Virgilius put out all
+the fyer of Rome"; "howe Virgilius made in Rome a metall serpente." In
+this story of Virgil occurs a curious instance of the appearance of the
+same incident in very different works of fiction. The poet being
+enamoured of a certain Roman lady, persuaded her to lower a basket from
+her window, in which he should enter and be drawn up to her chamber.
+The lady assented, but when the basket had ascended half way, she left
+her lover to hang there, exposed the next morning to the ridicule of
+the populace, for which treachery Virgil takes terrible revenge. This
+story of the basket became very popular; it was introduced into a well
+known French fabliau[33]; and Bulwer worked it, with slight changes,
+into his novel of "Pelham," where Monsieur Margot experiences the same
+sad reflections concerning the deceitfulness of woman, which had long
+before passed through the mind of Virgil.
+
+The devil himself, or more properly, one of the many devils who
+abounded in the sixteenth century, is the hero of the "Historie of
+Frier Rush."
+
+The imagination of the peasantry had peopled the woods and dells with
+gay and harmless spirits, fairies and imps. These were sometimes
+mischievous, but might always be propitiated, and excited in the rural
+mind curiosity and amusement rather than fear. But the clergy, who
+shared in the popular superstitions, and gave as ready a belief as the
+peasantry to the existence of these supernatural beings, were unable
+from the nature of their creed to admit the possibility that these
+spirits were harmless. To the monks all supernatural creatures were
+either angels or devils, and under their influence the imps and fairies
+whom the peasants believed to be dancing and playing pranks about them
+were turned into demons bent on the destruction of human souls.[34]
+Friar Rush was probably at one time a good natured imp like Robin Good
+Fellow, but under the influence, of Christian superstition he became
+the typical emissary from Satan, who played tricks among men calculated
+to set them by the ears, and who sought by various devices, always
+amusing, to fit them for residence in his master's dominions.
+
+In the history before us, which is probably only one of many which
+circulated concerning the mischievous friar, he obtains admission into
+a convent for the purpose of debauching its inmates. Having received
+employment as under-cook, he soon finds means to throw his master into
+a cauldron of boiling water, and pretending that the cook's death
+resulted from an accident, he obtains the chief position in the kitchen
+himself. He then provides the convent with such delicious food that the
+monks give themselves up entirely to material enjoyment, and finally
+reach a condition of degeneracy from which recovery is almost
+impossible. Rush, however, is exposed in time to prevent absolute ruin,
+and sets out to make up for this failure by good service elsewhere. The
+story is described on the title-page as "being full of pleasant mirth
+and delight for young people."
+
+The tales of the yeomanry were very popular during the sixteenth
+century, and were sold as penny chapbooks for many years. They form an
+interesting link in the history of English prose fiction, representing
+as they do the first appearance of a popular demand for prose stories,
+and the first appearance, except in Chaucer, of other than military or
+clerical heroes. They possess an element of reality which separates the
+chivalric ideal of the Middle Ages from the pastoral-chivalric ideal of
+Elizabeth's time, the latter typified by Sidney's "Arcadia." The tales
+relating to the conjurers are quite mediæval in character. They are of
+interest only so far as they serve to illustrate the effect of popular
+superstition upon the literature of the time.
+
+The New Learning, growing up in the place of war and theology, meant
+the dawn of material prosperity, of the rule of law, and of a new
+intelligence diffused through the opinions and industries of men. Of
+this there is no better exposition than Sir Thomas More's "Utopia."
+More was a devout Catholic. He wore a hair shirt next his skin; he
+flogged himself; he gave his life for a theological principle. But he
+was also a Christian in a wider sense. He appreciated the importance to
+men of peace and happiness, as well as of orthodoxy. He sought to
+promote, what the clergy sought to destroy, the benefits of
+intellectual and material advancement. More was a lawyer, seeing
+clearly into the temper of his time, and discerning the new tendencies
+which were forming the opinions and influencing the actions of his
+countrymen. It was as a lawyer, too, that he was able to do this. As a
+soldier, or as the inmate of that Carthusian cell his youth had longed
+for, he would have shared the prevailing blindness. For many centuries
+all intellectual activity had been occupied with theological
+disputes,--how barren it is needless to say; all physical activity had
+been occupied in destroying or in protecting life. "There were indeed,"
+says Buckle,[35] "many priests and many warriors, many sermons and many
+battles. But, on the other hand, there was neither trade, nor commerce,
+nor manufactures; there was no science, no literature; the useful arts
+were entirely unknown; and even the highest ranks of society were
+unacquainted, not only with the most ordinary comforts, but with the
+commonest decencies of civilized life." But the New Learning dealt
+with secular subjects, and aimed at material welfare. At Antwerp, says
+More:
+
+    "Vpon a certayne daye, when I hadde herde the diuine seruice in our
+    Ladies Churche, which is the fayrest, the most gorgeous and curious
+    churche of buyldyng in all the Citie, and also the most frequented
+    of people, and the seruice beynge doone, was readye to go home to
+    my lodgynge, I chaunced to espye this foresayde Peter talkynge with
+    a certayne Straunger, a man well stricken in age, with a blacke
+    sonneburned face, a longe bearde, and a cloke cast homly about his
+    shoulders, whome, by his fauoure and apparell furthwith I iudged to
+    bee a mariner."[36]
+
+This was the fictitious personage whose travels had led him to the
+distant island of Utopia, and who described to Sir Thomas the nature of
+its government. Europe for fifteen centuries had been under the control
+of the clergy, and what had been the result? Where was the progress?
+How much had the barbarism of one century differed from that of the
+last? But in Utopia there was no priesthood. Men had a simple faith.
+They "were persuaded that it is not in a man's power to believe what he
+list," and when they met in public worship it was to hold such services
+that all might freely join in them. Religion in Utopia was left to the
+individual conscience. War was considered an unmitigated evil, and
+never undertaken except in the extremest necessity. The people of
+Utopia, therefore, not being exclusively occupied, on the one hand,
+with discussing their religion and enforcing it on others, or, on the
+other hand, with violating all its teachings, were able to think of
+other things. How to make the best laws for the government of the
+commonwealth; how to deal with crime, with labor; how to promote the
+highest condition of general well-being, as regarded the public health,
+public education, the comfort and cleanliness of dwellings;--these were
+the questions which the Utopians considered most important, and these
+were solved by the exercise of human reason. These were questions, too,
+with which the English people found themselves confronted in the
+beginning of the sixteenth century, and before that century had passed
+away, the results even of a very imperfect solution regarding them were
+apparent in every department and in every class of life.
+
+The great mind, the noble character of Sir Thomas More stand out the
+best production of his time. The strong religious bias of the man made
+it inevitable that he should remain considerably under the influence of
+the old theological teachings, but in the intelligent man of the world,
+in the large-hearted philanthropist, in the honest patriot, appear the
+new and beneficent tendencies which were at work. Like all men who have
+been in advance of their time, More was looked upon as a dreamer. A
+dreamer he might naturally seem, who, in the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, looked for peace, for religious toleration, for justice to the
+lower classes. But these dreams were destined to be realized long after
+More's headless body had crumbled to dust, by that learning which he
+himself so seduously cultivated, and by the decay, too, of some of
+those ideas for which he died a martyr's death. The growth of the
+universities, the establishment of grammar schools, the impetus given
+to all useful occupations during the reign of Henry VIII, were
+gradually aiding the advance of that new era in the history of England
+which developed so brilliantly under Elizabeth. In her reign the old
+warlike spirit had decayed, theology had lost its obstructive power,
+and human reason began to bear its legitimate fruits--prosperity and
+civilization.
+
+
+[Footnote 26: Green's "Short History of the English People," p. 203.]
+
+[Footnote 27: "Tom-a-Lincoln" has been reprinted in W.J. Thorn's
+valuable collection of "Early English Prose Romances," where may also
+be found a story similar in nature, called "Helyas, Knight of the
+Swanne." I do not consider these productions worthy of more extended
+notice here, as they possess no interest in themselves, and serve only
+to illustrate the degeneracy of the fictions relating to the knighthood
+during the 16th century. The compilation called "The Seven Champions of
+Christendom", by Richard Johnson, the author of "Tom-a-Lincoln", said
+to contain "all the lyes of Christendom in one lye," obtained
+considerable popularity and circulation during this period. Dunlop
+mentions ("Hist. of Fiction," chap. xiv) the "Ornatus and Artesia", and
+"Parismus, Prince of Bohemia," by Emmanuel Ford, and the "Pheander, or
+Maiden Knight," by Henry Roberts, belonging in the same class of
+composition. An English version of the old tale of Robert the Devil
+belongs to this period, and may be found in W.J. Thom's collection.]
+
+[Footnote 28: Ritson's "Robin Hood."]
+
+[Footnote 29: Hunter's "Robin Hood", p. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 30: "George-a-Green," chap. x, Thom's "Early Eng. Prose
+Romances."]
+
+[Footnote 31: "Thomas of Reading," chap. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 32: Thom's preface to "Vigilius," "Early Eng. Prose
+Romances."]
+
+[Footnote 33: "Lai d'Hippocrate," Le Grand. Thom's Prelude to
+"Virgilius."]
+
+[Footnote 34: Wright's "Essays on the Middle Ages," _Essay x_.]
+
+[Footnote 35: Buckle's "Hist. of Civilization," vol. I, p. 147.
+Appleton's ed.]
+
+[Footnote 36: "_A fruteful and plesaunt worke of the beste state of a
+publyque weale, and of the newe yle called UTOPIA: written in Latin by
+SYR THOMAS MORE KNYGHT, and translated into Englysshe by RAPHE ROBYNSON
+Citisein and Goldsmythe of London at the procurement and earnest
+request of George Tadlowe Citisein and Haberdassher of the same Citie.
+Imprinted at London by Abraham Wele, dwelling in Paul's Churcheyarde at
+the Sygne of the Lambe, Anno, 1551." Arber's reprint._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE AGE OF ELIZABETH: LYLY, GREENE, LODGE, SIDNEY.
+
+
+I.
+
+In the rapidity and scope of intellectual and material progress, the
+age of Elizabeth is unequaled in English history. The nation seemed to
+pass from the darkness of night into a sunshine which would never end.
+Freed from the trammels which had hitherto impeded their way, all
+classes put on a new vigor, a new enterprise, and a new intelligence,
+which brought advancement into every walk of life. The spread of the
+Copernican doctrine of the revolutions of the earth, and the relations
+of our planet to the solar system gradually drove before it the old
+anthropocentric ideas. Men looked into the heavens and saw a new
+universe. In the grand scheme of creation there unfolded before them,
+they read in spite of themselves the comparative insignificance of
+their own world, and an overwhelming blow was dealt at the narrowness
+and superstition which had hitherto characterized their thoughts. A new
+world, too, was fast becoming known. The circumnavigation of the earth
+by Drake, the visits of other Englishmen to the shores of Africa and
+America, even to the Arctic seas, awakened a deep and healthful
+curiosity. There arose a passion for travelling, for seeing and
+studying foreign lands. Those who were forced to remain at home
+devoured with eagerness the books of those who wandered abroad. The
+effects of this widening of the mental and physical horizon are
+observable in the new occupations which absorbed the energies of men,
+and in the new social life which all classes were beginning to lead.
+Improvements in husbandry doubled the productiveness of the soil, and
+greatly enhanced its value. The development of manufactures made
+English woolens in demand throughout Europe. In commerce the new spirit
+of enterprise was strikingly apparent. Tradesmen and nobles, ministers
+of state, Elizabeth herself--all who could, ventured something in the
+ships which sailed for America or Africa in the hope of golden cargoes.
+The Russia company brought home furs and flax, steel, iron, ropes, and
+masts. The Turkey merchants imported the productions of the Levant,
+silks and satins, carpets, velvets, and cloth of gold. By the side of
+these were laid in London markets, the rice, cotton, spices, and
+precious stones of India, and the sugar, rare woods, gold, silver, and
+pearls of the New World.[37]
+
+Under the influence of this new enterprise and prosperity, the picture
+of social life becomes more pleasing. The English noble succeeded to
+the feudal baron, the manor to the fortress. With the coat of mail and
+huge two-handed sword passed away the portcullis and the moat. The new
+homes of the nobility, erected during Elizabeth's reign, were marked by
+a beauty and luxury in keeping with the new ideas of their owners. The
+eye still rests with admiration on the numberless gables, the quaint
+chimneys, the oriel windows, the fretted parapets of the Tudor
+building. Within, the magnificent staircases, the great carved
+chimney-pieces, the massive oaken furniture, the costly cabinets, and
+elaborate tapestries all attested the new wealth and the new taste of
+the occupants. A large chamber of Hardwicke Hall was decorated with a
+frieze representing a stag hunt, and beneath that the story of Ulysses
+wrought in tapestry.[38] Harrington rejoiced in the number of "goodly
+chambers, large gardens and sweet walks" of Elizabeth's palaces. The
+"goodly chambers" were filled with cloths of gold and silver, with
+satin-covered furniture, and silk coverlids lined with ermine. In the
+houses of knights and gentlemen were to be seen a great profusion of
+"Turkic worke, pewter, brasse, fine linen, and thereto costlie cupbords
+of plate worth five or six hundred or a thousand pounds."[39] The lord
+of the manor no longer took his meals with all his retainers in the
+great hall, throwing the bones and scraps from his wooden trencher to
+his dogs. He withdrew into a separate apartment, and dined with a new
+refinement. A hitherto unknown variety of food covered the table,
+served on pewter, china, or silver, instead of the primitive trencher.
+
+The bands of retainers who had hung round the castle, living at the
+expense of its lord, and ready to follow him in his career of violence,
+were gradually being absorbed in useful and industrial pursuits. Among
+the yeomanry the general progress was exceedingly noticeable. The
+character and worth of this important class were commented upon by
+Holinshed.[40] "This sort of people * * * commonlie live wealthilie,
+keepe good houses, and travell to get riches. They are also for the
+most part farmers to gentlemen, or at the leastwise artificers, and
+with grazing, frequenting of markets, and keeping of servants (not
+idle servants as the gentlemen doo, but suche as get bothe their owne
+and part of their master's living), do come to great welth, in so much
+that manie of them are able and doo buie the lands of unthriftie
+gentlemen, and often setting their sonnes to the schooles, to the
+universities, and to the Ins of the Court, or otherwise leaving them
+sufficient lands whereupon they may live without labour, do make them
+by those meanes to become gentlemen: these were they that in times past
+made all France afraid, and albeit they be not called Master, as
+gentlemen are, or Sir, as to knights apperteineth, but only John, and
+Thomas, etc., yet have they beene found to have doone verie good
+service; and the kings of England in foughten battels, were woont to
+remain among them (who were their footmen), as the French kings did
+among their horsemen; the prince thereby showing where his chief
+strength did consist." This middle class were enjoying a luxury and
+comfort undreamt of by their fathers, or indeed by the nobility of
+feudal times. Thatched cottages smeared with mud were fast being
+succeeded by brick or stone houses, finely plastered, with glass
+windows, chairs in place of stools, and tables in place of rough boards
+lying loosely on tressles. "Farmers learned also to garnish their
+cupboards with plate, their joined beds with tapestrie and silken
+hangings, and their tables with carpets and fine naperie, whereby the
+wealth of our countrie * * * doth infinitelie appeare."[41] The new
+comforts, enumerated by Harrison, presented a striking contrast to the
+condition the "old men" had been satisfied with in their "yoong daies,"
+"Our fathers (yea, and we ourselves also) have lien full oft upon
+straw pallets, on rough mats * * * and a good round log under their
+heads instead of a bolster or pillow. If it were so that our fathers,
+or the good man of the house, had within eleven years after his
+marriage purchased a matteras or flockebed, and thereto a sacke of
+chaffe to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged
+as the lord of the towne." The new comforts were the result, not of
+extravagance, but of prosperity. Notwithstanding the rigid economy of
+the old times, men "were scearce able to live and paie their rents at
+their daies without selling of a cow, or an horse or more, although
+they paid but four pounds at the uttermost by the yeare, * * * whereas
+in my time," says Harrison, "although peradventure foure pounds of old
+rent be improved to fourtie, fiftie, or an hundred poundes, yet will
+the farmer as another palme or date tree, thinke his gaines verie small
+toward the end of his terme, if he had not six or seven yeares rent
+lieing by him, therewith to purchase a new lease, beside a faire
+garnish of pewter on his cupboard, with so much in od vessell going
+aboute the house, three or four feather beds, so manie coverlids and
+carpets of tapestrie, a silver salt, a bowle for wine * * * and a
+dozzen of spoones to furnish up the sute."[42] The country gentleman
+sitting in his hall, hawk on hand, with his hounds about him, made a
+profuse hospitality his chief pride, and out-door sports the resource
+of his leisure and conversation. Greek and Latin were gradually making
+their way into his store of knowledge, hitherto limited to the romances
+and chronicles. But as Ascham complained, there was little sweetness to
+flavor his cup of learning. "Masters for the most part so behave
+themselves," said Peacham, "that their very name is hatefull to the
+scholler, who trembleth at their coming in, rejoyceth at their absence,
+and looketh his master (returned) in the face, as his deadly
+enemy."[43]
+
+The amusements of the rural population partook of the character of
+material prosperity and material enjoyment which were so prominent in
+Elizabeth's reign. There is no sign of the prevailing improvement in
+the condition of men more suggestive than the effervescence of spirits
+which broke loose on every holiday and at every festival. On the first
+day of May "the juvenile part of both sexes are wont to rise a little
+after midnight, and walk to some neighboring wood, accompany'd with
+music and the blowing of horns, where they break down branches from the
+trees and adorn them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. When this
+done, they return with their booty homewards about the rising of the
+sun, and make their doors and windows to triumph in the flowery
+spoil."[44] "But their cheefest jewell they bring from thence is their
+Maie poole whiche they bringe home with great veneration, as thus: They
+have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe havyng a sweete
+nosegaie of flowers, tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen
+drawe home this Maie poole."[45] Games, dances, rude dramatic
+performances succeeded each other for hours, interspersed with feasting
+and drinking. An extravagant fancy sought expression in the excitement,
+of grotesque actions and brilliant costumes. The Morris dancers
+executed their curious movements, clad in "gilt leather and silver
+paper, and sometimes in coats of white spangled fustian,"[46] or in
+"greene, yellow, or some other light wanton collour," bedecked with
+"scarfs, ribbons and laces hanged all over with golde ringes, precious
+stones and other jewells," and "aboute either legge twentie or fourtie
+belles."[47] Robin Hood's Day, Christmas, Twelfth Night, Harvest Home,
+Sheepshearing, were all celebrated in turn with a liveliness of spirit,
+a vigor of imagination, and a noisy enjoyment of the good things of
+life which showed that Merry England had at last succeeded to the gloom
+of the Middle Ages.
+
+The prevailing prosperity and activity were naturally even more
+apparent in London than in the rural districts. The city was growing
+rapidly, filling up with warehouses and shops, with palaces and
+dwellings. The people in general were attracted to it by the growing
+trade and industry, and by the theatres, taverns, bear-gardens, and
+other places of amusement, the number of which was constantly
+increasing. The nobility and gentry sought the splendor of Elizabeth's
+court to spend their leisure and their wealth. The middle or commercial
+classes of the city, like the corresponding agricultural classes in the
+country, were enjoying the fruits of their industry and attaining a
+respectable position of their own. The houses and furniture belonging
+to them struck a foreigner with astonishment and pleasure[48]; "The
+neate cleanlinesse, the exquisite finenesse, the plesaunte and
+delightfull furniture in every point for household wonderfully rejoyced
+mee; their chambers and parlours, strawed over with sweet herbes,
+refreshed mee; their nosegayes finelye intermingled wyth sondry sortes
+of fragraunte floures in their bed-chambers and privie roomes, with
+comfortable smell cheered me up and entierlye delighted all my senses."
+The profusion of expenditure, and the love of show resulting from the
+sudden increase of wealth, affected even the apprentices of the city.
+The Lord Mayor and Common Council, in 1582, found it necessary to
+direct apprentices; "to wear no hat with any silk in or about the
+same. To wear no ruffles, cuffs, loose collar, nor other thing than
+a ruff at the collar, and that only a yard and a half long. To wear
+no doublets * * * enriched with any manner of silver or silke. * * * To
+wear no sword, dagger, nor other weapon but a knife; nor a ring, jewel
+of gold, nor silver, nor silke in any part of his apparel."[49]
+
+It was, however, at Elizabeth's court, and among the nobility, that the
+tendencies of the time were most marked. The literature of this
+era--never surpassed in brilliancy and power--was the work of poets and
+dramatists. It was the outcome of a poetical and dramatic life. Even
+the fiction which belongs to the period was colored by the same
+fondness for dramatic incident and poetic treatment. The enthusiasm
+which had animated the nobility in their martial life went with them to
+the court of Elizabeth. There it showed itself in gallantry, in love of
+show, and in a devotion to amusement and to self-cultivation which
+internal peace had at length made possible. Men of whom any age might
+be proud crowded the scene. Cecil and Walsingham among statesmen, Drake
+among discoverers, Bacon and Hooker among thinkers, Raleigh and Sidney
+at once among courtiers, soldiers, and scholars. The prevailing
+extravagance and variety of dress was simply the outward sign of a love
+of whatever was brilliant and new. The fashions of France, of Spain, of
+Turkey, even of the Moors contributed to the wardrobe of the English
+gallant. "And, as these fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a
+world to see the costlinesse and the curiositie: the excesse and the
+vanitie: the pomp and the braverie; the change and the varietie: and
+finallie the ficklenesse and the follie that is in all degrees:
+insomuch that nothing is more constant in England than inconstancie of
+attire."[50] Each one aimed at making the best appearance. The long
+seams of men's hose were set by a plumb line, and beards were cut to
+suit the face, "If a man have a leane and streight face, a Marquess
+Ottons cut will make it broad and large; if it be platter-like, a long,
+slender beard will make it seeme the narrower." "Some lustie courtiers
+also, and gentlemen of courage doo weare either rings of golde, stones,
+or pearle in their eares, whereby they imagine the workmanship of God
+not to be a little amended."[51] All are familiar with the brilliant
+female dress of the time. The enormous starched ruffs of various
+colors, the long stomachers stiffened with wire and studded with
+jewels, the costly stuffs enriched with gold and silver, made up a
+costume which has never been surpassed in extravagance and fanciful
+exaggeration.
+
+The queen herself set the example of brilliancy of costume, and took
+care to be outshone by none. Sir John Harrington relates that "Ladie M.
+Howarde was possessede of a rich border, powdered wyth golde and pearle
+and a velvet suite belonginge thereto, which moved manie to envye; nor
+did it please the queene, who thought it exceeded her owne. One daye
+the queene did sende privately, and got the ladie's rich vesture, which
+she put on herself, and came forthe the chamber amonge the ladies; the
+kirtle and border was far too shorte for her majestie's heigth; and
+she asked everyone, 'How they likede her new fancied suit?' At length
+she askede the owner herself, 'If it was not made too shorte and ill
+becoming?'--which the poor ladie did presentlie consente to. 'Why,
+then, if it become not me, as being too shorte, I am minded it shall
+never become thee, as being too fine; so it fitteth neither well.' This
+sharp rebuke abashed the ladie, and she never adorned her herewith any
+more."[52]
+
+It was the fashion to walk in the aisles of St. Paul's Church, which
+became a general rendezvous for business or pleasure. A facetious
+writer of the time, instructing a young gallant how to procure his
+clothes, and to show them off to the best advantage, gives an amusing
+picture of the prevailing vanity and foppery. "Bend your course
+directly in the middle line, that the whole body of the church may
+appear to be yours; where, in view of all you may publish your suit in
+what manner you affect most * * * and then you must, as 'twere in anger,
+suddenly snatch at the middle of the inside, if it be taffeta at the
+least; and so, by that means, your costly lining is betrayed. * * * But
+one note, by the way, do I especially woo you to, the neglect of
+which makes many of our gallants cheap and ordinary, that by no means
+you be seen above four times; but in the fifth make yourself away,
+either in some of the semsters' shops, the new tobacco office, or among
+the booksellers, where, if you cannot read, exercise your smoke, and
+enquire who has writ against this divine weed. * * * After dinner you
+may appear again, having translated yourself out of you English cloth
+into a light Turkey grogram, if you have that happiness of shifting;
+and then be seen for a turn or two to correct your teeth with some
+quill or silver instrument, and to cleanse your gums with a wrought
+handkerchief; it skills not whether you dined or no; that is best known
+to your stomach; or in what place you dined; though it were with cheese
+of your own mother's making, in your chamber or study. * * * If, by
+chance, you either encounter, or aloof off throw your inquisitive eye
+upon any knight or squire, being your familiar, salute him, not by his
+name, Sir such a one, or so; but call him Ned, or Jack, etc. This will
+set off your estimation with great men; and if, though there be a dozen
+companies between you, 'tis the better, he call aloud to you, for that
+is most genteel, to know where he shall find you at two o'clock; tell
+him at such an ordinary, or such; and be sure to name those that are
+dearest, and whither none but your gallants resort."[53]
+
+With all the luxury of furniture and dress, with all the new elegance
+and ceremony of court life, there naturally remained much disorder,
+violence, and coarseness throughout the social system. Although the
+laws concerning the maintenance of order in the streets were strict,
+forbidding any one even to "blowe any horne in the night, or whistle
+after the hour of nyne of the clock in the night," yet they were not
+effectively enforced. A member of the House of Commons described a
+Justice of the Peace as an animal, who for half a dozen of chickens
+would dispense with a dozen penal laws[54]; and Gilbert Talbot spoke of
+two serious street affrays, which he described in a letter to the Earl
+of Shrewsbury as "trifling matters."[55] The gallows were kept busy in
+town and country. The habits of violence, and the old fondness of the
+nobility for fighting out their own quarrels, lingered in the prevalent
+custom of duelling. Ladies, and even the queen herself, chastised their
+servants with their own hands. On one occasion Elizabeth showed her
+dislike of a courtier's coat by spitting upon it, and her habit of
+administering physical correction to those who displeased her called
+forth the witty remark of Sir John Harrington: "I will not adventure
+her Highnesse choller, leste she should collar me also." The first
+coach appeared in the streets of London in Elizabeth's time and the
+sight of it "put both horse and man into amazement; some said it was a
+great crab-shell brought out of China; and some imagined it to be one
+of the Pagan temples, in which the Cannibals adored the divell." The
+extravagance and luxury of the feasts which were given on great
+occasions by the nobility were not attended by a corresponding advance
+in the refinement of manners at table. In a banquet given by Lord
+Hertford to Elizabeth in the garden of his castle, there were a
+thousand dishes carried out by two hundred gentlemen lighted by a
+hundred torch-bearers and every dish was of china or silver. But forks
+had not yet come into general use, and their place was supplied by
+fingers. Elizabeth had two or three forks, very small, and studded with
+jewels, but they were intended only for ornament. A divine inveighed
+against the impiety of those who objected to touching their meat with
+their fingers, and it was only in the seventeenth century that the
+custom of eating with forks obtained general acceptance, and ceased to
+be considered a mark of foppery.
+
+The co-existence of coarseness and brilliant luxury, so characteristic
+of the time, is curiously apparent in the amusements of the city and
+the court. The whole people, from Elizabeth to the country boor,
+delighted in the savage sports of bull and bear-baiting. In the
+gratification received by these exhibitions, appear the remains of the
+old bloodthirstiness which had once been only satisfied with the sight
+of human suffering. The contrast is striking when we turn to the
+masques, the triumphs, and the pageants which were exhibited on great
+occasions by the court or by the citizens of London. The awakening of
+learning and the new interest in life were expressed in the dramatic
+entertainments which mingled the romantic elements of chivalry with the
+mythology of ancient Greece, in the rejoicings of men over present
+prosperity and welfare. The accounts of the festivities during the
+progresses of Elizabeth, so ably collected by Nichol, read like a tale
+of fairyland. When the queen visited Kenelworth she was met outside the
+gates by sybils reciting a poem of welcome. At the gates the giant
+porter feigned anger at the intrusion, but, overcome by the sight of
+Elizabeth, laid his club and his keys humbly at her feet. On posts
+along the route were placed the offerings of Sylvanus, of Pomona, of
+Ceres, of Bacchus, of Neptune, of Mars, and of Phoebus. From Arthur's
+court tame the Lady of the Lake, begging the queen to deliver her from
+the Knight without Pity. Fawns, satyrs, and nymphs brought their
+greetings, while an Echo replied to the addresses of welcome.
+Amusements of every variety occupied the succeeding days. Hunting, bear
+baiting, fireworks, tilting, Morris dances, a rustic marriage, a fight
+between Danes and English, curious aquatic sports,--all succeeded each
+other, interspersed with brilliant feasts. Poems founded on the legends
+of Arthur, or drawn from the inexhaustible sources of mythology, were
+recited in the pauses of festivity, or sung beneath the windows of the
+queen. The same readiness of invention and luxuriance of fancy
+characterized all the celebrations of the time. The love of the
+dramatic which applauded Pyramus and Thisbe in the rural districts,
+made actors of the courtiers. When the French commissioners came to
+negotiate the marriage of Elizabeth with the Duke of Anjou, they were
+entertained with a triumph, in which the Earl of Arundel, Lord Windsor,
+Master Philip Sidney, and Master Fulk Grevil, impersonating the four
+"foster children of Desire," carried by force of arms the "Fortress of
+Beauty," which represented Elizabeth herself.
+
+The age of Elizabeth, although it had worked itself free from the
+intellectual sloth of the Middle Ages, although it was familiarizing
+itself with an almost unknown world abroad, and creating a new world at
+home, yet had inherited with little qualification the violence, the
+cruelty, and the unbridled passions of the centuries which had gone
+before. All this variety of life was expressed in the drama, which, as
+a reflection of contemporary thought and manners, was to Elizabeth's
+time what the novel is to our own. Before the end of this reign there
+were eighteen theatres in London, all crowded with audiences which
+embraced every class of the people,--from the noble and court gallant
+who played cards on the stage, to the workmen and apprentices who
+fought and bandied coarse jests in the pit. The names of Marlowe, of
+Shakespeare, of Johnson, are sufficient to remind us of the grandeur to
+which the Elizabethan drama attained, under the influence of prosperity
+at home, victory abroad, and the quickening of the national
+intelligence which followed the revival of learning. But while the
+stage reflected all that was most noble, it reflected also all that
+was most base in human nature. Ecclesiastical discipline had been laid
+aside, and the unrestrained passions of men, which in actual life found
+vent in violence and debauchery, were gratified by the dramatic
+representation of the worst crimes and most vitiated tastes. The
+Puritans brought about reformation and self-restraint, by enforcing a
+new code of morals all the more rigid from the looseness which on every
+side they found to combat. In closing the theatres, they were actuated,
+in Mr. Green's words, by the hatred "of God-fearing men against the
+foulest depravity presented in a poetic and attractive form."[56]
+
+While the drama reflected alike the good and the bad, all the finer
+aspirations of the time found expression in poetry. Spenser, Sackville,
+Drayton, Donne, Hall, the two Fletchers, are but leaders in a band of
+more than two hundred, who made this period unrivalled in the annals of
+English poetry. It was a time of unexampled prosperity, of an enlarged
+freedom, of an active intelligence, when men were eagerly seeking for
+whatever was novel and brilliant; when translations without number of
+the classical writers and contemporary foreign works were welcomed
+alike with the "costly attire of the new cut, the Dutch hat, the French
+hose, the Spanish rapier, the Italian hilt." "It is a world to see how
+Englishmen desire to hear finer speech than the language will allow, to
+eat finer bread than is made of wheat, or wear finer cloth than is made
+of wool." Such are the words in which John Lyly, the Euphuist,
+characterized his own time, and they were the words of one who
+expressed in his own writings the tendency to fanciful exaggeration,
+which was so strong among the men about him.
+
+
+[Footnote 37: Froude's "History of England," vol. 8, p. 429.]
+
+[Footnote 38: Stone, "Chronicles of Fashion."]
+
+[Footnote 39: Holinshed, vol. I, p. 315; Drake's "Shakespeare and his
+Times", vol. 1, p. 72.]
+
+[Footnote 40: Holinshed, vol. I, p. 275; Drake's "Shakespeare", vol. 1,
+p. 99.]
+
+[Footnote 41: Harrison's "Description"; Drake's "Shakespeare," vol. 1,
+p. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times," vol. 1, p. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 43: Henry Peacham, "Compleat Gentleman," 1624.]
+
+[Footnote 44: Bourne; Drake's "Shakespeare," vol. 1, p. 153.]
+
+[Footnote 45: Stubbes, "Anatomie of Abuses," p. 168.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Douce, "Illustrations of Shakespeare."]
+
+[Footnote 47: Stubbes; Drake's "Shakespeare," vol. 1, ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Laevinius Lemnius; Drake, vol. 2, p. 113.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Nichol's "Progresses of Elizabeth," vol. 2, p. 391.]
+
+[Footnote 50: Harrison: Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times," vol. 2, p.
+87.]
+
+[Footnote 51: Harrison's "Description of England"; Holinshed, vol. I,
+pp. 289-90; Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times" vol. 2, pp. 88, 89.]
+
+[Footnote 52: "Nugæ Antique", Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times," vol.
+2, p. 90.]
+
+[Footnote 53: "The Gull's Horn Book"; Drake's "Shakespeare and his
+Times", vol. 2, p. 184.]
+
+[Footnote 54: Lodge's "Illustrations."]
+
+[Footnote 55: _Idem._]
+
+[Footnote 56: Green, "Short History of the English People," p. 429.]
+
+
+
+II.
+
+It is to the drama that we must look for the most complete literary
+expression of the social condition of the period. The student of
+history must regret, indeed, that the realistic novel, with its study
+of human thoughts and motives, with its illustration of manners and
+customs, so valuable in a reconstruction of the past, should have been
+delayed till the end of the seventeenth century. But though there be
+regret, there cannot be surprise. The reigns of Elizabeth and the
+Stuarts cover the period of court life; when men lived in public, and
+sought their intellectual entertainment in crowds at a theatre, as now,
+in a time of citizen-life, they seek it in private, by the
+study-lamp.[57] In a dramatic age the creations of the imagination will
+be placed behind the footlights, and in a period of quiet and
+reflection they will be placed between the covers of a book. In the age
+of Elizabeth the writers of fiction neither studied the characters and
+manners of the men about them, nor aimed at any reflection of actual
+life. But their tales and romances were the natural fruit of their
+intellectual condition, and form an interesting if not a valuable
+portion of English fiction. In them are reflected the happiness, the
+poetry, the love of novelty, and the ideality of the time. The stirring
+incidents of chivalric romance were no longer in vogue, and the subject
+became an idealized love. But the most striking feature of Elizabethan
+fiction is the great importance attached to style. The writer cared
+more to excite admiration by the turn of his phrases and the ornaments
+of his language, than to interest his reader by plot or incident.
+
+In 1579 John Lyly published his curious romance, "Euphues, the Anatomy
+of Wit," a work which attained a great popularity, and made the word
+Euphuism an abstract term in the language to express the ornate and
+antithetical style of which this book is the most marked example. In
+Lyly's own day it was said by Edward Blount that the nation was "in his
+debt for a new English which hee taught them." Since then, the verdict
+of posterity has been that Lyly corrupted the public taste, and
+introduced an affected and overloaded manner of writing which had a
+mischievous influence upon literature. A careful examination of Lyly's
+work, and of the condition of the English language in the last quarter
+of the sixteenth century, will not sustain either of these views. The
+Euphuistic style was not of Lyly's invention. He acquired it from the
+men about him, and merely gave it, through his writings, a distinct
+character and individuality. In a letter of Elizabeth to her brother
+Edward VI, long-before "Euphues" was written, occurs the following
+passage: "Like as a shipman in stormy wether plukes down the sails
+tarrying for bettar winde, so did I, most noble kinge, in my
+unfortunate chanche a Thursday pluk downe the hie sailes of my joy and
+comforte, and do trust one day that as troublesome waves have repulsed
+me backwarde, so a gentil winde will bringe me forwarde to my
+haven."[58] This is a moderate specimen of the ornate and exaggerated
+language which was following the new acquisitions of learning and
+intelligence, just as extravagance in dress and food was following the
+new prosperity and wealth. Men wished to crowd their learning and
+cultivation into every thing they said or wrote. As the language was
+not yet settled by good prose writers, the more affected a style, the
+more numerous its similes, and far-fetched its allusions, the more
+ingenious and admirable it was considered to be. There resulted a
+sacrifice of clearness and simplicity to a strained elegance. Still, in
+the Euphuistic style, tedious and grotesque as it often is, appear the
+first serious efforts, among English prose writers, to attain a better
+mode of expression. The results which followed the absence of a
+standard written language at home were strengthened by the general
+acquaintance with foreign literature. Italy in the sixteenth century
+was the leading intellectual nation, and the example of the refined and
+over-polished manner of writing there prevalent had much to do with the
+growth in England of a fondness for affected mannerisms and fancied
+ornaments of language. The new ideas in regard to poetry and
+versification which Wyat and Surrey had brought from Italy, were but
+the beginning of an extensive Italian influence. It was not without
+reason that Ascham inveighed against "the enchantments of Circe brought
+out of Italy to mar men's manners in England." Italian works were
+translated and circulated in great numbers in England, and among these
+the most popular were the gay and amorous productions of the story
+tellers.[59]
+
+Born in Kent in 1554, John Lyly studied at Magdalen College, Oxford,
+and received the degree of Master of Arts. Not a very diligent
+scholar, he disliked the "crabbed studies" of logic and philosophy,
+"his genie being naturally bent to the pleasant paths of poetry," but
+he was reputed at the University as afterward at Elizabeth's court, "a
+rare poet, witty, comical, and facetious." During his life in London he
+produced a number of plays and poems which have given his name a not
+inconsiderable place in the list of Elizabethan poets and dramatists.
+He is now best known, where known at all, by his prose work "Euphues,"
+which was so much admired at Elizabeth's court, that all the ladies
+knew his phrases by heart, and to "parley Euphuism" was a sign of
+breeding. For many years Lyly lingered about the court waiting for a
+promised position to reward his labors and support his declining years.
+But in vain. "A thousand hopes," he complained, "but all nothing; a
+hundred promises, but yet nothing." Lyly died in 1606, leaving, as he
+said, but three legacies; "Patience to my creditors, Melancholie
+without measure to my friends, and Beggarie without shame to my
+family."
+
+The deeper meaning of Lyly's work, which lies beneath the surface of
+his similes and antitheses, has escaped almost all his critics.[60] It
+is suggested by the title, "Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit." In the
+"Schoolmaster," Ascham explained how Socrates had described the anatomy
+of wit in a child, and the first essential quality mentioned by
+Socrates, and that most fully discussed by Ascham was Euphuês which
+may be translated of good natural parts, as well of the body as the
+mind. Euphues, then, as well in the story in which he figures, as
+afterward in the essays or which he is the supposed author, is the
+model of a young man at once attractive in appearance, and possessing
+the mental qualities most calculated to please. While the story is
+meant to attract readers, the essays and digressions introduced into
+the work are intended to inculcate the methods of education which Lyly
+taught in common with Ascham. It was, however, the manner rather than
+the matter which gave to "Euphues" its prominence and popularity. The
+story is but a slender thread. Euphues and Philautus are two young
+gentlemen of Naples, bound together by the closest ties of friendship.
+Philautus is deeply enamored of a lady named Lucilla, to whom in an
+unfortunate moment he presents Euphues. The meeting is at supper, and
+the conversation turns on the question "often disputed, but never
+determined, whether the qualities of the minde, or the composition of
+the man, cause women most to lyke, or whether beautie or wit move men
+most to love." Euphues shows so much ingenuity in the discussion of
+this interesting subject that Lucilla transfers her affections to him.
+Upon this the two friends quarrel and exchange letters of mutual
+recrimination couched in the most elaborate language. Philautus writes:
+
+    Although hereto Euphues, I have shrined thee in my heart for
+    a trustie friende, I will shunne thee hereafter as a trothless
+    foe. * * * Dost thou not know yat a perfect friend should be lyke
+    the Glazeworme, which shineth most bright in the darke? or lyke the
+    pure Frankencense which smelleth most sweet when it is in the fire?
+    or at the leaste not unlike to the damaske Rose which is sweeter in
+    the still than on the stalke? But thou, Euphues, dost rather
+    resemble the Swallow, which in the summer creepeth under the eues
+    of euery house, and in the winter leaveth nothing but durt behinde
+    hir; or the humble Bee, which hauing sucked hunny out of the fayre
+    flower, doth leaue it and loath it; or the Spider which in the
+    finest web doth hang the fayrest Fly.
+
+To these bitter reproaches Euphues replies that "Love knoweth no
+Lawes," and in support of the proposition cites as many cases from
+mythology as he can remember. The faithless Lucilla, however, soon
+treats Euphues as she had before treated Philautus, and marries a third
+lover whom they both despise. The friends are then once more united,
+and lament in each other's arms the folly of Lucilla. A second part of
+the work appeared in the following year, in which Euphues and Philautus
+are represented on a visit to England. Philautus marries, and Euphues,
+after eulogizing the English government, Elizabeth, and all her court,
+retires forever "to the bottom of the mountain Silexedra."
+
+The educational essays dispersed throughout the book display a good
+sense which even Lyly's style cannot conceal. Ascham and Lyly were
+alone in deprecating the excessive use of the rod, and in so doing were
+far in advance of the age. Cruelty seems to have been a common
+characteristic of the school-teacher. "I knew one," said Peacham, "who
+in winter would ordinarily in a cold morning whip his boyes over for no
+other purpose than to get himself a heat; another beat them for
+swearing, and all the time he swears himself with horrible oathes that
+he would forgive any fault save that. * * * Yet these are they that
+oftentimes have our hopefull gentry under their charge and tuition, to
+bring them (up) in science and civility."[61]
+
+The style which proved so attractive to Elizabeth's courtiers had
+three principal characteristics, which the reader will perceive in the
+extracts hereafter to be given--a pedantic exhibition of learning, an
+excess of similes drawn from natural history, usually untrue to nature,
+and a habit of antithesis, which, by constant repetition becomes
+exceedingly wearisome. Euphues, wishing to convince his listeners of
+the inferiority of outward to inward perfection, pursues the following
+argument:
+
+    The foule Toade hath a fayre stone in his head, the fine golde is
+    found in the filthy earth; the sweet kernell lyeth in the hard
+    shell; vertue is harboured in the heart of him that most men
+    esteeme misshappen. Contrarywise, if we respect more the outward
+    shape, then the inward habit, good God, into how many mischiefs do
+    wee fall? into what blindnesse are we ledde? Due we not commonly
+    see that in painted pottes is hidden the deadlyest poyson? that in
+    the greenest grasse is ye greatest serpent? in the cleerest water
+    the vgliest Toade? Doth not experience teach vs, that in the most
+    curious sepulcher are enclosed rotten bones? That the Cypresse tree
+    beareth a faire leafe, but no fruite? That the Estridge carrieth
+    faire feathers, but ranke flesh? How frantick are those louers
+    which are carried away with the gaye glistering of the fine face?
+
+    "In the coldest flint," says Lucilla, "there is hot fire, the Bee
+    that hath hunny in hir mouth, hath a sting in hir tayle; the tree
+    that beareth the sweetest fruite, hath a sower sap; yea, the wordes
+    of men though they seeme smooth as oyle: yet their heartes are as
+    crooked as the stalke of luie."
+
+Lyly's antithetical style is well illustrated by the following passage,
+in which he means to be particularly serious and impressive:
+
+    If I should talke in words of those things which I haue to conferre
+    with thee in writings, certes thou would blush for shame, and I
+    weepe for sorrowe: neither could my tongue vtter yat with patience,
+    which my hand can scarse write with modesty, neither could thy ears
+    heare that without glowing, which thine eyes can hardly vewe
+    without griefe. Ah, Alcius, I cannot tell whether I should most
+    lament in thee thy want of learning, or thy wanton lyvinge, in the
+    on thou art inferiour to all men, in the other superiour to al
+    beasts. Insomuch as who seeth thy dul wit, and marketh thy froward
+    will, may well say that he neuer saw smacke of learning in thy
+    dooings, nor sparke of relygion in thy life. Thou onely vauntest of
+    thy gentry: truely thou wast made a gentleman before thou knewest
+    what honesty meant, and no more hast thou to boast of thy stocke,
+    than he, who being left rich by his father, dyeth a beggar by his
+    folly. Nobilitie began in thine auncestors and endeth in thee, and
+    the generositie that they gayned by vertue, thou hast blotted with
+    vice.[62]
+
+The popularity of "Euphues" excited much imitation, and its influence
+is strongly marked in the works of Robert Greene. Born in Norfolk in
+1560, Greene studied at Cambridge and received the degree of Master of
+Arts. After wasting his property in Italy and Spain, he returned to
+London to earn his bread by the pen. As a pamphleteer, as a poet, and
+especially as a dramatist, Greene achieved a considerable reputation.
+But his improvident habits and a life of constant debauchery brought
+his career to a close, amidst poverty and remorse, at the early age of
+thirty-two. He died in a drunken brawl, leaving in his works the
+evidence of talents and qualities which the degradation of his life had
+failed to destroy.
+
+Greene's "Arcadia" was published in 1587, and bears in its fanciful
+title of "Camilla's Alarum to Slumber Euphues," the evidence of its
+inspiration. Even among pastorals the improbability of this story is
+surpassing. Damocles, king of Arcadia, banished his daughter with her
+husband and son. Sephestia, the daughter, arrived in a part of Arcadia
+entirely inhabited by shepherds. There she becomes a shepherdess under
+the name of Samela, and meets her husband, Maximus, who is already
+tending sheep in the same neighborhood with the name of Melicertus.
+Strange to say, Sephestia fails to recognize her husband, and receives
+his addresses as a favored lover. Soon after, Pleusidippus, Sephestia's
+son, is stolen by pirates, and adopted by the king of Thessaly, in
+whose court he grows up. The fame of Sephestia's beauty reaches her
+father and her son, who, ignorant of the relationship in consequence of
+Sephestia's change of name, both set out to woo the celebrated
+shepherdess. The repulsive scene of the same woman being the object at
+once of the passion of her father and her son is ended by Damocles
+carrying off Sephestia to his own court, where he proposes to execute
+Maximus as his successful rival, and Sephestia for her obstinate
+refusal of his addresses. The Delphian oracle, however, interposes in
+time by declaring the identity of Sephestia, and the story terminates
+as usual in weddings and reconciliations.
+
+The conventional shepherd's life is well described in the "Arcadia,"
+and the pastoral tone is skilfully maintained. The language, however,
+is confessedly euphuistic, as may be seen by the author's comment on a
+speech of Samela:
+
+    Samela made this reply, because she had heard him so superfine, as
+    if Ephebus had learned him to refine his mother's tongue; wherefore
+    though he had done it of an ink horn desire to be eloquent, and
+    Melicertus thinking Samela had learned with Lucilla in Athens to
+    anatomize wit, and speak none but similes, imagined she smoothed
+    her talk to be thought like Sappho, Phaon's paramour.
+
+The following passage could hardly be distinguished from the writings
+of Lyly:
+
+    I had thought, Menaphon, that he which weareth the bay leaf had
+    been free from lightning, and the eagle's pen a preservative
+    against thunder; that labour had been enemy to love, and the
+    eschewing of idleness an antidote against fancy; but I see by
+    proof, there is no adamant so hard, but the blood of a goat will
+    make soft, no fort so well defended, but strong battery will entry,
+    nor any heart so pliant to restless labours, but enchantments of
+    love will overcome.
+
+Melicertus addresses Samela, whom he finds feeding her flocks, in the
+following terms:
+
+    Mistress of all eyes that glance but at the excellence of your
+    perfection, sovereign of all such as Venus hath allowed for lovers,
+    Oenone's over-match, Arcadia's comet, Beauty's second comfort,
+    all hail! Seeing you sit like Juno when she first watched her white
+    heifer on the Lincen downs, as bright as silver Phoebe mounted on
+    the high top of the ruddy element, I was, by a strange attractive
+    force, drawn, as the adamant draws this iron, or the jet the straw,
+    to visit your sweet self in the shade, and afford you such company
+    as a poor swain may yield without offense; which, if you shall
+    vouch to deign of, I shall be as glad of such accepted service, as
+    Paris was first of his best beloved paramour.
+
+Another of Samela's lovers, despairing of success, "became sick for
+anger, and spent whole ecologues in anguish."
+
+Greene's story of "Pandosto," of "Dorastus and Fawnia," which attained
+a great popularity, and went through at least fourteen editions, is
+well known as the foundation of Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale."
+Shakespeare has followed Greene in the material points of the story,
+even so far as to make Bohemia a maritime country. But the genius of
+the dramatist is manifest in the miraculous and happy ending which he
+substitutes for the unlawful love and inconsistent suicide of Pandosto
+in the work of Greene. Shakespeare borrowed from the text, as well as
+from the plot of the novelist. The lines,
+
+                        The gods themselves,
+      Humbling their deities to love, have taken
+      The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter
+      Became a bull, and bellowed: the green Neptune
+      A ram, and bleated; and the fire robed god,
+      Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,
+      As I seem now,
+
+are evidently a reproduction of the soliloquy of Dorastus:
+
+    And yet Dorastus, shame not at thy shepheard's weede: The heavenly
+    Godes have sometime earthly thoughts: Neptune became a ram, Jupiter
+    a bull, Apollo a shepheard; they Gods, and yet in love; and thou a
+    man appointed to love.[63]
+
+The story of "Philomela," "penned to approve women's chastity," is the
+best of Greene's tales, and approaches more closely the modern novel
+than any work of the time. It is related with much less than the usual
+prolixity, and contains two characters of distinct individuality. The
+scene is placed in Venice, partly in consequence of the Italian origin
+of the story, and partly, it would seem, because writers of fiction
+imagined that the further distant they could represent their incidents
+to have occurred, the more interest and probability would attach to
+them. Philippo Medici possessed a wife Philomela, renowned, "not for
+her beauty, though Italy afforded none so fair--not for her dowry,
+though she were the only daughter of the Duke of Milan--but for the
+admirable honours of her mind, which were so many and matchless, that
+virtue seemed to have planted there the paradise of her perfection."
+Philippo was so prone to jealousy, that he suspected even this paragon,
+and worked himself into a belief in her infidelity by such euphuisms as
+these: "The greener the Alisander leaves be, the more bitter is the
+sap, and the salamander is the most warm when he lieth furthest from
+the fire," therefore "women are most heart-hollow, when they are most
+lip-holy." Inflamed by this reasoning, he induced a friend, one
+Lutesio, to attempt his wife's virtue, enjoining him to bring immediate
+information in case of any evidence of success. Lutesio, after some
+misgivings, undertook the task, and under the influence of Philomela's
+beauty, found it a very agreeable one. His most elaborate discourses on
+love in the abstract were met by Philomela with replies fully as long
+and fully as lofty, but when he made the conversation personal, and
+declared his attitude to be that of a lover, he was met with a virtuous
+indignation which fully bore out the reputation of Philomela. Even this
+conclusive test did not satisfy the jealous mind of the wretched
+Philippo. Having hired two slaves to swear in court to his wife's
+infidelity, he procured her banishment to Palermo. By the efforts of
+the Duke of Milan, this infamous proceeding was finally exposed, and
+Philippo, overcome by remorse, set out in search of Philomela. At
+Palermo, he accused himself, in a fit of despair, of a murder which had
+been committed in that city. But while the trial was in progress,
+Philomela, in order to shield her husband, appeared in court and
+proclaimed herself guilty of the crime. The innocence of both was
+discovered. Philippo, as he deserved, died immediately in an "ecstacy,"
+and Philomela "returned home to Venice, and there lived the desolate
+widow of Philippo Medici all her life; which constant chastity made her
+so famous, that in her life she was honoured as the paragon of virtue,
+and after her death, solemnly, and with wonderful honour, entombed in
+St. Mark's Church, and her fame holden canonized until this day in
+Venice."
+
+The character of Philomela possesses strong traits of feminine virtue
+and wifely fidelity. Philippo has little distinctiveness except in his
+extreme susceptibility to jealousy--a fault which was exaggerated by
+the author to set off the opposite qualities of Philomela. The story
+has no little merit in regard to the construction and sequence of the
+narrative, and holds up to admiration a high moral excellence. But its
+interest is seriously impaired by the same defect which marks all the
+fiction of the time. Philomela is almost the only tale which makes any
+pretence to being a description of actual life, or which deals with
+possible incidents. Yet the language, although it has some elegance, is
+so affectedly formal, that all sense of reality is destroyed. When
+Philippo's treachery to his wife is discovered, and he himself is
+plunged in remorse, it is in such words as these that he speaks of his
+exposure: "There is nothing so secret but the date of days will reveal;
+that as oil, though it moist, quencheth not fire, so time, though ever
+so long, is no sure covert for sin; but as a spark raked up in cinders
+will at last begin to glow and manifest a flame, so treachery hidden in
+silence will burst forth and cry for revenge."[64]
+
+A prose idyl is the term which best describes the courtly and pastoral
+character of Lodge's "Rosalynde," the last work of fiction of any
+importance which distinctly bears the impress of euphuism. Published in
+1590, the ten editions through which it passed during the next fifty
+years are sufficient evidence of its popularity. It is probably the
+only work of fiction of Elizabeth's time which could be read through at
+the present day without impatience, and its story and personages are
+well known to all through their reproduction in Shakespeare's "As You
+Like it." The author of "Rosalynde" was a man of very varied talents
+and experience. The son, it is believed, of a Lord Mayor of London, he
+graduated at Trinity College, Oxford, and followed successively the
+professions of an actor, soldier, lawyer, and physician. In the
+intervals of these occupations, he found time to join in two
+privateering expeditions to the Pacific, and to publish a number of
+literary productions, of which the most successful were dramas and
+poems. He is thought to have died of the plague in 1625.
+
+"ROSALYNDE. EUPHUES' GOLDEN LEGACIE: _Found after his death in his
+cell at Silexedra, Bequeathed to Philantus' sonnes nursed up with their
+Father in England. Fetched from the Canaries by T.L., Gent._" Such is
+the fanciful title of the story which Shakespeare transformed into "As
+You Like it." In the comedy, the characters of Touchstone, Audrey, and
+Jacques are added, but otherwise the dramatist has followed his
+original quite closely. He made use, not infrequently, of the language
+as well as the incidents of Lodge, which in itself is sufficient
+praise. "Rosalynde," is, indeed, a charming tale, containing agreeable
+and well drawn characters, dramatic incidents, and written in an
+elevated strain of dignity and purity. Occasionally, the influence of
+"Euphues" is manifest:--"Unhappy Saladyne, whom folly hath led to these
+misfortunes, and wanton desires wrapt within the laborinth of these
+calamities. Are not the heavens doomers of men's deedes? And holdes not
+God a ballance in his fist, to reward with favour and revenge with
+justice? Oh, Saladyne, the faults of thy youth, as they were fond, so
+were they foule; and not onely discovering little nourture, but
+blemishing the excellence of nature."
+
+A more natural and attractive passage is the discussion between
+Rosalynde and Alinda,[65] regarding their escape from court.
+
+    Rosalynde began to comfort her, and after shee had wept a fewe kind
+    teares in the bosome of her Alinda, she gave her heartie thankes,
+    and then they sat them downe to consult how they should travel.
+    Alinda grieved at nothing but they might have no man in their
+    company; saying it would be their greatest prejudice in that two
+    women went wandering without either guide or attendant. "Tush
+    (quoth Rosalynde), art thou a woman and hast not a sodeine shift to
+    prevent a misfortune? I, thou seest, am of a tall stature, and
+    would very wel become the person and apparel of a Page: thou shalt
+    bee my mistresse, and I wil play the man so properly, that (trust
+    me) in what company so ever I come I will not be discovered: I wil
+    buy me a suite, and have my Rapier very handsomely at my side, and
+    if any knave offer wrong, your Page wil shew him the poynt of his
+    weapon."
+
+Shakespeare has followed this scene very closely in "As You Like It."
+
+      _Ros._ Alas, what danger will it be to us,
+      Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
+      Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
+
+      _Cel._ I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,
+      And with a kind of umber smirch my face;
+      The like do you; so shall we pass along
+      And never stir assailants
+
+      _Ros._              Were it not better,
+      Because that I am more than common tall,
+      That I did suit me all points like a man?
+      A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh.
+      A boar spear in my hand; and in my heart,
+      Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will,--
+      We'll have a swashing and a martial outside.
+      As many other mannish cowards have
+      That do outface it with their semblances.[66]
+
+The most brilliant and characteristic work of fiction belonging to the
+Elizabethan era composed by a man who was himself regarded by his
+contemporaries as the embodiment of all the qualities they most loved
+and admired. During the three hundred years which have elapsed since
+the death of Sir Philip Sidney, the same enthusiastic praise has
+accompanied the mention of his name. Sir William Temple, writing in a
+critical time, and when the effect of Sidney's personal character need
+no longer have biassed a literary judgment, pronounced Sir Philip to be
+"the greatest poet and the noblest genius of any that have left
+writings behind them."[67] Such were the words of a man of genius, who
+was acquainted with the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Spenser.
+While all admirers of Sidney must regret a praise of his literary
+abilities so exaggerated and mistaken, the eulogies which have been
+lavished upon his personal character have never been thought to surpass
+the worth of their object. Sir Philip Sidney, in the short life
+allotted to him, had added to his personal beauty and amiable
+disposition all that was most fitted to win the admiration of his time.
+His rare accomplishments, his chivalrous manners and unusual powers of
+conversation made him so great a favorite at court, that it was the
+pride of Elizabeth to call him "her Philip." A considerable knowledge
+of military affairs, and a fearless gallantry in battle, combined, with
+Sidney's genial disposition, to win for him the universal affection of
+the army. The violence of the Middle Ages lingers in Sir Philip's angry
+words to his father's secretary: "Mr. Molyneux, if ever I know you to
+do so much as read any letter I write to my father, without his
+commandment or my consent, I will thrust my dagger into you. And trust
+to it, for I speak it in earnest." But the spirit of generosity and
+self-sacrifice, which we are also accustomed to associate with mediæval
+knighthood, was realized in the famous scene on the battle-field before
+Zutphen. With good natural talents and an untiring industry, Sir
+Philip acquired a knowledge of science, of languages, and of
+literature, which gave him a reputation abroad as well as at home. The
+learned Languet relinquished his regular duties without prospect of
+pecuniary reward "to be a nurse of knowledge to this hopeful young
+gentleman."[68] The regrets of the universities at Sidney's death
+filled three volumes with academic eulogies. But a better testimony
+than these volumes to the general admiration for Sidney's talents, and
+to his position as a patron of literature, is to be found in the
+beautiful lines in which Spenser lamented his benefactor, and in two
+sentences by poor Tom Nash[69], who knew but too well the value of what
+he and his fellow-laborers had lost: "Gentle Sir Philip Sidney, thou
+knewest what belonged to a scholar; thou knewest what pains, what toil,
+what travel conduct to perfection; well could'st thou give every virtue
+his encouragement, every art his due, every writer his desert, cause
+none more virtuous, witty, or learned than thyself. But thou art dead
+in thy grave, and has left too few successors of thy glory, too few to
+cherish the sons of the Muses, or water those budding hopes with their
+plenty, which thy bounty erst planted." The public manifestations of
+grief at Sidney's death, and the rivalry of two nations for the
+possession of his remains, seem to have proceeded rather from the fame
+of his personal virtues than from the accomplishment of great
+achievements. It was recorded on the tomb of the learned Dr. Thornton
+that he had been "the tutor of Sir Philip Sidney," and Lord Brooke
+caused the inscription to be placed over his own grave: "Fulke
+Greville, servant to Queen Elizabeth, counsellor to King James, and
+friend to Sir Philip Sidney."
+
+The work of a man who belonged so thoroughly to his own time, and who
+united in himself talents and virtues so remarkable could hardly fail
+to be of historical interest. Such is the value now belonging to the
+"Arcadia"--a work unrivalled in its own day, and deserving the
+admiration of the present, but which has been left behind in the great
+advance of English prose fiction. In the courtly pages of the "Arcadia"
+are brilliantly reflected the lofty strain of sentiment characteristic
+of Elizabeth's time, and the chivalry, the refinement, and the
+impetuosity of if its noble author. "Heere have you now," wrote Sir
+Philip to his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, "most deare, and most
+worthy to be most deare Ladie, this idle worke of mine. * * * Youre
+deare self can best witnesse the manner, being done in loose sheetes of
+paper, most of it in your presence, the rest by sheetes sent unto you,
+as fast as they were done." It would be tedious to the reader to
+receive a detailed description of the story which extends through the
+four hundred and eighty pages of Sidney's folio. The plot turns on the
+fulfilment of a Delphian prophecy, in fear of which Basilius, king of
+Arcadia, retires to a forest with his wife and two daughters. One
+daughter, Philoclea, lives with her father Basilius, and the other,
+Pamela, is confided to the care of Dametas, a country fellow, in the
+service of Basilius, who lives close by with his wife. Pyrocles, prince
+of Macedon, and Musidorus, prince of Thessaly, are wrecked on the coast
+of Arcadia, where they soon become enamored of the two daughters of
+Basilius. To the better attainment of their ends, Pyrocles obtains
+admittance to the house of Basilius in the disguise of an Amazon, and
+Musidorus enters the service of Dametas in the character of a shepherd.
+The story which is unrolled in the remainder of the work relates the
+extraordinary occurrences which are necessary to the fulfilment of the
+Delphian prophecy, together with the intrigues and adventures of the
+young lovers. Shipwrecks, attacks by pirates, rescues, journeys through
+Arcadia among poetic shepherds, a war with the Helots, through forests
+and carving sonnets on trees,--such are the scenes which succeed each
+other with unending variety. On the arrival of Pyrocles and Musidorus
+in Arcadia, the reader is introduced to that ideal land, never more
+happily described than by Sidney's pen[70]:
+
+    The third day after, in the time that the Morning did strow roses
+    and violets in the heavenly floore against the comming of the
+    sunne, the Nightingales, (striving one with the other which could
+    in most daintie varietie recount their wrong caused sorrow,) made
+    them put off their sleepe, and rising from under a tree, (which
+    that night had bin their pavillion,) they went on their journey,
+    which by and by welcomed Musidorus eies (wearied with the wasted
+    soile of Laconia) with delightfull prospects. There were hills
+    which garnished their proud heights with stately trees: humble
+    vallies, whose base estate seemed comforted with the refreshing of
+    silver rivers: medowes, enameled with all sorts of eie pleasing
+    flowers; thickets, which being lined with most pleasant shade, were
+    witnessed so too, by the cheerfull disposition of manie well tuned
+    birds: each pasture stored with sheep feeding with sober securitie,
+    while the prettie lambes with bleating oratorie craved the dammes
+    comfort: here a shepheards boy piping, as though he should never be
+    old: there a young shepheardesse knitting, and withall singing, and
+    it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to worke, and her
+    hands kept time to her voice's musick. As for the houses of the
+    country, (for manie houses came under their eye,) they were all
+    scattered, no two being one by th' other, and yet not so farre off
+    as that it barred mutuall succour: a shew, as it were, of an
+    accompanable solitarinesse, and of a civill wildeness.
+
+Amid such scenes dwell Basilius and his wife, whose two daughters are
+described by Sidney in language unsurpassed for delicacy and charm.
+
+    Of these two are brought to the world two daughters, so beyond
+    measure excellent in all the gifts allotted to reasonable
+    creatures, that we may thinke they were borne to shew, that nature
+    is no stepmother to that sexe, how much so ever some men (sharp
+    witted onely in evill speaking) have sought to disgrace them. The
+    elder is named Pamela, by many men not deemed inferiour to her
+    sister: for my part, when I marked them both, me thought there was,
+    (if at least such perfections may receive the word of more,) more
+    sweetness in Philoclea, but more majestie in Pamela: mee thought
+    love plaied in Philoclea's eies, & threatened in Pamela's; me
+    thought Philoclea's beautie only perswaded, but so perswaded that
+    all hearts must yield; Pamela's beautie used violence, and such
+    violence as no heart could resist. And it seems that such
+    proportion is betweene their mindes; Philoclea so bashfull, as
+    though her excellencies had stolne into her before she was aware,
+    so humble, that she will put all pride out of countenance; in
+    summe, such proceeding as will stirre hope, but teach hope good
+    maners. Pamela of high thoughts, who avoids not pride with not
+    knowing her excellencies, but by my making that one of her
+    excellencies to be void of pride: her mother's wisdome, greatnesse,
+    nobilitie, but (if I can guesse aright) knit with a more constant
+    temper.[71]
+
+The description of an envious man in the second book,[72] which
+suggested to Sir Richard Steele his essay in the nineteenth number of
+the _Spectator_, is another good example of Sidney's ability in
+delineating character. The passage in which Musidorus is represented
+showing off the paces of his horse,[73] a subject especially adapted to
+excite the best effort of the author, is a very remarkable effort of
+descriptive power, for the insertion of which, unfortunately, space is
+wanting here. Sidney might have quoted his description of Pamela
+sewing, to justify his belief that "It is not rhyming and versing that
+maketh poesy":
+
+    Pamela, who that day having wearied her selfe with reading, * * * was
+    working upon a purse certaine roses and lillies. * * * The flowers
+    shee had wrought caried such life in them, that the cunningest
+    painter might have learned of her needle: which, with so pretty a
+    manner, made his careers to & fro through the cloth, as if the needle
+    it selfe would haue been loth to haue gone fromward such a mistresse,
+    but that it hoped to returne thitherward very quickly againe; the
+    cloth looking with many eyes vpon her, and louingly embracing the
+    wounds she gaue it: the sheares also were at hand to behead the silke
+    that was growne too short. And if at any time shee put her mouth to
+    bite it off, it seemed, that where she had beene long in making of
+    a rose with her hands, she would in an instant make roses with her
+    lips; as the lillies seemed to haue their whitenesse rather of the
+    hand that made them, than of the matter whereof they were made;
+    & that they grew there by the suns of her eyes, and were refreshed
+    by the most * * * comfortable ayre, which an unawares sigh might
+    bestow upon them.[74]
+
+Charles I. passed many hours of his prison life in reading the
+"Arcadia," and Milton[75] accused him of stealing a prayer of Pamela
+to insert in the "Eikon Basilike": "And that in no serious book, but
+the vain amatorious poem of Sir Philip Sidney's 'Arcadia'; a book in
+that kind, full of worth and wit, but among religious thoughts and
+duties not worthy to be named: nor to be read at any time without good
+caution, much less in time of trouble and affliction to be a
+Christian's prayerbook." This prayer is in itself so beautiful, coming
+from the lips of Pamela, and the greater part of it suits so perfectly
+the unhappy circumstances of King Charles, that at the risk of unduly
+multiplying our extracts from the "Arcadia," it will be inserted
+here:--
+
+    And therewith kneeling downe, euen where shee stood, she thus said:
+    O All-seeing Light, and eternall Life of all things, to whom
+    nothing is either so great, that it may resist; or so small, that
+    it is condemned: looke vpon my misery with thine eye of mercie, and
+    let thine infinite power vouchsafe to limite out some proportion of
+    deliuerance vnto me, as to thee shall seeme most conuenient. Let
+    not injurie, O Lord, triumph ouer me, and let my faults by thy hand
+    bee corrected, and make not mine vnjust enemy the minister of thy
+    justice. But yet, my God, if in thy wisdome this be the aptest
+    chastisement for my vnexcusable folly: if this low bondage be
+    fittest to my ouerhigh desires: if the pride of my not inough
+    humble heart be thus to be broken, O Lord I yeeld vnto thy will,
+    and joyfully embrace what sorrow thou will haue mee suffer. Onely
+    thus much let me craue of thee, (let my crauing, O Lord, be
+    accepted of thee, since euen that proceeds from thee,) let me
+    craue, euen by the noblest title, which in my greatest affliction I
+    may give myself, that I am thy creature, and by thy goodness (which
+    is thyselfe) that thou wilt suffer some beame of thy Majestie so to
+    shine into my minde, that it may still depend confidently on thee.
+    Let calamitie be the exercise, but not the ouerthrow or my vertue;
+    let their power preuaile, but preuaile not to destruction; let my
+    greatnesse be their pray; let my paine bee the sweetnesse of there
+    reuenge: let them, (if so it seeme good vnto thee) vexe me with
+    more and more punishment. But, O Lord, let neuer their wickednesse
+    haue such a hand, but that I may cary a pure minde in a pure body.
+    (And pausing a while.) And O most gracious Lord, (said she) what
+    euer become of me, preserve the vertuous Musidorus.[76]
+
+The "Arcadia" combines the elements of both the chivalric and the
+pastoral romance. Sidney's familiarity with the legends of Arthur,
+together with his own gallantry and love of adventure, peculiarly
+adapted him to describe martial scenes. But the chivalry of Sir Philip
+is not more apparent where he describes the shock of arms than where,
+with such exquisite delicacy, he writes of women. The student of
+English fiction would fain linger long over the pages which describe
+the loves of Pamela and Philoclea. For when these pages are laid aside,
+it is long before he may again meet with the poetry, the manly and
+womanly sentiment, and the pure yet stirring passion which adorn the
+romance of Elizabeth's Philip. Three centuries have passed away since
+the "Arcadia" was written, and we who live at the end of this period
+not unjustly congratulate ourselves on our superior civilization and
+refinement. And yet in all this time we have arrived of no higher
+conception of feminine virtue or chivalrous manhood than is to be found
+in this sixteenth-century romance, and during one half of these three
+hundred years there was to be seen so little trace of such a
+conception, whether in life or in literature, that the word love seemed
+to have lost its nobler meaning and to stand for no more than animal
+desire. There is not in English fiction a more charming picture of
+feminine modesty than that of Pamela hiding her love for Musidorus.
+
+    How delightfull soeuer it was, my delight might well bee in my
+    soule, but it neuer wente to looke out of the window to doe him any
+    comforte. But how much more I found reason to like him, the more I
+    set all the strength of my minde to conceale it. * * * Full often
+    hath my breast swollen with keeping my sighes imprisoned: full
+    often have the teares I draue back from mine eyes turned back to
+    drowne my heart. But, alas, what did that helpe poore Dorus?[77]
+
+Hardly less beautiful is the gradual yielding, through pity, of
+Pamela's maidenly heart.
+
+    This last dayes danger having made Pamela's loue discerne what a
+    losse it should haue suffered if Dorus had beene destroyed, bred
+    such tendernesse of kindnesse in her toward him, that she could no
+    longer keepe loue from looking out through her eyes, and going
+    forth in her words; whom before as a close prisoner, shee had to
+    her heart onely committed: so as finding not onely by his speeches
+    and letters, but by the pitifull oration of a languishing behaviour,
+    and the easily deciphered character of a sorrowfull face, that
+    despaire began now to threaten him destruction, she grew content
+    both to pitie him, and let him see shee pitied him. * * * by making
+    her owne beautifull beames to thaw away the former ycinesse of her
+    behaviour.[78]
+
+That portion of the "Arcadia" which relates to pastoral life owes its
+origin to Spanish and Portuguese works. But there were not wanting to
+Sidney's experience actual examples of that peaceful existence to
+which, in troubled times, men have so often turned as a pleasing
+contrast to their own cares, and dangers. The shepherds of the Sussex
+Downs, pursuing through centuries their simple vocation, unheeded by
+the world, untouched by revolution or civil war, tended their sheep
+with little thought or knowledge of the world beyond the downs, and
+presented to the poet a picture of calm content, in pleasing contrast
+to the active or terrible incidents which more frequently made up the
+sum both of romance and of actual life. The shepherds of the "Arcadia"
+make even less pretence to reality than the martial heroes. They are
+usually poets and musicians; speaking in courtly phrases, and occupied
+with amorous adventures, they serve sometimes to relieve, and sometimes
+to heighten, the more stirring scenes.
+
+A third element in the "Arcadia" is the comic, and with this, as might
+be expected from the rather crude ideas of humor prevalent in the
+sixteenth century, Sidney met with indifferent success. The wit depends
+on the ugliness, the perversity, and the clownish character of Dametas,
+his wife, and their daughter Mopsa. It partakes of the nature of the
+practical joke, and though it no doubt amused the courtiers of
+Elizabeth, is too clumsy for a more cultivated taste. But although
+Sidney's comic scenes may no longer amuse, it must be said that they
+are free from the low coarseness and ribaldry which have furnished
+merriment to times which pretended to a much higher standard of wit and
+education than his own. An interesting contrast may be made between a
+comic passage of the "Arcadia,"[79] representing a fight between two
+cowards, and perhaps the only scene in the "Morte d'Arthur" of
+humorous intent,[80]--that in which King Mark is ignominiously put to
+flight by Arthur's court fool disguised in the armor of a knight.
+
+In the history of English literature, Sir Philip Sidney's romance will
+always have a prominent place as the first specimen of a fine prose
+style. The affectations and mannerisms which are its chief defect were
+due to the unsettled condition of the language, and to the influence of
+foreign works, which the general love of learning had made familiar to
+cultivated Englishmen. The position of the "Arcadia" in fiction is
+established by the exquisite descriptions of nature and the life-like
+sketches of character which will often reward the patient reader. That
+prolixity, which more than any other cause has made the work obsolete,
+and, as a whole, unreadable, was a recommendation rather than an
+objection at the time of publication. The "Arcadia," standing almost
+alone in the department of fiction, and far superior to its few
+competitors, took the place of a small circulating library. A spirit of
+lofty ideality pervades the work of Sir Philip Sidney, which is
+expressive of the aspirations of his time. In the fictions of that age
+is to be seen a constant attempt, not always successful, to dignify
+life, to exalt the beautiful, and to conceal or condemn the base.
+Everyday life was not tempting to the writer, because it contained too
+much that was repulsive. The story teller and the poet painted amid
+unreal scenes that happiness and virtue which they thought more easily
+to be conceived in an ideal land of knights and shepherds, than amidst
+the cares and dangers of their own existence.[81]
+
+
+[Footnote 57: Paine's "History of English Literature," book iii, ch. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 58: Nichol's "Progresses," vol. I, p. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 59: The Italian tales were issued in various collections,
+such as Painter's "Palace of Pleasure," Whetstone's "Heptameron," the
+"Histories" of Goulard and Grimstone. One of the best of these
+collections is "Westward for Smelts," by Kinde Kit of Kingstone, circa
+1603, reprinted by the Percy Society. It is on the same plan as
+Boccaccio's "Decamerone," except that the story-tellers are fish-wives
+going up the Thames in a boat. Imitations of the Italian tales may be
+found in Hazlitt's "Shakespeare's Library," notably "Romeo and
+Julietta." Most of these are modernized versions of old tales. I may
+here add, as undeserving further mention, such stories as "Jacke of
+Dover's Quest of Inquirie," 1601, Percy Soc.; "A Search for Money," by
+William Rowley, dramatist, 1609, Percy Soc.; and "The Man in the Moone,
+or the English Fortune-Teller," 1609, Percy Soc.]
+
+[Footnote 60: The most comprehensive remarks on Lyly and "Euphues" are
+to be found in the _London Quarterly Review_ for April, 1801, and are
+due to Mr. Henry Morley.]
+
+[Footnote 61: Henry Peacham, "Compleat Gentleman." See Drake's
+"Shakespeare and his Times."]
+
+[Footnote 62: Shakespeare ridiculed the affectations of contemporary
+language in "Love's Labour Lost." Among the characters of Ben Jonson
+are some good Euphuists. In "Every Man out of his Humour," Fallace says
+(act v, sc. x), "O, Master Brisk, as 'tis said in Euphues, Hard is the
+choice, when one is compelled, either by silence to die with grief, or
+by speaking to live with shame." In "The Monastery," a novel which the
+author himself considered a failure, Sir Walter Scott represented a
+Euphuist. But the language of Sir Piercie Shafton is entirely devoid of
+the characteristics of Euphuism, and gives a very false impression
+concerning it. (See introduction to "The Monastery.") Compare passages
+quoted in the text with one in chap. xiv ("Monastery") beginning: "Ah,
+that I had with me my Anatomy of Wit." Also _passim_.]
+
+[Footnote 63: The lines quoted from the "Winter's Tale" are in act iv,
+sc. 3. For Greene's words see "Dorastus and Fawnia," in Hazlitt's
+"Shakespeare's Library," part I, vol. 4, p. 62. The resemblance between
+the two passages is pointed out by Dunlop ("History of Fiction," p.
+404). Collier in his introduction to "Dorastus and Fawnia" denied this
+obligation of Shakespeare to Greene. But he was evidently led into this
+error by liking the following passage, instead of the one quoted in the
+text, for the foundation of Shakespeare's lines: "The gods above
+disdaine not to love women beneathe. Phoebus liked Sibilla: Jupiter Io;
+and why not I, then Fawnia?"]
+
+[Footnote 64: Another of Greene's tales, possessing much the same
+merits and the same defects as those already mentioned is "Never too
+Late."]
+
+[Footnote 65: Shakespeare's Celia.]
+
+[Footnote 66: Act I, sc. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 67: "Miscellanea," part ii, essay iv.]
+
+[Footnote 68: Gray's "Life of Sidney," p. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 69: "Pierce Penniless."]
+
+[Footnote 70: Folio, 1622. p. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 71: Folio, 1622, p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 72: Folio, p. 130.]
+
+[Footnote 73: Folio, p. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Folio, p. 260.]
+
+[Footnote 75: See an "Answer in 'Eikon Basilike,'" Milton's Works,
+Symmons' ed., v. 2, p. 408.]
+
+[Footnote 76: Folio, p. 248.]
+
+[Footnote 77: Folio, p. 116.]
+
+[Footnote 78: Folio, p. 231.]
+
+[Footnote 79: Book iii.]
+
+[Footnote 80: "Morte d'Arthur," book x, chap. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 81: A Scotchman named Barclay published a partly political
+and partly heroic volume called "Argenis" in 1621. It was much
+commended by Cowper the poet, but being written in Latin, is hardly to
+be included in English fiction. See Dunlop, chap. x. Francis Godwin
+wrote a curious story about 1602, called "The Man in the Moon," in
+which is described the journey of one Domingo Gonzales to that planet.
+Dunlop ("Hist. of Fiction") thought Domingo to be the real author. See
+chapter xiii. This romance is chiefly remarkable for its scientific
+speculations, and the adoption by the author of the Copernican theory.
+It was translated into French, and imitated by Cyrano de Bergerac, who
+in his turn was imitated by Swift in Brobdignag. See Hallam, "Lit. of
+Europe," vol 3, p. 393.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE PURITANS. BUNYAN'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS."
+
+
+I.
+
+The renaissance of learning, with its delight in a sense of existence,
+its enjoyment of a new life, a newly acquired knowledge, and a
+quickened intelligence, was gradually supplanted by that renaissance of
+religion which followed the general introduction of the Bible among the
+English people. Weary of the oppression of the clergy, weary of giving
+an often ruinous obedience to the tyranny of men whose lives gave them
+no claim to control the conduct of others, the early Puritan found in
+the Bible the knowledge of God and the means of grace which he
+despaired of obtaining from the priest. The Bible became in reality
+_The Book_. It was the one volume possessed and read by the people at
+large. The classical authors, the volumes of translations issued in
+Elizabeth's time, the productions, even, of English genius had been
+familiar only to the upper and best-educated classes. The great body of
+the people were without books, and the Bible became their one literary
+resource, and the sole teacher of the conditions by which salvation
+could be attained. It was seized upon with extraordinary avidity and
+enthusiasm. Old men learned to read, that they might study it for
+themselves. Crowds gathered in churches and private houses to hear it
+read aloud. A good reader became a public benefactor. Alike in manor
+and in cottage, the family gathered at night to listen with awe-struck
+interest to the solemn words whose grandeur was not yet lessened by
+familiarity. As we quote, often unconsciously, from a hundred different
+authors, the Puritans quoted from their one book.[82] Some, like
+Bunyan, at first preferred the historical chapters. But the Bible soon
+came to have a far more powerful and absorbing interest than any of a
+literary nature. There men looked for their sentence of eternal life or
+eternal torment. There they sought the solution of the question: "What
+shall I do to be saved?" And they sought it with all the fervor of
+conscientious men who realized, as we cannot realize, the doctrine of
+eternal damnation. To understand the influence of the Bible, we must
+remember how completely men believed in a personal God, ruling England
+then, as He had ruled Israel of old; and in a devil who stalked through
+the world luring men to their perdition. The Bible was studied with a
+fearful eagerness for the way to please the one and to escape the
+other. Looked upon as the word of God, pointing out the only means of
+salvation, men placed themselves, through the Bible, in direct
+communication with the Deity, and, casting aside the authority of a
+church, acknowledged responsibility to Him alone. The difficulty of
+interpreting obscure portions of the Scriptures drove many to frenzy
+and despair. A hopeful or consoling passage was hailed with joy. "Happy
+are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." "Lo," wrote Tyndale,
+"here God hath made a covenant wyth us, to mercy full unto us, yf we
+wyll be mercy full one to another."
+
+Thus two ideas became paramount: the idea of God, and the idea of
+conscience. God was thought of as a judge who will reward His chosen
+servants by eternal happiness, but who will deliver those who do not
+know Him, or those who sin against His laws, to Satan and everlasting
+fire; a God to please whom is the first object of this life, as no
+pleasure and no pain here can compare with the pleasure or pain to
+come. This conception of the Deity still survives among us, but it is
+not realized with the intensity of men who feel the hand of God in
+every incident of their lives, who fancy that the Devil in person is
+among them, and who distinctly hear his tempting words. Conscience, the
+guide who pointed out the path of rectitude, became strict and
+self-searching, ever looking inwardly, and judging harshly, magnifying,
+through the greatness of its ideal of virtue, every failing into a
+crime. The natural result of these ideas seething in a brain which had
+little other food was Puritanism: the subordination of all other
+interests of life to the attainment of a spiritual condition acceptable
+in the sight of God. Following this aim with feverish intentness, and
+tortured by a conscience of extreme tenderness, the Puritans naturally
+cast aside the pleasures of this life as likely to interfere with the
+attainment of future happiness, and as worthless compared to it. It was
+no time for gaiety and trifling when the horrors of hell were staring
+them in the face.
+
+There is extant a life-like picture of a London housewife, which can
+teach us much regarding the spirit of Puritanism.[83] "She was very
+loving and obedient to her parents, loving and kind to her husband,
+very tender-hearted to her children, loving all that were godly, much
+misliking the wicked and profane. She was a pattern of sobriety unto
+many, very seldom was seen abroad, except at church. When others
+recreated themselves, at holidays and other times, she would take her
+needlework, and say, 'here is my recreation.'"
+
+The self-denial of this virtuous housewife developed into that
+austerity which, when Puritanism had become the ruling power in
+England, closed the theatre and the bear-garden, stopped the dancing on
+the village green, and assumed a dress and manner, the sombreness of
+which was meant to signify a scorn of this world. While we can now
+easily perceive the mistakes of the Puritans, and condemn the folly of
+prohibiting innocent amusements which form a natural outlet for
+exuberant spirits, it will be well if we can do justice to the nobility
+of aim, and the greatness of self-sacrifice, to which their austerity
+was due. We must remember that the aim of the Puritans was a godliness
+far more exacting than that which we seek, and requiring a
+proportionate sacrifice of immediate pleasure. We must remember, too,
+that the amusements of that time were in large part brutal, like the
+bear-gardens; and licentious, like most of the theatres. Puritanism
+could only exist among men filled to an uncommon degree with a love of
+virtue, who were ready to undergo every hardship, and to sacrifice
+every personal inclination to attain it. Growing up among the people at
+large, Puritanism showed a strong national love of religion and
+morality. The resolution with which its devotees pursued their aims,
+the serene content with which the martyrs welcomed the flames which
+were to open the gates of Heaven, were backed by a strength of faith
+not exceeded by that of the early Christians. The self-control and
+self-sacrifice of the Puritans moulded the armies of the Commonwealth,
+and overthrew the tyranny of Charles. But their finer qualities were
+clouded by the fanaticism which a long persecution had engendered. A
+phrase in our description of the London housewife unconsciously tells
+the story: "Loving all that were godly, much misliking the wicked and
+profane." The godly were the sharers of her own faith, the "wicked and
+profane" were all those without its pale. Here lay the weakness of
+Puritanism: its narrowness, its lack of sympathy with the world at
+large, its indifference to the sufferings of those who had no place in
+the ranks of the elect.
+
+Among such men we must look in vain for literary productions having the
+aim of entertainment. The literature of the time was chiefly polemical,
+and commentaries crowded on the book-shelves the volumes of classical
+and Italian writers. To Puritanism, fiction was the invention of the
+Evil One, but still to Puritanism we owe, what is now, and seems
+destined ever to remain, the finest allegory in the English language.
+
+
+[Footnote 82: See Green's "Short History of the English People," chap.
+viii, sec. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 83: John Wallington's description of his mother. Green's
+"Short History of the English People," p. 451.]
+
+
+
+II.
+
+That John Bunyan, a poor, illiterate tinker, was able to take the first
+place among writers of allegory, and to accomplish the extraordinary
+intellectual feat of producing a work which charmed alike the ignorant,
+who could not perceive its literary merits, and cultivated critics, who
+viewed it only from a literary standpoint, depended partly on his own
+natural gifts, and partly on the character of Puritan thought. To write
+a good allegory requires an imagination of unusual power. It requires,
+in addition, a realization of the subject sufficiently strong to give
+to immaterial and shadowy forms a living personality. These conditions
+were combined in Bunyan's case to an unexampled degree. He possessed an
+imagination the activity of which would have unsettled the reason of
+any less powerfully constituted man. His subject, the doctrine of
+salvation by grace, was, by the absorbing interest then attached to it,
+impressed upon his mind with a vividness difficult to conceive. In
+"Grace Abounding in the Chief of Sinners," Bunyan left a description of
+his life, and the workings of his mind on religious subjects, which is
+without a parallel in autobiography. The veil which hides the thoughts
+of one man from another is withdrawn, and the reader is placed in the
+closest communion with the mind of the writer. In "Grace Abounding" is
+easily detected the secret of Bunyan's success in allegory. "My sins
+did so offend the Lord, that even in my childhood He did scare and
+affright me with fearful dreams, and did terrify me with dreadful
+visions. I have been in my bed greatly afflicted, while asleep, with
+apprehensions of devils and wicked spirits, who still, as I then
+thought, labored to draw me away with them, of which I could never be
+rid. I was afflicted with thoughts of the Day of Judgment, night and
+day, trembling at the thoughts of the fearful torments of hell fire."
+One Sunday, "as I was in the midst of a game at cat, and having struck
+it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to strike it the second
+time, a voice did suddenly dart from heaven into my soul, which said,
+'Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to Heaven, or have thy sins and go to
+Hell?' At this I was put to an exceeding maze; wherefore leaving my cat
+on the ground, and looking up to Heaven, saw, as with the eyes of my
+understanding, Jesus Christ looking down upon me very hotly displeased
+with me, and severely threatening me with some grievous punishment for
+my ungodly practices. * * * I cannot express with what longing I cried
+to Christ to call me. I saw such glory in a converted state that I
+could not be contented without a share therein. Had I had a whole world
+it had all gone ten thousand times over for this, that my soul might
+have been in a converted state." After Bunyan's conversion he says of
+his conscience: "As to the act of sinning, I was never more tender than
+now. I durst not take up a pin or a stick, though but so big as a
+straw, for my conscience now was sore, and would smart at every touch.
+I could not tell how to speak my words for fear I should misplace
+them."
+
+A man so sensitive to supernatural impressions could realize them as
+completely as the actual experiences of his daily life. Such, in fact,
+they were. With a conscience so tender, and a longing so intense for
+what he considered a condition of grace, Bunyan described the journey
+of Christian with the minuteness and fidelity of one who had trod the
+same path. The sketch of the pilgrim, which opens the work, stamps
+Christian at once an individual.
+
+    As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a
+    certain place where was a den; and I laid me down in that place to
+    sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I
+    saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his
+    face from his own house, a Book in his hand, and a great burden
+    upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the Book, and read
+    therein; and, as he read, he wept and trembled; and not being able
+    longer to contain, he broke out with a lamentable cry, saying "what
+    shall I do?"
+
+The same impression of reality pervades the whole work. Christian's
+sins take an actual form in the burden on his back. Every personage
+whom he meets on his journey, and every place through which he passes
+appears to the mind of the reader with the vividness of actual
+experience. The child or the laborer reads the "Pilgrim's Progress" as
+a record of adventures undergone by a living man; the scholar forgets
+the art which has raised the picture before his mind, in a sense of
+contact with the subject portrayed. This is the triumph of a great
+genius, and it is a triumph to which no other writer has attained to
+the same degree. Other allegorists have pleased the fancy or gratified
+the understanding, but Bunyan occupies at once the imagination, the
+reason and the heart of his reader. Defoe's power of giving life to
+fictitious scenes and personages has not been surpassed by that of any
+other novelist. But Defoe's scenes and characters were of a nature
+familiar to his readers, and therefore easily realized. In the
+"Pilgrim's Progress," strange and unreal regions become well-known
+places, and moral qualities distinct human beings. Evangelist, who puts
+Christian on the way to the Wicked Gate; Pliable, who deserts him at
+the first difficulty; Help, who pulls him out of the Slough of Despond;
+Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who shows him an easy way to be rid of his burden,
+are all life-like individuals. Timorous, Talkative, Vain Confidence,
+Giant Despair, are not mere personifications, but distinct human beings
+with whom every reader of the "Pilgrim's Progress" feels an intimate
+acquaintance. Not less real is the impression produced by the various
+scenes through which the journey of Christian conducts him. The Slough
+of Despond, the Wicket Gate, the House of the Interpreter, the Hill
+Difficulty, have been familiar localities to many generations of men,
+who have watched Christian's struggle with Apollyon in the Valley of
+Humiliation, and followed his footsteps as they trod the Valley of the
+Shadow of Death, as they passed through the dangers of Vanity Fair,
+and brought him at last to the Celestial City, and the welcome of the
+Shining Ones.
+
+The "Pilgrim's Progress" and the "Holy War" are not as allegories
+entirely perfect, but they probably gain in religious effect, as much
+as they lose from a literary point of view, in those passages where the
+allegorical disguise is not sustained. The simplicity and power of
+their language are alone sufficient to give them an important place in
+English literature. Throughout the "Pilgrim's Progress" are evidences
+of a strong human sympathy, and a kindly indulgence on the part of the
+author for the weak and erring among his fellow-men. Ignorance, to be
+sure, is cast into the bottomless pit; but as the work taught a
+spiritual perfection, it could not afford to encourage the willingly
+ignorant by bestowing a pardon on their representative. Bunyan himself
+was distinguished for a general sympathy with his fellow-men which the
+narrowness of Puritanism had failed to impair. The sad words in which
+he mourned, while in prison, his long separation from his wife and
+children, show the natural tenderness of his disposition, as well as
+the greatness of the sacrifice which he was making for his
+religion:--"The parting with my wife and poor children hath often been
+to me in this place as the pulling the flesh from my bones; and that
+not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great mercies, but
+also because I often brought to mind the many hardships, miseries, and
+wants that my poor family was like to meet with; especially my poor
+blind child, who lay nearer to my heart than all I had beside."
+
+With the allegories of Bunyan, we leave ideality behind us as a
+characteristic feature of English fiction. The knights of the Round
+Table, Robin Hood and his merry men, the princes and princesses of the
+"Arcadia," the pilgrim Christian, were the ideal heroes of the
+particular periods to which they belong. They were placed amid the
+scenes which seemed most attractive, and were endowed with the
+qualities which seemed most admirable to the men whose imaginations
+created them. But, with the exception perhaps of Robin Hood, they were
+purely ideal, without prototypes in nature. The writer of fiction had
+not yet turned his attention to the delineation of character, to the
+study of complex social questions, to the portrayal of actual life.
+With the fall of Puritan power, begins a great intellectual change.
+History shows, since the Restoration, a tendency which has continuously
+grown stronger and wider, to subordinate the imagination to the reason
+of man, to withdraw political and social questions from the influence
+of mere tradition, to subject them instead, to the test of practical
+experience, and to encourage the patient physical investigations which
+have resulted in the triumphs of modern science. This tendency has
+pervaded all the channels of human industry. Its effect upon works of
+fiction has been to introduce into that department of literature, a
+spirit of realism, and a love of investigating the problems of life and
+character, which have resulted in the modern novel. Henceforth we shall
+meet no more ideal beings, but men or women, more or less true to
+nature. In the fiction of the Restoration are first observable the new
+tendencies, which, although but slightly marked at first, have finally
+given to the English novel its present importance. An attempt to trace
+the gradual perfection of this form of literature, its development into
+a work of art, into a natural history of men, into a truthful
+reflection of very varied social conditions, will occupy the remainder
+of this volume.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE RESTORATION. ROGER BOYLE. MRS. MANLEY. MRS. BEHN.
+
+
+I.
+
+The Puritans had overthrown the political tyranny of Charles, but in
+attempting to build up by force a kingdom of the saints on earth, they
+had established a spiritual tyranny, quite as irksome and quite as
+perishable, of their own. Meanwhile they had failed to preserve the
+reputation for sanctity which formed the chief basis of their
+authority. As soon as they had attained power, they were joined by men
+who professed their principles merely for selfish purposes; who vied
+with each other in presenting to the world the outward signs of
+Puritanism, and remained notoriously profligate in life and character.
+The kingdom of the saints, objectionable as a tyranny, and finally
+identified in the popular mind with a hated hypocrisy, came to its
+inevitable end in the reaction of the Restoration. But when the first
+fury of this reaction had passed away, it was evident that Puritanism
+survived it: no longer a political power, but a moral influence which
+controlled the great body of the people, and gave to English habits and
+literature their distinctive tone of serious morality.
+
+But for the time, all sight of this was lost. The entry of Charles II
+into Whitehall was the sign for unlimited indulgence in all that had
+lately been forbidden. "Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop."[84]
+The Puritans had pent up for so long the natural cravings for pleasure
+and gaiety, that, when the barriers were withdrawn, license and
+debauchery were necessary to satisfy appetites which a long-enforced
+abstinence had made abnormal. In Vanburgh's "Provoked Wife," a comedy,
+like so many others of the time, at once very immoral and very
+entertaining, Sir John Brute thus excuses the virtues of his early
+life: "I was afraid of being damned in those days; for I kept sneaking,
+cowardly company, fellows that went to church, said grace to their
+meat, and had not the least tincture of quality about them."
+_Heartfree_: "But I think you have got into a better gang now." _Sir
+John_: "Zoons, sir, my Lord Rake and I are hand in glove."[85] In the
+country, people were generally satisfied with getting back their
+May-poles and Sunday games. But in London, where the rule of Puritanism
+had been the strictest, and above all among the courtiers, the new
+liberty resulted in a license and shamelessness unequalled in English
+history.
+
+In the general proscription of Puritan ideas, the good were involved in
+the same destruction as the bad. Religion was mocked at as a cloak for
+hypocrisy, self-restraint was thrown aside as an obstacle to enjoyment.
+It was thought that emancipation from Puritan tyranny could not be
+attained more effectually than by a life of open licentiousness; by
+gambling and drunkenness. Such, under the Restoration, were the
+occupations most attractive to the gentlemen of fashion. Buckingham,
+Rochester, and the troop of courtiers who looked to them for an
+example, spent their lives in sinking into an ever deeper depravity.
+Their thoughts and mouths were never clean. The verses they wrote are
+too foul to transcribe as an illustration of the taste of their
+composers. The orgies in which they indulged were not scenes of gaiety,
+in which buoyant spirits and lively wit might excuse excess, but were
+serious, bestial, and premeditated. The dealings of these men with the
+female sex were but a succession of low intrigues, which destroyed all
+sentiment and left nothing but disgust behind them. We hear a great
+deal about "love" in the literature of the time, but it is the same
+kind of love that might be found among a herd of cattle. It would be
+difficult to mention any man about the court of Charles II who could
+have appreciated the pure and enduring passion which in the century
+before had breathed through the noble lines of Spenser's
+"Epithalamion," and in the century that followed inspired "John
+Anderson, my jo' John." Charles himself, "the old goat," set an example
+which hardly needed the authority of the Lord's anointed to become
+attractive. Without honor or virtue himself, and denying their
+existence in others, he made a fitting leader of the society about him.
+His mistresses insulted the queen by their splendor and arrogance, and
+insulted him by amours with servants and mountebanks. So destitute of
+dignity or principle as to share the Duchess of Cleveland with the
+world, he coolly asked a courtier who was reputed to be on too intimate
+terms with the queen, how his "mistress" did. While the gaming-tables
+at court were nightly covered with gold, and Lady Castlemaine gambled
+away thousands of pounds at a sitting, the exchequer was closed amid a
+widespread ruin, and the menial servants about the court were in want
+of bread. So openly was the king's coarse licentiousness pursued, that
+"the very sentrys speak of it," that the queen rarely entered her
+dressing-rooms without first being assured that the king was not there
+with one of his women. Such an example had a powerful influence upon
+all the rank and fashion of the time, already predisposed to a similar
+course. The extent of the prevailing reverence for royalty is admirably
+illustrated by the scene in which the Earl of Arlington advised Miss
+Stewart concerning her conduct as mistress of the king, to which
+position "it had pleased God and her virtue to raise her." Thus from
+the popular dislike of Puritanism, and the example of a profligate
+court, began that reign of social and political corruption which for a
+hundred years demoralized the manners and sullied the literature of the
+English people. The vice which became so engrafted on the habits of
+private life as to make decency seem an affectation, invaded religion
+and politics. To religion it brought about a general indifference,
+which in the higher ranks of the clergy took effect in disregard of
+their duties and in a shameless scramble for lucrative posts, and in
+the lower ranks produced poverty and social degradation. In politics
+are to be dated from this reign the gross corruption which enabled
+every public officer, however high or however low, to use his position
+for the purpose of private plunder, and the habit of bribing members of
+Parliament which soon converted them into tools of the crown's
+ministers.
+
+While the men found their greatest enjoyment and most congenial
+occupation in drunkenness, duelling, and seduction, it is not to be
+expected that women should have retained an unappreciated refinement.
+Half-naked and ornamented with a profusion of jewels, they look out
+from the portraits of the time with a sleepy, voluptuous expression,
+which suggests a lack of intelligence and too great a susceptibility to
+physical impressions. Women as we find them in contemporary memoirs,
+and these most often deal with such as are about the court, are not
+unfit companions for the men. We see not a few the willing victims of
+coarse intrigues, and some even assisting in the degradation of others
+of their sex. Many of them swore "good mouth filling oaths," and the
+scandal they talked would have shocked the taste as well as the
+principles of Elizabeth's time. In the eighteenth century much
+coarseness is to be seen in literature and society, but we are
+constantly meeting with the words "delicacy" and "indelicacy" in their
+application to social refinement, and it is evident that the ideas of
+that time on this subject differ from ours only in degree. Under the
+Restoration, these words, or the thoughts they represent, had a very
+insignificant existence. Public taste inclined to the gross and the
+sensual, and welcomed as enjoyable, what the present discards as
+disgusting. Ladies of the highest rank sat through plays of which the
+purpose and effect was to degrade their own womanhood, to remove from
+the minds of the men who sat about and watched their countenances at
+each new obscenity, whatever respect for the sex might have lingered
+there. Some wore masks to hide the blushes which might have been looked
+for as a drama proceeded, which represented every female character on
+the stage as little better than an animal, using such reason as she
+possessed only to further the gratification of her appetites. Under
+such conditions there could be no encouragement for maiden modesty, and
+for old age no crown.
+
+It is usually unfair to judge a community by its theatre, to which an
+exceptional liberty must always be allowed. But the drama of the
+Restoration may be said to reflect with much truth the popular taste.
+For the noblest efforts of dramatic genius the student turns by
+preference to the age of Elizabeth. There he finds art, beauty, and
+poetry; there he finds human nature, with its nobility and its
+littleness, with its virtues and its vices. The time of Charles II was
+as narrow in its way as the Puritans had been in theirs, and was as
+little capable of forming broad and just views of mankind. The
+Puritans, if they had had a stage, would have represented man as an
+embodiment of moral qualities. The dramatists of the Restoration made
+him merely a creature subject to animal desires and brutish instincts,
+which he made no effort to regulate. "It might, not be easy perhaps,"
+says Hallam, "to find a scene in any comedy of Charles II's reign,
+where one character has the behavior of a gentleman, in the sense we
+attach to the word."[86] The stage was in perfect accord with its
+audience. Morality was outraged by a constant association of virtue
+with all that is contemptible and of vice with all that is attractive.
+Taste was outraged by a perpetual choice of degraded subjects and
+disgusting scenes. Nature was outraged by the representation of man,
+not as a complex being, worthy of deep and skilful investigation, but
+as a creature influenced by two or three passions always apparent on
+the surface. Thus the dramatists, notwithstanding their very
+exceptional abilities, produced little of enduring value, and nothing
+which could outlive a change in the popular taste. They did, however,
+produce what was greatly admired by their contemporaries: and the fact
+that the men and the women of the time enjoyed the plays provided for
+them, shows that they preferred to noble and elevating subjects, the
+literary reproduction of their own corrupt lives. The theatre no doubt
+represented men as worse than they were. But the friends of Buckingham
+and Rochester, both male and female, found in its long list of
+unprincipled men, of married women debauched, and of young girls
+anxious to be debauched, the reflection and justification of their own
+careers.
+
+Posterity remembers little of the reign or the theatre of Charles II
+beyond their corruption. Yet there is much that is worthy of
+remembrance, without which any remarks on the social condition of the
+time would be one-sided. There are to be referred to that period many
+legislative enactments in the highest degree conducive to civil and
+religious liberty. The foundation of the Royal Society marked the
+inauguration of a new interest in speculative enquiry, of a great
+activity in scientific research, and of a broader and more liberal
+habit of thought on questions connected with government and education.
+These advantages were attained in spite of a worthless king, of corrupt
+ministers, and a licentious court, and they are due to the earnestness
+and vigor of the great body of the English people, qualities which have
+remained unchanged through every national vicissitude or success. While
+Pepys and Grammont supply full details of the moral degeneration which
+weakened and debased the highest ranks of society, the sound morality,
+steady industry, and progressive nature of the nation are to be seen in
+the journal of the good Evelyn. His character and occupations, as well
+as those of his friends, offset the coarse tastes and worthless lives
+which brought the time into discredit. To the prevailing disregard of
+the marriage tie may well be contrasted the happiness of Evelyn's
+domestic life. His daughter, of whom he has left a beautiful
+description, was endowed with an elevation of character, a charm of
+disposition, and a purity of thought admirable in any age, and it
+cannot be doubted that she had many contemporary parallels.
+
+
+[Footnote 84: Destouches, "Glorieux," v. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 85: Act ii, sc. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 86: "Literature of Europe," vol. 4, chap. 6, sec. 2-47.]
+
+
+
+II
+
+With the pensions and fashions which were sent across the Channel from
+the court of Louis XIV, came a curious species of fiction which had a
+temporary vogue in England. Gomberville, Scudéri, and Calprenède had
+created the school of Heroic Romance by the publication of those
+monumental works which the French not inaptly termed "les romans de
+longue haleine." This was the bulky but enervated descendant of
+chivalric and pastoral romance. The tales of chivalry and of pastoral
+life had their _raison d'être_. The feudal knighthood found in the
+tournaments, in the adventures of knight-errantry, and in the
+supernatural agencies which filled their volumes of romance, the
+reflection of their own aspirations and beliefs. They admired in the
+ideal characters of Charlemagne and Arthur the qualities most valued
+among themselves. Martial glory was to them the chief object of life;
+love was simply the reward of valor. The pastoral romance followed in
+less warlike times. Its subject was love; and that passion was usually
+described amidst humble and peaceful shepherds, where its strength and
+charm could develop more fully than amidst scenes of war and tumult.
+Both the chivalric and the pastoral romance were the embodiment of
+ideals which in turn represented contemporary tastes. But heroic
+romance, although it shared some of the characteristics of its
+predecessors, had not the same claim to interest. It was unnatural and
+artificial, rather than ideal. It imitated the martial character of the
+tales of chivalry, but subordinated that character to love. It imitated
+the devoted strain of adoration which ran through the fanciful phrases
+of pastoral fiction; but that artificial passion which seemed
+appropriate to ideal shepherds tuning their pipes under a perpetual
+sunshine, became absurd when applied to Greek or Carthaginian soldiers.
+
+Gomberville's "Polexander," complete-in six thousand pages, and
+Calprenède's "Cassandra," "the fam'd romance," are now before me.
+Greeks, Romans, Turks, Parthians, Scythians, Babylonians are mingled
+together in a truly heroic structure of absurdity and anachronism.
+Artaxerxes appears on one page, the queen of the Amazons on the next,
+then the king of Lacedæmon, Alexander the Great, even a prince of
+Mexico, and comparatively private persons beyond computation. This
+crowd of names represent personages who imitate the deeds of chivalry,
+and converse in the affected style of the French court, while their
+ancient bosoms are distracted by a pure, all-absorbing, and never-dying
+love as foreign to their nature as to that of the readers of heroic
+romance. That this species of fiction should have met with any success,
+is largely due to the circumstance, that under the disguise of Greek
+warriors or Parthian princesses, there were really described
+contemporary beauties and courtiers, who fondly believed that they had
+attained, through the genius of Calprenède and Scudéri, an enviable
+immortality. Unhappily for them, the characters of heroic romance have
+found in that endless desert of phraseology at once their birthplace
+and their tomb.
+
+The works of Gomberville, Calprenède, and Scudéri, although little
+adapted to the English taste, shared the favor which was extended to
+every thing French, and were both translated and imitated. The
+"Eliana," published in 1661; although a _bona-fide_ imitation, would
+have served much better as a caricature. To the absurdity of incident
+is added an absurdity of language which gives the book almost a comic
+aspect. The beauty of flowers growing in the fields is disguised under
+the statement that Flora "spreads her fragrant mantle on the
+superficies of the earth, and bespangles the verdant grass with her
+beauteous adornments." A lover "enters a grove free from the
+frequentations of any besides the ranging beasts and pleasing birds,
+whose dulcet notes exulsecrate him out of his melancholy
+contemplations."[87]
+
+Dunlop considered the best work of this description to be the
+"Parthenissa," published in 1664, by Roger Boyle, afterward Earl of
+Orrery. This romance, although marked by the faults of prolixity and
+incongruity characteristic of the heroic style, is not without
+narrative interest or literary merit. The hero is Artabanes, a Median
+prince, as usual "richly attired, and proportionately blessed with all
+the gifts of nature and education." At the Parthian court he becomes
+enamored of the beautiful Parthenissa, and in her honor performs many
+distinguished deeds of arms. Distracted, however, at the suspicion of
+Parthenissa's preference for a rival, he leaves the Parthian court with
+the determination to spend the remainder of his life on the summit of
+the Alps. This intention is frustrated by pirates, who take him
+prisoner and bestow him as a slave upon their chief. Artabanes soon
+escapes from bondage, suddenly turns out to be the historic Spartacus,
+and returns to Asia. There he finds that Parthenissa, to avoid the
+importunities of an objectionable lover, has swallowed a potion which
+gives her the appearance of death. In this dilemma he journeys to "the
+Temple of Hieropolis in Syria, where the Queen of Love had settled an
+oracle as famous as the Deity to whom it was consecrated." The priest
+of this temple, after listening patiently to the long account of
+Artabanes' misfortunes, tells the story of his own remarkable career,
+by which it appears that he is Nicomedes, king of Bythinia, the father
+of Julius Cæsar's Nicomedes. While Artabanes is listening to this
+narrative, he sees two persons land upon the shore, and enter a
+neighboring wood. One is a young knight, and the other the exact
+counterpart of Parthenissa. At this apparition Artabanes is thrown into
+the greatest confusion. The lady he has seen presents every outward
+appearance of his mistress, and yet he believes her dead, and is unable
+to conceive that if living, she should so far forget her duty to him
+and the rules of propriety, as to place herself in so suspicions a
+position. Here the romance comes to an abrupt end, leaving Artabanes in
+the condition of painful uncertainty in which he has ever since
+remained.
+
+Heroic romance proved as ephemeral in England as the cloaks and
+feathers with which it had crossed the Channel, and we may pass over
+such trivial literary attempts as those of the Duchess of Newcastle to
+the writings of Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Behn. These two novelists, if such
+they may still be called, represent, in narrative fiction, the period
+which extends from the Restoration to the opening of the eighteenth
+century. They have left us little, and that of very indifferent merit.
+But their stories have a certain importance, inasmuch as with them
+begins the tendency, in English fiction, to deal with the actual,
+instead of the imaginary, to describe characters and scenes meant to
+represent real life.
+
+The daughter of Sir Roger Manley, at one time Governor of Guernsey,
+Mrs. Manley was seduced, when quite a young woman, and passed the
+remainder of her life in a licentiousness which has evidently inspired
+her literary productions. Having picked up a few stories from current
+report, she worked them into what she called "The Power of Love, in
+Seven Novels."[88] The "love" here described is an unregulated animal
+passion, and its "power" is the natural effect of such a passion upon
+men and women who have no idea of self-restraint or refinement. The
+result is a series of licentious scenes, unredeemed by any literary
+merit. Mrs. Manley's most prominent work was the "Secret Memoirs and
+Manners of Several Persons of Quality of Both Sexes. From the New
+Atalantis, an Island in the Mediterranean." This book is a scandalous
+chronicle of crimes reputed to have been committed by persons of high
+rank, and the names are so thinly disguised as to be easily identified.
+Mrs. Manley was arrested and prosecuted for the publication, but
+escaped without serious punishment. The work itself had a wide
+circulation, and Pope adopted the endurance of its fame as a measure of
+time in his shortsighted line, "As long as Atalantis shall be read."
+
+In the beginning of this book a female personage named Astræa resolves
+to revisit the earth, which she had long before abandoned in disgust.
+She alights upon an island in the Mediterranean, named Atalantis, which
+is meant to signify England, and a female form immediately rises up
+before her.
+
+    Her habit _obsolete_ and _torn_, almost degenerated into tatters;
+    But her Native Charms, that needed not the Help of Art, gave to
+    Astræa's returning Remembrance that it could be no other than her
+    beautiful Mother Vertue. But oh! how despicable her Garments! how
+    neglected her flowing Hair! How languid her formally animated Eyes!
+    How pale, how withered the Roses of her lovely Cheeks and Lips! How
+    useless her snowy arms and polished Fingers! they hung in a
+    melancholy Decline, and seemed out of other Employment, but
+    sometimes to support the Head of the dejected Fair One! Her limbs
+    enervated and supine, wanting of that Energy which should bear her
+    from a Solitude so affrighting!
+
+From this very accurate description of the condition of virtue at the
+end of the seventeenth century, it might be supposed that Mrs. Manley
+deplored her neglected state. But such is far from being the case.
+Astræa and Virtue meet with a personage called Intelligence, who
+furnishes them with a detailed account of current scandal calculated to
+still further depress the dejected Virtue. The trio are soon joined by
+Mrs. Nightwork, a midwife, who never breaks an oath of secrecy unless
+it be to her interest, and the character of whose contributions to the
+general fund of gossip may be easily imagined. This semi-allegorical
+method of narration is kept up during the first two volumes; in the
+third and fourth Mrs. Manley tells her story in her own way. In the
+course of these four volumes is unrolled an extraordinary series of
+crimes, some unnatural, and all gross in highest degree. The details
+which Mrs. Manley could not obtain from authentic sources are supplied
+by her vivid and heated imagination. She gloats over each incident with
+a horrible relish, and adds, with no unsparing brush, a heightened
+color to each picture. Only a society whose conduct could afford
+material for this composition could possibly have read it. Mrs. Manley
+no doubt invented and exaggerated without scruple, but the fact that
+her work was widely read and even popular is a sufficient commentary on
+the taste of the time. The reader of to-day is sickened by the
+multiplication of repulsive scenes, and the absence from the book of
+any good qualities or actions whatever. The style in which the
+"Atalantis" is written is so mean, that no person could have derived
+any pleasure from its pages other than the gratification of a depraved
+taste.
+
+A writer of fiction of much greater importance appeared in the person
+of Aphra Johnson, more generally known as Mrs. Behn, or "the divine
+Astræa"; "a gentlewoman by birth, of a good family in the city of
+Canterbury." Her father was appointed to a colonial office in the West
+Indies, where he took his family while Mrs. Behn was yet a young girl.
+There the future authoress began a chequered life by living on a
+plantation among rough and lawless colonists, and there she made the
+acquaintance of the slave Oroonoko, whose sad story she afterward made
+known to the world. On her return to England, she married Behn, a
+merchant of Dutch extraction, and went to live in the Netherlands,
+where she acted as a British spy. By working upon the feelings of her
+lovers, she was able to convey information to the English government of
+the intention of the Dutch to enter the Thames to destroy the English
+fleet. Her warnings were disregarded, and giving up her patriotic
+occupation, she returned to London, and devoted herself to literature.
+She died in 1689, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster
+Abbey:--"Covered only with a marble stone, with two wretched verses on
+it." Although Mrs. Behn is now almost forgotten, her position in her
+own time was not inconsiderable. Besides a number of letters and poems,
+her literary productions include a translation of Fontenelle's
+"Plurality of Worlds," and a paraphrase on Van Dale's "De Oraculis
+Ethnicorum." Her plays met with some success, but were characterized by
+a licentiousness which won for her the title of "the female Wycherley,"
+a fact, which, on account of her sex, called down upon her a general
+and well-deserved condemnation. Two other productions, of which the
+nature is sufficiently indicated by their titles, were "The Lover's
+Watch; or the Art of making Love: being Rules for Courtship for every
+Hour of the Day and Night"; and "The Ladies Looking Glass to dress
+themselves by; or the whole Art of charming all Mankind."
+
+It was on Mrs. Behn's return from the West Indies that, being
+introduced at court, she related to Charles the Second the terrible
+fate of the noble slave Oroonoko. At the solicitation of the king, she
+put her narrative into the form of a novel, which obtained a large
+circulation, and was dramatized by Southern in his tragedy of the same
+name. "Oroonoko" is worthy of notice as one of the earliest attempts on
+the part of an English novelist to deal with characters which had come
+under the writer's observation in actual life. It is still more
+important on account of the presence within it of a didactic purpose; a
+characteristic which for good or for evil has been a prominent feature
+of the English novel. Sir Thomas More had made use of fiction in the
+sixteenth century to urge his ideas of political and social reforms.
+Bunyan, more than a century later, used the same means to promulgate
+his conception of Christian life. While English narrative fiction was
+still in its first youth, Mrs. Behn protested against the evils of the
+slave trade through the medium of a story which may be considered a
+forerunner of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+To interest the public in a distant country or an abstract principle,
+the novel is the most effective literary means. A treatise on the slave
+trade by Mrs. Behn, however strong and truthful, would have met with
+the little attention which is accorded to the sufferings of a distant
+and unknown people. But the novel has the advantage over the treatise,
+that it deals with the particular and not the general, with the
+individual and not the nation. It can place before the reader a limited
+number of persons; it can interest his mind and heart in their
+characters, lives, and fate; and by subjecting them to the horrors of
+the evil to be depicted, excite through commiseration for their
+sufferings a hatred of the cause which inflicted them. To such a use
+the novel has often been put, at too frequent a sacrifice of its
+artistic merit. To excite indignation against the results of the slave
+trade, Mrs. Behn took the special instance of Oroonoko. She endowed the
+African slave with beauty of person and nobility of character. She gave
+him tastes and qualities of a kind to attract the interest of a
+European reader. She added a description of his wife Imoinda, dwelling
+on the details of her beauty and charms. By a passionate relation of
+the amatory scenes which occurred between Oroonoko and his wife, she
+touched a key particularly calculated to excite contemporary English
+sympathy. Finally, by telling the story of the cruel wrongs inflicted
+on the slaves, she aroused a natural indignation against the system
+which could entail such evil results.
+
+The story itself is briefly as follows. Oroonoko was a brave young
+chief, the grandson of a king whose dominions lay on the coast of
+Africa. He had distinguished himself in war, and already commanded all
+the forces of his grandfather's kingdom. Hitherto rather unsusceptible
+to female charms, he became deeply enamored of Imoinda, on returning
+victorious from a great war. Unfortunately the king noticed Imoinda at
+the same time, and had her brought to his palace as his concubine.
+According to the rules of the court, this would separate the lovers
+forever. Oroonoko in desperation made his way to Imoinda's chamber in
+the palace at night, where he was discovered by the king's servants.
+Imoinda was immediately sold as a slave. Oroonoko made his way down to
+the seashore, and was there allured, under false pretenses of
+hospitality, on board an English ship. He was carried to the West
+Indies, and sold to a planter of Surinam, the colony in which Mrs. Behn
+was living, and where by a remarkable chance Imoinda had already been
+sold. The beauty of Imoinda had brought about her a large number of
+suitors, all of whom met with a cold repulse. The tenderness of the
+meeting between Oroonoko and Imoinda prevailed upon their master to
+allow them to live together. But Oroonoko longed for liberty. He
+plotted a revolt among his fellow-slaves, and on its suppression was
+brutally flogged. Enraged by this, he escaped into the woods with
+Imoinda, who was then pregnant. Fearing that she might fall into the
+hands of the whites, and unwilling to be the father of a slave, he
+killed her, and remained by her dead body several days, half insensible
+with grief and without food. Again taken by the colonists, he was tied
+to a post, hacked to pieces and burned. The story, simple in itself,
+becomes striking in the hands of Mrs. Behn. The hut of the old negro
+king is given the brilliancy of an Eastern court, and his harem is
+copied after that of a Turkish potentate. When Oroonoko is induced to
+board the English slaver, it is in no common style, but "the Captain in
+his Boat richly adorned with Carpets and velvet Cushions went to the
+Shore to receive the Prince, with another Long Boat where was placed
+all his Music and Trumpets." Mrs. Behn's methods of adorning her tale
+are best shown by her description of Oroonoko himself, which is a good
+example of the tone in which the story is written.
+
+    I have often seen and conversed with this Great Man, and been a
+    Witness to many of his mighty Actions: and do assure my Reader, the
+    most illustrious Courts could not have produced a braver Man, both
+    for Greatness of Courage and Mind, a Judgment more solid, a Wit
+    more quick, and a Conversation more sweet and diverting. He knew
+    almost as much as if he had read much; he had heard of and admired
+    the Romans; he had heard of the late Civil Wars in England, and the
+    deplorable Death of our great Monarch; and would discourse of it
+    with all the Sense and abhorrence of the Injustice imaginable. He
+    had an extremely good and graceful Mien, and all the civility of a
+    well bred Great Man. He had nothing of Barbarity in his Nature, but
+    in all Points addressed himself as if his Education had been in
+    some European Court.
+
+    This great and just character of Oroonoko gave me an extreme
+    Curiosity to see him, especially when I knew he spoke French and
+    English, and that I could talk with him. But though I had heard so
+    much of him, I was as greatly surprised when I saw him, as if I had
+    heard nothing of him; so beyond all Report I found him. He came
+    into the Room, and addressed himself to me and some other Women
+    with the best Grace in the World. He was pretty tall, but of a
+    Shape the most exact that can be fancyed: The most famous Statuary
+    could not form the figure of a Man more admirably turned from Head
+    to Foot. His face was not of that brown lusty Black which most of
+    that Nation are, but a perfect Ebony or polished Jet. His Eyes were
+    the most aweful that could be seen, and very piercing; the White of
+    'em being like Snow, as were his teeth. His Nose was rising and
+    Roman, instead of African and flat. His Mouth the finest Shape that
+    could be seen; far from those great turn'd Lips which are so
+    natural to the rest of the Negroes. The whole Proportion and Air of
+    his Face was nobly and exactly form'd, that bating his Colour,
+    there would be nothing in Nature more beautiful, agreeable and
+    handsome. There was no one Grace wanting that bears the Standard of
+    true Beauty. His Hair came down to his Shoulders, by the aids of
+    Art, which was by pulling it out with a quill, and keeping it
+    comb'd; of which he took particular care. Nor did the perfections
+    of his Mind come short of those of his Person; for his Discourse
+    was admirable upon almost any Subject; and whoever had heard him
+    speak, would have been convinced of their Errors, that all fine Wit
+    is confined to the white Men, especially to those of Christendom;
+    and would have confessed that Oroonoko was as capable even of
+    reigning well, and of governing as wisely, had as great a Soul, as
+    politick Maxims, and was as sensible of Power, as any Prince
+    civilized in the most refined Schools of Humanity and Learning, or
+    the most illustrious Courts.[89]
+
+"Oroonoko" is the only one of Mrs Behn's stories which has a didactic
+aim or a special interest of any kind. Her other works of fiction are
+short tales, usually founded on fact, which describe in unrestrained
+language the passion and adventures of a pair of very ardent lovers.
+They show the prevailing inclination in narrative fiction toward
+characters and scenes taken from actual life. But they have no interest
+apart from the slender thread of the story itself. They contain no
+studies of character, and no information of importance concerning
+contemporary manners. Their heroes and heroines differ from each other
+only in the intensity or the circumstances of their love. The best in
+narrative interest, and the most attractive in tone, is the "Lucky
+Mistake." It is without the grossness characteristic of Mrs. Behn's
+works, and gives quite a pretty account of the loves of a young French
+nobleman and an unusually modest young woman named Atlante. Mrs. Behn's
+notion of love is contained in the opening lines of the "Fair Jilt,"
+the most licentious of her tales. "As Love is the most noble and divine
+Passion of the Soul, so it is that to which we may justly attribute all
+the real Satisfactions of Life; and without it Man is Unfinished and
+unhappy. There are a thousand Things to be said of the Advantages this
+generous Passion brings to those whose Hearts are capable of receiving
+its soft Impressions; for 'tis not Every one that can be sensible of
+its tender Touches. How many Examples from History and Observation
+could I give of its wondrous Power; nay, even to a degree of
+Transmigration! How many Idiots has it made wise! How many Fools
+eloquent! How many home-bred Squires accomplished! How many cowards
+brave!" There is no doubt that Mrs. Behn was fully alive to the
+strength of the passion she describes, but as Sir Richard Steele said,
+she "understood the practic part of love better than the speculative."
+In accordance with the views general amidst the society of her own
+time, she represented love merely as a physical passion, and made the
+interest of her stories depend on its gratification, and not on the
+ennobling effects or subtle manifestations of which it is capable.
+
+There is a great deal in that well-known anecdote of Sir Walter
+Scott's, in which he relates that he "was acquainted with an old lady
+of family, who assured him that, in her younger days, Mrs. Behn's
+novels were as currently upon the toilette as the works of Miss
+Edgeworth at present; and described with some humor her own surprise,
+when the book falling into her hands after a long interval of years,
+and when its contents were quite forgotten, she found it impossible to
+endure, at the age of fourscore, what at fifteen, she, like all the
+fashionable world of the time, had perused without an idea of
+impropriety." This is a striking illustration of the mere relativeness
+of such words as "morality," "refinement," and their opposites. If this
+old lady could have lived over her early youth embued with the
+refinement of taste which surrounded her declining years, she would
+have been still more shocked at the coarseness of language, and the
+looseness of conduct and morals which prevailed among the highest
+ranks. At the same time she would have observed, that the society which
+appeared to her coarse and corrupt was far from so considering itself.
+What is gross to one age may have been the refinement of the last. A
+young girl considered modest and discreet at the end of the seventeenth
+century, if transferred unchanged to the end of the eighteenth, would
+have shocked the women she met with by talking of subjects unmentioned
+in society with a freedom and broadness unusual among the men. In
+judging a literary work from the point of view of morality or
+refinement, we must compare it with the standard of the age to which it
+belongs, and not with our own. Pope's graphic lines, in which he
+describes Mrs. Behn's position as a dramatist,
+
+     "The stage how loosely doth Astræa tread,
+      Who fairly puts all characters to bed."
+
+apply almost equally well to her novels. But still the contemporary
+reader found nothing in their pages to offend his sense of propriety.
+And Mrs. Behn, who simply put into a literary form ideas and scenes which
+were common in the society about her, cannot with justice be accused of
+an intention to pander to the lowest tastes of her readers. She said
+herself, when reproved for the tone of her plays, which was much inferior
+to that of her novels: "I make challenge to any person of common sense
+and reason, that is not wilfully bent on ill nature, and will, in spite
+of sense, wrest a _double entendre_ from everything * * * but any
+unprejudiced person that knows not the author--to read one of my comedies
+and compare it with others of this age, and if they can find one word
+which can offend the chastest ear, I will submit to all their pevish
+cavills." All this is worthy of note, if we are to follow the course of
+English fiction without prejudice. For it will be shown that the
+nineteenth century, with all its well-deserved pride in an advanced
+refinement and morality, has produced a large number of novelists, both
+male and female, whose works are as immoral as those of Mrs. Behn,
+without her excuse. Who, with all the advantages accruing from life
+in a refined age, with every encouragement to pursue a better course,
+have deliberately chosen to court an infamous notoriety by making vice
+familiar and attractive. And this too, at a time when a general
+confidence in the purity of contemporary literary works has practically
+done away with parental censorship; when books of evil tendency are as
+likely to fall into the hands of the young and susceptible as those of
+elevating tendency--a circumstance which adds a new responsibility to
+the duties of the conscientious writer.
+
+
+[Footnote 87: Dunlop's "History of Fiction," chap. iv.]
+
+[Footnote 88: "The Fair Hypocrite," "The Physician's Stratagem," "The
+Wife's Resentment," "The Husband's Resentment," in two parts; "The
+Happy Fugitive," "The Perjured Beauty."]
+
+[Footnote 89: "History of Oroonoko," Mrs. Behn's "Collected plays and
+novels."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
+  I.--ENGLAND UNDER ANNE AND THE FIRST TWO GEORGES.
+ II.--SWIFT, ADDISON, DEFOE.
+III.--RICHARDSON, FIELDING, SMOLLETT.
+
+
+I.
+
+The advance of a nation in numbers and civilization is accompanied by
+so great a complexity of social conditions that in this volume it is
+possible only to attempt to seize such salient characteristics of the
+eighteenth century as may serve to throw light on the course of English
+fiction. No age presents a more prosaic aspect. If we consider the
+condition of England at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the
+prevalence of abuses and corruption left by the ignorance or vice of
+preceding years, and reflect at the same time upon the progressive
+nature of the people, the practical habit of their minds, and the moral
+earnestness which they never wholly lost, it is not surprising to find
+that the century is one of reforms. Population and wealth had outgrown
+the laws and customs which had hitherto served for their control, and
+though in the earlier part of the period we find corruption in public
+and private life, indifference in religion, inadequate provision for
+the education of the young, gross abuses in jurisprudence, and
+coarseness of action and taste throughout the social system, there is
+also perceptible a solid foundation of good-sense and an earnest
+desire for improvement, which gradually, as the century wore on,
+introduced one reform after another, until many of those benefits were
+attained or made possible which the present century almost
+unconsciously enjoys. We should lose one of the most instructive
+lessons which history can afford, if, with Carlyle, we should allow the
+eighteenth century to lie "massed up in our minds as a disastrous,
+wrecked inanity, not useful to dwell upon,"[90] The England of that
+century was modern England, but modern England, burdened with a
+heritage of corruption and ignorance which it is the glory of the time
+to have in large part discarded. It was a time of social and material
+progress, and it was also the period of the growth and perfection of
+English fiction. To thoroughly understand the one, we must be
+acquainted with the other, and it will be the object of the two
+following chapters to trace the development of the English novel in
+connection with that national development of which it will be shown to
+be in great measure the exponent.
+
+That subordination of the imagination to reason, which, after the
+Restoration, became so marked in English thought on intellectual,
+political, and religious subjects, was continued in the eighteenth
+century with results which affected the whole current of national life.
+Before the light of physical science, silent but irresistible in its
+advances, faded away the remains of dogmatism and superstition.
+Astrology was forgotten in astronomy; belief in modern miracles and
+witchcraft ceased to take root in minds conscious of a universe too
+vast for realization, and governed by laws so regular, that probability
+could not attach to arbitrary interference by God or the devil. From
+the broadening of the intellectual horizon finally resulted
+inestimable benefits; but these benefits were purchased at the price of
+much temporary evil. If in religion, the rational tendencies prepared
+the way for the liberal and undogmatic Christianity to come, their
+effect for many years was to be seen only in scepticism, in a mocking
+indifference to religion itself, in a contempt of high moral
+aspirations and sentiments. If in politics, the final effect of these
+tendencies was to introduce new wisdom into government, they showed for
+long no other result than the suppression of all the higher qualities
+of a statesman, the disappearance of every sign of patriotism other
+than an ignorant hatred of foreign countries, the complete subversion
+of public spirit by private rapacity.
+
+The prevailing intellectual characteristics are marked, in literature,
+by the great predominance of prose over poetry. It will be no
+disparagement to Pope, Prior, Gray, Collins, Akenside, Goldsmith, or
+Young, to say that they did not attain in poetry what in prose was
+attained by Swift, Defoe, Steele, Addison, Bolingbroke, Richardson,
+Fielding, Smollet, Hume, Gibbon, Junius, and Burke; while Goldsmith is
+as much valued for his prose as for his verse, Addison, Swift, and
+Johnson more so. It is to these men, and to contemporaries of lesser
+note, that English literature is indebted for the invention or
+perfection of prose forms of the highest importance and beauty. Defoe
+stands pre-eminent among the founders of the newspaper, destined to
+attain so high a degree of power and utility. Addison, Steele, and
+Johnson made the essay one of the most attractive and popular forms of
+literature. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Horace Walpole, Chesterfield,
+and Junius brought letter-writing to perfection. Defoe, Addison,
+Richardson, and Fielding developed the realistic novel. A prosaic and
+conventional tone pervaded even the poetry of the period. Appreciation
+of poetry was almost extinguished, Addison, writing of the poets of the
+past, made no mention of Shakespeare, and found it possible to say of
+Chaucer:
+
+      In vain he jests in his unpolish'd strain,
+      And tries to make his readers laugh, in vain.
+
+And of Spenser:
+
+      Old Spenser next, warm'd with poetick rage,
+      In ancient tales amus'd a barb'rous age.
+      But now the mystick tale that pleas'd of yore
+      Can charm an understanding age no more.[91]
+
+"If you did amuse yourself with writing any thing in poetry," wrote
+Horace Walpole to Sir H. Mann, in 1742, "you know how pleased I should
+be to see it; but for encouraging you to it, d'ye see, 'tis an age most
+unpoetical! 'Tis even a test of wit to dislike poetry; and though Pope
+has half a dozen old friends that he has preserved from the taste of
+last century, yet, I assure you the generality of readers are more
+diverted with any paltry prose answer to old Marlborough's secret
+history of Queen Mary's robes. I do not think an author would be
+universally commended for any production in verse, unless it were an
+ode to the Secret Committee, with rhymes of liberty and property,
+nation and administration."
+
+During the brilliant era of literary activity, known by the name of
+Queen Anne, men of letters were encouraged by the government by means
+of employment or rewards. They were supported also by the public
+through the high social consideration which was freely accorded to men
+of talent. Literary success was a passport to the houses and the
+intimacy of the great. But under the first two Georges and the
+administration of Walpole the government was seconded by the public in
+its neglect of authors and their works. In those days the circle of
+readers was too small to afford remuneration to authorship. Employment
+or help from the government was almost a _sine qua non_ for the
+production of works which required time and research. While under Anne,
+Swift received a deanery, Addison was Secretary of State, Steele a
+prominent member of Parliament, and Newton, Locke, Prior, Gay, Rowe,
+Congreve, Tickell, Parnell, and Pope all received direct or indirect
+aid from the government, in the reigns of George I and George II,
+Steele died in poverty, Savage walked the streets for want of a
+lodging, Johnson lived in penury and drudgery. Thomson was deprived of
+a small office which formed his sole dependence.[92] This neglect of
+authors and of literature was only partially due to an unappreciative
+government. It was supported by the indifference of a public in a high
+degree material and unintellectual. Conversation in France, said
+Chesterfield, "turns at least upon some subject, something of taste,
+some point of history, criticism, and even philosophy; which, though
+probably not quite so solid as Mr. Locke's, is, however, better and
+more becoming rational beings than our frivolous dissertations upon the
+weather or upon whist."
+
+In keeping with the unimpassioned and prosaic tone of the time, was the
+low state of religious feeling, and the degeneration of the church,
+both in its own organization and in public esteem. The upper classes of
+society, as a rule, were lukewarm and insincere in any form of belief.
+Statesman and nobles in the most prominent positions combined professed
+irreligion with open profligacy, while the lower classes were left,
+through the indolence and selfishness of the clergy, almost without
+religious teaching. Montesquieu found that people laughed when religion
+was mentioned in London drawing-rooms. Sir Robert Walpole put the
+general feeling in his own coarse way. "Pray, madam," said he to the
+Princess Emily, when it was suggested that the archbishop should be
+called to the death-bed of Queen Caroline, "let this farce be played;
+the archbishop will act it very well. You may bid him be as short as
+you will. It will do the queen no hurt, no more than any good; and it
+will satisfy all the wise and good fools, who will call us all atheists
+if we don't pretend to be as great fools as they are."[93] This low
+state of religious sentiment was brought about by much the same causes
+which, at a later time, substituted a moral and liberal for the old
+dogmatic Christianity. The dislike of theological controversy left by
+the civil wars was aided by the Act of Toleration in giving the nation
+a religious peace, and in diverting human energy from religious
+speculations or emotions. The rational character of the national
+intellect was inclined to what was material and tangible, to physical
+study or industry. The general desire to submit all questions to the
+test of a critical reason, induced the clergy to apply the same test to
+theology. But while these tendencies, in their final result, were on
+the whole beneficial to religion, their temporary effect was injurious
+to it in a high degree. With a few exceptions, such as Butler,
+Berkeley, and Wilson, the clergy shared the indifference of their
+flocks. The upper ranks were indolent, selfish, often immoral; the
+lower, poor, ignorant, and degraded in social position. Bishops and
+prominent clergymen, under the system of pluralities, left their
+congregations to the care of hungry curates, and sought promotion by
+assiduous attendance at ministers' levees, or by paying court to the
+king's mistresses. It is not surprising that public respect for them
+and for their calling almost died away. Pope wrote sneeringly:[94]
+
+      EVEN _in a_ BISHOP _I can spy desert_;
+      _Seeker is decent, Rundle has a heart_.
+
+A naked Venus hung in the room where prayers were read while Queen
+Caroline dressed, which Dr. Madox sarcastically termed "a very proper
+altar-piece."[95] Of the High Churchmen Defoe declared that "the spirit
+of Christianity is fled from among them." When the Prince of Wales
+died, George the Second appointed governors and preceptors for the
+prince's children. Horace Walpole's description[96] of one of these is
+significant. "The other Preceptor was Hayter, Bishop of Norwich, a
+sensible well-bred man, natural son of Blackbourn, the jolly old
+Archbishop of York, who had all the manners of a man of quality, though
+he had been a Buccaneer and was a Clergyman; but he retained nothing of
+his first profession except his seraglio."
+
+While the attention of the upper clergy was largely absorbed by
+thoughts of private profit and by the pursuit of worldly advancement,
+the lower ranks were left in a position degrading alike to themselves
+and to religion. In the country a clergyman was little above a peasant
+in social consideration, and seldom equal to him in the comforts of
+life. To eke out the sustenance of himself and family, hard labor in
+his own garden was by no means the most menial of the services he was
+obliged to perform. His wife was usually a servant-maid taken from a
+neighboring country house, and the kitchen was his most common resort
+when he visited the home of a squire. A private chaplain was little
+above a servant. In London, many clergymen fell into the prisons
+through debt or crime. From the ranks of the lower clergy were
+recruited the "buck-parsons," so long a scandal to the church and to
+public morality; and the large body of "Fleet parsons," of infamous
+character, in the pay of gin shops and taverns, who, for a trifling
+sum, performed what were legal marriages between boys and girls,
+drunkards and runaways.
+
+The corruption in political life, begun under the Restoration and
+increased during the Revolution, was amplified and reduced to a system
+under Walpole until government seemed to be based on bribery.
+Ridiculing public spirit and disinterested motives in others, he bribed
+George the Second with the promise of a large civil list, bribed Queen
+Caroline with a large allowance, bribed members of Parliament with
+sinecures, pensions, or with direct payment of money, and paid himself
+with wealth and a peerage. Corruption was so firmly rooted as an engine
+of power, that no serious discredit attached to it. So low had fallen
+the standard of political honor, so widespread had become the spirit of
+self-seeking and corruption among the ministers and in Parliament, that
+"Love of our country," wrote Browne, "is no longer felt; and except in
+a few minds of uncommon greatness, the principle of public spirit
+exists not."[97] The dominating idea of political life was well put in
+the words of the Marquis of Halifax: "Parties in a state, generally,
+like freebooters, hang out false colors; the pretence is public good,
+the real business is to catch prizes." Lord Hervey divided the Whig
+party in 1727 into "Patriots and Courtiers, which was in plain English,
+'Whigs in place,' and 'Whigs out of place.'"[98] The assertion of
+disinterestedness met only with ridicule. In an interview with Queen
+Caroline, "when Lord Stair talked of his conscience with great
+solemnity, the queen (the whole conversation being in French) cried
+out: Ah, my Lord, ne me parlez point de conscience, vous me faîtes
+évanouir."[99] As personal advancement, and not the public service, was
+the ruling aim of statesmen, it is not surprising that for this
+advancement no means were regarded as too low. The king's mistresses
+were the object of ceaseless attentions from aspirants for office, and
+sometimes were the recipients of their bribes. Treachery was the order
+of the day. Bolingbroke said to Sir Robert Walpole, "that the very air
+he breathed was the gift of his bounty," and then left Sir Robert to
+tell the king that Walpole "was the weakest minister any prince ever
+employed abroad, and the wickedest that ever had the direction of
+affairs at home."[100] The Duke of Newcastle, that "living, moving,
+talking caricature," stands out an exaggerated type of the common
+statesmen of the time; "hereditary possessors of ennobled folly,"[101]
+maintained in offices which they had no capacity to fill by corruption,
+the abuse of patronage, and the control of rotten boroughs. Speaking of
+the Dukes of Devonshire, Grafton, and Newcastle, Lord Hervey says[102]:
+"The two first were mutes, and the last often wished so by those he
+spoke for, and always by those he spoke to." George the Second
+appreciated the character and objects of his advisers. He had, also, a
+frank and pointed way of describing them. In his opinion Sir Robert
+Walpole was "a great rogue"; Mr. Horace Walpole, ambassador to France,
+was a "dirty buffoon"; Newcastle, an "impertinent fool"; Lord
+Townshend, a "choleric blockhead";[103] while Lord Chesterfield was
+disposed of as a "tea-table scoundrel."[104] He complained that he was
+"obliged to enrich people for being rascals, and buy them not to cut
+his throat."[105] "The king and queen," wrote Hervey, "looked upon
+human kind as so many commodities in a market, which, without favor or
+affection, they considered only in the degree they were useful, and
+paid for them in that proportion--Sir Robert Walpole being sworn
+appraiser to their Majesties at all these sales."[106]
+
+The cringing subserviency of political men was equal to their
+corruption. When George I died, and it was believed that Sir Spencer
+Compton would succeed to the power of Sir Robert Walpole, at the king's
+reception "Sir Robert walked through these rooms as if they had been
+still empty; his presence, that used to make a crowd wherever he
+appeared, now emptied every corner he turned to, and the same people
+who were officiously a week ago clearing the way to flatter his
+prosperity, were now getting out of it to avoid sharing his disgrace.
+Everybody looked upon it as sure, and whatever profession of adherence
+and gratitude for former favors were made him in private, there were
+none among the many his power had obliged (excepting General Churchill
+and Lord Hervey) who did not in public as notoriously decline and fear
+his notice, as they used industriously to seek and covet it."[107] On
+the same occasion, Horace Walpole tells us, "my mother * * * could not
+make her way (to pay her respects to the king and queen) between the
+scornful backs and elbows of her late devotees, nor could approach
+nearer to the queen than the third or fourth row; but no sooner was she
+descried by her Majesty, than the queen cried aloud, '_There I am sure
+I see a friend!_' The torrent divided and shrunk to either side: 'and
+as I came away,' said my mother, 'I might have walked over their heads
+if I had pleased.'"[108] The general corruption and wickedness produced
+a remarkable misanthropy in the minds of men, which is reflected in the
+savage satire of Swift, in the bitter invective of Junius, in the
+cynicism of Lord Hervey. Sir Robert Walpole, said the latter, "had more
+warmth of affection and friendship for some particular people than one
+could have believed it possible for any one who had been so long raking
+in the dirt of mankind to be capable of feeling for so worthless a
+species of animals. One should naturally have imagined that the
+contempt and distrust he must have had for the species in gross, would
+have given him at least an indifference and distrust toward every
+particular."[109]
+
+The mercenary character of Parliament allowed the first two Georges to
+have much their own way as long as the money held out. Liberty of the
+subject, if not in great danger, had certainly lost its natural
+guardian. Few seats depended on a direct and popular vote. Most of them
+were in the gift of noblemen or rich commoners, "rotten boroughs,"
+having only "the bare name of a town, of which there remains not so
+much as the ruins."[110] Defoe tells us that the market price of a seat
+was a thousand guineas. The object of the purchaser was less often the
+service of his country, or even an honorable ambition, than the profit
+to be made from the sale of his vote. Members not infrequently had
+regular salaries from the government. "Sir Robert Walpole and the queen
+both told me separately," wrote Lord Hervey, "that it (the victory of
+the court) cost the king but 900_l_.--500_l_. to one man, and 400_l_.
+to another; and that even those two sums were advanced to two men who
+were to have received them at the end of the session had this question
+never been moved, and who only took this opportunity to solicit prompt
+payment."[111] Lord Chesterfield, in the same letter in which he spoke
+of the corrupt influencing of elections as a high crime and
+misdemeanor, recommends the Earl of Marchmont to _bribe_ "some of your
+venal peers" to confess that they took money to vote for the
+court.[112] "Ever since Lord Granville went out," wrote Horace Walpole
+in 1744, "all has been in suspense. The leaders of the Opposition
+immediately imposed silence upon their party; everything passed without
+the least debate, in short, _all were making their bargains_. One has
+heard of the corruption of courtiers, but, believe me the impudent
+prostitution of patriots, going to market with their honesty, beats it
+to nothing. Do but think of two hundred men _of the most consummate
+virtue_, setting themselves to sale for three weeks!"[113] The
+corruption of Parliament and the indifference, of members to any
+interests other than their own, were pointedly expressed by Queen
+Caroline in her reply to an address by Lord Stair[114]:--"I must,
+therefore, once more ask you, my Lord, how you can have the assurance
+to talk to me of your thinking the sense of constituents, their
+interests, or their instructions any measure or rule for the conduct of
+their representatives in Parliament. * * * To talk, therefore, in the
+patriot strain you have done to me on this occasion, can move me, my
+Lord, to nothing but laughter."
+
+In the words of Mr. Lecky,[115] the government was "corrupt,
+inefficient, and unheroic, but it was free from the gross vices of
+continental administrations; it was moderate tolerant, and economical;
+it was, with all its faults, a free government, and it contained in
+itself the elements of reformation." The national industry and
+resolution, particularly in the middle classes, brought about a great
+increase of wealth, a remarkable development of manufactures and
+commerce, which gave the country the extraordinary prosperity which it
+has since, almost without a check, enjoyed. The external appearance of
+England presented a new aspect. A fourth part of the whole land was
+redeemed from waste and put under cultivation.[116] The advance in
+agriculture and manufactures, making necessary better means of
+communication, introduced canals and substituted fine highways for the
+old muddy, robber-infested roads. The condition of these as late as
+1736 may be inferred from that of the road between Kensington and
+London: "The road between this place and London is grown so infamously
+bad, that we live here in the same solitude as we should do if cast on
+a rock in the middle of the ocean, and all the Londoners tell us there
+is between them and us a great, impassable gulf of mud. There are two
+roads through the Park, but the new one is so convex and the old one so
+concave, that by this extreme of faults they agree in the common one of
+being, like the high-road, impassable."[117]
+
+Social life was marked by the same corruption, by the same absence of
+high aspirations and standards which we have seen in politics. The
+nation, especially the higher ranks, had not recovered from the license
+of the Restoration, while the agencies which can preserve virtue and
+refinement in a society were almost inactive. Religion, partly in
+consequence of the reaction which followed the civil wars, and partly
+in consequence of the spread of rational tendencies, had lost its hold
+on society, and no longer sufficed to keep it in check. Theological
+controversy, although it issue in narrowness and persecution, yet has
+the merit of keeping alive an appreciation of high moral qualities and
+aims. In the absence of strong religious feeling, there is yet in the
+human mind a natural preference for what is beautiful and honorable,
+usually taking the form of ideals, which may keep up a social tone.
+This may be seen in the age of Elizabeth, not a very religious period,
+but one in which poetry and elevation of thought overshadow coarseness
+and immorality. The nineteenth century, again, is neither marked by
+strong religious feelings nor by any great tendency to idealization.
+And yet the nineteenth century has its standard, firmly based on public
+opinion, made up of a respect for decency and justice, a love of
+refinement, and an appreciation of the expediency as well as the
+attractiveness of virtue; a standard which influences many minds over
+which religion has little control. But in the earlier part of the
+eighteenth century, religion had ceased to govern, and had not yet
+attained that moral influence which, even in the absence of strong
+faith, establishes rectitude of conduct, philanthropy, and purity of
+thought in the minds of men. The ideals and aspirations of preceding
+centuries had no meaning for what Addison called an "understanding
+age," and the standard of order, refinement and taste of the present
+had yet to come. The low state of society was realized and revolted
+against by the best minds of the time. Gay lampooned it in the
+"Beggars' Opera," Swift satirized it in "Gulliver's Travels," Defoe
+became by force of circumstances a moral teacher; Addison, Steele, all
+the essayists preached lay sermons; the novelists set out with the
+object, less to amuse than to instruct, to improve their readers. This
+tendency, so marked in the literature of the time, is the evidence of
+the reforming influences at work. But many years passed before their
+effect was perceptible.
+
+There is nothing attractive about George the First and his two ugly old
+mistresses, the "Elephant" and the "Maypole"; nor about his court of
+Germans, utilizing their time in England by accumulating money to carry
+back to Hanover when the harvest time had passed. George the Second,
+brave, but narrow and ill-tempered, embodied in himself the coarseness
+of the time. He loved his wife, who was faithful to him through every
+outrage and every neglect. He caused one side to be taken out of her
+coffin, so that when he should be laid beside her his dust might mingle
+with hers. He esteemed her so highly, that in his grief at losing her,
+he went so far as to say that if she had not been his wife, he would
+have wished her for a mistress. To this wife, whom, in his own way, he
+sincerely loved and sincerely mourned, he confided all the details of
+his amours with other women. From Hanover, where he was acquiring
+Madame Walmoden as his mistress, "he acquainted the queen by letter of
+every step he took--of the growth of his passion, the progress of his
+applications, and their success, of every word as well as every action
+that passed--so minute a description of her person that, had the queen
+been a painter, she might have drawn her rival's picture at six hundred
+miles' distance. He added, too, the account of his buying her, and what
+he gave her, which, considering the rank of the purchaser, and the
+merits of the purchase as he set them forth, I think he had no great
+reason to brag of, when the first price, according to his report, was
+only one thousand ducats--a much greater proof of his economy than his
+passion."[118] Among many extraordinary relations and expressions his
+letters contained, "there was one in which he desired the queen to
+contrive, if she could, that the Prince of Modena, who was to come the
+latter end of the year to England, might bring his wife with him; and
+the reason he gave for it was, that he heard her Highness was pretty
+free of her person, and that he had the greatest inclination imaginable
+to pay his addresses to a daughter of the late Regent of France, the
+Duke of Orleans--'un plaisir' (for he always wrote in French), 'que je
+suis sur, ma chère Caroline, vous serez bien aise de me procurer, quand
+je vous dis combien je le souhaite.' Such a request to his wife
+respecting a woman he never saw, and during his connection with Madame
+Walmoden, speaks much stronger in a bare narrative of the fact, than by
+any comment or reflections; and is as incapable of being heightened as
+difficult to be credited."[119]
+
+Queen Caroline bore all this without a murmur in order to retain her
+political influence with the king. To the power of the queen she
+sacrificed the feelings of the woman. With many good qualities and
+considerable ability, she shared in the prevailing coarseness. Her son,
+the Prince of Wales, was a very disagreeable person. Neither the queen
+nor the Princess Caroline "made much ceremony of wishing a hundred
+times a day that the prince might drop down dead of an apoplexy--the
+queen cursing the hour of his birth, and the Princess Caroline
+declaring she grudged him every hour he continued to breathe; and
+reproaching Lord Hervey" for ever having believed "the nauseous beast
+(those were her words) cared for anybody but his own nauseous
+self."[120] The morning after the prince had been ordered to leave the
+palace, "the queen, at breakfast, every now and then repeated, 'I hope,
+in God, I shall never see him again'; and the king, among many other
+paternal _douceurs_ in his valediction to his son, said,'Thank-God,
+to-morrow night the puppy will be out of my house.'"[121] "My dear
+Lord" said the queen to Hervey, "I will give it to you under my own
+hand, if you are in any fear of my relapsing, that my dear first-born
+is the greatest ass and the greatest liar and the greatest _canaille_,
+and the greatest beast in the whole world, and that I most heartily
+wish he was out of it."[122] After the royal family, Sir Robert Walpole
+was the most prominent person in the country. He went about publicly
+with his mistress, and entertained his friends at his country-seat with
+orgies which disturbed the whole neighborhood. When the queen died he
+urged the princesses to get their father some new mistress to distract
+him. Lord Hervey says that Lady Sundon "had sense enough to perceive
+what black and dirty company, by living in a court, she was forced to
+keep."[123] Lady Deloraine, who was suspected of being the king's
+mistress, "when she spoke seriously to Sir Robert Walpole, pretended
+not to have yet yielded; and said 'she was not of an age like a vain or
+a loving fool, but that if she did consent, that she would be well
+paid.'"[124] "She told Lady Sundon, with whom she was very little
+acquainted, that the king had been very importunate these two years;
+and had often told her how unkind she was to refuse him; that it was
+mere crossness, for that he was sure her husband would not take it at
+all ill."[125] The looseness of the marriage tie had been a prevailing
+evil ever since the Restoration. Steele wrote in the _Tatler_ in 1710:
+"The wits of this island for above fifty years past, instead of
+correcting the vices of the age, have done all they could to inflame
+them. Marriage has been one of the common topics of ridicule that every
+stage scribbler hath found his account in; for whenever there is an
+occasion for a clap, an impertinent jest upon matrimony is sure to
+raise it. This hath been attended with very pernicious consequences.
+Many a country squire, upon his setting up for a man of the town, has
+gone home in the gaiety of his heart and beat his wife. A kind husband
+hath been looked upon as a clown, and a good wife as a domestic annual
+unfit for the company or conversation of the _beau monde_. In short,
+separate beds, silent tables, and solitary homes have been introduced
+by your men of wit and pleasure of the age."[126]
+
+The prevailing immorality and coarseness were in keeping with the
+absence of sympathy with all elevation of thought and sentiment. "If a
+man of any delicacy were to attend the discourses of the young fellows
+of this age," wrote Steele, "he would believe that there were none but
+prostitutes to make the objects of passion."[127] "Every woman is at
+heart a rake," thought Pope. Women were generally treated with
+disrespect, and distinctively female virtues were almost without
+appreciation. It is instructive to contrast the deeds of arms done in
+honor of a mistress in the Middle Ages, and the elevated sentiments
+held regarding women in what Addison called a "barbarous age," with the
+actions by which young men sometimes showed their devotion in the
+earlier part of the eighteenth century. The latter were as extravagant
+as the former, but extravagant after how different a manner. One young
+fellow, distinguished himself by drinking wine strained through his
+mistress' chemise; another, by drinking out of her shoe; another, by
+having her slipper torn to shreds, cooked, and served up as a dish.
+Coarseness of thought naturally brought on coarseness of action. Horace
+Walpole wrote in 1737, "'Tis no little inducement, to make me wish
+myself in France, that I hear gallantry is not left off there; that you
+may be polite, and not be thought awkward for it. You know the pretty
+men of the age in England use the women with no more deference than
+they do their coach horses, and have not half the regard for them that
+they have for themselves."[128]
+
+Against the grosser faults of immorality and indecency Steele and
+Addison preached. But even they were insensible to an elevated view of
+the relations between men and women. Such a view was, however, taken by
+Defoe; a man whom Steele and Addison, as well as the polite world in
+general, looked upon as an adventurer, and one whose opinions on social
+subjects they disdained. "We reproach the sex every day," wrote Defoe,
+"with folly and impertinence, while I am confident, had they the
+advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than
+ourselves. * * * I cannot think that God ever made them so delicate, so
+glorious creatures, and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable
+and so delightful to mankind, with souls capable of the same enjoyments
+as men, and all to be only stewards of our houses, cooks, and
+slaves."[129] Defoe stands almost alone in his remonstrance against the
+neglect of female education. But he stands more isolated still in his
+appreciation of womanly virtues, and in the enthusiasm with which he
+could speak of them. "A woman well-bred and well-taught, furnished with
+the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behavior, is a creature
+without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments;
+she is all softness and sweetness, love, wit, and delight; she is every
+way suitable to the sublimest wish; and the man that has such a one to
+his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her and be
+thankful."[130]
+
+Love was hardly distinguished from mere animal desire. The poets wrote
+of it coldly and conventionally, as of a thing which existed only in
+name. The lover could only beg his mistress "to ease his pain." But the
+conventionality which extended through all thoughts and expressions
+relating to the higher emotions of the human soul, had no effect in
+diminishing the coarseness of thought and conversation. Men were
+conventional as regards the nobler sentiments of life, but they were
+not conventional in the spirit which excludes from conversation and
+literature the gross and the immoral. Chesterfield wrote to his son of
+honor, justice, and so forth, as qualities of which he should know the
+names, but of no consequence compared to "manners, good-breeding, and
+the graces." If a man blushed, it was not at his own indecency, nor at
+his own vice, but at the supposition that he could be so weak as to be
+influenced by sentiments of delicacy. Coarseness is, of course, quite
+separate from immorality, although the two are usually found together.
+In the earlier part of the eighteenth century there was a marked
+distinction between them. Swift's Stella, a woman of refinement, was
+highly indignant at remarks being made before her of a licentious
+character, but she herself used expressions of the grossest description
+without a thought of impropriety. The same distinction is seen in the
+essays and novels of the time. Swift, Defoe, Fielding, Richardson, all
+had a moral object in their fictions--the exposure and condemnation of
+vice, the encouragement of virtue. And yet most of these novels,
+especially intended to exert a good influence, are of so coarse a
+nature, and describe scenes so licentious that no parent would now
+allow them in their children's hands. The essayists wrote principally
+what we should now look upon as sermons, or moral teachings, and yet
+very many of their papers are unfit to be read in a mixed society. Men
+and women were made then of coarser stuff than we. Their eyes and ears
+were less sensitive. They were, at best, accustomed to think and speak
+of things which to us seem disgusting, and of which, therefore, we
+think and speak as little as possible. In view of the circumstances
+which influenced society in the last century, this condition was a
+perfectly natural one. We must bear it in mind in reading contemporary
+literature, that we may not mistake an author's intention. But we must
+be careful in censuring what was, after all, only one necessary stage
+in the development of our own civilization. It must be said, also, that
+the coarseness of the eighteenth century was a healthy coarseness, bred
+of energetic natures and animal spirits. In our time, and in the midst
+of our advanced refinement there lurks a sickly sentimentality, a false
+modesty, and an unhealthy delicacy which are in a degree inimical to
+morality. We have novels in great numbers, not broadly coarse, as those
+of Fielding or Smollett, but insidiously immoral, painting vice and
+unbridled passions in an attractive light.
+
+The same rude and physical coarseness controlled the standard of taste,
+and introduced boisterousness and violence even into amusements. "The
+present grandeur of the British nation might make us expect," wrote
+Steele, "that we should rise in our public diversions and manner of
+enjoying life, in proportion to our advancement in glory and power.
+Instead of that, survey this town, and you will find rakes and
+debauchees are your men of pleasure; thoughtless atheists and
+illiterate drunkards call themselves free-thinkers; and gamesters,
+banterers, biters, swearers, and twenty new-born insects more, are, in
+their several species, the modern men of wit."[131] Walpole[132] wrote
+in 1744: "The town has been trying all this winter to drive pantomimes
+off the stage, very boisterously; for it is the way here to make even
+an affair of taste and sense a matter of riot and arms. Fleetwood, the
+master of Drury Lane, has omitted nothing to support them, as they
+supported his house. About ten days ago he let into the pit great
+numbers of bear-garden _bruisers_ (that is the term), to knock down
+everybody that hissed. The pit rallied their forces and drove them out.
+I was sitting very quietly in the boxes contemplating all this. On a
+sudden the curtain flew up, and discovered the whole stage filled with
+blackguards armed with bludgeons and clubs, to menace the audience.
+This raised the greatest uproar."
+
+Mrs. Delany, whose character has excited so much admiration in her own
+and in succeeding generations, left, in her autobiography and letters,
+a picture of the society about her as seen by one of the most refined
+and cultivated women of the time. Like many others, she was struck with
+disgust at the coarseness and immorality which surrounded her. "It is
+enough to make one a cynic, to shun the world, and shut oneself up in a
+tub as Diogenes did; but I must acknowledge, though the age is very
+degenerate, that it is not quite void of perfection. I know some
+persons that still reconcile me to the world, and that convince me that
+virtue is not fled, though it is confined to a few."[133] "The men have
+so despicable an opinion of women, and treat them by their words and
+actions so ungenerously and inhumanly."[134] "The women were never so
+audacious as now; this may well be called the brazen age."[135] The
+material tone of society and its lack of sentiment were largely
+responsible for the low estimation in which women were held. Marriages
+were almost universally arranged on the simple basis of money, a
+circumstance which explains much of the conjugal infidelity and
+unhappiness which prevailed. "My Lady A.'s behaviour," wrote Mrs.
+Delany,[136] "and some more wives' behaviour of the same stamp, has so
+disgraced matrimony that I am not surprised the men are afraid of it;
+and if we consider the loose morals of the men, it is strange the women
+are so easily won to their own undoing." Mrs. Delany, while a young
+married woman, although she was known to be of a virtuous character,
+was subjected to licentious attacks which fell little short of
+violence. It is hardly necessary to comment on the hard drinking and
+the hard swearing which were almost universal characteristics of
+gentlemen of fashion. Duelling was still a custom, and gambling was the
+favorite amusement at court, at the clubs, and in ladies'
+drawing-rooms. The title of gentleman depended on birth, and had
+nothing to do with personal conduct. Caste feeling was very strong.
+Gentlemen looked upon professional men or men of letters as beneath
+them, however superior they might be in manners, morals, or education.
+A curious instance of this caste feeling occurred in the case of
+Captain Vratz, who said of himself and companions on their way to the
+gallows for murder, that "God would show them some respect as they were
+gentlemen." When Gay's "Beggar's Opera" was put on the stage, the
+fashionable world crowded to see their own coarseness and immorality
+exhibited in the persons of thieves and highwaymen, and to laugh at the
+truth of the Beggar's words: "Through the whole piece you may observe
+such a similitude of manners in high and low life, that it is difficult
+to determine whether (in the fashionable vices) the fine gentlemen
+imitate the gentlemen of the road, or the gentlemen of the road the
+fine gentlemen."
+
+The lower classes of society were as ignorant and brutal as the higher
+were coarse and corrupt. Among the other qualities in which the times
+were deficient, was philanthropy. The measures which the wisdom and
+charity of the present have exerted to diminish crime, and to improve
+the condition of the poor, were then represented only by a harsh and
+cruel penal code, which had a powerful, though an indirect tendency to
+promote pauperism and to multiply criminals. Although population had
+greatly increased, no new provision had been made for religious
+teaching, and there were no schools but those of Edward and
+Elizabeth.[137] Defective poor-laws, which forbade laborers to move
+from one parish to another in search of work, made pauperism in many
+cases the inevitable fate of the industrious. In the cities there was
+no adequate police regulation of the criminal classes; and this, too,
+at a time when peaceful habits were fast growing among the people at
+large, and police protection was more needed than ever before. At the
+same time there came upon the lower classes, the terrible scourge of
+gin. Violent and ignorant as these classes were, the effects upon them
+of so cheap and maddening a drink were incalculably debasing. "The
+drunkenness of the common people," says an eye-witness, "was so
+universal by the retailing of a liquor called _gin_, with which they
+could get drunk for a groat, that the whole town of London, and many
+towns in the country swarmed with drunken people of both sexes from
+morning to night, and were more like a scene from a Bacchanal than the
+residence of a civil society."[138] The sign which hangs over the
+inn-door in Hogarth's picture of Gin Lane, and announces that the
+customer can get drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, and have
+straw for nothing, was a copy, not an invention. Attempts to limit the
+traffic in gin were met by riots so fierce that the government was
+obliged to withdraw its measures. The violent natures of the common
+people appeared in their amusements as well as in their crimes. Their
+sports were of the most brutal kind, and almost all involved the
+sufferings of men or animals. Among other entertainments advertised to
+take place in London in 1729 and 1730, were "a mad bull to be dressed
+up with fireworks and turned loose in the game place, a dog to be
+dressed up with fireworks over him, a bear to be let loose at the same
+time, and a cat to be tied to the bull's tail, a mad bull dressed up
+with fireworks to be baited."[139] Such amusements were interspersed
+with cock-fighting, prize fights, and boxing matches between women. The
+same brutality characterised the crimes of the period. Violent riots,
+aggravated by the plunder of gin-shops, attended the preaching of the
+Methodists, the Gin Act, and even the employment by Garrick of a few
+French dancers at Drury Lane Theatre. Piracy and smuggling were
+systematically carried on, accompanied by atrocious cruelties and
+murders. It was no uncommon practice for the inhabitants of the
+sea-coast to lure vessels on shore by false signals in order to plunder
+them.
+
+Other causes, as well as the ignorance and brutality in which the lower
+classes almost necessarily lived, contributed to the number and
+impunity of criminals. It was only in 1736 that the streets of London,
+hitherto plunged at night in total darkness, began to be lighted for a
+few hours by lamps. The right of sanctuary, which still practically
+existed in such quarters as Whitefriars and the Mint afforded to
+criminals an easy and safe retreat beyond the reach of the law. The
+rougher elements of the upper as well as of the lower classes, made the
+streets impassable at night without great danger. They organized
+themselves into bands, and committed atrocious and wanton brutalities
+on inoffensive passers-by. One band, called the Modocs, indulged in the
+amusement called "tipping the lion" which consisted in flattening the
+nose of the victim on his face and boring out his eyes with the
+fingers. There were also the "dancing masters," who made people dance
+by pricking them with swords, the "sweaters," who pricked their victims
+with swords till they fell exhausted, and the "tumblers," who set women
+on their heads and mutilated their limbs.[140] Others rolled women down
+hill in barrels, cut the faces of maid-servants, and slit the noses of
+watchmen. The criminal classes became so daring and numerous that the
+streets were insecure even in the day-time, "It is shocking to think
+what a shambles this country is grown!" wrote Walpole. "Seventeen were
+executed this morning, after having murdered the turnkey on Friday
+night, and almost forced open Newgate. One is forced to travel even at
+noon, as if one were going to battle."[141] It was the custom to go
+out at night accompanied by armed servants. Addison gave an amusing
+description of the precautions observed when Sir Roger de Coverley was
+taken to the theatre. "The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there
+at the appointed Hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put
+on the same Sword which he made use of at the Battle of _Steenkirk_.
+Sir Roger's Servants, and among the rest my old Friend the Butler, had,
+I found, provided themselves with good oaken Plants to attend their
+Master upon this occasion. When we had placed him in his Coach, with
+myself at his left hand, the Captain before him, and his Butler at the
+Head of his Footmen in the Rear, we convoyed him in safety to the
+Playhouse."[142] "One night, in the beginning of November, 1749," wrote
+Walpole, "as I was returning from Holland House by moonlight, about ten
+at night, I was attacked by two highwaymen in Hyde Park, and the pistol
+of one of them going off accidentally, razed the skin under my left eye,
+left some marks of shot on my face, and stunned me."[143] These men were
+taken about a year later. "I have been in town for a day or two, and
+heard no conversation but about M'Lean, a fashionable highwayman, who
+is just taken, and who robbed me among others. * * * His father was an
+Irish Dean; his brother is a Calvinist minister in great esteem at the
+Hague. * * * He took to the road with only one companion, Plunkett, a
+journeyman apothecary, my other friend. * * * M'Lean had a lodging in
+St. James Street, over against White's, and another at Chelsea; Plunkett
+one in Jermyn St., and their faces are as well known about St. James' as
+any gentleman who lives in that quarter, and who, perhaps, goes upon the
+road too. M'Lean had a quarrel at Putney Bowling Green two months ago
+with an officer whom he challenged for disputing his rank; but the
+captain declined, till M'Lean should produce a certificate of his
+nobility, which he has just received. * * * As I conclude he will suffer,
+and wish him no ill, I don't care to have his idea, and am almost single
+in not having been to see him. Lord Mountford at the head of half White's
+went the first day: his aunt was crying over him: as soon as they were
+withdrawn she said to him, knowing they were of White's, 'My dear, what
+did the lords say to you? Have you ever been concerned with any of
+them?'--was not it admirable? What a favorable idea people must have
+of White's! and what if White's should not deserve a much better! But
+the chief personages who have been to comfort and weep over this fallen
+hero are Lady Caroline Petersham and Miss Asche: I call them Polly and
+Lucy."[144]
+
+The fact that death was the penalty for almost all serious violations
+of the law gave an additional zest to crime. The criminal looked upon
+himself, and was looked upon by others, as a brave man, and even those
+who abhorred the crime retained a certain admiration for the courage
+which they thought involved in its commission. Felons sat erect and
+proud in the cart which carried them to execution. Their great ambition
+was to die like "gentlemen," and they saw no disgrace in death by "the
+ladder and the cord," so long as it was borne with bravado. Criminals
+are frequent and prominent characters in contemporary fiction. The
+period contributed more than any other to the romance of crime, and a
+glamour has been cast over the most infamous careers which has made
+them celebrated to the present day. The famous highwayman Dick Turpin,
+and one Parsons, the son of a baronet, educated at Eton, attained a
+public interest and admiration, in which the greatness of their crimes
+was forgotten in the dangers they incurred and the boldness with which
+they defied justice. When Jack Sheppard, the burglar, was finally
+captured after two remarkable escapes from Newgate,[145] he became a
+popular hero. Great numbers of people visited him in prison and gave
+him presents of money. Several lives were written of him.
+
+But the most remarkable criminal career, and that which best
+illustrates the inefficiency of the law and the impunity and ferocity
+of criminals, is that of Johnathan Wild, surnamed the Great.[146] This
+man spent some time in Newgate, and having become acquainted with the
+secrets and methods of its inhabitants, married a notorious woman who
+was well versed in similar knowledge. He then set up an establishment
+for receiving stolen goods, and organized thieves into regular bands.
+Some were to rob churches, others to pick pockets at theatres and
+fairs, others to rob on the streets and highways. He even divided the
+country into districts, and appointed a special gang to work in each.
+All these thieves were obliged to account to him for what they stole,
+and he disposed of it in London, or if that seemed too dangerous, he
+sent it abroad in a ship of his own. He attained over lesser criminals
+the most rigid authority and absolute power. His lieutenants were
+chosen among transported convicts who had returned before the
+expiration of their terms. These were legally incapable of giving
+evidence against Wild, but he could send them to the gallows at a
+moment's notice, if suspicious of their fidelity, by information to the
+authorities. Over the common thieves he had nearly the same power.
+Those whom he suspected of retaining part of their booty, or whom he
+feared as witnesses against himself, were at once sent to the gallows
+by private information to the magistrates. On the other hand, a thief
+who was in danger of arrest, if useful and faithful, was taken into
+Wild's own house, protected, fed, and employed in counterfeiting or
+other in-door occupation. When a law was passed making it criminal to
+receive stolen goods, Wild opened an intelligence office for the
+discovery of missing articles. To that office came the thieves, like so
+many workmen, to deliver their booty and receive their wages, and
+there, too, came the robbed to describe their losses and name their
+rewards. If the reward were sufficient to satisfy Wild, he returned the
+article; otherwise he had it made unrecognizable by skilled workmen
+whom he employed for the purpose, and presented it to a faithful
+follower, or disposed of it in the regular course of business. It is
+impossible not to notice a certain resemblance between Johnathan Wild
+and Defoe's English Tradesman. The practical turn of mind, the absence
+of sentiment so characteristic of the times, are to be seen alike in
+the thief, the tradesman, and the gentleman. Conducted on purely
+business principles, like a mercer's shop or a marriage between noble
+families, without hatred or affection, anger or generosity, the work
+went on. Wild dealt in human lives with the same cold, money-making
+calculation which directed the disposal of a stolen watch. When public
+complaints were made, that although many robberies were committed few
+thieves were apprehended, Wild supplied the gallows with thieves who
+were useless to him or lukewarm in his interest. When a large reward
+was offered for the apprehension of a criminal, Wild was usually able
+to deliver the man. If he was unable to do so, or was friendly to the
+criminal, he still secured the reward by giving false information
+against an innocent person, and supported his assertions by the perjury
+of his subordinates. By these methods he soon grew rich. He carried a
+silver wand which he asserted to be a badge of office given him by the
+government, and entered into secret leagues with corrupt magistrates.
+After a time he called himself a gentleman, and wore a sword, the first
+use of which was to cut off his wife's ear. At last he was detected in
+aiding the escape of a highwayman confined in Newgate, and being
+deprived of his power, he was easily convicted. He was hung in 1725,
+and on his way to the scaffold was almost pelted to death by the mob.
+
+The impunity with which Wild followed his long career of crime was not
+unusual. The authorities were inefficient and corrupt. Fielding,
+himself a police justice, makes a magistrate say in "Amelia": "And to
+speak my opinion plainly, such are the laws and such the method of
+proceeding that one would almost think our laws were made for the
+protection of rogues, rather than for the punishment of them." The laws
+bore hardly upon the poor and spared the rich. "The parson," complained
+Defoe in the "Poor Man's Plea," "preaches a thundering sermon against
+drunkenness, and the justice of the peace sets my poor neighbor in the
+stocks, and I am like to be much the better for either, when I know
+perhaps that this same parson and this same justice were both drunk
+together but the night before." The magistrates and constables were as
+much in need of reform as the laws. "The greatest criminals in this
+town," said Walpole,[147] "are the officers of justice; there is no
+tyranny they do not exercise, no villany of which they do not partake."
+Many of the magistrates were never impartial, except, as Fielding said:
+"when they could get nothing on either side." One class of constables
+was described by Fielding in "Amelia."[148] The watchmen intended "to
+guard our streets by night from thieves and robbers, an office which at
+least requires strength of body, are chosen out of those poor old
+decrepit people, who are from their want of bodily strength rendered
+incapable of getting a livelihood by work. These men, armed only with a
+pole, which some of them are scarce able to lift, are to secure the
+persons and houses of his Majesty's subjects from the attacks of young,
+bold, stout, desperate, and well-armed villains. If the poor old
+fellows should run away from such enemies, no one, I think, can wonder,
+unless it be that they were able to make their escape." Defoe's
+pickpockets are always more afraid of being mobbed on the spot, than of
+being detected and punished by the police. Well known highwaymen not
+infrequently rode through the streets of London with armed companions,
+although large rewards were offered for their capture. Many of the
+constables were of the most villanous character. The following
+incident, recorded by Walpole, is only one of many instances of their
+brutality which might be mentioned.[149] "There has lately been the
+most shocking scene of murder imaginable; a parcel of _drunken_
+constables took it into their heads to put the laws in execution
+against _disorderly_ persons, and so took up every woman they met till
+they had collected five or six and twenty, all of whom they thrust into
+St. Martin's round house, where they kept them all night, with doors
+and windows closed. The poor creatures, who could not stir or breathe,
+screamed as long as they had any breath left, begging at least for
+water; one poor wretch said she was worth eighteen-pence, and would
+gladly give it for a draught of water, but in vain! So well did they
+keep them there, that in the morning four were found stifled to death;
+two died soon after, and a dozen more are in a shocking way. In short,
+it is horrid to think what the poor creatures suffered. Several of them
+were beggars, who, from having no lodging, were necessarily found in
+the street, and others honest labouring women. One of the dead was a
+poor washer-woman, big with child, who was returning home late from
+washing. * * * These same men, the same night, broke into a bagnio in
+Covent Garden, and took up Jack Spencer, Mr. Stewart, and Lord George
+Graham, and would have thrust them into the round-house with the poor
+women if they had not been worth more than eighteen-pence!"
+
+Keepers of prisons bought their places with the distinct purpose of
+making money by extortions from the prisoners. The following is an
+account of the means pursued by Bainbridge, Warden of the Fleet, to
+extort money from one Solas, a poor man, imprisoned for debt[150]:
+"Bainbridge caused him to be turned into the dungeon, called the Strong
+Room of the Master's side. This place is a vault, like those in which
+the dead are interred, and wherein the bodies of persons dying in the
+said prison are usually deposited till the coroner's inquest hath
+passed upon them; it has no chimney nor fireplace, nor any light but
+what comes over the door, or through a hole of about eight inches
+square. It is neither paved nor boarded; and the rough bricks appear
+both on the sides and top, being neither wainscotted nor plastered;
+what adds to the dampness and stench of the place, is its being built
+over the common sewer, and adjoining to the sink and dunghill where all
+the nastiness of the prison is cast. In this miserable place the poor
+wretch was kept by the said Bainbridge manacled and shackled for near
+two months. At length on receiving five guineas from Mr. Kemp, a friend
+of Solas's, Bainbridge released the prisoner from his cruel
+confinement. But though his chains were taken off, his terror still
+remained, and the unhappy man was prevailed upon by that terror, not
+only to labor _gratis_ for the said Bainbridge, but to swear also at
+random all that he hath required of him; and the committee themselves
+saw an instance of the deep impression his sufferings had made upon
+him; for on his surmising from something said, that Bainbridge was to
+return again as Warden of the Fleet, he fainted, and the blood started
+out of his mouth and nose." This example is by no means an exceptional
+one. It is impossible, within the limits of this volume, to give an
+adequate idea of the disease, the squalor, the cruelties and abuses
+which existed in the prisons. Their interiors are often described by
+the novelists, who were unable to exaggerate the actual circumstances.
+Poor prisoners, when acquitted, were dragged back to prison and kept
+there till their dues were paid or they were released by death. Richer
+men were subjected to all sorts of indignity and danger, even to that
+of small-pox, to force them to enrich their jailers.
+
+The social condition of England in the first half of the eighteenth
+century presents a material and unattractive aspect. Its most prominent
+characteristics are the corruption and coarseness of the upper classes,
+and the ignorant brutality of the lower. Still there existed beneath
+this exterior, qualities and habits in the highest degree favorable to
+civilization and social order. At a later time these qualities brought
+about reforms which did away with many of the worst abuses. Among the
+middle classes, fast rising to political and social prominence, lived
+an earnest morality, which at a later time took form in the great
+Methodist revival, and the rise of philanthropy. This persevering
+industry of the same classes added enormously to the wealth of the
+nation. When reform came, it came as a revolt against existing
+conditions, showing at once how bad those conditions were, and how
+strongly the popular mind inclined to a better state. A general feeling
+of disgust prevailed which left deep traces on contemporary literature,
+and produced a widespread misanthropy. The first half of the eighteenth
+century was to the period of the Restoration like the morning after a
+debauch. Rochester, in the time of Charles II, and Hervey, in the time
+of George II were representative men. The difference in the feelings
+with which these men looked upon life is significant. Rochester, in the
+full tide of dissipation, glories in his sensuality, and writes the
+"Maimed Debauchee."
+
+      Should some brave youth (worth being drunk) prove nice,
+      And from his fair inviter meanly shrink,
+      'T would please the ghost of my departed vice,
+      If, at my council, he repent and drink.
+
+But Hervey represents the time when dissipation had run a long course,
+and disgust, sanctity, and misanthropy were succeeding. To him, as to
+Swift, men were "a worthless species of animals," their vices, natural;
+their virtues, affectation:
+
+      Mankind I know, their nature and their art,
+      Their vice their own, their virtue but a part
+      Ill played so oft, that all the cheat can tell,
+      And dangerous only when 't is acted well,
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+      To such reflections when I turn my mind
+      _I loathe my being, and abhor mankind._
+
+
+[Footnote 90: Carlyle, "Frederick the Great," p. 13. vol. i.]
+
+[Footnote 91: Addison, "An Account of the Greatest English Poets."
+Quoted by Henry Morley, LL.D., "English Literature in the Reign of
+Victoria."]
+
+[Footnote 92: Lecky's "History of England in the 18th Century," vol. i,
+p. 502.]
+
+[Footnote 93: Lord Hervey, "Memoirs of George II," v. 3, p. 527.]
+
+[Footnote 94: Hervey's "Mem. of George II," vol. 1, p. 147, note.]
+
+[Footnote 95: Walpole's "Reminiscences"; Hervey's "Mem.," v. 2, p. 103,
+note.]
+
+[Footnote 96: Walpole's "Mem. of George II," vol. 1, p. 87.]
+
+[Footnote 97: Browne's "Estimate of the Times"; Lecky, "Hist. of 18th
+Century," vol. 1, p. 509.]
+
+[Footnote 98: Lord Hervey, "Mem. of Geo. II," vol. i, p. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 99: _Idem_, vol. i, p. 170.]
+
+[Footnote 100: _Idem_, vol. i, p. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 101: Hervey's "Mem.," i, 20.]
+
+[Footnote 102: _Idem_, vol. 1, p. 208.]
+
+[Footnote 103: Hervey's "Memoirs," 1, 39.]
+
+[Footnote 104: _Idem_, ii, 360.]
+
+[Footnote 105: _Idem_, ii, 31.]
+
+[Footnote 106: _Idem_, vol. i, p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 107: Hervey's "Memoirs," vol. 1, p. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 108: Hervey, 1, 22-25.]
+
+[Footnote 109: Horace Walpole, "Reminiscences."]
+
+[Footnote 110: Locke "On Civil Government," b. ii, ch. 13; Lecky's
+"History of the 18th Century," vol. I, p. 471.]
+
+[Footnote 111: Hervey's "Memoirs," ii, 280.]
+
+[Footnote 112: Chesterfield, "Correspondence," iii, 94.]
+
+[Footnote 113: Walpole to Mann, Dec. 24, 1741.]
+
+[Footnote 114: Hervey's "Memoirs," i, 172.]
+
+[Footnote 115: "History of the Eighteenth Century," vol. 1, p. 512.]
+
+[Footnote 116: Green's "Short History of the English People," pp. 768-9.]
+
+[Footnote 117: Hervey, ii, 189, note.]
+
+[Footnote 118: Hervey's "Memoirs," vol. i, p. 500.]
+
+[Footnote 119: Hervey's "Memoirs," vol. i, p. 502.]
+
+[Footnote 120: Lord Hervey's "Memoirs", ii, 255.]
+
+[Footnote 121: _Idem_, ii, 434.]
+
+[Footnote 122: Hervey's "Memoirs," ii, 472.]
+
+[Footnote 123: Hervey's "Memoirs," ii, 350.]
+
+[Footnote 124: _Idem_, i, 90.]
+
+[Footnote 125: _Idem_, ii, 349.]
+
+[Footnote 126: _Tatler_, No. 159, Saturday, April 15, 1710.]
+
+[Footnote 127: Steele, _Tatler_, No. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 128: Walpole to Montague, March 20, 1737.]
+
+[Footnote 129: Wilson's "Memoirs of Defoe," vol. i, p. 265.]
+
+[Footnote 130: Wilson's "Memoirs of Defoe," vol. i, p. 206.]
+
+[Footnote 131: Steele, _Tatler_, No. 12 May 7, 1709.]
+
+[Footnote 132: Walpole to Mann, Nov. 26, 1711.]
+
+[Footnote 133: Letter to Mrs. Ann Granville, Dec. 5, 1739.]
+
+[Footnote 134: Letter to Mrs. Ann Granville, Jan. 17, 1731-32.]
+
+[Footnote 135: Letter to Mrs. Ann Granville, Nov. 18, 1729.]
+
+[Footnote 136: Letter to Mrs. Ann Granville, Christmas-day, 1729.]
+
+[Footnote 137: Green, "Short History of the English People," p. 717.]
+
+[Footnote 138: Lord Hervey's "Memoirs of George II," vol. ii, p. 139.]
+
+[Footnote 139: Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," p. 259; Lecky, "History
+of England in the 18th Century," vol. i, chap. iv.]
+
+[Footnote 140: Lecky, "History of England in the 18th Century," vol. i,
+p. 522.]
+
+[Footnote 141: Walpole to Sir H. Mann, March 23, 1752.]
+
+[Footnote 142: The _Spectator_, "Sir Roger at the Playhouse."]
+
+[Footnote 143: Horace Walpole, "Short Notes of My Life."]
+
+[Footnote 144: Horace Walpole to Sir H. Mann, Aug. 2, 1750.]
+
+[Footnote 145: See the "Newgate Calendar."]
+
+[Footnote 146: See the "Newgate Calendar" and Pike's "History of
+Crime," vol. 2, chap. x.]
+
+[Footnote 147: Walpole to Mann, bet. July 14 and 29, 1742.]
+
+[Footnote 148: "Amelia," book i, chap. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 149: Walpole to Mann, bet. July 14 and 29, 1742.]
+
+[Footnote 150: "State Trials;" vol. xvii, p. 298. _Proceedings against
+John Higgins, Esq., Warden of the Fleet, Thomas Bainbridge, Esq., Warden of
+the Fleet, Richard Corbett, one of the Tipstaffs of the Fleet, and
+William Acton, Keeper of the Marshalsea Prison: 3 George II, A.D. 1729.
+Report of the Com. of the House of Commons_.]
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Lord Hervey's bitter lines introduce us to Jonathan Swift. Nature,
+together with the character of his time, made the great Dean a
+misanthropist. Physical infirmity, disappointed hopes, and a long
+series of humiliations destroyed the happiness which should have
+belonged to his rare union of noble gifts,--his tall, commanding
+figure, his awe-inspiring countenance, his acute wit, and magnificent
+intellect. Naturally proud and sensitive to an abnormal degree, he was
+obliged to suffer the most galling slights. From his earliest years he
+hated dependence, and yet, until middle life he was forced to be a
+dependent. His education was furnished by the charity of relatives,
+between whom and himself there was no affection. His college degree was
+conferred in a manner which made it a disgrace rather than an honor.
+The long years which he passed in the household of Sir William Temple,
+subject to the humors and caprices of his master, embittered his temper
+at the time of life when it should have been most buoyant and hopeful.
+Thus began the melancholy and misanthropy which marred his whole life,
+darkening his triumphs, turning such love as he had to give into a
+curse to those who received it, producing an eccentricity which often
+gave him the appearance of a madman, and finally bringing him to a
+terrible end--to die, as he himself foretold, like a blasted elm, first
+at the top. He kept his birthday as a day of mourning. He solemnly
+regretted his escape when nearly killed by an accident. He habitually
+parted from a friend with the wish that they might never meet again.
+Cæsar's description of Cassius is wonderfully applicable to Swift:[151]
+
+                      ----He reads much;
+      He is a great observer, and he looks
+      Quite through the deeds of men ----
+      Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort
+      As if he mocked himself, and scorn'd his spirit
+      That could be amused to smile at any thing.
+
+The character of Swift presents great apparent contradictions. Although
+full of good-will and appreciation for individuals, although exercising
+out of a small income the most discriminating and open handed
+generosity, there has never lived a man more bitter in his misanthropy,
+more fierce in his denunciation of mankind. Although capable of great
+and disinterested affection, he was unable to make his affection a
+source of happiness to himself or to others. Although he always chose
+for companionship the most refined and cultivated women, the wisest and
+most honored men, his mind dwelt by preference on the most terrible
+examples of human depravity, and he gave permanent form, in his
+literary productions, to ideas from which a healthy mind must always
+turn with horror and disgust. His misanthropy was founded partly on
+observation of the evil and corruption which he saw about him, and
+partly on the suspicions and exaggerations of his own imagination. He
+gave up writing a history of England, because, in his own words, he
+found the characters of history such a pack of rascals that he would
+have no more to say to them. He made a "List of Friends," which he
+classified as Grateful, Ungrateful, Indifferent, and Doubtful. Of these
+friends, forty-four in number, only seventeen were marked with the _g_
+which signified that their friendship was trusted. We cannot
+disassociate Swift from his own time, nor can we attribute simply to a
+melancholy life or to mental aberration the revolting conceptions which
+his works contain. The coarseness and corruption which marked the
+private and public life of Swift's day had their share in the
+production of such poems as The "Lady's Dressing-Room," and such
+degrading views of human nature as are expressed in the "Voyage to the
+Houyhnhnms."
+
+It is a significant sign of the times that Hogarth, the greatest
+English painter, and Swift, the greatest English writer, should have
+employed their talents in caricature and in satire. In the wonderful
+allegory of the "Tale of a Tub," in which the corruptions and failings
+of the English, Roman, and Presbyterian churches were ridiculed in the
+persons of Jack, Peter, and Martin, Swift displayed at an early age his
+exuberant wit and surpassing satirical power. The "Tale of a Tub" was
+succeeded by the "Battle of the Books," an imaginary conflict between
+volumes in a library, which exposed the absurdity of the controversy
+over the relative merits of the ancients and the moderns. But Swift's
+satire became most fierce and brilliant when it was turned from rival
+creeds and rival literatures, and directed toward mankind itself.
+
+The "Travels of Lemuel Gulliver" were dropped, said the publisher, at
+his house, in the dark, from a hackney-coach. In regard to this work,
+the Dean followed his custom of sending out his writings to the world
+to make their way on their own merits, without the assistance of his
+name. But the authorship of the book could not long remain unknown
+before the storm of applause and curiosity which it immediately
+excited. It was a production, said Johnson,[152] "so new and strange
+that it filled the reader with a mingled emotion of merriment and
+amazement. It was received with such avidity, that the price of the
+first edition was raised before the second could be made; it was read
+by the high and the low, the learned and illiterate. Criticism was for
+a while lost in wonder; no rules of judgment were applied to a book
+written in open defiance of truth and regularity." Whether read for the
+satire or the story, the adventures of Gulliver proved equally
+fascinating. They "offered personal and political satire to the readers
+in high life, low and coarse incidents to the vulgar, marvels to the
+romantic, wit to the young and lively, lessons of morality and policy
+to the grave, and maxims of deep and bitter misanthropy to neglected
+age and disappointed ambition."[153]
+
+The early part of the eighteenth century offered rich material to the
+satirist, and Swift brought to his work unparalleled fierceness and
+power. He attacked the corruption of the politician and the minister,
+the vanity and vice of the courtier, the folly and extravagance of the
+fashionable world, and gathering venom in his course, made his satire
+universal and painted the pettiness and deformity of the human race.
+But among the follies and vices of mankind, vanity was the fault most
+offensive to Swift, and that which he lashed with his most bitter
+invective. To ridicule human pride, and to expose its inconsistency
+with the imperfection of man, is the ruling object of his great
+satirical romance. On Gulliver's return to England from the land of the
+Houyhnhnms, where, under the degraded form of Yahoos, he had studied
+mankind as they appeared when influenced by all human vices and brutal
+instincts unveiled by hypocrisy or civilization, he describes his
+horror at observing the existence of vanity among his countrymen who
+resembled Yahoos so closely;--
+
+    My reconcilement to the Yahoo kind in general might not be so
+    difficult, if they would be content with those vices and follies
+    only which nature has entitled them to. I am not in the least
+    provoked at the sight of a lawyer, a pickpocket, a colonel, a fool,
+    a lord, a gamester, a politician, a whoremonger, a physician, an
+    evidence, a suborner, an attorney, a traitor, or the like; this is
+    all according to the due course of things: but when I behold a lump
+    of deformity and diseases, both in body and mind, smitten with
+    pride, it immediately breaks all the measures of my patience;
+    neither shall I ever be able to comprehend how such an animal, and
+    such a vice, could tally together.
+
+In the "Voyage to Lilliput" the follies and vanities of individuals and
+of parties are ridiculed by the representation of their practice among
+diminutive beings. Sir Robert Walpole suffered in the person of Flimnap
+the Lilliputian Premier, Tories and Whigs in the High-Heels and
+Low-Heels, Catholics and Protestants in the Big-endians and
+Small-endians. In the "Voyage to Brobdingnag," where Gulliver finds
+himself a pigmy among giants, the general object of the satire is the
+same, but its application becomes more bitter and universal.
+Characteristics of the human race hardly perceptible in their ordinary
+proportions, attain a disgusting and monstrous prominence when seen in
+the huge persons of the Brobdingnagians. The king of this gigantic
+people is represented as a beneficent monarch, who directs all his
+energies toward the peace, prosperity, and material advancement of his
+subjects; who seeks with a cold, calculating mind, undisturbed by
+passion or prejudice, the greatest good of the greatest number. To this
+monarch Gulliver gave a description of his native country: "I artfully
+eluded many of his questions, and gave to every point a more favorable
+turn, by many degrees, than the strictness of truth would allow; for I
+have always borne that laudable partiality to my own country, which
+Dionysius Halicarnasseusis, with so much justice, recommends to a
+historian; I would hide the frailties and deformities of my political
+mother, and place her virtues and beauties in the most advantageous
+light." But the impression produced upon the King of Brobdingnag by
+Gulliver's relation expressed the widespread sense of evil which
+existed in Swift's day, which tinctured literature with misanthropy,
+and made Rousseau at a later time argue the superiority of the savage
+man over his civilized, but corrupt and hypocritical brother.
+
+    He was perfectly astonished with the historical account I gave him
+    of our affairs during the last century; protesting: "It was only a
+    heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions,
+    banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction,
+    hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy,
+    lust, malice, and ambition could produce."
+
+    His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate
+    the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with
+    the answers I had given; then, taking me into his hands, and
+    stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall
+    never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: "My little friend,
+    Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your
+    country; you have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice
+    are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws
+    are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose
+    interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding
+    them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which in
+    its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and
+    the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not
+    appear from all you have said, how any one perfection is required
+    toward the procurement of any one station among you; much less,
+    that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are
+    advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers for their conduct or
+    valor; judges for their integrity; senators for the love of their
+    country; or counsellors for their wisdom. * * * I cannot but
+    conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of
+    little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the
+    surface of the earth!"
+
+In the voyage to Laputa the satire is directed against the vanity of
+human wisdom, and the folly of abandoning useful occupations for the
+empty schemes of visionaries. The philosophers of Laputa had allowed
+their land to run to waste, and their people to fall into poverty in
+their attempts to "soften marble for pillows and pin-cushions," to
+"petrify the hoofs of a living horse to prevent them from foundering,"
+to "sow land with chaff," and to "extract sunbeams from cucumbers,
+which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm
+the air in raw, inclement summers." The satire cannot be considered
+too broad when we consider the folly and credulity which, at the time
+of the South Sea mania, led many persons into sinking their whole
+fortunes in such enterprises as the company "To Fish up Wrecks on the
+Irish Coast," to "Make Salt-Water Fresh," to "Extract Silver from
+Lead," and to "Import Jackasses from Spain."
+
+It is impossible within the limits of this volume to comment with any
+completeness on the application of Gulliver's Travels. The satire
+gathered strength and bitterness in its progress, until the limits of
+horror were reached in the voyage to the Houyhnhnms. This portion of
+the work cannot be considered to apply universally. Man does not here
+perceive a truthful reflection of himself. The Houyhnhnms, beings
+endowed with reason, but undisturbed and untempted by the passions or
+struggles of earthly existence, are not brutes, and are not to be
+compared with men. The Yahoos, in their total depravity, are not human;
+they represent, and that with a terrible truthfulness, the condition
+into which men may fall when their animal instincts and baser passions
+are allowed to subvert their reason and their noble qualities. The more
+a man suffers his better nature to yield to his lower, the more he
+resembles the detestable Yahoo. In this sense alone, the satire applies
+generally to mankind; but it applies with peculiar point to some
+characteristics of Swift's time. In reading the following passage, it
+is impossible not to be reminded of the treatment of Sir Robert Walpole
+by his former flatterers and sycophants when his power seemed at an
+end:
+
+    Some curious _Houyhnhnms_ observe that in most herds there was a
+    sort of ruling _Yahoo_, * * * who was always more deformed in body
+    and mischievous in disposition than any of the rest; that this
+    leader had usually a favorite as like himself as he could get,
+    whose employment was to lick his master's feet * * * and drive the
+    female Yahoos to his kennel; for which he was now and then rewarded
+    with a piece of ass's flesh. This favorite is hated by the whole
+    herd, and, therefore, to protect himself, keeps always near the
+    person of his leader. He usually continues in office till a worse
+    can be found; but the very moment he is discarded, his successor,
+    at the head of all the _Yahoos_ in that district, young and old,
+    male and female, come in a body, and * * * (defile) him from head
+    to foot.
+
+But Swift, in his denunciation of men under the form of the Yahoos,
+disclosed the narrowness of his own misanthropy. When Gulliver has
+returned from his last voyage, with a mind which had dwelt on the
+beastliness and vice of the human race as it existed in the land of the
+Houyhnhnms, his warped judgment is unable to discern in his countrymen
+any attributes but those which they seem to share with the Yahoos:--
+
+    My wife and family received me with great surprise and joy, because
+    they concluded me certainly dead; but I must freely confess the sight
+    of them filled me only with hatred, disgust, and contempt; and the
+    more, by reflecting on the near alliance I had to them. * * * As soon
+    as I entered the house, my wife took me in her arms and kissed me;
+    at which, having not been used to the touch of that odious animal
+    for so many years, I fell into a swoon for almost an hour. At the
+    time I am writing, it is five years since my last return to England:
+    during the first year, I could not endure my wife or children in my
+    presence; the very smell of them was intolerable, much less could I
+    suffer them to eat in the same room. To this hour they dare not
+    presume to touch my bread, or drink out of the same cup; neither
+    was I ever able to let one of them take me by the hand.
+
+Thus Swift himself, from the vividness with which he realized, and the
+intensity with which he hated, the vices and failings of humanity, was
+unable to duly appreciate the good, which, in some measure, always
+accompanies the evil.
+
+It was the habit of the great Dean to utter the witticisms which caused
+the continual delight or terror of all who approached him with the most
+stern composure. Such was the manner of the "Travels." The solemn and
+circumstantial narrative style, imitated from the old English explorers
+added verisimilitude to the incidents and point to the sarcasm.
+Trifles, personal to the traveller and of no consequence to the course
+of the story, gave an appearance of truth to the whole work. Thus
+Gulliver keeps the reader informed of the most minute details
+interesting to himself. "I took part of a small house in the Old Jewry;
+and being advised to alter my condition, I married Mrs. Mary Burton,
+second daughter to Mr. Edmund Burton, hosier, in Newgate Street, with
+whom I received four hundred pounds for a portion." In the same way he
+informs us carefully that the date of his sailing on the first voyage
+was May 4, 1699, from Bristol, and the storm which destroyed the ship
+arose when in the latitude of 30 degrees 2 minutes south. In a work of
+fiction only such events are expected as have a direct bearing upon the
+development of the plot, and when immaterial details are introduced,
+the reader is likely to be impressed with their truth. In this way the
+personality of Gulliver is kept up, and he remains, through whatever
+strange scenes he passes, the same honest, blunt English sailor.
+
+Yet more remarkable is the skill of the author in maintaining the
+probability of the allegory. When living among the Lilliputians,
+Gulliver insensibly adopts their ideas of size. He admires as much as
+they the prowess of the horseman who clears his shoe at a single leap.
+When the committee of the Lilliputian king examine Gulliver's pockets,
+they describe his handkerchief as a "great piece of coarse cloth, large
+enough to be a foot-cloth to your majesty's chief room of state"; his
+purse is "a net, almost large enough for a fisherman," containing
+"several massy pieces of yellow metal, which, if they be real gold,
+must be of immense value." The same almost mathematical accuracy of
+proportion is kept up in the visit to Brobdingnag, and on Gulliver's
+return to his native country he experiences as much trouble in
+reaccustoming his mind to the ordinary standard as he had met with in
+adopting that of pigmies or giants. There was a country clergyman
+living in Ireland, who declared there were some things in Gulliver's
+Travels he could not quite believe. His difficulty probably occurred in
+the "Voyage to the Houyhnhnms." In the latter part of the work Swift
+allowed the fiction to yield to the exigencies of the satire. So long
+as we can imagine the existence of giants and pigmies, it is easy to
+realize all the circumstances connected with Gulliver's existence among
+them, but it is impossible to feel the same sense of reality in regard
+to horses who live in houses they could not build, and who eat oats
+they could not harvest.[154]
+
+The general desire for reform is not more clearly to be seen in Acts of
+Parliament than in the works of Swift and Addison. The earlier part of
+the century was marked by a strong realization of evil, and by a
+constantly growing inclination to suppress it. The first condition is
+illustrated by the fierce satire of "Gulliver's Travels," the second
+by the earnest admonitions of the _Spectator_. The two great authors
+make a striking contrast. Swift, misanthropic, miserable, bitter;
+Addison, happy, loving mankind, admired alike by ally and opponent,
+Swift, dying mad; Addison, calm, conscious, employing his last moments
+to ask pardon of one he had offended. The same contrast is in their
+works. Swift dwelt and gloated on the evil about him, exposed it in
+more than its own deformity, and left his reader to reflect on his own
+degradation. Addison, to whom that evil was almost equally apparent,
+but who turned from its contemplation with horror, exerted all his
+talents to correct it. "The great and only end of these speculations,"
+he tells the reader of the _Spectator_, "is to banish vice and
+ignorance out of the territories of Great Britain."
+
+With solemn reproof and delicate raillery, Addison urged women to lay
+aside coarseness and folly, and preached against the licentiousness,
+swearing, gambling, duelling, and drunkenness of the men. He attacked
+with both argument and ridicule the idea so prevalent since the
+Restoration, that vice was necessarily associated with pleasure and
+elegance, virtue with Puritanism and vulgarity. To teach people to be
+witty without being indecent, gay without being vicious, such was the
+object of Addison. As M. Taine says, he made morality fashionable. To
+do this he exposed the folly and ugliness of vice. But he did more. He
+held up to the public view characters who exemplified his teachings,
+and were calculated to attract imitation. In the creation and
+delineation of these characters he unconsciously began the English
+novel.
+
+We should look in vain in the pages of Fielding, of Scott, or of George
+Eliot, for a more perfect sketch of character than that of Sir Roger
+de Coverley. And the minor personages are little less delicately and
+naturally drawn. There is the Bachelor of the Inner-Temple, "an
+excellent critick," to whom "the time of the play is his hour of
+business"; Sir Andrew Freeport, the typical merchant; Captain Sentry,
+"a gentleman of great courage, good understanding, but invincible
+modesty"; Will Honeycomb, "an honest, worthy man where women are not
+concerned"; the clergyman, who has ceased to have "interests in this
+world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and
+conceives hope from his decays and infirmities." "These are my ordinary
+companions," says the _Spectator_, whom we soon learn to know very well
+too.
+
+Addison's knowledge of human nature, and his skill in delineating it in
+single touches, place him in the front rank of writers of fiction,
+notwithstanding the limit of his contributions to this department of
+literature. In a few words we are made to see and know the Quaker who
+reproves the insolent captain on the stage-coach: "Thy mirth, friend,
+savoureth of folly; thou art a person of a light mind; thy drum is a
+type of thee, it soundeth because it is empty." There is nothing
+wanting to the reader's perfect acquaintance with Will Wimble, the poor
+relation. All who know Worcestershire, says the _Spectator_, "are very
+well acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir Roger." His fame has
+spread from Worcestershire throughout the English-speaking world, where
+he has been loved and admired for more than a hundred and fifty years.
+Sir Roger de Coverley is not to be described by any pen but that of
+Addison. He exhibits, joined to a perfect simplicity, the qualities of
+a just, honest, useful man, and delightful companion. Our acquaintance
+with him is a personal one. We know how he appears at his
+country-house, surrounded by admiring tenants and servants, and how he
+occupies himself in London, and whom he meets there. We know his
+ancestry, the extent and management of his estate, his long standing
+love affair with the beautiful widow, all his thoughts, opinions, and
+surroundings. All who read about Sir Roger remember him with affection.
+Addison dwelt with tenderness on every detail regarding him, and
+finally described Sir Roger's death to prevent any less reverential pen
+from trifling with his hero.
+
+Previous to the publication of the papers of the _Spectator_ relating
+to Sir Roger de Coverley, there had been no attempt at what is a
+necessary constituent of the modern novel--the study of character.
+There had been the romance and the allegory. There had been the short
+love story. But with Addison, nature becomes the subject of fiction,
+and the novel is begun.
+
+In a review of the remarkable life of Daniel Defoe, he appears to us
+under the varied aspects of a tradesman, a pamphleteer, a politician, a
+novelist, and, through it all, a reformer. It is in his character as a
+novelist that he is now known, and that he is to be considered here.
+But there are few among the millions to whom "Robinson Crusoe" has
+brought pleasure, who know that the composition of that work was only
+one event in a long life of ceaseless labor, political and literary,
+and that its author's fame among his contemporaries was assured
+independently of it. Defoe's career was so full that both his chief
+biographers[155] have found three large volumes to be necessary to do
+it justice. And yet it was not until near the end of that busy life,
+when the author was fifty-eight years old, feeling the approach of age
+and infirmity, and looking about for means to provide for a large
+family, that he added the writing of novels to his multifarious
+occupations.
+
+There is probably no writer with whose works his life and personality
+are more intimately connected. It is impossible to consider the one
+separate from the other. Defoe began to write novels as a tradesman, as
+a literary hack, and as a reformer. Being dependent on his pen for his
+bread, he wrote what was likely to bring in the most immediate return.
+He calculated exactly the value and quality of his wares. He gave to
+his fictions the same moral object which inspired his own life. His
+novels followed naturally on his other labors, and partook of their
+character. It was his custom, on the death of any celebrated person, to
+write his life immediately, and to send it to the world while public
+interest was still fresh. But being often unable to obtain complete or
+authentic information concerning the subject of his biography, he
+supplemented facts and rumors by plausible inventions. Fiction entered
+into his biographies, just as biography afterward entered into his
+novels. But in writing the lives of real individuals Defoe recognized
+the necessity of impressing his reader with a sense of the truth and
+exactitude of the narrative. This effect he attained by the use of a
+literary faculty which he possessed in a degree unequalled by any other
+writer--that of circumstantial invention. By the multiplication of
+small, unimportant details, each one of which is carefully dwelt upon,
+and by the insertion of uninteresting personal incidents and moral
+reflections, seeming true from their very dulness, he gave to his work
+a remarkable verisimilitude. He did not even issue the book under his
+own name, but invented an authorship which would attract attention and
+credibility. Thus the "History of Charles XII" was announced on the
+title-page as "written by a Scot's gentleman in the Swedish service";
+and the "Life of Count Patkul" was "written by a Lutheran minister who
+assisted him in his last home, and faithfully translated out of a High
+Dutch manuscript."[156] The same characteristics appear in all Defoe's
+works. He invents freely, giving the most elaborate details to support
+his assertions, and attains to an extraordinary degree the art of
+"lying like truth." In the "Journal of the Plague Year," Defoe assumed
+with his accustomed ease and skill the character of a plain, blunt
+London shopkeeper. He described with such apparent accuracy the
+observations of a man who had lived in the scene of that terrible
+calamity, giving curious incidents, anecdotes, statistics, after so
+methodical a manner, that it was long before any doubts were cast on
+the authenticity of the journal. It was a work of imagination, but so
+matter-of-fact, that it is difficult to believe the author had any
+imagination, and that he had not actually witnessed every occurrence he
+so calmly related. It is the same with the "Memoirs of a Cavalier." The
+civil wars are described by a young officer who took part in them, who
+gives a detailed account of his own opinions, his wardrobe, his horse,
+his lodgings. Lord Chatham quoted these memoirs as the true account of
+an eye-witness. From writing the life of a well known individual, Defoe
+had advanced to writing the life of a fictitious person placed amidst
+historical scenes. His next step was to write the life of a fictitious
+person amidst fictitious scenes.[157]
+
+The "Journal of the Plague Year" had been issued to satisfy a popular
+interest excited by the appearance of the plague in France and the
+consequent fear of it in England. A similar public demand occasioned
+the composition of "Robinson Crusoe." A sailor named Alexander Selkirk
+had been "marooned" on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez, and
+after living there alone for more than four years, had been taken off
+by the same captain who had abandoned him. The interest taken in
+England in the narrative of this event revealed to Defoe's acute mind a
+great literary opportunity. But if he was indebted to the adventure of
+Selkirk for the fundamental idea of his novel, he was not the less
+original. Never has a greater individuality been given to a fictitious
+character, or a more vivid impression of life and reality to the
+circumstances surrounding him. The combination of ingenuity and
+simplicity which distinguishes the work, has, for a century and a half,
+had a peculiar fascination for children, and has awakened the wonder
+and admiration of men. There are three works of English fiction of
+imperishable interest, all of which have attained in a high degree the
+quality of reality, and have charmed alike all classes and ages. In the
+allegory of "The Pilgrim's Progress," the sense of reality was produced
+by the intense realization of the subject by the author, unassisted by
+any literary device. In "Gulliver's Travels" the effect was attained by
+a skilful observation of exact proportions, added to a circumstantial
+and personal method of narration, which Swift probably owed in some
+measure to Defoe. If the reader can accept the possible existence of
+pigmies and giants, his credulity is put to no further strain. Defoe
+had no difficulty of the supernatural to overcome. He had a power
+almost as great as that of Bunyan of identifying himself with his hero;
+and he surpassed Swift in the power of circumstantial invention.
+
+The story of "Robinson Crusoe" is too intimately known to require
+comment. His over-mastering desire to go to sea, his being cast up by
+the breakers on the island, his endless labors, and the resolute
+determination which overcame them, his dangers, fears, and the
+consolation of religion, the foot-print on the sand, the companionship
+with Friday, and the final release, are recollections of our childhood
+too familiar to be dwelt upon. But in this very familiarity with
+Robinson himself, in the brightness and endurance of our idea of him,
+in our acquaintance with the inmost workings of his mind and heart, is
+contained the evidence that Defoe not only wrote a novel of adventure,
+as he had intended, but that he wrote also a novel of character.
+
+If the author of "Robinson Crusoe" could realize so thoroughly the
+difficulties and expedients of a man living on a desert island, he
+could deal yet more easily with the adventures and shifts of thieves
+and abandoned women which formed the subject of his other tales. In
+these minor works, now little known, Defoe displayed equal talents, but
+did not attain equal results. The enduring interest which must ever
+attach to the central idea of "Robinson Crusoe" the complete isolation
+of the man--gave that work a very exceptional claim to the attention of
+posterity. But it had other merits, which are not apparent in the same
+perfection in Defoe's lesser novels. Its design was single and
+concentrated, its chief character natural and strongly marked, its
+plot coherent and complete. Moll Flanders and Colonel Jack are indeed
+well-drawn and real persons, and the design of the works which bear
+their names is clear, but in both cases the plot is merely a series of
+independent adventures, and the characters themselves could not, from
+their nature, long attract the attention of readers. "Colonel Jack,"
+"Captain Singleton," "Moll Flanders," and "Roxana," have been
+surpassed, and are neglected. "Robinson Crusoe" is, of its kind,
+perfect, and therefore enduring.
+
+But the works of Defoe have a historical, almost equal to their
+literary, interest. Whoever would attain a correct idea of the
+condition of the lower classes in the earlier part of the eighteenth
+century, should consult "Moll Flanders" and "Colonel Jack," as much as
+the "Newgate Calendar," and histories of crime and labor. What the
+author has described, he had seen.
+
+Defoe was throughout his life a reformer; a large proportion of the
+many pamphlets and occasional writings which fell from his pen have for
+their object the reformation or exposure of some abuse. Yet a large
+number of his fictitious characters are thieves and harlots. The
+criminal classes occupied the public mind in the first half of the
+eighteenth century to a remarkable degree, and Defoe was not mistaken
+in thinking that novels concerning those classes would interest and
+sell. He knew that the public taste was low, and his business was to
+cater to public taste. He said, in "More Reformation":[158]
+
+      Let this describe the nation's character.
+      One man reads Milton, forty Rochester;
+      The cause is plain, the temper of the time.
+      One wrote the lewd, the other the sublime.
+
+To satisfy the forty who read Rochester, Defoe described the lives and
+occupations of pirates, pickpockets, highwaymen, and women of abandoned
+character. The title-pages of some of these novels cannot with decency
+be quoted, and the novels themselves are filled with criminal and
+licentious scenes. But the reforming inclination of Defoe himself, and
+that which we find in the general literature of the time, induced him
+to turn these scenes into a moral account. Moll Flanders is a low,
+cunning, thoroughly bad woman, and her life is placed quite bare before
+the reader. Yet Defoe asserts that the book is designed to teach a good
+lesson.[159] "There is not a superlative villain brought upon the
+stage, but either he is brought to an unhappy end, or brought to be a
+penitent. There is not an ill thing mentioned, but it is condemned even
+in the relation; nor a virtuous, just thing, but it carries its praise
+along with it. * * * Upon this foundation the book is recommended to
+the reader, as a work from every part of which something may be
+learned, and some just and religious inference is drawn." Defoe,
+thoroughly a man of his time, thought he could put the coarsest and
+most vicious matter before his reader, and reasonably expect him to
+profit by the moral, without being hurt by contact with the vice. "All
+possible care," he says, "has been taken to give no lewd ideas, no
+immodest turns in the dressing up of this story. * * * To this purpose
+some of the vicious part of her life, which could not be modestly told,
+is quite left out, and several other parts very much shortened. What is
+left, 'tis hoped will not offend the chastest reader, or the modestest
+hearer." To any one acquainted with "Moll Flanders" this seems a
+strange statement. It exhibits the standard of the age. Mrs. Behn said
+almost the same thing about her novels and plays. To make up for the
+low, vicious life unrolled before us, it is not enough that Moll at
+last "grew rich, lived honest, and died penitent."
+
+The aim of "Roxana, or the Fortunate Mistress," like that of "Moll
+Flanders," is to describe the gradual corruption of a woman, who is
+influenced by some conscientious scruples and misgivings, but the
+heroine is placed in a higher station of life. We have a curious
+commentary on the times in comparing the body of the work with the
+preface. "Roxana" is among the coarsest records of vice in English
+fiction. But yet it is to impart moral instruction. "In the manner she
+has told the story it is evident she does not insist upon her
+justification in any part of it; much less does she recommend her
+conduct, or, indeed, any part of it, except her repentance, to our
+imitation. On the contrary, she makes frequent excursions, in a just
+censuring and condemning her own practice. How often does she reproach
+herself in the most passionate manner, and guide us to make just
+reflections in the like cases?" The modern reader is astonished to find
+"that all imaginable care has been taken to keep clear of indecencies
+and immodest expressions; and, it is hoped, you will find nothing to
+prompt a vicious mind, but everywhere much to discourage and expose
+it."
+
+Defoe is much more successful in teaching a moral lesson in "Colonel
+Jack." The aim of this novel is to describe the course of a street-boy
+who takes to thieving before he knows that it is not a legitimate
+business, and who being possessed naturally of a good character is
+brought to repentance and reform when subjected to better influences.
+Defoe's preface has great significance when we consider the deplorable
+condition of the lower classes and no better idea can be gained of the
+usual fate of the children of the poor than is afforded by this novel.
+
+    Here is room for just and copious observations on the blessings and
+    advantages of a sober and well-governed education, and the ruin of
+    so many thousands of all ranks in this Nation for want of it; here
+    also we may see how much public schools and charities might be
+    improved, to prevent the destruction of so many unhappy children,
+    as, in this town, are every year bred up for the executioner.
+
+    The miserable condition of multitudes of youth, many of whose
+    natural tempers are docible, and would lead them to learn the best
+    things, rather than the worst, is truly deplorable, and is
+    abundantly seen in the history of this man's childhood; where,
+    though circumstances formed him by necessity to be a thief,
+    surprising rectitude of principles remained with him, and made him
+    early abhor the worst part of his trade, and at length to forsake
+    the whole of it. Had he come into the world with the advantage of a
+    virtuous education, and been instructed how to improve the generous
+    principles he had in him, what a figure might he not have made,
+    either as a man or a Christian.
+
+The promise of the preface is fulfilled. The whole work is a protest
+against the neglect of the education and training of the youth of the
+lower classes; and the life of Colonel Jack would be apt to have a good
+effect on youthful readers of the time. In Chapter X, when Jack has
+risen by his industry and humanity from being a slave on a Virginia
+plantation to the rank of an overseer, and finally to that of an
+independent planter, he makes a long digression to rejoice in his
+change of condition and character:
+
+    It was an inexpressible joy to me, that I was now like to be not
+    only a man, but an honest man; and it yielded me a greater
+    pleasure, that I was ransomed from being a vagabond, a thief, and a
+    criminal, as I had been from a child, than that I was delivered
+    from slavery, and the wretched state of a Virginia sold servant; I
+    had notion enough in my mind of the hardship of the servant or
+    slave, because I had felt it, and worked through it; I remembered
+    it as a state of labour and servitude, hardship and suffering. But
+    the other shocked my very nature, chilled my blood, and turned the
+    very soul within me; the thought of it was like reflections upon
+    hell and the damned spirits; it struck me with horror, it was
+    odious and frightful to look back on, and it gave me a kind of fit,
+    a convulsion or nervous disorder, that was very uneasy to me.
+
+These reflections remind us of the self-communings of Bunyan in "Grace
+Abounding in the Chief of Sinners." They express the feelings of
+remorse and the longings for a better state arising in the mind of a
+rough but conscientious man. They are the promptings of a strong moral
+nature, and illustrate those national qualities which brought about the
+reforms which distinguish the latter half of the eighteenth century.
+Colonel Jack took advantage of every opportunity for improvement. When
+a vagabond in Scotland, he learned with infinite pains to read and
+write. When a planter in Virginia, he took for his schoolmaster a
+transported felon, who knew Latin. This spirit of self-advancement by
+patient labor, by invincible resolution, is the spirit of Defoe's
+writings; it is the English characteristic which has raised the nation
+to all its prosperity and greatness.
+
+When "Robinson Crusoe" had attained celebrity, Defoe claimed that it
+was an allegory of his own life. A parallel might easily be drawn
+between the isolation of the solitary sailor on his island, and that
+of the persecuted author in the heart of a great city. All the world,
+and particularly his literary brethren, had been against Defoe. Pope
+had put him into the "Dunciad," Swift had spoken of him as "the fellow
+who was pilloried, I forget his name," He had known oppression and
+poverty, the pillory and the prison. He has left us his own view of the
+aim of "Robinson Crusoe."[160] "Here is invincible patience recommended
+under the worst of misery; indefatigable application and undaunted
+resolution under the greatest and most discouraging circumstances." And
+such is the moral of Defoe's own life.
+
+Mrs. Heywood had written a number of stories[161] resembling, in the
+licentiousness of their character and the flimsiness of their
+construction, the novels of Mrs. Behn. Toward the end of her life she
+wrote "Miss Betsey Thoughtless," which is believed to have suggested to
+Miss Burney some of the incidents in "Evelina." This novel was
+exceedingly popular, and had some merit, considering the period of its
+composition. It is among the earliest specimens of a domestic novel;
+the plot has interest, and the characters are life-like. It
+illustrates, if any illustration were needed, the prevailing absence of
+any elevated view, either of love, or of the relations between men and
+women. The book is made up of easy seductions and licentious talk, and
+represents its youthful characters as very familiar with dissolute
+scenes and thoughts.
+
+
+[Footnote 151: "Julius Cæsar," Act. I, sc. 2. Quoted in Scott's "Life
+of Swift." For Swift, see also "Life" by Sheridan, by Roscoe, and by
+Forster.]
+
+[Footnote 152: "Life of Swift."]
+
+[Footnote 153: Sir W. Scott. "Life of Swift."]
+
+[Footnote 154: See "Life of Swift," by Scott.]
+
+[Footnote 155: Wilson "Life of Defoe." Lee, "Life of Defoe."]
+
+[Footnote 156: See "Daniel Defoe," by William Minto, p. 135. American
+edition.]
+
+[Footnote 157: William Minto, "Life of Defoe," p. 134:--"From writing
+biographies with real names attached to them, it was but a short step
+to writing biographies with fictitious names."]
+
+[Footnote 158: "Memoir of Defoe," William Hazlitt, p. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 159: See the preface to "Moll Flanders."]
+
+[Footnote 160: Preface to the "Serious Reflections of Robinson
+Crusoe."]
+
+[Footnote 161: "Love in Excess," "The British Recluse," "The Injured
+Husband," "Jenny and Jemmy Bessamy," "The Fortunate Foundling."]
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Samuel Richardson might have stood for Hogarth's "Industrious
+Apprentice." When a printer's boy, young Samuel stole from his hours
+of rest and relaxation the time to improve his mind. He was careful not
+to tire himself by sitting up too late at night over his books, and
+purchased his own candles, so that his master, who called him the
+"pillar of his house," might suffer no injury from his servant's
+improvement.[162] Thus Richardson persevered in the path of virtue,
+until, like the "Industrious Apprentice," himself, he married his
+master's daughter, succeeded to his business, and lived happy and
+respected, surrounded by all the blessings which should fall to the lot
+of the truly good.
+
+"I was not fond of play, as other boys," says the author of "Pamela";
+"my school-fellows used to call me _Serious_ and _Gravity_; and five of
+them particularly, delighted to single me out, either for a walk, or at
+their fathers' houses, or at mine, to tell them stories, as they
+phrased it. Some I told them from my reading, as true; others from my
+head, as mere invention; of which they would be most fond. * * * _All
+my stories carried with them, I am bold to say, an useful moral._"[163]
+In such a manner, and with such an intention, Richardson began his
+career as a novelist.
+
+The life of the stout, vain little printer was already well advanced,
+his fortune was assured, and he was surrounded by a group of
+affectionate relatives and admiring female friends, when he was asked
+by a publisher to write "a little book of familiar letters on the
+useful concerns in common life." While thinking over this proposal, be
+recollected a story once told him of a young servant-girl, whose honor
+was long attempted by a dissolute master, and who, by her resolute
+chastity, finally conquered his vicious intentions, and was rewarded
+by honorable marriage with her thwarted seducer. And then it occurred
+to Richardson, that this story, "if written in an easy and natural
+manner, suitable to the simplicity of it, might possibly introduce a
+new species of writing, that might possibly turn young people into a
+course of reading different from the pomp and parade of romance
+writing, and, dismissing the improbable and marvellous, with which
+novels generally abound, might tend to promote the cause of religion
+and virtue." Such was the origin of a novel destined to make a new era
+in English fiction. It is evident that Richardson placed before himself
+two aims: to promote the cause of religion and virtue, and to introduce
+a new species of writing, and in both he succeeded.
+
+The name, "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded," sounds like a tract, and
+"Pamela" is, indeed, a very long tract. The contrast is curious between
+the moral object of the work and its contents. In the preface we are
+told that "Pamela" is to inculcate religion and morality in an easy and
+agreeable manner; it is to make vice odious, to make virtue truly
+lovely, and to give practical examples, "worthy to be followed, in the
+most critical cases, by the modest virgin, the chaste bride, and the
+obliging wife." Moreover, all this is to be done, "without raising a
+single idea throughout the whole, that shall shock the exactest
+purity." Yet, "Pamela" contains not a few scenes likely to inflame the
+imagination, and its subject, kept continually before the reader's
+mind, is the licentious pursuit of a young girl. This story would not
+now do for a tract. But it answered the purpose very well in the
+eighteenth century. Richardson had no fear his book would give the
+youthful reader any new knowledge of evil, or that the long account of
+Pamela's attempted seduction would shock the "exactest purity" of his
+time. He simply described the dangers to which every attractive young
+woman was more or less subject by the prevailing looseness of morals,
+while, by the pathetic and resolute resistance of Pamela's chastity, he
+undoubtedly enlisted the sympathies of his reader on the side of
+virtue. The perusal of the book was recommended by Dr. Sherlock from
+the pulpit. One critic declared that it would do more good than twenty
+volumes of sermons; another, that if all other books were to be burnt,
+"Pamela" and the Bible should be preserved. A gentleman said that he
+would give it to his son as soon as he could read, that he might have
+an early impression of virtue.[164]
+
+The moral of "Pamela" was virtue rewarded. That of "Clarissa,"
+Richardson's second novel, was virtue triumphant, even in disgrace and
+ruin. The heroine, to escape the tyranny of her parents who wished to
+force her into a marriage she abhors, throws herself on the protection
+of a lover, the famous Lovelace, who, failing to seduce her by any
+other means, lures her into a brothel, and there violates her person
+while she is rendered insensible by opiates. Lovelace offers to make
+reparation for his crime by marriage, but in refusing this offer, and
+in dying of a broken heart, Clarissa carries out the moral of the
+story.
+
+Richardson was blamed for making the libertine hero, Lovelace, more
+attractive than was consistent with moral effect. And to remedy this
+mistake, he undertook in "Sir Charles Grandison," his last novel, to
+draw the portrait of a man of _true honor_; "acting uniformly well
+through a variety of trying scenes, because all his actions are
+regulated by one steady principle: a man of religion and virtue; of
+liveliness and spirit; accomplished and agreeable; happy in himself,
+and a blessing to others." Sir Charles then is not a man, but a model.
+"Pamela" and "Clarissa" remained virtuous through temptation and trial.
+But Grandison is a good man because he has no inducement to be
+otherwise. He can afford to be generous, because he is rich; he can
+afford to decline a duel, his reputation for skill in swordsmanship is
+so well established that he runs no danger of being called a coward; he
+is free from licentiousness, because his passions are under perfect
+control. The name of Sir Charles Grandison has passed into a proverb,
+and its mention calls up to the mind a man of the most dignified
+deportment, of the most delicate consideration for women, and of the
+most elaborate manners. But it must be remembered that in Sir Charles,
+our author drew the portrait of what a gentleman should be, and not of
+what a gentleman was. Even the most punctilious men of the time did
+not, like Grandison, hesitate to visit a sick person, because it would
+involve travelling on Sunday; nor did they, as he, refuse to have their
+horses' tails docked, because nature had humanely given those tails as
+a protection against flies. The Grandisonian manners are not to be
+taken as a picture of contemporary fashion. Richardson was unacquainted
+with aristocratic habits, and his high-flown love scenes were purely
+ideal. When he goes into high life, said Chesterfield, "he mistakes the
+modes." Not long before Sir Charles was making his formal and courtly
+addresses to Miss Byron, Walpole had written to George Montagu: "'Tis
+no little inducement to wish myself in France, that I hear gallantry is
+not left off there; that you may be polite, and not be thought awkward
+for it. You know the pretty men of the age in England use the women
+with no more deference than they do their coach horses." Such was the
+state of things which the example of Sir Charles Grandison was intended
+to remedy.
+
+The moral design is an important element in Richardson's novels, but
+the extraordinary popularity of these works was owing to other causes.
+Richardson had known how to move his reader's heart, and how to give to
+his characters a deep personal interest. He had attempted to introduce
+"a new species of writing," and public enthusiasm testified to his
+success. Colly Cibber read "Clarissa" before its publication, and was
+wrought up into a high state of excitement by the story. "What a
+piteous, d----d, disgraceful pickle you have placed her in!" he wrote
+to Richardson. "For God's sake, send me the sequel, or--I don't know
+what to say! * * * My girls are all on fire and fright to know what can
+possibly have become of her." And when he heard that Clarissa was to
+have a miserable end, he wrote the author: "God d----n him, if she
+should."[165] Mrs. Pilkington was not less distressed: "Spare her
+virgin purity, dear sir, spare it! Consider if this wounds both Mr.
+Cibber and me (_who neither of us set up for immaculate chastity_),
+what must it do with those who possess that inestimable treasure?"[166]
+Miss Fielding, the sister of the novelist of that name, thus described,
+in a letter to its author, her feelings on reading "Clarissa": "When I
+read of her, I am all sensation; my heart glows. I am overwhelmed; my
+only vent is tears." One Thomas Turner, who kept a village shop in
+Sussex, thus recorded in his diary the impression produced upon him by
+the death of Clarissa: "Oh, may the Supreme Being give me grace to
+lead my life in such a manner as my exit may in some measure be like
+that divine creature's."[167] Johnson was an enthusiastic admirer of
+Richardson. Dr. Young looked upon him as an "instrument of Providence."
+Ladies at Ranelagh held up "Pamela," to show that they had the famous
+book.[168] Nor was this interest confined to the last century. "When I
+was in India," said Macaulay to Thackeray, "I passed one hot season at
+the hills, and there were the governor-general, and the secretary of
+government, and the commander-in-chief, and their wives. I had "Clarissa"
+with me, and as soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a
+passion of excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her
+scoundrelly Lovelace. The governor's wife seized the book, and the
+secretary waited for it, and the chief justice could not read it for
+tears!" Macaulay "acted the whole scene," adds Thackeray; "he paced up
+and down the Athenæum library; I dare say he could have spoken pages
+of the book."[169] But admiration of Richardson was still greater among
+foreigners. The novels were translated into French, Dutch, and German,
+and the enthusiasm they excited may be imagined from the warmth of
+Diderot's eulogy: "I yet remember with delight the first time ('Clarissa')
+came into my hands. I was in the country. How deliciously was I affected!
+At every moment I saw my happiness abridged by a page. I then experienced
+the same sensations those feel who have long lived with one they love,
+and are on the point of separation. At the close of the work I seemed to
+remain deserted. * * * Oh, Richardson! thou singular genius in my eyes!
+thou shalt form my reading at all times. If, forced by sharp necessity,
+my friend falls into indigence; if the mediocrity of my fortune is not
+sufficient to bestow on my children the necessary cares for their
+education, I will sell my books,--but thou shalt remain! Yes, thou shalt
+rest in the _same class_ with Moses, Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles, to
+be read alternately."[170]
+
+What was the secret by which the stout little printer excited such
+enthusiasm and won such eulogy? How did he appeal to natures so
+different as the worldly Lord Chesterfield, the country shopkeeper, and
+the impassioned Diderot? Richardson was the first novelist to stir the
+heart and to move the passions, and his power was the more striking
+that it was new. His study of human nature had begun early in life. "I
+was not more than thirteen," he says, "when three young women, unknown
+to each other, having an high opinion of my taciturnity, revealed to me
+their love secrets, in order to induce me to give them copies to write
+after, or correct, for answers to their lovers' letters. * * * I have
+been directed to chide, and even repulse, when an offence was either
+taken or given, at the very time when the heart of the chider or
+repulser was open before me, overflowing with esteem and affection; and
+the fair repulser, dreading to be taken at her word, directed _this_
+word, or _that_ expression, to be softened or changed. One, highly
+gratified with her lover's fervor and vows of everlasting love, has
+said, when I have asked her direction, _I cannot tell you what to
+write; but_ (her heart on her lips) _you cannot write too
+kindly_."[171] With such an apprenticeship, Richardson had come to
+possess a very delicate perception of character, and especially of
+female character. There was a certain effeminacy in his own nature
+which made him understand women better than men. His best creations are
+Pamela and Clarissa. Lovelace and Grandison are drawn from the outside;
+they are less real and natural. But Richardson leads his reader into
+the inmost recesses of his heroines' hearts. He is at home in
+describing the fears, the trials, and the final childlike rejoicings of
+Pamela. He attains to a high tragic effect in the death of Clarissa, a
+scene which Sir James Mackintosh ranked with Hume's description of the
+death of Mary Stuart. In this power to touch the heart and to move the
+passions of his reader lay the charm of Richardson's writing. But to
+paint perfection, rather than to study nature, was his object in "Sir
+Charles Grandison," and therefore that novel was less powerful in the
+author's day, and is less interesting in ours than "Pamela" and
+"Clarissa." We no longer need the example of the pompous Sir Charles to
+dissuade us from indecent language and drunkenness in a lady's
+drawing-room, and we can only laugh at the studied propriety of his
+faultless intercourse with Miss Byron:
+
+    He kissed my hand with fervor, dropped down on one knee; again
+    kissed it--You have laid me, madam, under everlasting obligation;
+    and will you permit me before I rise--loveliest of women, will you
+    permit me to beg an early day?--
+
+    He clasped me in his; arms with an ardor--that displeased me not on
+    reflection. But at the time startled me. He then thanked me again
+    on one knee. I held out the hand he had not in his, with intent to
+    raise him; for I could not speak. He received it as a token of
+    favor; kissed it with ardor; arose; _again_ pressed my cheeks with
+    his lips. I was too much surprised to repulse him with anger; but
+    was he not too free? Am I a prude, my dear?
+
+    Restrain, check me, madam, whenever I seem to trespass on your
+    goodness. Yet how shall I forbear to wish you to hasten the day
+    that shall make you wholly mine? You will the rather allow me to
+    wish it, as you will then be more than ever your own mistress;
+    though you have always been generously left to a discretion that
+    never was more deservedly trusted to. Your will, madam, will ever
+    comprehend mine.
+
+The verisimilitude of Richardson's novels, which is made so striking by
+his feminine attention to detail, may seem destroyed to modern readers
+by the apparent improbability of the narrative itself. It appears
+strange that young girls like Pamela or Clarissa should be so entirely
+in the power of their seducers, that incidents should be repeated with
+impunity which the existence of a police force would seem to make
+impossible. But the reader whose sense of probability is shocked by the
+unpunished and uninterrupted villanies of Mr. B. and of Lovelace, can
+find evidence of the security with which such crimes could be committed
+by the rich and influential in the Newgate calendar. The forcible
+detention in his own house, by Lord Baltimore, of a young girl, his
+atrocious treatment of her, and his escape from punishment, are
+incidents in real life not more remarkable than the fictions of the
+novelist.
+
+Sir Walter Scott lamented, early in the present century, the neglect
+into which the works of Richardson had fallen. That neglect has not
+since been diminished, for obvious reasons. "Surely, sir," said Erskine
+to Johnson, "Richardson is very tedious." "Why, sir," was the
+lexicographer's reply, "if you were to read Richardson for the story,
+your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself,
+but you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only
+giving occasion to the sentiment." But the reader of today will agree
+with Erskine in thinking that Richardson is tedious. We have so many
+good novels which do not require the attention and labor exacted by
+him. We live so fast that we cannot spare the time for so much
+sentiment. These novels, like the elaborate embroideries of the last
+century, belong to a period when life was less full, and books less
+abundant. Samuel Richardson will take his place among the great authors
+who are much admired and little read, whose works every educated person
+should have heard of, but upon which very few would like to be
+examined.
+
+With Richardson's novels English fiction took a long step forward; but
+it made a still greater advance in the hands of Henry Fielding. The
+latter was peculiarly well fitted by his talents and experience to
+carry the novel to a high position of importance and artistic merit. He
+united a considerable dramatic, and a great narrative power with an
+exuberant wit and an extensive knowledge of men. Allied to a noble
+family, but oppressed by poverty, Fielding mingled during his life with
+all classes of society. The Hon. George Lyttleton was his friend and
+protector, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was his cousin. On the other hand,
+his poverty and improvidence constantly kept him, as Lady Mary put it,
+"raking in the lowest rinks of vice and misery." Richardson, who always
+denounced Fielding's works as "wretchedly low and dirty," said
+sneeringly: "his brawls, his jars, his jails, his spunging-houses are
+all drawn from what he has seen and known." But in this ungenerous
+sneer lay a substantial compliment. Fielding did describe what he had
+seen and known, and the variety of his experience gave him a breadth
+and power in describing human nature which the confined life of
+Richardson could not afford. The two novelists cannot be fairly
+compared, nor should they be considered as rivals. They pursued
+different methods, and aimed at opposite effects. Each has a high place
+in English literature, which the greatness of the other cannot depress.
+Richardson is best able to make his reader weep, and Fielding to make
+him laugh.
+
+Fielding was a tall, handsome fellow, so full of life and spirits that
+"his happy disposition," to quote Lady Mary, "made him forget every
+evil when he was before a venison-pastry, or over a flask of
+champagne." This rollicking, careless joyousness is the tone of his
+books. Whether taken to a prison, an inn, or a lady's boudoir, whether
+watching the breaking of heads, the blackening of eyes, or the making
+of love, the reader is always kept smiling.
+
+Fielding is often censured by moralists for the coarseness of his
+novels. But had he not been coarse he would not have been true. He
+described life as it was in the eighteenth century, as he had seen it
+in the ups and downs of a checkered career. His characters were taken
+from the higher ranks and the lower. He placed the house, the
+amusements, the habits of a country gentleman before the reader with
+the faithfulness of a man who had hunted, feasted, and got drunk with
+country-gentlemen. He described the miserable prisons of his time as he
+only could who had mingled with their degraded inmates, and had exerted
+his power as a police magistrate to break up the gangs of ruffians who
+infested the streets. Thus Fielding's novels have a high historical, as
+well as a literary value. Mr. Lecky has testified to their importance
+in a reconstruction of the past by placing "Amelia" among his
+authorities. Squire Allworthy, Squire Western, Tom Jones, Parson Adams,
+are characters to be studied by whoever would understand social life in
+the eighteenth century. The lovely Sophia, the modest Fanny, and above
+all Amelia, whom Thackeray considered "the most charming character in
+English fiction," are portraits in the gallery of history.[172]
+
+As Fielding set out to describe truth and nature as he saw them, the
+reader must put away his notions of refinement and delicacy. He must be
+prepared to be entertained by blows, licentious assaults, a tub of
+hog's blood thrown by a clergyman, coarse practical jokes, foul talk,
+all put before him without disguise or circumlocution. As he follows
+Parson Adams, Joseph, and Fanny in their journey, he must always be
+ready for a fight. Here is a specimen:
+
+    "The captain * * * drew forth his hanger as Adams approached him,
+    and was levelling a blow at his head which would probably have
+    silenced the preacher forever, had not Joseph in that instant
+    lifted up a certain huge stone pot of the chamber with one hand,
+    which six beaux could not have lifted with both, and discharged it,
+    together with the contents, full in the captain's face. The
+    uplifted hanger dropped from his hand, and he fell prostrate on the
+    floor with a lumpish noise, and his half-pence rattled in his
+    pocket: the red liquor which his veins contained, and the white
+    liquor which the pot contained, ran in one stream down his face and
+    his clothes. Nor had Adams quite escaped, some of the water having
+    in its passage shed its honors on his head, and begun to trickle
+    down the wrinkles, or rather furrows, of his cheeks; when one of
+    the servants snatching a mop out of a pail of water, which had
+    already done its duty in washing the house, pushed it in the
+    parson's face; yet could he not bear him down; for the parson
+    wresting the mop from the fellow with one hand, with the other
+    brought his enemy as low as the earth."[173]
+
+To obtain any adequate idea of the range of Fielding's pictures of
+human nature, the reader must consult the novels themselves. Propriety
+forbids the insertion here of quotations which could convey an
+impression of the happy dissoluteness of Tom Jones, the brutal
+coarseness of Squire Western, or the scenes of unblushing license which
+pervade the novels of Henry Fielding. But a sample of the witty, jovial
+tone which has made these novels so popular may be of interest to
+readers who are not inclined to open "Tom Jones" itself. The following
+scene was occasioned by the appearance of Molly Seagrim in church, in
+unaccustomed and ostentatious finery, and is described in the Homeric
+style, which Fielding sometimes adopted with such humorous effect.
+
+    As a vast herd of cows in a rich farmer's yard, if, while they are
+    milked, they hear their calves at a distance, lamenting the robbery
+    which is then committing, roar and bellow: so roared forth the
+    Somersetshire mob an halloloo, made up of almost as many squalls,
+    screams, and other different sounds, as there were persons, or
+    indeed passions, among them. Some were inspired by rage, others
+    alarmed by fear, and others had nothing in theirs heads but the
+    love of fun; but chiefly Envy, the sister of Satan and his constant
+    companion, rushed among the crowd and blew up the fury of the
+    women; who no sooner came up to Molly than they pelted her with
+    dirt and rubbish.
+
+    Molly, having endeavored in vain to make a handsome retreat, faced
+    about; and laying hold of ragged Bess, who advanced in the front
+    of the enemy, she at one blow felled her to the ground. The whole
+    army of the enemy (though near a hundred in number), seeing the
+    fate of their general, gave back many paces, and retired beyond a
+    new dug grave; for the church-yard was the field of battle, where
+    there was to be a funeral that very evening. Molly pursued her
+    victory, and catching up a skull which lay on the side of the
+    grave, discharged it with such fury, that having hit a tailor on
+    the head, the two skulls sent equally forth a hollow sound at their
+    meeting, and the tailor took presently measure of his length on the
+    ground, where the skulls lay side by side, and it was doubtful
+    which was the more valuable of the two. Molly, then taking a thigh
+    bone in her hand, fell in among the flying ranks, and dealing her
+    blows with great liberality on either side, overthrew the carcass
+    of many a mighty hero and heroine. Recount, O muse, the names of
+    those who fell on this fatal day. First Jemmy Tweedle felt on his
+    hinder head the direful bone. Him the pleasant banks of sweetly
+    winding Stour had nourished, where he first learnt the vocal art,
+    with which, wandering up and down at wakes and fairs, he cheered
+    the rural nymphs and swains, when upon the green they interweaved
+    the sprightly dance; while he himself stood fiddling and jumping to
+    his own music. How little now avails his fiddle! He thumps the
+    verdant floor with his carcass. Next old Echepole, the sow-gelder,
+    received a blow in his forehead from our Amazonian heroine, and
+    immediately fell to the ground. He was a swinging fat fellow, and
+    fell with almost as much noise as a house. His tobacco-box dropt at
+    the same time from his pocket, which Molly took up as lawful
+    spoils. Then Kate of the Mill tumbled unfortunately over a
+    tombstone, which catching hold of her ungartered stocking, inverted
+    the order of nature, and gave her heels the superiority to her
+    head. Betty Pippin, with young Roger her lover, fell both to the
+    ground; where, O Perverse Fate! she salutes the earth, and he the
+    sky.[174]
+
+Fielding had shown more than any predecessor the possibilities of
+fiction in the study of character and the illustration of manners, and
+to the art of the narrator, he had added that of the dramatist. The
+falling of the rug in Molly Seagrim's bedroom[175] is one of the
+happiest incidents ever devised, and no doubt suggested to Sheridan the
+falling of the screen in the "School for Scandal." But the chief
+distinction of Fielding lies in his having carried the novel to a high
+point as a work of art. It was the opinion of Coleridge that the
+"Oedipus Tyrannus," "The Alchemist," and "Tom Jones," were the three
+most perfect plots ever planned.[176] It is to this excellence of
+plot--the subordination of each minor circumstance to the general aim,
+the skill with which all events are made to lead up to the final
+dénouement--that Fielding, if any one, deserves the title of the
+founder of the English novel. But to give this title to any individual
+is a manifest injustice. The novel was developed, not created; and in
+that development many minds took part. Short love stories had been made
+familiar in England by the Italian writers. Such, also, had been
+produced by Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley, and Mrs. Heywood. Defoe had written
+novels of adventure, in one of which, at least, is found the
+combination of a character well drawn and a plot well executed. In the
+number of his characters and the complication of his plot, Richardson
+had surpassed Defoe. It is the merit of Fielding to have combined in a
+far greater degree than those who had gone before the characteristic
+qualities of the novel. In others we see the promise, in him the
+fulfilment.
+
+And this was in no respect the result of an accident. Fielding looked
+upon his first work as a new attempt in English literature. "Joseph
+Andrews" was first intended to be merely a satire on "Pamela." But study
+and reflection on the nature of his work determined Fielding to produce
+a "prose epic." "The epic as well as the drama," he said in the preface,
+"is divided into tragedy and comedy." Now, he continued, "when any kind
+of writing contains all the other parts (of the epic), such as fable,
+action, characters, sentiments, and diction, and is deficient in metre
+only; it seems, I think, reasonable to refer it to the epic." Such, too,
+was the opinion of the Chevalier Bunsen. "The romance of modern times,"
+he says in his preface to "Soll und Haben" * * * "represents the latest
+_stadium_ of the epic. Every romance is intended, or ought to be, a new
+Iliad or Odyssey; in other words, a poetic representation of a course of
+events consistent with the highest laws of moral government, whether it
+delineate the general history of a people, or narrate the fortunes of a
+chosen hero. * * * The excellence of a romance, like that of an epic or
+a drama, lies in the apprehension and truthful exhibition of the course
+of human things."[177] Lord Byron expressed his opinion that Fielding
+had realized this view of the nature of the novel by calling him the
+prose Homer of human nature.
+
+Fielding's novels are now considered unfit for general perusal. In
+considering the coarseness and immorality of a writer, the intention and
+the result must be separated. That Fielding's works are coarse, and that
+they contain scenes and characters of a dissolute nature, is neither to
+be denied nor to be regretted. If they were more pure, they would be
+less valuable from a historical point of view; less true to nature, and
+therefore less artistic. That the author's intention was far from the
+production of works with an evil tendency, is evident. He was careful
+to say in the preface to "Joseph Andrews": "It may be objected to me
+that I have against my own rules introduced vices, and of a very black
+kind, in this work. To which I shall answer first, that it is very
+difficult to pursue a series of human actions, and keep clear from them.
+Secondly, that the vices to be found here are rather the accidental
+consequences of some human frailty or foible, than causes habitually
+existing in the mind. Thirdly, that they are never set forth as the
+objects of ridicule, but detestation. Fourthly, that they are never
+the principal figure at that time on the scene; and lastly, they never
+produce the intended evil." And again, still more strongly, Fielding
+claims the merit of purity and moral effect for "Tom Jones," "I hope
+my reader will be convinced, at his very entrance on this work, that
+he will find, in the whole course of it, nothing prejudicial to the
+cause of religion and virtue; nothing inconsistent with the strictest
+rules of decency, nor which can offend the chastest eye in the perusal.
+On the contrary, I declare, that to recommend goodness and innocence
+hath been my sincere endeavor in this history. * * * Besides displaying
+that beauty of virtue which may attract the admiration of mankind, I have
+attempted to engage a stronger motive to human action in her favor, by
+convincing men that their true interest directs them to a pursuit of her.
+For this purpose I have shown, that no acquisitions of guilt can
+compensate the loss of that solid inward comfort of mind, which is the
+sure companion of innocence and virtue; nor can in the least balance the
+evil of that horror and anxiety which, in their room, guilt introduced
+into our bosoms."
+
+Thus, it is evident, that Fielding had no desire to write what might be
+harmful. The contrast between his promise and his fulfilment is simply
+an illustration of the standard of his time. His novels are coarse to a
+degree which may nullify their merits in the eyes of some readers of
+the present day, and may unfit them for the perusal of very young
+people. But this is simply because the standard in such matters has
+changed, and not because the novels were purposely made dissolute.
+Their coarseness was adapted to the lack of refinement in thought and
+speech characteristic of that time. Fielding wished to "laugh mankind
+out of their follies and vices." In his coarseness there is always an
+open, frank laughter. There is none of that veiled pruriency which
+lurks underneath the more conventionally expressed, but really vicious
+sentiments that are to be found in too many novels of our own day.
+
+The novel was well defined in character and well established in
+popularity when Smollett entered the field so well occupied by
+Richardson and Fielding. On this account his works have a less
+important place in the history of fiction than those of his
+predecessors. While he added greatly to the store of fictitious
+writing, he developed no new ideas concerning it. Fielding had
+announced at the outset of his career as a novelist that he had taken
+Cervantes as a prototype, and the influence of the great Spanish writer
+is plainly visible in "Joseph Andrews." But in the literary workmanship
+of his two later novels, Fielding's entire originality is undeniable.
+Smollett, however, is plainly an imitator of Le Sage. He did not aim at
+that artistic construction of plot, which is Fielding's chief merit.
+The novel, in his hands, became rather a series of adventures, linked
+together by their occurrence to the same individuals. "A novel," he
+said, "is a large, diffused picture, comprehending the characters of
+life, disposed in different groups, and exhibited in various attitudes,
+for the purposes of a uniform plan and general occurrence, to which
+every individual figure is subservient. But this plan cannot be
+executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a principal
+personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the
+clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene by virtue of his
+importance."[178] But Smollett presents the "different groups" and
+"various attitudes" of his "diffused picture" with a luxuriance of
+imagination, a fidelity to nature, and an exuberance of broad humor
+which inspire interest even when they occasion disgust. If he added
+nothing new to the novel from a purely literary point of view, his
+works have an exceptional historical value.
+
+His life was well adapted to educate him as an observer and student of
+human nature. Of a good Scotch family, but obliged by poverty to rely
+on his own efforts for a living, he mixed familiarly with varied
+classes of men. As a surgeon in London, he came in contact with the
+middle and lower ranks of the city, from which many of his best
+characters are taken. As surgeon's mate on board a man-of-war, he
+obtained that acquaintance with a seafaring life which was afterward
+turned to such excellent account.
+
+Of Smollett's works, "Humphrey Clinker" is the most humorous, "Roderick
+Random" the simplest and most natural, "Perigrine Pickle," the most
+elaborate and brilliant. The reader is conducted from adventure to
+adventure with an unfailing interest, sustained by the distinctness of
+the picture and the brightness of the coloring. The characters met with
+are natural and well studied. Trunnion, Hatchway, Pipes, Lieutenant
+Bowling, and Jack Rattlin are all distinctly seamen, and yet each has a
+marked individuality of his own. Matthew Bramble and Winifred Jenkins
+are among the best-drawn and most entertaining of fictitious
+personages. Smollett's humor is usually of the broadest and most
+elementary kind. It consists largely of hard blows, _a-propos_
+knockdowns, and practical jokes. More than any novelist, he illustrates
+the coarseness of his time. His pages are filled with cruelties and
+blackguardism. Many of his principal characters are dissolute without
+enjoyment, and brutal without good nature. Modern taste is shocked by
+the succession of repulsive scenes and degrading representations of
+vice which are often intended to amuse, and always to entertain. But it
+is because life in the eighteenth century had so many repulsive
+features, that the novels of the time often repel the modern reader,
+There is nothing strained or uncommon in the experiences of Miss
+Williams while in prison:
+
+    There I saw nothing but rage, anguish, and impiety; and heard
+    nothing but groans, curses, and blasphemy. In the midst of this
+    hellish crew, I was subjected in the tyranny of a barbarian, who
+    imposed upon me tasks that I could not possibly perform, and then
+    punished my incapacity with the utmost rigor and inhumanity. I was
+    often whipped into a swoon, and lashed out of it, during which
+    miserable intervals I was robbed by my fellow-prisoners of every
+    thing about me, even to my cap, shoes, and stockings; I was not
+    only destitute of necessaries, but even of food, so that my
+    wretchedness was extreme. Not one of my acquaintance, to whom I
+    imparted my situation, would grant me the least succor or regard,
+    on pretence of my being committed for theft; and my landlord
+    refused to part with some of my own clothes, which I sent for,
+    because I was indebted to him for a week's lodging. Overwhelmed
+    with calamity, I grew desperate, and resolved to put an end to my
+    grievances and life together; for this purpose I got up in the
+    middle of the night, when I thought everybody around me asleep, and
+    fixing one end of my handkerchief to a large hook in the ceiling
+    that supported the scales on which the hemp is weighed, I stood
+    upon a chair, and making a noose on the other end, put my neck into
+    it with an intention to hang myself; but before I could adjust the
+    knot, I was surprised and prevented by two women who had been awake
+    all the while, and suspected my design. In the morning my attempt
+    was published among the prisoners, and punished with thirty
+    stripes, the pain of which co-operating with my disappointment and
+    disgrace, bereft me of my senses, and threw me into an ecstasy of
+    madness, during which I tore the flesh from my bones with my teeth,
+    and dashed my head against the pavement.[179]
+
+While Smollett mingled such scenes of misery with coarse adventures and
+coarse humor, he is yet always true to nature and always picturesque.
+He keeps the reader's attention even when he offends his taste. He
+impaired the literary merit of "Perigrine Pickle," but at the same time
+added to its dissolute character and its immediate popularity by the
+forced insertion of the licentious "Memoirs of a Lady of Quality." Now
+a serious blemish, these memoirs formed at the time an added attraction
+to the book. They were eagerly read as the authentic account of Lady
+Vane, a notorious woman of rank, and were furnished to Smollett by
+herself, in the hope, fully gratified, that her infamous career might
+be known to future generations.[180]
+
+That the standard of public taste was rising, would appear from the
+fact that in the second edition of "Perigrine Pickle," Smollett found
+it advisable to "reform the manners and correct the expression" of the
+first; but when "he flatters himself that he has expunged every
+adventure, phrase, and insinuation that could be construed by the most
+delicate reader into a trespass upon the rules of decorum," he does not
+give a high idea of the standard of the "most delicate reader." But
+Smollett has left an account of his own views regarding the moral
+effect of the pictures of vice and degradation which his works contain,
+and that account is a striking statement of contemporary feeling upon
+the subject:
+
+    The same principle by which we rejoice at the remuneration of
+    merit, will teach us to relish the disgrace and discomfiture of
+    vice, which is always an example of extensive use and influence,
+    because it leaves a deep impression of terror upon the minds of
+    those who were not confirmed in the pursuit of morality and virtue,
+    and, while the balance wavers, enables the right scale to
+    preponderate. * * * The impulses of fear, which is the most violent
+    and interesting of all the passions, remain longer than any other
+    upon the memory; and for one that is allured to virtue by the
+    contemplation of that peace and happiness which it bestows, an
+    hundred are deterred from the practice of vice, by the infamy and
+    punishment to which it is liable from the laws and regulations of
+    mankind. Let me not, therefore, be condemned for having chosen my
+    principal character from the purlieus of treachery and fraud, when
+    I declare that my purpose is to set him up as a beacon for the
+    benefit of the inexperienced and the unwary, who, from the perusal
+    of these memoirs, may learn to avoid the manifold snares with which
+    they are continually surrounded in the paths of life; while those
+    who hesitate on the brink of iniquity may he terrified from
+    plunging into that irremediable gulph, by surveying the deplorable
+    fate of Ferdinand Count Fathom.[181]
+
+This passage illustrates with remarkable fidelity the attitude, not
+only of Smollett, but of the other novelists and the general public of
+the first half of the eighteenth century, toward vice and crime. The
+consciousness of evil and the desire for reformation were prominent
+features of the time. But to deter men from wrong-doing, fear was the
+only recognized agent. There was absolutely no feeling of philanthropy.
+There was no effort to prevent crime through the education or
+regulation of the lower classes; there was no attempt to reform the
+criminal when convicted. The public fear of the criminal classes was
+expressed in the cruel and ineffective code which punished almost every
+offense with death. The corruptions which pervaded the administration
+of justice made it almost impossible to punish the wealthy and
+influential. When Smollett declared that the miserable fate of Count
+Fathom would deter his reader from similar courses by a fear of similar
+punishment, when Defoe urged the moral usefulness of "Moll Flanders"
+and "Roxana," the two novelists simply expressed the general feeling
+that the sight of a malefactor hanging on the gallows was the most
+effective recommendation to virtue. In the same spirit in which justice
+exposed the offender in the stocks to public view, the novelist
+described his careers of vice ending in misery, and Hogarth conducted
+his Idle Apprentice from stage to stage till Tyburn Hill is reached.
+The same moral end is always in view, but the lesson is illustrated by
+the ugliness of vice, and not by the beauty of virtue. In our time we
+have reason to be thankful for a criminal legislation tempered by mercy
+and philanthropy. We have attained, too, a standard of taste and of
+humanity which has banished the degrading exhibitions of public
+punishments, which has largely done away with coarseness and brutality,
+and has added much to the happiness of life. In fiction, the writer who
+wishes to serve a moral purpose attains his end by the more agreeable
+method of holding up examples of merit to be imitated, rather than of
+vice to be shunned.
+
+But when the great novelists of the eighteenth century were writing,
+the standard of taste was extremely low. The author knew that he was
+keeping his reader in bad company, and was supplying his mind with
+coarse ideas, but he believed that he might do this without offense.
+Defoe thought that "Moll Flanders" would not "offend the chastest
+reader or the modestest hearer"; Richardson, that the prolonged effort
+to seduce Pamela could be described "without raising a single idea
+throughout the whole that shall shock the exactest purity"; Fielding,
+that there was nothing in "Tom Jones" which "could offend the chastest
+eye in the perusal." Nor, as concerned their own time, were they
+mistaken. They clearly understood the distinction between coarseness
+and immorality. The young women who read "Tom Jones" with enthusiasm
+were not less moral than the women who now avoid it, they were only
+less refined. They did not think vice less reprehensible, but were more
+accustomed to the sight of it, and therefore less easily offended by
+its description.
+
+While the novels of which we have been speaking were making their first
+appearance, there lived in Kent a charming young lady who went by the
+name of "the celebrated Miss Talbot." She had attained this distinction
+by her great cultivation. She had studied astronomy and geography, was
+"mistress of French and Italian," and knew a little Latin. When she was
+only twenty years of age, the Dean of Canterbury spoke of her with high
+admiration. Her acquaintance was eagerly sought by accomplished young
+ladies, and by none more successfully than "the learned" Miss Carter.
+Both of these girls read the novels of the day, and fortunately
+recorded some of their opinions in the letters which passed between
+them.[182] "I want much to know," wrote Miss Talbot, "whether you have
+yet condescended to read 'Joseph Andrews.'" "I must thank you," replied
+Miss Carter, "for the perfectly agreeable entertainment I have met in
+reading 'Joseph Andrews.' It contains such a surprising variety of
+nature, wit, morality, and good sense, as is scarcely to be met with in
+any one composition, and there is such a spirit of benevolence through
+the whole, as, I think renders it peculiarly charming," Some years
+later the Bishop of Gloucester came to visit Miss Talbot's family, and
+read "Amelia," the young lady wrote, while he was nursing his cold by
+the fireside. Miss Carter replied that "in favor of the bishop's cold,
+his reading 'Amelia' in silence may be tolerated, but I am somewhat
+scandalized that, since he did not read it to you, you did not read it
+yourself." "The more I read 'Tom Jones,'" wrote Miss Talbot, "the more
+I detest him, and admire Clarissa Harlowe,--yet there are in it things
+that must touch and please every good heart, and probe to the quick
+many a bad one, and humor that it is impossible not to laugh at." "I am
+sorry," replied Miss Carter, "to find you so outrageous about poor Tom
+Jones; he is no doubt an imperfect, but not a detestable character,
+with all that honesty, good-nature, and generosity." Miss Talbot, in a
+later letter, said that she had once heard a lady piously say to her
+son that she wished with all her heart he was like Tom Jones.[183] In
+1747 "Clarissa" was read aloud at the palace of the Bishop of Oxford,
+Miss Talbot's uncle. "As for us," she wrote, "we lived quite happy the
+whole time we were reading it, and we made that time as long as we
+could, too, for we only read it _en famille_, at set hours, and all the
+rest of the day we talked of it. One can scarcely persuade one's self
+that they are not real characters and living people." Even "Roderick
+Random" made part of the young ladies' reading. "It is a very strange
+and a very low book," commented the Bishop's celebrated niece, "though
+not without some characters in it, and, I believe, some very just,
+though very wretched descriptions."
+
+
+[Footnote 162: Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson," vol. 1, p. 42.
+Scott's "Life of Richardson."]
+
+[Footnote 163: Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson," vol. 1, p. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 164: _Edinburgh Review._ Oct., 1804. Scott's "Life of
+Richardson," note.]
+
+[Footnote 165: Richardson's correspondence, 1748.]
+
+[Footnote 166: Richardson's correspondence. Forsyth's "Novels and
+Novelists," p. 251.]
+
+[Footnote 167: See the interesting "Glimpses of Our Ancestors," by
+Charles Fleet, p. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 168: Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson."]
+
+[Footnote 169: W.M. Thackeray, "Nil Nisi Bonum", _Cornhill Mag._, No. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 170: D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," art.
+"Richardson."]
+
+[Footnote 171: Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson," vol. I, p. 40.
+Scott's "Life of Richardson."]
+
+[Footnote 172: The reader may find some curious examples of the
+fidelity with which Fielding portrayed contemporary character and
+manners in comparing passages in "Tom Jones," with "Glimpses of our
+Ancestors," by Charles Fleet, pp. 38, 39, _et passim_.]
+
+[Footnote 173: "Joseph Andrews," book III, chap. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 174: "Tom Jones," book iv, ch. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 175: Samuel Rogers, "Table Talk," p. 227.]
+
+[Footnote 176: Coleridge, "Table Talk," p. 339, vol. 2, London, 1835.]
+
+[Footnote 177: Preface to "Debit and Credit" ("Soll und Haben"), by
+Gustav Freitag.]
+
+[Footnote 178: "Adventures of Count Fathom," letter of dedication.]
+
+[Footnote 179: "Roderick Random," chap. xxiii.]
+
+[Footnote 180: 'The wife of William, second Viscount Vane, "was the too
+celebrated Lady Vane; first married to Lord William Hamilton, and
+secondly to Lord Vane; who has given her own extraordinary and
+disreputable adventures to the world in Smollett's novel of 'Perigrine
+Pickle,' under the title of 'Memoirs of a Lady of Quality.'"--Walpole
+to Mann, Nov 23, 1743. "The troops continue going to Flanders, but
+slowly enough. Lady Vane has taken a trip thither after a cousin of
+Lord Berkeley, who is as simple about her as her own husband is, and
+has written to Mr. Knight at Paris to furnish her with what money she
+wants. He says she is vastly to blame, for he was trying to get her a
+divorce from Lord Vane, and then would have married her himself. Her
+adventures are worthy to be bound up with those of my good
+sister-in-law, the German Princess, and Moll Flanders."--Walpole to
+Mann, June 14, 1742.]
+
+[Footnote 181: "Adventures of Count Fathom," letter of dedication.]
+
+[Footnote 182: "The Carter and Talbot Correspondence," Ed. by Rev.
+Montagu Pennington, 1809.]
+
+[Footnote 183: See "The Carter and Talbot Correspondences."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CONTINUED.
+  I.--THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL.
+ II.--STERNE, JOHNSON, GOLDSMITH, AND OTHERS.
+III.--MISS BURNEY, AND THE FEMALE NOVELISTS.
+ IV.--THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL.
+
+
+I.
+
+We have observed in the earlier works of fiction of the eighteenth
+century, together with great coarseness of thought and manners, the
+reflection of a strong moral and reforming tendency. As early as the
+reign of William III, Parliament had requested the king to issue
+proclamations to justices of the peace, instructing them to put in
+execution the neglected laws against open licentiousness.[184] In 1698,
+Collier published his "Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of
+the English Stage," a powerful and effective protest against the
+depravity of the drama. At about the same time had been formed the
+Societies for the Reformation of Manners, which energetically attacked
+the more flagrant forms of crime. "England, bad as she is," wrote Defoe
+in 1706, "is yet a reforming nation; and the work has made more
+progress from the court even to the street, than, I believe, any nation
+in the world can parallel in such a time and in such circumstances."
+Toward the middle of the century, these tendencies took effect in the
+Methodist Revival, a movement destined to exert a profound influence
+on society. Accompanying this revival, or resulting from it, were many
+important reforms. The corruption of political life gradually
+diminished. A new patriotism and unselfishness began to appear in
+public men. A spirit of philanthropy arose which corrected some of the
+worst social abuses. Under the leadership of the noble John Howard, the
+prisons, so long the abandoned haunts of squalor, oppression, and
+misery, were considerably redeemed from their shameful condition. Beau
+Nash marked the progress of peaceful and law-abiding habits by formally
+forbidding the wearing of swords wherever his fashionable authority was
+recognized. In the fiction of the latter half of the eighteenth century
+is illustrated a gradual transition of morals and taste from the
+unbridled coarseness of the century's earlier years to the comparative
+refinement of our own times.
+
+There lived in Sussex about the time of the Methodist revival, a
+thriving shopkeeper named Thomas Turner. He had received a good
+education, and in early life had been a schoolmaster. On reading
+"Clarissa" he had exclaimed, what would have gladdened the heart of
+Richardson: "Oh, may the Supreme Being give me grace to lead my life in
+such a manner as my exit may in some measure be like that divine
+creature's!" His literary tastes were so pronounced and varied that in
+the space of six weeks he had read Gray's "Poems," Stewart "On the
+Supreme Being," the "Whole Duty of Man," "Paradise Lost and Regained,"
+"Othello," the "Universal Magazine," Thomson's "Seasons," Young's
+"Night Thoughts," Tournefort's "Voyage to the Levant," and "Perigrine
+Pickle." This scholarly tradesman kept a diary, in which he recorded
+his thoughts, his studies, and his amusements with a frankness which
+deserves the thanks of posterity. Some passages of his diary, in their
+illustration of the combination of licence, coarseness, and moral
+earnestness characteristic of the writer's time may greatly assist us
+in appreciating the power and influence of the religious revival.[185]
+
+"I went to the audit and came home drunk. But I think never to exceed
+the bounds of moderation more. * * * "Sunday, 28th, went down to Jones',
+where we drank one bowl of punch and two muggs of bumboo; and I came
+home again in liquor. Oh, with what horrors does it fill my heart, to
+think I should be guilty of doing so, and on a Sunday, too! Let me once
+more endeavour, never, no never, to be guilty of the same again. * * * I
+read part of the fourth volume of the _Tatler_; the oftener I read it,
+the better I like it. I think I never found the vice of drinking so well
+exploded in my life, as in one of the numbers." In January, 1751,
+"Mr. Elless (the schoolmaster), Marchant, myself, and wife sat down to
+whist about seven o'clock, and played all night; very pleasant, and I
+think I may say innocent mirth, there being no oaths nor imprecations
+sounding from side to side, as is too often the case at cards."
+February 2, "we supped at Mr. Fuller's, and spent the evening with a
+great deal of mirth, till between one and two. Tho, Fuller brought my
+wife home on his back, I cannot say I came home sober, though I was far
+from being bad company. I think we spent the evening with a great deal
+of pleasure." March 7th, a party met at Mr. Joseph Fuller's,
+"drinking," records our diarist, "like horses, as the vulgar phrase
+is, and singing, till many of us were very drunk, and then we went to
+dancing, and pulling of wigs, caps, and hats; and thus we continued in
+this frantic manner, behaving more like mad people than they that
+profess the name of Christians." Three days after, the same amusements
+are enjoyed at the house of Mr. Porter, the clergyman of the parish,
+except "there was no swearing and ill words, by reason of which Mr.
+Porter calls it innocent mirth, but I in opinion differ much
+therefrom." Mr. Turner had no great reason to respect the opinion of
+clergymen on such matters. Soon after, "Mr. ----, the curate of
+Laughton, came to the shop in the forenoon, and he having bought some
+things of me (and I could wish he had paid for them), dined with me,
+and also staid in the afternoon till he got in liquor, and being so
+complaisant as to keep him company, I was quite drunk. How do I detest
+myself for being so foolish!" A little later, Mr, Turner attended a
+vestry meeting, at which "we had several warm arguments, and several
+vollies of execrable oaths oftentime redounded from almost all parts of
+the room.
+
+"About 4 P.M. I walked down to Whyly. We played at bragg the first part
+of the even. After ten we went to supper, on four broiled chicken, four
+boiled ducks, minced veal, cold roast goose, chicken pastry, and ham.
+Our company, Mr. and Mrs. Porter, Mr. and Mrs. Coates, Mrs. Atkins,
+Mrs. Hicks, Mr. Piper and wife, Joseph Fuller and wife, Tho. Fuller and
+wife, Dame Durrant, myself and wife, and Mr. French's family. After
+supper our behaviour was far from that of serious, harmless mirth; it
+was downright obstreperious, mixed with a great deal of folly and
+stupidity. Our diversion was dancing or jumping about, without a violin
+or any musick, singing of foolish healths, and drinking all the time
+as fast as it could be well poured down; and the parson of the parish
+was one among the mixed multitude. If conscience dictates right from
+wrong, as doubtless it sometimes does, mine is one that I may say is
+soon offended: for, I must say, I am always very uneasy at such
+behavior, thinking it not like the behaviour of the primitive
+Christians, which, I imagine, was most in conformity to our Saviour's
+gospel.
+
+"Thursday, Feb, 25th. This morning, about six o'clock, just as my wife
+was got to bed, we was awaked by Mrs. Porter, who pretended she wanted
+some cream of tartar; but as soon as my wife got out of bed, she vowed
+she should come down. She found Mr. Porter (the clergyman), Mr. Fuller,
+and his wife, with a lighted candle, and part of a bottle of port wine
+and a glass. The next thing was to have me down stairs, which being
+apprised of, I fastened my door. Up stairs they came, and threatened to
+break it open; so I ordered the boys to open it, when they poured into
+my room; and as modesty forbid me to get out of bed, so I refrained;
+but their immodesty permitted them to draw me out of bed, as the phrase
+is, topsy-turvey; but, however, at the intercession of Mr. Porter, they
+permitted me to put on * * * my wife's petticoats; and in this manner
+they made me dance, without shoes and stockings, until they had emptied
+a bottle of wine, and also a bottle of my beer. * * * About three
+o'clock in the afternoon, they found their way to their respective
+homes, beginning to be a little serious, and, in my opinion, ashamed of
+their stupid enterprise and drunken perambulation. Now let any one call
+in reason to his assistance, and reflect seriously on what I have
+before recited, and they will join me in thinking that the precepts
+delivered from the pulpit on Sunday, though delivered with the greatest
+ardour, must lose a great deal of there efficacy by such examples."
+
+Such were the amusements and such the moral reflections of a country
+tradesman in the middle of the last century, Fielding, Smollett, and
+the other novelists described the same kind of life: the same
+succession of brawls, drunken sprees, cock-fights, boxing matches, and
+bull-baitings. It would be difficult to imagine a state of society more
+ripe for a revival. Mr. Thomas Turner had moral and religious
+aspirations, but these could not be satisfied by the clergyman of his
+parish or the curate of Laughton, the companions of his debauches but
+not the sharers of his remorse. When the clergy were sincere and moral,
+they were still too cold and commonplace to seriously influence their
+flocks. The sermons of the time were at best, moral essays, teaching
+little, as Mr. Lecky says, "that might not have been taught by
+disciples of Socrates and Confucius." They might encourage honesty and
+temperance where those virtues already existed, but they had no spell
+to arouse religious feelings, nor to reclaim the vicious. How great,
+then, must have been the effect of the impassioned eloquence of a
+Whitefield, which could draw tears from thousands of hardened colliers,
+upon such a society as that of Mr. Turner and his friends, accustomed
+only to the discourses of their boon companion, the Rev. Mr. Porter.
+The prevailing licence and the prevailing moral consciousness were
+elements especially adapted to the work of the religious revivalist.
+The effect of the sermons of Berridge is thus described by an
+eye-witness[186]:
+
+    I heard many cry out, especially children, whose agonies were
+    amazing. One of the eldest, a girl of ten or twelve years old, was
+    full in my view, in violent contortions of body, and weeping aloud,
+    I think incessantly, during the whole service. * * * While poor
+    sinners felt the sentence of death in their souls, what sounds of
+    distress did I hear! Some shrieking, some roaring aloud. The most
+    general was a loud breathing, like that of people half strangled
+    and gasping for life. And indeed, almost all the cries were like
+    those of human creatures dying in bitter anguish. Great numbers
+    wept without any noise; others fell down as dead; some sinking in
+    silence; some with extreme noise and violent agitation. I stood on
+    the pew seat, as did a young man in an opposite pew--an
+    able-bodied, fresh, healthy countryman. But in a moment, when he
+    seemed to think of nothing less, down he dropped with a violence
+    inconceivable. The adjoining pews seemed shook with his fall. I
+    heard afterward the stamping of his feet, ready to break the boards
+    as he lay in strong convulsions at the bottom of the pew. * * *
+    Among the children who felt the arrows of the Almighty I saw a
+    sturdy boy about eight years old, who roared above his fellows, and
+    seemed, in his agony, in struggle with the strength of a grown man.
+    His face was red as scarlet; and almost all on whom God laid his
+    hand turned either red or almost black. * * * A stranger, well
+    dressed, who stood facing me, fell backward to the wall; then
+    forward on his knees, wringing his hands and roaring like a bull.
+    His face at first turned quite red, then almost black. He rose and
+    ran against the wall till Mr. Keeling and another held him. He
+    screamed out "Oh! what shall I do? what shall I do? Oh, for one
+    drop of the blood of Christ!"
+
+These were violent remedies, but they were applied to a powerful
+disease. If the revivalists did harm by the religious terrorism which
+they excited, they yet had a powerful and wide-spread influence for
+good. They awakened religious feelings among the people, and diffused
+a new earnestness among the clergy. A spirit of philanthropy was born
+with their teachings which has gone on growing until it now extends a
+protecting arm even to brutes. The societies for the prevention of
+cruelty to children and to animals are part of a great philanthropic
+movement which began at the end of the eighteenth century, which has
+carried into practical, every-day life the spirit of Christianity, and
+has given to the words mercy and charity, the signification of real and
+existing virtues. Horses, dogs, even rats, are now more safe from
+wanton brutality than great numbers of men and women in the eighteenth
+century. To any one who studies that period, the stocks, the whipping
+post, the gibbet, cock fights, prize-fights, bull-baitings, accounts of
+rapes, are simply the outward signs of an all-pervading cruelty. If he
+opens a novel, he finds that the story turns on brutality in one form
+or other. It is not only in such novels as those of Fielding and
+Smollett, which are intended to describe the lower classes of society,
+and in which blackened eyes and broken heads are relished forms of wit,
+that the modern reader is offended by the continual infliction of pain.
+Goldsmith gives Squire Thornhill perfect impunity from the law and from
+public opinion in his crimes. Mackenzie does not think of visiting any
+legal retribution on his "Man of the World." Godwin wrote "Caleb
+Williams" to show with what impunity man preyed on man, how powerless
+the tenant and the dependent woman lay before the violence or the
+intrigue of the rich. And it is not only that a crime should be
+committed with perfect security which would now receive a severe
+sentence at the hands of an ordinary judge and jury which surprises the
+reader of to-day, but that scenes which would now shock any person of
+common humanity or taste, were, in the last century, especially
+intended to amuse. In Miss Burney's "Evelina," Captain Mirvan
+continually insults and maltreats Mme. Duval, the grandmother of the
+heroine, in a manner which would not only be inconceivable in a
+gentleman tolerated in society, but in a blackguard, not entirely
+bereft of feelings of decency or good-nature. While she is a guest in
+his own house, he torments her with false accounts of the sufferings of
+a friend; sends her on a futile errand to relieve those sufferings in a
+carriage of his own, and then, disguised as a highwayman, he assaults
+her with the collusion of his servants, tears her clothes, and leaves
+her half dead with terror, tied with ropes, at the bottom of a ditch.
+When Mme. Duval relates her ill-treatment to her granddaughter, Evelina
+could only find occasion to say: "Though this narrative almost
+compelled me to laugh, yet I was really irritated with the captain, for
+carrying his love of tormenting--sport, he calls it to such harshness
+and unjustifiable extremes." And Miss Burney expected, no doubt with
+reason, that her reader would be amused by all this.
+
+In the same work a nobleman and a fashionable commoner are described
+as settling a bet by a race between two decrepit women over eighty
+years of age. "When the signal was given for them to set off, the
+poor creatures, feeble and frightened, ran against each other: and
+neither of them being able to support the shock, they both fell on
+the ground. * * * Again they set off, and hobbled along, nearly even
+with each other, for some time, yet frequently, to the inexpressible
+diversion of the company, they stumbled and tottered. * * * Not long
+after, a foot of one of the poor women slipped, and with great force
+she came again to the ground. * * * Mr. Coverley went himself to help
+her, and insisted that the other should stop. A debate ensued, but the
+poor creature was too much hurt to move, and declared her utter
+inability to make another attempt. Mr. Coverley was quite brutal; he
+swore at her with unmanly rage, and seemed scarce able to refrain even
+from striking her." It would be impossible perhaps to find a party of
+the upper ranks gathered at a country house at the present time,
+composed of persons who could have endured, without remonstrance, such
+treatment of a pair of superannuated horses; yet Miss Burney describes
+the efforts and sufferings of these old women as affording
+inexpressible diversion to the ladies and gentlemen who figure in her
+novel, and she evidently expects the reader to be equally entertained.
+"Evelina" was written by a young woman who saw the best society, who
+was maid of honor to Queen Charlotte, who was universally admired for
+her delicacy and her talents, and whose novels are among the most
+refined of the time.
+
+The higher ranks were much less influenced by the religious revival
+than the lower. Although certainly not less in need of reformation,
+they were far less inclined to welcome it. The fashionable indifference
+to religion was an obstacle which Wesley found much more difficult to
+overcome than the brutal ignorance of the inmates of Newgate. After
+listening to a sermon by Whitefield, Bolingbroke complimented the
+preacher by saying that he had "done great justice to the divine
+attributes." The Duchess of Buckingham's remarks on the preaching of
+the Methodists, in a letter to Lady Huntingdon, are an amusing
+commentary on the times. "I thank your ladyship for the information
+concerning the Methodist preachers. Their doctrines are most
+repulsive, and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect
+toward their superiors, in perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks
+and do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told that you
+have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl the earth.
+This is highly offensive and insulting, and I cannot but wonder that
+your ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with
+high rank and good-breeding."[187] High rank and good-breeding,
+however, in the society of which the Duchess of Buckingham was so
+proud, were not considered inconsistent with habitual drunkenness,
+indecency, and profanity. The vices which "the common wretches that
+crawl the earth" practised in addition to these, her Grace would have
+had difficulty in mentioning.
+
+Still, in the latter half of the eighteenth century is to be traced a
+continual improvement, which is reflected in contemporary fiction. As a
+remarkable example of the change which took place may be mentioned the
+instance of the Earl of March. "As Duke of Queensberry, at nearer
+ninety than eighty years of age, he was still rolling in wealth, still
+wallowing in sin, and regarded by his countrymen as one whom it was
+hardly decent to name, because he did not choose, out of respect for
+the public opinion of 1808, to discontinue a mode of existence which in
+1768 was almost a thing of course" among the higher ranks.[188]
+
+
+[Footnote 184: Wilson's "Memoirs of Daniel Defoe."]
+
+[Footnote 185: For the diary of Thomas Turner, see "Glimpses of our
+Ancestors," by Charles Fleet, pp. 31-52.]
+
+[Footnote 186: For these manifestations, see Wesley's "Journal," and
+Lecky's "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," vol. II, chap.
+ix.]
+
+[Footnote 187: Lecky, "Hist. of England in the 18th Century," vol. ii,
+chap. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 188: See Trevelyan's "Early History of Charles James Fox,"
+Harper's ed., p. 75.]
+
+
+
+II.
+
+In 1759, were published the first two volumes of "Tristram Shandy," a
+singular and brilliant medley of wit, sentiment, indecency, and study
+of character. Laurence Sterne was a profligate clergyman, a dishonest
+author, and an unfaithful husband. He wrote "Tristram Shandy," and he
+wrote a great many sermons. He descended to the indulgence of low
+tastes, and rose to an elevated strain of thought, with equal facility.
+He was a man who knew the better and followed the worse. His talents
+made him a welcome guest at great men's tables, where he paid for his
+dinner by amusing the company with a brilliant succession of witticisms
+and indecent anecdotes, which, to his hearers, derived an additional
+piquancy from the fact that they proceeded from the mouth of a divine.
+But although the man was in many respects contemptible, although he
+disgraced his priestly character by his profligacy, and his literary
+character by a shameless plagiarism,[189] he possessed in a high degree
+a quality which must give him a distinguished place in English fiction.
+His borrowed plumage and his imitation of Rabelais' style apart, Sterne
+had originality, a gift at all times rare, and always, perhaps,
+becoming rarer. As a humorist, he is to be classed with Fielding and
+Smollett, but as a novelist, his position in the history of fiction is
+separate and unique.
+
+"Tristram Shandy" has all the elements of a novel except the plot. The
+author has no story to tell. His aim is to amuse the reader by odd and
+whimsical remarks on every subject and on every personage whose
+peculiarities promise material for humor and satire. Sterne is
+perpetually digressing, moralizing commenting on every trivial topic
+which enters into his story, until the story itself is completely lost,
+if, indeed, it can be said ever to have been begun. The absence of
+arrangement is so marked that it is very difficult to turn to a passage
+which in a previous perusal has struck the eye. The eccentricity and
+whimsicality of the book contributed greatly to its immediate
+popularity. But the same characteristics which seem brilliant when
+novel, soon become dull when familiar, and although "Tristram Shandy"
+will always afford single passages of lasting interest to the lover of
+literature, the work as a whole is not a little tedious when read
+continuously from cover to cover.
+
+In the course of his literary medley, Sterne introduces his reader to a
+group of characters amongst the most odd and original in fiction. Mr.
+Shandy, with his syllogisms and his hypotheses, his "close reasoning
+upon the smallest matters"; Yorick, the witty parson, whose epitaph,
+_Alas! Poor Yorick!_ expresses so tenderly the amiable faults for which
+he suffered; Captain Shandy, that combination of simplicity,
+gentleness, humanity, and modesty, are all creations which deserve to
+rank with the most individual and happily conceived of fictitious
+personages. Sterne makes a character known to the reader by a
+succession of delicate touches rather than by description. He seems to
+enter into an individual, and make him betray his peculiarities by
+significant actions and phrases. Thus Mr. Shandy exposes at once the
+nature of his mind and the vigor of his "hobby-horse," when he
+exclaims to his brother Toby: "What is the character of a family to an
+hypothesis?"
+
+The combination of sentiment, pathos, and humor which Sterne sometimes
+reached with remarkable success, is particularly apparent in every
+incident which concerns the celebrated Captain Toby Shandy, for the
+creation of which character this author may most easily be forgiven his
+indecencies and his literary thefts. Uncle Toby's sympathy with
+Lefevre, a poor army officer, on his way to join his regiment, who died
+in an inn near Shandy's house, is exquisitely painted throughout, and
+the colloquy between the captain and his faithful servant, Corporal
+Trim, when the death of the officer is imminent, is probably the finest
+passage which ever fell from the skilful pen of Laurence Sterne:
+
+    A sick brother-officer should have the best quarters, Trim; and if
+    we had him with us,--we could tend and look to him.--Thou art an
+    excellent nurse thyself, Trim: and what with thy care of him, and
+    the old woman's, and his boy's, and mine together, we might recruit
+    him again at once, and set him upon his legs.
+
+    --In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, smiling, he
+    might march.--He will never march, an' please your Honour, in this
+    world, said the Corporal.--He _will_ march, said my uncle Toby,
+    rising up from the side of the bed with one shoe off.--An' please
+    your Honour, said the Corporal, he will never march but to his
+    grave. He _shall_ march, cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot
+    which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch,--he _shall_
+    march to his regiment.--He cannot stand it, said the Corporal.--He
+    shall be supported, said my uncle Toby.--He'll drop at last, said
+    the Corporal, and what will become of his boy? He _shall not_ drop
+    said my uncle Toby, firmly,--Ah, well-a-day!--do what we can for
+    him, said Trim, maintaining his point,--the poor soul will
+    die.--_He shall not die, by G--_, cried my uncle Toby.
+
+    --The _accusing spirit_, which flew up to Heaven's chancery with
+    the oath, blushed as he gave it in;--and the _recording angel_, as
+    he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it out
+    for ever.[190]
+
+"Ye, who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue
+with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform
+the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day
+will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas,
+Prince of Abyssinia." Thus begins the famous tale which Dr. Johnson
+made the repository of so much of his wisdom, and so beautiful an
+example of English style. Rasselas and his royal brothers and sisters
+live in a secluded portion of the earth known as the Happy Valley,
+where, completely isolated from the world, they await their succession
+to the crown of the imaginary land of Abyssinia, surrounded by every
+luxury which can make life agreeable, and shut off from all knowledge
+of those evils which can make it painful. The aim of the story is to
+show the vanity of expecting perfect happiness, and the folly of
+sacrificing present advantages for the delusive promises of the future.
+
+The scene opens in the Happy Valley, where there is all that labor or
+danger can procure or purchase, without either labor to be endured or
+danger to be dreaded. Rasselas illustrates the habitual discontent of
+man by wearying of the monotonous happiness of his royal home, and,
+together with his sister Nekayah, who shares his ennui, and Imlac, a
+man of learning, he escapes from the abode of changeless joys and
+perpetual merriment.
+
+Once beyond the barriers of the Happy Valley, Rasselas and Nekayah
+seek in the various ranks and conditions of men the abode of true
+happiness. It is sought in vain amidst the hollow and noisy pleasures
+of the young and thoughtless; in vain among philosophers, whose
+theories so ill accord with their practice; in vain among shepherds,
+whose actual life contrasts so painfully with the descriptions of the
+poet; in vain in crowds, where sorrow lurks beneath the outward smile;
+in vain in the cell of the hermit, who counts the days till he shall
+once more mix with the world. The task becomes more hopeless with each
+new disappointment. Rasselas pursues his investigation among the higher
+ranks, in courts and cities; Nekayah, hers among the poor and humble,
+in the shop and the hamlet. But when the brother and sister meet to
+share their experiences, they both have the same tale to tell of human
+discontent. Finally, in returning disappointed to Abyssinia, they
+illustrate the tendency among men to look back with regret on the early
+pleasures of life, abandoned for the impossible happiness which
+discontent had taught them to seek.
+
+On this slight thread of narrative, Johnson strung his thoughts with
+great felicity. The characters, by the different view which they
+entertain of life, are distinct and individual. The book is filled with
+pregnant and beautiful passages, which leave a deep impression on the
+reader. The words in which Imlac describes to the Prince and Princess
+the dangers of an unrestrained imagination, might, with equal
+propriety, find a place in a scientific treatise on the causes of
+insanity, and in a collection of beautiful literary extracts:
+
+    To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination out upon the
+    wing, is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent
+    speculation. When we are alone, we are not always busy; the labour
+    of excogitation is too violent to last long; the ardour of inquiry
+    will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing
+    external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own
+    thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is
+    pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity,
+    and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present
+    moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible
+    enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The
+    mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all
+    combinations, and riots in delights which nature and fortune, with
+    all their bounty, cannot bestow.
+
+    In time, some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all
+    other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in
+    weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favorite conception,
+    and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended with
+    the bitterness of truth. By degrees, the reign of fancy is
+    confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time, despotic. Then
+    fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon
+    the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish.[191]
+
+The resemblance between Johnson's "Rasselas" and Voltaire's "Candide"
+is so marked, that had either author seen the other's work, he must
+have been suspected of imitation. But while both these great minds were
+writing at nearly the same time on the same theme of human misery, the
+lessons they taught differed in a manner which is strongly illustrative
+of the differences between the two men and their respective
+surroundings. French scepticism and distrust of divine power led
+Voltaire to impute human griefs to the incapacity of the Creator. But
+Johnson, writing "Rasselas" in an hour of sorrow, to obtain means to
+pay for his mother's funeral, taught that that happiness, which this
+world can not afford, should be sought in the prospect of another and a
+better.[192]
+
+All readers of Boswell know how the "Vicar of Wakefield" found a
+publisher. How Goldsmith's landlady arrested him for his rent, and how
+he wrote to Johnson in his distress. How the kind lexicographer sent a
+guinea at once, and followed to find the guinea already changed, and a
+bottle of Madeira before the persecuted but philosophical author. How
+Johnson put the cork in the bottle, and after a hasty glance at the MS.
+of the "Vicar of Wakefield," went out and sold it for sixty pounds. And
+how triumphantly Goldsmith rated his landlady.
+
+In the hands of that bookseller, who purchased the novel as much out of
+charity as in hope of profit, the "Vicar of Wakefield" remained
+neglected, until the publication of "The Traveler" had made the author
+famous. This interval would have afforded Goldsmith ample time to
+correct the obvious inconsistencies and faults which his work
+contained. But in the spirit of a man who depended on his pen for his
+bread, he made no effort to improve what had already brought him all
+this remuneration for which he could hope. This is the more to be
+regretted, that very little revision would have been sufficient, to
+make the "Vicar of Wakefield" as perfect in its construction as in its
+style and spirit. "There are a hundred faults in this thing," says the
+preface, "and a hundred things might be said to prove them beauties.
+But it is needless. A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it
+may be very dull without a single absurdity. The hero of this piece
+unites in himself the three greatest characters upon earth;--he is a
+priest, a husbandman, and the father of a family. He is drawn as ready
+to teach, and ready to obey--as simple in affluence, and majestic in
+adversity."
+
+These few words are not an inaccurate statement of the merits and
+demerits of the "Vicar of Wakefield." Faults there are, certainly. The
+improbability of Sir William Thornhill's being able to go about among
+his own tenantry _incognito_, without other disguise than a change of
+dress; the inconsistency of the philanthropist's allowing his
+villainous nephew to retain possession of the wealth which he used only
+to assist him in his crimes; and, finally, the impossibility of that
+nephew's being so nearly of an age with Sir William himself, when he
+must have been the son of a younger brother, are all blemishes which
+Goldsmith might easily have removed, had he not relied on the opinion
+which he expressed in Chapter xv, "the reputation of books is raised,
+not by their freedom from defect, but by the greatness of their
+beauties."
+
+Such a rule would be an obviously dangerous one for an author to
+follow. But Goldsmith's confidence in the beauties of his novel was
+fully justified by the verdict of the world. No novelist has more
+deeply imbued his work with his own genius and spirit, and none have
+had a more beneficent genius, nor a more beautiful spirit to impart
+than the author of "The Deserted Village." The exquisite style, the
+delicate choice of words, the amiability of sentiment, so peculiarly
+his own, and so well suited to express the simple beauty of his
+thoughts, give a charm to the work which familiarity can only endear.
+Dr. Primrose, preserving his simplicity, his modesty, and his nobility
+of character alike when surrounded by the pleasures of his early and
+prosperous home, when struggling with the hardships of his ruined
+fortune, and when rewarded at last by the surfeit of good-fortune which
+follows his trial, stands high among the most noble conceptions of
+English fiction. "We read the 'Vicar of Wakefield,'" said the great Sir
+Walter, "in youth and in age. We return to it again and again, and
+bless the memory of an author who contrives so well to reconcile us to
+human nature."
+
+Goethe, when in his eighty-first year, declared that Goldsmith's novel
+"was his delight at the age of twenty, that it had in a manner formed a
+part of his education, influencing his tastes and feelings throughout
+life, and that he had recently read it again from beginning to end,
+with renewed delight, and with a grateful sense of the early benefit
+derived from it." "Rogers, the Nestor of British literature, whose
+refined purity of taste and exquisite mental organization rendered him
+eminently calculated to appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of
+all the books, which, through the fitful changes of three generations
+he had seen rise and fall, the charm of the 'Vicar of Wakefield' had
+alone continued as at first; and could he revisit the world after an
+interval of many more generations, he should as surely look to find it
+undiminished." So wrote Washington Irving; and if the reader is
+inclined to look for the causes of the extraordinary endurance of
+Goldsmith's work, he can find them nowhere better stated than in the
+words of John Forster: "Not in those graces of style, nor even in that
+home-cherished gallery of familiar faces can the secret of its
+extraordinary fascination be said to consist. It lies nearer the heart.
+A something which has found its way _there_; which, while it amused,
+has made us happier; which, gently interweaving itself with our habits
+of thought, has increased our good-humour and charity; which,
+insensibly it may be, has corrected wilful impatiences of temper, and
+made the world's daily accidents easier and kinder to us all; somewhat
+thus should be expressed, I think, the charm of the 'Vicar of
+Wakefield.'"
+
+In 1760 was published "Chrysal, the Adventures of a Guinea," by Charles
+Johnstone, the author of several deservedly forgotten novels.[193] The
+first volume was sent to Dr. Johnson for his opinion, who thought, as
+Boswell tells us, that it should be published--an estimate justified by
+the considerable circulation which the book enjoyed.
+
+Chrysal is an elementary spirit, whose abode is in a piece of gold
+converted into a guinea. In that form the spirit passes from man to
+man, and takes accurate note of the different scenes of which it
+becomes a witness. This is a natural and favorable medium for a satire,
+which Johnstone probably owed, in some measure, both to the "Diable
+Boiteux" of Gil Blas, and the "Adventures of a Halfpenny" of Dr.
+Bathurst. The circulation of the guinea enables the author to describe
+the characteristics of its possessors as seen by a truthful witness,
+and he has taken advantage of his opportunity to produce one of the
+most disgusting records of vice in literature. A depraved mind only
+could find any pleasure in reading "Chrysal," and whoever is obliged to
+read it from cover to cover for the purpose of describing it to others,
+must find himself, at the end of his task, in sore vexation of spirit.
+Human depravity is never an agreeable subject for a work of
+entertainment, and while Swift's genius holds the reader fascinated
+with the horror of his Yahoos, the ability of a Manley or a Johnstone
+is not sufficient to aid the reader in wading through their vicious
+expositions of corruption. It must be said that Johnstone had some
+excuse. If he were to satirize society at all, it was better that he
+should do it thoroughly; that he should expose official greed and
+dishonesty, the orgies of Medenham Abbey, the infamous extortions of
+trading justices, in all their native ugliness. It must be said that
+the time in which he lived presented many features to the painter of
+manners which could not look otherwise than repulsive on his canvas.
+But his zeal to expose the vices of his age led him into doing great
+injustice to some persons, and into grossly libelling others. He
+imputed crimes to individuals of which he could have had no knowledge;
+and he shamefully misrepresented the Methodists and the Jews. If
+Johnstone had wished to see how offensive a book he might write, and
+how disgusting and indecent a book the public of his day would read and
+applaud, he might well have brought "Chrysal" into the world. If he had
+intended, by exposing crime, to check it, he had better have burned his
+manuscript. He has added one other corruption to those he exposed, and
+one other evidence of the lack of taste and decency which characterized
+his time. No man can plead the intention of a reformer as an excuse for
+placing before the world the scenes and suggestions of unnatural crime
+which sully the pages of "Chrysal," and if men do, in single instances,
+fall below the level of brutes, he who gloats over their infamy and
+publishes their contagious guilt deserves some share of their odium.
+
+The novels of Henry Mackenzie have a charm of their own, which may be
+largely attributed to the fact that their author was a gentleman.
+Whoever has read, to any extent, the works of fiction of the eighteenth
+century, must have observed how perpetually he was kept in low company,
+how rarely he met with a character who had the instincts as well as the
+social position of a gentleman. A tone of refined sentiment and dignity
+pervades "The Man of Feeling," which recalls the "Vicar of Wakefield,"
+and introduces the reader to better company and more elevated thoughts
+than the novels of the time usually afford. "The Man of Feeling" is
+hardly a narrative. Harley, the chief character, is a sensitive,
+retiring man, with feelings too fine for his surroundings. The author
+places him in various scenes, and traces the effect which each produces
+upon his character. The effect of the work is agreeable, though
+melancholy, and the early death of Harley completes the delineation of
+a man too gentle and too sensitive to battle with life.
+
+In his next novel Mackenzie described the counterpart of Harley, "The
+Man of the World." Almost any writer of the present day who took a man
+of the world for his hero, would draw him as a calm, philosophical
+person, neither very good nor very bad,--one who took the pleasures and
+troubles of life as they came, without quarrelling with either. But the
+man of the world as Mackenzie paints him, and as the eighteenth century
+made him, was quite another individual. Sir Thomas Sindall is a villain
+of the heroic type. Not one, simply, who does all the injury and
+commits all the crimes which chance brings in his way. He labors with a
+ceaseless persistency, and a resolution which years do not diminish, to
+seduce a single woman. Without any apparent passion, he finally
+accomplishes his object by force, after having spent several years in
+ruining her brother to prevent his interference. The long periods of
+time, the great expenditure of vital energy, and the exhaustless fund
+of brutality which are consumed by the fictitious villains of the
+eighteenth century in gratifying what would seem merely a passing
+inclination, astonish the reader of to-day. The crime of rape, rarely
+now introduced into fiction, and rarely figuring even in criminal
+courts, is a common incident in old novels, and as commonly, remains
+unpunished. In Sir Thomas Sindall, Mackenzie meant to present a
+contrast to the delicate and benevolent character of Harley. Both are
+extremes, the one of sensibility, the other of brutality. Harley was a
+new creation, but Sindall quite a familiar person, with whom all
+readers of the novels of the last century have often associated.
+
+It was suggested very sensibly to Mackenzie, that the interest of most
+works of fiction depended on the _designing_ villainy of one or more
+characters, and that in actual life calamities were more often brought
+about by the innocent errors of the sufferers. To place this view
+before his readers, Mackenzie wrote "Julia de Roubigné," in which a
+wife brings death upon herself and her husband by indiscreetly, though
+innocently, arousing his jealousy. Sir Walter Scott ranked this novel
+among the "most heart-wringing histories" that ever were written--a
+description which justly becomes it. Mackenzie's aim was less to weave
+a complicated plot, than to study and move the heart; and to the lover
+of sentiment his novels may still be attractive.
+
+The "Fool of Quality," by Henry Brooke, has had a singular history. The
+author was a young Irishman of a fine figure, a well-stored mind, and a
+disposition of particular gentleness. He was loved by Pope and
+Lyttleton, caressed by the Prince of Wales, and honored by the friendly
+interest of Jonathan Swift. Married before he was twenty-one to a young
+girl who presented him with three children before she was eighteen, his
+life was a constant struggle to provide for a family which increased
+with every year. After a long period of active life, passed in literary
+occupations, he retired to an obscure part of Ireland, and there died,
+attended by a daughter, the only survivor of twenty-two children, who
+remembered nothing of her father "previous to his retirement from the
+world; and knew little of him, save that he bore the infirmities and
+misfortunes of his declining years with the heroism of true
+Christianity, and that he was possessed of virtues and feelings which
+shone forth to the last moment of his life, unimpaired by the
+distractions of pain, and unshaken amid the ruins of genius."[194]
+
+The "Fool of Quality" was first published in 1766, and received a
+moderate share of public attention. Its narrative was extremely slight.
+Harry, the future Earl of Moreland, was stolen from his parents by an
+uncle in disguise; and the five volumes of the work consist almost
+entirely of an account of the education of the child, and the various
+incidents which affected or illustrated his mental growth. One day John
+Wesley chanced to meet with it, and although he required his followers
+"to read only such books as tend to the knowledge and love of God," he
+was tempted to look into this particular novel. The "whimsical title"
+at first offended him, but as he proceeded, he became so enthusiastic
+over the moral excellence of the work, that he expunged some offensive
+passages it contained, and republished it for the benefit of the
+Methodists. "I now venture to recommend the following treatise," said
+Wesley to his people, "as the most excellent in its kind that I have
+seen either in the English or any other language. * * * It perpetually
+aims at inspiring and increasing every right affection; at the
+instilling gratitude to God and benevolence to man. And it does this
+not by dry, dull, tedious, precepts, but by the liveliest examples that
+can be conceived; by setting before your eyes one of the most beautiful
+pictures that ever was drawn in the world. The strokes of this are so
+delicately fine, the touches so easy, natural, and affecting, that I
+know not who can survey it with tearless eyes, unless he has a heart of
+stone. I recommend it, therefore, to all those who are already, or who
+desire to be, lovers of God and man." It was not as a good novel that
+Wesley either enjoyed or republished the "Fool of Quality." He
+recommended it for the excellence of its moral, and the "Fool of
+Quality" would have been allowed to slumber forever on Methodist
+book-shelves, had it not been revived by a man who was an equally good
+judge of a moral and a work of fiction.
+
+But, in regard to this novel, it must be admitted that Charles
+Kingsley's judgment was seriously at fault. He saw both its qualities
+and its faults, but he did not realize that a good purpose will not
+make up for a poor execution. The causes of the neglect of the book,
+said the Canon in his preface, are to be found "in its deep and grand
+ethics, in its broad and genial humanity, in the divine value which it
+attaches to the relations of husband and wife, father and child, and to
+the utter absence, both of that sentimentalism and that superstition
+which have been alternately debauching of late years the minds of the
+young. And if he shall have arrived at this discovery, he will be able
+possibly to regard at least with patience those who are rash enough to
+affirm that they have learnt from this book more which is pure, sacred,
+and eternal, than from any which has been published since Spenser's
+'Fairy Queen.'"[195] On the testimony of Wesley and of Kingsley, all
+the merits of a moral nature which they claim for the "Fool of Quality"
+will readily be accorded to it. But it is very doubtful that such
+qualities would necessarily interfere with the success of a work of
+fiction. The real reason why very few who can help it will read this
+novel, lies in those characteristics which Kingsley himself admitted
+would appear to the average reader. "The plot is extravagant as well as
+ill-woven, and broken, besides, by episodes as extravagant as itself.
+The morality is quixotic, and practically impossible. The sermonizing,
+whether theological or social, is equally clumsy and obtrusive. Without
+artistic method, without knowledge of human nature and the real world,
+the book can never have touched many hearts and can touch none
+now."[196]
+
+It is singular that Kingsley should have expected that a book with so
+many and so evident faults could have remained popular simply because
+its moral was a good one. If he had sat down to warn the world against
+Henry Brooke's novel, he could hardly have expressed himself with more
+effect. Whatever merit it may have is buried under a mass of dulness
+almost impossible to penetrate, and a silliness pervades the characters
+and the conversations which makes even the lighter portions unreadable.
+The "Fool of Quality" has all the drawbacks of a novel of purpose in an
+exaggerated form. The improvement of his reader is a laudable object
+for a novelist. But it is an object which can be successfully carried
+out in a work of art, only very indirectly. An author may have a great
+influence for good, but that influence can be obtained, not by
+deliberate sermonizing, but only by tone of healthy sentiment which
+insensibly elevates the reader's mind.
+
+Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the number and variety of
+works of fiction rapidly increased. William Beckford, whom Byron calls
+in "Childe Harold," "Vathek, England's wealthiest son," wrote in his
+twentieth year the oriental romance "Vathek," which excited great
+attention at the time. It was composed in three days and two nights,
+during which the author never took off his clothes. Byron considered
+this tale superior to "Rasselas." It represented the downward career of
+an oriental prince, who had given himself up to sensual indulgence, and
+who is allured by a Giaour into the commission of crimes which lead him
+to everlasting and horrible punishments. "Vathek" gives evidence of a
+familiarity with oriental customs, and a vividness of imagination which
+are remarkable in so youthful an author. The descriptions of the Caliph
+and of the Hall of Eblis are full of power. But in depth of meaning,
+and in that intrinsic worth which gives endurance to a literary work,
+it bears no comparison to "Rasselas." The one affords an hour's
+amusement; the other retains its place among those volumes which are
+read and re-read with constant pleasure and satisfaction.
+
+The novels of Richard Cumberland, "Henry," "Arundel," and "John de
+Lancaster," contain some well-drawn characters and readable sketches of
+life. But Cumberland had little originality. He aimed without success
+at Fielding's constructive excellence, and imitated that great master's
+humor, only to reproduce his coarseness. The character of Ezekiel Daw,
+the Methodist, in "Henry," is fair and just, and contrasts very
+favorably with the libellous representations of the Methodist preachers
+in Graves' "Spiritual Quixote," and other contemporary novels. Another
+writer of fiction of considerable prominence in his day, but of none in
+ours, was Dr. Moore, whose "Zeluco" contained some very lively "Views
+of human nature, taken from life and manners, foreign and domestic,"
+but also some very disagreeable exhibitions of human degradation and
+vice.
+
+The influence of the French Revolution in England is apparent in the
+works of several novelists who wrote at the end of the eighteenth
+century. Thomas Holcroft embodied radical views in novels now quite
+forgotten.[197] Robert Bage has left four works containing opinions of
+a revolutionary character--"Barham Downs," "James Wallace," "The Fair
+Syrian," and "Mount Henneth." These novels are written in the form of a
+series of letters and have little narrative interest. The author has
+striven, sometimes successfully, at a powerful delineation of
+character, but his works are too evidently a vehicle for his political
+and philosophical opinions. He represents with unnatural consistency
+the upper classes as invariably corrupt and tyrannical, and the lower
+as invariably honest and deserving. His theories are not only
+inartistically prominent, but are worthless and immoral. He looks upon
+a tax-gatherer as a thief, and condones feminine unchastity as a
+trivial and unimportant offence.
+
+The novelist most deeply embued with the doctrines of the French
+Revolution was William Godwin--a man of great literary ambition, and
+less literary capacity. His "Life of Chaucer" has the merits of a
+compilation, but not those of an original literary work. His political
+and social writings were merely reproductions of French revolutionary
+views, and were entirely discredited by Malthus' attacks upon them. The
+same lack of originality and of independent power characterized
+Godwin's novels. They all have a patch-work effect, and in all may be
+found the traces of imitation. "St. Leon" and "Mandeville"[198] are
+dull attempts in the direction of the historical novel. "Fleetwood, or
+the New Man of Feeling" embodies some of the author's social views, and
+contains evidence of an imitation of Fielding and Smollett, in which
+only their coarseness is successfully copied.
+
+But Godwin gave one book to the world which has acquired a notoriety
+which entitles it to a more extended notice than its intrinsic merits
+would otherwise justify. "Caleb Williams" was first published in 1794,
+and was widely read. Lord Byron is said to have threatened his wife
+that he would treat her as Falkland had treated Caleb Williams, and
+this fact brought the novel into prominence with the Byron controversy,
+and occasioned its republication in the present century. The author
+tells us that his object was "to comprehend a general review of the
+modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism by which man becomes the
+destroyer of man." And this was to be done "without subtracting from
+the interest and passion by which a performance of this sort (a novel)
+ought to be characterized." In both his didactic and his artistic
+purpose the author must be said to have failed. The story is briefly as
+follows: Falkland, who is represented as a man whose chief thought and
+consideration consist in guarding his honor from stain, stabs Tyrrel,
+his enemy, in the back, at night. He then allows two innocent men to
+suffer for the murder on the gallows. His aim, during the remainder of
+his life, is to prevent the discovery of his crime and the consequent
+disgrace to his name. Caleb Williams enters his employment as a
+secretary, discovers the secret with the greatest ease, and promises
+never to betray his patron. Williams soon becomes weary of his
+position, and attempts to escape. He is accused by Falkland of robbery
+and is imprisoned. He escapes from prison, and wanders about the
+country, always pursued by the hirelings of his master who use every
+means to render his life miserable. Finally he openly accuses Falkland
+of his crime, who confesses it and dies. The story is full of the most
+evident inconsistencies. There is no adequate reason for Tyrrel's
+hatred of Falkland, which leads to the murder. It is inconceivable that
+a man of Falkland's worship of honor should commit so dastardly a
+crime, and should suffer two innocent men to pay its penalty. The
+facility with which Falkland allows his secretary to discover a secret
+which would bring him to the gallows is entirely inconsistent with the
+strength of mind which the author imputes to his hero. Finally, the
+confession of crime, after so many years of secrecy, and when
+conscience must have been blunted by time and habit, is without
+adequate cause. The characters are very slightly sketched, and excite
+neither interest nor sympathy. Emily Melville resembles Pamela too
+closely, and Tyrrel is a poor reproduction of Squire Western.
+
+Godwin tells us that, when thinking over "Caleb Williams," he said to
+himself a thousand times: "I will write a tale, that shall constitute
+an epoch in the mind of the reader, that no one, after he has read it,
+shall ever be exactly the same man that he was before." The effort, and
+straining after effect which this confession implies, are evident
+throughout the work. The reader's curiosity is continually excited by
+the promise of new interest and new developments, but he is as
+continually disappointed. The main idea of the story is certainly a
+striking one, but it is feebly carried out. The constitution of society
+cannot be effectively attacked by so improbable and exceptional an
+illustration of tyranny as the persecution of Caleb Williams.
+
+
+[Footnote 189: It would be difficult to find a more bare-faced and
+impudent literary theft than the case in which Sterne appropriated to
+himself the remonstrance of Burton ("Anatomy of Melancholy"), against
+that very plagiarism which he (Sterne) was then committing. Burton
+said: "As apothecaries, we make new mixtures, every day pour out of one
+vessel into another * * * We weave the same web, still twist the same
+rope again and again." Sterne says, with an effrontery all his own:
+"Shall we forever make new books, as apothecaries make new medicines,
+by pouring only out of one vessel into another? Are we forever to be
+twisting and untwisting the same rope--forever in the same track?
+forever at the same pace?" For Sterne's plagiarism, see Dr. Ferriar's
+"Essay and Illustrations," also Scott's "Life of Sterne."]
+
+[Footnote 190: "Tristram Shandy," orig. ed., vol. viii, chap. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 191: "Rasselas," chap. xliv. Contrast with Porter on "The
+Human Intellect," pp. 371-2.]
+
+[Footnote 192: See Scott's "Memoir of Johnson."]
+
+[Footnote 193: "The Reverie," "The History of Arbaces," "The Pilgrim,"
+"The History of John Juniper."]
+
+[Footnote 194: The facts of Brooke's life are taken from the
+introduction to the "Fool of Quality," by Rev. Charles Kingsley, New
+York, 1860.]
+
+[Footnote 195: Charles Kingsley, preface to the "Fool of Quality."]
+
+[Footnote 196: Kingsley's preface to "Fool of Quality."]
+
+[Footnote 197: "Alwyn," "Anna St. Ives," "Hugh Trevor," "Bryan
+Perdue."]
+
+[Footnote 198: Published in 1817, when the author was far advanced in
+years.]
+
+
+
+III.
+
+The publication of "Evelina," in 1778, made a sensation which the
+merits of the work fully justified. The story of Miss Burney's[199]
+early life, her furtive attempts at fictitious composition, the great
+variety of artistic and political characters who passed in review
+before her observant eyes at Dr. Burney's house have been made familiar
+by her own diary and letters. Petted and admired by Johnson, Mrs.
+Thrale, and the brilliant literary society of which they formed the
+centre, she lived sufficiently far into the present century to see the
+works of her early friends enrolled among the classics or consigned to
+oblivion, and to recognize that the approval of posterity had been
+added to the early fame of her own writings. As a very young girl,
+unnoticed by the distinguished persons who frequented her father's
+house, she had studied with careful attention the characters and
+manners of those who talked and moved about her. A strong desire to
+reproduce the impressions which filled her mind induced Miss Burney in
+her sixteenth year to devote her stolen hours of seclusion to
+fictitious composition. Discouraged in her early efforts by her
+stepmother, her habits of observation remained active, and took form,
+when the authoress was twenty five years old, in the famous novel of
+"Evelina." The book was issued secretly and anonymously, the publisher
+even being ignorant of the writer's true name. But the immediate
+popularity and admiration which greeted the work soon led to its open
+acknowledgment by the happy young authoress.
+
+And "Evelina" fully deserved the praise and interest which it obtained
+and still excites. The aim was to describe the difficulties and
+sensations of a young girl just entering life. The heroine chosen by
+Miss Burney was one whose circumstances particularly well suited her to
+form the centre of a varied collection of characters and of a
+comprehensive picture of contemporary society. Well connected on her
+father's side, Evelina moved in fashionable circles with the Mirvan
+family. On account of the origin of her mother she was brought into
+close contact with humbler personages, with Madame Duval and the
+Brangtons. Hence this novel presents to the reader a variety of social
+scenes which gives it a value possessed by no other work of fiction of
+the eighteenth century. No novelist has described so well or so fully
+the aspect of the theatres, of Vauxhall and Ranelagh, of Bath in the
+season, of the ridottos and assemblies of the London fashionable world.
+The shops, the amusements and the manners of the middle classes are
+made familiar to Evelina by her association with the Brangtons, and add
+greatly to the breadth of this valuable picture of metropolitan life.
+With a feminine attention to detail, and a quick perception of salient
+characteristics, Miss Burney described the world about her so
+faithfully and picturesquely as to deserve the thanks of every student
+of social history. The novel of "Evelina," the letters of Horace
+Walpole and Mrs. Delany corroborate each other, and may be
+appropriately placed on the same shelf in a well-ordered library.
+
+In the painting of manners Miss Burney was eminently successful. But
+she was hardly less so in a point in which excellence could not have
+been expected in so youthful a writer. The plot of "Evelina" is
+constructed with a skill worthy of a veteran. Fielding alone, of the
+eighteenth century novelists, can be said to surpass Miss Burney in
+this respect. The whole story of the mischances and misunderstanding of
+Evelina's intercourse with Lord Orville, the skill with which the
+various personages are brought into contact with each other and made to
+contribute to the final _dénoument_, compose a truly artistic success.
+The introduction of Macartney and his marriage to the supposed daughter
+of Sir John Belmont form a very happy and effective invention.
+
+In regard to her sketches of character, it may be objected that Miss
+Burney lacked breadth of treatment, that she dwelt on one distinctive
+characteristic at the expense of the others. But still, Lord Orville,
+though somewhat too much of a model, and Mrs. Selwyn, though somewhat
+too habitually a wit, are vivid and life-like characters. The Brangtons
+and Sir Clement Willougby are nature itself, and the girlish nature of
+Evelina is betrayed in her letters with great felicity.
+
+It is no small triumph for Miss Burney, who has had so many and so
+deserving competitors in the department of literature to which she
+contributed, that her novels should have remained in active
+circulation for more than a century after their publication. "Cecilia"
+has much the same merits which distinguished "Evelina," and the two
+novels bid fair to hold their own as long as English fiction retains
+its popularity. Johnson considered Miss Burney equal to Fielding. But
+although she possessed qualities similar to his--constructive power and
+picturesqueness--she possessed them in a lesser degree. In the
+management of the difficulties of the epistolary form of novel-writing,
+she surpassed Richardson in verisimilitude and concentration.
+
+Some readers of the present day object to Miss Burney's novels that
+they contain so many references to "delicacy" and "propriety" that an
+air of affectation is produced. But at the time when "Evelina" was
+written, a perpetual discretion in actions and words was absolutely
+necessary to a young woman who did not wish to be subjected to
+libertine advances. Society is now so much more generally refined that
+there is far less danger of such misconstruction, and far less need for
+a young girl to be always on her guard. A sound objection, on the
+ground of taste, may be made against the excessively prolonged account
+of Captain Mirvan's brutalities. The effect might have been as well
+produced in a much shorter space, and the reader spared the
+uninteresting scenes which now fill so many repulsive pages. For this
+defect, however, we must blame the times more than the author.
+
+Charlotte Lennox was the daughter of Sir James Ramsay, Lieutenant
+governor of New York, where she was born in 1720. When fifteen years of
+age she was sent to London, and there supported herself by her pen.
+Johnson said that he had "dined at Mrs. Garrick's with Mrs. Carter,
+Miss Hannah More, and Miss Fanny Burney: three such women are not to be
+found. I know not where I could find a fourth, except Mrs. Lennox, who
+is superior to them all." Such high praise was not called forth by Mrs.
+Lennox's novels, which have little originality or power. "The Female
+Quixote" is an entertaining satire on the old French romances, but
+"Sophia," and "Euphemia" are without any special interest.
+
+A writer of more ability, whose name is still remembered by
+novel-readers, is Mrs. Inchbald. She was overcome in early life by an
+enthusiasm for the stage; ran away from home to find theatrical
+employment, and remained for many years a popular London actress.
+Although possessed of great and durable beauty, and the object of
+constant attention from aristocratic admirers, it is believed that her
+reputation continued unsullied. Her poverty, largely caused by a
+worthless husband, obliged her to perform the most menial labors. She
+rejoiced on one occasion that the approach of warmer weather released
+her from the duty of making fires, scouring the grate, sifting the
+cinders, and of going up and down three pair of long stairs with water
+or dirt. All this Mrs. Inchbald thought that she could cheerfully bear,
+but the labor of being a fine lady the remainder of the day was almost
+too much for her. "Last Thursday," she wrote to a friend, "I finished
+scouring my bed-chamber, while a coach with a coronet and two footmen
+waited at the door to take me an airing."
+
+The same courage and industry were carried by Mrs. Inchbald into her
+literary labors, the profits of which enabled her to live with
+considerable comfort toward the end of her life. She left a large
+number of plays, many of which had been acted with success, and two
+novels, "A Simple Story," published in 1791, and "Nature and Art,"
+published five years later. Neither of these works has much merit from
+a critical point of view. They are faulty in construction, and give
+frequent evidence of the authoress' lack of education.
+
+Yet, in her ability to excite the interest and to move the feelings of
+her reader, Mrs. Inchbald met with great success. Her novels are of the
+pathetic order, and appeal to the sympathies with a sometimes powerful
+effect. Maria Edgeworth was deeply moved by the "Simple Story." "Its
+effect upon my feelings," she said after reading it for the fourth
+time, "was as powerful as at the first reading; I never read _any_
+novel--I except none,--I never read any novel that affected me so
+strongly, or that so completely possessed me with the belief in the
+real existence, of all the persons it represents. I never once
+recollected the author whilst I was reading it; never said or thought,
+_that's a fine sentiment_,--or, _that is well expressed_--or, _that is
+well invented_; I believed all to be real, and was affected as I should
+be by the real scenes, if they had passed before my eyes; it is truly
+and deeply pathetic."
+
+The sisters, Harriet and Sophia Lee, wrote a number of stories gathered
+together under the rather unfortunate title of "The Canterbury Tales,"
+which had a long-continued popularity. "The Young Lady's Tale," and
+"The Clergyman's Tale" were written by Sophia; all the others, together
+with the novel "Errors of Innocence," belonged to Harriet. These
+stories have great narrative interest, and contain some powerfully
+drawn characters. Byron was deeply affected by some of them. Of the
+"German's Tale," he confessed: "It made a deep impression on me, and
+may be said to contain the germ of much that I have since written." It
+not only contained the germ of "Werner," but supplied the whole
+material for that tragedy. All the characters of the novel are
+reproduced by Byron except "Ida," whom he added. The plan of Miss Lee's
+work is exactly followed, as the poet admitted, and even the language
+is frequently adopted without essential change.
+
+Charlotte Smith was a woman of talent and imagination who was driven to
+literature for aid in supporting a large family abandoned by their
+spendthrift father. She was among the most prolific novelists of her
+time, but only one work, "The Old Manor House," enjoyed more than a
+passing reputation, or has any claim to particular mention here. The
+chief merit of Charlotte Smith's novels lies in their descriptions of
+scenery, an element only just entering into the work of the novelist.
+
+Clara Reeve and the celebrated Mrs. Radcliffe did much to sustain the
+prominent position which women were taking in fictitious composition,
+and their works will be commented upon in connection with the romantic
+revival, to which movement they were eminent contributors.
+
+Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the number and variety of
+works of fiction increased with remarkable rapidity. The female sex
+supplied its full share, both in amount and in excellence of work. But
+those who desire to see the advent of women into new walks of active
+life on the ground that their presence and participation add to the
+purity of every occupation they adopt, can find no illustration of the
+theory in the connection of women with fictitious composition. Mrs.
+Behn, Mrs. Manley, and Mrs. Heywood, the earliest female novelists,
+produced the most inflammatory and licentious novels of their time. At
+a later period, during the eighteenth century, although some female
+writers exhibited a very exceptional refinement, the majority showed in
+this respect no marked superiority to their masculine contemporaries.
+In our own time, whoever would make a list of those novels which are
+most evidently immoral in their teachings and licentious in their tone,
+would be obliged to seek them almost quite as much among the works of
+female writers, as among those of the rougher sex.
+
+To write a really excellent novel, is among the most difficult of
+literary feats. But to write a poor one has often been found an easy
+undertaking. The apparent facility of fictitious composition has
+deceived great numbers of literary aspirants, and has filled the
+circulating libraries with a vast collection of thoroughly worthless
+productions. This unfortunate fecundity, to which the department of
+fiction is subject, began to be conspicuous at the end of the
+eighteenth century,[200] and excited much opposition to novels of all
+kinds. Hannah More, in her essays on female education, inveighed
+against the evil in terms which are quite as applicable at the present
+day. "Who are those ever multiplying authors, that with unparalleled
+fecundity are overstocking the world with their quick-succeeding
+progeny? They are _novel-writers_; the easiness of whose productions is
+at once the cause of their own fruitfulness, and of the almost
+infinitely numerous race of imitators to whom they give birth. Such is
+the frightful facility of this species of composition, that every raw
+girl, while she reads, is tempted to fancy that she can also write. And
+as Alexander, on perusing the Iliad, found by congenial sympathy the
+image of Achilles stamped on his own ardent soul, and felt himself the
+hero he was studying; and as Correggio, on first beholding a picture
+which exhibited the perfection of the graphic art, prophetically felt
+all his own future greatness, and cried out in rapture: 'And I, too, am
+a painter!' So a thorough-paced novel-reading miss, at the close of
+every tissue of hackneyed adventures, feels within herself the stirring
+impulse of corresponding genius, and triumphantly exclaims: 'And I,
+too, am an author!' The glutted imagination soon overflows with the
+redundance of cheap sentiment and plentiful incident, and, by a sort of
+arithmetical proportion, is enabled by the perusal of any three novels,
+to produce a fourth; till every fresh production, like the prolific
+progeny of Banquo, is followed by
+
+    'Another, and another, and another!'"
+
+
+[Footnote 199: Afterward Madame D'Arblay.]
+
+[Footnote 200: See the "Progress of Romance," by Clara Reeve, for the
+names of many now forgotten novels, for which room cannot be spared
+here.]
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+The writers who took the chief part in originating and sustaining the
+romantic revival in English fiction were Horace Walpole, Clara Reeve,
+and Mrs. Radcliffe. As we have called upon the testimony of Walpole so
+often in this work, and as we are now to consider him as an author,
+some account of his personal appearance may be of interest. "His
+figure," says Miss Hawkins, "was not merely tall, but long and slender
+to excess; his complexion, and particularly his hands, of a most
+unhealthy paleness. His eyes were remarkably bright and penetrating,
+very dark and lively:--his voice was not strong, but his tones were
+extremely pleasant, and, if I may so say, highly gentlemanly. I do not
+remember his common gait; he always entered a room in that style of
+affected delicacy which fashion had then made almost natural; _chapeau
+bras_ between his hands as if he wished to compress it, or under his
+arm; knees bent, and feet on tiptoe, as if afraid of a wet floor. His
+dress in visiting was most usually, in summer, when I most saw him, a
+lavender suit, the waistcoat embroidered with a little silver, or of
+white silk worked in the tambour, partridge silk stockings, and gold
+buckles, ruffles and frill generally lace. I remember, when a child,
+thinking him very much under-dressed, if at any time, except in
+mourning, he wore hemmed cambric. In summer, no powder, but his wig
+combed straight, and showing his very smooth, pale forehead, and queued
+behind; in winter, powder."
+
+Posterity has cause to regret that Horace Walpole, of all men best
+fitted by personal knowledge and ability to draw a picture of the
+brilliant society of his time, should have contributed no work in the
+department of realistic fiction. Had the keen observation and
+experience of the world so conspicuous in his letters been brought to
+bear on a narrative of real life not less ably constructed than that of
+"The Castle of Otranto," an addition of no little value to the social
+history of the eighteenth century must have been the result. But
+although Walpole attempted no novel in which he might have depicted the
+fashionable life of which he was so faithful a chronicler, he yet tried
+an experiment in fiction for which he was peculiarly qualified by his
+antiquarian studies and his fondness for the arts and customs of feudal
+times.
+
+The object of "The Castle of Otranto" was to unite the characteristic
+elements of the ancient romance with those of the modern novel. It was
+attempted to introduce into a narrative constructed with modern order
+and sequence, such supernatural events as controlled the incidents of
+romantic fiction. To accomplish this result, it was necessary that the
+_mise en scène_ should be impressive and awe-inspiring, that the
+reader's mind should be insensibly prepared by strange surroundings for
+extraordinary incidents. In his selection of age and scene, Walpole was
+highly judicious. He chose the feudal period, when superstition
+accorded the most ready belief to supernatural agencies. He introduced
+his reader to a huge, gloomy castle, furnished with towers, donjons,
+subterranean passages, and trapdoors. He took for his hero, Manfred, a
+fierce and cruel knight, who had obtained his lands by duplicity and
+blood; whose chief aim in life was to continue his posterity in
+possession of wrongfully acquired power. He added subordinate
+characters of a kind to aid the effect of supernatural phenomena: a
+monk in a neighboring convent, who threatened Manfred with divine
+visitation for his crimes; superstitious servants, whose easy fears
+exaggerated every unusual sound or foot-fall. He gave an interest to
+his narrative by the love passages of Manfred's daughters which were
+perpetually at the mercy of the fate which hung over the castle. He
+introduced his supernatural effects in the form of a gigantic gauntlet
+seen on the stair-rail; a gigantic helmet which crushed the son and
+heir of the house as he was about to be married and to carry out his
+father's hopes; a skeleton monk who urged the rightful owner of the
+castle to take his own from the usurper's hands.
+
+In attempting to make a regularly constructed narrative depend on
+supernatural agencies, Walpole undoubtedly succeeded as far as success
+was possible. But it may be said without hesitation that real success
+was unattainable. The very merits of "The Castle of Otranto" sustain
+this decision. The experiment had a fair trial. The narrative of
+Manfred's crimes and the punishments visited upon them, the characters
+and actions of subordinate personages are all managed with skill; while
+the supernatural agencies are introduced at the proper times and have
+the expected effects. But the real test of success in such an attempt
+must lie in the impression made on the reader's mind. And this
+impression may be of two kinds. Let us imagine a group of young people
+sitting about the dying embers of a fire on a winter's evening,
+listening to a ghost story. The black darkness, the sound of the wind
+howling without, accord with the low tones, the dim light, and the tale
+of horror within. The minds of the listeners insensibly cast off their
+ordinary trains of thought, and give themselves up to the unreal
+impressions of the moment. The incredible circumstances of the
+apparition are accepted without question or criticism; the impression
+of the supernatural occurrences is alone thought of and enjoyed. But
+now, let the same tale be read aloud after breakfast, from a newspaper,
+with the affidavits of the witnesses of the apparition duly attached,
+and only laughter can be the result.
+
+Now let us apply the same test to romance. We open the "Morte d'Arthur";
+we find ourselves at once in an unreal, almost nameless land; we meet
+with knights whom we only know apart by their armor, and queens ambling
+through pathless forests on white palfreys; we attend brilliant
+tournaments and witness superhuman deeds of arms. Our minds, untroubled
+by scepticism and thoughtless of unreality, yield themselves to the
+poetical illusion. Who stops to think of the incredible when Sir
+Bedivere hurls into the lake the dying Arthur's sword Excalibur?
+
+    Then Sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly took
+    it up, and went to the water side, and there he bound the girdle
+    about the hilts, and then he threw the sword as far into the water
+    as he might, and there came an arm and an hand above the water, and
+    met it, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and
+    then vanished away the hand with the sword in the water.
+
+But when we are introduced to the castle of Otranto, when we know its
+dimensions and appearance, when we have become acquainted with its
+inmates, and have been made to realize that they are flesh and blood
+like ourselves, we cannot receive without a shock the account of the
+supernatural occurrences by which they are affected. It is as if we
+listened to a ghost story in the glare of daylight, and in the full
+activity of our critical faculties.
+
+    "Thou art no lawful prince," said Jerome; "thou art no prince--go,
+    discuss thy claim with Frederic; and when that is done----" "It is
+    done," replied Manfred; "Frederic accepts Matilda's hand, and is
+    content to waive his claim, unless I have no male issue." As he
+    spoke these words three drops of blood fell from the nose of
+    Alfonso's statue.
+
+"The Castle of Otranto" is an entertaining, well-constructed romance
+which may absorb the attention of young people, and indeed of all
+readers who delight in tales of superstitious horror. But looked upon
+as a work of art, it contains discordant elements. The realistic manner
+in which the scene and characters are made known, the exactitude with
+which the incidents are combined, are in constant opposition to that
+poetical ideality without which the supernatural cannot take possession
+of the mind. In reading the "Morte d'Arthur" we are insensibly
+penetrated by an atmosphere of the marvellous which makes a giant a
+natural companion, and a magic sword a necessary part of a warrior's
+outfit. But Manfred and his family are so essentially human, and their
+surroundings are so realistic, that the reader's sense of congruity is
+shocked by the introduction of a bleeding statue or a skeleton monk.
+
+This was evident to Miss Clara Reeve, who hoped to attain success in
+the attempt to unite the romance and the novel by limiting all
+supernatural occurrences to the verge of probability. It is obvious
+that the line would be difficult to draw. Miss Reeve drew it at ghosts.
+In the "Old English Baron," she took a story similar to that of
+Walpole. She presented to the reader a castle whose real owner had been
+murdered, and of which the rightful heir, ignorant of his birth, lived
+as a dependent on the wrongful possessor. The story turned on the
+revelation of the secret by the ghost of the murdered knight.
+
+    "God defend us!" said Edmund; "but I verily believe that the person
+    that owned this armor lies buried under us." Upon this a dismal,
+    hollow groan was heard, as if from underneath. A solemn silence
+    ensued, and marks of fear were visible upon all three; the groan
+    was thrice heard.
+
+To the average mind of the present day Clara Reeve's ghost is not less
+improbable and incredible than Walpole's gigantic helmet. If the reader
+is prepared by the poetic nature of a narrative for the influence of
+the supernatural, he will receive all marvels with equal ease; but if
+he be not prepared, if his mind be occupied during the greater part of
+the work with actual and ordinary occurrences, any supernatural event
+is rejected. Miss Reeve introduced far less of the incredible than her
+predecessor, but she did not approach Walpole in the adaptation of her
+scenes to supernatural effects. It requires less imagination to see a
+figure walk out of a portrait in the gloomy castle of Otranto, than to
+hear the groan of Miss Reeve's spectre.
+
+The incompatibility of the real and the unreal in the same work is
+sufficiently shown by the course pursued by the different writers who
+took part in the romantic revival. Walpole had boldly introduced a
+skeleton monk, and had crushed one of his characters by a gigantic
+helmet which fell from the sky. Clara Reeve's sense of congruity was
+shocked by so strong a contrast between the usual and the
+extraordinary, and therefore limited herself to a single supernatural
+effect, which might inspire fear while yet remaining within the bounds
+of superstitious credulity. The next and greatest contributor to the
+romantic revival still further modified the methods of her
+predecessors, and in so modifying them, testified her doubts of their
+efficacy. Mrs. Radcliffe's plan was not to summon a spectre from his
+resting-place and to make him move among flesh and blood personages.
+She simply described the superstitious fears of her heroes and
+heroines, and sought to make her reader share in them. She excited the
+imagination by highly wrought scenes of horror, but instead of
+ascribing those scenes to the intervention of supernatural beings, she
+showed them to proceed from natural causes. The terror felt, by her
+fictitious characters and shared by the reader, was not so much
+inspired by real dangers from without, as by superstitious fear within.
+The following passage will illustrate Mrs. Radcliffe's method of
+dealing with the supernatural:
+
+    From the disturbed slumber into which she then sunk, she was soon
+    awakened by a noise, which seemed to arise within her chamber; but
+    the silence that prevailed, as she tearfully listened, inclined her
+    to believe that she had been alarmed by such sounds as sometimes
+    occur in dreams, and she laid her head again upon the pillow.
+
+    A return of the noise again disturbed her, it seemed to come from
+    that part of the room which communicated with the private
+    staircase, and she instantly remembered the odd circumstance of the
+    door having been fastened during the preceding night by some
+    unknown hand. The late alarming suspicion concerning its
+    communication also occurred to her. Her heart became faint with
+    terror. Half raising herself from the bed, and gently drawing aside
+    the curtain, she looked toward the door of the staircase, but the
+    lamp that burnt on the hearth spread so feeble a light through the
+    apartment, that the remote parts of it were lost in shadow. The
+    noise, however, which she was convinced came from the door,
+    continued. It seemed like that made by the undrawing of rusty
+    bolts, and often ceased, and was then renewed more gently, as if
+    the hand that occasioned it was restrained by a fear of discovery.
+    While Emily kept her eyes fixed on the spot, she saw the door move,
+    and then slowly open, and perceived something enter the room, but
+    the extreme duskiness prevented her perceiving what it was. Almost
+    fainting with terror, she had yet sufficient command over herself
+    to check the shriek that was escaping from her lips, and, letting
+    the curtain drop from her hand, continued to observe in silence the
+    motions of the mysterious figure she saw. It seemed to glide along
+    the remote obscurity of the apartment, then paused, and, as it
+    approached the hearth, she perceived, in the stronger light, what
+    appeared to be a human figure. Certain remembrances now struck upon
+    her heart, and almost subdued the feeble remains of her spirit. She
+    continued, however, to watch the figure, which remained for some
+    time motionless, but then, advancing slowly toward the bed, stood
+    silently at the feet, where the curtains, being a little open,
+    allowed her still to see it; terror, however, had now deprived her
+    of the power of discrimination, as well as that of utterance.[201]
+
+This scene is an excellent example of Mrs. Radcliffe's power of
+depicting and exciting fear. The loneliness of Emily in the castle, her
+dread of real dangers inclining her mind to expect the unreal, are
+shown with an art of which neither Walpole nor Reeve were capable. But,
+while these writers would have introduced a real spectre as the
+disturber of Emily's slumber, Mrs. Radcliffe is contented with the
+terror she has aroused, and hastens to explain its cause.
+
+    Having continued there a moment, the form retreated towards the
+    hearth, when it took the lamp, held it up, surveyed the chamber for
+    a few moments, and then again advanced towards the bed. The light
+    at that instant awakening the dog that had slept at Emily's feet,
+    he barked loudly, and, jumping to the floor, flew at the stranger,
+    who struck the animal smartly with a sheathed sword, and springing
+    towards the bed, Emily discovered--Count Morano.
+
+These passages afford evidence of both the strength and the weakness of
+Mrs. Radcliffe's work. She chose a scene calculated to inspire horror,
+she subjected to its influence a lonely female, and she then described
+with blood-curdling minuteness each detail which could enhance the
+sense of hidden danger which it was her purpose to excite. While the
+reader follows such portions of her writings, he is carried by the
+force and picturesqueness of Mrs. Radcliffe's language into a condition
+of sympathy with the fears of the fictitious personage. But the moment
+that the scene of horror is past, that the hidden danger is revealed,
+that, it turns out to be no ghost but only a Count Morano, all Mrs.
+Radcliffe's power is required to prevent an anti-climax. This weakness
+is very different from that of Walpole or Reeve. They failed to excite
+the feeling of superstitious fear. Mrs. Radcliffe excited it, but she
+destroyed its effect by revealing the inadequacy of its cause. The
+works of Walpole, Clara Reeve, and particularly of Mrs. Radcliffe,
+contain very decided merits. They made a school which has found many
+admirers and has given a vast deal of pleasure. But the school was
+founded on wrong principles and could not endure. It is impossible for
+the mind to enjoy the supernatural while it is chained down to
+every-day life by realistic descriptions of scenes and persons. And it
+is equally impossible to permanently please by fear-inspiring
+narratives, when the reader is aware that all the while there is no
+sufficient cause for the hero's terror.
+
+But what Mrs. Radcliffe attempted, she carried out with a very great
+skill. She placed the scenes of her narratives in Sicily, in Italy, or
+the south of France, and made good use of the warm natures and vivid
+imaginations which are born of southern climates. Every aid which an
+effective _mise en scène_ could supply to her supernatural effects was
+most skilfully brought into play. Lonely castles, secret passages,
+gloomy churches, and monkish superstitions,--all were adapted to the
+tale of unknown dangers and fearful predicaments which Mrs. Radcliffe
+had to tell. She kept up with remarkable strength a supernatural tone
+which insensibly aids the imagination. In her descriptions of scenery,
+she chose nature in its most awe-inspiring forms, and instilled into
+the reader's mind the same sense of the insignificance of man, under
+the influence of which her heroes and heroines so continually remain.
+We are reminded of Buckle's description of the effect of nature upon
+human imagination and credulity when we notice the striking manner in
+which Mrs. Radcliffe moulded the surroundings of her heroes and
+heroines, and made their minds susceptible to superstitious terror.
+
+    From Beaujeu the road had constantly ascended, conducting the
+    travellers into the higher regions of the air, where immense
+    glaciers exhibited their frozen horrors, and eternal snow whitened
+    the summits of the mountains. They often paused to contemplate
+    these stupendous scenes, and, seated on some wild cliff, where only
+    the ilex or the larch could flourish, looked over dark forests of
+    fir, and precipices where human foot had never wandered, into the
+    glen--so deep that the thunder of the torrent, which was seen to
+    foam along the bottom was scarcely heard to murmur. Over these
+    crags rose others of stupendous height and fantastic shape; some
+    shooting into cones; others impending far over their base, in huge
+    masses of granite, along whose broken ridges was often lodged a
+    weight of snow, that, trembling even to the vibration of a sound,
+    threatened to bear destruction in its course to the vale. Around on
+    every side, far as the eye could penetrate, were seen only forms of
+    grandeur the long perspective of mountain tops, tinged with
+    ethereal blue, or white with snow; valleys of ice, and forests of
+    gloomy fir. * * * The deep silence of these solitudes was broken
+    only at intervals by the scream of the vultures, seen cowering
+    round some cliff below, or by the cry of the eagle sailing high in
+    the air; except when the travellers listened to the hollow thunder
+    that sometimes muttered at their feet.[202]
+
+Lewis in "The Monk," and Maturin in "The Family of Montorio," carried
+the principles of the Radcliffe school beyond the verge of absurdity.
+Their novels are wild melodramas, the product of distorted
+imaginations, in which endless horrors are mingled with gross
+violations of decency. "The Monk" and "The Family of Montorio" had a
+great reputation in their day, and in contemporary criticism we find
+their praise sung and their immortality predicted. But, while they
+illustrate, on the one hand, the temporary vogue an author may acquire
+by highly-wrought clap-trap and flashy flights of imagination, they
+show very plainly, in the oblivion which has overtaken them, how little
+such characteristics avail in the race for enduring fame.
+
+
+[Footnote 201: "The Mysteries of Udolpho," chap. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 202: "The Mysteries of Udolpho," ch. iv.]
+
+
+
+V.
+
+At the end of the eighteenth century, the novel had become established
+as a popular form of literature, and the number of its votaries had
+begun to assume the proportions which have since made novelists by far
+the most numerous literary body. Some writers, perhaps, have been
+omitted who deserved mention as much as some who have been commented
+upon. But all have been spoken of, it is believed, who contributed any
+new ideas or methods to the art of fictitious composition.
+
+The novel had, indeed, taken the place of the stage to a very great
+extent. If we compare the productions of the dramatist with those of
+the novelist, as regards both quantity and merit, during the last
+hundred and fifty years, we shall perceive a great preponderance in
+favor of the writer of fiction. Although there are some respects in
+which the novel cannot compete with the drama, there are obvious
+reasons why the former should be much better adapted than the latter to
+modern requirements. Great changes have come over the audience. With
+the progress of civilization, life has become less and less dramatic,
+and affords fewer striking scenes and violent ebullitions of passion.
+It not only furnishes far less material for stage effects, but also
+supplies little of that sympathy which the dramatist must find in the
+minds of his audience. While life has become less dramatic, it has
+become far more complex, and requires a broader treatment in its
+delineation than the restrictions of the stage can allow.
+
+As we look back upon the fiction of the eighteenth century it is
+evident that the novel, like the play, is capable of great uses and of
+great abuses, according to the spirit in which it is written. In the
+hands of Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Goldsmith, and Miss Burney, it
+reached a high position as a work of art. It retained, indeed, much of
+the manner of the story of adventure, inasmuch as the interest was more
+commonly made to depend on the fortunes of a chosen hero than on the
+development of a well constructed plot. But "Robinson Crusoe," "Tom
+Jones," "The Vicar of Wakefield," and "Evelina," are works which
+deserve and possess the interest of the present time. Such books as
+these are to be cherished as precious legacies from the years that have
+gone before. They have given, in the course of their long active
+circulation, an incalculable amount of pleasure. They have supplied
+posterity with a picturesque view of the life and manners of their
+ancestors which could not be acquired from any other source. But while
+the fiction of the eighteenth century includes much that is valuable
+from a literary and from a historical point of view, it includes also a
+great quantity of worthless and injurious writing. By far the larger
+number of novels published were of a kind likely to exert an evil
+influence on their readers. Their coarseness and licentiousness had a
+strong tendency to disseminate the morbid thoughts and unregulated
+passions which dictated their production. So general was the feeling
+that a work of fiction would probably contain immoral and debasing
+views of life, that the novel and the novelist, were both looked upon
+askance. "In the republic of letters," said Miss Burney, "there is no
+member of such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his
+brethren of the quill, as the humble novelist; nor is his fate less
+hard in the world at large, since, among the whole class of writers
+perhaps not one can be named of which the votaries are more numerous
+but less respectable." Miss Edgeworth, in the beginning of the present
+century, felt it necessary to call her first novel "a moral tale,"
+because so much folly, error, and vice are disseminated in books
+classed "under the denomination of novels." A great part of the fiction
+of the last century, as indeed of our own time, possesses neither the
+value of a work of art nor that belonging to the description and
+preservation of contemporary manners. Nor could the excuse of the
+amusement they afforded be called up in their favor. No amusement is
+worth having which is not healthy and innocent. The general prejudice
+which formerly existed against novels very much lessened their
+circulation, and lessened the evil done by licentious productions.
+Careful parents did not allow a novel in their children's hands which
+had not passed an examination--a precaution now too generally
+neglected.
+
+But notwithstanding all the trash, and worse than trash, which has gone
+into circulation under the broad and attractive term of novel, it is
+evident that the English speaking public on both sides of the Atlantic
+demand purity in the works of fiction which are submitted to its
+judgment. While no literary work can present a greater claim to
+permanent favor than a really good novel, none is more certain to be
+quite ephemeral than a bad one, whether its badness consist in the
+manner or the matter. For more than a hundred years "The Vicar of
+Wakefield" has held its own, while hundreds of novels which created
+more sensation at the time of their appearance have fallen into
+everlasting oblivion. And this triumph is not only due to literary
+excellence, but to the human excellence of the conception which
+Goldsmith gave to the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+   I.--THE NOVEL IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
+  II.--THE NOVEL OF LIFE AND MANNERS.
+ III.--OF SCOTCH LIFE.
+  IV.--OF IRISH LIFE.
+   V.--OF ENGLISH LIFE.
+  VI.--OF AMERICAN LIFE.
+ VII.--THE HISTORICAL NOVEL.
+VIII.--THE NOVEL OF PURPOSE.
+  IX.--THE NOVEL OF FANCY.
+   X.--USE AND ABUSE OF FICTION.
+
+
+I.
+
+Fiction has absorbed so much of the literary talent of the present
+century, and has attained so important a place in the lives and
+thoughts of the reading public, that, in this chapter, we will attempt
+a description of its varied forms, and an inquiry into its uses and
+abuses, rather than an extended criticism of individual writers.
+Allibone's "Dictionary of Authors" contains two thousand two hundred
+and fifty-seven names of writers of fiction, by far the greater number
+of which belong to the nineteenth century, and every year adds to the
+list.
+
+There is no better example of the closeness of the connection between
+society and its literature than is supplied by the novel. Every change
+in the public taste has been followed by a corresponding variety of
+fiction, until it is difficult to enumerate all the schools into which
+novelists have divided themselves. During the present century, life has
+become far more complex and the reading public far more exacting,
+varied, and extended than ever before. Steam and electricity have
+brought distant countries into close communion, and have awakened a
+feeling of fellowship among the different nations of the civilised
+world which has greatly widened the horizon of human interests. The
+spread of education, the increase and distribution of wealth, together
+with the cheapness of printing, have largely increased the number and
+variety of those who seek entertainment from works of fiction. The
+novel-reader is no longer content with the description of scenes and
+characters among which his own life is passed. He wishes to be
+introduced to foreign countries, to past ages, and to societies and
+ranks apart from his own. He wishes also to find in fiction the
+reflection of his own tastes and the discussion of his own interests.
+He seeks psychology, or study of character, or the excitement of a
+complicated plot, or the details and events of sea-faring, criminal, or
+fashionable life. All of these different tastes the novelist has
+undertaken to gratify.
+
+Under the extensive head of the novel of life and manners, the habits,
+modes of thought, and peculiarities of language of Scotland, Ireland,
+England, and the United States, with many sub-divisions of provinces
+and cities, have been studied and described. The novelist has extended
+his investigations into Eastern countries, and has portrayed the
+customs and institutions of Oriental life. He has taken his characters
+from historic times, and has recommended the past for the instruction
+or amusement of the present. The experience of the soldier and the
+sailor have taken their place among the incidents of fiction; the
+adventures and crimes of blacklegs and convicts have been drawn upon to
+gratify palates sated with the weak _pabulum_ of the fashionable novel.
+
+
+Fiction has not been confined to the study of manners and character,
+but has been extensively used to propagate opinions and to argue
+causes. Novels have been written in support of religious views,
+Catholic, High-Church, and Low-Church; political novels have supported
+the interests of Tory, Whig, anti-slavery, and civil service;
+philosophical novels have exposed the evils of society as at present
+constituted, and have built up impossible utopias. Besides the novel of
+purpose, there has been the novel of fancy, in which the imagination
+has been allowed to soar unchecked in the regions of the unreal and the
+supernatural.
+
+With so great a variety of works of fiction, it is not surprising to
+find a corresponding variety of authorship. Lords and ladies, generals
+and colonels have entered the lists against police court reporters and
+female adventurers. The novel is no longer the exclusive work of a
+professional author. Amateurs have attempted it to pass the time which
+hung heavily on their hands; to put into form their dreams or
+experiences; to gratify a mere literary vanity. The needy nobleman has
+made profitable use of his name on the title-page of a novel purporting
+to give information concerning fashionable life. But the most
+remarkable characteristic of novel-writing has been the important part
+taken by women. They have adopted fiction as their special department
+of literature, and have shown their capacity for it by the production
+of novels which fully equal in number and almost equal in merit the
+works of their masculine rivals. On her own ground, George Eliot has no
+superior, while the writings of Miss Austen, of Miss Edgeworth, of Miss
+Ferrier, of Mrs. Stowe, not to mention many others, are to be ranked
+among the best works of fiction in any language. But while women have
+contributed their full share of novels, both as regards quantity and
+merit, they have also contributed much more than what we think their
+full share of worthless and immoral writing. Bad women will have
+literary capacity as well as bad men, but it is doubly shocking to find
+that the prurient thoughts, the indecent allusions, and immoral
+opinions which are often met with in the novels of the day proceed from
+that sex which ought to be the stronghold of modesty and virtue.
+
+And this matter becomes very important when we consider the position
+which works of fiction have attained in the present century. In the
+days of Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Heywood, Fielding, or Smollett, coarseness of
+thought and language was so general that it naturally had a prominent
+place in novels. All persons who objected to licentious scenes and
+gross expressions in the reading of themselves or their children
+excluded works of fiction. As Miss Edgeworth said, most novels were
+filled with vice or folly, and as Miss Burney complained, no body of
+literary men were so numerous, or so little respectable as novelists.
+But, in the hands of such writers as Sir Walter Scott, as Miss Ferrier,
+as Miss Austen, as Dickens, as Thackeray, as Charles Kingsley, as Mr.
+Anthony Trollope, the novel has achieved for itself a position of
+respectability and dignity which seems to remain unimpaired,
+notwithstanding the efforts of many authors to destroy it. Works of
+fiction are to be found in every home, in the hands of parents, in the
+hands of young boys and girls. The word novel has been given so high a
+signification by the great names which are associated with it, that
+parental censorship has almost ceased. It is impossible that a form of
+literature to which so many and so great minds have been devoted, and
+which takes so prominent a place in the favor of the reading public,
+should not be without a powerful influence. Let us look more closely at
+the works of fiction of the nineteenth century, and then endeavor to
+determine how far their influence has been for good, and how far for
+evil.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+It is the especial province of the novel of life and manners to be as
+far as possible a truthful reflection of nature. And the more it
+approaches to this condition, the more realistic it is said to be. But
+the word realism is a vague term, and is constantly employed to express
+different ideas. As far as it applies to the novel, it usually
+signifies an author's fidelity to nature. But even with this
+definition, the term realism has no very definite meaning unless all
+persons agree as to what constitutes nature. There is a great
+difference in men according as they are looked at with the eye of a
+Raphael or of a Rembrandt. There has been a strong tendency among
+novelists of the present century who have written since Scott, to
+devote themselves more to the common characters and incidents of
+every-day life; to describe the world as it appears to the ordinary
+observer, who rarely associates with either heroes or villains, and has
+little experience of either the sublime or the marvellous. Such was the
+expressed object of Thackeray, and such is the general character of the
+works of George Eliot and of Mr. Anthony Trollope. This tendency has
+been carried to an extreme by some English novelists, and above all by
+the Frenchman, Emile Zola, who have not only thrown aside entirely the
+romantic element in their fictions, but have shown their ideas of
+realism to consist in the base and the ignoble, and have confined their
+studies to the vices and degradation of the human species.
+
+An admirer of Thackeray and an admirer of Zola would consider the works
+of his favorite author to be realistic, and yet nature appears under
+very different aspects in the pages of the two novelists. But the
+partisans of Thackeray and those of Zola would probably unite in the
+opinion that Sir Walter Scott was not realistic; they would call him
+romantic, and claim that he painted ideal scenes and ideal characters.
+But among those who read and re-read the novels of Scott, by far the
+greater number believe that "The Wizard of the North" was true to
+nature, that Jeanie Deans and Rob Roy and Meg Merrilies were not
+impossible characters. There are many who enter into the scenes
+described by Scott with as much feeling of reality as is experienced by
+those who follow the career of a Pendennis, of a Duke of Omnium, or of
+a Nana. A novelist, then, is realistic or not realistic according to
+the views which he and his reader entertain of nature. To the optimist,
+to the youthful and romantic, "The Heart of Midlothian" and "Guy
+Mannering" will seem a truthful representation of life. The more
+worldly and practical will find their idea of reality in "The Mill on
+the Floss," in "Vanity Fair," in "The Prime Minister." And finally
+those whose taste or lot has kept them "raking in the dirt of mankind"
+will think their view of truth best expressed by "L'Assommoir" or
+"Nana."
+
+But we would not be understood to mean that a novelist or a painter is
+realistic, because he represents nature as it appears to him, whether
+he look at it through a glass _couleur de rose_, or with the distorted
+eye of a cynic. He may describe the sublime, the ordinary, or the vile,
+as nature supplies examples of all three, and yet be realistic, so long
+as he presents any one of these conditions without exaggeration, and
+without too extended an application.
+
+The writers who have devoted themselves to the novel of life and
+manners have all sought to be realistic, and the value of their work
+largely depends on the success which has attended their efforts in this
+direction. The enduring vitality of "Tom Jones" is due to Fielding's
+fidelity to nature, and it is safe to predict that no novel which fails
+in this respect can have more than an ephemeral reputation. Nothing
+could be more false than the views of contemporary life contained in a
+large part of the fiction of the present day, and the future historian
+who looks to the novel of the nineteenth century for information
+concerning morals and social habits will have to exercise a constant
+discrimination.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Scottish life and manners have been made familiar to the world by a
+series of brilliant novelists, first among whom stands the greatest
+figure in the history of English fiction. Sir Walter Scott was
+qualified to an extraordinary degree for the great work he was destined
+to perform for his country and for the novel. His ancestry, the
+traditions among which he grew up, his in-born love of legendary lore,
+his vivid imagination and keenness of sympathy all fitted him to
+appreciate and to put into enduring form the latent romance which
+pervaded his beloved Scotland. His practical experience as a lawyer and
+as a sheriff, gave him a clear insight into the institutions of his
+country. Previous to the publication of "Waverley," Scotland was a
+comparatively unknown land. Even Englishmen had little knowledge of its
+national habits, of its traditions, or its scenery. To Scotchmen, the
+history of their country was little more than a skeleton, till the
+magic wand of Scott it filled it with flesh and blood, and gave it new
+life and animation. "Up to the era of Sir Walter," says an eminent
+Scotchman, "living people had some vague, general, indistinct notions
+about dead people mouldering away to nothing, centuries ago, in regular
+kirk-yards and chance burial-places, 'mang muirs and mosses many O,'
+somewhere or other in that difficultly distinguished and very debatable
+district called the Borders. All at once he touched their tombs with a
+divining-rod, and the turf streamed out ghosts, some in woodmen's
+dresses, most in warriors' mail; queer archers leapt forth, with yew
+bows and quivers, and giants stalked shaking spears! The gray
+chronicler smiled, and taking up his pen, wrote in lines of light the
+annals of the chivalrous and heroic days of auld feudal Scotland. The
+nation then, for the first time, knew the character of its ancestors;
+for these were not spectres--not they, indeed,--nor phantoms of the
+brain, but gaunt flesh and blood, or glad and glorious;--base-born
+cottage churls of the olden time, because Scottish, became familiar to
+the love of the nation's heart, and so to its pride did the high born
+lineage of palace kings. * * * We know now the character of our own
+people as it showed itself in war and peace--in palace, castle, hall,
+hut, hovel, and shieling--through centuries of advancing civilization."
+
+And it was not only to his countrymen that Scott made vivid and
+familiar the history of his native land. Since his genius described the
+Highland fastnesses, and peopled them with the chiefs and maidens of
+old, all the world feels at home in that land at once so small and so
+great. In Italy, in France in Germany, in America, Jeanie Deans and the
+Master of Ravenswood are household friends, and Scottish life and
+habits are known to tens of thousands who never leave their native
+town.
+
+Besides making his country celebrated by his writings, Scott placed the
+novel on the firm foundation in public estimation which it has since
+retained. He redeemed its character from the disrepute into which it
+had fallen. He used it not only as a means of giving acute and
+healthful pleasure, but he made it the medium for moral and
+intellectual advancement. The purity of thought which pervades all his
+writings, the never-failing nobility of the views of life which he
+placed before his readers can have no other than an elevating
+influence.
+
+Scott's literary success was due both to genius and to industry. Of his
+early precocity Mrs. Cockburn has left a remarkable instance.[203] "I
+last night supped in Mr. Walter Scott's. He has the most extraordinary
+genius of a boy I ever saw. He was reading a poem to his mother when I
+went in. I made him read on; it was the description of a shipwreck. His
+passion rose with the storm. He lifted his eyes and hands: 'There's the
+mast gone!' says he. 'Crash it goes! They will all perish!' After his
+agitation he turns to me: 'That is too melancholy,' says he. 'I had
+better read you something more amusing.' I preferred a little chat, and
+asked his opinion of Milton and other books he was reading, which he
+gave me wonderfully. One of his observations was: 'How strange it is
+that Adam, just new come into the world, should know every thing! That
+must be the poet's fancy,' says he. But when told he was created
+perfect by God, he instantly yielded. When taken to bed last night, he
+told his aunt he liked that lady. 'What lady?' says she. 'Why, Mrs.
+Cockburn, for I think she is a virtuoso,--like myself.' 'Dear Walter,'
+says Aunt Jenny, 'what is a virtuoso?' 'Don't ye know? Why, it's one
+who wishes and will know every thing.' Now, sir, you will think this a
+very silly story. Pray, what age do you suppose this boy to be? Name
+it, now, before I tell you. 'Why, twelve or fourteen.' No such thing;
+he is not quite six years old. He has a lame leg, for which he was a
+year at Bath, and has acquired the perfect English accent, which he has
+not lost since he came, and he reads like a Garrick. You will allow
+this an uncommon exotic."
+
+The vivid imagination and love of knowledge which Scott displayed from
+his earliest years were supplemented throughout his life by an
+assiduous self-cultivation. The great and varied body of legendary lore
+which he accumulated, together with his ever active and universal
+sympathy with mankind, made the chief elements in his fictions. There
+is no one respect in which the Waverley novels are pre-eminent. As
+regards plot, Scott has been frequently surpassed. While "Kenilworth,"
+the "Bride of Lammermoor," and "Ivanhoe," are well constructed, the
+plan of "Rob Roy" and "The Monastery" are lacking in sequence. Other
+novelists, too, have drawn character with quite as much power. But the
+Waverly novels have attained their supreme position in public
+estimation by a rare and well balanced union of different qualities.
+They contain beautiful examples of the sublime, and amusing examples of
+the ludicrous. They reflect nature in various phases, and always with
+picturesqueness, power, and truth. Of Scott's historical novels we
+shall speak elsewhere. Of those which relate especially to his own
+country, the most remarkable merit consists in the fidelity with which
+they have reflected the Scotch nationality. On this account they will
+always possess a value for the student of social history.
+
+Of the estimation in which these novels have been held by the world,
+and the immense area over which their influence has extended, some idea
+may be formed from the fact that the actual profits which accrued from
+them to the author or to his estate shortly after his death, exceeded
+two millions of dollars. When we add to this sum the profits of the
+publishers, and when we consider the number of translations issued in
+Europe and the editions printed since Scott's death in Great Britain
+and America, we can realize how vast a sum the world has been glad to
+pay for the possession of these invaluable works.
+
+Following the great Sir Walter in the description of Scottish life and
+manners, are many well-known writers. John Galt, in the "Annals of the
+Parish," gave many humorous descriptions of national character. In
+Wilson's "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," in "The Ettrick
+Shepherd," in the works of Scott's son-in-law, Lockhart, are scenes and
+characters still very familiar to novel readers. Jane Porter embodied
+rather ideal views of history in "Thaddeus of Warsaw," and "The
+Scottish Chiefs." The talents of Miss Ferrier, of Mrs. Oliphant, and of
+Mr. William Black have kept up the interest which the world has learned
+to take in every thing appertaining to the land which Sir Walter Scott
+taught it to know and love so well.[204]
+
+
+[Footnote 203: Mrs. Cockburn to Rev. Dr. Douglas, 1777; Lockhart's
+"Life of Scott."]
+
+[Footnote 204: Other novelists belonging especially in Scotland and of
+considerable reputation, are Maria Porter, Elizabeth Hamilton, A.
+Cunningham, Mrs. Johnstone, Hogg, Picken, Moir, Sir T.D. Lauder, Hugh
+Miller, George MacDonald.]
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+First among the contributors to the novel of Irish life and manners may
+be mentioned Maria Edgeworth, by whose successful labors Scott was
+first inspired to undertake his own. In Miss Edgeworth's works, Ireland
+found a true exposition of her wrongs and her virtues; and also of her
+follies and errors. The evils of absenteeism were powerfully
+illustrated in the novel of the same name. In "Castle Rackrent," the
+trials and difficulties of landlord and tenant were described with
+genuine sympathy and dramatic force. The peculiarities of Irish temper
+and character have been studied by Miss Edgeworth with a fidelity which
+has given her novels the same national stamp and value which belong to
+those of Scott. Like him, too, she did much to raise fiction in
+character, scope, and influence. Whether describing Irish, English, or
+fashionable life, she is always true to nature, always pure and
+elevated in tone. Her works are neither marred by the coarseness of the
+past, nor by the false delicacy of the present. She studiously avoids
+error and exaggeration in every form. Sentimentality and mock heroism
+have no place in her pages. While she is wanting in poetry, she is
+singularly rich in the scenes and characters of every-day life, and her
+novels are marked by a common-sense knowledge of the world which never
+degenerates into commonplace.
+
+Miss Edgeworth has been ably followed by several students of Irish
+life. William Carleton's "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry,"
+the novels of Samuel Lover and of John Banim are still well known.
+Thomas Crofton Croker, with whose amusing description of the "Last of
+the Irish Sarpints," the reader is probably familiar, has studied his
+countrymen's superstitions and peculiarities with great success.
+Charles James Lever has long retained a well-deserved popularity by the
+production of about thirty jovial dashing novels, among which the most
+celebrated is "Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon."[205]
+
+
+[Footnote 205: Among other novelists of Irish life and manners may be
+mentioned Lady Morgan, Mrs. S.C. Hall, Gerald Griffin, T.C. Grattan,
+Justin MacCarthy, and others.]
+
+
+
+V.
+
+Novels relating particularly to English life and manners have been
+greater in number and more varied in character than those of any other
+country. A large volume would be necessary to do any critical justice
+to the many distinguished writers whom we can only briefly notice here.
+The most considerable subdivision of the English novel has been that
+occupied with the study of domestic life,--a department for which women
+are particularly fitted, and in which they have been eminently
+successful.
+
+Mrs. Opie's "Simple Tales," "Tales of Real Life," and "Tales of the
+Heart," although displaying no great talent in construction or style,
+excel in a natural pathos and a delicacy of sentiment which have made
+them popular for many years. Miss Edgeworth brought to the study of
+English life the same practical views and library talents which we have
+seen in her Irish novels. Her children's stories, "Frank," "Harry and
+Lucy," and "Rosamund" were among the first contributions to juvenile
+fiction. "Helen," in which she exposed the evils of untruthfulness, is
+a good example of the success with which this admirable woman could
+combine entertainment and moral elevation. Jane Austen's name has long
+been linked with that of Miss Edgeworth, as the two most powerful
+female novelists of the earlier part of the century. In "Pride and
+Prejudice," "Emma," "Mansfield Park," "Sense and Sensibility," she
+described the country gentry and middle classes of society. She
+depended neither on exciting scenes, nor on highly wrought effects of
+human passion for the interest of her stories, but studied every-day
+life and ordinary people with a sympathy and power of observation which
+imparted a deep interest to all her works. Miss Ferrier's novels,
+"Inheritance" and "Marriage," were greatly admired by Scott, and now,
+some sixty years later, are still widely read, and receive the honor of
+both cheap and expensive editions. Miss Ferrier's skill in the
+construction of a plot, her natural studies of character and the
+liveliness of her descriptions have kept her works popular,
+notwithstanding great changes in the public taste. Mrs. Trollope, the
+mother of a more celebrated son, contributed largely to the English
+domestic novel. The pathetic story of the lives of the Brontë sisters,
+supplied by Mrs. Gaskell, has deepened the interest excited by the
+early popularity of "Jane Eyre." Charlotte was the most talented of the
+family, and won a widespread admiration by her knowledge of life, her
+freshness, her vigor, and her innocent disregard of conventionality.
+Mrs. Gaskell described the life and trials of the manufacturing classes
+with great ability in "Mary Barton" and other novels. Miss Yonge,
+author of the "Heir of Redclyffe," Mrs. Henry Wood, author of "East
+Lynne," and Mrs. Lynn Linton have added largely to this department of
+fiction. The Baroness Tautphoeus described English and German life in
+the particularly fascinating novels, "Quits," "At Odds," and "The
+Initials." Miss Thackeray has made good use of talents inherited from
+her father. Mary R. Mitford and Mrs. Alexander have written many
+entertaining and popular novels. Miss Mulock began a long list of
+successful works with "The Ogilvies" and "John Halifax."
+
+But by far the greatest female novelist who has devoted her talents to
+the English domestic novel, and by far the greatest female writer in
+the language is undeniably George Eliot. Women almost invariably leave
+the stamp of their sex upon their work. But George Eliot took and held
+a man's position in literature from the outset of her career. It was
+not that she was unfeminine. She brought to her work a woman's sympathy
+and a woman's attention to detail. But in breadth of conception, in
+comprehensiveness of thought, her mind was essentially masculine. Her
+appreciation of varieties and shades of character was almost
+Shakespearian. She could describe the self-indulgence of a Hetty Sorrel
+leading to cruelty, and that of a Tito leading to treachery, with
+perfect distinctness. She could enter into the generous aspirations of
+a Savonarola, and the selfish desires of a Grandcourt, with equal
+perspicuity. Her readers do not feel less familiar with the dull
+barrenness of Casaubon than with the pregnant vivacity of Mrs. Poyser.
+In the study of the inward workings of the human mind, George Eliot is
+unsurpassed by any novelist. Thackeray alone can dispute her
+pre-eminence in this respect. However much the reader may recoil from
+the horror of Little Hetty's crime, he cannot deny that it follows as a
+natural consequence. Although Dorothea's marriages are extremely
+disappointing, the train of thought which led her to enter into them is
+traced with unerring clearness.
+
+An obstacle to the popularity of George Eliot's novels lies in the
+slowness of their movement. The author's soliloquies, comments, and
+reflections, which are so much valued by her especial admirers,
+constantly interrupt the course of the narrative, and prove cumbersome
+to such readers as enjoy a rapid, flowing story. But without these
+interruptions, how much of George Eliot's best wisdom would be lost!
+How many significant phrases would be lost from familiar language! The
+commentaries of the authoress herself on the incidents of her tale give
+her works a value which inclines us to take up her volumes again and
+again, long after the stories themselves have become familiar. We never
+weary of such sentences as the following from "Adam Bede": "There is no
+despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our
+first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have
+suffered and be healed, to have despaired and to have recovered hope."
+Not less beautiful and concentrated are those few words on woman's love
+in "Middlemarch":--"Those childlike caresses which are the bent of
+every sweet woman, who has begun by showering kisses on the hard pate
+of her bald doll, creating a happy soul within that woodenness from the
+wealth of her own love."
+
+A faculty which George Eliot possessed in common with Dickens and
+Thackeray was that of making very ordinary people interesting. And this
+is a talent characteristic of the best minds which have contributed to
+fiction or the drama. Shakespeare possessed it in a high degree, and
+the best creations of Scott are ordinary, unheroic persons. The faculty
+arises from superior powers of observation. Some people will take a
+walk through a picturesque country or a crowded city without having
+seen any thing worthy of remark. Others will pass over the same
+ground, and return overflowing with description. In the same manner,
+the great number of men and women pass through life finding every thing
+commonplace, and the observing sympathy of a Thackeray, a Miss Austen,
+or a George Eliot is necessary to light up the unnoticed figures which
+throng the path. George Eliot is particularly happy in drawing a really
+ordinary person, especially when a little pretension is added. She must
+have written Mr. Brooke's opinion of women with true enjoyment: "There
+is a lightness about the feminine mind--a touch and go--music, the fine
+arts, that kind of thing--they should study those up to a certain
+point, women should; but in a light way, you know." But though Mrs.
+Poyser be humble, she is far from ordinary. "Some folks' tongues," she
+says, "are like the clocks as run on strikin', not to tell you the time
+o' the day, but because there's summat wrong i' their own inside."
+
+So long as George Eliot confined herself to her own sphere of action,
+she exhibited the same remarkable powers. But even her great name could
+not command admiration for "The Spanish Gypsy." Her limitations clearly
+appeared in "Daniel Deronda." When describing the characters and
+intercourse of Grandcourt and Gwendolen, when dealing with every thing
+English in that variously estimated work, she remained the great author
+of "Adam Bede" and "Silas Marner." But in undertaking the discussion of
+the religion and social position of the Jews, she mistook her own
+talents, and created in Daniel Deronda, an indefinite combination of
+virtues unworthy of her genius.
+
+We have now noticed fifteen women, from Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen
+to George Eliot, who have contributed to the single department of
+fiction concerned with English domestic life. Many other names almost
+equally deserving and equally celebrated might be added to the list.
+The enduring popularity of their works is sufficient commentary on the
+success with which woman's talent has been directed toward fiction. Not
+only have the productions of these writers a high literary value, but
+their widespread circulation has afforded a really healthful amusement
+to tens of thousands, and their influence has been uniformly for
+good.[206]
+
+The novels of English domestic life written by men have been little
+more numerous or able, but much more extended in scope. "Tremaine" and
+"De Vere," of R. Plumer Ward, contain clever sketches of character, but
+the narrative is loaded down with political and philosophical
+disquisitions. Theodore Hook's stories were as unequal as his life.
+Almost all bear the marks of haste and carelessness, and yet very few
+are without some portion of that pointed wit and delicate humor which
+delineated Jack Brag, or described Mr. Abberley's dinner party in the
+"Man of Many Friends." Richard Harris Barham is well known as the
+author of the witty "Ingoldsby Legends," and Samuel Warren as the
+author of "Ten Thousand a Year." Charles Kingsley described the life
+and grievances of mechanics in "Alton Locke." Charles Reade began a
+long series of popular novels with "Peg Woffington" and "Christie
+Johnstone." His best work is "Never Too Late to Mend," in which he
+criticized prison discipline, and described the striking scenes of the
+Australian gold-fields. Few novels of the present day contain a more
+interesting story or more lifelike delineations of character. Wilkie
+Collins' greatest power lies in the construction of his plot; the
+"Moonstone" and the "Woman in White," are among the most absorbing
+narratives in the whole range of fiction. His studies of the morbid
+workings of the mind are often striking, but with the exception of
+Count Fosco and a few others, his characters are not strongly marked.
+Thomas Hughes accomplished a truly noble work in the composition of
+"Tom Brown's School Days" and "Tom Brown at Oxford,"--books which have
+found their way to every boy's heart, and have appealed to all that was
+most healthful and manly there. The novels of Benjamin d'Israeli are
+chiefly interesting in their relation to the character of their
+illustrious author. As works of art they are faulty in construction,
+exaggerated in description, and unnatural in effect. "Vivian Gray" and
+"Lothair" cannot pretend to be truthful studies of English life, nor
+would their author, probably, have represented them as such. But so
+much of the great statesman's power was instilled into his novels that
+they have a certain interest even for those who are most alive to their
+faults. They are the conceptions of a very rich imagination, and
+contain many pictures which, if untrue to nature, are still extremely
+vivid. D'Israeli's chief literary, and perhaps also his chief political
+characteristic, was a constant endeavor to make striking effects. The
+reader may be sure to find nothing commonplace in his writings. Every
+scene and every character is painted in the brightest of colors. If the
+background be sombre, it will simply throw out more brilliantly the
+figures in the foreground. It is said that most men have a favorite
+word. That of d'Israeli was "wondrous." He took his reader into
+wondrous baronial halls, filled with wondrous gems, with wondrous
+tapestries, with wondrous paintings, and introduced him to wondrous
+dukes and duchesses, looking out from wondrous dark orbs, and breathing
+through almond-shaped nostrils. He loved to bring the royal family on
+the scene, and to trace the awe-inspiring effect of their august
+presence. When we open a novel of d'Israeli's we are certain of moving
+in a brilliant society, although one belonging to a yet undiscovered
+world. Women whose political influence changes the map of Europe,
+irresistible Catholic priests are mingled with impudent adventurers and
+professional toad-eaters. And over every thing is cast, by d'Israeli's
+Eastern imagination, a glamour of unlimited wealth, of numberless
+coronets, and of soaring ambitions. The political career of the Earl of
+Beaconsfield is one of the most remarkable in history, and even his
+opponents cannot withhold admiration from the great abilities and
+undaunted resolution which brought that career to its triumphant close.
+But the novels of the Earl of Beaconsfield have little value beyond
+their reflection of his dreams and his ambition.
+
+Among the most famous writers of fiction of the nineteenth century will
+always be mentioned the name of Sir Bulwer Lytton. More than any other
+writer, he studied and developed the novel as a form of literature.
+Almost every novelist has taken some special field and has confined
+himself to that. Dickens, George Eliot, Thackeray made occasional
+incursions on historic ground, but still their chief work was expended
+upon the novel of life and manners. Lytton attempted, and successfully,
+every department of fiction. In "Zanoni," he gave to the world a novel
+of fancy; in "Pelham" and "The Disowned," fashionable novels: in "Paul
+Clifford," a criminal novel; in "Rienzi," "Harold," "The Last of the
+Barons," historical novels; in "What Will He Do With It?" a novel of
+familiar life. And he brought to each variety of fiction the same
+artistic sense, the same knowledge of the world, and keen observation.
+To describe English life in all its phases, he was particularly fitted.
+Born in a high rank, he was perfectly at home in his descriptions of
+the upper classes, and never slow in exposing their vices. His studies
+of men took so universal a form that he became familiar even with the
+slang terms of pickpockets and house-breakers. "What Will He Do With
+It?" combines examples of the heroic, the humorous, the pathetic, and
+the villainous, and affords, perhaps, the best general view of the
+author's varied talents. Sir Bulwer Lytton is one of the most
+voluminous writers of a very prolific class, and yet he has never
+repeated himself. Mr. Anthony Trollope and several other novelists have
+shown how fallacious is the idea that the imagination is a fickle
+mistress to be courted and waited for. They have proved that she can be
+made to settle down and accustomed by habit to working at stated hours
+and for regular periods. But Bulwer Lytton not only forced his
+imagination to continuous labor, but he was able to insure an unending
+novelty of conception. In each one of his novels we are introduced to
+an entirely new set of characters inhabiting quite unfamiliar scenes.
+
+With a few exceptions, Mr. Anthony Trollope has confined himself to the
+novel of English social life, but that mine he has worked with
+wonderful assiduity and success. In "The Warden," in "Barchester
+Towers," are studies of clerical character for which this writer has
+won a special reputation. "The Small House at Allington" is a love
+story of particular fascination. Few writers have described the
+manifestations of love in the acts and thoughts of a modest, sweet girl
+as delicately as Mr. Trollope has done in the case of the deserted
+Lily. Her rejection of a second suitor is felt by the reader to be the
+inevitable consequence of so pure a passion, and the treachery of
+Crosbie is traced through its various gradations with true fidelity to
+nature. "Phineas Finn" is an excellent example of a parliamentary
+novel. That work and its companions, "Phineas Redux," "The Prime
+Minister," and "The Duke's Children," keep up our acquaintance with the
+family and connections of Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, than
+which few groups of fictitious characters are more continuously
+interesting. Mr. Trollope's novels will have a special value for the
+future student of English social life in the nineteenth century. The
+race-course, the hunting field, the country seat, Piccadilly, Hyde
+Park, the life of clubs and parliament, are described by him with
+photographic minuteness. And the novel-reader of to-day derives a
+constant pleasure from his books, notwithstanding the fact that the
+monotony of modern life is somewhat too closely reflected in them.
+
+The works of no writer in the English language, except those of Scott,
+have attained so immediate a reputation and have won so wide-spread a
+popularity as the novels of Charles Dickens. "In less than six months
+from the appearance of the first number of the 'Pickwick Papers,'" said
+the _London Quarterly Review_ in 1837, "the whole reading public were
+talking about them, the names of Winkle, Warden, Weller, Snodgrass,
+Dodson and Fogg, had become familiar in our mouths as household terms;
+and Mr. Dickens was the grand object of interest to the whole tribe of
+'Leo-hunters,' male and female, of the metropolis. Nay, Pickwick
+chintzes figured in linen-drapers' windows, and Weller corduroys in
+breeches-makers' advertisements; Boz cabs might be seen rattling
+through the streets; and the portrait of the author of 'Pelham' or
+'Crichton' was scraped down or pasted over to make room for that of the
+new popular favourite in the omnibuses." For forty years the writings
+of this great novelist have held their place in the public esteem
+without any sensible diminution. Hundreds of thousands, old and young,
+in Great Britain, in America, in every country of Europe, have followed
+the fortunes of Nicholas Nickleby, of David Copperfield, of Oliver
+Twist, and of numberless other celebrated characters with unflagging
+interest. Perhaps Dickens' most remarkable achievement lay in the
+number of his creations, and in the distinctness with which he could
+impress them on the memory of his readers. Of the great host of figures
+who throng his scenes, how many we remember! Their names remain stamped
+on our minds, and some of their characteristic phrases, like Micawber's
+"Something will turn up," or Tapley's "There's some credit in being
+jolly here," have passed into current phrases. Dickens' great object
+was to celebrate the virtues of the humbler ranks of life, and to
+expose the acts of injustice or tyranny to which they are subjected.
+This he did in a spirit of the truest philanthropy and most universal
+benevolence. The helpless victims of oppression, like little Oliver
+Twist, or the inmates of Dotheboys Hall, found in him an effective
+champion. Never has hypocrisy, the besetting vice of this age, been so
+mercilessly exposed as in the works of Dickens. It is not only in such
+a character as Pecksniff that its ugliness is revealed, but wherever
+pretence hides guilt behind a sanctimonious countenance, the mask is
+surely torn off. Dickens hated hypocrisy as Thackeray hated snobbism.
+And both, in their zeal, occasionally saw the hypocrite or the snob
+where he did not exist. Dealing, as Dickens did, so exclusively with
+common and low-born characters, it is remarkable that his books so
+rarely leave any impression of vulgarity behind them. And this result
+is due to the author's love of truth and detestation of all pretence.
+There can be no vulgarity without pretension. A great many novels of
+the day are extremely vulgar, because they describe ill-bred people and
+represent them to the reader as ladies and gentlemen. But Dickens'
+shopkeeper or street-sweeper makes no pretence to gentility, and
+therefore is as far from being vulgar as the man who has never known
+what it was to be any thing but a gentleman. The faults, like the
+merits, of Dickens' work resulted from the exuberance and power of his
+imagination. The same vividness of conception which gives such life to
+his description of a thunderstorm or of a quiet family scene, sometimes
+betrayed him into exaggeration and caricature. And yet when we consider
+the number and variety of the figures conjured up by his creative mind,
+from Paul Dombey to the Jew, Fagin, it is extraordinary that to so few
+this criticism will apply.
+
+Dickens' vast popularity resulted only in part from the artistic merit
+of his works. The breadth of his canvas, his intense realization of
+fictitious scenes, and his extraordinary descriptive power are
+qualities enough to win for him his eminent position in fiction. But
+the affection felt for Dickens as a man, which has made him occupy so
+much the hearts as well as the minds of the reading public, was
+attracted by qualities apart from those which excited admiration for
+the author. Dickens was essentially a national writer in the variety of
+the characters with whom he brought his readers into communion. He was
+essentially popular, from the fact that he dealt with the masses and
+not with any particular class. He was essentially English, in that he
+was the apostle of home. No novelist who has treated domestic life has
+so thoroughly caught its spirit, and has so sympathetically traced its
+joys and sorrows, its trials and recompenses. Family life has been for
+more than two centuries gradually supplanting the life of the camp and
+the court. It is in the domestic circle that men now find the interest
+which was formerly sought in adventure or publicity. Not only in the
+Christmas stories, especially devoted to the celebration of home, but
+through all his great fictions Dickens made domestic life his chief
+study. And he is, above all others, the favorite household novelist.
+While he lived, each new work of his was welcomed alike by parent and
+child, and when he died, there were few homes where books ever came
+that the loss of a friend was not felt.
+
+Scott, Dickens, almost all the great English novelists described heroes
+and heroines. They made their chief character an embodiment of virtue
+or strength, and strove to win for him the admiration of the reader.
+Even Tom Jones was a hero to Fielding, and Roderick Random to Smollett.
+But Thackeray said to himself as he looked out on the world, that
+humanity was not made up of heroes and villains. He had never met with
+the truly heroic, nor with the utterly depraved. It seemed to him that
+human nature lay between the two extremes. In "Vanity Fair," in
+"Pendennis" and in "The Newcomes" he resolved to describe man as he
+was, with virtues and failings, with occasional glimpses of the noble,
+and more common exhibitions of the mean and the little. Young men were
+to appear in his pages with their weakness and selfishness; young girls
+with their silliness and affectation. Thackeray, in a word, was to be
+more realistic than his predecessors in fiction had dared to be. He was
+to show his readers what they really were, and not what they would wish
+to be.
+
+But in Thackeray's novels is evident the difficulty of establishing any
+generally accepted standard of realism. If this quality consists in
+representing a character as speaking and acting just as we should
+expect such a character to speak and act, Thackeray succeeded as
+perhaps no novelist, except Fielding, had done before him. Becky Sharp,
+Sir Pitt Crawley, Pendennis, Clive Newcome, all use such words as the
+reader would expect from them. Their actions are the natural results of
+the trains of thought into which the author has given us an insight.
+When the old reprobate, Lord Steyne, discovers that Becky Sharp had
+appropriated to herself the money which he had given her to restore
+poor Miss Briggs' stolen property, he is not indignant at the
+deception. The admiration of the noble rogue is only increased for the
+woman who has shown herself to be possessed of a more astute roguery
+than his own:--
+
+    "What an accomplished little devil it is!" thought he. "What a
+    splendid actress and manager! She had almost got a second supply
+    out of me the other day with her coaxing ways. She beats all the
+    women I have ever seen in the course of all my well-spent life!
+    They are babies compared to her. I am a green-horn myself and a
+    fool in her hands--an old fool. She is unsurpassable in lies." His
+    lordship's admiration for Becky rose immeasurably at this proof of
+    her cleverness. Getting the money was nothing--but getting double
+    the sum she wanted and paying nobody--it was a magnificent stroke.
+
+In his delineation of character, in the perfect naturalness with which
+all his personages act out their respective parts, no novelist is more
+realistic than Thackeray. But realism has a broader application. A
+novelist who takes every-day life for his subject has not only to give
+the stamp of nature to all his scenes and individuals, but he must so
+write, that at the end of his book the reader will have the impression
+that real life, with its due apportionment of good and evil, of
+happiness and grief, has been placed before him. Some readers will
+receive that impression from Thackeray's novels; but they will be those
+who think that the evil and the unhappiness predominate. So thought the
+author himself. But the world in general think differently, and agree
+to look upon Thackeray as a satirist.
+
+As such, he ranks in English literature second only to Swift. To the
+great Dean, man was a lump of deformity and disease. He saw in humanity
+little besides its vice, and painted his species in colors under which
+few men have been willing to recognize a portrait. Thackeray's genial
+disposition naturally made him far less bitter than Swift. He neither
+saw nor portrayed the monstrous vice which excited the hatred of the
+satirist of the eighteenth century. To Thackeray, men were weak rather
+than bad, selfish rather than vicious. George Osborne braves the
+consequences of marrying poor Amelia Sedley, and yet prefers his own
+pleasure to that of his wife. Rawdon Crawley is ignorant, rude, and
+unprincipled, but yet is loving and faithful to Rebecca. Weakness,
+pettiness, self-deception were the main objects of Thackeray's satire.
+Where are the absurdities of youthful woman-worship held up to such
+derision as in Pendennis' love for Miss Costigan!
+
+    Pen tried to engage her in conversation about poetry and about her
+    profession. He asked her what she thought about Ophelia's madness,
+    and whether she was in love with Hamlet or not? "In love with such
+    a little ojus creature as that stunted manager of a Bingley?" She
+    bristled with indignation at the thought. Pen explained that it was
+    not of her he spoke, but of Ophelia of the play. "Oh, indeed, if no
+    offense was meant none was taken: but as for Bingley, indeed, she
+    did not value him--not that glass of punch." Pen next tried her on
+    Kotzebue. "Kotzebue? who was he?" "The author of the play in which
+    she had been performing so admirably." "She did not know that, the
+    man's name at the beginning of the book was Thompson," she said.
+    Pen laughed at her adorable simplicity.... "How beautiful she is,"
+    thought Pen, cantering homewards. "How simple and how tender! How
+    charming it is to see a woman of her genius busying herself with
+    the humble affairs of domestic life, cooking dishes to make her old
+    father comfortable, and brewing him drink! How rude it was of me to
+    begin to talk of professional matters, and how well she turned the
+    conversation! ... Pendennis, Pendennis,--how she spoke the word!
+    Emily! Emily! how good, how noble, how beautiful, how perfect she
+    is!"[207]
+
+Thackeray's satire is all the more powerful in that it is directed
+against foibles more than against vices. Many a reader who will reject
+Swift's portrait of man as a libel, cannot but feel a twinge at
+Thackeray's delicate pencillings. After dwelling on the worldliness,
+the hypocrisy, the self-seeking of the inmates of Queen's Crawley, how
+softly but how terribly he scourges them! "These honest folks at the
+Hall, whose simplicity and sweet rural purity surely show the advantage
+of a country life over a town one." His praise is the severest cut of
+all. "Dear Rebecca," "the dear creature," and we wince for Becky. "What
+a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the banker's! How
+tenderly we look at her faults, if she be a relative." "These money
+transactions, these speculations in life and death--these silent
+battles for reversionary spoil--make brothers very loving toward each
+other in Vanity Fair."
+
+Thackeray is the novelist whose works depend in the least degree on
+narrative interest. The characters are so clearly drawn and so
+interesting, the manner of Thackeray's writing is so uniformly
+entertaining, that his books can always be opened at random and read
+with pleasure. "Henry Esmond" is the only novel in which the plot is
+carefully constructed. The others are a string of consecutive chapters,
+each one of which possesses its individual interest.[208]
+
+The novel of English life and manners includes many subdivisions. Among
+the writings of Miss Edgeworth, Miss Ferrier, Bulwer Lytton, Mr.
+Anthony Trollope, and others, are novels which deal to a greater or
+less extent with fashionable life. A number of novelists, principally
+female, have confined their studies to the aristocratic classes.[209]
+But the so called fashionable novel is most often the composition of
+adventurers whose catch-penny productions aim at affording, to the
+middle or lower ranks, information concerning the habits of the
+aristocracy. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that
+fashionable life in these novels is such as it might appear to an
+imaginative kitchen-maid whose idea of up-stairs existence is founded
+on the gossip of servants. When written by persons conversant with
+their subject, the fashionable novel forms a legitimate subdivision of
+the novel of life and manners. But it is most often a noxious weed. Its
+cultivators constantly make up for lack of talent by the excitement of
+immoral scenes, and give to their audience of sempstresses and grooms a
+most degraded view of aristocratic life. Even when harmless in matter,
+its rank luxuriance fills up space much better occupied by the flowers
+of literature.
+
+The eminent criminal novel is taken as a tonic by minds satiated with
+the vapidity of fashionable fiction. From Lytton's "Paul Clifford," and
+Ainsworth's "Jack Sheppard," down to "Merciless Ben, the Hair-Lifter,"
+criminal narrative has been occupied with endowing burglars and
+murderers with the graces of gentlemen and the moral worth of Christian
+missionaries. In its celebration of successful crime, and its
+representation under a heroic aspect of villains and blacklegs, no
+species of fiction is more false to nature or more injurious to
+youthful readers.
+
+To such writers as George A. Lawrence and "Ouida" the world is indebted
+for the "Muscular Novel," which combines all the worst elements of both
+fashionable and criminal narrative. In "Guy Livingstone," "Strathmore,"
+and a hundred similar fictions, the reader is introduced to men of
+extraordinary physical development, whose strength is proof against
+the wildest dissipation; to women of extraordinary beauty, whose charms
+are enhanced in proportion to their coarseness and lack of modesty.
+Jack Sheppard, reposing on a velvet couch, smoking a perfumed
+cigarette, and worshipped by two or three ornaments of the demi-monde,
+is the type most admired by the muscular novelist. Lawrence and "Ouida"
+have brought to their work a literary power which has given them
+considerable notoriety; and has placed them at the head of their
+particular school; but it is a school whose distinctive characteristics
+consist in extravagance, unhealthiness of tone, and falseness to
+nature.
+
+English military life has been ably described by such writers as E.
+Napier, G.R. Gleig, W.H. Maxwell, and James Grant. But as a maritime
+nation, England has been much more prolific of naval novelists. At the
+head of these stands Captain Marryat, who has celebrated the pleasures
+and described the incidents of sea-faring life in about thirty jovial,
+dashing books. Among the great number of odd and entertaining
+characters sketched by his hand, "Peter Simple" and "Midshipman Easy"
+are perhaps the most interesting. Marryat's narratives are not
+carefully constructed, but flow on gracefully and easily, enlivened by
+an inexhaustible fund of humor, and enriched by an endless succession
+of bright or exciting scenes. The names of Captain Glassock, Howard,
+Trelawney, Captain Chamier, Michael Scott, and the author of the "Wreck
+of the Grosvenor," are among those most prominently associated with the
+marine novel. These writers have not only dealt with the adventures of
+a sailor's life and the peculiarities of a sailor's character, but have
+studied the influence of the sea on the human mind.
+
+Through the great interest felt by Englishmen in the manners and
+customs of Eastern nations, Oriental novels have become a recognized
+department of English fiction. In the eighteenth century, Johnson, in
+"Rasselas," and Beckford, in "Vathek," had drawn on the romantic
+features of Eastern life. In the present century successful attempts
+have been made to study Oriental character through the medium of the
+realistic novel. Hope, in "Anastasius," described the vices and
+degradation of Turkey and Greece in the person of his hero. In James
+Morier's "Hajji Baba of Ispahan" and "Ayesha," are vivid delineations
+of Eastern character and highly humorous sketches of Persian life.
+James Baillie Fraser, in "The Kuzzilbash," and Miss Pardoe in a number
+of tales, have still further enriched the department of Oriental
+fiction.
+
+
+[Footnote 206: Other women who have contributed to the English domestic
+novel--. Mary K. Mitford, Mrs. Crowe, Mrs. Marsh, Lady Georgiana
+Fullerton, Miss Kavanaugh, Geraldine Jewsbury, Mrs. Alexander, S.
+Bunbury, C. Sinclair, A. Strickland, M.C. Clarke, L.S. Costello, C.
+Crowe, A.H. Drury, G. Ellis, M. Howitt, Mrs. Hubback, Hon. Mrs. Norton,
+M.A. Power, E. Sewell, Mrs. Marquoid, Hesba Stretton, Florence Marryat,
+Elizabeth Wetherell, Sarah Tytler, C.C. Fraser-Tytler, C. Craik, Hon.
+Mrs. Chetwind, M.M. Grant, A.E. Bray, and others.]
+
+[Footnote 207: "Pendennis," Chap. v.]
+
+[Footnote 208: Many other well-known writers have contributed to the
+English domestic novel: Thomas Love Peacock, H. Coke, Samuel Philips,
+Angus B. Reach, Albert Smith, R. Cobbold, Edmund Yates, Thomas A.
+Trollope, Thomas Hardy, James Payn, George Augustus Sala, William
+Thornbury, the author of "The Bachelor of the Albany," Mortimer
+Collins, G.H. Lewes, Shirley Brooks, Douglas Jerrold, C. Crowley, T. de
+Quincey, S.W. Fullom, J. Hannay, W. Howitt, C. Mackay, G.J.
+Whyte-Melville, T. Miller, L. Ritchie, F.E. Smedley, J.A. St. John, M.F.
+Tupper, F.M. Whitly, F. Williams, C.L. Wraxall, and others.]
+
+[Footnote 209: T.H. Lister, Marquis of Normanby, Lady Caroline Lamb,
+Countess of Morley, Lady Charlotte Bury, Lady Dacre, Mrs. Gore, Lady
+Blessington.]
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+James Fenimore Cooper said in regard to the materials for American
+fiction: "There is a familiarity of the subject, a scarcity of events,
+and a poverty in the accompaniments that drive an author from the
+undertaking in despair." But the truth of this statement has been
+greatly modified, if not quite refuted, by the work of that great
+novelist and of several others who have succeeded him. It is true that
+American life presents less salient characteristics than that of
+Europe; that class distinctions are less marked; and that the energies
+of the nation are still so much confined to strictly utilitarian
+objects, that life moves along with unpicturesque sameness and
+evenness. But mankind remains equally complicated and equally
+interesting under whatever circumstances it may be placed. The vast
+extent of American territory and the infinite variety of its
+inhabitants afford material to the novelist which yet remains almost
+untouched. New England, New York, the Southern States, and, above all,
+the Great West, are rich in special customs, traditions, and habits of
+thought with which fiction has only begun to concern itself. The
+visitor to Washington cannot fail to be struck by the variety of men
+who jostle each other in that cosmopolitan city. The New England
+farmer, the New York banker, the Southern planter, the Western herder
+or grain merchant, the California mine-owner, the negro, and perhaps a
+stray visiting Indian chief, represent widely differing and highly
+interesting forms of life and opinion. Whenever native genius has cast
+aside foreign influence and has found inspiration in American
+traditions and institutions, the extent and richness of its literary
+material have been made manifest.
+
+The earliest examples of fiction in the United States were tentative
+and lacking in originality. At the close of the eighteenth century,
+Charles Brockden Brown began the career of the first American novelist
+with "Wieland." His pecuniary necessities and the slight encouragement
+offered at that time to American authors made it impossible for him to
+afford the time and care essential to artistic finish. His novels are
+of an imaginative and psychological character, often interesting in
+parts from the intense mental excitement which they describe. They were
+much admired by the English novelist Godwin, whose works they resemble
+in intensity of conception and faultiness of execution. A novel called
+"Charlotte Temple," by Susanna Rowson, obtained a wide circulation in
+the beginning of the present century, due much more to its foundation
+on a notorious scandal than to its own literary merit. "Modern
+Chivalry; or the Adventures of Captain Farrago and Teague O'Reagan,
+his Servant"--a poor imitation of "Don Quixote"--as a satire directed
+against the Democratic party by H.H. Brackenridge. R.H. Dana's "Tom
+Thornton" and "Paul Felton" have little claim to attention beyond the
+excitement of their rather sensational stories.
+
+But with the publication of "The Spy," Cooper opened a thoroughly
+national vein, and began a literary career which showed how little
+native genius need rely on foreign influence or on foreign subjects. He
+described the stirring events and the moral heroism of the American
+Revolution with patriotic sympathy and original literary power. He
+touched the romantic chords of that great struggle with a delicacy
+which met with a world-wide response. Not only did Americans feel that
+in Cooper's novels the picturesque and characteristic features of their
+country were delineated by a master-hand, but in almost every European
+land, translations of "The Spy," "The Pioneers," or "The Pathfinder,"
+testified to the universal interest excited by the examples of
+simplicity, endurance, and sagacity which formed the subjects of
+Cooper's pen. In "The Pioneers," "The Last of the Mohicans," "The
+Prairie," "The Pathfinder," and "The Deer-slayer" figures the character
+of Leatherstocking, than whom no fictitious personage has a greater
+claim to interest. His bravery, resolution, and woodland skill make him
+a type of the hardy race who pushed westward the reign of civilization.
+The scenes among which he lived, the primeval forest, the great inland
+lakes, the hunter's camp, and Indian wigwam were described by Cooper
+with a fidelity and picturesqueness which will always give to his works
+a national value. Now that farms and manufacturing towns cover what a
+century ago was a trackless wilderness, where backwoodsmen and Indians
+shot bear and deer, it would be almost impossible for us to realize the
+previous condition of our now populous country were it not for the
+novels of Cooper. And this great writer not only described the wild
+aspect of American scenery and the hardly less wild features of pioneer
+character. He painted with equal skill the life of the American sailor,
+at a time when that life had an interest and excitement it no longer
+possesses. Long Tom Coffin, Tom Tiller, Bob Yarn, belonged to a period
+when the United Stales was a maritime country, before American
+enterprise and industry were shut off from the sea by legislative
+imbecility. No marine novelist has given a more life-like impression of
+a ship than Cooper, and none have excelled him in descriptions of the
+sea and in studies of those peculiar forms of human nature produced by
+life on the ocean. So long as Cooper confined himself to purely
+national subjects, his success was brilliant and continuous; but many
+of his works show the effect of misdirected talent, and have fallen
+into neglect.
+
+The "Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and "Rip Van Winkle" are the specimens
+of American fiction most intimately associated with New York. In these
+stories the traditions and scenery of the Hudson River were treated by
+Washington Irving with all the richness of imagination and delicacy of
+expression of which he had so great a store. Some part of that romantic
+interest afforded to the traveller by the castles of the Rhine, has
+been imparted to the Hudson by the exquisite pages of the "Sketch
+Book." The stories of Nathaniel P. Willis and some of the novels of
+Bayard Taylor and of J.G. Holland also belong especially to New York.
+
+At the head of New England, and, indeed, of American writers of
+fiction, stands Nathaniel Hawthorne. His three great works, "The
+Scarlet Letter," "The House of the Seven Gables," and "The Blithedale
+Romance," are the finest specimens of imaginative writing which
+American genius has yet produced. The interest of Hawthorne's novels
+lies almost entirely in their subtle and astute studies of the hidden
+workings of the human mind. His fictions are remarkable for their want
+of action. "The Scarlet Letter" can hardly be said to have a plot. The
+series of chapters which intervene between the exhibition of Hester
+Prynne on the scaffold and the voluntary self-exposure there of the
+Puritan minister, simply represent gradual changes from the first to
+the last situation of the principal characters. But narrative
+excitement was never Hawthorne's object, and the want of it is never
+felt by his reader. Each scene is an appropriate sequel to the last,
+and a natural introduction to the next. Each chapter has its special
+interest,--the analysis of a condition of mind, a dramatic situation,
+or a highly finished domestic picture. It is in the delineation of
+character and the study of human motives that Hawthorne's chief
+excellence as a novelist consists. Nothing can exceed the penetration
+and vividness with which such persons as Zenobia, in "The Blithedale
+Romance," and Holgrave, in "The House of the Seven Gables," are
+described. The homeward walk of the fallen young minister, in "The
+Scarlet Letter," when he had resolved to desert his flock and to
+connect himself again with Hester Prynne, is an unsurpassed delineation
+of sudden moral degeneration. There is nothing of modern realism in
+Hawthorne's novels, and yet they leave a realistic impression behind
+them. The greater number of his characters appear to us rather as
+representatives of certain mental conditions then as real flesh and
+blood. Neither in the dialogue, nor in what may be called the
+"properties" of his writing did Hawthorne strive at realistic effects.
+Still, when the reader lays down "The Scarlet Letter," or "The House of
+the Seven Gables," he insensibly feels himself embued with the spirit
+and atmosphere of Puritan New England. Hawthorne was so intensely a New
+Englander in his sympathies, prejudices, and habits of mind, that his
+writings were always colored by the thought and sentiment of his native
+land. In "The Scarlet Letter," there is little evidence of the use of
+historical researches, and yet in that volume, colonial life has been
+made real and actual to us by the very intensity of the author's
+national feeling.
+
+New England fiction includes a number of other celebrated and honored
+names. Catherine M. Sedgwick began her literary career with "Hope
+Leslie," a story founded on the early history of Massachusetts, which
+was followed by "Redwood" and "The Linwoods, or Sixty Years Since in
+America." Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes studied New England village life in
+"Elsie Venner," and Sylvester Judd that of the Maine backwoods in
+"Margaret." Mr. T.W. Higginson has written "Malbone." Mr. W.D. Howells,
+Rev. Edward Everett Hale, and Miss E.S. Phelps are still adding to
+their reputations.
+
+Among the novels relating to life in the Southern States, "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin" is the most prominent. The circulation and fame of this book
+have been the most remarkable phenomenon in the annals of literature.
+Within a year, more than two hundred thousand copies were sold in the
+United States, and fully a million in England. Thirteen different
+translations were issued in Germany, four in France, and two in Russia;
+the Magyar language boasted three separate versions; the Wallachian,
+two; the Welsh, two; and the Dutch, two; while the Armenian, Arabic,
+Romaic, and all the European languages had at least one version. The
+book was dramatized in not less than twenty different forms, and was
+acted all over Europe. In France, and still more in England, all other
+books and all other subjects became, for the time, secondary to "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin." This extraordinary popularity was chiefly due to the
+importance and novelty of the subject treated. Mrs. Stowe imparted a
+considerable narrative interest to her work, and gave to her characters
+a very life-like effect. Her pathetic and humorous scenes are natural
+and well arranged. The peculiarities of negro life and habits of
+thought are placed before the reader with genuine sympathy and truth.
+Uncle Tom and Topsy are fine and original creations. But taken simply
+as a novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is not more remarkable than a hundred
+others, and cannot compete with such works as "Tom Jones," "Adam Bede,"
+or "David Copperfield." Mrs. Stowe's extraordinary success was fully
+deserved, but it resulted less from the literary excellence of her
+work, than from the fact that when one great subject rose pre-eminent
+in the public mind, she was able to embody it in a popular and easily
+comprehended form. Gilmore Simms and John P. Kennedy have contributed
+largely to the novel of Southern life. Mr. G.W. Cable is now studying
+Louisiana characters, and Judge Tourgee the general condition of the
+South since the war.
+
+Novels descriptive of Western life have been written by Charles Fenno
+Hoffman, James Hall, Timothy Flint, Thomas, and O'Connell. But none of
+these writers have given such original sketches of character, or have
+so graphically portrayed the spirit of life in the far West as Mr.
+Bret Harte. "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and the other stories of this
+talented writer have opened a vein of romance where it was least
+expected.
+
+American fiction has been exceptionally rich in stories adapted to the
+juvenile mind, among which the most prominent are Mrs. Whitney's "Faith
+Gartney's Girlhood," Miss Alcott's "Little Women," and Mr. T.B.
+Aldrich's "Story of a Bad Boy." Edgar Allan Poe's "Tales of the
+Grotesque and the Arabesque," are remarkable for intensity and
+vividness of conception, combined with a circumstantial invention
+almost equal to that of Defoe. Mrs. Burnett and Mr. J.W. De Forest are
+still writing excellent novels of American life; and Mr. Henry James,
+Jr., is studying that peculiar form of human nature known as the
+American in Europe.[210]
+
+
+[Footnote 210: Other American writers of fiction:--R.B. Kimball, Herman
+Melville, Dr. R. Bird, John Neal, H.W. Longfellow, Washington Allston,
+Maria S. Cummins, W.G. Simms, Theodore Winthrop, Mary J. Holmes, Mrs.
+Terhune, Augusta Evans Wilson, Catherine Sedgwick Valerio.]
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+The historical novel is obviously a subdivision of the novel of life
+and manners. But, dealing as it does with remote ages, with forgotten
+opinions and long-disused customs, it has to reconstruct where the
+novel of contemporary life has only to illustrate. Strict historical
+accuracy can hardly be expected in fiction concerned with the past. The
+details of life, always difficult to seize, are almost beyond the reach
+of the novelist who deals with a subject with which he has had no
+personal experience. A certain amount of accuracy concerning dress,
+customs, peculiarities of opinion and language are necessary to give to
+a historical novel the effect of verisimilitude. But what is chiefly
+requisite in such a work is that the general spirit of the period
+treated should be successfully caught; that the reader should find
+himself occupied with a train of associations and sympathies which
+insensibly withdraws his thoughts from their ordinary channels, and
+occupies them with the beliefs, opinions, and aspirations of a totally
+different state of society.
+
+Such is the special merit of Scott's historical novels. Many
+inaccuracies of fact might be pointed out in them. His study of the
+character of James I, in "The Fortunes of Nigel," is in several
+respects entirely mistaken. His description of a euphuist in "The
+Monastery" bears no resemblance whatever to the followers of John Lyly.
+In "The Talisman" and in "Ivanhoe," of which the scenes are laid in the
+time of Richard Coeur de Lion, the reader recognises little realism
+of language. But as Scott's historical novels deal with periods
+extending from that of the crusades down to the Pretender's attempt in
+1745, an intimate knowledge of the innumerable social changes and
+peculiarities is not to be expected.
+
+It is, indeed, to be doubted that a novelist can so reproduce a distant
+epoch as to satisfy the ideas of careful historical students. He can,
+however, make familiar to his readers the general spirit of a time.
+And, in this, Scott was eminently successful. "Kenilworth" gives a
+vivid picture of the gay picturesqueness of Elizabeth's age.
+"Woodstock" contains a fine contrast between the Cavalier and the
+Puritan character. "Quentin Durward" affords a lasting impression of
+the times of Louis XI and Charles the Bold. Scott's strong national
+feeling and his intense sympathy with the traditions of his native land
+naturally gave to his Scotch fictions a particular historical value.
+"The Legend of Montrose," describing the civil war in the sixteenth
+century; "Old Mortality," dealing with the rebellion of the
+Covenanters; and "Waverley," occupied with the Pretender's troubles in
+the middle of the eighteenth century, threw into bold relief widely
+differing periods of Scotch history. Its is, indeed, extraordinary that
+one mind should have been able to seize so many and so varied
+historical conditions as are treated in the Waverley novels. Of these
+works, about fourteen deal with entirely distinct epochs, each one of
+which is given its individual character and obtains its appropriate
+treatment.[211]
+
+Bulwer Lytton's "Last Days of Pompeii," and "Harold, the Last of the
+Saxon Kings," are both powerful, ingenious, and interesting narratives,
+and they give as definite an idea, perhaps, of the times of which they
+treat as is possible after so long a lapse of time. "Rienzi" leaves a
+greater impression of verisimilitude. "The Last of the Barons" is
+somewhat clogged by its superabundance of historic incident, but still
+affords a striking view of declining feudalism. In the "Tale of Two
+Cities" and "Barnaby Rudge," Dickens described the sanguinary scenes of
+the French Revolution and the Lord Gordon Riots with his never-failing
+power. Since the Waverley novels, the most perfect specimen of English
+historical fiction has been "Henry Esmond." The artistic construction
+of its plot, and the life-like reality of its characters, place it
+first among Thackeray's works. But its pre-eminence among historical
+novels is due to the fact that it reproduces so vividly the spirit and
+atmosphere of a past age. All the thoughts, opinions, and actions of
+the characters in "Henry Esmond" are such as we should expect from
+persons living in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Whoever is
+familiar with the pages of the "Spectator" will notice how faithfully
+Thackeray adopted the language of Steele and Addison. It is true that
+he had a far less difficult task before him in describing the age of
+Queen Anne than fell to the lot of Bulwer Lytton in "The Last Days of
+Pompeii." The latter work required far more historical research and a
+far greater effort of the imagination. But while in Lytton's novel the
+reader cannot divest himself of a certain sense of unreality, he feels
+that "Henry Esmond" really carries him back to the period it portrays.
+
+George Eliot's "Romola" must always retain a high place in historical
+fiction. But its author's great creative power led her to bestow more
+pains on such of the characters as proceeded from her own imagination,
+than on those whom history provided ready-made. The reader's memory
+retains a more vivid impression of Tito than it does of Savonarola.
+Charles Kingsley's "Hypatia" and "Westward Ho!" are among the most
+prominent of recent historical novels. The latter aimed at describing
+the time of Elizabeth, but resembles more closely that of Cromwell.
+John Gibson Lockhart, in "Valerius," and Mr. Wilkie Collins in
+"Antonina," have studied the life of ancient Rome. James Fenimore
+Cooper in "The Spy" and "The Pioneers" threw into bold relief the
+stirring incidents of American colonial and revolutionary times.
+Nathaniel Hawthorne reproduced the spirit of Puritan New England in
+"The Scarlet Letter," of which mention has already been made.
+
+
+[Footnote 211: Horace Smith, Sir T.D. Lauder, and G.P.R. James are
+well-known historical novelists who have written under the influence of
+Scott. W. Harrison Ainsworth has made use of historical material in
+"The Tower of London," and similar writings.]
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+The novel of purpose may be defined as a work of fiction of which the
+main object is to teach a lesson or to advocate a principle. Strictly
+speaking, every good novel has a purpose, or some well-defined aim, if
+it be only that of affording entertainment. But the novel of purpose
+distinctly subordinates the amusement of the reader to his improvement
+or information. With a few exceptions, such as "The Fool of Quality,"
+this species of fiction is the product of the nineteenth century. It
+has special difficulties to contend against. To combine a didactic aim
+with artistic excellence is among the most difficult of literary
+experiments. If the lesson or principle to be inculcated be given too
+much prominence, the reader who opens the book for entertainment will
+shut it very soon in spite of any prospective self-improvement. If
+narrative interest or artistic beauty be the most striking feature of
+the work, its serious aim will be unnoticed. The safest plan for the
+writer of the novel of purpose to pursue, is to openly acknowledge his
+object, and to place that object before the reader in as attractive a
+manner as possible. But he cannot expect to attain success unless the
+principle he advocates be one of general interest and importance. Nor
+can he expect, when that principle has obtained acceptance, that the
+work in which it is urged can have any further prominence. He must be
+content that his object is attained, and that his book, having served
+its purpose, falls into obscurity.
+
+Some of Miss Edgeworth's tales, and such novels as Miss Brunton's
+"Self-Control" and "Discipline," were among the earliest specimens of
+fiction having the professed object of moral improvement. These books
+were very popular at a time when a well-justified prejudice against
+novels prevailed. But since the character of fiction has been raised to
+its present standard of purity, professedly moral novels have become
+unnecessary for general reading. The successors of Miss Edgeworth's and
+Miss Brunton's works now appear in the form of temperance novels and
+Sunday-school books. A curious form of the novel of purpose is that
+written in the interest of religious sects or special tenets, of which
+specimens may be found in the writings of Elizabeth M. Sewell, who
+advocated High Church doctrines. Harriet Martineau made very successful
+use of fiction in conveying her ideas on political economy. In "Ginx's
+Baby," by Mr. Edward Jenkins, the popularity and interest of a
+political pamphlet had been greatly increased by the assistance of a
+narrative form.
+
+The most important specimens of the novel of purpose are those written
+in the interest of some injured or suffering class. A mere recital of
+general grievances is not likely to have much effect on the public
+mind. But a novelist who can interest a considerable body of readers in
+a few well-chosen characters, who can subject his fictitious personages
+to the evils which he means to expose, and thus arouse the sympathy and
+indignation of a large number of people, can make a novel of purpose a
+very effective weapon of reform. Individuals are much more interesting
+than bodies of men, and the sufferings of little Oliver Twist or of the
+inmates of Dotheboys Hall, as related by Dickens, will arouse public
+attention far more actively than the report of an examining committee.
+But although a novelist may accomplish great results by such devotion
+to a philanthrophic object, he can hardly avoid injury to the artistic
+effect and permanent value of his work. Many passages in Dickens'
+novels which have had a great influence in the cause of reform, cannot
+fail, in the future, when the evil exposed is no longer felt, to be a
+drag on the works which contain them.
+
+Charles Kingsley described the grievances of mechanics in "Alton
+Locke," a work in which the artistic elements are much subordinated to
+the didactic. A more powerful novel of purpose is Mrs. Gaskell's "Mary
+Barton," which enlists the sympathies of the reader very strongly with
+the trials of the manufacturing classes. Not of more literary
+excellence, but dealing with a subject of far wider interest than that
+of "Mary Barton," was the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" of Mrs. Stowe. This work
+is a wonderful example of the capacities of fiction for moving the
+public mind. Before its publication, great numbers of ordinarily humane
+people had a general, ill defined horror of slavery. It was felt to be
+a barbarous institution, a blot on American civilization. But to most
+people it was a distant abuse, with which they seldom or never came in
+contact, and of which they only heard the evil effects in a general
+way. But with the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" the whole Northern
+public were brought face to face with the question of slavery. Here
+were individuals, made real and interesting by the power of the
+novelist, subjected to tyranny and suffering from which every generous
+nature recoiled. Slavery then assumed a new and more personal aspect,
+and thousands who were indifferent to the rights of the negroes in
+general felt a sympathy with the fate of Uncle Tom which easily
+extended to the sufferings of the whole race. But the extraordinary
+reputation and circulation given to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by the
+world-wide interest in its subject, could not be sustained when public
+interest in that subject declined; and the volume which at one time
+occupied the attention of the whole civilized world, fell into
+comparative obscurity when its mission was accomplished.
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+Works of fiction occupied with purely imaginary or supernatural
+subjects have been comparatively rare. While Byron, Shelley and his
+wife were living at the Lake of Geneva, a rainy week kept them indoors,
+and all three occupied themselves with reading or inventing ghost
+stories. Mrs. Shelley, who was the daughter of Godwin the novelist, and
+who inherited his intensity of imagination, reproduced the impressions
+then made upon her mind in the remarkable but disagreeable romance of
+"Frankenstein." The story is related by a young student, who creates a
+monstrous being from materials gathered in the tomb and the
+dissecting-room. When the creature is made complete with bones,
+muscles, and skin, it acquires life and commits atrocious crimes. It
+murders a friend of the student, strangles his bride, and finally comes
+to an end in the Northern seas. While some parts of the story are
+written with considerable power, the general effect is exceedingly
+unpleasant. Bulwer Lytton's "Zanoni," a peculiarly fanciful work,
+unfolds the mysteries of the Rosicrucians. In "Alice's Adventures in
+Wonderland," the freaks and vagaries of the imagination in sleep are
+vividly traced. The curious mixture of the actual and the unreal, the
+merging of wholly different ideas in one conception, so frequent in
+dreams, are described with extraordinary skill and delicacy. The
+childlike simplicity of Alice's mind is charmingly maintained, and the
+exquisite vein of humor which runs through the whole book makes it one
+of the most delightful as well as one of the most remarkable of
+fictions.
+
+
+
+X.
+
+In an article published in _The Ninteenth Century_, Mr. Anthony
+Trollope expressed his views on the good and evil influences exerted by
+works of fiction, and he has repeated very much the same opinions in
+his interesting book on Thackeray.[212] "However poor your matter may
+be," he says, "however near you may come to that 'foolishest of
+existing mortals,' as Carlyle presumes some unfortunate novelist to be,
+still, if there be those who read your works, they will undoubtedly be
+more or less influenced by what they find there. And it is because the
+novelist amuses that he is thus influential. The sermon too often has
+no such effect, because it is applied with the declared intention of
+having it. The palpable and overt dose the child rejects; but that
+which is cunningly insinuated by the aid of jam or honey is accepted
+unconsciously, and goes on its curative mission. So it is with the
+novel. It is taken because of its jam and honey. But, unlike the
+honest, simple jam and honey of the household cupboard, it is never
+unmixed with physic. There will be the dose within it, either curative
+or poisonous. The girl will be taught modesty or immodesty, truth or
+falsehood; the lad will be taught honor or dishonor, simplicity or
+affectation. Without the lesson the amusement will not be there. There
+are novels which certainly teach nothing; but then neither can they
+amuse any one. I should be said to insist absurdly on the power of my
+own confraternity if I were to declare that the bulk of the young
+people in the upper and middle classes receive their moral teaching
+chiefly from the novels they read. Mothers would no doubt think of
+their own sweet teaching: fathers of the examples which they set: and
+schoolmasters of the influence of their instructions. Happy is the
+country that has such mothers, fathers, schoolmasters! But the novelist
+creeps in closer than the schoolmaster, closer than the father, closer
+almost than the mother. He is the chosen guide, the tutor whom the
+young pupil chooses for herself. She retires with him, suspecting no
+lesson, safe against rebuke, throwing herself head and heart into the
+narration as she can hardly do into her task-work; and there she is
+taught how she shall learn to love; how she shall receive the lover
+when he comes; how far she should advance to meet the joy; why she
+should be reticent, and not throw herself at once into this new
+delight. It is the same with the young man, though he would be more
+prone even than she to reject the suspicion of such tutorship. But he,
+too, will there learn either to speak the truth, or to lie; and will
+receive from his novel lessons either of real manliness, or of that
+affected apishness and tailor-begotten demeanor which too many
+professors of the craft give out as their dearest precepts."
+
+Such are the views of a close observer of human nature, whose works
+have had an exceedingly wide and an always excellent influence. While
+Mr. Trollope has probably exaggerated the educational power of the
+novel, it cannot be denied that this form of literature takes a
+considerable part in moulding the opinions and standards of the young.
+The impressions of life derived from novels are almost as strong as
+those we receive from what is passing in the world about us. If a work
+of fiction form a truthful reflection of nature, it must hold up to
+the reader's view examples of evil as well as examples of good; it must
+deal with depravity as well as with virtue. And, therefore, all that
+can be expected from the novelist is that he should endeavor to
+represent life as it is, with its due apportionment of beauty and of
+ugliness. And so much is demanded not only by the moralist, but by the
+critic. Many writers who have described the life of criminals, who have
+endeavored to make infamous careers attractive, and have pandered to
+the lower tastes of the reading public, would urge in their own
+defence: that they have nothing to do with morality; that their object
+is to produce a work of art; that no question of the good or evil
+effect of their writing should be allowed to trammel their imagination.
+But the critic would rightly reply, that truth at least must be
+respected in a work of art; that the imagination must not be allowed
+the liberty of misrepresentation; and that the novelist in whose pages
+vice predominates, or is given an alluring aspect, is no more artistic
+than the writer of Sunday-school books. In judging the influence
+exerted by the great body of writers of fiction whose names have been
+mentioned in this chapter, I shall therefore proceed on the
+understanding that that novelist who writes almost exclusively of good
+people is not necessarily the one whose influence has been the best,
+nor that he who has drawn many weak or evil-doing characters has
+necessarily taught the worst lessons. The standard by which we must
+judge an author, as well from an artistic as from a moral point of
+view, must be founded on the recognition that both good and evil
+prevail in the world, and that whoever undertakes to give a picture of
+life must paint both the evil and the good in their true colors.
+
+In commenting on the fiction of the eighteenth century, its prevailing
+coarseness was reprehended. But this characteristic was objected to on
+the score of taste, but not at all on that of truth or morality. The
+novelist of that time would not have faithfully represented the society
+about him had he not allowed himself that license which universally
+prevailed. Nor could the coarseness of the eighteenth-century writer be
+objected to on moral grounds. Morality is concerned with thoughts, not
+with expression. Whether we speak plainly the ideas in our mind,
+whether we communicate them by means of some, circumlocution, or
+whether we keep them wholly to ourselves, is a matter of fashion, not
+of morality.[213] Our great-grandmothers were not less chaste because
+they spoke of things regarding which we remain silent in a mixed
+society: they were simply less squeamish. Mrs. Behn in her day, and
+Fielding in his, described a licentious scene openly and honestly
+without a suspicion of evil.
+
+But a great change has come over public taste, and I may even say over
+public morality, during the present century. Licentious conduct is no
+longer a venial offence; gross and immodest expressions are no longer
+allowed in respectable society. The improvement has certainly been
+great, although not as great as it seems. Out of our higher morality,
+out of our new and boasted refinement, has sprung a vice more ugly than
+coarseness, more degrading than sensuality, and that vice is hypocrisy,
+which shelters all others behind its deceptive mask. Many a parent now
+winks at the hidden vice of a son, the exposure of which would fill him
+with shame and indignation. Thousands of young men feel that they can
+privately lead a life of dissipation, so long as they keep a
+respectable face to the world. It is not the vice that society
+punishes, it is the being found out. So when we think of our improved
+morality and refinement, we must temper our pride with the reflection
+that we may be simply more hypocritical, and not more virtuous than our
+ancestors. Still, the fact that licentiousness must now wear a mask of
+respectability, that social status is now greatly affected by moral
+worth, shows that a real advance has been made. This advance has left
+plainly marked traces on the fiction of our time, where, too, we shall
+find plentiful evidence of that hypocrisy which has become our
+besetting sin.
+
+As we look back upon the list of the great authors who have written in
+the present century, it must be with a feeling of gratitude for the
+benefits they have conferred. They have devoted their lives to the
+production of literary works, the beauty and excellence of which have
+incalculably elevated the public taste. They have held up ideals and
+noble conceptions which insensibly impart a dignity to life, and an
+encouragement to youthful aspiration. They have described so truthfully
+and sympathetically the character and aims of different classes and
+different peoples, that whoever reads their works cannot but feel
+himself drawn nearer to great divisions of the human race, which he had
+hitherto regarded with an indifferent or a prejudiced eye. The novels
+of Scott, of Dickens, of Thackeray, of George Eliot, of Miss Austen, of
+Miss Ferrier, of very many others, have afforded to hundreds of
+thousands, young and old, a never failing source of healthful
+entertainment. Domestic life, as well in the cottage as the castle, has
+been cheered and enlivened by their presence. Their examples of
+heroism, of patience, of generosity, have excited the emulation of the
+young, while their pictures of selfishness and vice have stifled many
+an evil inclination and have given birth to many a good resolution.
+
+Such writers as these have expressed the best tendencies of the age.
+And they have been able to do so because they themselves are among the
+best men and women of their time. But, unfortunately, as the nineteenth
+century has many evil characteristics, and as depraved and weak-minded
+persons are often endowed with some literary capacity, a great deal of
+poisonous matter has unavoidably come to the surface in English
+fiction. The writers who have prostituted their talents in pandering to
+the low tastes of their readers, have carefully avoided any such open
+representation of vice as was permissible in the last century. But they
+have hidden under an outward respectability of words the most immoral
+and degrading thoughts. They have recognized the fact that a not
+inconsiderable number of persons would be be glad to find in a work of
+fiction the same gross ideas which occupy their own minds. And thus a
+more dangerous, because a more insidious, species of literature has
+sprung up. The absence of parental censorship, the general freedom with
+which works of fiction are allowed to enter almost every household,
+permit these novels to fall into the hands of the youngest and most
+susceptible. The young girl or boy whose parents carefully put away the
+newspaper which contains an account of a divorce trial or a rape, is
+very possibly reading a novel of which the main interest lies in a
+detailed description of a seduction. It is not of the so-called "dime
+novels" or of the stories published in a police gazette to which
+reference is made, but to books issued by respectable publishers and
+often written by women. Of these novels, the subject is the unlawful
+gratification of the passions. Bigamy, seduction, adultery, are the
+incidents on which the story turns, and an effort is always made by the
+novelist to give to the sinners as attractive and interesting an aspect
+as possible, and to hold up any respectable people who may appear in
+the book to the contempt and derision of the reader. Perhaps we would
+be wrong in blaming a writer for his or her vulgarity. This is a fault
+into which some authors fall unconsciously, and is a part of their
+nature which they cannot shake off. If Rhoda Broughton or "Ouida" were
+to cease being vulgar in print, they would be obliged to stop writing
+altogether, a public benefit which we can hardly expect them to confer.
+But we have a right to severely call an author to task for representing
+vice in an attractive aspect, for condoning offences against morality,
+for depicting licentiousness as unattended by retributive consequences.
+In so doing, a writer is false to art and to nature, as well as to
+morality.
+
+Critics have done their utmost to discourage and expose this kind of
+literature. The pages of _The Spectator_, of _The Saturday Review_, of
+_The Athenæum_, of _The London Examiner_, of _The Nation_, are full of
+reviews which denounce in unmeasured terms the vulgarity and pruriency
+of much of the fiction of the present day. But their censure can have
+little practical effect. So long as a class of corrupt readers exists,
+so long will evil-minded men and women find a sale for the low
+conceptions of their depraved minds. Parents alone, by supervising the
+reading of their children, can prevent the evil effects of immoral
+novels. Some may think that I have exaggerated the bad characteristics
+of modern fiction. A few examples of objectionable works will be found
+at the foot of this page,[214] an acquaintance with which will sustain
+my remarks.
+
+The reader may possibly object that these are obscure names in
+literature, and that they represent writers whose works are ephemeral.
+The names chosen are the most prominent in the class to which they
+belong. Their obscurity is a redeeming feature of the society which can
+tolerate their existence. Although writers are able to find a sale for
+the most disgusting productions; although the critic is continually
+obliged, in reviewing current literature, to wade through the nastiest
+mire, it yet remains certain that public taste is not pleased with the
+vile. A limited circulation will be found for immoral novels among a
+depraved class, but it is to be said, for the credit of the nineteenth
+century, that talents prostituted can never bring fame. The conceptions
+of a Goldsmith, a Scott, a Dickens, a Thackeray, a George Eliot, remain
+among the dearest possessions of all English-speaking people. But the
+unhealthy, unnatural, and hideous pictures given to the world by
+vicious men and women receive the same wages as the sin they portray.
+
+
+[Footnote 212: In Mr. John Morley's edition of "English Men of
+Letters," chapter ix.]
+
+[Footnote 213: See Macaulay on "The Comic Dramatists."]
+
+[Footnote 214: See "Strathmore," and others, by "Ouida"; "Not Wisely,
+But Too Well," "Red as a Rose Is She," "Joan," by Rhoda Broughton;
+"Cherry Ripe," by Helen Mathers; "The Lovels of Arden," by Miss
+Braddon; "Under which Lord?" by Mrs E.L. Linton; "A Romance of the
+Nineteenth Century," by W.H. Mallock; "Children of Nature," by the Earl
+of Desart. A long list of very nasty books might easily be added, but
+these will be sufficient to illustrate the bad tendencies of fiction,
+and to show how thoroughly female authors have kept pace in immodesty
+and indecency with their rivals of the less pretentious sex.]
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+Addison, 180
+Ainsworth, H., 303
+Alcott, Miss, 312
+Aldrich, T.B., 312
+Alexander, Mrs., 288
+Alice's Adventures in Wonder Land, 319
+Allston, W., 312
+Amadis of Gaul, 46
+"Arcadia," Greene's, 83
+---- Sidney's, 92
+"Argenis", 101, _note_
+Arthur, King, 21, 39
+---- Combat with Accolon, 31
+Atalantis, The New, 123
+Austen, Jane, 287
+
+
+Banim, John, 285
+Barclay, Robert, 101, _note_
+Barham, R.H., 291
+Beckford, W., 247
+Behn, Aphra, 125
+Bird, R., 312
+Black, W., 284
+Blessington, Mrs., 302, _note_
+Boyle, Roger, 121
+Brackenridge, H.H., 307
+Braddon, M.E., 327, 288
+Bray, A.E., 291
+Brooke, H., 243
+Brooks, S., 302, _note_
+Broughton, R., 327
+Brown, C.B., 306
+Brunton, Mrs., 316
+Bunbury, S., 291
+Bunyan, John, 106
+Burnett, Mrs., 312
+Burney, Miss, 251
+Bury, Lady C., 302, _note_
+
+
+Cable, G.W., 311
+Calprenède, 119
+Carleton, W., 285
+Chamier, Capt., 304
+Charlemagne, 21, 24
+Chaucer, 42
+Chetwind, Mrs., 291
+Chivalry, Decline of, 45
+---- Origin of, 17
+---- Rise of, 9
+---- Romances of, chap., 1
+---- Theory and Practice of, 14
+Clarke, M.C., 291
+Cobbold, R., 302, _note_
+Coke, H., 302, _note_
+Collins, M., 302, _note_
+Collins, W., 292, 315
+Cooper, J.F., 307, 315
+Costello, L.S., 291
+Craik, G., 295
+Croker, T.C., 285
+Crowe, C., 291
+Crowe, Mrs., 291
+Crowley, G., 302, _note_
+Cummins, M.S., 312
+Cunningham, A., 281
+
+
+Dacre, Lady, 302, _note_
+Dana, R.H., 307
+D'Arblay, Mme., 281
+Defoe, D., 183
+De Forest, J.W., 312
+Deloney, T., 51
+De Quincey, T., 302, _note_
+Desart, Earl of, 327
+Dickens, C., 295, 314
+D'Israeli, B., 293
+Drury, A.H., 206
+
+
+Edgeworth, M., 285
+"Eliana", 121
+Eliot, George, 288, 315
+Ellis, G., 291
+"Euphues", 76
+Euphuism, 76, 82, _note_
+Excalibur, 26, 39
+
+
+Ferrier, Miss, 284, 287
+Fielding, Henry, 203
+Flint, T., 311
+Ford, E., 47, _note_
+Fraser, J.B., 305
+Fraser-Tytler, C.C., 291
+Friar Bacon, 52
+Friar Rush, 54
+Fullerton, Lady G., 291
+Fullom, S.W., 302, _note_
+
+
+Galahad, Sir, 35, 37
+Galt, John, 284
+Gaskell, Mrs., 287, 318
+Geoffrey of Monmouth, 24
+"George-a-Green", 50
+Glassock, Capt., 304
+Gleig, G.R., 304
+Godwin, Francis, 101, _note_
+Godwin, W., 248
+Goldsmith, O., 227
+Gomberville, 119
+Gore, Mrs., 303, _note_
+Grant, James, 304
+Grant, M.M., 291
+Grattan, T.C., 286
+Graves, 248
+Greene, Robert, 82
+Griffin, Gerald, 286
+Guenever, 23, 34, 39
+Gulliver's Travels, 173
+
+
+Hale, E.E., 310
+Hall, J., 311
+Hall, S.C., 286
+Hamilton, E., 284
+Hannay, J., 302, _note_
+Hardy, T., 302, _note_
+Harte, Bret, 312
+Hawthorne, N., 309
+"Helyas", 46, _note_
+Heroic Romance, 119
+Heywood, Mrs., 193
+Higginson, T.W., 310
+Hoffman, C.F., 311
+Hogg, 284
+Holcroft, T., 248
+Holland, J.G., 308
+Holmes, M.J., 314
+Holmes, O.W., 310
+Hook, Theodore, 291
+Hope's "Anastasius", 305
+Howard, 304
+Howells, W.D., 310
+Howitt, M., 291
+Howitt, W., 302, _note_
+Hubback, Mrs., 291
+Hughes, Thomas, 292
+Humor in Sidney's "Arcadia", 100
+---- in the "Morte d'Arthur", 40
+
+
+Ideality in Fiction, 111
+Igraine, 25
+Inchbald, Mrs., 255
+Irving, W., 308
+Isould, 34
+
+
+"Jack, the Giant-killer", 24
+James, G.P.R., 311
+James, H., Jr., 312
+Jenkins, E., 317
+Jerrold, Douglas, 302 _note_
+Jewsbury, Geraldine, 291
+Johnson, Dr., 234
+Johnson, R., 46, _note_
+Johnstone, C., 240
+Johnstone, Mrs., 284
+Judd, S., 310
+
+
+Kavanagh, Miss, 219
+Kennedy, J.P., 311
+Kimball, R.B., 312
+Kingsley, C., 291, 315, 318
+
+
+"Lady of the Lake", 26
+Lamb, Lady C., 302, _note_
+Launcelot, 22, 34, 39
+Lauder, Sir T.D., 284, 314
+Lawrence, Geo. A., 303
+"Lear, King", 24
+Lee, Harriet and Sophia, 256
+Lennox, C., 254
+Lever, C.J., 286
+Lewes, G.H., 302, _note_
+Lewis, 269
+Linton, E.L., 327
+Lister, T.H., 302, _note_
+Lockhart, 284, 315
+Lodge, T., 88
+Longfellow, H.W., 312
+Lover, S., 285
+Lyly, J., 75
+Lytton, Bulwer, 293, 314, 319
+
+
+MacCarthy, J., 266
+MacDonald, G., 284
+Mackay, C., 302, _note_
+Mackenzie, H., 241
+Marquoid, Mrs., 291
+Malory, Sir Thomas, 25
+Mallock, W. H., 327, _note_
+"Man in the Moon", 101, _note_
+Manley, Mrs., 123
+Mapes, Walter, 24
+Marryat, Capt., 304
+Marryat, F., 291
+Marsh, Mrs., 291
+Martineau, H., 317
+Mathers, H., 327
+Maturin, 269
+Maxwell, W.H., 304
+Meliadus, 25
+Melville, H., 312
+Merlin, 24
+Miller, H., 284
+Miller, T., 302, _note_
+Mitford, M.R., 288
+Moir, 284
+Moore, Dr., 248
+Moore, Sir T., 56
+Morier, J., 305
+Morgan, Lady, 286
+Morgana, 26
+Morley, Countess of, 302, _note_
+"Morte d'Arthur", 24, 40
+Mulock, Miss, 288
+
+
+Napier, E., 304
+Neal, J., 312
+Newcastle, Duchess of, 122
+Normanby, Marquis of, 302, _note_
+Norton, Hon. Mrs., 291
+Novel, Development of, _see_ Addison, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding
+Novel, in the xixth Century, 274
+---- of American Life, 305
+---- of English Life, 291
+---- of Irish Life, 285
+---- of Scotch Life, 280
+---- Criminal, 303
+---- Fashionable, 303
+---- Historical, 313
+---- Immoral, 303
+---- Military, 304
+---- Muscular, 303
+---- Naval, 304
+---- Oriental, 305
+---- of fancy, 319
+---- of purpose, 316
+
+
+O'Connell, 311
+Oliphant, Mrs., 284
+Opie, Mrs., 286
+"Ornatus and Artexia", 46, _note_
+"Oroonoko", 126
+Orrery, Earl of, 121
+Ouida, 303, 326
+
+
+Palmerin of England, 46
+Palomides, Sir, 35
+"Pandosto", 85
+Pardoe, Miss, 305
+"Parismus", 47, _note_
+Parthenissa, 121
+Payn, J., 302, _note_
+Peacock, T.L., 302, _note_
+Pendragon, Uther, 25
+Perceval le Gallois, 25
+"Pheander", 17, _note_
+Phelps, E.S., 310
+Philips, S., 302, _note_
+"Philomela", 86
+Picken, 284
+"Pilgrim's Progress", 108
+Poe, E.A., 312
+Porter, Jane, 284
+Porter, Maria, 284
+Power, M.A., 291
+
+
+Radcliffe, Ann, 265
+Reach, A.B., 302, _note_
+Reade, C., 291
+Realism, 279
+Reeve, Clara, 264
+Religious Revival, 220
+Richardson, Samuel, 193
+Ritchie, L., 302, _note_
+Robin Hood, 47
+"Robert the Devil," 47, _note_
+Roberts, H., 47, _note_
+Romantic Revival, 259
+"Rosalynde," 88
+Round Table, 26, 33, 38
+Rowson, S., 306
+
+
+"Saint Gréal," 25, 35
+Sala, Geo. Aug., 302, _note_
+Scott, Michael, 304
+Scott, Sir Walter, 280, 313
+Scudéri, 119
+Sedgwick, C.M., 310
+"Seven Champions of Christendom," 46, _note_
+Sewell, E., 291
+Sewell, E.M., 317
+Shelley, Mrs., 319
+Sidney, Sir Phillip, 91
+Simms, G., 311
+Simms, W., 312
+Sinclair, C., 307
+Smedley, F.E., 302, _note_
+Smith, A., 302, _note_
+Smith, C., 257
+Smith, H., 314
+Smollett, T., 211
+Sterne, L., 231
+St. John, J.A., 302, _note_
+Stowe, H.B., 310, 318
+Stretton, H., 291
+Strickland, A., 291
+Swift, J., 170
+
+
+Tautphoeus, Baroness, 287
+Taylor, B., 308
+Terhune, Mrs., 312
+Thackeray, Miss, 287
+Thackeray, W.M., 298, 314
+Thomas, 311
+"Thomas of Reading," 50
+Thornbury, W., 302, _note_
+"Tom-a-Lincoln," 46
+Tourgee, Judge, 311
+Trelawney, 304
+Tristram, 22, 25, 30, 34
+Trollope, A., 294, 295
+Trollope, Mrs., 287
+Trollope, T.A., 302, _note_
+Tupper, M.F., 302, _note_
+Turner, T., Diary of, 221
+Tytler, S., 297
+
+
+Valerio, C.S., 312
+
+
+Walpole, Horace, 259
+Ward, R. Plumer, 291
+Warren, S., 291
+Wetherell, E., 291
+Whitly, F.M., 302, _note_
+Whitney, Mrs., 312
+Whyte-Melville, G.J., 302, _note_
+Wilson, A.E., 312
+Wilson, Prof., 284
+Williams, F., 302, _note_
+Willis, N.P., 308
+Winthrop, T., 312
+Wood, Mrs. H, 287
+Wraxall, C.L., 302, _note_
+
+
+Yates, E., 302, _note_
+Yonge, Miss, 287
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of English Prose Fiction
+by Bayard Tuckerman
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of "A History of English Prose
+      Fiction", by Bayard Tuckerman.
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+Project Gutenberg's A History of English Prose Fiction, by Bayard Tuckerman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A History of English Prose Fiction
+
+Author: Bayard Tuckerman
+
+Release Date: March 13, 2005 [EBook #15350]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSE FICTION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Lynn Bornath, Leonard Johnson and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div id="titlepages">
+
+<h1>A HISTORY
+<br /><br />
+OF
+<br /><br />
+ENGLISH PROSE FICTION
+</h1>
+
+<br /><br /><br />
+<div class="center">BY</div>
+<br /><br />
+<div class="center"><span class="larger">BAYARD TUCKERMAN</span></div>
+
+<hr class="tiny" />
+
+<div class="center"><span class="small">NEW YORK &amp; LONDON</span><br />
+G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br />
+The Knickerbocker Press<br />
+1894</div>
+
+<hr class="long" />
+
+
+<div class="center"><span class="small">COPYRIGHT BY</span><br />
+G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br />
+1882</div>
+
+<hr class="long" />
+
+
+<div class="center"><span class="larger">TO</span><br /><br />
+<span class="larger">MY FATHER,</span></div>
+<br /><br />
+<div class="center">THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED</div>
+
+<hr class="long" />
+</div>
+
+<div id="preface">
+
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is attempted in this volume to trace the gradual progress of English
+Prose Fiction from the early romance to the novel of the present day,
+in such connection with the social characteristics of the epochs to
+which these works respectively belong, as may conduce to a better
+comprehension of their nature and significance.</p>
+
+<p>As many of the earlier specimens of English fiction are of a character
+or a rarity which makes any acquaintance with them difficult to the
+general public, I have endeavored so to describe their style and
+contents that the reader may obtain, to some degree, a personal
+knowledge of them.</p>
+
+<p>The novels of the nineteenth century are so numerous and so generally
+familiar, that, in the chapter devoted to this period, I have sought
+rather to point out the great importance which fiction has assumed, and
+the variety of forms which it has taken, than to attempt any exhaustive
+criticism of individual authors&mdash;a task already sufficiently performed
+by writers far more able to do it justice.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 0em;">THE AUTHOR.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-bottom: 0em; margin-top: 0em;">"<i>The Benedick.</i>"<br />
+<span class="small">NEW YORK</span>, <i>Aug</i>. 22, 1882.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right; margin-top: 0em; font-size: 90%;">B.T.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div id="toc">
+
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table summary="Table of Contents">
+
+<tr><td class="center" colspan="3">CHAPTER I.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="small">THE ROMANCE OF CHIVALRY</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="right"><a href="#page1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="center" colspan="3">CHAPTER II</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="small">CHAUCER, TALES OF THE YEOMANRY, SIR T. MORE'S
+    "UTOPIA"</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="right"><a href="#page42">42</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="center" colspan="3">CHAPTER III</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="small">THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. LYLY, GREENE, LODGE,
+    SIDNEY</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="right"><a href="#page60">60</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="center" colspan="3">CHAPTER IV.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="small">THE PURITANS, "THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS"</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="right"><a href="#page102">102</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="center" colspan="3">CHAPTER V.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="small">THE RESTORATION. ROGER BOYLE, MRS. MANLEY,
+    MRS. BEHN</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="right"><a href="#page112">112</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="center" colspan="3">CHAPTER VI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="small">THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. SWIFT, ADDISON, DEFOE,
+    RICHARDSON, FIELDING, SMOLLETT</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="right"><a href="#page134">134</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="center" colspan="3">CHAPTER VII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="small">THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CONTINUED. STERNE,
+    JOHNSON, GOLDSMITH, AND OTHERS. MISS BURNEY AND THE FEMALE
+    NOVELISTS. THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="right"><a href="#page220">220</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="center" colspan="3">CHAPTER VIII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="small">THE NOVEL IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE NOVEL OF
+    LIFE AND MANNERS. OF SCOTCH LIFE. OF IRISH LIFE. OF ENGLISH LIFE.
+    OF AMERICAN LIFE. THE HISTORICAL NOVEL. THE NOVEL OF PURPOSE. THE
+    NOVEL OF FANCY. USE AND ABUSE OF FICTION</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="right"><a href="#page274">274</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div id="content">
+
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<span class="pagenum">[1]<a name="page1" id="page1"></a></span>
+<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE ROMANCE OF CHIVALRY.</h3>
+
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p>In the midst of an age of gloom and anarchy, when Feudalism was slowly
+building up a new social organization on the ruins of the Roman Empire,
+arose that spirit of chivalry, which, in its connection with the
+Christian religion, forms so sharp a division between the sentiments of
+ancient and modern times. Following closely on the growth of chivalry
+as an institution, there came into being a remarkable species of
+fiction, which reflected with great faithfulness the character of the
+age, and having formed for three centuries the principal literary
+entertainment of the knighthood of Europe, left on the new
+civilization, and the new literature which had outgrown and discarded
+it, lasting traces of its natural beauty. Into the general fund of
+chivalric romance were absorbed the learning and legend of every land.
+From the gloomy forests and bleak mountains of the North came dark and
+terrible fancies, malignant enchanters, and death-dealing spirits,
+supposed to haunt the earth and sea; from Arabia and the East came
+gorgeous pictures of palaces built of gold and precious stones, magic
+rings which transport the bearer from place to place, love-inspiring
+draughts, dragons and fairies; from ancient Greece and Rome came
+memories of the heroes and mysteries of mythology, <span
+class="pagenum">[2]<a name="page2" id="page2"></a></span>like old coins worn
+and disfigured by passing, through ages, from hand to hand, but still
+bearing a faint outline of their original character. All this mass of
+fiction was floating idly in the imaginations of men, or worked as an
+embellishment into the rude numbers of the minstrels, when the mediæval
+romancers gathered it up, and interweaving it with the traditions of
+Arthur and Charlemagne, produced those strange compositions which are
+so entirely the product and repository of the habits, superstitions,
+and sympathies of the Middle Ages that they serve to</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div class="quote">"Hold the mirror up to Nature,</div>
+    <div>To show Vice its own image, Virtue its own likeness,</div>
+    <div>And the very age and body of the times,</div>
+    <div>His form and pressure."</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The men who wrote, and the men who read these romances, the first
+springs of our modern fiction, were influenced by two dominant ideas:
+"One religious, which had fashioned the gigantic cathedrals, and swept
+the masses from their native soil to hurl them upon the Holy Land; the
+other secular, which had built feudal fortresses, and set the man of
+courage erect and armed within his own domain."<span class="fnref"><a
+name="fnref1" id="fnref1" href="#fn1">[1]</a></span> These two ideas
+were outwardly expressed in the Roman Church and the Feudal System.</p>
+
+<p>During the anarchy of the Middle Ages, every man was compelled to look
+upon war as his natural occupation, if he hoped to preserve life or
+property. His land was held as a condition of military service. As long
+as there was no effective administration of justice, redress for the
+aggrieved lay in the sword alone. A military career had no rival in the
+eyes of the ambitious and the noble. <span class="pagenum">[3]<a
+name="page3" id="page3"></a></span> There was no learning, no art, to
+share with skill in arms, the honors to which a youth aspired. Religion
+and love, the most powerful inspirations of his moral life, made force
+of arms the merit most worthy of their rewards. The growth of the
+people in the mechanical arts took the direction of improving the
+instruments of warfare; the increase of refinement and humanity tended
+less to diminish war than to make it more civilized, showy, and
+glorious. The armies of the Romans seem prosaic when we turn to the
+brilliant array of chivalry, to the ranks of steel-clad knights
+couching the lance to win fame, the smile of woman, or the reward of
+religious devotion;&mdash;men to whom war seemed a grand tournament, in
+which each combatant, from the king to the poorest knight, was to seek
+distinction by his strength and valor. It was through the senses, and
+especially through the eye, that the feudal imagination was moved.
+Every heart was kindled at the sight of shining armor, horses with
+brilliant trappings, gorgeous dress, and martial show. The magnificent
+Norman cathedrals struck the mind with devotional awe; the donjons and
+towers of the great baronial castles were suggestive of power and
+glory. To the impressibility of the senses was added the romantic
+spirit of adventure, which kept the knighthood of Europe in a constant
+ferment, and for lack of war, burst forth in tournaments, in private
+feuds, or in the extravagances of knight-errantry. The feudal system,
+growing up to meet the necessities of conquerors living on conquered
+territory, and founded on the principle of military service as a
+condition of land tenure, made of Europe a vast army. The military
+profession was exalted to an importance which crushed all effort of a
+more useful or progressive nature; the military class, including all
+who possessed land, and <span class="pagenum">[4]<a name="page4"
+id="page4"></a></span> did not labor upon it, became an aristocracy
+despising peaceful occupations, whose most powerful prejudice was pride
+of birth, whose ruling passion was love of war. Under the influence of
+this military spirit, intellectual was subordinated to active life; a
+condition of ignorance and danger was sustained; an overwhelming
+reverence for the supernatural was produced, and there resulted that
+predominance of the imagination over the reason of man which forms the
+distinctive feature of Romantic Fiction.</p>
+
+<p>While the feudal system formed the framework of society, and, as much
+by inspiration as by law, governed the outward actions of men, the
+human mind was in complete, and almost universally willing, subjection
+to theological influence. The state of war, or of readiness for war,
+which was the inevitable accompaniment of feudal tenure, did much to
+sustain the state of profound ignorance and consequent superstition in
+which the people of mediæval times were plunged, both by preventing the
+pursuit of peaceful occupations and the growth of knowledge, and by
+increasing the element of danger in life, which always inclines the
+human mind to a belief in the supernatural. The same results were
+brought about by the character and aims of the Roman Church. The
+unswerving purpose of that church was to govern, temporally as well as
+spiritually. She sought to supply to men from her own store all the
+knowledge which was necessary for their welfare, and that knowledge was
+limited to dogmas and beliefs which would strengthen the power of the
+priesthood. A strict and absolute acceptance of the truths of
+Christianity as she defined them, and a humble obedience to the clergy
+were made the sole and necessary conditions of salvation. A questioning
+<span class="pagenum">[5]<a name="page5" id="page5"></a></span>
+of those truths or a violation of that obedience was a crime before
+which murder and license faded into insignificance. The spirit of doubt
+and of inquiry which alone leads to knowledge, and through knowledge to
+civilization, was repressed by excommunication or in blood. As long as
+men continued in a state of helpless ignorance and willing credulity,
+the church was a fitting, even a beneficent, mistress and guide. For
+centuries she was the sole teacher and the sole external source of
+moral elevation. For centuries she alone pointed out the distinction
+between right and wrong, the beauty of virtue, and the ugliness of sin.
+Whatever there was in life to raise men above their earthly struggles,
+their evil passions, and the despair of a hard and dangerous existence,
+was supplied by her. The consolations of religion, the ennobling
+acquaintance with the character of Christ, and the hope of salvation
+through Him were incalculable blessings. Her aid in suppressing
+disorder and in establishing a respect for law and government is not to
+be overlooked. She presented in her own organization an example of
+authority, of system, and of obedience, which, despite many failings
+and abuses, was of great value to the world. But there is in human
+nature an irrepressible tendency toward growth and progress, and when
+this tendency began to show itself in the Middle Ages, it found in the
+theological spirit, then personated by the Roman Church, its most
+bitter and most powerful enemy. The church, which had hitherto been a
+teacher and guide, became the champion of barbarism and the genius of
+retrogression. Instead of adapting herself to the growing wants of
+mankind, instead of preserving her influence and power by inward
+progress proportionate to that which she saw advancing without, she
+sought, stationary <span class="pagenum">[6]<a name="page6"
+id="page6"></a></span> herself, to keep the world stationary, and to stamp
+out in blood the progressive spirit of man. Hence it is that the
+blessings of our modern life have been achieved in spite of the Roman
+Church, which should have promoted them, and the history of modern
+civilization and modern knowledge is in so large a part the history of
+emancipation from the tyranny of the theological spirit,&mdash;that is, the
+clerical opposition to mental and material advancement, both of which
+are as necessary to moral advancement as they are to the happiness of
+men. This spirit has been the same in every country and in every age,
+when the spiritual has exceeded the secular power, and its lamentable
+effects may be traced as well in the gloomy Protestant theocracy of
+Scotland as in the Catholic Inquisition of Spain. During the period,
+however, when the romances of chivalry were principally written and
+enjoyed, the convulsions arising from attempts to burst the bonds by
+which the minds of men were restrained, had not yet been sensibly felt.
+The church was still the controlling intellectual influence. A dark
+cloud of ignorance and superstition hung over Europe, to be dispelled
+at last by the new growth of learning, and the consequences following
+upon it. The best intelligence of the time was confined to the clergy,
+who used it skilfully to maintain their authority. By every device they
+sought to usurp to themselves the sole power of ministering to popular
+wants. Nothing which could strike the mind through the senses was
+neglected. They offset tournaments by religious shows and pageantry,
+rivalled the attractions of the harp by sacred music, and to wean their
+flocks from the half dramatic entertainments of the minstrels, they
+invented the Miracle Play and the Mystery. The church forced herself on
+the attention of <span class="pagenum">[7]<a name="page7"
+id="page7"></a></span> every man without doors or within, by the friars
+black or gray who met him at every turn, by the imposing monasteries
+which formed a central figure in every landscape, and by the festivals
+and processions of priests which made the common occasions for the
+assemblage of the people. The constant recurrence of holy days and
+fasts called the mind to the consideration of spiritual things, and the
+rough superstition of the time was deeply excited when the approach of
+death in a household brought the priestly train with lighted tapers,
+and the awe-inspiring ceremonies with which the lingering soul was sent
+on its way.</p>
+
+<p>The military nature of feudalism explains the predominance of warlike
+incidents in romantic fiction, and the character of the Roman Church
+gives us an insight into the causes which, in addition to the ignorance
+of the time, induced men to refer all remarkable events to supernatural
+influence, and prepared their minds for the unquestioning belief in the
+fictions which are so important a characteristic of the romances of
+chivalry. The low standard of morality also, which is reflected in the
+same pages, is due quite as much to the predominance of the dogmatic
+over the moral element of Christianity, as to the unrefined and rude
+conditions of life.</p>
+
+<p>There is much that is picturesque and brilliant in the times, but much
+more that is terrible. The nobles and knights, who lived sword in hand
+behind their battlements and massive walls, were the rulers of the
+country. Their ungoverned passions and their love of fighting for its
+own sake or for that of revenge, were perpetual dangers to internal
+peace. There was no power sufficient to keep them in check. The
+lawlessness and anarchy caused by the ceaseless quarrels between baron
+and <span class="pagenum">[8]<a name="page8" id="page8"></a></span>
+baron, found but a feeble remedy in the laws of King or Church. Of
+the darkness of the earlier Middle Ages Von Sybel<span class="fnref"><a
+name="fnref2" id="fnref2" href="#fn2">[2]</a></span> gives a graphic
+picture: "Monarchies sank into impotence; petty lawless tyrants
+trampled all social order under foot, and all attempts after scientific
+instruction and artistic pleasures were as effectually crushed by this
+state of general insecurity as the external well-being and material
+life of the people. This was a dark and stormy period for Europe,
+merciless, arbitrary, and violent. It was a sign of the prevailing
+feeling of misery and hopelessness that, when the first thousand years
+of our era were drawing to their close, the people in every country in
+Europe looked with certainty for the destruction of the world. Some
+squandered their wealth in riotous living, others bestowed it, for the
+good of their souls, on churches and convents; weeping multitudes lay
+day and night about the altars; some looked forward with dread, but
+most with secret hope, toward the burning of the earth and the falling
+in of heaven." Gradually some order and security succeeded this chaos.
+The church exerted all her strength in subduing violence, and the
+character of her remedies are illustrative of the evils they were
+intended to abate. The truce of God set apart the days between Thursday
+and Monday of each week as a time of peace, when private quarrels
+should be suspended. The peace of the king forbade the avenging of an
+alleged injury until forty days after its commission. The Council of
+Clermont ordered that every noble youth on attaining the age of twelve
+years should take an oath to defend the oppressed, the widows, and the
+orphans.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref3" id="fnref3"
+href="#fn3">[3]</a></span> Much superfluous energy was exhausted in the
+crusades. <span class="pagenum">[9]<a name="page9"
+id="page9"></a></span> In England the growth of the universities and
+the study and development of
+law aided the establishment of social order, while the spread of
+commerce and the improvements in husbandry brought with wealth some
+refinement and luxury. The baronage wrested from the crown those
+liberties which finally became the common property of all. Trade pushed
+the inhabitants of the towns into prominence as an important class
+whose influence was thrown entirely into the scale of peace and quiet,
+on which its prosperity depended. No element of change was more
+essential, and none was greater in its civilizing effects than the
+development of the chivalric spirit into an institution of which the
+laws and customs were observed from England to Sicily. Its influence
+worked directly upon the disturbing classes of society. Only time and
+the slow march of civilization could calm the restlessness and the
+martial spirit of the powerful, but chivalry introduced into warfare
+knightly honor and generosity, and into social life a courtesy and
+gallantry which formed a strong ally to religion in bringing out the
+better sentiments of humanity. At a time when force was greater than
+law, when the weak and defenceless were at the mercy of the powerful,
+when women were never safe from the attacks of the brutal, a body of
+men who were sworn to redress wrongs, to succor the oppressed, and to
+protect women and children, could not fail to be highly beneficial and
+to win the reverence of mankind. To be a good knight was to be the salt
+of the earth. The church gave easy absolution to the champion of the
+weak,&mdash;the soldier of God. Women smiled upon the cavalier whose
+profession was her service, and whose deeds, as well as the glitter of
+his arms and the fascination of his martial appearance, flattered her
+pride and gratified her imagination.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[10]<a name="page10" id="page10"></a></span>
+Yet, in considering the period of chivalry, we must not yield too much
+to the attraction of its brilliant show, its high flown sentiments, and
+knightly valor. Beneath religion there ever lurked a bigoted
+superstition; beneath valor, cruelty; beneath love, mere brutal
+passion. The sympathies of the order were much confined to the higher
+classes, and there was little feeling for the sufferings of the common
+people. The reign of Edward the Third embraces the most brilliant days
+of chivalry. About that period is spread a mist of manly gallantry and
+feminine charms which conceals the darkness beneath. The Black Prince,
+after winning his spurs at Cressy, carried fire and sword among the
+peaceful and defenceless inhabitants of Garonne, gratifying a greed of
+gain by blood and rapine. The gallant deeds of Sir Walter de Manny, of
+Sir John Chandos, the fame of Edward himself, only make darker by
+contrast the desolation and suffering by which their glory was
+purchased. The poetic illusion inspired by Froissart's chronicles of
+knightly deeds and manners is rudely torn when we read Petrarch's
+description of France after the battle of Poitiers; "I could not
+believe that this was the same France which I had seen so rich and
+flourishing. Nothing presented itself to my eyes but a fearful
+solitude, land uncultivated, houses in ruins. Even the neighborhood of
+Paris showed everywhere the marks of desolation and conflagration. The
+streets are deserted, the roads overgrown with weeds, the whole is a
+vast solitude."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref4" id="fnref4" href="#fn4">[4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is among the Northern conquerors that we must look for the origin of
+the spirit of chivalry, which consisted first and chiefly in manly
+valor exerted to obtain the favor of woman. Of this there is no trace
+in any ancient <span class="pagenum">[11]<a name="page11" id="page11"></a></span>
+civilization. Among the barbarous tribes of the North,
+physical strength and military prowess were the qualities most
+essential in a man, and woman naturally looked upon them as the merit
+she most loved, especially as they were needed for her own protection.
+But this condition is natural to all barbarous and warlike peoples, and
+cannot by itself account for that sentiment which we call chivalric. To
+the valor of the Goths were joined an extraordinary reverence and
+respect for their women, due, as these feelings always must be, to
+feminine chastity. The virtue for which the Northern women were
+distinguished elevated them to a position to which the females of other
+uncivilized nations never approached. It gave them a large influence in
+both public and private affairs, and made them something to be won, not
+bought. To obtain his wife the Northern warrior must have deserved her,
+he must have given proofs that he was worthy of the woman who had
+preserved her chastity inviolate, and for whom love must be mingled
+with respect.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref5" id="fnref5" href="#fn5">[5]</a></span>
+It is curious to observe how exactly these sentiments,
+which existed at so early a period among the Gothic nations, were
+continued into feudal times. Take, as one instance, the exclamation of
+Regner Lodbrog, the famous Scandinavian chieftain, who about the year
+860 rescued a princess from a fortress in which she was unjustly
+confined, and received her hand as his reward: "I made to struggle in
+the twilight that yellow haired chief, who passed his mornings among
+the young maidens and loved to converse with widows. He who aspires to
+the love of young virgins ought always to be foremost in the din of
+arms!"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref6" id="fnref6" href="#fn6">[6]</a></span>
+Compare to this a scene at Calais about the middle of the
+<span class="pagenum">[12]<a name="page12" id="page12"></a></span>fourteenth century.
+Edward III had just accomplished an adventure of
+chivalry. Serving under the banner of Sir Walter de Manny as a common
+knight, he had overcome in single combat the redoubted Sir Eustace de
+Ribeaumont, who had brought the king twice on his knees during the
+course of the battle. Edward that evening entertained all his French
+prisoners as well as his own knights at supper, and at the conclusion
+of the feast he adjudged the prize of valor for that day's fighting to
+Sir Eustace de Ribeaumont, and removing a chaplet of pearls from his
+own head, he placed it on that of the French knight, with the
+significant words<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref7" id="fnref7" href="#fn7">[7]</a></span>:
+"Sir Eustace, I present you with this chaplet as
+being the best combatant this day, either within or without doors; and
+I beg of you to wear it this year for love of me. I know that you are
+lively and amorous, and love the company of ladies and damsels;
+therefore say wherever you go that I gave it to you." But the chivalry
+of the Goths was only the seed of the plant which flourished so
+luxuriantly under better conditions in later times. The feudal system
+fostered the growth of the sentiment into the institution, as a
+palliative to anarchy and as an ornament to life, while the Church,
+always eager to absorb enthusiasm and power into her own ranks, adopted
+the institution as the Holy Order, and adding religious devotion to the
+inspiration of love, directed the energies of chivalry into the work of
+civilization, and made the knight the champion of the weak, in addition
+to his character as a valiant soldier.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult in considering a period so remote and so peculiar as
+that of chivalry, to fix the limit between the actual and the
+imaginary, between the character of the
+<span class="pagenum">[13]<a name="page13" id="page13"></a></span>
+ideals which men placed before
+themselves, and the extent to which these ideals were realized. That
+the writings of the romancers were exaggerations of actual manners
+rather than inventions, is shown by the descriptions of the habits and
+inmates of mediæval castles, which form so interesting a portion of
+Froissart's chronicles, and give such striking and life like
+illustrations of the society which at once inspired and enjoyed the
+romances of chivalry. The castle of the Earl of Foix and the Earl
+himself would have seemed quite natural in the pages of a romance:
+"Ther was none more rejoysed in dedes of armes than the erle dyde: ther
+was sene in his hall, chambre, and court, knightes and squyers of
+honour going up and downe, and talking of armes and amours; all honour
+ther was found, all maner of tidyngs of every realme and countre ther
+might be herde, for out of every countree ther was resort, for the
+valyantness of this erle." Of "armes and amours" the knights and ladies
+loved to talk, and arms and amours formed the burden of the ponderous
+tomes which the Earl of Foix caused to be read before him. The
+adventures of knights-errant, and their obligation to render aid and
+comfort to "all distressed ladies and damsels," have a charming
+illustration in the championship of the cause of Isabel, Queen of
+Edward the Second of England, by Sir John of Hainault, and the words
+used by the latter in undertaking the enterprise were the echo of the
+chivalric feeling of the time. As soon as the arrival of Queen Isabel
+in Hainault was known, "this Sir John, being at that time very young
+and panting for glory, like a knight-errant mounted his horse, and,
+accompanied by a few persons, set out from Valenciennes for
+Ambreticourt, where he arrived in the evening and paid the Queen every
+respect and honour." <span class="pagenum">[14]<a name="page14" id="page14"></a></span>
+Notwithstanding the remonstrances and objections
+which were raised against his undertaking so perilous an adventure as
+the invasion of England, "the gallant knight would not change his
+purpose, saying, 'that he could die but once; that the time was in the
+will of God; and that all true knights were bound to aid, to the utmost
+of their power, all ladies and damsels driven from their kingdoms
+comfortless and forlorn.'" To suppose that the romances formed an
+accurate reflection of actual life would show an entire ignorance of
+their nature; but there can be no doubt that these fictions were the
+natural outcome of existing thought and manners; that they were
+sufficiently life-like to interest; and that they increased and
+intensified the habits and ideas in which they had their origin.</p>
+
+<p>The combination of qualities and motives which we are accustomed to
+express in the general term of chivalry was the mediæval ideal of
+virtue, and as such was in practice inevitably subject to imperfection
+and inconsistency. The Roman <i>virtus</i> was simply courage. Chivalry
+meant courage and skill in arms, united to gentle birth, to courtesy,
+to gallantry, and to a faithful observance of the laws of combat; the
+whole inspired by military glory, religious enthusiasm, or devotion to
+women. We should admire the greatness and nobility of this ideal,
+standing out as it does against a background of lawlessness and
+ignorance, rather than complain that in practice its valor often
+degenerated into ferocity, its Christianity into narrow bigotry, its
+worship of women into license and brutality. Chivalry, supplying a
+standard of excellence adapted by its nature to excite the admiration
+of men, did much to refine and civilize the rude age in which it arose;
+and this result is not belittled by the fact that that standard was
+pitched above the possibility of human attainment.
+<span class="pagenum">[15]<a name="page15" id="page15"></a></span>Chivalry was the
+spontaneous expression of what was best in the time, and gave sentiment
+and charm to lives otherwise hard and barren. Its very exaggerations
+and grotesqueness illustrate the eagerness with which it was received,
+and the greatness of the want which it supplied. This was an ideal,
+too, separate and distinct from any that had been known before,
+possessing enduring characteristics of greatness and beauty which have
+never ceased to command sympathy and admiration. Though changed in
+outward form, and appearing under different manifestations, the
+chivalry of the Middle Ages is essentially the chivalry of to-day, but
+it now exerts a moral and intellectual, instead of a physical force.</p>
+
+<p>The new dignity which woman assumed in connection with the growth of
+chivalry was owing considerably to a cause separate from the Northern
+sentiment concerning them, and as the position of women is an important
+part of the social condition we are now examining, a glance at this
+other cause will not be without value or interest. It is indeed
+remarkable that in the Middle Ages woman should for the first time have
+attained her true rank, and that the highest conception of the female
+character which the world had yet known should have been developed in
+so rude and ferocious a time. The estimation in which women were held
+among Eastern nations was little lower than their position among the
+Jews. Where polygamy exists, and where purchase-money is paid to the
+father of the bride, women never attain to high appreciation or
+respect. Beauty rather than virtue was the ideal of Greece. The women
+of that country, living in continual seclusion, deprived alike of
+opportunities for attaining culture or exerting influence, became
+narrowed in thought <span class="pagenum">[16]<a name="page16" id="page16"></a></span>
+and intelligence, and passed their lives in
+obscurity under the control of their husbands or
+sons.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref8" id="fnref8" href="#fn8">[8]</a></span> Roman history
+gives us examples of female excellence and distinction, and represents
+women during some periods in a better position than had previously been
+known. But the female sex was never accorded among the Romans the
+general respect for its peculiar virtues, and the consideration for its
+weakness which forms one of the brightest pages of modern civilization.
+With the spread of Christianity, there was for centuries no
+improvement. The low standard by which the Jews had judged the sex
+exerted a strong and an evil influence. The spirit of asceticism,
+rapidly gaining ground in the Roman Church, pointed out absolute
+chastity in both sexes as the only praiseworthy condition of life, made
+marriage only an excusable sin, and recognized in that relationship,
+merely its use for the propagation of the species. Views so absurd and
+unnatural could not fail in producing the most evil results. Woman came
+to be regarded by the church as the origin of all sin, the favorite
+medium of the temptations of the Devil, the sanctity and happiness of
+marriage were interfered with, and the priesthood, debarred from that
+condition, showed themselves not insensible to the charms they so
+fiercely denounced, and presented to their flocks demoralizing examples
+of profligacy. The Northern invaders brought with them their own ideas
+concerning women, rough and crude, but containing the germ of much
+good. Being met by Christianity, they embraced it in large numbers,
+unreflectingly, at the command of their leaders. But in embracing it
+they changed it to suit themselves. Their minds were unfit for the
+reception of the dogmas of the church, or for the realization
+<span class="pagenum">[17]<a name="page17" id="page17"></a></span>and
+worship of an invisible being. They seized on the ideas of Christ, the
+Virgin Mary, and the Saints, and worshipped in a great degree their old
+gods under the new names. But of the new objects of worship, Mary most
+struck their imaginations and won their affection. The meek and
+forgiving Christ was unsuited to their fierce and warlike dispositions.
+But Mary, the beautiful, the tender, the merciful mother of God became
+the object of an enthusiastic adoration, and with the worship of Mary
+the position of the whole sex was elevated. The brutish and unnatural
+teachings of the Fathers were overridden by the new and noble ideas
+which were springing up. Doctrines such as that of the Immaculate
+Conception rapidly won ground, and Catholic Mariolatry, taking root in
+the fertile soil of Northern chivalry, worked benefits which have
+lasted down to our own time, and conferred great blessings upon it.</p>
+
+<p>The purely military character of feudalism impressed itself on the
+habits of the time, and moulded domestic life, amusements and education
+in strict accordance with it. The castles of the great lords and
+knights were "academies of honour" for the children of their dependents
+and less wealthy neighbors; the court yards became the scene of martial
+exercises, and the presence of noble women within the walls afforded an
+opportunity for the cultivation of gentle manners, and for the growth
+of that feeling of reverence for the fair sex which was to form so
+important an element in the boys' later life. The "gentle damoiseau,"
+confided at the age of seven or eight to the care of a knight whose
+reputation for prowess and courtesy ensured a good example, learned
+modesty and obedience in the performance of menial services, then
+considered honorable; in the court-yard of the castle he
+<span class="pagenum">[18]<a name="page18" id="page18"></a></span>was
+instructed in horsemanship, and in the use of the lance, the bow, and
+the sword. In the dangers and hardships of the chase the principal
+occupation in time of peace,&mdash;he was inured to fatigue, hunger, and
+pain; he learned to sound the horn at the different stages of the hunt,
+to dress the game when killed, and to carve it on the
+table.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref9" id="fnref9" href="#fn9">[9]</a></span> He
+waited upon the ladies in their apartments as upon superior beings,
+whose service, even the most menial, was an honor. While yet a
+damoiseau, and before he had attained the rank of squire, the youth was
+expected to choose one girl who should receive his special admiration
+and service, in whose name his future knightly deeds should be
+performed, who should be his inspiration in battle, the reward of his
+valor, and the object of his gallantry. In the loves of Amadis and
+Oriana, so famous in romance, we have a simple and charming description
+of the first budding of the chivalric sentiment. "Oriana was about ten
+years old, the fairest creature that ever was seen; wherefore she was
+called the one 'without a peer.' * * * The Child of the Sea (Amadis)
+was now twelve years old, but in stature and size he seemed fifteen,
+and he served the queen; but now that Oriana was there, the queen gave
+her the Child of the Sea, that he should serve her, and Oriana said
+that 'it pleased her'; and that word which she said the child kept in
+his heart, so that he never lost it from his memory, and in all his
+life he was never weary of serving her, and his heart was surrendered
+to her; and this love lasted as long as they lasted, for as well as he
+loved her did she also love him. But the Child of the Sea, who knew
+nothing of her love, thought himself presumptuous to have placed his
+thoughts on her, and dared not speak to her;
+<span class="pagenum">[19]<a name="page19" id="page19"></a></span>and she, who loved him in
+her heart, was careful not to speak more with him than with another;
+but their eyes delighted to reveal to the heart what was the thing on
+earth that they loved best. And now the time came that he thought he
+could take arms if he were knighted; and this he greatly desired,
+thinking that he would do such things that, if he lived, his mistress
+should esteem him."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref10" id="fnref10" href="#fn10">[10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Life in a Norman castle was at best hard and comfortless. In summer it
+was enlivened by hunting and hawking, by tournaments and pageantry. The
+gardens which usually surrounded a castle formed a resource for the
+female portion of the inhabitants, who are often represented in the
+illuminations of the time as occupied in tending the flowers or in
+making garlands. But in winter there were few comforts to lessen the
+suffering, and few resources to vary the monotony of life. The passages
+in the romances which hail the return of spring, are full of
+thankfulness and delight. Chess, dice, and cards, as well as many
+frolicsome games, served, with the aid of the minstrels, to afford
+amusement. The women had their occupations of spinning, sewing, and
+embroidery, while some of the accomplishments they cultivated may be
+inferred from the following passage in the folio of old Sir Joshua
+Barnes: "And now the ladies themselves, with many noble virgins, were
+meditating the various measures their skilful feet were to make, the
+pleasant aires their sweet voices should warble, and those soft
+divisions their tender fingers should strike on the yielding
+strings."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref11" id="fnref11" href="#fn11">[11]</a></span>
+Life was lacking in physical comforts, and
+<span class="pagenum">[20]<a name="page20" id="page20"></a></span>still more in
+refinement. The dining-hall became at night the sleeping place of a
+promiscuous crowd of retainers. There was a very imperfect separation
+of the sexes at any time. Men and women ate with their fingers, and
+threw the refuse of their meal on the table, or amidst the straw on the
+floor, to be devoured by the cats and dogs which swarmed about. Read
+the directions for ladies' table manners given by Robert de Blois: "If
+you eat with another (<i>i.e.</i>, in the same plate), turn the nicest bits
+to him, and do not go picking out the finest and largest for yourself,
+which is not courteous. Moreover, no one should eat greedily a choice
+bit which is too large or too hot, for fear of choking or burning
+herself. * * * Each time you drink wipe your mouth well, that no grease
+may go into the wine, which is very unpleasant to the person who drinks
+after you. But when you wipe your mouth for drinking, do not wipe your
+eyes or nose with the table-cloth, and avoid spilling from your mouth
+or greasing your hands too much."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref12" id="fnref12" href="#fn12">[12]</a></span>
+The same authority on manners and
+etiquette warns ladies against scolding and disputing, against swearing
+and getting drunk, and against some other objectionable actions which
+betray a great lack of feminine modesty. The "Moral Instructions" of
+the Chevalier de la Tour Landry present a picture of coarseness and
+immorality among both men and women, which shows how incompatible was
+the barrack-like existence of feudal times with the practice of any
+sort of self-restraint or purity of life.</p>
+
+<p>Of such a character, then, was the audience which the mediæval
+romancers had to please. A class essentially military, ferocious, and
+accustomed to shedding blood, yet preserving in their violence a
+certain observance of <span class="pagenum">[21]<a name="page21" id="page21"></a></span>
+aws of honor and courtesy; setting before
+themselves more often an ideal of glory and nobility, than an object of
+plunder or conquest; cultivating a consideration and gallantry toward
+women, remarkable in view of the necessarily rough and unrefined
+circumstances of their life; highly imaginative and adventurous;
+rejoicing in brilliancy of dress and show; filling the monotony of
+peace by tournaments, martial games, and the entertainments of the
+minstrels.</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn1" id="fn1" href="#fnref1">[1]</a></span>
+Taine: History of Eng. Lit., Van Laun's trans. chap. 3, pt. ii.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn2" id="fn2" href="#fnref2">[2]</a></span>
+"Hist. of Crusades," p. 11; Sir E. Strachey, Introd. to
+"Morte d'Arthur."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn3" id="fn3" href="#fnref3">[3]</a></span>
+Mill's "Chivalry."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn4" id="fn4" href="#fnref4">[4]</a></span>
+Quoted in Green's "Short History of the English People." p. 224.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn5" id="fn5" href="#fnref5">[5]</a></span>
+Warton's "Hist. of English Poetry," Dissert. i.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn6" id="fn6" href="#fnref6">[6]</a></span>
+Quoted by Warton, "Hist. of Poetry," Dis. i.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn7" id="fn7" href="#fnref7">[7]</a></span>
+Froissart's "Chronicles," v. ii, p. 248, Johnes' Trans.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn8" id="fn8" href="#fnref8">[8]</a></span>
+Lecky's "History of Morals," chap. 5, vol. 2.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn9" id="fn9" href="#fnref9">[9]</a></span>
+Scott's "Essay on Chivalry."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn10" id="fn10" href="#fnref10">[10]</a></span>
+"Amadis of Gaul," Southey's ed. vol. 1, p. 40. This
+romance belongs to a late period of romantic fiction, but the passage
+cited is a good illustration of mediæval sentiment.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn11" id="fn11" href="#fnref11">[11]</a></span>
+Sir J. Barnes' "History of Edward III."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn12" id="fn12" href="#fnref12">[12]</a></span>
+PWright's "Manners and Sentiments in the Middle Ages," p. 276.
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>II.</h4>
+
+<p>The romances of chivalry sprang to life a logical production of the
+times. Their authors seized on the character of a king and a
+warrior&mdash;their highest conception of greatness, in the persons of
+Charlemagne and Arthur. Regardless of anachronism, they represented
+their heroes as the centre of a chivalric court, accoutred in the arms,
+and practising the customs of later centuries; they created in fact a
+new Arthur and a new Charlemagne, adapted to the new times. They
+brought to light the almost forgotten characters of antiquity. They
+represented Jason and Alexander invested with chivalric attributes and
+affected by mediæval superstitions. Hercules, according to them,
+performed his labors, not because of the wrath of Juno or the command
+of Jove, but, like a true knight-errant, to gain the favor of a
+Boeotian princess. Virgil the poet was transformed into Virgil the
+enchanter. The chief heroes were surrounded with restless knights,
+whose romantic adventures afforded unlimited range to the imagination,
+and delighted the chivalric mind. The romancers mingled with their
+endless tales of "arms and amours," the superstitions and myths which
+occupied the minds of men to the exclusion
+<span class="pagenum">[22]<a name="page22" id="page22"></a></span>of all real knowledge and
+inquiry. The gloomy and terrible fictions which had adorned the songs
+of Northern scalds, the bright and fanciful imagery contained in the
+tales of Arabia and the East which the crusaders brought back with them
+into Europe, the superstitions of Christianity itself, were given only
+a greater influence in the lives of fictitious heroes than they were
+supposed to have in those of living men. Perfectly suited to the times,
+and in fact born of them, the romances took at once a powerful hold on
+the popular imagination. The characters of Arthur, of Launcelot and of
+Tristram became the objects of an ardent admiration, and the standards
+of excellence to which many strove to attain. The most exaggerated
+ideas of chivalry contained in the romances were adopted in actual
+life. Knights and ladies took upon themselves adventures and cultivated
+manners, which vied in extravagance with those of imaginary beings. The
+personality of King Arthur was so intensely realized, that for
+centuries it was believed that he would one day return from beyond the
+grave to resume his glorious rule. On his tomb were supposed to be
+inscribed the words:</p>
+
+      <div class="center">Hic jacet Arthurus rex, quondam rexque futurus.</div>
+
+<p>Henry II visited his legendary grave at Glastonbury, and named his
+grandson Arthur. Edward I held a Round Table at Kenilworth. Remarkable
+features of nature&mdash;rocks, caves, and mounds were associated in the
+popular mind with the achievements of Arthur, and many are connected
+with them by name at the present day.</p>
+
+<p>But the romances relating to Arthur were far more than the reflection
+of passing thoughts and customs destined
+<span class="pagenum">[23]<a name="page23" id="page23"></a></span>to perish with the
+generations who read them. They embodied the ideals of the English race
+six centuries ago, and although appearing in a different form, those
+ideals are still our own. The examples presented in romantic fiction of
+manly courage, of self-sacrificing devotion, of simplicity of
+character, and of chivalric consideration for the weakness of the
+female sex, may excite our admiration and sympathy, as well as that of
+a fierce and untutored knighthood. These tales were the product of the
+English mind in its boyhood, and it is to the youth of our day that
+they are best adapted and most attractive; but the rationalism of the
+nineteenth century may find in their spirit of simple faith, of
+unquestioning belief and trust, much that is beautiful in human life
+which modern thought and science have swept away. It is on account of
+the enduring character of the ideals, of which the Arthurian legends
+were the spontaneous expression, that these works, although contained
+in a rude form, without artistic plan or literary merit to give them
+permanence, have never wholly passed from the acquaintance of men. The
+rude force and beauty of mediæval fiction has been deeply felt by many
+of the greatest minds which have contributed to modern literature. To
+the perusal of the story of Launcelot and Guenever Dante ascribes the
+coming of Paolo and Francesca <i>al doloroso passo</i>. While the other
+works of Ariosto have fallen into obscurity, his "Orlando Furioso" has
+achieved a lasting fame. One of the greatest poems in the German
+language, the "Oberon" of Wieland, is almost a reproduction of a
+chivalric romance. The reader of Milton is often reminded of</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div class="in12">Uther's son,</div>
+    <div>Begirt with British and Armoric knights.</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<span class="pagenum">[24]<a name="page24" id="page24"></a></span>
+<p class="noindent">Spenser transferred romantic fiction into the region of allegory, and
+gave to English literature the immortal "Faery Queen." In our own day
+the "Idyls" of Tennyson have made the legends of Arthur a part of our
+common thought, and the Knights of the Round Table familiar in almost
+every household. The romances of chivalry fall naturally into three
+general classes: those relating to Charlemagne and his peers; those
+relating to classical and mythological heroes; and, finally, the tales
+connected with King Arthur. The strong similarity which exists in the
+character and incidents of these three classes makes an acquaintance
+with one of them sufficient for the purpose of this work. The "Morte
+d'Arthur" and the romances of which it forms a compendium will therefore
+be chiefly considered, as being the most interesting in their bearing
+on English fiction.</p>
+
+<p>In the early part of the twelfth century, Walter Mapes, Archdeacon of
+Oxford, while travelling in France, became possessed of a book written
+in the British or Armoric language, which treated of the history of
+kings of Britain, and was undoubtedly even at that time of considerable
+antiquity. Little is known concerning this curious work. It related the
+fabulous martial deeds of British kings, of whose existence there is no
+previous record, their victories over giants and dragons, and the
+various supernatural influences to which they were subject. Hence comes
+the story of King Lear and of Jack the Giant-Killer, and here are first
+met the characters of King Arthur and the enchanter Merlin. This book
+having been translated into Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth, a
+Benedictine monk, at once attained a great popularity and reputation;
+and for several centuries was universally accepted as true history. A
+number of metrical romances <span class="pagenum">[25]<a name="page25" id="page25"></a></span>
+soon appeared to gratify the taste which
+Geoffrey's chronicle had excited, and in the first half of the
+thirteenth century the same stories began to be written in prose. From
+this time until the middle of the fifteenth century most of what we now
+call romantic fiction was produced, although many imitations and
+translations appeared in England for more than a century afterward. The
+exact dates of the different romances and the names of their authors
+cannot be positively established, as the early copies were undated, and
+the names prefixed to them are believed to be fictitious. During this
+period were given to the world, among many others, the romances of
+Merlin the Enchanter, of Launcelot du Lac, of Meliadus, of his son
+Tristram, of Gyron le Courtoys, of Perceval le Gallois, and, finally,
+that of the Saint Gréal, in which the whole body of knights-errant are
+represented, probably by some monkish writer, in the search for the
+Holy Cup which had held the blood of Christ. At last Sir Thomas Malory,
+a London knight, well read in chivalric literature, combined these
+tales in the volume he called the "Morte d'Arthur," an excellent
+specimen of a chivalric romance, which was printed by Caxton in 1485,
+and has since appeared in many editions down to the present day.</p>
+
+<p>The influence of the supernatural appears in the very beginning of the
+"Morte d'Arthur," and throughout we trace its controlling effect upon
+the incidents of the story. It is by the help of Merlin's magic that
+King Uther Pendragon slays the Duke of Cornwall, and assuming the
+likeness of his rival, obtains possession of his wife Igraine, "a faire
+ladye, and a passing wyse," from which union Arthur is born. On the
+death of Uther, when the chief nobles and knights are summoned to
+<span class="pagenum">[26]<a name="page26" id="page26"></a></span>
+London by the Archbishop of Canterbury to choose a new king, it is
+Merlin's art which discovers to them a sword imbedded in a great rock
+in the churchyard of St. Paul's bearing the inscription: "Whoso pulleth
+this sword out of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all
+England"; and it is by the same supernatural aid that the stripling
+Arthur, whose birth is unknown, fulfils the task which all had essayed
+in vain. By the friendly influence of Merlin, Arthur receives his
+famous sword Excalibur from the hands of the Lady of the Lake, with the
+scabbard whose wearer can lose no blood; he defeats with great
+slaughter the hosts of the eleven kings who dispute his throne; and
+obtains in marriage the celebrated Guenever, who brings him in dowry
+the Table Round. But Merlin, who could do so much for others, had the
+power only to foresee, and not to avert, his own impending fate.
+Enamoured of a fickle damsel, who soon tires of his love, the great
+enchanter discloses his secrets to her, and with a sad farewell and
+final advice to Arthur, he suffers himself to be imprisoned forever in
+the rock which his own magic had wrought, by the spell which he had
+intrusted to his treacherous mistress. The friendly arts of Merlin are
+succeeded by the machinations of the malicious fairy Morgana, and the
+watchful care of the the Lady of the Lake. To excite the childlike
+wonder of his readers, the romancer turns knights to stone, or makes
+them invisible; he introduces enchanted castles, vessels that steer
+themselves, and the miraculous properties of the Saint Gréal, Arthur
+and Tristram fight with dragons and giants. The loves of Tristram and
+Isoud arise from the drinking of an amorous potion. The chastity of
+knight and damsel is determined by the magic horn, whose liquor the
+innocent drink, but the guilty spill; and
+<span class="pagenum">[27]<a name="page27" id="page27"></a></span>by the enchanted garland,
+which blooms on the brow of the chaste, but withers on that of the
+faithless. Inventions such as these were regarded as facts, or at least
+as possible occurrences, by the readers of romantic fiction. Men
+believed what they were told, and to doubt, to inquire were
+intellectual efforts which they knew not how to make, and which all the
+influences of their life opposed their making. There were no fictions
+in the romances more improbable than the accounts of foreign parts
+brought back by travellers. Sir John of Mandeville was not doubted when
+he wrote that he had met with a race of men who had only one eye, and
+that in the middle of the forehead, or a people with only one foot and
+that one large enough to be used as a parasol. The knight who had
+mastered the art of reading looked upon such stories as curious facts.
+His religion was a religion of miracles, and, ignorant of natural laws,
+he was accustomed to refer any unusual occurrence to the influence of
+supernatural beings, a habit of thought which presented an ever-ready
+solution to mysteries and problems otherwise inexplicable.</p>
+
+<p>The entire credence accorded to the supernatural features of the
+romance gave to it a power and an interest which has now, of course,
+disappeared; but the influence of the supernatural upon the work is so
+strong, that even the modern reader, wandering with Launcelot and
+Tristram in a world of wonders, meets a giant without surprise, and
+feels at home in an enchanted castle.</p>
+
+<p>When Arthur is finally established on his throne, the knights of the
+Round Table begin their wonderful career of adventure and gallantry.
+With them the reader roams over a vague and unreal land called Britain
+or Cornwall, in full armor, the ever ready lance in
+<span class="pagenum">[28]<a name="page28" id="page28"></a></span>rest. At almost
+every turn a knight is met who offers combat, and each detail of the
+conflict&mdash;the rush of the horses, the breaking of lances, the final
+hand-to-hand with swords&mdash;is described with a minuteness which only the
+military enthusiasm of the Middle Ages could thoroughly appreciate.
+Sometimes our hero meets a damsel who tells a tale of wrong, and leads
+the knight to champion her cause; again, he encounters some old
+companion in arms, breaks a lance upon him by way of friendly
+salutation, and wanders with him in search of adventures, inquiring of
+a chance peasant or dwarf, of a wrong to be avenged, or a danger to be
+incurred. The reader attends tournaments, of which every blow and every
+fall are chronicled. He becomes familiar with the respective merits and
+prowess of a hundred different champions. He learns the laws of
+judicial combat, and the intricate rules of the chivalric code. With
+imagination aroused and sympathies excited he enters a life of
+alternate combat and love, almost real in the consistency of its
+improbability. Three gallant knights, Sir Gawaine, Sir Marhaus, and Sir
+Uwaine set out together in search of adventures.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>At the last they cam in to a grete forest that was named the
+    countreye and foreste of Arroy and the countrey of straunge
+    auentures. In this countrey, said syr Marhaus cam neuer knyghte syn
+    it was crystened, but he fonde straunge auentures, and soo they
+    rode, and cam in to a depe valey ful of stones, and ther by they
+    sawe a fayr streme of water, aboue ther by was the hede of the
+    streme, a fayr fontayne, &amp; thre damoysels syttynge therby. And
+    thenne they rode to them, and eyther salewed other, and the eldest
+    had a garland of gold aboute her hede, and she was thre score
+    wynter of age, or more, and her here<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref13" id="fnref13" href="#fn13">[13]</a></span>
+    was whyte under the
+    garland. The second damoysel <span class="pagenum">[29]<a name="page29" id="page29"></a></span>
+    was of thirty wynter of age, with a
+    serkelet of gold aboute her hede. The thyrd damoysel was but xv
+    year of age, and a garland of floures aboute her hede. When these
+    knyghtes had soo beholde them, they asked hem the cause why they
+    sat at that fontayne; we be here, sayd the damoysels for thys
+    cause, yf we may see ony erraunt knyghtes to teche hem unto
+    straunge auentures, and ye be thre knyghtes that seken auentures,
+    and we be thre damoysels, and therfore eche one of yow must chose
+    one of us. And whan ye haue done soo, we wylle lede yow vnto thre
+    hyhe wayes, and there eche of yow shall chese a wey and his
+    damoysel wyth hym. And this day twelue monethe ye must mete here
+    ageyn and god sende yow your lyues, and ther to ye must plyzte your
+    trouthe. This is wel said, sayd Syr Marhaus. * * * Thenne euery
+    damoysel took her knyght by the raynes of his brydel, and broughte
+    him to the thre wayes, and there was their othe made to mete at the
+    fontayne that day twelue moneth and they were lyvynge, and soo they
+    kyst and departed, and eueryche knyghte sette his lady behynde
+    him.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref14" id="fnref14" href="#fn14">[14]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Sir Alysandre le Orphelin holds a piece of ground against all comers. A
+damsel called La Belle Alice proclaims at Arthur's court that whoever
+overthrows him, shall have herself and all her lands. Many knights
+undertake the adventure, but all are defeated by Sir Alysandre.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>And whanne La Beale Alys sawe hym juste soo wel, she thought hym a
+    passynge goodly knyght on horsbak. And thenne she lepte out of her
+    pauelione, and toke Syr Alisandre by the brydel, and thus she sayd;
+    Fayre knyght, I require the of thy knyghthode, shewe me thy vysage.
+    I dar wel, sayd Sir Alysander shewe my vysage. And then he put of
+    his helme, <span class="pagenum">[30]<a name="page30" id="page30"></a></span>
+    and she sawe his vysage, she said; O swete Jhesu! the I
+    must loue and neuer other. Thenne shewe me your vysage, said he.
+    Thenne she unwympeled her vysage. And whanne he saw her, he sayde,
+    here haue I fond my loue and my lady. Truly fayre lady, said he, I
+    promise yow to be your knyghte, and none other that bereth the lyf.
+    Now, gentil knyghte, said she, telle me your name. My name is, said
+    he, Alysander le Orphelyn. Now damoysel, telle me your name, said
+    he. My name is, said she, Alys la Beale Pilggrym. And whan we be
+    more at oure hertes ease both ye and I shalle telle other of what
+    blood we be come. Soo there was grete loue betwyxe them. And as
+    they thus talked, ther came a knyghte that hyght Harsouse le
+    Berbuse, and axed parte of sir Alysanders speres. Thenne Sir
+    Alysander encountred with hym, and at the fyrst Sir Alysander smote
+    hym ouer his hors croupe.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref15" id="fnref15" href="#fn15">[15]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Sir Tristram is thus welcomed at Arthur's court:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Thenne Kynge Arthur took Sir Tristram by the hand, and wente to the
+    table round. Thenne came Quene Guenever and many ladyes with her,
+    and alle the ladyes sayden at one voyce, welcome Sir Tristram,
+    welcome, said the damoysels, welcome said knightes, welcome said
+    Arthur, for one of the best knyghts and the gentylst of the world,
+    and the man of moost worship, for all manner of hunting thou berest
+    the pryce, and of all mesures of blowynge thou art the begynninge,
+    and of alle the termes of huntynge and haukinge ye are the
+    begynner, of all Instrumentes of musyke ye are the best, therefor
+    gentyl knyght, said Arthur, ye are welcome to this courte.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref16" id="fnref16" href="#fn16">[16]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The description of the combat between King Arthur and Accolon is
+perhaps the most interesting of the kind which the "Morte d'Arthur"
+contains. Accolon of Gaul <span class="pagenum">[31]<a name="page31" id="page31"></a></span>
+had by the aid of Morgan le Fay obtained
+possession of Arthur's enchanted sword and scabbard.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref17" id="fnref17" href="#fn17">[17]</a></span></p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>And thenne they dressyd hem on bothe partyes of the felde, &amp; lete
+    their horses renne so fast that eyther smote other in the myddes of
+    the shelde, with their speres hede, that bothe hors and man wente
+    to the erthe. And thenne they sterte up bothe, and pulled oute
+    their swerdys, * * * And so they went egrely to the battaille, and
+    gaf many grete strokes, but alweyes Arthurs swerd
+    bote<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref18" id="fnref18" href="#fn18">[18]</a></span> not like
+    Accolon's swerd. But for the most party euery stroke that Accolon
+    gaf he wounded sore Arthur, that it was merucylle he stode. And
+    alweyes his blood fylle from him fast. When Arthur behelde the
+    ground so sore bebledde he was desmayed, and thenne he demed
+    treason that his swerd was chaunged, for his swerd boote not
+    styl<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref19" id="fnref19" href="#fn19">[19]</a></span>
+    as it was wont to do, therefore he dredde hym sore to be
+    dede, for euer hym seemed that the swerd in Accolons hand was
+    Excalibur, for at euery stroke that Accolon stroke he drewe blood
+    on Arthur. Now knyghte, said Accolon unto Arthur, kepe the wel from
+    me, but Arthur ansuered not ageyne, and gat hym suche a buffet on
+    the helme that he made hym to stoupe nygh fallynge doune to the
+    earthe. Thenne Sir Accolon with drewe hym a lytel, and cam on with
+    Excalibur on hyghe, and smote Syr Arthur suche a buffet that he
+    felle nyhe to the erthe. Thenne were they wroth bothe, and gaf eche
+    other many sore strokes, but alweyes Syr Arthur lost so muche blood
+    that it was merucille he stode on his feet, but he was so ful of
+    knighthode, that knyghtly he endured the payne. And Syr Accolon
+    lost not a dele of blood, therefore he waxed passynge lyghte, and
+    Syr Arthur was passynge feble, and wende veryly to have dyed, but
+    for al that he made countenaunce as though he myghte endure, and
+    helde Accolon as shorte as he myght. But Accolon was bolde by cause
+    of <span class="pagenum">[32]<a name="page32" id="page32"></a></span>
+    Excalibur that he waxed passynge hardy. * * * And therewith he
+    cam fyersly upon Arthur, and syre Arthur was wrothe for the blood
+    that he had lost, and smote Accolon on hyhe upon the helme soo
+    myztely that he made hym nyhe to falle to the erthe. And therewith
+    Arthurs swerd brast at the crosse and felle in the grasse amonge
+    the blood, and the pommel and the sure handels he helde in his
+    handes. When syr Arthur sawe that, he was in grete fere to dye, but
+    alweyes he helde vp his shelde and lost no ground nor bated no
+    chere. Thenne syre Accolon beganne with wordes of treason, and sayd
+    knyghte thow arte overcome, and mayste not endure, and also thow
+    arte wepenles, and thow hast loste moche of thy blood, and I am ful
+    lothe to slee the, therfor yelde the to me as recreaunt. Nay, saide
+    syre Arthur I maye not so, for I haue promysed to doo the bataille
+    to the vttermost by the feythe of my body whyle me lasteth the lyf,
+    and therfor I had leuer to dye with honour than to lyve with shame.
+    And yf it were possyble for me to dye an C tymes, I had leuer to
+    dye so ofte, than yelde me to the, for though I lacke wepen, I
+    shalle lacke no worship. And yf thou slee me wepenles that shalle
+    be thy shame. Wel, sayd Accolon, as for the shame I wyl not spare.
+    Now kepe the from me, for thow arte but a dede ma. And therwith
+    Accolon gaf hym suche a stroke that he felle nyghe to the erthe,
+    and wolde haue had Arthur to haue cryed hym mercy. But syre Arthur
+    pressed unto Accolon with his sheld and gaf hym with the pomel in
+    his hand suche a buffet that he wente thre strydes abak. * * * And
+    at the next stroke Syr Accolon stroke hym suche a stroke that by
+    the damoysels enchauntement the swerd Excalibur felle oute of
+    Accolons hande to the erthe. And therwith alle syre Arthur lyghtely
+    lepte to hit, and gate hit in his hand, and forwith al he knewe
+    that it was his suerd Excalibur, &amp; sayd thow hast ben from me al to
+    long, &amp; moche dommage hast thow done me. * * * And therwith syr
+    Arthur russhed on hym with hys myghte, and pulled hym to the erthe,
+    and thenne russhed of his helme,
+    <span class="pagenum">[33]<a name="page33" id="page33"></a></span>
+    and gaf hym suche a buffet on the
+    hede that the blood cam oute at his eres, his nose &amp; his mouthe.
+    Now wyll I slee the said Arthur. Slee me ye may wel, said Accolon,
+    and it please yow, for ye ar the best knyghte that euer I fonde,
+    and I see wel that god is with yow.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The knights of the Round Table had much more difficulty in dealing with
+one another than in overcoming the most redoubtable giants. Sir
+Launcelot arrived at a giant's castle,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref20" id="fnref20" href="#fn20">[20]</a></span>
+and "he looked aboute, and
+sawe moche peple in dores and wyndowes that sayd fayre knyghte thow art
+unhappy. Anone with al cam there vpon hym two grete gyaunts wel armed
+al sauf the hedes, with two horryble clubbes in theyr handes. Syre
+Launcelot put his sheld afore hym and put the stroke aweye of the one
+gyaunt, and with his swerd he clafe his hede a sondre. Whan his felaw
+sawe that, he ran awey as he were wood, for fere of the horryble
+strokes, &amp; laucelot after hym with al his myzt &amp; smote hym on the
+sholder, and clafe hym to the nauel. Thenne Syre Launcelot went in to
+the halle, and there came afore hym thre score ladyes and damoysels,
+and all kneled unto hym, and thanked God and hym of their
+delyveraunce." The horrors of battle as recounted by the romancers lose
+much of their painfulness by the enjoyment which the combatants take in
+them, and by the facility with which the most terrible wounds are
+healed. The mediæval passion for conflict and violence could hardly be
+more strikingly illustrated than by the words of the mother of
+Tristram, who had just given birth to her son in the midst of a forest,
+and being far from human aid, sees that her end is near. "Now lete me
+see my lytel child <span class="pagenum">[34]<a name="page34" id="page34"></a></span>
+for whome I haue had alle this sorowe. And whan she
+sawe hym she said thus, A my lytel sone, thou hast murthered thy moder,
+and therfore I suppose, thou that art a murtherer soo yong, thou arte
+ful lykely to be a manly man in thyn age."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref21" id="fnref21" href="#fn21">[21]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From the recital of combats we turn to tales of love. The most
+interesting of these relate to Launcelot and Guenever, and to Tristram
+and Isould. They differ in many respects, and yet share the noteworthy
+feature that both the women are already married, and their lovers are
+connected by ties of relationship or of great intimacy with the
+husbands whom they wrong. Arthur, however, is made to preserve,
+throughout the story of his deception, the same dignity and the same
+respect which he had always possessed, and in the loyalty of his
+character never admits a doubt of his wife's virtue; while King Mark,
+the husband of Isould, loses the sympathy of the reader by his
+treachery and cowardice, and is always conscious of Isould's
+infidelity. Guenever and Launcelot feel the deeper and the nobler
+passion, as theirs is inspired solely by each other's merit, while that
+of Isould and Tristram is inflamed by an amorous potion. The immorality
+of these love stories was not in the Middle Ages the same immorality
+which it would be considered at present. The conditions of life were
+all opposed to self restraint. The standard of morals was set by the
+church, and according to her interpretation of Christianity, continence
+was so subsidiary to orthodoxy, that what would now be considered a
+crime, was in the Middle Ages an irregularity which need not weigh on
+the conscience. Evidence of this is amply supplied by the social
+history of the time, and the fact is fully illustrated
+<span class="pagenum">[35]<a name="page35" id="page35"></a></span>by the
+romances. The authors of these compositions, from their tendency to
+idealization, held up to their readers a higher view of virtue in every
+respect than was practised in actual life, and in their writings,
+conjugal infidelity is of constant occurrence. The fictitious
+personages who indulge in licence are but dimly conscious of
+wrong-doing, and almost the only evidence of a realization of their
+fault is in the Quest of the Saint Gréal, when Launcelot and other
+noble knights acknowledge that the attainment of the sacred prize is
+not for them as being "sinful men," and the quest is achieved by the
+spotless Sir Galahad, who, impersonating the purifying influence of
+Christianity, forms the most striking character conceived by the
+fertile imagination of the Middle Ages. The virtue of constancy was far
+more admired than that of chastity, and it is said of Guenever, whose
+sin had brought such calamity upon the Round Table, that "as she was a
+true lover, so she had a good end."</p>
+
+<p>Launcelot and Tristram vie with one another in the deeds of chivalry
+which they accomplish in honor of their ladies, and the intimacy which
+exists between the two knights and their mistresses adds much to the
+interest of the story. A fine touch in the loves of Tristram and Isould
+is the introduction of Sir Palomides, a valiant knight, almost the
+equal of Tristram in prowess, who loves Isould as passionately as his
+successful rival, but finds no favor to reward a long career of
+devotion. The passions of jealousy and hatred on the one hand, and
+knightly courtesy and honor on the other, which alternately sway the
+two warriors, and struggle for the mastery in their relations with each
+other, form a touching picture, and show that the romancers could
+occasionally rise above the description of conflicts to a study of the
+heart and character of men.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[36]<a name="page36" id="page36"></a></span>
+That our lovers felt a deep and absorbing passion, there can be no
+doubt. Sir Dynas, the Seneschal, tells the Queen la Belle Isould that
+Sir Tristram is near: "Thenne for very pure joye la Beale Isould
+swouned, &amp; whan she myghte speke, she said, gentyl knyghte Seneschall
+help that I myghte speke with him, outher my herte will braste." They
+meet, and then "to telle the joyes that were between la Beale Isoud and
+sire Tristram, there is no tongue can telle it, nor herte thinke it,
+nor pen wryte it." When Tristram thought Isoud unfaithful, he "made
+grete sorowe in so much that he fell downe of his hors in a swoune, and
+in suche sorowe he was in thre dayes and thre nyghtes." When he left
+her, Isoud was found "seke in here bedde, makynge the grettest dole
+that ever ony erthly woman made." "Sire Alysander beheld his lady Alys
+on horsbak as he stood in her pauelione. And thenne was he soo
+enamoured upon her that he wyst not whether he were on horsbak or on
+foote." Sir Gareth falls in love at first sight: "and euer the more syr
+Gareth behelde that lady, the more he loued her, and soo he burned in
+loue that he was past himself in his reason, and forth toward nyghte
+they wente unto supper, and sire Gareth myghte not ete for his loue was
+soo hot that he wyst not wher he was."</p>
+
+<p>The Roman war introduced into the "Morte d'Arthur" is a curious
+illustration of the vagueness of the historical groundwork of the
+romances of chivalry. The memory of Roman power was still too great to
+permit a warrior to achieve greatness without having matched his
+strength against that of Rome, and thus we have the singular spectacle
+of King Arthur with his adventurous knights, clad in mail, passing
+easily through "Almayne" into <span class="pagenum">[37]<a name="page37" id="page37"></a></span>
+Italy, conquering giants by the way, and
+reducing the Emperor Lucius to dependence.</p>
+
+<p>The story of the Saint Gréal originally formed a distinct romance, but
+it was the dull production of some ascetic monk, who thought that the
+knights of the Round Table were too much occupied with secular
+pursuits, and who found no greater encomium to pass upon Sir Galahad,
+than to call him a "maid." But the idea of the Christian knighthood
+setting out to seek the Holy Cup was "marvellous and adventurous," and
+so well suited to please the mediæval mind that we find this quest
+introduced into several of the romances of chivalry, and it appears,
+though in an incomplete form, in the "Morte d'Arthur." The adventures
+met with by the knighthood are much the same as when they were pursuing
+a less lofty object. Sir Galahad occupies the intervals between his
+serious occupations with rolling his father Sir Launcelot and other
+noble knights into the dust in the usual unsaintly fashion. The
+supernatural element is stronger perhaps in the story of the Saint
+Gréal than in any other romance, and the monkish inspiration of the
+work is everywhere manifest. When Sir Galahad rescues the inmates of
+the Castle of Maidens by overthrowing their oppressors, the romancer
+points out that the Castle of Maidens "betokeneth the good souls that
+were in prison before the incarnation of Jesu Christ." It is here also
+that we learn that "Sir Launcelot is come but of the eighth degree from
+our Lord Jesu Christ, and Sir Galahad is of the ninth degree from our
+Lord Jesu Christ; therefore I dare say that they may be the greatest
+gentlemen of the world."</p>
+
+<p>When we have read of the "byrth, lyf and actes of Kyng Arthur, of his
+noble knyghtes of the rounde table,
+<span class="pagenum">[38]<a name="page38" id="page38"></a></span>
+theyr mervayllous enquests and
+aduentures, th' achyeuyng of the sangréal," we come to the "dolorous
+deth and departyng out of this world of them." It is indeed a "pytous
+hystory." Long drawn out as the romance is, serious tax though it
+sometimes be on the reader's patience, the author succeeds in making us
+so familiar with all his heroes, in inspiring us with so deep and
+active a sympathy with them, that it is with a real sadness that we
+read of the dissensions brought about by the loves of Launcelot and
+Guenever, the deserted Round Table, the separation of life-long
+companions, and the fraternal war between Sir Launcelot, Sir Gawaine,
+and King Arthur. Their love for each other was so strong that it is not
+wholly quenched even in the sanguinary struggles which follow, and it
+bursts forth in full vigor when death comes upon them in the midst of
+their fury. Sir Gawaine is the first to go, using his last strength to
+write to Sir Launcelot begging his forgiveness: "I byseche the, Sir
+Launcelot, to retorne ageyne vnto this realme, and see my tombe, &amp;
+praye some prayer more or lesse for my soule."</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Whan syr Arthur wyst that syre Gawayne was layd so lowe he went
+    vnto hym, and there the kyng made sorowe oute of mesure, and took
+    sire Gawayne in his armes, and thryes<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref22" id="fnref22" href="#fn22">[22]</a></span>
+    he there swouned. And
+    thenne whan he awaked, he sayd, allas Sir Gawayne my sisters sone,
+    here now thou lyggest<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref23" id="fnref23" href="#fn23">[23]</a></span>,
+    the man in the world that I loued moost,
+    and now is my joye gone, for now my neuewe syre Gawayne I will
+    discouer me vnto your persone, in syr Launcelot &amp; you I had moost
+    my joye and myn affyaunce, &amp; now haue I lost my joye of you bothe,
+    wherefor all myn erthely joye is gone from me.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref24" id="fnref24" href="#fn24">[24]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<span class="pagenum">[39]<a name="page39" id="page39"></a></span>
+<p>We turn from the death of Sir Gawaine only to witness the mortal blow
+dealt to King Arthur; to see his famous sword Excalibur, which he had
+borne so nobly and so long, returned to the Lady of the Lake; and the
+almost lifeless body of the great king carried away over the water by
+the fairy queens, disappearing at last beneath the horizon. Guenever
+would seen to have deserved a harder fate than simply to retire to a
+nunnery of which she is made the abbess. Sir Launcelot dies a holy man
+and a monk, saying masses for the souls of his old companions in arms.
+With his death the old glory of the Round Table passes away forever.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>And whan syr Ector herd suche noyse &amp; lyghte in the quyre of joyous
+    Garde, he alyghted and put his hors from hym, and came in to the
+    quyre, &amp; there he sawe men synge the seruyse full lamentably. And
+    alle they knewe syre Ector, but he knewe not them. Thenne went syr
+    Bors to syr Ector, &amp; tolde him how there laye hys broder syr
+    Launcelot dede, and then syr Ector threwe his shelde, hys swerde &amp;
+    helme from hym. And whan he behelde syr Launcelot's vysage, he
+    felle donne in a sowne. And when he awakyd it were harde for any
+    tonge to telle the doleful complayntes that he made for his broder.
+    A, syr Launcelot, he sayd, thou were head of all Crysten knyztes,
+    and now I dare saye, sayd syr Ector, thou syr Launcelot, ther thou
+    lyest, that thou were neuer matched of none erthely knyghtes
+    handes. And thou were the curtoyste knyghte that ever bare shelde.
+    And thou were the truest frend to thy louer that euer bestradde
+    hors, &amp; thou were the truest louer of a synfull man that euer loued
+    woman. And thou were the kyndest man that euer stroke wyth swerde.
+    And thou were the goodelyest persone that euer came among prees of
+    knyghtes. And thou were the mekest man &amp; the gentylest that euer
+    ete in halle amonge ladyes. And thou were the sternest knyghte to
+    thy mortall foo that <span class="pagenum">[40]<a name="page40" id="page40"></a></span>
+    euer put spere in the reyst. Thenne there was
+    wepyng &amp; dolour oute of mesure.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref25" id="fnref25" href="#fn25">[25]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The literary form of the "Morte d'Arthur" admits of description rather
+than of criticism. A noble and forcible simplicity of expression
+pervades the old Norman French in which the romances of chivalry were
+first written, which is well reflected in the English of Sir Thomas
+Malory. Of plot there is none. The same vagueness pervades the course
+of the narrative, which is characteristic of the historical groundwork,
+the geography, and the time of action. Most of the incidents depend on
+chance. Life in the Middle Ages was a very serious affair, and in the
+romances there was almost no attempt at wit or humor. In the "Morte
+d'Arthur," perhaps the only passage which might have raised a laugh among
+the early readers of the romance, is that in which King Arthur's fool
+Dagonet is clad in Sir Mordred's armor, and in that disguise is made to
+chase before him the coward King Mark. The authors of the romances of
+chivalry never attempted delineation of character. Their heroes are
+good knights or bad knights, and in either case possess only the
+particular qualities which would place them in one of these categories.
+The female characters are still more slightly drawn, and show no
+distinct attributes except beauty and a capacity to love.</p>
+
+<p>In laying down the "Morte d'Arthur," and bidding farewell to the
+Middle Ages with their heroes of chivalry, we come to the end of a most
+picturesque period of English history,&mdash;a period marked by lights and
+shadows, rather than by distinct forms. There was ferocity, and there
+was courtesy; there was brilliant show and rude
+<span class="pagenum">[41]<a name="page41" id="page41"></a></span>coarseness; there were
+scenes of blood and scenes of noble chivalry. In the next chapter we
+shall notice the tendencies which were at work to replace this state of
+society by a better. But to the Middle Ages will always be traced much
+that is distinctive of English character, and in the history of fiction
+we may fairly allow to the knights of romance the legendary charm and
+fascination which hang about their bright helmets in the long vista of
+departed years.</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn13" id="fn13" href="#fnref13">[13]</a></span>
+Hair.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn14" id="fn14" href="#fnref14">[14]</a></span>
+"Morte d'Arthur." Southey's reprint from Caxton's ed.,
+1485, chaps. xix and xx. book 4.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn15" id="fn15" href="#fnref15">[15]</a></span>
+"Morte d'Arthur," book 10, chap. xxxix.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn16" id="fn16" href="#fnref16">[16]</a></span>
+Southey's "Morte d'Arthur," vol. 2, p. 11.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn17" id="fn17" href="#fnref17">[17]</a></span>
+"Morte d'Arthur," book 4, chap. ix.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn18" id="fn18" href="#fnref18">[18]</a></span>
+Hit, cut.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn19" id="fn19" href="#fnref19">[19]</a></span>
+Cut not steel.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn20" id="fn20" href="#fnref20">[20]</a></span>
+"Morte d'Arthur," book 6, ch. x.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn21" id="fn21" href="#fnref21">[21]</a></span>
+"Morte d'Arthur," book 8, ch. i.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn22" id="fn22" href="#fnref22">[22]</a></span>
+Thrice.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn23" id="fn23" href="#fnref23">[23]</a></span>
+Liest.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn24" id="fn24" href="#fnref24">[24]</a></span>
+"Morte d'Arthur," book 22, chap. ii.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn25" id="fn25" href="#fnref25">[25]</a></span>
+"Morte d'Arthur," book 22, chap. xiii.
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="long" />
+<span class="pagenum">[42]<a name="page42" id="page42"></a></span>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>CHAUCER. POPULAR TALES. MORE'S "UTOPIA."</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the history of English intellectual development between the vague
+ignorance of the Middle Ages and the new growth of learning in the
+sixteenth century, stands the great figure of Chaucer. The first
+English writer possessing dramatic power, he is the first also to unite
+with the art of story-telling, the delineation and study of human
+character. In his translation of the "Romaunt of the Rose" he belongs
+to the Middle Ages,&mdash;a period of uncontrolled imagination, of
+unsubstantial creations, of external appearances copied without
+reflection. In his "Canterbury Tales" he belongs to the present,&mdash;when
+Reason asserts her authority, gives the stamp of individual reality to
+the characters of fiction, and studies the man himself behind his
+outward and visible form.</p>
+
+<p>The creations of romantic fiction were unreal beings distinguished by
+different names, by the different insignia on their shields, and by the
+degree in which they possessed the special qualities which formed the
+ideal of mediæval times. The story of their lives was but a series of
+adventures, strung together without plan, the overflow of an active but
+ungoverned imagination. The pilgrims to the shrine of Canterbury are
+men and women, genuine flesh and blood, as thoroughly individual
+<span class="pagenum">[43]<a name="page43" id="page43"></a></span>and
+distinct as the creations of Shakespeare and of Fielding. They dress,
+they talk, each one after his own manner and according to his position
+in life, telling a story appropriate to his disposition and suitable to
+his experience. The knight, with armor battered in "mortal battailles"
+with the Infidel, describes the adventures of Palamon and Arcite, a
+tale of chivalry. The lusty young squire, bearing himself well, "in
+hope to stonden in his lady grace," tells an Eastern tale of love and
+romance. The prioress, "all conscience and tendre herte," relates the
+legend of "litel flew of Lincoln," murdered by the Jews for singing his
+hymn to the Virgin. The clerk of Oxford, who prefers to wealth and
+luxury his "twenty bookes clad in blak or reede," contributes the story
+of the patient Griselda.</p>
+
+<p>The "Canterbury Tales" are so familiar that an extended notice of them
+here would be superfluous, especially as we are dealing with narratives
+in prose form. But in seeking to trace the origin and progress of the
+English novel as it is now written, we must record the first appearance
+of its special characteristics in the works of Chaucer. Here are first
+to be seen real human beings, endowed with human virtues and subject to
+human frailties; here fictitious characters are first represented amid
+the homely scenes of daily life; here they first become living
+realities whose nature and dispositions every one may understand, and
+with whose thoughts every one may sympathize. We must notice, also, the
+significant fact that of the thirty-two pilgrims who jogged along
+together that April day, four were of a military character, eleven
+belonged to the clergy, and seventeen were of the common people. A
+century before Chaucer's time, when the feudal spirit was still
+all-powerful, <span class="pagenum">[44]<a name="page44" id="page44"></a></span>
+there were but two classes of men thought worthy of
+consideration, the knighthood and the clergy; and in the romances of
+chivalry knights and priests exclusively composed the <i>dramatis
+personæ</i>. But the slow progress of the masses, in whom lies the chief
+strength of a nation, becomes visible in Chaucer's time. In the towns
+the tradesmen were rising to wealth and consideration. In the country
+the yeomanry&mdash;the laborers and farmers&mdash;were throwing off their
+serfdom, and emerging from the chrysalis of obscurity in which they had
+long been hidden. At Cressy and Poitiers the English archers disputed
+with the knighthood the honors of victory. While Chaucer was planning
+the "Canterbury Tales," introducing into his gallery of contemporary
+portraits more figures of tradesmen than of knights or priests, the
+Peasant Revolt took place; the common people, long trodden in the dust,
+rose in defence of their rights as men, and John Ball, the "mad priest
+of Kent," asked questions of the yeomen about him which showed how
+surely the Middle Ages were becoming a part of the past. "By what right
+are they whom we call lords greater folk than we? * * * If we all came
+of the same father and mother, of Adam and Eve, how can they say or
+prove that they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain
+for them by our toil what they spend in their pride?" * * * "When Adam
+delved and Eve span, who was then the
+gentleman?"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref26" id="fnref26" href="#fn26">[26]</a></span>
+As in the history
+of Chaucer's time, so in his "Canterbury Tales" we perceive the decline
+of feudal and priestly tyranny which had gone hand in hand: the one
+keeping up a perpetual state of war and violence; the other limiting
+and enfeebling the human intellect, the activity of which could alone
+raise mankind out of barbarism.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[45]<a name="page45" id="page45"></a></span>
+The passion for war and for a military life which had kept Europe in a
+state of constant disturbance during the Middle Ages, which had brought
+about the Hundred Years' struggle between England and France, and which
+had found its worst issue in the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth
+century, had, in the sixteenth century largely spent its force. The
+pomp and luxury of chivalry had lessened the activity of military
+feelings. The expense entailed by chivalric pageantry had diminished
+the power of the nobles over their dependents. Many feudal barons were
+obliged to sell liberty and privileges to part of their bondsmen to
+obtain the wherewithal to maintain the remainder. The gradual growth of
+the towns and of trade produced a class which, having all to lose and
+nothing to gain by war, threw its influence against disorder. The
+advance in the study and practice of law diminished habits of violence
+by furnishing legal redress. But the most powerful agent in destroying
+the old warlike taste was the invention of gunpowder. In the Middle
+Ages the whole male population had been soldiers in spirit and in fact.
+But the application of gunpowder to the art of war made it necessary
+that men should be especially trained for the military profession. A
+limited number were therefore separated from the main body of the
+people, who occupied themselves exclusively with military affairs,
+while the remainder were left to pursue the hitherto neglected arts of
+peace. The love of war and the indifference to human suffering so long
+nourished by feudalism could only be thoroughly extinguished by
+centuries of gradual progress. The heads of queens and ministers of
+state falling from the block attest the strength of these feelings in
+Henry the Eighth's time. They were, however, fast losing ground
+<span class="pagenum">[46]<a name="page46" id="page46"></a></span>before
+the new growth of learning. Their decline is illustrated by the fiction
+of the sixteenth century, as their full power was depicted in the early
+romances of chivalry.</p>
+
+<p>In the sixteenth century, chivalry as an institution, and even as an
+influential ideal had entirely passed away. The specimens of romantic
+fiction which were read during the reigns of Henry the Eighth and of
+Elizabeth could no longer appeal to an entirely warlike and
+superstitious class. They were modified to meet new tastes, and in the
+process became superior in literary merit, but inferior in force and
+interest. This is especially true of the romances translated from the
+Spanish. Amadis of Gaul and Palmerin of England show merits of
+narrative sequence and elegance of expression which did not belong to
+the earlier romances, of which the "Morte d'Arthur" formed a
+compendium. But the chivalry of Amadis and Palmerin was polished,
+refined and exaggerated till it became entirely fanciful and lost the
+old fire and spirit. In the so-called tales of chivalry produced or
+adapted by English writers during this century there is no trace of the
+poetry and interest of chivalric sentiments. In "Tom-a-Lincoln," the
+Red Rose Knight, the noble King Arthur is represented as an old dotard,
+surrounded by knights who bear no resemblance in person or in the
+nature of their adventures to their prototypes of romantic
+fiction.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref27" id="fnref27" href="#fn27">[27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[47]<a name="page47" id="page47"></a></span>
+The ideal character of the yeomanry succeeded to the ideal character
+of the knighthood; Robin Hood and his merry companions took the place
+in the popular mind which belonged to King Arthur and his knights of
+the Table Round. The yeomen of England were imbued with a spirit of
+courage and liberty unknown to the same class on the continent of
+Europe, and their love of freedom and restless activity of disposition
+found a reflection in the person of their hero. Supposed to have lived
+in the thirteenth century, his name and achievements have been sung in
+countless rhymes and ballads, and have remained dear to the common
+people down to the present day. The patron of archery, the embodiment
+of the qualities most loved by the people&mdash;courage, generosity,
+faithfulness, hardihood,&mdash;the places he frequented, the well he drank
+from, have always retained his name, and his bow, with one of his
+arrows, was preserved with veneration as late as the present
+century.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref28" id="fnref28" href="#fn28">[28]</a></span>
+The ideal of the yeomanry was similar to that of chivalry
+in the love of blows fairly given and cheerfully taken, in the love of
+fighting for fighting's sake. It was similar in the courtesy which was
+always a characteristic of Robin Hood; in the religious devotion which
+caused the outlaw to hear three masses every morning before setting out
+on his depredations; in the gallantry which restrained him from
+molesting any party which contained a
+woman.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref29" id="fnref29" href="#fn29">[29]</a></span>
+But the tales relating
+to Robin Hood differ from those of the Round Table in their entire
+freedom from affectation and from
+<span class="pagenum">[48]<a name="page48" id="page48"></a></span>supernatural machinery. They
+breathe, too, an open-air spirit of liberty and enjoyment which was
+pleasing and comprehensible to the dullest intellect, and which made
+them, in the broadest sense, popular. The good-humored combativeness of
+the yeoman sympathized with every beating which Robin Hood received,
+and with every beating which he gave. In Robin's enmity to the clergy,
+in his injunction to his followers,</p>
+
+     <div class="poem">
+     <div class="stanza">
+     <div class="quote">"Thyse byshopppes and thyse archebyshoppes,</div>
+     <div>Ye shall them bete and bynde,"</div>
+     </div>
+     </div>
+
+<p class="noindent">the people applauded resistance to the extortion of the church. In
+Robin's defiance of the law and its officers, they applauded resistance
+to the tyranny of the higher classes. Waylaying sheriffs and priests,
+or shooting the king's deer in Sherwood Forest, the famous outlaw and
+his merry men, clad all in green, were the popular heroes. On Robin
+Hood's day the whole population turned gaily out to celebrate his
+festival, never weary of singing or hearing the ballads which
+commemorated his exploits. Robin was a robber, but in times of disorder
+highway robbery has always been an honorable occupation, and the
+outlaws of Sherwood Forest were reputed to give to the poor what they
+took from the rich. Diligent enquiries have been made to ascertain
+whether the personage known as Robin Hood had a real existence, but
+without positive results. The story of his life is purely legendary,
+and the theories in regard to him have never advanced beyond
+hypothesis. It is exceedingly probable that such a man lived in the
+twelfth or thirteenth century, and that the exploits of other less
+prominent popular heroes were connected with his name and absorbed in
+his reputation. The noble descent which has often been ascribed to him
+<span class="pagenum">[49]<a name="page49" id="page49"></a></span>
+is in all likelihood the result of the mediæval idea, that the great
+virtues existed only in persons of gentle birth. This very prevalent
+opinion is often apparent in the romances of chivalry, where knights of
+exceptional valor, who had supposed themselves to be basely descended,
+almost invariably turn out to be the long-lost offspring of a famous
+and noble person. Like the tales of chivalry, the narratives of Robin
+Hood's adventures were sung and recited in metrical form long before
+they found their way into prose. The following extract forms a part of
+the first chapter of the story called the "Merry Exploits of Robin
+Hood," which had a considerable circulation in the sixteenth century.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>"Robin Hood's Delights; or, a gallant combate fought between Robin
+    Hood, Little John, and William Scarlock, and three of the keepers
+    of the King's deer, in the forest of Sherwood, in Nottinghamshire."</p>
+
+    <p>"On a midsummer's day, in the morning, Robin Hood, being
+    accompanied with Little John and William Scarlock, did walk forth
+    betimes, and wished that in the way they might meet with some
+    adventures that might be worthy of their valour; they had not
+    walked long by the forrest side, but behold three of the keepers of
+    the king's game appeared, with their forrest-bills in their hands,
+    and well appointed with faucheons and bucklers to defend
+    themselves. Loe here (saith Robin Hood) according to our wish we
+    have met with our mates, and before we part from them we will try
+    what mettle they are made off. What, Robin Hood, said one of the
+    keepers; I the same, reply'd Robin. Then have at you, said the
+    keepers; here are three of us and three of you, we will single out
+    ourselves one to one; and bold Robin, I for my part am resolved to
+    have a bout with thee. Content, with all my heart, said Robin Hood,
+    and Fortune shall determine who shall have the best, the outlaws
+    <span class="pagenum">[50]<a name="page50" id="page50"></a></span>
+    or the keepers; with that they did lay down their coats, which
+    were all of Lincoln Green, and fell to it for the space of two
+    hours with their brown bills, in which hot exercise Robin Hood,
+    Little John and Scarlock had the better, and giving the rangers
+    leave to breathe, demanded of them how they liked them; Why! good
+    stout blades i'faith, saith the keeper that fought with Robin, we
+    commend you. * * * I see that you are stout men, said Robin Hood,
+    we will fight no more in this place, but come and go with me to
+    Nottingham, (I have silver and gold enough about me) and there we
+    will fight it out at the King's Head tavern with good sack and
+    claret; and after we are weary we will lay down our arms, and
+    become sworn brothers to one another, for I love those men that
+    will stand to it, and scorn to turn their backs for the proudest
+    Tarmagant of them all. With all our hearts, jolly Robin, said the
+    keepers to him; so putting up their swords and on their doublets,
+    they went to Nottingham, where for three days space they followed
+    the pipes of sack, and butts of claret without intermission, and
+    drank themselves good friends."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The story of "George-a-Green," the brave Pindar of Wakefield is very
+similar to that of Robin Hood. George was as fond as his more noted
+friend of giving and taking hard knocks, and it is his skilful and
+judicious use of the quarter-staff in fulfilling the duties of his
+office, which gives rise to the incidents of the story. A curious relic
+of chivalry appears in the passage where Robin Hood the outlaw, and
+George a-Green the pound-keeper, meet to decide with their
+quarter-staves the relative merit of their
+sweethearts.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref30" id="fnref30" href="#fn30">[30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Of the stories relating to the yeomanry the most important was the
+"Pleasant Historic of Thomas of Reading; or, The Sixe Worthie Yeomen of
+the West," by <span class="pagenum">[51]<a name="page51" id="page51"></a></span>
+Thomas Deloney, a famous ballad-maker of the 16th
+century. It is the narrative of the life and fortunes of a worthy
+clothier of Henry the First's time, telling how he rose to wealth and
+prosperity, and was finally murdered by an innkeeper. There is
+interwoven a relation of the unhappy loves of the "faire Margaret,"
+daughter of the exiled Earl of Shrewsbury, and of Duke Robert, the
+King's brother, which ends in the Duke losing his eyes, and the fair
+Margaret being immured in a convent. The story illustrates some curious
+old customs, and is written in an unaffected and easy style, which
+makes it still very readable. A passage describing the churching feast
+of the wife of one of the "Sixe worthie yeomen," makes a natural and
+humorous picture of contemporary manners.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Sutton's wife of Salisbury, which had lately bin deliuered of a
+    sonne, against her going to church, prepared great cheare; at what
+    time Simon's wife of Southhampton came thither, and so did diuers
+    others of the clothiers' wiues, onely to make merry at this
+    churching feast: and whilest these dames sate at the table, Crab,
+    Weasell and Wren waited on the board, and as the old Prouerbe
+    speaketh, Many women, many words, so tell it out at that time; for
+    there was such prattling that it passed: some talkt of their
+    husbands' frowardnes, some shewed their maids' sluttishnes,
+    othersome deciphered the costlines of their garments, some told
+    many tales of their neighbours: and to be briefe there was none of
+    them but would have talke for a whole day.</p>
+
+    <p>But when Crab, Weazell and Wren saw this, they concluded betwixt
+    themselves, that as oft as any of the women had a good bit of meate
+    on their trenchers, they offering a cleane one should catch that
+    commodity, and so they did; but the women being busie in talke,
+    marked it not, till at the last one found leisure to misse her
+    meate * * * The women seeing <span class="pagenum">[52]<a name="page52" id="page52"></a></span>
+    their men so merry, said it was a
+    sign there was good ale in the house.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref31" id="fnref31" href="#fn31">[31]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As the decline of disorder and of martial tastes had given men the
+opportunity to lead other than military lives, so the decline of the
+theological spirit enabled them to attain that diffusion of knowledge
+without which there could be no civilization. The Roman clergy, during
+many centuries, partly from conscientious motives, and partly to
+maintain their own power, had suppressed intellectual and material
+advancement, and had kept men in a state of gross ignorance and
+superstition. In England the church gradually lost her old influence by
+her internal rottenness: she was unable to resist the new growth of
+learning which sprung up in the first half of the sixteenth century;
+and her power for evil was destroyed by the Reformation. The
+superstitions, however, which she had nourished, lingered long after
+her power had passed away, and these have given birth to some curious
+specimens of fiction. The natural tendency of an ignorant and
+superstitious people was to ascribe superior mental ability to
+intercourse with Satan, and to imagine that any unusual learning must
+be connected with the occult sciences. These ideas are illustrated by
+the stories relating to Friar Bacon and to Virgil which were printed
+during the sixteenth century, and which embodied the legends regarding
+these great men which had passed current for two hundred years. The
+same ignorant indifference to useful learning which made Roger Bacon,
+the great philosopher of the thirteenth century, "unheard, forgotten,
+buried," represented him after his death as a conjurer doing tricks for
+the amusement of a <span class="pagenum">[53]<a name="page53" id="page53"></a></span>
+king. "The Famous Historie of Frier Bacon," is
+written in a clear and simple style, very similar to that of "Thomas of
+Reading," and recounts: "How Fryer Bacon made a Brazen Head to speake,
+by the which hee would have walled England about with Brasse"; "how
+Fryer Bacon by his arte took a towne, when the king had lyen before it
+three months, without doing to it any hurt"; with much more of the same
+sort. This story would be without interest, were it not for the
+introduction of the Friar's servant, one Miles, whose futile attempts
+at seconding his master's efforts, and sometimes at imitating them,
+occasion some very amusing scenes. Friar Bungay, the famous conjurer of
+Edward the Fourth's time, appears as Bacon's assistant.</p>
+
+<p>Virgil was treated in the same way. The age which turned Hercules into
+a knight-errant, very consistently represented the poet and philosopher
+as a magician. All through the Middle Ages the name of Virgil had been
+connected with necromancy. "The authors," says
+Naudeus,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref32" id="fnref32" href="#fn32">[32]</a></span> "who have
+made mention of the magic of Virgil are so many that they cannot be
+examined one after another, without loss of much time." On the title
+page of the "Lyfe of Virgilius," we learn that: "This boke treateth of
+the lyfe of Virgilius, and of his deth, and many mervayles that he dyd
+in hys lyfe tyme by whychcrafte and nygramancye thorowgh the helpe of
+the devyls of Hell." Some of the "mervayles" being: "Howe Virgilius
+made a lampe that at all tymes brenned"; "howe Virgilius put out all
+the fyer of Rome"; "howe Virgilius made in Rome a metall serpente." In
+this story of Virgil occurs a curious instance of the appearance of the
+same incident in very different works of fiction. The
+<span class="pagenum">[54]<a name="page54" id="page54"></a></span>poet being
+enamoured of a certain Roman lady, persuaded her to lower a basket from
+her window, in which he should enter and be drawn up to her chamber.
+The lady assented, but when the basket had ascended half way, she left
+her lover to hang there, exposed the next morning to the ridicule of
+the populace, for which treachery Virgil takes terrible revenge. This
+story of the basket became very popular; it was introduced into a well
+known French fabliau<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref33" id="fnref33" href="#fn33">[33]</a></span>;
+and Bulwer worked it, with slight changes,
+into his novel of "Pelham," where Monsieur Margot experiences the same
+sad reflections concerning the deceitfulness of woman, which had long
+before passed through the mind of Virgil.</p>
+
+<p>The devil himself, or more properly, one of the many devils who
+abounded in the sixteenth century, is the hero of the "Historie of
+Frier Rush."</p>
+
+<p>The imagination of the peasantry had peopled the woods and dells with
+gay and harmless spirits, fairies and imps. These were sometimes
+mischievous, but might always be propitiated, and excited in the rural
+mind curiosity and amusement rather than fear. But the clergy, who
+shared in the popular superstitions, and gave as ready a belief as the
+peasantry to the existence of these supernatural beings, were unable
+from the nature of their creed to admit the possibility that these
+spirits were harmless. To the monks all supernatural creatures were
+either angels or devils, and under their influence the imps and fairies
+whom the peasants believed to be dancing and playing pranks about them
+were turned into demons bent on the destruction of human
+souls.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref34" id="fnref34" href="#fn34">[34]</a></span>
+Friar Rush was probably at one time a good natured imp like Robin
+<span class="pagenum">[55]<a name="page55" id="page55"></a></span>Good
+Fellow, but under the influence, of Christian superstition he became
+the typical emissary from Satan, who played tricks among men calculated
+to set them by the ears, and who sought by various devices, always
+amusing, to fit them for residence in his master's dominions.</p>
+
+<p>In the history before us, which is probably only one of many which
+circulated concerning the mischievous friar, he obtains admission into
+a convent for the purpose of debauching its inmates. Having received
+employment as under-cook, he soon finds means to throw his master into
+a cauldron of boiling water, and pretending that the cook's death
+resulted from an accident, he obtains the chief position in the kitchen
+himself. He then provides the convent with such delicious food that the
+monks give themselves up entirely to material enjoyment, and finally
+reach a condition of degeneracy from which recovery is almost
+impossible. Rush, however, is exposed in time to prevent absolute ruin,
+and sets out to make up for this failure by good service elsewhere. The
+story is described on the title-page as "being full of pleasant mirth
+and delight for young people."</p>
+
+<p>The tales of the yeomanry were very popular during the sixteenth
+century, and were sold as penny chapbooks for many years. They form an
+interesting link in the history of English prose fiction, representing
+as they do the first appearance of a popular demand for prose stories,
+and the first appearance, except in Chaucer, of other than military or
+clerical heroes. They possess an element of reality which separates the
+chivalric ideal of the Middle Ages from the pastoral-chivalric ideal of
+Elizabeth's time, the latter typified by Sidney's "Arcadia." The tales
+relating to the conjurers are quite mediæval in character. They are of
+interest only so far as they <span class="pagenum">[56]<a name="page56" id="page56"></a></span>
+serve to illustrate the effect of popular
+superstition upon the literature of the time.</p>
+
+<p>The New Learning, growing up in the place of war and theology, meant
+the dawn of material prosperity, of the rule of law, and of a new
+intelligence diffused through the opinions and industries of men. Of
+this there is no better exposition than Sir Thomas More's "Utopia."
+More was a devout Catholic. He wore a hair shirt next his skin; he
+flogged himself; he gave his life for a theological principle. But he
+was also a Christian in a wider sense. He appreciated the importance to
+men of peace and happiness, as well as of orthodoxy. He sought to
+promote, what the clergy sought to destroy, the benefits of
+intellectual and material advancement. More was a lawyer, seeing
+clearly into the temper of his time, and discerning the new tendencies
+which were forming the opinions and influencing the actions of his
+countrymen. It was as a lawyer, too, that he was able to do this. As a
+soldier, or as the inmate of that Carthusian cell his youth had longed
+for, he would have shared the prevailing blindness. For many centuries
+all intellectual activity had been occupied with theological
+disputes,&mdash;how barren it is needless to say; all physical activity had
+been occupied in destroying or in protecting life. "There were indeed,"
+says Buckle,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref35" id="fnref35" href="#fn35">[35]</a></span>
+"many priests and many warriors, many sermons and many
+battles. But, on the other hand, there was neither trade, nor commerce,
+nor manufactures; there was no science, no literature; the useful arts
+were entirely unknown; and even the highest ranks of society were
+unacquainted, not only with the most ordinary comforts, but with the
+commonest decencies of civilized life." But the New Learning
+<span class="pagenum">[57]<a name="page57" id="page57"></a></span>dealt
+with secular subjects, and aimed at material welfare. At Antwerp, says
+More:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>"Vpon a certayne daye, when I hadde herde the diuine seruice in our
+    Ladies Churche, which is the fayrest, the most gorgeous and curious
+    churche of buyldyng in all the Citie, and also the most frequented
+    of people, and the seruice beynge doone, was readye to go home to
+    my lodgynge, I chaunced to espye this foresayde Peter talkynge with
+    a certayne Straunger, a man well stricken in age, with a blacke
+    sonneburned face, a longe bearde, and a cloke cast homly about his
+    shoulders, whome, by his fauoure and apparell furthwith I iudged to
+    bee a mariner."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref36" id="fnref36" href="#fn36">[36]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This was the fictitious personage whose travels had led him to the
+distant island of Utopia, and who described to Sir Thomas the nature of
+its government. Europe for fifteen centuries had been under the control
+of the clergy, and what had been the result? Where was the progress?
+How much had the barbarism of one century differed from that of the
+last? But in Utopia there was no priesthood. Men had a simple faith.
+They "were persuaded that it is not in a man's power to believe what he
+list," and when they met in public worship it was to hold such services
+that all might freely join in them. Religion in Utopia was left to the
+individual conscience. War was considered an unmitigated evil, and
+never undertaken except in the extremest necessity. The people of
+Utopia, therefore, not being exclusively occupied, on the one hand,
+with discussing their religion and enforcing
+<span class="pagenum">[58]<a name="page58" id="page58"></a></span>it on others, or, on the
+other hand, with violating all its teachings, were able to think of
+other things. How to make the best laws for the government of the
+commonwealth; how to deal with crime, with labor; how to promote the
+highest condition of general well-being, as regarded the public health,
+public education, the comfort and cleanliness of dwellings;&mdash;these were
+the questions which the Utopians considered most important, and these
+were solved by the exercise of human reason. These were questions, too,
+with which the English people found themselves confronted in the
+beginning of the sixteenth century, and before that century had passed
+away, the results even of a very imperfect solution regarding them were
+apparent in every department and in every class of life.</p>
+
+<p>The great mind, the noble character of Sir Thomas More stand out the
+best production of his time. The strong religious bias of the man made
+it inevitable that he should remain considerably under the influence of
+the old theological teachings, but in the intelligent man of the world,
+in the large-hearted philanthropist, in the honest patriot, appear the
+new and beneficent tendencies which were at work. Like all men who have
+been in advance of their time, More was looked upon as a dreamer. A
+dreamer he might naturally seem, who, in the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, looked for peace, for religious toleration, for justice to the
+lower classes. But these dreams were destined to be realized long after
+More's headless body had crumbled to dust, by that learning which he
+himself so seduously cultivated, and by the decay, too, of some of
+those ideas for which he died a martyr's death. The growth of the
+universities, the establishment of grammar schools, the impetus given
+<span class="pagenum">[59]<a name="page59" id="page59"></a></span>
+to all useful occupations during the reign of Henry VIII, were
+gradually aiding the advance of that new era in the history of England
+which developed so brilliantly under Elizabeth. In her reign the old
+warlike spirit had decayed, theology had lost its obstructive power,
+and human reason began to bear its legitimate fruits&mdash;prosperity and
+civilization.</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn26" id="fn26" href="#fnref26">[26]</a></span>
+Green's "Short History of the English People," p. 203.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn27" id="fn27" href="#fnref27">[27]</a></span>
+"Tom-a-Lincoln" has been reprinted in W.J. Thorn's
+valuable collection of "Early English Prose Romances," where may also
+be found a story similar in nature, called "Helyas, Knight of the
+Swanne." I do not consider these productions worthy of more extended
+notice here, as they possess no interest in themselves, and serve only
+to illustrate the degeneracy of the fictions relating to the knighthood
+during the 16th century. The compilation called "The Seven Champions of
+Christendom", by Richard Johnson, the author of "Tom-a-Lincoln", said
+to contain "all the lyes of Christendom in one lye," obtained
+considerable popularity and circulation during this period. Dunlop
+mentions ("Hist. of Fiction," chap. xiv) the "Ornatus and Artesia", and
+"Parismus, Prince of Bohemia," by Emmanuel Ford, and the "Pheander, or
+Maiden Knight," by Henry Roberts, belonging in the same class of
+composition. An English version of the old tale of Robert the Devil
+belongs to this period, and may be found in W.J. Thom's collection.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn28" id="fn28" href="#fnref28">[28]</a></span>
+Ritson's "Robin Hood."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn29" id="fn29" href="#fnref29">[29]</a></span>
+Hunter's "Robin Hood", p. 13.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn30" id="fn30" href="#fnref30">[30]</a></span>
+"George-a-Green," chap. x, Thom's "Early Eng. Prose Romances."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn31" id="fn31" href="#fnref31">[31]</a></span>
+"Thomas of Reading," chap. 12.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn32" id="fn32" href="#fnref32">[32]</a></span>
+Thom's preface to "Vigilius," "Early Eng. Prose Romances."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn33" id="fn33" href="#fnref33">[33]</a></span>
+"Lai d'Hippocrate," Le Grand. Thom's Prelude to "Virgilius."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn34" id="fn34" href="#fnref34">[34]</a></span>
+Wright's "Essays on the Middle Ages," <i>Essay x</i>.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn35" id="fn35" href="#fnref35">[35]</a></span>
+Buckle's "Hist. of Civilization," vol. I, p. 147.
+Appleton's ed.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn36" id="fn36" href="#fnref36">[36]</a></span>
+"<i>A fruteful and plesaunt worke of the beste state of a
+publyque weale, and of the newe yle called UTOPIA: written in Latin by
+SYR THOMAS MORE KNYGHT, and translated into Englysshe by RAPHE ROBYNSON
+Citisein and Goldsmythe of London at the procurement and earnest
+request of George Tadlowe Citisein and Haberdassher of the same Citie.
+Imprinted at London by Abraham Wele, dwelling in Paul's Churcheyarde at
+the Sygne of the Lambe, Anno, 1551." Arber's reprint.</i>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<span class="pagenum">[60]<a name="page60" id="page60"></a></span>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE AGE OF ELIZABETH: LYLY, GREENE, LODGE, SIDNEY.</h3>
+
+
+<h4>I.</h4>
+
+<p>In the rapidity and scope of intellectual and material progress, the
+age of Elizabeth is unequaled in English history. The nation seemed to
+pass from the darkness of night into a sunshine which would never end.
+Freed from the trammels which had hitherto impeded their way, all
+classes put on a new vigor, a new enterprise, and a new intelligence,
+which brought advancement into every walk of life. The spread of the
+Copernican doctrine of the revolutions of the earth, and the relations
+of our planet to the solar system gradually drove before it the old
+anthropocentric ideas. Men looked into the heavens and saw a new
+universe. In the grand scheme of creation there unfolded before them,
+they read in spite of themselves the comparative insignificance of
+their own world, and an overwhelming blow was dealt at the narrowness
+and superstition which had hitherto characterized their thoughts. A new
+world, too, was fast becoming known. The circumnavigation of the earth
+by Drake, the visits of other Englishmen to the shores of Africa and
+America, even to the Arctic seas, awakened a deep and healthful
+curiosity. There arose a passion for travelling, for seeing and
+studying foreign lands. Those who were forced to remain at home
+devoured <span class="pagenum">[61]<a name="page61" id="page61"></a></span>
+with eagerness the books of those who wandered abroad. The
+effects of this widening of the mental and physical horizon are
+observable in the new occupations which absorbed the energies of men,
+and in the new social life which all classes were beginning to lead.
+Improvements in husbandry doubled the productiveness of the soil, and
+greatly enhanced its value. The development of manufactures made
+English woolens in demand throughout Europe. In commerce the new spirit
+of enterprise was strikingly apparent. Tradesmen and nobles, ministers
+of state, Elizabeth herself&mdash;all who could, ventured something in the
+ships which sailed for America or Africa in the hope of golden cargoes.
+The Russia company brought home furs and flax, steel, iron, ropes, and
+masts. The Turkey merchants imported the productions of the Levant,
+silks and satins, carpets, velvets, and cloth of gold. By the side of
+these were laid in London markets, the rice, cotton, spices, and
+precious stones of India, and the sugar, rare woods, gold, silver, and
+pearls of the New World.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref37" id="fnref37" href="#fn37">[37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Under the influence of this new enterprise and prosperity, the picture
+of social life becomes more pleasing. The English noble succeeded to
+the feudal baron, the manor to the fortress. With the coat of mail and
+huge two-handed sword passed away the portcullis and the moat. The new
+homes of the nobility, erected during Elizabeth's reign, were marked by
+a beauty and luxury in keeping with the new ideas of their owners. The
+eye still rests with admiration on the numberless gables, the quaint
+chimneys, the oriel windows, the fretted parapets of the Tudor
+building. Within, the magnificent staircases, the great carved
+chimney-pieces, the massive oaken <span class="pagenum">[62]<a name="page62" id="page62"></a></span>
+furniture, the costly cabinets, and
+elaborate tapestries all attested the new wealth and the new taste of
+the occupants. A large chamber of Hardwicke Hall was decorated with a
+frieze representing a stag hunt, and beneath that the story of Ulysses
+wrought in tapestry.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref38" id="fnref38" href="#fn38">[38]</a></span>
+Harrington rejoiced in the number of "goodly
+chambers, large gardens and sweet walks" of Elizabeth's palaces. The
+"goodly chambers" were filled with cloths of gold and silver, with
+satin-covered furniture, and silk coverlids lined with ermine. In the
+houses of knights and gentlemen were to be seen a great profusion of
+"Turkic worke, pewter, brasse, fine linen, and thereto costlie cupbords
+of plate worth five or six hundred or a thousand
+pounds."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref39" id="fnref39" href="#fn39">[39]</a></span> The lord
+of the manor no longer took his meals with all his retainers in the
+great hall, throwing the bones and scraps from his wooden trencher to
+his dogs. He withdrew into a separate apartment, and dined with a new
+refinement. A hitherto unknown variety of food covered the table,
+served on pewter, china, or silver, instead of the primitive trencher.</p>
+
+<p>The bands of retainers who had hung round the castle, living at the
+expense of its lord, and ready to follow him in his career of violence,
+were gradually being absorbed in useful and industrial pursuits. Among
+the yeomanry the general progress was exceedingly noticeable. The
+character and worth of this important class were commented upon by
+Holinshed.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref40" id="fnref40" href="#fn40">[40]</a></span>
+"This sort of people * * * commonlie live wealthilie,
+keepe good houses, and travell to get riches. They are also for the
+most part farmers to gentlemen, or at the leastwise artificers, and
+with <span class="pagenum">[63]<a name="page63" id="page63"></a></span>grazing,
+frequenting of markets, and keeping of servants (not
+idle servants as the gentlemen doo, but suche as get bothe their owne
+and part of their master's living), do come to great welth, in so much
+that manie of them are able and doo buie the lands of unthriftie
+gentlemen, and often setting their sonnes to the schooles, to the
+universities, and to the Ins of the Court, or otherwise leaving them
+sufficient lands whereupon they may live without labour, do make them
+by those meanes to become gentlemen: these were they that in times past
+made all France afraid, and albeit they be not called Master, as
+gentlemen are, or Sir, as to knights apperteineth, but only John, and
+Thomas, etc., yet have they beene found to have doone verie good
+service; and the kings of England in foughten battels, were woont to
+remain among them (who were their footmen), as the French kings did
+among their horsemen; the prince thereby showing where his chief
+strength did consist." This middle class were enjoying a luxury and
+comfort undreamt of by their fathers, or indeed by the nobility of
+feudal times. Thatched cottages smeared with mud were fast being
+succeeded by brick or stone houses, finely plastered, with glass
+windows, chairs in place of stools, and tables in place of rough boards
+lying loosely on tressles. "Farmers learned also to garnish their
+cupboards with plate, their joined beds with tapestrie and silken
+hangings, and their tables with carpets and fine naperie, whereby the
+wealth of our countrie * * * doth infinitelie
+appeare."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref41" id="fnref41" href="#fn41">[41]</a></span> The new
+comforts, enumerated by Harrison, presented a striking contrast to the
+condition the "old men" had been satisfied with in their "yoong daies,"
+"Our fathers (yea, and we ourselves also) have lien full
+<span class="pagenum">[64]<a name="page64" id="page64"></a></span>oft upon
+straw pallets, on rough mats * * * and a good round log under their
+heads instead of a bolster or pillow. If it were so that our fathers,
+or the good man of the house, had within eleven years after his
+marriage purchased a matteras or flockebed, and thereto a sacke of
+chaffe to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged
+as the lord of the towne." The new comforts were the result, not of
+extravagance, but of prosperity. Notwithstanding the rigid economy of
+the old times, men "were scearce able to live and paie their rents at
+their daies without selling of a cow, or an horse or more, although
+they paid but four pounds at the uttermost by the yeare, * * * whereas
+in my time," says Harrison, "although peradventure foure pounds of old
+rent be improved to fourtie, fiftie, or an hundred poundes, yet will
+the farmer as another palme or date tree, thinke his gaines verie small
+toward the end of his terme, if he had not six or seven yeares rent
+lieing by him, therewith to purchase a new lease, beside a faire
+garnish of pewter on his cupboard, with so much in od vessell going
+aboute the house, three or four feather beds, so manie coverlids and
+carpets of tapestrie, a silver salt, a bowle for wine * * * and a
+dozzen of spoones to furnish up the
+sute."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref42" id="fnref42" href="#fn42">[42]</a></span>
+The country gentleman
+sitting in his hall, hawk on hand, with his hounds about him, made a
+profuse hospitality his chief pride, and out-door sports the resource
+of his leisure and conversation. Greek and Latin were gradually making
+their way into his store of knowledge, hitherto limited to the romances
+and chronicles. But as Ascham complained, there was little sweetness to
+flavor his cup of learning. "Masters for the most part so behave
+themselves," said Peacham, "that their very name
+<span class="pagenum">[65]<a name="page65" id="page65"></a></span>is hatefull to the
+scholler, who trembleth at their coming in, rejoyceth at their absence,
+and looketh his master (returned) in the face, as his deadly
+enemy."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref43" id="fnref43" href="#fn43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The amusements of the rural population partook of the character of
+material prosperity and material enjoyment which were so prominent in
+Elizabeth's reign. There is no sign of the prevailing improvement in
+the condition of men more suggestive than the effervescence of spirits
+which broke loose on every holiday and at every festival. On the first
+day of May "the juvenile part of both sexes are wont to rise a little
+after midnight, and walk to some neighboring wood, accompany'd with
+music and the blowing of horns, where they break down branches from the
+trees and adorn them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. When this
+done, they return with their booty homewards about the rising of the
+sun, and make their doors and windows to triumph in the flowery
+spoil."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref44" id="fnref44" href="#fn44">[44]</a></span>
+"But their cheefest jewell they bring from thence is their
+Maie poole whiche they bringe home with great veneration, as thus: They
+have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe havyng a sweete
+nosegaie of flowers, tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen
+drawe home this Maie poole."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref45" id="fnref45" href="#fn45">[45]</a></span>
+Games, dances, rude dramatic
+performances succeeded each other for hours, interspersed with feasting
+and drinking. An extravagant fancy sought expression in the excitement,
+of grotesque actions and brilliant costumes. The Morris dancers
+executed their curious movements, clad in "gilt leather and silver
+paper, and sometimes in coats of white spangled
+fustian,"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref46" id="fnref46" href="#fn46">[46]</a></span> or in
+"greene, yellow, or some other light wanton collour,"
+<span class="pagenum">[66]<a name="page66" id="page66"></a></span>bedecked with
+"scarfs, ribbons and laces hanged all over with golde ringes, precious
+stones and other jewells," and "aboute either legge twentie or fourtie
+belles."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref47" id="fnref47" href="#fn47">[47]</a></span>
+Robin Hood's Day, Christmas, Twelfth Night, Harvest Home,
+Sheepshearing, were all celebrated in turn with a liveliness of spirit,
+a vigor of imagination, and a noisy enjoyment of the good things of
+life which showed that Merry England had at last succeeded to the gloom
+of the Middle Ages.</p>
+
+<p>The prevailing prosperity and activity were naturally even more
+apparent in London than in the rural districts. The city was growing
+rapidly, filling up with warehouses and shops, with palaces and
+dwellings. The people in general were attracted to it by the growing
+trade and industry, and by the theatres, taverns, bear-gardens, and
+other places of amusement, the number of which was constantly
+increasing. The nobility and gentry sought the splendor of Elizabeth's
+court to spend their leisure and their wealth. The middle or commercial
+classes of the city, like the corresponding agricultural classes in the
+country, were enjoying the fruits of their industry and attaining a
+respectable position of their own. The houses and furniture belonging
+to them struck a foreigner with astonishment and
+pleasure<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref48" id="fnref48" href="#fn48">[48]</a></span>; "The
+neate cleanlinesse, the exquisite finenesse, the plesaunte and
+delightfull furniture in every point for household wonderfully rejoyced
+mee; their chambers and parlours, strawed over with sweet herbes,
+refreshed mee; their nosegayes finelye intermingled wyth sondry sortes
+of fragraunte floures in their bed-chambers and privie roomes, with
+comfortable smell cheered me up and entierlye delighted all my senses."
+The profusion of expenditure, and the love of
+<span class="pagenum">[67]<a name="page67" id="page67"></a></span>show resulting from the
+sudden increase of wealth, affected even the apprentices of the city.
+The Lord Mayor and Common Council, in 1582, found it necessary to
+direct apprentices; "to wear no hat with any silk in or about the
+same. To wear no ruffles, cuffs, loose collar, nor other thing than
+a ruff at the collar, and that only a yard and a half long. To wear
+no doublets * * * enriched with any manner of silver or silke. * * * To
+wear no sword, dagger, nor other weapon but a knife; nor a ring, jewel
+of gold, nor silver, nor silke in any part of his
+apparel."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref49" id="fnref49" href="#fn49">[49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was, however, at Elizabeth's court, and among the nobility, that the
+tendencies of the time were most marked. The literature of this
+era&mdash;never surpassed in brilliancy and power&mdash;was the work of poets and
+dramatists. It was the outcome of a poetical and dramatic life. Even
+the fiction which belongs to the period was colored by the same
+fondness for dramatic incident and poetic treatment. The enthusiasm
+which had animated the nobility in their martial life went with them to
+the court of Elizabeth. There it showed itself in gallantry, in love of
+show, and in a devotion to amusement and to self-cultivation which
+internal peace had at length made possible. Men of whom any age might
+be proud crowded the scene. Cecil and Walsingham among statesmen, Drake
+among discoverers, Bacon and Hooker among thinkers, Raleigh and Sidney
+at once among courtiers, soldiers, and scholars. The prevailing
+extravagance and variety of dress was simply the outward sign of a love
+of whatever was brilliant and new. The fashions of France, of Spain, of
+Turkey, even of the Moors contributed to the wardrobe of the English
+gallant. "And, as these fashions are <span class="pagenum">[68]<a name="page68" id="page68"></a></span>
+diverse, so likewise it is a
+world to see the costlinesse and the curiositie: the excesse and the
+vanitie: the pomp and the braverie; the change and the varietie: and
+finallie the ficklenesse and the follie that is in all degrees:
+insomuch that nothing is more constant in England than inconstancie of
+attire."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref50" id="fnref50" href="#fn50">[50]</a></span>
+Each one aimed at making the best appearance. The long
+seams of men's hose were set by a plumb line, and beards were cut to
+suit the face, "If a man have a leane and streight face, a Marquess
+Ottons cut will make it broad and large; if it be platter-like, a long,
+slender beard will make it seeme the narrower." "Some lustie courtiers
+also, and gentlemen of courage doo weare either rings of golde, stones,
+or pearle in their eares, whereby they imagine the workmanship of God
+not to be a little amended."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref51" id="fnref51" href="#fn51">[51]</a></span>
+All are familiar with the brilliant
+female dress of the time. The enormous starched ruffs of various
+colors, the long stomachers stiffened with wire and studded with
+jewels, the costly stuffs enriched with gold and silver, made up a
+costume which has never been surpassed in extravagance and fanciful
+exaggeration.</p>
+
+<p>The queen herself set the example of brilliancy of costume, and took
+care to be outshone by none. Sir John Harrington relates that "Ladie M.
+Howarde was possessede of a rich border, powdered wyth golde and pearle
+and a velvet suite belonginge thereto, which moved manie to envye; nor
+did it please the queene, who thought it exceeded her owne. One daye
+the queene did sende privately, and got the ladie's rich vesture, which
+she put on herself, and came forthe the chamber amonge the ladies; the
+kirtle and border was <span class="pagenum">[69]<a name="page69" id="page69"></a></span>
+far too shorte for her majestie's heigth; and
+she asked everyone, 'How they likede her new fancied suit?' At length
+she askede the owner herself, 'If it was not made too shorte and ill
+becoming?'&mdash;which the poor ladie did presentlie consente to. 'Why,
+then, if it become not me, as being too shorte, I am minded it shall
+never become thee, as being too fine; so it fitteth neither well.' This
+sharp rebuke abashed the ladie, and she never adorned her herewith any
+more."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref52" id="fnref52" href="#fn52">[52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was the fashion to walk in the aisles of St. Paul's Church, which
+became a general rendezvous for business or pleasure. A facetious
+writer of the time, instructing a young gallant how to procure his
+clothes, and to show them off to the best advantage, gives an amusing
+picture of the prevailing vanity and foppery. "Bend your course
+directly in the middle line, that the whole body of the church may
+appear to be yours; where, in view of all you may publish your suit in
+what manner you affect most * * * and then you must, as 'twere in anger,
+suddenly snatch at the middle of the inside, if it be taffeta at the
+least; and so, by that means, your costly lining is betrayed. * * * But
+one note, by the way, do I especially woo you to, the neglect of
+which makes many of our gallants cheap and ordinary, that by no means
+you be seen above four times; but in the fifth make yourself away,
+either in some of the semsters' shops, the new tobacco office, or among
+the booksellers, where, if you cannot read, exercise your smoke, and
+enquire who has writ against this divine weed. * * * After dinner you
+may appear again, having translated yourself out of you English cloth
+into a light Turkey grogram, if you have that happiness of shifting;
+and then be seen for a turn <span class="pagenum">[70]<a name="page70" id="page70"></a></span>
+or two to correct your teeth with some
+quill or silver instrument, and to cleanse your gums with a wrought
+handkerchief; it skills not whether you dined or no; that is best known
+to your stomach; or in what place you dined; though it were with cheese
+of your own mother's making, in your chamber or study. * * * If, by
+chance, you either encounter, or aloof off throw your inquisitive eye
+upon any knight or squire, being your familiar, salute him, not by his
+name, Sir such a one, or so; but call him Ned, or Jack, etc. This will
+set off your estimation with great men; and if, though there be a dozen
+companies between you, 'tis the better, he call aloud to you, for that
+is most genteel, to know where he shall find you at two o'clock; tell
+him at such an ordinary, or such; and be sure to name those that are
+dearest, and whither none but your gallants
+resort."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref53" id="fnref53" href="#fn53">[53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With all the luxury of furniture and dress, with all the new elegance
+and ceremony of court life, there naturally remained much disorder,
+violence, and coarseness throughout the social system. Although the
+laws concerning the maintenance of order in the streets were strict,
+forbidding any one even to "blowe any horne in the night, or whistle
+after the hour of nyne of the clock in the night," yet they were not
+effectively enforced. A member of the House of Commons described a
+Justice of the Peace as an animal, who for half a dozen of chickens
+would dispense with a dozen penal
+laws<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref54" id="fnref54" href="#fn54">[54]</a></span>;
+and Gilbert Talbot spoke of
+two serious street affrays, which he described in a letter to the Earl
+of Shrewsbury as "trifling
+matters."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref55" id="fnref55" href="#fn55">[55]</a></span>
+The gallows were kept busy in
+town and country. The habits of violence, and the old fondness
+<span class="pagenum">[71]<a name="page71" id="page71"></a></span>of the
+nobility for fighting out their own quarrels, lingered in the prevalent
+custom of duelling. Ladies, and even the queen herself, chastised their
+servants with their own hands. On one occasion Elizabeth showed her
+dislike of a courtier's coat by spitting upon it, and her habit of
+administering physical correction to those who displeased her called
+forth the witty remark of Sir John Harrington: "I will not adventure
+her Highnesse choller, leste she should collar me also." The first
+coach appeared in the streets of London in Elizabeth's time and the
+sight of it "put both horse and man into amazement; some said it was a
+great crab-shell brought out of China; and some imagined it to be one
+of the Pagan temples, in which the Cannibals adored the divell." The
+extravagance and luxury of the feasts which were given on great
+occasions by the nobility were not attended by a corresponding advance
+in the refinement of manners at table. In a banquet given by Lord
+Hertford to Elizabeth in the garden of his castle, there were a
+thousand dishes carried out by two hundred gentlemen lighted by a
+hundred torch-bearers and every dish was of china or silver. But forks
+had not yet come into general use, and their place was supplied by
+fingers. Elizabeth had two or three forks, very small, and studded with
+jewels, but they were intended only for ornament. A divine inveighed
+against the impiety of those who objected to touching their meat with
+their fingers, and it was only in the seventeenth century that the
+custom of eating with forks obtained general acceptance, and ceased to
+be considered a mark of foppery.</p>
+
+<p>The co-existence of coarseness and brilliant luxury, so characteristic
+of the time, is curiously apparent in the amusements of the city and
+the court. The whole <span class="pagenum">[72]<a name="page72" id="page72"></a></span>
+people, from Elizabeth to the country boor,
+delighted in the savage sports of bull and bear-baiting. In the
+gratification received by these exhibitions, appear the remains of the
+old bloodthirstiness which had once been only satisfied with the sight
+of human suffering. The contrast is striking when we turn to the
+masques, the triumphs, and the pageants which were exhibited on great
+occasions by the court or by the citizens of London. The awakening of
+learning and the new interest in life were expressed in the dramatic
+entertainments which mingled the romantic elements of chivalry with the
+mythology of ancient Greece, in the rejoicings of men over present
+prosperity and welfare. The accounts of the festivities during the
+progresses of Elizabeth, so ably collected by Nichol, read like a tale
+of fairyland. When the queen visited Kenelworth she was met outside the
+gates by sybils reciting a poem of welcome. At the gates the giant
+porter feigned anger at the intrusion, but, overcome by the sight of
+Elizabeth, laid his club and his keys humbly at her feet. On posts
+along the route were placed the offerings of Sylvanus, of Pomona, of
+Ceres, of Bacchus, of Neptune, of Mars, and of Phoebus. From Arthur's
+court tame the Lady of the Lake, begging the queen to deliver her from
+the Knight without Pity. Fawns, satyrs, and nymphs brought their
+greetings, while an Echo replied to the addresses of welcome.
+Amusements of every variety occupied the succeeding days. Hunting, bear
+baiting, fireworks, tilting, Morris dances, a rustic marriage, a fight
+between Danes and English, curious aquatic sports,&mdash;all succeeded each
+other, interspersed with brilliant feasts. Poems founded on the legends
+of Arthur, or drawn from the inexhaustible sources of mythology, were
+recited in the <span class="pagenum">[73]<a name="page73" id="page73"></a></span>
+pauses of festivity, or sung beneath the windows of the
+queen. The same readiness of invention and luxuriance of fancy
+characterized all the celebrations of the time. The love of the
+dramatic which applauded Pyramus and Thisbe in the rural districts,
+made actors of the courtiers. When the French commissioners came to
+negotiate the marriage of Elizabeth with the Duke of Anjou, they were
+entertained with a triumph, in which the Earl of Arundel, Lord Windsor,
+Master Philip Sidney, and Master Fulk Grevil, impersonating the four
+"foster children of Desire," carried by force of arms the "Fortress of
+Beauty," which represented Elizabeth herself.</p>
+
+<p>The age of Elizabeth, although it had worked itself free from the
+intellectual sloth of the Middle Ages, although it was familiarizing
+itself with an almost unknown world abroad, and creating a new world at
+home, yet had inherited with little qualification the violence, the
+cruelty, and the unbridled passions of the centuries which had gone
+before. All this variety of life was expressed in the drama, which, as
+a reflection of contemporary thought and manners, was to Elizabeth's
+time what the novel is to our own. Before the end of this reign there
+were eighteen theatres in London, all crowded with audiences which
+embraced every class of the people,&mdash;from the noble and court gallant
+who played cards on the stage, to the workmen and apprentices who
+fought and bandied coarse jests in the pit. The names of Marlowe, of
+Shakespeare, of Johnson, are sufficient to remind us of the grandeur to
+which the Elizabethan drama attained, under the influence of prosperity
+at home, victory abroad, and the quickening of the national
+intelligence which followed the revival of learning. But while the
+stage reflected all that was most noble, it reflected also all that
+<span class="pagenum">[74]<a name="page74" id="page74"></a></span>
+was most base in human nature. Ecclesiastical discipline had been laid
+aside, and the unrestrained passions of men, which in actual life found
+vent in violence and debauchery, were gratified by the dramatic
+representation of the worst crimes and most vitiated tastes. The
+Puritans brought about reformation and self-restraint, by enforcing a
+new code of morals all the more rigid from the looseness which on every
+side they found to combat. In closing the theatres, they were actuated,
+in Mr. Green's words, by the hatred "of God-fearing men against the
+foulest depravity presented in a poetic and attractive
+form."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref56" id="fnref56" href="#fn56">[56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>While the drama reflected alike the good and the bad, all the finer
+aspirations of the time found expression in poetry. Spenser, Sackville,
+Drayton, Donne, Hall, the two Fletchers, are but leaders in a band of
+more than two hundred, who made this period unrivalled in the annals of
+English poetry. It was a time of unexampled prosperity, of an enlarged
+freedom, of an active intelligence, when men were eagerly seeking for
+whatever was novel and brilliant; when translations without number of
+the classical writers and contemporary foreign works were welcomed
+alike with the "costly attire of the new cut, the Dutch hat, the French
+hose, the Spanish rapier, the Italian hilt." "It is a world to see how
+Englishmen desire to hear finer speech than the language will allow, to
+eat finer bread than is made of wheat, or wear finer cloth than is made
+of wool." Such are the words in which John Lyly, the Euphuist,
+characterized his own time, and they were the words of one who
+expressed in his own writings the tendency to fanciful exaggeration,
+which was so strong among the men about him.</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn37" id="fn37" href="#fnref37">[37]</a></span>
+Froude's "History of England," vol. 8, p. 429.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn38" id="fn38" href="#fnref38">[38]</a></span>
+Stone, "Chronicles of Fashion."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn39" id="fn39" href="#fnref39">[39]</a></span>
+Holinshed, vol. I, p. 315; Drake's "Shakespeare and his
+Times", vol. 1, p. 72.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn40" id="fn40" href="#fnref40">[40]</a></span>
+Holinshed, vol. I, p. 275; Drake's "Shakespeare", vol. 1, p. 99.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn41" id="fn41" href="#fnref41">[41]</a></span>
+Harrison's "Description"; Drake's "Shakespeare," vol. 1, p. 101.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn42" id="fn42" href="#fnref42">[42]</a></span>
+Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times," vol. 1, p. 101.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn43" id="fn43" href="#fnref43">[43]</a></span>
+Henry Peacham, "Compleat Gentleman," 1624.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn44" id="fn44" href="#fnref44">[44]</a></span>
+Bourne; Drake's "Shakespeare," vol. 1, p. 153.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn45" id="fn45" href="#fnref45">[45]</a></span>
+Stubbes, "Anatomie of Abuses," p. 168.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn46" id="fn46" href="#fnref46">[46]</a></span>
+Douce, "Illustrations of Shakespeare."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn47" id="fn47" href="#fnref47">[47]</a></span>
+Stubbes; Drake's "Shakespeare," vol. 1, ch. vi.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn48" id="fn48" href="#fnref48">[48]</a></span>
+Laevinius Lemnius; Drake, vol. 2, p. 113.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn49" id="fn49" href="#fnref49">[49]</a></span>
+Nichol's "Progresses of Elizabeth," vol. 2, p. 391.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn50" id="fn50" href="#fnref50">[50]</a></span>
+Harrison: Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times," vol. 2, p. 87.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn51" id="fn51" href="#fnref51">[51]</a></span>
+Harrison's "Description of England"; Holinshed, vol. I,
+pp. 289-90; Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times" vol. 2, pp. 88, 89.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn52" id="fn52" href="#fnref52">[52]</a></span>
+"Nugæ Antique", Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times," vol. 2, p. 90.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn53" id="fn53" href="#fnref53">[53]</a></span>
+"The Gull's Horn Book"; Drake's "Shakespeare and his
+Times", vol. 2, p. 184.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn54" id="fn54" href="#fnref54">[54]</a></span>
+Lodge's "Illustrations."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn55" id="fn55" href="#fnref55">[55]</a></span>
+<i>Idem</i>.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn56" id="fn56" href="#fnref56">[56]</a></span>
+Green, "Short History of the English People," p. 429.
+</div>
+
+<span class="pagenum">[75]<a name="page75" id="page75"></a></span>
+<h4>II.</h4>
+
+<p>It is to the drama that we must look for the most complete literary
+expression of the social condition of the period. The student of
+history must regret, indeed, that the realistic novel, with its study
+of human thoughts and motives, with its illustration of manners and
+customs, so valuable in a reconstruction of the past, should have been
+delayed till the end of the seventeenth century. But though there be
+regret, there cannot be surprise. The reigns of Elizabeth and the
+Stuarts cover the period of court life; when men lived in public, and
+sought their intellectual entertainment in crowds at a theatre, as now,
+in a time of citizen-life, they seek it in private, by the
+study-lamp.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref57" id="fnref57" href="#fn57">[57]</a></span>
+In a dramatic age the creations of the imagination will
+be placed behind the footlights, and in a period of quiet and
+reflection they will be placed between the covers of a book. In the age
+of Elizabeth the writers of fiction neither studied the characters and
+manners of the men about them, nor aimed at any reflection of actual
+life. But their tales and romances were the natural fruit of their
+intellectual condition, and form an interesting if not a valuable
+portion of English fiction. In them are reflected the happiness, the
+poetry, the love of novelty, and the ideality of the time. The stirring
+incidents of chivalric romance were no longer in vogue, and the subject
+became an idealized love. But the most striking feature of Elizabethan
+fiction is the great importance attached to style. The writer cared
+more to excite admiration by the turn of his phrases and the ornaments
+of his language, than to interest his reader by plot or incident.</p>
+
+<p>In 1579 John Lyly published his curious romance,
+<span class="pagenum">[76]<a name="page76" id="page76"></a></span>"Euphues, the Anatomy
+of Wit," a work which attained a great popularity, and made the word
+Euphuism an abstract term in the language to express the ornate and
+antithetical style of which this book is the most marked example. In
+Lyly's own day it was said by Edward Blount that the nation was "in his
+debt for a new English which hee taught them." Since then, the verdict
+of posterity has been that Lyly corrupted the public taste, and
+introduced an affected and overloaded manner of writing which had a
+mischievous influence upon literature. A careful examination of Lyly's
+work, and of the condition of the English language in the last quarter
+of the sixteenth century, will not sustain either of these views. The
+Euphuistic style was not of Lyly's invention. He acquired it from the
+men about him, and merely gave it, through his writings, a distinct
+character and individuality. In a letter of Elizabeth to her brother
+Edward VI, long-before "Euphues" was written, occurs the following
+passage: "Like as a shipman in stormy wether plukes down the sails
+tarrying for bettar winde, so did I, most noble kinge, in my
+unfortunate chanche a Thursday pluk downe the hie sailes of my joy and
+comforte, and do trust one day that as troublesome waves have repulsed
+me backwarde, so a gentil winde will bringe me forwarde to my
+haven."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref58" id="fnref58" href="#fn58">[58]</a></span>
+This is a moderate specimen of the ornate and exaggerated
+language which was following the new acquisitions of learning and
+intelligence, just as extravagance in dress and food was following the
+new prosperity and wealth. Men wished to crowd their learning and
+cultivation into every thing they said or wrote. As the language was
+not yet settled by good prose writers, the more affected a style, the
+<span class="pagenum">[77]<a name="page77" id="page77"></a></span>
+more numerous its similes, and far-fetched its allusions, the more
+ingenious and admirable it was considered to be. There resulted a
+sacrifice of clearness and simplicity to a strained elegance. Still, in
+the Euphuistic style, tedious and grotesque as it often is, appear the
+first serious efforts, among English prose writers, to attain a better
+mode of expression. The results which followed the absence of a
+standard written language at home were strengthened by the general
+acquaintance with foreign literature. Italy in the sixteenth century
+was the leading intellectual nation, and the example of the refined and
+over-polished manner of writing there prevalent had much to do with the
+growth in England of a fondness for affected mannerisms and fancied
+ornaments of language. The new ideas in regard to poetry and
+versification which Wyat and Surrey had brought from Italy, were but
+the beginning of an extensive Italian influence. It was not without
+reason that Ascham inveighed against "the enchantments of Circe brought
+out of Italy to mar men's manners in England." Italian works were
+translated and circulated in great numbers in England, and among these
+the most popular were the gay and amorous productions of the story
+tellers.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref59" id="fnref59" href="#fn59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Born in Kent in 1554, John Lyly studied at Magdalen College, Oxford,
+and received the degree of Master of
+<span class="pagenum">[78]<a name="page78" id="page78"></a></span>Arts. Not a very diligent
+scholar, he disliked the "crabbed studies" of logic and philosophy,
+"his genie being naturally bent to the pleasant paths of poetry," but
+he was reputed at the University as afterward at Elizabeth's court, "a
+rare poet, witty, comical, and facetious." During his life in London he
+produced a number of plays and poems which have given his name a not
+inconsiderable place in the list of Elizabethan poets and dramatists.
+He is now best known, where known at all, by his prose work "Euphues,"
+which was so much admired at Elizabeth's court, that all the ladies
+knew his phrases by heart, and to "parley Euphuism" was a sign of
+breeding. For many years Lyly lingered about the court waiting for a
+promised position to reward his labors and support his declining years.
+But in vain. "A thousand hopes," he complained, "but all nothing; a
+hundred promises, but yet nothing." Lyly died in 1606, leaving, as he
+said, but three legacies; "Patience to my creditors, Melancholie
+without measure to my friends, and Beggarie without shame to my
+family."</p>
+
+<p>The deeper meaning of Lyly's work, which lies beneath the surface of
+his similes and antitheses, has escaped almost all his
+critics.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref60" id="fnref60" href="#fn60">[60]</a></span> It
+is suggested by the title, "Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit." In the
+"Schoolmaster," Ascham explained how Socrates had described the anatomy
+of wit in a child, and the first essential quality mentioned by
+Socrates, and that most fully discussed by Ascham was <i>&Epsilon;&upsilon;&psi;&upsilon;&eta;&sigmaf;</i> which
+may be translated of good natural parts, as well of the body as the
+mind. Euphues, then, as well in the story in which he figures, as
+afterward in the essays or which he is the supposed
+<span class="pagenum">[79]<a name="page79" id="page79"></a></span>author, is the
+model of a young man at once attractive in appearance, and possessing
+the mental qualities most calculated to please. While the story is
+meant to attract readers, the essays and digressions introduced into
+the work are intended to inculcate the methods of education which Lyly
+taught in common with Ascham. It was, however, the manner rather than
+the matter which gave to "Euphues" its prominence and popularity. The
+story is but a slender thread. Euphues and Philautus are two young
+gentlemen of Naples, bound together by the closest ties of friendship.
+Philautus is deeply enamored of a lady named Lucilla, to whom in an
+unfortunate moment he presents Euphues. The meeting is at supper, and
+the conversation turns on the question "often disputed, but never
+determined, whether the qualities of the minde, or the composition of
+the man, cause women most to lyke, or whether beautie or wit move men
+most to love." Euphues shows so much ingenuity in the discussion of
+this interesting subject that Lucilla transfers her affections to him.
+Upon this the two friends quarrel and exchange letters of mutual
+recrimination couched in the most elaborate language. Philautus writes:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Although hereto Euphues, I have shrined thee in my heart for
+    a trustie friende, I will shunne thee hereafter as a trothless
+    foe. * * * Dost thou not know yat a perfect friend should be lyke
+    the Glazeworme, which shineth most bright in the darke? or lyke the
+    pure Frankencense which smelleth most sweet when it is in the fire?
+    or at the leaste not unlike to the damaske Rose which is sweeter in
+    the still than on the stalke? But thou, Euphues, dost rather
+    resemble the Swallow, which in the summer creepeth under the eues
+    of euery house, and in the winter leaveth nothing but durt behinde
+    hir; <span class="pagenum">[80]<a name="page80" id="page80"></a></span>
+    or the humble Bee, which hauing sucked hunny out of the fayre
+    flower, doth leaue it and loath it; or the Spider which in the
+    finest web doth hang the fayrest Fly.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To these bitter reproaches Euphues replies that "Love knoweth no
+Lawes," and in support of the proposition cites as many cases from
+mythology as he can remember. The faithless Lucilla, however, soon
+treats Euphues as she had before treated Philautus, and marries a third
+lover whom they both despise. The friends are then once more united,
+and lament in each other's arms the folly of Lucilla. A second part of
+the work appeared in the following year, in which Euphues and Philautus
+are represented on a visit to England. Philautus marries, and Euphues,
+after eulogizing the English government, Elizabeth, and all her court,
+retires forever "to the bottom of the mountain Silexedra."</p>
+
+<p>The educational essays dispersed throughout the book display a good
+sense which even Lyly's style cannot conceal. Ascham and Lyly were
+alone in deprecating the excessive use of the rod, and in so doing were
+far in advance of the age. Cruelty seems to have been a common
+characteristic of the school-teacher. "I knew one," said Peacham, "who
+in winter would ordinarily in a cold morning whip his boyes over for no
+other purpose than to get himself a heat; another beat them for
+swearing, and all the time he swears himself with horrible oathes that
+he would forgive any fault save that. * * * Yet these are they that
+oftentimes have our hopefull gentry under their charge and tuition, to
+bring them (up) in science and civility."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref61" id="fnref61" href="#fn61">[61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The style which proved so attractive to Elizabeth's
+<span class="pagenum">[81]<a name="page81" id="page81"></a></span>courtiers had
+three principal characteristics, which the reader will perceive in the
+extracts hereafter to be given&mdash;a pedantic exhibition of learning, an
+excess of similes drawn from natural history, usually untrue to nature,
+and a habit of antithesis, which, by constant repetition becomes
+exceedingly wearisome. Euphues, wishing to convince his listeners of
+the inferiority of outward to inward perfection, pursues the following
+argument:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>The foule Toade hath a fayre stone in his head, the fine golde is
+    found in the filthy earth; the sweet kernell lyeth in the hard
+    shell; vertue is harboured in the heart of him that most men
+    esteeme misshappen. Contrarywise, if we respect more the outward
+    shape, then the inward habit, good God, into how many mischiefs do
+    wee fall? into what blindnesse are we ledde? Due we not commonly
+    see that in painted pottes is hidden the deadlyest poyson? that in
+    the greenest grasse is ye greatest serpent? in the cleerest water
+    the vgliest Toade? Doth not experience teach vs, that in the most
+    curious sepulcher are enclosed rotten bones? That the Cypresse tree
+    beareth a faire leafe, but no fruite? That the Estridge carrieth
+    faire feathers, but ranke flesh? How frantick are those louers
+    which are carried away with the gaye glistering of the fine face?</p>
+
+    <p>"In the coldest flint," says Lucilla, "there is hot fire, the Bee
+    that hath hunny in hir mouth, hath a sting in hir tayle; the tree
+    that beareth the sweetest fruite, hath a sower sap; yea, the wordes
+    of men though they seeme smooth as oyle: yet their heartes are as
+    crooked as the stalke of luie."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Lyly's antithetical style is well illustrated by the following passage,
+in which he means to be particularly serious and impressive:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>If I should talke in words of those things which I haue to conferre
+    with thee in writings, certes thou would blush for
+    <span class="pagenum">[82]<a name="page82" id="page82"></a></span>shame, and I
+    weepe for sorrowe: neither could my tongue vtter yat with patience,
+    which my hand can scarse write with modesty, neither could thy ears
+    heare that without glowing, which thine eyes can hardly vewe
+    without griefe. Ah, Alcius, I cannot tell whether I should most
+    lament in thee thy want of learning, or thy wanton lyvinge, in the
+    on thou art inferiour to all men, in the other superiour to al
+    beasts. Insomuch as who seeth thy dul wit, and marketh thy froward
+    will, may well say that he neuer saw smacke of learning in thy
+    dooings, nor sparke of relygion in thy life. Thou onely vauntest of
+    thy gentry: truely thou wast made a gentleman before thou knewest
+    what honesty meant, and no more hast thou to boast of thy stocke,
+    than he, who being left rich by his father, dyeth a beggar by his
+    folly. Nobilitie began in thine auncestors and endeth in thee, and
+    the generositie that they gayned by vertue, thou hast blotted with
+    vice.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref62" id="fnref62" href="#fn62">[62]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The popularity of "Euphues" excited much imitation, and its influence
+is strongly marked in the works of Robert Greene. Born in Norfolk in
+1560, Greene studied at Cambridge and received the degree of Master of
+Arts. After wasting his property in Italy and Spain, he returned to
+London to earn his bread by the pen. As a pamphleteer, as a poet, and
+especially as a dramatist, Greene achieved a considerable reputation.
+But his improvident habits and a life of constant debauchery
+<span class="pagenum">[83]<a name="page83" id="page83"></a></span>brought
+his career to a close, amidst poverty and remorse, at the early age of
+thirty-two. He died in a drunken brawl, leaving in his works the
+evidence of talents and qualities which the degradation of his life had
+failed to destroy.</p>
+
+<p>Greene's "Arcadia" was published in 1587, and bears in its fanciful
+title of "Camilla's Alarum to Slumber Euphues," the evidence of its
+inspiration. Even among pastorals the improbability of this story is
+surpassing. Damocles, king of Arcadia, banished his daughter with her
+husband and son. Sephestia, the daughter, arrived in a part of Arcadia
+entirely inhabited by shepherds. There she becomes a shepherdess under
+the name of Samela, and meets her husband, Maximus, who is already
+tending sheep in the same neighborhood with the name of Melicertus.
+Strange to say, Sephestia fails to recognize her husband, and receives
+his addresses as a favored lover. Soon after, Pleusidippus, Sephestia's
+son, is stolen by pirates, and adopted by the king of Thessaly, in
+whose court he grows up. The fame of Sephestia's beauty reaches her
+father and her son, who, ignorant of the relationship in consequence of
+Sephestia's change of name, both set out to woo the celebrated
+shepherdess. The repulsive scene of the same woman being the object at
+once of the passion of her father and her son is ended by Damocles
+carrying off Sephestia to his own court, where he proposes to execute
+Maximus as his successful rival, and Sephestia for her obstinate
+refusal of his addresses. The Delphian oracle, however, interposes in
+time by declaring the identity of Sephestia, and the story terminates
+as usual in weddings and reconciliations.</p>
+
+<p>The conventional shepherd's life is well described in the "Arcadia,"
+and the pastoral tone is skilfully maintained.
+<span class="pagenum">[84]<a name="page84" id="page84"></a></span>The language, however,
+is confessedly euphuistic, as may be seen by the author's comment on a
+speech of Samela:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Samela made this reply, because she had heard him so superfine, as
+    if Ephebus had learned him to refine his mother's tongue; wherefore
+    though he had done it of an ink horn desire to be eloquent, and
+    Melicertus thinking Samela had learned with Lucilla in Athens to
+    anatomize wit, and speak none but similes, imagined she smoothed
+    her talk to be thought like Sappho, Phaon's paramour.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The following passage could hardly be distinguished from the writings
+of Lyly:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>I had thought, Menaphon, that he which weareth the bay leaf had
+    been free from lightning, and the eagle's pen a preservative
+    against thunder; that labour had been enemy to love, and the
+    eschewing of idleness an antidote against fancy; but I see by
+    proof, there is no adamant so hard, but the blood of a goat will
+    make soft, no fort so well defended, but strong battery will entry,
+    nor any heart so pliant to restless labours, but enchantments of
+    love will overcome.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Melicertus addresses Samela, whom he finds feeding her flocks, in the
+following terms:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Mistress of all eyes that glance but at the excellence of your
+    perfection, sovereign of all such as Venus hath allowed for lovers,
+    Oenone's over-match, Arcadia's comet, Beauty's second comfort,
+    all hail! Seeing you sit like Juno when she first watched her white
+    heifer on the Lincen downs, as bright as silver Phoebe mounted on
+    the high top of the ruddy element, I was, by a strange attractive
+    force, drawn, as the adamant draws this iron, or the jet the straw,
+    to visit your sweet self in the shade, and afford you such company
+    as a poor swain may <span class="pagenum">[85]<a name="page85" id="page85"></a></span>
+    yield without offense; which, if you shall
+    vouch to deign of, I shall be as glad of such accepted service, as
+    Paris was first of his best beloved paramour.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Another of Samela's lovers, despairing of success, "became sick for
+anger, and spent whole ecologues in anguish."</p>
+
+<p>Greene's story of "Pandosto," of "Dorastus and Fawnia," which attained
+a great popularity, and went through at least fourteen editions, is
+well known as the foundation of Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale."
+Shakespeare has followed Greene in the material points of the story,
+even so far as to make Bohemia a maritime country. But the genius of
+the dramatist is manifest in the miraculous and happy ending which he
+substitutes for the unlawful love and inconsistent suicide of Pandosto
+in the work of Greene. Shakespeare borrowed from the text, as well as
+from the plot of the novelist. The lines,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div class="in10">The gods themselves,</div>
+    <div>Humbling their deities to love, have taken</div>
+    <div>The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter</div>
+    <div>Became a bull, and bellowed: the green Neptune</div>
+    <div>A ram, and bleated; and the fire robed god,</div>
+    <div>Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,</div>
+    <div>As I seem now,</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">are evidently a reproduction of the soliloquy of Dorastus:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>And yet Dorastus, shame not at thy shepheard's weede: The heavenly
+    Godes have sometime earthly thoughts: Neptune became a ram, Jupiter
+    a bull, Apollo a shepheard; they Gods, and yet in love; and thou a
+    man appointed to love.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref63" id="fnref63" href="#fn63">[63]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[86]<a name="page86" id="page86"></a></span>
+The story of "Philomela," "penned to approve women's chastity," is the
+best of Greene's tales, and approaches more closely the modern novel
+than any work of the time. It is related with much less than the usual
+prolixity, and contains two characters of distinct individuality. The
+scene is placed in Venice, partly in consequence of the Italian origin
+of the story, and partly, it would seem, because writers of fiction
+imagined that the further distant they could represent their incidents
+to have occurred, the more interest and probability would attach to
+them. Philippo Medici possessed a wife Philomela, renowned, "not for
+her beauty, though Italy afforded none so fair&mdash;not for her dowry,
+though she were the only daughter of the Duke of Milan&mdash;but for the
+admirable honours of her mind, which were so many and matchless, that
+virtue seemed to have planted there the paradise of her perfection."
+Philippo was so prone to jealousy, that he suspected even this paragon,
+and worked himself into a belief in her infidelity by such euphuisms as
+these: "The greener the Alisander leaves be, the more bitter is the
+sap, and the salamander is the most warm when he lieth furthest from
+the fire," therefore "women are most heart-hollow, when they are most
+lip-holy." Inflamed by this reasoning, he induced a friend, one
+Lutesio, to attempt his wife's virtue, enjoining him to bring immediate
+information in case of any evidence of success. Lutesio, after some
+misgivings, undertook the task, and under the influence of Philomela's
+beauty, found it a very agreeable one. His most elaborate discourses on
+love in the abstract were met by Philomela with replies fully as long
+and fully as lofty, <span class="pagenum">[87]<a name="page87" id="page87"></a></span>
+but when he made the conversation personal, and
+declared his attitude to be that of a lover, he was met with a virtuous
+indignation which fully bore out the reputation of Philomela. Even this
+conclusive test did not satisfy the jealous mind of the wretched
+Philippo. Having hired two slaves to swear in court to his wife's
+infidelity, he procured her banishment to Palermo. By the efforts of
+the Duke of Milan, this infamous proceeding was finally exposed, and
+Philippo, overcome by remorse, set out in search of Philomela. At
+Palermo, he accused himself, in a fit of despair, of a murder which had
+been committed in that city. But while the trial was in progress,
+Philomela, in order to shield her husband, appeared in court and
+proclaimed herself guilty of the crime. The innocence of both was
+discovered. Philippo, as he deserved, died immediately in an "ecstacy,"
+and Philomela "returned home to Venice, and there lived the desolate
+widow of Philippo Medici all her life; which constant chastity made her
+so famous, that in her life she was honoured as the paragon of virtue,
+and after her death, solemnly, and with wonderful honour, entombed in
+St. Mark's Church, and her fame holden canonized until this day in
+Venice."</p>
+
+<p>The character of Philomela possesses strong traits of feminine virtue
+and wifely fidelity. Philippo has little distinctiveness except in his
+extreme susceptibility to jealousy&mdash;a fault which was exaggerated by
+the author to set off the opposite qualities of Philomela. The story
+has no little merit in regard to the construction and sequence of the
+narrative, and holds up to admiration a high moral excellence. But its
+interest is seriously impaired by the same defect which marks all the
+fiction of the time. Philomela is almost the only tale which makes any
+pretence <span class="pagenum">[88]<a name="page88" id="page88"></a></span>
+to being a description of actual life, or which deals with
+possible incidents. Yet the language, although it has some elegance, is
+so affectedly formal, that all sense of reality is destroyed. When
+Philippo's treachery to his wife is discovered, and he himself is
+plunged in remorse, it is in such words as these that he speaks of his
+exposure: "There is nothing so secret but the date of days will reveal;
+that as oil, though it moist, quencheth not fire, so time, though ever
+so long, is no sure covert for sin; but as a spark raked up in cinders
+will at last begin to glow and manifest a flame, so treachery hidden in
+silence will burst forth and cry for revenge."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref64" id="fnref64" href="#fn64">[64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A prose idyl is the term which best describes the courtly and pastoral
+character of Lodge's "Rosalynde," the last work of fiction of any
+importance which distinctly bears the impress of euphuism. Published in
+1590, the ten editions through which it passed during the next fifty
+years are sufficient evidence of its popularity. It is probably the
+only work of fiction of Elizabeth's time which could be read through at
+the present day without impatience, and its story and personages are
+well known to all through their reproduction in Shakespeare's "As You
+Like it." The author of "Rosalynde" was a man of very varied talents
+and experience. The son, it is believed, of a Lord Mayor of London, he
+graduated at Trinity College, Oxford, and followed successively the
+professions of an actor, soldier, lawyer, and physician. In the
+intervals of these occupations, he found time to join in two
+privateering expeditions to the Pacific, and to publish a number of
+literary productions, of which the most successful were dramas and
+poems. He is thought to have died of the plague in 1625.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[89]<a name="page89" id="page89"></a></span>
+"<span class="small">ROSALYNDE. EUPHUES' GOLDEN LEGACIE</span>: <i>Found after his death in his
+cell at Silexedra, Bequeathed to Philantus' sonnes nursed up with their
+Father in England. Fetched from the Canaries by T.L., Gent.</i>" Such is
+the fanciful title of the story which Shakespeare transformed into "As
+You Like it." In the comedy, the characters of Touchstone, Audrey, and
+Jacques are added, but otherwise the dramatist has followed his
+original quite closely. He made use, not infrequently, of the language
+as well as the incidents of Lodge, which in itself is sufficient
+praise. "Rosalynde," is, indeed, a charming tale, containing agreeable
+and well drawn characters, dramatic incidents, and written in an
+elevated strain of dignity and purity. Occasionally, the influence of
+"Euphues" is manifest:&mdash;"Unhappy Saladyne, whom folly hath led to these
+misfortunes, and wanton desires wrapt within the laborinth of these
+calamities. Are not the heavens doomers of men's deedes? And holdes not
+God a ballance in his fist, to reward with favour and revenge with
+justice? Oh, Saladyne, the faults of thy youth, as they were fond, so
+were they foule; and not onely discovering little nourture, but
+blemishing the excellence of nature."</p>
+
+<p>A more natural and attractive passage is the discussion between
+Rosalynde and Alinda,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref65" id="fnref65" href="#fn65">[65]</a></span>
+regarding their escape from court.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Rosalynde began to comfort her, and after shee had wept a fewe kind
+    teares in the bosome of her Alinda, she gave her heartie thankes,
+    and then they sat them downe to consult how they should travel.
+    Alinda grieved at nothing but they might have no man in their
+    company; saying it would be their greatest prejudice in that two
+    women went wandering without either
+    <span class="pagenum">[90]<a name="page90" id="page90"></a></span>guide or attendant. "Tush
+    (quoth Rosalynde), art thou a woman and hast not a sodeine shift to
+    prevent a misfortune? I, thou seest, am of a tall stature, and
+    would very wel become the person and apparel of a Page: thou shalt
+    bee my mistresse, and I wil play the man so properly, that (trust
+    me) in what company so ever I come I will not be discovered: I wil
+    buy me a suite, and have my Rapier very handsomely at my side, and
+    if any knave offer wrong, your Page wil shew him the poynt of his
+    weapon."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Shakespeare has followed this scene very closely in "As You Like It."</p>
+
+<div class="drama">
+<div class="dialogue">
+    <span class="char"><i>Ros.</i></span>
+    Alas, what danger will it be to us,<br />
+    Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!<br />
+    Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
+</div>
+<br />
+<div class="dialogue">
+    <span class="char"><i>Cel.</i></span>
+    I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,<br />
+    And with a kind of umber smirch my face;<br />
+    The like do you; so shall we pass along<br />
+    And never stir assailants
+</div>
+<br />
+<div class="dialogue">
+    <span class="char"><i>Ros.</i></span>
+    <div style="margin-bottom:0; margin-top:0; margin-left:11em; position: relative;">Were it not better,</div>
+    Because that I am more than common tall,<br />
+    That I did suit me all points like a man?<br />
+    A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh.<br />
+    A boar spear in my hand; and in my heart,<br />
+    Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will,&mdash;<br />
+    We'll have a swashing and a martial outside.<br />
+    As many other mannish cowards have<br />
+    That do outface it with their semblances.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref66" id="fnref66" href="#fn66">[66]</a></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The most brilliant and characteristic work of fiction belonging to the
+Elizabethan era composed by a man who was himself regarded by his
+contemporaries as the embodiment of all the qualities they most loved
+and admired. During the three hundred years which have
+<span class="pagenum">[91]<a name="page91" id="page91"></a></span>elapsed since
+the death of Sir Philip Sidney, the same enthusiastic praise has
+accompanied the mention of his name. Sir William Temple, writing in a
+critical time, and when the effect of Sidney's personal character need
+no longer have biassed a literary judgment, pronounced Sir Philip to be
+"the greatest poet and the noblest genius of any that have left
+writings behind them."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref67" id="fnref67" href="#fn67">[67]</a></span>
+Such were the words of a man of genius, who
+was acquainted with the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Spenser.
+While all admirers of Sidney must regret a praise of his literary
+abilities so exaggerated and mistaken, the eulogies which have been
+lavished upon his personal character have never been thought to surpass
+the worth of their object. Sir Philip Sidney, in the short life
+allotted to him, had added to his personal beauty and amiable
+disposition all that was most fitted to win the admiration of his time.
+His rare accomplishments, his chivalrous manners and unusual powers of
+conversation made him so great a favorite at court, that it was the
+pride of Elizabeth to call him "her Philip." A considerable knowledge
+of military affairs, and a fearless gallantry in battle, combined, with
+Sidney's genial disposition, to win for him the universal affection of
+the army. The violence of the Middle Ages lingers in Sir Philip's angry
+words to his father's secretary: "Mr. Molyneux, if ever I know you to
+do so much as read any letter I write to my father, without his
+commandment or my consent, I will thrust my dagger into you. And trust
+to it, for I speak it in earnest." But the spirit of generosity and
+self-sacrifice, which we are also accustomed to associate with mediæval
+knighthood, was realized in the famous scene on the battle-field before
+Zutphen. With good natural talents and
+<span class="pagenum">[92]<a name="page92" id="page92"></a></span>an untiring industry, Sir
+Philip acquired a knowledge of science, of languages, and of
+literature, which gave him a reputation abroad as well as at home. The
+learned Languet relinquished his regular duties without prospect of
+pecuniary reward "to be a nurse of knowledge to this hopeful young
+gentleman."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref68" id="fnref68" href="#fn68">[68]</a></span>
+The regrets of the universities at Sidney's death
+filled three volumes with academic eulogies. But a better testimony
+than these volumes to the general admiration for Sidney's talents, and
+to his position as a patron of literature, is to be found in the
+beautiful lines in which Spenser lamented his benefactor, and in two
+sentences by poor Tom Nash<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref69" id="fnref69" href="#fn69">[69]</a></span>,
+who knew but too well the value of what
+he and his fellow-laborers had lost: "Gentle Sir Philip Sidney, thou
+knewest what belonged to a scholar; thou knewest what pains, what toil,
+what travel conduct to perfection; well could'st thou give every virtue
+his encouragement, every art his due, every writer his desert, cause
+none more virtuous, witty, or learned than thyself. But thou art dead
+in thy grave, and has left too few successors of thy glory, too few to
+cherish the sons of the Muses, or water those budding hopes with their
+plenty, which thy bounty erst planted." The public manifestations of
+grief at Sidney's death, and the rivalry of two nations for the
+possession of his remains, seem to have proceeded rather from the fame
+of his personal virtues than from the accomplishment of great
+achievements. It was recorded on the tomb of the learned Dr. Thornton
+that he had been "the tutor of Sir Philip Sidney," and Lord Brooke
+caused the inscription to be placed over his own grave: "Fulke
+Greville, servant to Queen Elizabeth, counsellor to King James, and
+friend to Sir Philip Sidney."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[93]<a name="page93" id="page93"></a></span>
+The work of a man who belonged so thoroughly to his own time, and who
+united in himself talents and virtues so remarkable could hardly fail
+to be of historical interest. Such is the value now belonging to the
+"Arcadia"&mdash;a work unrivalled in its own day, and deserving the
+admiration of the present, but which has been left behind in the great
+advance of English prose fiction. In the courtly pages of the "Arcadia"
+are brilliantly reflected the lofty strain of sentiment characteristic
+of Elizabeth's time, and the chivalry, the refinement, and the
+impetuosity of if its noble author. "Heere have you now," wrote Sir
+Philip to his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, "most deare, and most
+worthy to be most deare Ladie, this idle worke of mine. * * * Youre
+deare self can best witnesse the manner, being done in loose sheetes of
+paper, most of it in your presence, the rest by sheetes sent unto you,
+as fast as they were done." It would be tedious to the reader to
+receive a detailed description of the story which extends through the
+four hundred and eighty pages of Sidney's folio. The plot turns on the
+fulfilment of a Delphian prophecy, in fear of which Basilius, king of
+Arcadia, retires to a forest with his wife and two daughters. One
+daughter, Philoclea, lives with her father Basilius, and the other,
+Pamela, is confided to the care of Dametas, a country fellow, in the
+service of Basilius, who lives close by with his wife. Pyrocles, prince
+of Macedon, and Musidorus, prince of Thessaly, are wrecked on the coast
+of Arcadia, where they soon become enamored of the two daughters of
+Basilius. To the better attainment of their ends, Pyrocles obtains
+admittance to the house of Basilius in the disguise of an Amazon, and
+Musidorus enters the service of Dametas in the character of a shepherd.
+<span class="pagenum">[94]<a name="page94" id="page94"></a></span>
+The story which is unrolled in the remainder of the work relates the
+extraordinary occurrences which are necessary to the fulfilment of the
+Delphian prophecy, together with the intrigues and adventures of the
+young lovers. Shipwrecks, attacks by pirates, rescues, journeys through
+Arcadia among poetic shepherds, a war with the Helots, through forests
+and carving sonnets on trees,&mdash;such are the scenes which succeed each
+other with unending variety. On the arrival of Pyrocles and Musidorus
+in Arcadia, the reader is introduced to that ideal land, never more
+happily described than by Sidney's pen<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref70" id="fnref70" href="#fn70">[70]</a></span>:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>The third day after, in the time that the Morning did strow roses
+    and violets in the heavenly floore against the comming of the
+    sunne, the Nightingales, (striving one with the other which could
+    in most daintie varietie recount their wrong caused sorrow,) made
+    them put off their sleepe, and rising from under a tree, (which
+    that night had bin their pavillion,) they went on their journey,
+    which by and by welcomed Musidorus eies (wearied with the wasted
+    soile of Laconia) with delightfull prospects. There were hills
+    which garnished their proud heights with stately trees: humble
+    vallies, whose base estate seemed comforted with the refreshing of
+    silver rivers: medowes, enameled with all sorts of eie pleasing
+    flowers; thickets, which being lined with most pleasant shade, were
+    witnessed so too, by the cheerfull disposition of manie well tuned
+    birds: each pasture stored with sheep feeding with sober securitie,
+    while the prettie lambes with bleating oratorie craved the dammes
+    comfort: here a shepheards boy piping, as though he should never be
+    old: there a young shepheardesse knitting, and withall singing, and
+    it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to worke, and her
+    hands kept time to her voice's
+    <span class="pagenum">[95]<a name="page95" id="page95"></a></span>musick.
+    As for the houses of the
+    country, (for manie houses came under their eye,) they were all
+    scattered, no two being one by th' other, and yet not so farre off
+    as that it barred mutuall succour: a shew, as it were, of an
+    accompanable solitarinesse, and of a civill wildeness.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Amid such scenes dwell Basilius and his wife, whose two daughters are
+described by Sidney in language unsurpassed for delicacy and charm.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Of these two are brought to the world two daughters, so beyond
+    measure excellent in all the gifts allotted to reasonable
+    creatures, that we may thinke they were borne to shew, that nature
+    is no stepmother to that sexe, how much so ever some men (sharp
+    witted onely in evill speaking) have sought to disgrace them. The
+    elder is named Pamela, by many men not deemed inferiour to her
+    sister: for my part, when I marked them both, me thought there was,
+    (if at least such perfections may receive the word of more,) more
+    sweetness in Philoclea, but more majestie in Pamela: mee thought
+    love plaied in Philoclea's eies, &amp; threatened in Pamela's; me
+    thought Philoclea's beautie only perswaded, but so perswaded that
+    all hearts must yield; Pamela's beautie used violence, and such
+    violence as no heart could resist. And it seems that such
+    proportion is betweene their mindes; Philoclea so bashfull, as
+    though her excellencies had stolne into her before she was aware,
+    so humble, that she will put all pride out of countenance; in
+    summe, such proceeding as will stirre hope, but teach hope good
+    maners. Pamela of high thoughts, who avoids not pride with not
+    knowing her excellencies, but by my making that one of her
+    excellencies to be void of pride: her mother's wisdome, greatnesse,
+    nobilitie, but (if I can guesse aright) knit with a more constant
+    temper.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref71" id="fnref71" href="#fn71">[71]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The description of an envious man in the second
+book,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref72" id="fnref72" href="#fn72">[72]</a></span>
+<span class="pagenum">[96]<a name="page96" id="page96"></a></span>which
+suggested to Sir Richard Steele his essay in the nineteenth number of
+the <i>Spectator</i>, is another good example of Sidney's ability in
+delineating character. The passage in which Musidorus is represented
+showing off the paces of his horse,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref73" id="fnref73" href="#fn73">[73]</a></span>
+a subject especially adapted to
+excite the best effort of the author, is a very remarkable effort of
+descriptive power, for the insertion of which, unfortunately, space is
+wanting here. Sidney might have quoted his description of Pamela
+sewing, to justify his belief that "It is not rhyming and versing that
+maketh poesy":</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Pamela, who that day having wearied her selfe with reading, * * * was
+    working upon a purse certaine roses and lillies. * * * The flowers
+    shee had wrought caried such life in them, that the cunningest
+    painter might have learned of her needle: which, with so pretty a
+    manner, made his careers to &amp; fro through the cloth, as if the needle
+    it selfe would haue been loth to haue gone fromward such a mistresse,
+    but that it hoped to returne thitherward very quickly againe; the
+    cloth looking with many eyes vpon her, and louingly embracing the
+    wounds she gaue it: the sheares also were at hand to behead the silke
+    that was growne too short. And if at any time shee put her mouth to
+    bite it off, it seemed, that where she had beene long in making of
+    a rose with her hands, she would in an instant make roses with her
+    lips; as the lillies seemed to haue their whitenesse rather of the
+    hand that made them, than of the matter whereof they were made;
+    &amp; that they grew there by the suns of her eyes, and were refreshed
+    by the most * * * comfortable ayre, which an unawares sigh might
+    bestow upon them.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref74" id="fnref74" href="#fn74">[74]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Charles I. passed many hours of his prison life in reading the
+"Arcadia," and Milton<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref75" id="fnref75" href="#fn75">[75]</a></span>
+accused him of stealing a <span class="pagenum">[97]<a name="page97" id="page97"></a></span>
+prayer of Pamela
+to insert in the "Eikon Basilike": "And that in no serious book, but
+the vain amatorious poem of Sir Philip Sidney's 'Arcadia'; a book in
+that kind, full of worth and wit, but among religious thoughts and
+duties not worthy to be named: nor to be read at any time without good
+caution, much less in time of trouble and affliction to be a
+Christian's prayerbook." This prayer is in itself so beautiful, coming
+from the lips of Pamela, and the greater part of it suits so perfectly
+the unhappy circumstances of King Charles, that at the risk of unduly
+multiplying our extracts from the "Arcadia," it will be inserted
+here:&mdash;</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>And therewith kneeling downe, euen where shee stood, she thus said:
+    O All-seeing Light, and eternall Life of all things, to whom
+    nothing is either so great, that it may resist; or so small, that
+    it is condemned: looke vpon my misery with thine eye of mercie, and
+    let thine infinite power vouchsafe to limite out some proportion of
+    deliuerance vnto me, as to thee shall seeme most conuenient. Let
+    not injurie, O Lord, triumph ouer me, and let my faults by thy hand
+    bee corrected, and make not mine vnjust enemy the minister of thy
+    justice. But yet, my God, if in thy wisdome this be the aptest
+    chastisement for my vnexcusable folly: if this low bondage be
+    fittest to my ouerhigh desires: if the pride of my not inough
+    humble heart be thus to be broken, O Lord I yeeld vnto thy will,
+    and joyfully embrace what sorrow thou will haue mee suffer. Onely
+    thus much let me craue of thee, (let my crauing, O Lord, be
+    accepted of thee, since euen that proceeds from thee,) let me
+    craue, euen by the noblest title, which in my greatest affliction I
+    may give myself, that I am thy creature, and by thy goodness (which
+    is thyselfe) that thou wilt suffer some beame of thy Majestie so to
+    shine into my minde, that it may still depend confidently on thee.
+    Let calamitie be the exercise, but not the ouerthrow or my vertue;
+    let their power preuaile, but preuaile not to
+    <span class="pagenum">[98]<a name="page98" id="page98"></a></span>destruction; let my
+    greatnesse be their pray; let my paine bee the sweetnesse of there
+    reuenge: let them, (if so it seeme good vnto thee) vexe me with
+    more and more punishment. But, O Lord, let neuer their wickednesse
+    haue such a hand, but that I may cary a pure minde in a pure body.
+    (And pausing a while.) And O most gracious Lord, (said she) what
+    euer become of me, preserve the vertuous
+    Musidorus.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref76" id="fnref76" href="#fn76">[76]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The "Arcadia" combines the elements of both the chivalric and the
+pastoral romance. Sidney's familiarity with the legends of Arthur,
+together with his own gallantry and love of adventure, peculiarly
+adapted him to describe martial scenes. But the chivalry of Sir Philip
+is not more apparent where he describes the shock of arms than where,
+with such exquisite delicacy, he writes of women. The student of
+English fiction would fain linger long over the pages which describe
+the loves of Pamela and Philoclea. For when these pages are laid aside,
+it is long before he may again meet with the poetry, the manly and
+womanly sentiment, and the pure yet stirring passion which adorn the
+romance of Elizabeth's Philip. Three centuries have passed away since
+the "Arcadia" was written, and we who live at the end of this period
+not unjustly congratulate ourselves on our superior civilization and
+refinement. And yet in all this time we have arrived of no higher
+conception of feminine virtue or chivalrous manhood than is to be found
+in this sixteenth-century romance, and during one half of these three
+hundred years there was to be seen so little trace of such a
+conception, whether in life or in literature, that the word love seemed
+to have lost its nobler meaning and to stand for no more than animal
+desire. There is not in English <span class="pagenum">[99]<a name="page99" id="page99"></a></span>
+fiction a more charming picture of
+feminine modesty than that of Pamela hiding her love for Musidorus.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>How delightfull soeuer it was, my delight might well bee in my
+    soule, but it neuer wente to looke out of the window to doe him any
+    comforte. But how much more I found reason to like him, the more I
+    set all the strength of my minde to conceale it. * * * Full often
+    hath my breast swollen with keeping my sighes imprisoned: full
+    often have the teares I draue back from mine eyes turned back to
+    drowne my heart. But, alas, what did that helpe poore
+    Dorus?<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref77" id="fnref77" href="#fn77">[77]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Hardly less beautiful is the gradual yielding, through pity, of
+Pamela's maidenly heart.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>This last dayes danger having made Pamela's loue discerne what a
+    losse it should haue suffered if Dorus had beene destroyed, bred
+    such tendernesse of kindnesse in her toward him, that she could no
+    longer keepe loue from looking out through her eyes, and going
+    forth in her words; whom before as a close prisoner, shee had to
+    her heart onely committed: so as finding not onely by his speeches
+    and letters, but by the pitifull oration of a languishing behaviour,
+    and the easily deciphered character of a sorrowfull face, that
+    despaire began now to threaten him destruction, she grew content
+    both to pitie him, and let him see shee pitied him. * * * by making
+    her owne beautifull beames to thaw away the former ycinesse of her
+    behaviour.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref78" id="fnref78" href="#fn78">[78]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That portion of the "Arcadia" which relates to pastoral life owes its
+origin to Spanish and Portuguese works. But there were not wanting to
+Sidney's experience actual examples of that peaceful existence to
+which, in troubled times, men have so often turned as a pleasing
+contrast to their own cares, and dangers. The shepherds of the Sussex
+Downs, pursuing through centuries their
+<span class="pagenum">[100]<a name="page100" id="page100"></a></span>simple vocation, unheeded by
+the world, untouched by revolution or civil war, tended their sheep
+with little thought or knowledge of the world beyond the downs, and
+presented to the poet a picture of calm content, in pleasing contrast
+to the active or terrible incidents which more frequently made up the
+sum both of romance and of actual life. The shepherds of the "Arcadia"
+make even less pretence to reality than the martial heroes. They are
+usually poets and musicians; speaking in courtly phrases, and occupied
+with amorous adventures, they serve sometimes to relieve, and sometimes
+to heighten, the more stirring scenes.</p>
+
+<p>A third element in the "Arcadia" is the comic, and with this, as might
+be expected from the rather crude ideas of humor prevalent in the
+sixteenth century, Sidney met with indifferent success. The wit depends
+on the ugliness, the perversity, and the clownish character of Dametas,
+his wife, and their daughter Mopsa. It partakes of the nature of the
+practical joke, and though it no doubt amused the courtiers of
+Elizabeth, is too clumsy for a more cultivated taste. But although
+Sidney's comic scenes may no longer amuse, it must be said that they
+are free from the low coarseness and ribaldry which have furnished
+merriment to times which pretended to a much higher standard of wit and
+education than his own. An interesting contrast may be made between a
+comic passage of the "Arcadia,"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref79" id="fnref79" href="#fn79">[79]</a></span>
+representing a fight between two
+cowards, and perhaps the only scene in the "Morte d'Arthur" of
+humorous intent,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref80" id="fnref80" href="#fn80">[80]</a></span>&mdash;that
+in which King Mark is ignominiously put to
+flight by Arthur's court fool disguised in the armor of a knight.</p>
+
+<p>In the history of English literature, Sir Philip Sidney's
+<span class="pagenum">[101]<a name="page101" id="page101"></a></span>romance will
+always have a prominent place as the first specimen of a fine prose
+style. The affectations and mannerisms which are its chief defect were
+due to the unsettled condition of the language, and to the influence of
+foreign works, which the general love of learning had made familiar to
+cultivated Englishmen. The position of the "Arcadia" in fiction is
+established by the exquisite descriptions of nature and the life-like
+sketches of character which will often reward the patient reader. That
+prolixity, which more than any other cause has made the work obsolete,
+and, as a whole, unreadable, was a recommendation rather than an
+objection at the time of publication. The "Arcadia," standing almost
+alone in the department of fiction, and far superior to its few
+competitors, took the place of a small circulating library. A spirit of
+lofty ideality pervades the work of Sir Philip Sidney, which is
+expressive of the aspirations of his time. In the fictions of that age
+is to be seen a constant attempt, not always successful, to dignify
+life, to exalt the beautiful, and to conceal or condemn the base.
+Everyday life was not tempting to the writer, because it contained too
+much that was repulsive. The story teller and the poet painted amid
+unreal scenes that happiness and virtue which they thought more easily
+to be conceived in an ideal land of knights and shepherds, than amidst
+the cares and dangers of their own existence.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref81" id="fnref81" href="#fn81">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn57" id="fn57" href="#fnref57">[57]</a></span>
+Paine's "History of English Literature," book iii, ch. 1.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn58" id="fn58" href="#fnref58">[58]</a></span>
+Nichol's "Progresses," vol. I, p. 3.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn59" id="fn59" href="#fnref59">[59]</a></span>
+The Italian tales were issued in various collections,
+such as Painter's "Palace of Pleasure," Whetstone's "Heptameron," the
+"Histories" of Goulard and Grimstone. One of the best of these
+collections is "Westward for Smelts," by Kinde Kit of Kingstone, circa
+1603, reprinted by the Percy Society. It is on the same plan as
+Boccaccio's "Decamerone," except that the story-tellers are fish-wives
+going up the Thames in a boat. Imitations of the Italian tales may be
+found in Hazlitt's "Shakespeare's Library," notably "Romeo and
+Julietta." Most of these are modernized versions of old tales. I may
+here add, as undeserving further mention, such stories as "Jacke of
+Dover's Quest of Inquirie," 1601, Percy Soc.; "A Search for Money," by
+William Rowley, dramatist, 1609, Percy Soc.; and "The Man in the Moone,
+or the English Fortune-Teller," 1609, Percy Soc.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn60" id="fn60" href="#fnref60">[60]</a></span>
+The most comprehensive remarks on Lyly and "Euphues" are
+to be found in the <i>London Quarterly Review</i> for April, 1801, and are
+due to Mr. Henry Morley.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn61" id="fn61" href="#fnref61">[61]</a></span>
+Henry Peacham, "Compleat Gentleman." See Drake's
+"Shakespeare and his Times."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn62" id="fn62" href="#fnref62">[62]</a></span>
+Shakespeare ridiculed the affectations of contemporary
+language in "Love's Labour Lost." Among the characters of Ben Jonson
+are some good Euphuists. In "Every Man out of his Humour," Fallace says
+(act v, sc. x), "O, Master Brisk, as 'tis said in Euphues, Hard is the
+choice, when one is compelled, either by silence to die with grief, or
+by speaking to live with shame." In "The Monastery," a novel which the
+author himself considered a failure, Sir Walter Scott represented a
+Euphuist. But the language of Sir Piercie Shafton is entirely devoid of
+the characteristics of Euphuism, and gives a very false impression
+concerning it. (See introduction to "The Monastery.") Compare passages
+quoted in the text with one in chap. xiv ("Monastery") beginning: "Ah,
+that I had with me my Anatomy of Wit." Also <i>passim</i>.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn63" id="fn63" href="#fnref63">[63]</a></span>
+The lines quoted from the "Winter's Tale" are in act iv,
+sc. 3. For Greene's words see "Dorastus and Fawnia," in Hazlitt's
+"Shakespeare's Library," part I, vol. 4, p. 62. The resemblance between
+the two passages is pointed out by Dunlop ("History of Fiction," p.
+404). Collier in his introduction to "Dorastus and Fawnia" denied this
+obligation of Shakespeare to Greene. But he was evidently led into this
+error by liking the following passage, instead of the one quoted in the
+text, for the foundation of Shakespeare's lines: "The gods above
+disdaine not to love women beneathe. Phoebus liked Sibilla: Jupiter Io;
+and why not I, then Fawnia?"
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn64" id="fn64" href="#fnref64">[64]</a></span>
+Another of Greene's tales, possessing much the same
+merits and the same defects as those already mentioned is "Never too
+Late."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn65" id="fn65" href="#fnref65">[65]</a></span>
+Shakespeare's Celia.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn66" id="fn66" href="#fnref66">[66]</a></span>
+Act I, sc. 3.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn67" id="fn67" href="#fnref67">[67]</a></span>
+"Miscellanea," part ii, essay iv.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn68" id="fn68" href="#fnref68">[68]</a></span>
+Gray's "Life of Sidney," p. 8.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn69" id="fn69" href="#fnref69">[69]</a></span>
+"Pierce Penniless."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn70" id="fn70" href="#fnref70">[70]</a></span>
+Folio, 1622. p. 6.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn71" id="fn71" href="#fnref71">[71]</a></span>
+Folio, 1622, p. 10.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn72" id="fn72" href="#fnref72">[72]</a></span>
+Folio, p. 130.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn73" id="fn73" href="#fnref73">[73]</a></span>
+Folio, p. 115.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn74" id="fn74" href="#fnref74">[74]</a></span>
+Folio, p. 260.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn75" id="fn75" href="#fnref75">[75]</a></span>
+See an "Answer in 'Eikon Basilike,'" Milton's Works,
+Symmons' ed., v. 2, p. 408.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn76" id="fn76" href="#fnref76">[76]</a></span>
+Folio, p. 248.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn77" id="fn77" href="#fnref77">[77]</a></span>
+Folio, p. 116.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn78" id="fn78" href="#fnref78">[78]</a></span>
+Folio, p. 231.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn79" id="fn79" href="#fnref79">[79]</a></span>
+Book iii.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn80" id="fn80" href="#fnref80">[80]</a></span>
+"Morte d'Arthur," book x, chap. 12.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn81" id="fn81" href="#fnref81">[81]</a></span>
+A Scotchman named Barclay published a partly political
+and partly heroic volume called "Argenis" in 1621. It was much
+commended by Cowper the poet, but being written in Latin, is hardly to
+be included in English fiction. See Dunlop, chap. x. Francis Godwin
+wrote a curious story about 1602, called "The Man in the Moon," in
+which is described the journey of one Domingo Gonzales to that planet.
+Dunlop ("Hist. of Fiction") thought Domingo to be the real author. See
+chapter xiii. This romance is chiefly remarkable for its scientific
+speculations, and the adoption by the author of the Copernican theory.
+It was translated into French, and imitated by Cyrano de Bergerac, who
+in his turn was imitated by Swift in Brobdignag. See Hallam, "Lit. of
+Europe," vol 3, p. 393.
+</div>
+
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<span class="pagenum">[102]<a name="page102" id="page102"></a></span>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PURITANS. BUNYAN'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS."</h3>
+
+
+<h4>I.</h4>
+
+<p>The renaissance of learning, with its delight in a sense of existence,
+its enjoyment of a new life, a newly acquired knowledge, and a
+quickened intelligence, was gradually supplanted by that renaissance of
+religion which followed the general introduction of the Bible among the
+English people. Weary of the oppression of the clergy, weary of giving
+an often ruinous obedience to the tyranny of men whose lives gave them
+no claim to control the conduct of others, the early Puritan found in
+the Bible the knowledge of God and the means of grace which he
+despaired of obtaining from the priest. The Bible became in reality
+<i>The Book</i>. It was the one volume possessed and read by the people at
+large. The classical authors, the volumes of translations issued in
+Elizabeth's time, the productions, even, of English genius had been
+familiar only to the upper and best-educated classes. The great body of
+the people were without books, and the Bible became their one literary
+resource, and the sole teacher of the conditions by which salvation
+could be attained. It was seized upon with extraordinary avidity and
+enthusiasm. Old men learned to read, that they might study it for
+themselves. Crowds gathered in churches and private houses to hear it
+read aloud. <span class="pagenum">[103]<a name="page103" id="page103"></a></span>
+A good reader became a public benefactor. Alike in manor
+and in cottage, the family gathered at night to listen with awe-struck
+interest to the solemn words whose grandeur was not yet lessened by
+familiarity. As we quote, often unconsciously, from a hundred different
+authors, the Puritans quoted from their one
+book.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref82" id="fnref82" href="#fn82">[82]</a></span> Some, like
+Bunyan, at first preferred the historical chapters. But the Bible soon
+came to have a far more powerful and absorbing interest than any of a
+literary nature. There men looked for their sentence of eternal life or
+eternal torment. There they sought the solution of the question: "What
+shall I do to be saved?" And they sought it with all the fervor of
+conscientious men who realized, as we cannot realize, the doctrine of
+eternal damnation. To understand the influence of the Bible, we must
+remember how completely men believed in a personal God, ruling England
+then, as He had ruled Israel of old; and in a devil who stalked through
+the world luring men to their perdition. The Bible was studied with a
+fearful eagerness for the way to please the one and to escape the
+other. Looked upon as the word of God, pointing out the only means of
+salvation, men placed themselves, through the Bible, in direct
+communication with the Deity, and, casting aside the authority of a
+church, acknowledged responsibility to Him alone. The difficulty of
+interpreting obscure portions of the Scriptures drove many to frenzy
+and despair. A hopeful or consoling passage was hailed with joy. "Happy
+are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." "Lo," wrote Tyndale,
+"here God hath made a covenant wyth us, to mercy full unto us, yf we
+wyll be mercy full one to another."</p>
+
+<p>Thus two ideas became paramount: the idea of God,
+<span class="pagenum">[104]<a name="page104" id="page104"></a></span>and the idea of
+conscience. God was thought of as a judge who will reward His chosen
+servants by eternal happiness, but who will deliver those who do not
+know Him, or those who sin against His laws, to Satan and everlasting
+fire; a God to please whom is the first object of this life, as no
+pleasure and no pain here can compare with the pleasure or pain to
+come. This conception of the Deity still survives among us, but it is
+not realized with the intensity of men who feel the hand of God in
+every incident of their lives, who fancy that the Devil in person is
+among them, and who distinctly hear his tempting words. Conscience, the
+guide who pointed out the path of rectitude, became strict and
+self-searching, ever looking inwardly, and judging harshly, magnifying,
+through the greatness of its ideal of virtue, every failing into a
+crime. The natural result of these ideas seething in a brain which had
+little other food was Puritanism: the subordination of all other
+interests of life to the attainment of a spiritual condition acceptable
+in the sight of God. Following this aim with feverish intentness, and
+tortured by a conscience of extreme tenderness, the Puritans naturally
+cast aside the pleasures of this life as likely to interfere with the
+attainment of future happiness, and as worthless compared to it. It was
+no time for gaiety and trifling when the horrors of hell were staring
+them in the face.</p>
+
+<p>There is extant a life-like picture of a London housewife, which can
+teach us much regarding the spirit of
+Puritanism.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref83" id="fnref83" href="#fn83">[83]</a></span> "She was very
+loving and obedient to her parents, loving and kind to her husband,
+very tender-hearted to her children, loving all that were godly, much
+<span class="pagenum">[105]<a name="page105" id="page105"></a></span>
+misliking the wicked and profane. She was a pattern of sobriety unto
+many, very seldom was seen abroad, except at church. When others
+recreated themselves, at holidays and other times, she would take her
+needlework, and say, 'here is my recreation.'"</p>
+
+<p>The self-denial of this virtuous housewife developed into that
+austerity which, when Puritanism had become the ruling power in
+England, closed the theatre and the bear-garden, stopped the dancing on
+the village green, and assumed a dress and manner, the sombreness of
+which was meant to signify a scorn of this world. While we can now
+easily perceive the mistakes of the Puritans, and condemn the folly of
+prohibiting innocent amusements which form a natural outlet for
+exuberant spirits, it will be well if we can do justice to the nobility
+of aim, and the greatness of self-sacrifice, to which their austerity
+was due. We must remember that the aim of the Puritans was a godliness
+far more exacting than that which we seek, and requiring a
+proportionate sacrifice of immediate pleasure. We must remember, too,
+that the amusements of that time were in large part brutal, like the
+bear-gardens; and licentious, like most of the theatres. Puritanism
+could only exist among men filled to an uncommon degree with a love of
+virtue, who were ready to undergo every hardship, and to sacrifice
+every personal inclination to attain it. Growing up among the people at
+large, Puritanism showed a strong national love of religion and
+morality. The resolution with which its devotees pursued their aims,
+the serene content with which the martyrs welcomed the flames which
+were to open the gates of Heaven, were backed by a strength of faith
+not exceeded by that of the early Christians. The self-control and
+self-sacrifice of the Puritans moulded the
+<span class="pagenum">[106]<a name="page106" id="page106"></a></span>armies of the Commonwealth,
+and overthrew the tyranny of Charles. But their finer qualities were
+clouded by the fanaticism which a long persecution had engendered. A
+phrase in our description of the London housewife unconsciously tells
+the story: "Loving all that were godly, much misliking the wicked and
+profane." The godly were the sharers of her own faith, the "wicked and
+profane" were all those without its pale. Here lay the weakness of
+Puritanism: its narrowness, its lack of sympathy with the world at
+large, its indifference to the sufferings of those who had no place in
+the ranks of the elect.</p>
+
+<p>Among such men we must look in vain for literary productions having the
+aim of entertainment. The literature of the time was chiefly polemical,
+and commentaries crowded on the book-shelves the volumes of classical
+and Italian writers. To Puritanism, fiction was the invention of the
+Evil One, but still to Puritanism we owe, what is now, and seems
+destined ever to remain, the finest allegory in the English language.</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn82" id="fn82" href="#fnref82">[82]</a></span>
+See Green's "Short History of the English People," chap.
+viii, sec. 1.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn83" id="fn83" href="#fnref83">[83]</a></span>
+John Wallington's description of his mother. Green's
+"Short History of the English People," p. 451.
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>II.</h4>
+
+<p>That John Bunyan, a poor, illiterate tinker, was able to take the first
+place among writers of allegory, and to accomplish the extraordinary
+intellectual feat of producing a work which charmed alike the ignorant,
+who could not perceive its literary merits, and cultivated critics, who
+viewed it only from a literary standpoint, depended partly on his own
+natural gifts, and partly on the character of Puritan thought. To write
+a good allegory requires an imagination of unusual power. It requires,
+in addition, a realization of the subject sufficiently strong to give
+to immaterial and shadowy forms a living personality.
+<span class="pagenum">[107]<a name="page107" id="page107"></a></span>These conditions
+were combined in Bunyan's case to an unexampled degree. He possessed an
+imagination the activity of which would have unsettled the reason of
+any less powerfully constituted man. His subject, the doctrine of
+salvation by grace, was, by the absorbing interest then attached to it,
+impressed upon his mind with a vividness difficult to conceive. In
+"Grace Abounding in the Chief of Sinners," Bunyan left a description of
+his life, and the workings of his mind on religious subjects, which is
+without a parallel in autobiography. The veil which hides the thoughts
+of one man from another is withdrawn, and the reader is placed in the
+closest communion with the mind of the writer. In "Grace Abounding" is
+easily detected the secret of Bunyan's success in allegory. "My sins
+did so offend the Lord, that even in my childhood He did scare and
+affright me with fearful dreams, and did terrify me with dreadful
+visions. I have been in my bed greatly afflicted, while asleep, with
+apprehensions of devils and wicked spirits, who still, as I then
+thought, labored to draw me away with them, of which I could never be
+rid. I was afflicted with thoughts of the Day of Judgment, night and
+day, trembling at the thoughts of the fearful torments of hell fire."
+One Sunday, "as I was in the midst of a game at cat, and having struck
+it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to strike it the second
+time, a voice did suddenly dart from heaven into my soul, which said,
+'Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to Heaven, or have thy sins and go to
+Hell?' At this I was put to an exceeding maze; wherefore leaving my cat
+on the ground, and looking up to Heaven, saw, as with the eyes of my
+understanding, Jesus Christ looking down upon me very hotly displeased
+with me, and severely threatening me with some grievous
+<span class="pagenum">[108]<a name="page108" id="page108"></a></span>punishment for
+my ungodly practices. * * * I cannot express with what longing I cried
+to Christ to call me. I saw such glory in a converted state that I
+could not be contented without a share therein. Had I had a whole world
+it had all gone ten thousand times over for this, that my soul might
+have been in a converted state." After Bunyan's conversion he says of
+his conscience: "As to the act of sinning, I was never more tender than
+now. I durst not take up a pin or a stick, though but so big as a
+straw, for my conscience now was sore, and would smart at every touch.
+I could not tell how to speak my words for fear I should misplace
+them."</p>
+
+<p>A man so sensitive to supernatural impressions could realize them as
+completely as the actual experiences of his daily life. Such, in fact,
+they were. With a conscience so tender, and a longing so intense for
+what he considered a condition of grace, Bunyan described the journey
+of Christian with the minuteness and fidelity of one who had trod the
+same path. The sketch of the pilgrim, which opens the work, stamps
+Christian at once an individual.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a
+    certain place where was a den; and I laid me down in that place to
+    sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I
+    saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his
+    face from his own house, a Book in his hand, and a great burden
+    upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the Book, and read
+    therein; and, as he read, he wept and trembled; and not being able
+    longer to contain, he broke out with a lamentable cry, saying "what
+    shall I do?"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The same impression of reality pervades the whole work. Christian's
+sins take an actual form in the burden on his back. Every personage
+whom he meets on his journey, and every place through which he passes
+appears <span class="pagenum">[109]<a name="page109" id="page109"></a></span>
+to the mind of the reader with the vividness of actual
+experience. The child or the laborer reads the "Pilgrim's Progress" as
+a record of adventures undergone by a living man; the scholar forgets
+the art which has raised the picture before his mind, in a sense of
+contact with the subject portrayed. This is the triumph of a great
+genius, and it is a triumph to which no other writer has attained to
+the same degree. Other allegorists have pleased the fancy or gratified
+the understanding, but Bunyan occupies at once the imagination, the
+reason and the heart of his reader. Defoe's power of giving life to
+fictitious scenes and personages has not been surpassed by that of any
+other novelist. But Defoe's scenes and characters were of a nature
+familiar to his readers, and therefore easily realized. In the
+"Pilgrim's Progress," strange and unreal regions become well-known
+places, and moral qualities distinct human beings. Evangelist, who puts
+Christian on the way to the Wicked Gate; Pliable, who deserts him at
+the first difficulty; Help, who pulls him out of the Slough of Despond;
+Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who shows him an easy way to be rid of his burden,
+are all life-like individuals. Timorous, Talkative, Vain Confidence,
+Giant Despair, are not mere personifications, but distinct human beings
+with whom every reader of the "Pilgrim's Progress" feels an intimate
+acquaintance. Not less real is the impression produced by the various
+scenes through which the journey of Christian conducts him. The Slough
+of Despond, the Wicket Gate, the House of the Interpreter, the Hill
+Difficulty, have been familiar localities to many generations of men,
+who have watched Christian's struggle with Apollyon in the Valley of
+Humiliation, and followed his footsteps as they trod the Valley of the
+<span class="pagenum">[110]<a name="page110" id="page110"></a></span>
+Shadow of Death, as they passed through the dangers of Vanity Fair,
+and brought him at last to the Celestial City, and the welcome of the
+Shining Ones.</p>
+
+<p>The "Pilgrim's Progress" and the "Holy War" are not as allegories
+entirely perfect, but they probably gain in religious effect, as much
+as they lose from a literary point of view, in those passages where the
+allegorical disguise is not sustained. The simplicity and power of
+their language are alone sufficient to give them an important place in
+English literature. Throughout the "Pilgrim's Progress" are evidences
+of a strong human sympathy, and a kindly indulgence on the part of the
+author for the weak and erring among his fellow-men. Ignorance, to be
+sure, is cast into the bottomless pit; but as the work taught a
+spiritual perfection, it could not afford to encourage the willingly
+ignorant by bestowing a pardon on their representative. Bunyan himself
+was distinguished for a general sympathy with his fellow-men which the
+narrowness of Puritanism had failed to impair. The sad words in which
+he mourned, while in prison, his long separation from his wife and
+children, show the natural tenderness of his disposition, as well as
+the greatness of the sacrifice which he was making for his
+religion:&mdash;"The parting with my wife and poor children hath often been
+to me in this place as the pulling the flesh from my bones; and that
+not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great mercies, but
+also because I often brought to mind the many hardships, miseries, and
+wants that my poor family was like to meet with; especially my poor
+blind child, who lay nearer to my heart than all I had beside."</p>
+
+<p>With the allegories of Bunyan, we leave ideality behind us as a
+characteristic feature of English fiction. The
+<span class="pagenum">[111]<a name="page111" id="page111"></a></span>knights of the Round
+Table, Robin Hood and his merry men, the princes and princesses of the
+"Arcadia," the pilgrim Christian, were the ideal heroes of the
+particular periods to which they belong. They were placed amid the
+scenes which seemed most attractive, and were endowed with the
+qualities which seemed most admirable to the men whose imaginations
+created them. But, with the exception perhaps of Robin Hood, they were
+purely ideal, without prototypes in nature. The writer of fiction had
+not yet turned his attention to the delineation of character, to the
+study of complex social questions, to the portrayal of actual life.
+With the fall of Puritan power, begins a great intellectual change.
+History shows, since the Restoration, a tendency which has continuously
+grown stronger and wider, to subordinate the imagination to the reason
+of man, to withdraw political and social questions from the influence
+of mere tradition, to subject them instead, to the test of practical
+experience, and to encourage the patient physical investigations which
+have resulted in the triumphs of modern science. This tendency has
+pervaded all the channels of human industry. Its effect upon works of
+fiction has been to introduce into that department of literature, a
+spirit of realism, and a love of investigating the problems of life and
+character, which have resulted in the modern novel. Henceforth we shall
+meet no more ideal beings, but men or women, more or less true to
+nature. In the fiction of the Restoration are first observable the new
+tendencies, which, although but slightly marked at first, have finally
+given to the English novel its present importance. An attempt to trace
+the gradual perfection of this form of literature, its development into
+a work of art, into a natural history of men, into a truthful
+reflection of very varied social conditions, will occupy the remainder
+of this volume.</p>
+
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<span class="pagenum">[112]<a name="page112" id="page112"></a></span>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RESTORATION. ROGER BOYLE. MRS. MANLEY. MRS. BEHN.</h3>
+
+
+<h4>I.</h4>
+
+<p>The Puritans had overthrown the political tyranny of Charles, but in
+attempting to build up by force a kingdom of the saints on earth, they
+had established a spiritual tyranny, quite as irksome and quite as
+perishable, of their own. Meanwhile they had failed to preserve the
+reputation for sanctity which formed the chief basis of their
+authority. As soon as they had attained power, they were joined by men
+who professed their principles merely for selfish purposes; who vied
+with each other in presenting to the world the outward signs of
+Puritanism, and remained notoriously profligate in life and character.
+The kingdom of the saints, objectionable as a tyranny, and finally
+identified in the popular mind with a hated hypocrisy, came to its
+inevitable end in the reaction of the Restoration. But when the first
+fury of this reaction had passed away, it was evident that Puritanism
+survived it: no longer a political power, but a moral influence which
+controlled the great body of the people, and gave to English habits and
+literature their distinctive tone of serious morality.</p>
+
+<p>But for the time, all sight of this was lost. The entry of Charles II
+into Whitehall was the sign for unlimited
+<span class="pagenum">[113]<a name="page113" id="page113"></a></span>
+indulgence in all that had
+lately been forbidden. "Chassez le naturel, il revient au
+galop."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref84" id="fnref84" href="#fn84">[84]</a></span>
+The Puritans had pent up for so long the natural cravings for pleasure
+and gaiety, that, when the barriers were withdrawn, license and
+debauchery were necessary to satisfy appetites which a long-enforced
+abstinence had made abnormal. In Vanburgh's "Provoked Wife," a comedy,
+like so many others of the time, at once very immoral and very
+entertaining, Sir John Brute thus excuses the virtues of his early
+life: "I was afraid of being damned in those days; for I kept sneaking,
+cowardly company, fellows that went to church, said grace to their
+meat, and had not the least tincture of quality about them."
+<i>Heartfree</i>: "But I think you have got into a better gang now." <i>Sir
+John</i>: "Zoons, sir, my Lord Rake and I are hand in
+glove."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref85" id="fnref85" href="#fn85">[85]</a></span> In the
+country, people were generally satisfied with getting back their
+May-poles and Sunday games. But in London, where the rule of Puritanism
+had been the strictest, and above all among the courtiers, the new
+liberty resulted in a license and shamelessness unequalled in English
+history.</p>
+
+<p>In the general proscription of Puritan ideas, the good were involved in
+the same destruction as the bad. Religion was mocked at as a cloak for
+hypocrisy, self-restraint was thrown aside as an obstacle to enjoyment.
+It was thought that emancipation from Puritan tyranny could not be
+attained more effectually than by a life of open licentiousness; by
+gambling and drunkenness. Such, under the Restoration, were the
+occupations most attractive to the gentlemen of fashion. Buckingham,
+Rochester, and the troop of courtiers who looked to them for an
+example, spent their lives in sinking into an ever deeper depravity.
+Their thoughts and mouths <span class="pagenum">[114]<a name="page114" id="page114"></a></span>
+were never clean. The verses they wrote are
+too foul to transcribe as an illustration of the taste of their
+composers. The orgies in which they indulged were not scenes of gaiety,
+in which buoyant spirits and lively wit might excuse excess, but were
+serious, bestial, and premeditated. The dealings of these men with the
+female sex were but a succession of low intrigues, which destroyed all
+sentiment and left nothing but disgust behind them. We hear a great
+deal about "love" in the literature of the time, but it is the same
+kind of love that might be found among a herd of cattle. It would be
+difficult to mention any man about the court of Charles II who could
+have appreciated the pure and enduring passion which in the century
+before had breathed through the noble lines of Spenser's
+"Epithalamion," and in the century that followed inspired "John
+Anderson, my jo' John." Charles himself, "the old goat," set an example
+which hardly needed the authority of the Lord's anointed to become
+attractive. Without honor or virtue himself, and denying their
+existence in others, he made a fitting leader of the society about him.
+His mistresses insulted the queen by their splendor and arrogance, and
+insulted him by amours with servants and mountebanks. So destitute of
+dignity or principle as to share the Duchess of Cleveland with the
+world, he coolly asked a courtier who was reputed to be on too intimate
+terms with the queen, how his "mistress" did. While the gaming-tables
+at court were nightly covered with gold, and Lady Castlemaine gambled
+away thousands of pounds at a sitting, the exchequer was closed amid a
+widespread ruin, and the menial servants about the court were in want
+of bread. So openly was the king's coarse licentiousness pursued,
+<span class="pagenum">[115]<a name="page115" id="page115"></a></span>that
+"the very sentrys speak of it," that the queen rarely entered her
+dressing-rooms without first being assured that the king was not there
+with one of his women. Such an example had a powerful influence upon
+all the rank and fashion of the time, already predisposed to a similar
+course. The extent of the prevailing reverence for royalty is admirably
+illustrated by the scene in which the Earl of Arlington advised Miss
+Stewart concerning her conduct as mistress of the king, to which
+position "it had pleased God and her virtue to raise her." Thus from
+the popular dislike of Puritanism, and the example of a profligate
+court, began that reign of social and political corruption which for a
+hundred years demoralized the manners and sullied the literature of the
+English people. The vice which became so engrafted on the habits of
+private life as to make decency seem an affectation, invaded religion
+and politics. To religion it brought about a general indifference,
+which in the higher ranks of the clergy took effect in disregard of
+their duties and in a shameless scramble for lucrative posts, and in
+the lower ranks produced poverty and social degradation. In politics
+are to be dated from this reign the gross corruption which enabled
+every public officer, however high or however low, to use his position
+for the purpose of private plunder, and the habit of bribing members of
+Parliament which soon converted them into tools of the crown's
+ministers.</p>
+
+<p>While the men found their greatest enjoyment and most congenial
+occupation in drunkenness, duelling, and seduction, it is not to be
+expected that women should have retained an unappreciated refinement.
+Half-naked and ornamented with a profusion of jewels, they look out
+from the portraits of the time with a sleepy,
+<span class="pagenum">[116]<a name="page116" id="page116"></a></span>voluptuous expression,
+which suggests a lack of intelligence and too great a susceptibility to
+physical impressions. Women as we find them in contemporary memoirs,
+and these most often deal with such as are about the court, are not
+unfit companions for the men. We see not a few the willing victims of
+coarse intrigues, and some even assisting in the degradation of others
+of their sex. Many of them swore "good mouth filling oaths," and the
+scandal they talked would have shocked the taste as well as the
+principles of Elizabeth's time. In the eighteenth century much
+coarseness is to be seen in literature and society, but we are
+constantly meeting with the words "delicacy" and "indelicacy" in their
+application to social refinement, and it is evident that the ideas of
+that time on this subject differ from ours only in degree. Under the
+Restoration, these words, or the thoughts they represent, had a very
+insignificant existence. Public taste inclined to the gross and the
+sensual, and welcomed as enjoyable, what the present discards as
+disgusting. Ladies of the highest rank sat through plays of which the
+purpose and effect was to degrade their own womanhood, to remove from
+the minds of the men who sat about and watched their countenances at
+each new obscenity, whatever respect for the sex might have lingered
+there. Some wore masks to hide the blushes which might have been looked
+for as a drama proceeded, which represented every female character on
+the stage as little better than an animal, using such reason as she
+possessed only to further the gratification of her appetites. Under
+such conditions there could be no encouragement for maiden modesty, and
+for old age no crown.</p>
+
+<p>It is usually unfair to judge a community by its
+<span class="pagenum">[117]<a name="page117" id="page117"></a></span>theatre, to which an
+exceptional liberty must always be allowed. But the drama of the
+Restoration may be said to reflect with much truth the popular taste.
+For the noblest efforts of dramatic genius the student turns by
+preference to the age of Elizabeth. There he finds art, beauty, and
+poetry; there he finds human nature, with its nobility and its
+littleness, with its virtues and its vices. The time of Charles II was
+as narrow in its way as the Puritans had been in theirs, and was as
+little capable of forming broad and just views of mankind. The
+Puritans, if they had had a stage, would have represented man as an
+embodiment of moral qualities. The dramatists of the Restoration made
+him merely a creature subject to animal desires and brutish instincts,
+which he made no effort to regulate. "It might, not be easy perhaps,"
+says Hallam, "to find a scene in any comedy of Charles II's reign,
+where one character has the behavior of a gentleman, in the sense we
+attach to the word."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref86" id="fnref86" href="#fn86">[86]</a></span>
+The stage was in perfect accord with its
+audience. Morality was outraged by a constant association of virtue
+with all that is contemptible and of vice with all that is attractive.
+Taste was outraged by a perpetual choice of degraded subjects and
+disgusting scenes. Nature was outraged by the representation of man,
+not as a complex being, worthy of deep and skilful investigation, but
+as a creature influenced by two or three passions always apparent on
+the surface. Thus the dramatists, notwithstanding their very
+exceptional abilities, produced little of enduring value, and nothing
+which could outlive a change in the popular taste. They did, however,
+produce what was greatly admired by their contemporaries: and the fact
+<span class="pagenum">[118]<a name="page118" id="page118"></a></span>
+that the men and the women of the time enjoyed the plays provided for
+them, shows that they preferred to noble and elevating subjects, the
+literary reproduction of their own corrupt lives. The theatre no doubt
+represented men as worse than they were. But the friends of Buckingham
+and Rochester, both male and female, found in its long list of
+unprincipled men, of married women debauched, and of young girls
+anxious to be debauched, the reflection and justification of their own
+careers.</p>
+
+<p>Posterity remembers little of the reign or the theatre of Charles II
+beyond their corruption. Yet there is much that is worthy of
+remembrance, without which any remarks on the social condition of the
+time would be one-sided. There are to be referred to that period many
+legislative enactments in the highest degree conducive to civil and
+religious liberty. The foundation of the Royal Society marked the
+inauguration of a new interest in speculative enquiry, of a great
+activity in scientific research, and of a broader and more liberal
+habit of thought on questions connected with government and education.
+These advantages were attained in spite of a worthless king, of corrupt
+ministers, and a licentious court, and they are due to the earnestness
+and vigor of the great body of the English people, qualities which have
+remained unchanged through every national vicissitude or success. While
+Pepys and Grammont supply full details of the moral degeneration which
+weakened and debased the highest ranks of society, the sound morality,
+steady industry, and progressive nature of the nation are to be seen in
+the journal of the good Evelyn. His character and occupations, as well
+as those of his friends, offset the coarse tastes and worthless lives
+which brought <span class="pagenum">[119]<a name="page119" id="page119"></a></span>
+the time into discredit. To the prevailing disregard of
+the marriage tie may well be contrasted the happiness of Evelyn's
+domestic life. His daughter, of whom he has left a beautiful
+description, was endowed with an elevation of character, a charm of
+disposition, and a purity of thought admirable in any age, and it
+cannot be doubted that she had many contemporary parallels.</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn84" id="fn84" href="#fnref84">[84]</a></span>
+Destouches, "Glorieux," v. 3.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn85" id="fn85" href="#fnref85">[85]</a></span>
+Act ii, sc. 1.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn86" id="fn86" href="#fnref86">[86]</a></span>
+"Literature of Europe," vol. 4, chap. 6, sec. 2-47.
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>II.</h4>
+
+<p>With the pensions and fashions which were sent across the Channel from
+the court of Louis XIV, came a curious species of fiction which had a
+temporary vogue in England. Gomberville, Scudéri, and Calprenède had
+created the school of Heroic Romance by the publication of those
+monumental works which the French not inaptly termed "les romans de
+longue haleine." This was the bulky but enervated descendant of
+chivalric and pastoral romance. The tales of chivalry and of pastoral
+life had their <i>raison d'être</i>. The feudal knighthood found in the
+tournaments, in the adventures of knight-errantry, and in the
+supernatural agencies which filled their volumes of romance, the
+reflection of their own aspirations and beliefs. They admired in the
+ideal characters of Charlemagne and Arthur the qualities most valued
+among themselves. Martial glory was to them the chief object of life;
+love was simply the reward of valor. The pastoral romance followed in
+less warlike times. Its subject was love; and that passion was usually
+described amidst humble and peaceful shepherds, where its strength and
+charm could develop more fully than amidst scenes of war and tumult.
+Both the chivalric and the pastoral romance were the embodiment of
+ideals which in turn represented contemporary tastes. But heroic
+romance, <span class="pagenum">[120]<a name="page120" id="page120"></a></span>
+although it shared some of the characteristics of its
+predecessors, had not the same claim to interest. It was unnatural and
+artificial, rather than ideal. It imitated the martial character of the
+tales of chivalry, but subordinated that character to love. It imitated
+the devoted strain of adoration which ran through the fanciful phrases
+of pastoral fiction; but that artificial passion which seemed
+appropriate to ideal shepherds tuning their pipes under a perpetual
+sunshine, became absurd when applied to Greek or Carthaginian soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>Gomberville's "Polexander," complete-in six thousand pages, and
+Calprenède's "Cassandra," "the fam'd romance," are now before me.
+Greeks, Romans, Turks, Parthians, Scythians, Babylonians are mingled
+together in a truly heroic structure of absurdity and anachronism.
+Artaxerxes appears on one page, the queen of the Amazons on the next,
+then the king of Lacedæmon, Alexander the Great, even a prince of
+Mexico, and comparatively private persons beyond computation. This
+crowd of names represent personages who imitate the deeds of chivalry,
+and converse in the affected style of the French court, while their
+ancient bosoms are distracted by a pure, all-absorbing, and never-dying
+love as foreign to their nature as to that of the readers of heroic
+romance. That this species of fiction should have met with any success,
+is largely due to the circumstance, that under the disguise of Greek
+warriors or Parthian princesses, there were really described
+contemporary beauties and courtiers, who fondly believed that they had
+attained, through the genius of Calprenède and Scudéri, an enviable
+immortality. Unhappily for them, the characters of heroic romance have
+found in that endless desert of phraseology at once their birthplace
+and their tomb.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[121]<a name="page121" id="page121"></a></span>
+The works of Gomberville, Calprenède, and Scudéri, although little
+adapted to the English taste, shared the favor which was extended to
+every thing French, and were both translated and imitated. The
+"Eliana," published in 1661; although a <i>bona-fide</i> imitation, would
+have served much better as a caricature. To the absurdity of incident
+is added an absurdity of language which gives the book almost a comic
+aspect. The beauty of flowers growing in the fields is disguised under
+the statement that Flora "spreads her fragrant mantle on the
+superficies of the earth, and bespangles the verdant grass with her
+beauteous adornments." A lover "enters a grove free from the
+frequentations of any besides the ranging beasts and pleasing birds,
+whose dulcet notes exulsecrate him out of his melancholy
+contemplations."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref87" id="fnref87" href="#fn87">[87]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dunlop considered the best work of this description to be the
+"Parthenissa," published in 1664, by Roger Boyle, afterward Earl of
+Orrery. This romance, although marked by the faults of prolixity and
+incongruity characteristic of the heroic style, is not without
+narrative interest or literary merit. The hero is Artabanes, a Median
+prince, as usual "richly attired, and proportionately blessed with all
+the gifts of nature and education." At the Parthian court he becomes
+enamored of the beautiful Parthenissa, and in her honor performs many
+distinguished deeds of arms. Distracted, however, at the suspicion of
+Parthenissa's preference for a rival, he leaves the Parthian court with
+the determination to spend the remainder of his life on the summit of
+the Alps. This intention is frustrated by pirates, who take him
+prisoner and bestow him as a slave upon their chief. Artabanes soon
+escapes from bondage, suddenly turns out
+<span class="pagenum">[122]<a name="page122" id="page122"></a></span>to be the historic Spartacus,
+and returns to Asia. There he finds that Parthenissa, to avoid the
+importunities of an objectionable lover, has swallowed a potion which
+gives her the appearance of death. In this dilemma he journeys to "the
+Temple of Hieropolis in Syria, where the Queen of Love had settled an
+oracle as famous as the Deity to whom it was consecrated." The priest
+of this temple, after listening patiently to the long account of
+Artabanes' misfortunes, tells the story of his own remarkable career,
+by which it appears that he is Nicomedes, king of Bythinia, the father
+of Julius Cæsar's Nicomedes. While Artabanes is listening to this
+narrative, he sees two persons land upon the shore, and enter a
+neighboring wood. One is a young knight, and the other the exact
+counterpart of Parthenissa. At this apparition Artabanes is thrown into
+the greatest confusion. The lady he has seen presents every outward
+appearance of his mistress, and yet he believes her dead, and is unable
+to conceive that if living, she should so far forget her duty to him
+and the rules of propriety, as to place herself in so suspicions a
+position. Here the romance comes to an abrupt end, leaving Artabanes in
+the condition of painful uncertainty in which he has ever since
+remained.</p>
+
+<p>Heroic romance proved as ephemeral in England as the cloaks and
+feathers with which it had crossed the Channel, and we may pass over
+such trivial literary attempts as those of the Duchess of Newcastle to
+the writings of Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Behn. These two novelists, if such
+they may still be called, represent, in narrative fiction, the period
+which extends from the Restoration to the opening of the eighteenth
+century. They have left us little, and that of very indifferent merit.
+But their stories have a certain importance, inasmuch as with them
+begins the tendency, in English fiction, to
+<span class="pagenum">[123]<a name="page123" id="page123"></a></span>deal with the actual,
+instead of the imaginary, to describe characters and scenes meant to
+represent real life.</p>
+
+<p>The daughter of Sir Roger Manley, at one time Governor of Guernsey,
+Mrs. Manley was seduced, when quite a young woman, and passed the
+remainder of her life in a licentiousness which has evidently inspired
+her literary productions. Having picked up a few stories from current
+report, she worked them into what she called "The Power of Love, in
+Seven Novels."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref88" id="fnref88" href="#fn88">[88]</a></span>
+The "love" here described is an unregulated animal
+passion, and its "power" is the natural effect of such a passion upon
+men and women who have no idea of self-restraint or refinement. The
+result is a series of licentious scenes, unredeemed by any literary
+merit. Mrs. Manley's most prominent work was the "Secret Memoirs and
+Manners of Several Persons of Quality of Both Sexes. From the New
+Atalantis, an Island in the Mediterranean." This book is a scandalous
+chronicle of crimes reputed to have been committed by persons of high
+rank, and the names are so thinly disguised as to be easily identified.
+Mrs. Manley was arrested and prosecuted for the publication, but
+escaped without serious punishment. The work itself had a wide
+circulation, and Pope adopted the endurance of its fame as a measure of
+time in his shortsighted line, "As long as Atalantis shall be read."</p>
+
+<p>In the beginning of this book a female personage named Astræa resolves
+to revisit the earth, which she had long before abandoned in disgust.
+She alights upon an island in the Mediterranean, named Atalantis, which
+is meant to signify England, and a female form immediately rises up
+before her.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum">[124]<a name="page124" id="page124"></a></span>
+    <blockquote><p>Her habit <i>obsolete</i> and <i>torn</i>, almost degenerated into tatters;
+    But her Native Charms, that needed not the Help of Art, gave to
+    Astræa's returning Remembrance that it could be no other than her
+    beautiful Mother Vertue. But oh! how despicable her Garments! how
+    neglected her flowing Hair! How languid her formally animated Eyes!
+    How pale, how withered the Roses of her lovely Cheeks and Lips! How
+    useless her snowy arms and polished Fingers! they hung in a
+    melancholy Decline, and seemed out of other Employment, but
+    sometimes to support the Head of the dejected Fair One! Her limbs
+    enervated and supine, wanting of that Energy which should bear her
+    from a Solitude so affrighting!</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>From this very accurate description of the condition of virtue at the
+end of the seventeenth century, it might be supposed that Mrs. Manley
+deplored her neglected state. But such is far from being the case.
+Astræa and Virtue meet with a personage called Intelligence, who
+furnishes them with a detailed account of current scandal calculated to
+still further depress the dejected Virtue. The trio are soon joined by
+Mrs. Nightwork, a midwife, who never breaks an oath of secrecy unless
+it be to her interest, and the character of whose contributions to the
+general fund of gossip may be easily imagined. This semi-allegorical
+method of narration is kept up during the first two volumes; in the
+third and fourth Mrs. Manley tells her story in her own way. In the
+course of these four volumes is unrolled an extraordinary series of
+crimes, some unnatural, and all gross in highest degree. The details
+which Mrs. Manley could not obtain from authentic sources are supplied
+by her vivid and heated imagination. She gloats over each incident with
+a horrible relish, and adds, with no unsparing brush, a heightened
+color to each picture. Only a society whose
+<span class="pagenum">[125]<a name="page125" id="page125"></a></span>conduct could afford
+material for this composition could possibly have read it. Mrs. Manley
+no doubt invented and exaggerated without scruple, but the fact that
+her work was widely read and even popular is a sufficient commentary on
+the taste of the time. The reader of to-day is sickened by the
+multiplication of repulsive scenes, and the absence from the book of
+any good qualities or actions whatever. The style in which the
+"Atalantis" is written is so mean, that no person could have derived
+any pleasure from its pages other than the gratification of a depraved
+taste.</p>
+
+<p>A writer of fiction of much greater importance appeared in the person
+of Aphra Johnson, more generally known as Mrs. Behn, or "the divine
+Astræa"; "a gentlewoman by birth, of a good family in the city of
+Canterbury." Her father was appointed to a colonial office in the West
+Indies, where he took his family while Mrs. Behn was yet a young girl.
+There the future authoress began a chequered life by living on a
+plantation among rough and lawless colonists, and there she made the
+acquaintance of the slave Oroonoko, whose sad story she afterward made
+known to the world. On her return to England, she married Behn, a
+merchant of Dutch extraction, and went to live in the Netherlands,
+where she acted as a British spy. By working upon the feelings of her
+lovers, she was able to convey information to the English government of
+the intention of the Dutch to enter the Thames to destroy the English
+fleet. Her warnings were disregarded, and giving up her patriotic
+occupation, she returned to London, and devoted herself to literature.
+She died in 1689, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster
+Abbey:&mdash;"Covered only with a marble stone, with two wretched verses on
+it." <span class="pagenum">[126]<a name="page126" id="page126"></a></span>
+Although Mrs. Behn is now almost forgotten, her position in her
+own time was not inconsiderable. Besides a number of letters and poems,
+her literary productions include a translation of Fontenelle's
+"Plurality of Worlds," and a paraphrase on Van Dale's "De Oraculis
+Ethnicorum." Her plays met with some success, but were characterized by
+a licentiousness which won for her the title of "the female Wycherley,"
+a fact, which, on account of her sex, called down upon her a general
+and well-deserved condemnation. Two other productions, of which the
+nature is sufficiently indicated by their titles, were "The Lover's
+Watch; or the Art of making Love: being Rules for Courtship for every
+Hour of the Day and Night"; and "The Ladies Looking Glass to dress
+themselves by; or the whole Art of charming all Mankind."</p>
+
+<p>It was on Mrs. Behn's return from the West Indies that, being
+introduced at court, she related to Charles the Second the terrible
+fate of the noble slave Oroonoko. At the solicitation of the king, she
+put her narrative into the form of a novel, which obtained a large
+circulation, and was dramatized by Southern in his tragedy of the same
+name. "Oroonoko" is worthy of notice as one of the earliest attempts on
+the part of an English novelist to deal with characters which had come
+under the writer's observation in actual life. It is still more
+important on account of the presence within it of a didactic purpose; a
+characteristic which for good or for evil has been a prominent feature
+of the English novel. Sir Thomas More had made use of fiction in the
+sixteenth century to urge his ideas of political and social reforms.
+Bunyan, more than a century later, used the same means to promulgate
+his conception of Christian life. While
+<span class="pagenum">[127]<a name="page127" id="page127"></a></span>English narrative fiction was
+still in its first youth, Mrs. Behn protested against the evils of the
+slave trade through the medium of a story which may be considered a
+forerunner of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."</p>
+
+<p>To interest the public in a distant country or an abstract principle,
+the novel is the most effective literary means. A treatise on the slave
+trade by Mrs. Behn, however strong and truthful, would have met with
+the little attention which is accorded to the sufferings of a distant
+and unknown people. But the novel has the advantage over the treatise,
+that it deals with the particular and not the general, with the
+individual and not the nation. It can place before the reader a limited
+number of persons; it can interest his mind and heart in their
+characters, lives, and fate; and by subjecting them to the horrors of
+the evil to be depicted, excite through commiseration for their
+sufferings a hatred of the cause which inflicted them. To such a use
+the novel has often been put, at too frequent a sacrifice of its
+artistic merit. To excite indignation against the results of the slave
+trade, Mrs. Behn took the special instance of Oroonoko. She endowed the
+African slave with beauty of person and nobility of character. She gave
+him tastes and qualities of a kind to attract the interest of a
+European reader. She added a description of his wife Imoinda, dwelling
+on the details of her beauty and charms. By a passionate relation of
+the amatory scenes which occurred between Oroonoko and his wife, she
+touched a key particularly calculated to excite contemporary English
+sympathy. Finally, by telling the story of the cruel wrongs inflicted
+on the slaves, she aroused a natural indignation against the system
+which could entail such evil results.</p>
+
+<p>The story itself is briefly as follows. Oroonoko was a
+<span class="pagenum">[128]<a name="page128" id="page128"></a></span>brave young
+chief, the grandson of a king whose dominions lay on the coast of
+Africa. He had distinguished himself in war, and already commanded all
+the forces of his grandfather's kingdom. Hitherto rather unsusceptible
+to female charms, he became deeply enamored of Imoinda, on returning
+victorious from a great war. Unfortunately the king noticed Imoinda at
+the same time, and had her brought to his palace as his concubine.
+According to the rules of the court, this would separate the lovers
+forever. Oroonoko in desperation made his way to Imoinda's chamber in
+the palace at night, where he was discovered by the king's servants.
+Imoinda was immediately sold as a slave. Oroonoko made his way down to
+the seashore, and was there allured, under false pretenses of
+hospitality, on board an English ship. He was carried to the West
+Indies, and sold to a planter of Surinam, the colony in which Mrs. Behn
+was living, and where by a remarkable chance Imoinda had already been
+sold. The beauty of Imoinda had brought about her a large number of
+suitors, all of whom met with a cold repulse. The tenderness of the
+meeting between Oroonoko and Imoinda prevailed upon their master to
+allow them to live together. But Oroonoko longed for liberty. He
+plotted a revolt among his fellow-slaves, and on its suppression was
+brutally flogged. Enraged by this, he escaped into the woods with
+Imoinda, who was then pregnant. Fearing that she might fall into the
+hands of the whites, and unwilling to be the father of a slave, he
+killed her, and remained by her dead body several days, half insensible
+with grief and without food. Again taken by the colonists, he was tied
+to a post, hacked to pieces and burned. The story, simple in itself,
+becomes striking in the hands of Mrs. Behn. The hut of the old negro
+king is given <span class="pagenum">[129]<a name="page129" id="page129"></a></span>
+the brilliancy of an Eastern court, and his harem is
+copied after that of a Turkish potentate. When Oroonoko is induced to
+board the English slaver, it is in no common style, but "the Captain in
+his Boat richly adorned with Carpets and velvet Cushions went to the
+Shore to receive the Prince, with another Long Boat where was placed
+all his Music and Trumpets." Mrs. Behn's methods of adorning her tale
+are best shown by her description of Oroonoko himself, which is a good
+example of the tone in which the story is written.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>I have often seen and conversed with this Great Man, and been a
+    Witness to many of his mighty Actions: and do assure my Reader, the
+    most illustrious Courts could not have produced a braver Man, both
+    for Greatness of Courage and Mind, a Judgment more solid, a Wit
+    more quick, and a Conversation more sweet and diverting. He knew
+    almost as much as if he had read much; he had heard of and admired
+    the Romans; he had heard of the late Civil Wars in England, and the
+    deplorable Death of our great Monarch; and would discourse of it
+    with all the Sense and abhorrence of the Injustice imaginable. He
+    had an extremely good and graceful Mien, and all the civility of a
+    well bred Great Man. He had nothing of Barbarity in his Nature, but
+    in all Points addressed himself as if his Education had been in
+    some European Court.</p>
+
+    <p>This great and just character of Oroonoko gave me an extreme
+    Curiosity to see him, especially when I knew he spoke French and
+    English, and that I could talk with him. But though I had heard so
+    much of him, I was as greatly surprised when I saw him, as if I had
+    heard nothing of him; so beyond all Report I found him. He came
+    into the Room, and addressed himself to me and some other Women
+    with the best Grace in the World. He was pretty tall, but of a
+    Shape the most exact that can be fancyed: The most famous Statuary
+    could not form the figure of a Man more admirably turned
+    <span class="pagenum">[130]<a name="page130" id="page130"></a></span>from Head
+    to Foot. His face was not of that brown lusty Black which most of
+    that Nation are, but a perfect Ebony or polished Jet. His Eyes were
+    the most aweful that could be seen, and very piercing; the White of
+    'em being like Snow, as were his teeth. His Nose was rising and
+    Roman, instead of African and flat. His Mouth the finest Shape that
+    could be seen; far from those great turn'd Lips which are so
+    natural to the rest of the Negroes. The whole Proportion and Air of
+    his Face was nobly and exactly form'd, that bating his Colour,
+    there would be nothing in Nature more beautiful, agreeable and
+    handsome. There was no one Grace wanting that bears the Standard of
+    true Beauty. His Hair came down to his Shoulders, by the aids of
+    Art, which was by pulling it out with a quill, and keeping it
+    comb'd; of which he took particular care. Nor did the perfections
+    of his Mind come short of those of his Person; for his Discourse
+    was admirable upon almost any Subject; and whoever had heard him
+    speak, would have been convinced of their Errors, that all fine Wit
+    is confined to the white Men, especially to those of Christendom;
+    and would have confessed that Oroonoko was as capable even of
+    reigning well, and of governing as wisely, had as great a Soul, as
+    politick Maxims, and was as sensible of Power, as any Prince
+    civilized in the most refined Schools of Humanity and Learning, or
+    the most illustrious Courts.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref89" id="fnref89" href="#fn89">[89]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Oroonoko" is the only one of Mrs Behn's stories which has a didactic
+aim or a special interest of any kind. Her other works of fiction are
+short tales, usually founded on fact, which describe in unrestrained
+language the passion and adventures of a pair of very ardent lovers.
+They show the prevailing inclination in narrative fiction toward
+characters and scenes taken from actual life. But they have no interest
+apart from the slender thread of the story itself. They contain no
+<span class="pagenum">[131]<a name="page131" id="page131"></a></span>
+studies of character, and no information of importance concerning
+contemporary manners. Their heroes and heroines differ from each other
+only in the intensity or the circumstances of their love. The best in
+narrative interest, and the most attractive in tone, is the "Lucky
+Mistake." It is without the grossness characteristic of Mrs. Behn's
+works, and gives quite a pretty account of the loves of a young French
+nobleman and an unusually modest young woman named Atlante. Mrs. Behn's
+notion of love is contained in the opening lines of the "Fair Jilt,"
+the most licentious of her tales. "As Love is the most noble and divine
+Passion of the Soul, so it is that to which we may justly attribute all
+the real Satisfactions of Life; and without it Man is Unfinished and
+unhappy. There are a thousand Things to be said of the Advantages this
+generous Passion brings to those whose Hearts are capable of receiving
+its soft Impressions; for 'tis not Every one that can be sensible of
+its tender Touches. How many Examples from History and Observation
+could I give of its wondrous Power; nay, even to a degree of
+Transmigration! How many Idiots has it made wise! How many Fools
+eloquent! How many home-bred Squires accomplished! How many cowards
+brave!" There is no doubt that Mrs. Behn was fully alive to the
+strength of the passion she describes, but as Sir Richard Steele said,
+she "understood the practic part of love better than the speculative."
+In accordance with the views general amidst the society of her own
+time, she represented love merely as a physical passion, and made the
+interest of her stories depend on its gratification, and not on the
+ennobling effects or subtle manifestations of which it is capable.</p>
+
+<p>There is a great deal in that well-known anecdote of
+<span class="pagenum">[132]<a name="page132" id="page132"></a></span>Sir Walter
+Scott's, in which he relates that he "was acquainted with an old lady
+of family, who assured him that, in her younger days, Mrs. Behn's
+novels were as currently upon the toilette as the works of Miss
+Edgeworth at present; and described with some humor her own surprise,
+when the book falling into her hands after a long interval of years,
+and when its contents were quite forgotten, she found it impossible to
+endure, at the age of fourscore, what at fifteen, she, like all the
+fashionable world of the time, had perused without an idea of
+impropriety." This is a striking illustration of the mere relativeness
+of such words as "morality," "refinement," and their opposites. If this
+old lady could have lived over her early youth embued with the
+refinement of taste which surrounded her declining years, she would
+have been still more shocked at the coarseness of language, and the
+looseness of conduct and morals which prevailed among the highest
+ranks. At the same time she would have observed, that the society which
+appeared to her coarse and corrupt was far from so considering itself.
+What is gross to one age may have been the refinement of the last. A
+young girl considered modest and discreet at the end of the seventeenth
+century, if transferred unchanged to the end of the eighteenth, would
+have shocked the women she met with by talking of subjects unmentioned
+in society with a freedom and broadness unusual among the men. In
+judging a literary work from the point of view of morality or
+refinement, we must compare it with the standard of the age to which it
+belongs, and not with our own. Pope's graphic lines, in which he
+describes Mrs. Behn's position as a dramatist,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div class="quote">"The stage how loosely doth Astræa tread,</div>
+    <div>Who fairly puts all characters to bed."</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="pagenum">[133]<a name="page133" id="page133"></a></span>
+apply almost equally well to her novels. But still the contemporary
+reader found nothing in their pages to offend his sense of propriety.
+And Mrs. Behn, who simply put into a literary form ideas and scenes which
+were common in the society about her, cannot with justice be accused of
+an intention to pander to the lowest tastes of her readers. She said
+herself, when reproved for the tone of her plays, which was much inferior
+to that of her novels: "I make challenge to any person of common sense
+and reason, that is not wilfully bent on ill nature, and will, in spite
+of sense, wrest a <i>double entendre</i> from everything * * * but any
+unprejudiced person that knows not the author&mdash;to read one of my comedies
+and compare it with others of this age, and if they can find one word
+which can offend the chastest ear, I will submit to all their pevish
+cavills." All this is worthy of note, if we are to follow the course of
+English fiction without prejudice. For it will be shown that the
+nineteenth century, with all its well-deserved pride in an advanced
+refinement and morality, has produced a large number of novelists, both
+male and female, whose works are as immoral as those of Mrs. Behn,
+without her excuse. Who, with all the advantages accruing from life
+in a refined age, with every encouragement to pursue a better course,
+have deliberately chosen to court an infamous notoriety by making vice
+familiar and attractive. And this too, at a time when a general
+confidence in the purity of contemporary literary works has practically
+done away with parental censorship; when books of evil tendency are as
+likely to fall into the hands of the young and susceptible as those of
+elevating tendency&mdash;a circumstance which adds a new responsibility to
+the duties of the conscientious writer.</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn87" id="fn87" href="#fnref87">[87]</a></span>
+Dunlop's "History of Fiction," chap. iv.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn88" id="fn88" href="#fnref88">[88]</a></span>
+"The Fair Hypocrite," "The Physician's Stratagem," "The
+Wife's Resentment," "The Husband's Resentment," in two parts; "The
+Happy Fugitive," "The Perjured Beauty."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn89" id="fn89" href="#fnref89">[89]</a></span>
+"History of Oroonoko," Mrs. Behn's "Collected plays and
+novels."
+</div>
+
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<span class="pagenum">[134]<a name="page134" id="page134"></a></span>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.<br />
+  I.&mdash;ENGLAND UNDER ANNE AND THE FIRST TWO GEORGES.<br />
+ II.&mdash;SWIFT, ADDISON, DEFOE.<br />
+III.&mdash;RICHARDSON, FIELDING, SMOLLETT.</h3>
+
+
+<h4>I.</h4>
+
+<p>The advance of a nation in numbers and civilization is accompanied by
+so great a complexity of social conditions that in this volume it is
+possible only to attempt to seize such salient characteristics of the
+eighteenth century as may serve to throw light on the course of English
+fiction. No age presents a more prosaic aspect. If we consider the
+condition of England at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the
+prevalence of abuses and corruption left by the ignorance or vice of
+preceding years, and reflect at the same time upon the progressive
+nature of the people, the practical habit of their minds, and the moral
+earnestness which they never wholly lost, it is not surprising to find
+that the century is one of reforms. Population and wealth had outgrown
+the laws and customs which had hitherto served for their control, and
+though in the earlier part of the period we find corruption in public
+and private life, indifference in religion, inadequate provision for
+the education of the young, gross abuses in jurisprudence, and
+coarseness of action and taste throughout the social system, there is
+also perceptible a solid foundation of good-sense and an
+<span class="pagenum">[135]<a name="page135" id="page135"></a></span>earnest
+desire for improvement, which gradually, as the century wore on,
+introduced one reform after another, until many of those benefits were
+attained or made possible which the present century almost
+unconsciously enjoys. We should lose one of the most instructive
+lessons which history can afford, if, with Carlyle, we should allow the
+eighteenth century to lie "massed up in our minds as a disastrous,
+wrecked inanity, not useful to dwell
+upon,"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref90" id="fnref90" href="#fn90">[90]</a></span>
+The England of that
+century was modern England, but modern England, burdened with a
+heritage of corruption and ignorance which it is the glory of the time
+to have in large part discarded. It was a time of social and material
+progress, and it was also the period of the growth and perfection of
+English fiction. To thoroughly understand the one, we must be
+acquainted with the other, and it will be the object of the two
+following chapters to trace the development of the English novel in
+connection with that national development of which it will be shown to
+be in great measure the exponent.</p>
+
+<p>That subordination of the imagination to reason, which, after the
+Restoration, became so marked in English thought on intellectual,
+political, and religious subjects, was continued in the eighteenth
+century with results which affected the whole current of national life.
+Before the light of physical science, silent but irresistible in its
+advances, faded away the remains of dogmatism and superstition.
+Astrology was forgotten in astronomy; belief in modern miracles and
+witchcraft ceased to take root in minds conscious of a universe too
+vast for realization, and governed by laws so regular, that probability
+could not attach to arbitrary interference by God or the devil. From
+the broadening of the intellectual horizon finally
+<span class="pagenum">[136]<a name="page136" id="page136"></a></span>resulted
+inestimable benefits; but these benefits were purchased at the price of
+much temporary evil. If in religion, the rational tendencies prepared
+the way for the liberal and undogmatic Christianity to come, their
+effect for many years was to be seen only in scepticism, in a mocking
+indifference to religion itself, in a contempt of high moral
+aspirations and sentiments. If in politics, the final effect of these
+tendencies was to introduce new wisdom into government, they showed for
+long no other result than the suppression of all the higher qualities
+of a statesman, the disappearance of every sign of patriotism other
+than an ignorant hatred of foreign countries, the complete subversion
+of public spirit by private rapacity.</p>
+
+<p>The prevailing intellectual characteristics are marked, in literature,
+by the great predominance of prose over poetry. It will be no
+disparagement to Pope, Prior, Gray, Collins, Akenside, Goldsmith, or
+Young, to say that they did not attain in poetry what in prose was
+attained by Swift, Defoe, Steele, Addison, Bolingbroke, Richardson,
+Fielding, Smollet, Hume, Gibbon, Junius, and Burke; while Goldsmith is
+as much valued for his prose as for his verse, Addison, Swift, and
+Johnson more so. It is to these men, and to contemporaries of lesser
+note, that English literature is indebted for the invention or
+perfection of prose forms of the highest importance and beauty. Defoe
+stands pre-eminent among the founders of the newspaper, destined to
+attain so high a degree of power and utility. Addison, Steele, and
+Johnson made the essay one of the most attractive and popular forms of
+literature. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Horace Walpole, Chesterfield,
+and Junius brought letter-writing to perfection. Defoe, Addison,
+Richardson, and <span class="pagenum">[137]<a name="page137" id="page137"></a></span>
+Fielding developed the realistic novel. A prosaic and
+conventional tone pervaded even the poetry of the period. Appreciation
+of poetry was almost extinguished, Addison, writing of the poets of the
+past, made no mention of Shakespeare, and found it possible to say of
+Chaucer:</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div>In vain he jests in his unpolish'd strain,</div>
+    <div>And tries to make his readers laugh, in vain.</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And of Spenser:</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div>Old Spenser next, warm'd with poetick rage,</div>
+    <div>In ancient tales amus'd a barb'rous age.</div>
+    <div>But now the mystick tale that pleas'd of yore</div>
+    <div>Can charm an understanding age no more.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref91" id="fnref91" href="#fn91">[91]</a></span></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"If you did amuse yourself with writing any thing in poetry," wrote
+Horace Walpole to Sir H. Mann, in 1742, "you know how pleased I should
+be to see it; but for encouraging you to it, d'ye see, 'tis an age most
+unpoetical! 'Tis even a test of wit to dislike poetry; and though Pope
+has half a dozen old friends that he has preserved from the taste of
+last century, yet, I assure you the generality of readers are more
+diverted with any paltry prose answer to old Marlborough's secret
+history of Queen Mary's robes. I do not think an author would be
+universally commended for any production in verse, unless it were an
+ode to the Secret Committee, with rhymes of liberty and property,
+nation and administration."</p>
+
+<p>During the brilliant era of literary activity, known by the name of
+Queen Anne, men of letters were <span class="pagenum">[138]<a name="page138" id="page138"></a></span>
+encouraged by the government by means
+of employment or rewards. They were supported also by the public
+through the high social consideration which was freely accorded to men
+of talent. Literary success was a passport to the houses and the
+intimacy of the great. But under the first two Georges and the
+administration of Walpole the government was seconded by the public in
+its neglect of authors and their works. In those days the circle of
+readers was too small to afford remuneration to authorship. Employment
+or help from the government was almost a <i>sine qua non</i> for the
+production of works which required time and research. While under Anne,
+Swift received a deanery, Addison was Secretary of State, Steele a
+prominent member of Parliament, and Newton, Locke, Prior, Gay, Rowe,
+Congreve, Tickell, Parnell, and Pope all received direct or indirect
+aid from the government, in the reigns of George I and George II,
+Steele died in poverty, Savage walked the streets for want of a
+lodging, Johnson lived in penury and drudgery. Thomson was deprived of
+a small office which formed his sole
+dependence.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref92" id="fnref92" href="#fn92">[92]</a></span>
+This neglect of
+authors and of literature was only partially due to an unappreciative
+government. It was supported by the indifference of a public in a high
+degree material and unintellectual. Conversation in France, said
+Chesterfield, "turns at least upon some subject, something of taste,
+some point of history, criticism, and even philosophy; which, though
+probably not quite so solid as Mr. Locke's, is, however, better and
+more becoming rational beings than our frivolous dissertations upon the
+weather or upon whist."</p>
+
+<p>In keeping with the unimpassioned and prosaic tone of the time, was the
+low state of religious feeling, and the <span class="pagenum">[139]<a name="page139" id="page139"></a></span>
+degeneration of the church,
+both in its own organization and in public esteem. The upper classes of
+society, as a rule, were lukewarm and insincere in any form of belief.
+Statesman and nobles in the most prominent positions combined professed
+irreligion with open profligacy, while the lower classes were left,
+through the indolence and selfishness of the clergy, almost without
+religious teaching. Montesquieu found that people laughed when religion
+was mentioned in London drawing-rooms. Sir Robert Walpole put the
+general feeling in his own coarse way. "Pray, madam," said he to the
+Princess Emily, when it was suggested that the archbishop should be
+called to the death-bed of Queen Caroline, "let this farce be played;
+the archbishop will act it very well. You may bid him be as short as
+you will. It will do the queen no hurt, no more than any good; and it
+will satisfy all the wise and good fools, who will call us all atheists
+if we don't pretend to be as great fools as they
+are."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref93" id="fnref93" href="#fn93">[93]</a></span> This low
+state of religious sentiment was brought about by much the same causes
+which, at a later time, substituted a moral and liberal for the old
+dogmatic Christianity. The dislike of theological controversy left by
+the civil wars was aided by the Act of Toleration in giving the nation
+a religious peace, and in diverting human energy from religious
+speculations or emotions. The rational character of the national
+intellect was inclined to what was material and tangible, to physical
+study or industry. The general desire to submit all questions to the
+test of a critical reason, induced the clergy to apply the same test to
+theology. But while these tendencies, in their final result, were on
+the whole beneficial to religion, their temporary effect was injurious
+to it in a high degree. <span class="pagenum">[140]<a name="page140" id="page140"></a></span>
+With a few exceptions, such as Butler,
+Berkeley, and Wilson, the clergy shared the indifference of their
+flocks. The upper ranks were indolent, selfish, often immoral; the
+lower, poor, ignorant, and degraded in social position. Bishops and
+prominent clergymen, under the system of pluralities, left their
+congregations to the care of hungry curates, and sought promotion by
+assiduous attendance at ministers' levees, or by paying court to the
+king's mistresses. It is not surprising that public respect for them
+and for their calling almost died away. Pope wrote sneeringly:<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref94" id="fnref94" href="#fn94">[94]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div>EVEN <i>in a</i> BISHOP <i>I can spy desert</i>;</div>
+    <div><i>Seeker is decent, Rundle has a heart</i>.</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>A naked Venus hung in the room where prayers were read while Queen
+Caroline dressed, which Dr. Madox sarcastically termed "a very proper
+altar-piece."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref95" id="fnref95" href="#fn95">[95]</a></span>
+Of the High Churchmen Defoe declared that "the spirit
+of Christianity is fled from among them." When the Prince of Wales
+died, George the Second appointed governors and preceptors for the
+prince's children. Horace Walpole's
+description<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref96" id="fnref96" href="#fn96">[96]</a></span>
+of one of these is
+significant. "The other Preceptor was Hayter, Bishop of Norwich, a
+sensible well-bred man, natural son of Blackbourn, the jolly old
+Archbishop of York, who had all the manners of a man of quality, though
+he had been a Buccaneer and was a Clergyman; but he retained nothing of
+his first profession except his seraglio."</p>
+
+<p>While the attention of the upper clergy was largely absorbed by
+thoughts of private profit and by the pursuit
+<span class="pagenum">[141]<a name="page141" id="page141"></a></span>of worldly advancement,
+the lower ranks were left in a position degrading alike to themselves
+and to religion. In the country a clergyman was little above a peasant
+in social consideration, and seldom equal to him in the comforts of
+life. To eke out the sustenance of himself and family, hard labor in
+his own garden was by no means the most menial of the services he was
+obliged to perform. His wife was usually a servant-maid taken from a
+neighboring country house, and the kitchen was his most common resort
+when he visited the home of a squire. A private chaplain was little
+above a servant. In London, many clergymen fell into the prisons
+through debt or crime. From the ranks of the lower clergy were
+recruited the "buck-parsons," so long a scandal to the church and to
+public morality; and the large body of "Fleet parsons," of infamous
+character, in the pay of gin shops and taverns, who, for a trifling
+sum, performed what were legal marriages between boys and girls,
+drunkards and runaways.</p>
+
+<p>The corruption in political life, begun under the Restoration and
+increased during the Revolution, was amplified and reduced to a system
+under Walpole until government seemed to be based on bribery.
+Ridiculing public spirit and disinterested motives in others, he bribed
+George the Second with the promise of a large civil list, bribed Queen
+Caroline with a large allowance, bribed members of Parliament with
+sinecures, pensions, or with direct payment of money, and paid himself
+with wealth and a peerage. Corruption was so firmly rooted as an engine
+of power, that no serious discredit attached to it. So low had fallen
+the standard of political honor, so widespread had become the spirit of
+self-seeking and corruption among the ministers and in Parliament, that
+<span class="pagenum">[142]<a name="page142" id="page142"></a></span>
+"Love of our country," wrote Browne, "is no longer felt; and except in
+a few minds of uncommon greatness, the principle of public spirit
+exists not."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref97" id="fnref97" href="#fn97">[97]</a></span>
+The dominating idea of political life was well put in
+the words of the Marquis of Halifax: "Parties in a state, generally,
+like freebooters, hang out false colors; the pretence is public good,
+the real business is to catch prizes." Lord Hervey divided the Whig
+party in 1727 into "Patriots and Courtiers, which was in plain English,
+'Whigs in place,' and 'Whigs out of
+place.'"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref98" id="fnref98" href="#fn98">[98]</a></span> The assertion of
+disinterestedness met only with ridicule. In an interview with Queen
+Caroline, "when Lord Stair talked of his conscience with great
+solemnity, the queen (the whole conversation being in French) cried
+out: Ah, my Lord, ne me parlez point de conscience, vous me faîtes
+évanouir."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref99" id="fnref99" href="#fn99">[99]</a></span>
+As personal advancement, and not the public service, was
+the ruling aim of statesmen, it is not surprising that for this
+advancement no means were regarded as too low. The king's mistresses
+were the object of ceaseless attentions from aspirants for office, and
+sometimes were the recipients of their bribes. Treachery was the order
+of the day. Bolingbroke said to Sir Robert Walpole, "that the very air
+he breathed was the gift of his bounty," and then left Sir Robert to
+tell the king that Walpole "was the weakest minister any prince ever
+employed abroad, and the wickedest that ever had the direction of
+affairs at home."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref100" id="fnref100" href="#fn100">[100]</a></span>
+The Duke of Newcastle, that "living, moving,
+talking caricature," stands out an exaggerated type of the common
+statesmen of the time; <span class="pagenum">[143]<a name="page143" id="page143"></a></span>
+"hereditary possessors of ennobled
+folly,"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref101" id="fnref101" href="#fn101">[101]</a></span>
+maintained in offices which they had no capacity to fill by corruption,
+the abuse of patronage, and the control of rotten boroughs. Speaking of
+the Dukes of Devonshire, Grafton, and Newcastle, Lord Hervey
+says<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref102" id="fnref102" href="#fn102">[102]</a></span>:
+"The two first were mutes, and the last often wished so by those he
+spoke for, and always by those he spoke to." George the Second
+appreciated the character and objects of his advisers. He had, also, a
+frank and pointed way of describing them. In his opinion Sir Robert
+Walpole was "a great rogue"; Mr. Horace Walpole, ambassador to France,
+was a "dirty buffoon"; Newcastle, an "impertinent fool"; Lord
+Townshend, a "choleric blockhead";<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref103" id="fnref103" href="#fn103">[103]</a></span>
+while Lord Chesterfield was
+disposed of as a "tea-table scoundrel."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref104" id="fnref104" href="#fn104">[104]</a></span>
+He complained that he was
+"obliged to enrich people for being rascals, and buy them not to cut
+his throat."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref105" id="fnref105" href="#fn105">[105]</a></span>
+"The king and queen," wrote Hervey, "looked upon
+human kind as so many commodities in a market, which, without favor or
+affection, they considered only in the degree they were useful, and
+paid for them in that proportion&mdash;Sir Robert Walpole being sworn
+appraiser to their Majesties at all these
+sales."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref106" id="fnref106" href="#fn106">[106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The cringing subserviency of political men was equal to their
+corruption. When George I died, and it was believed that Sir Spencer
+Compton would succeed to the power of Sir Robert Walpole, at the king's
+reception "Sir Robert walked through these rooms as if they had been
+still empty; his presence, that used to make a crowd wherever he
+appeared, now emptied every corner he turned to, and the same people
+who were officiously a <span class="pagenum">[144]<a name="page144" id="page144"></a></span>week ago clearing the way to flatter his
+prosperity, were now getting out of it to avoid sharing his disgrace.
+Everybody looked upon it as sure, and whatever profession of adherence
+and gratitude for former favors were made him in private, there were
+none among the many his power had obliged (excepting General Churchill
+and Lord Hervey) who did not in public as notoriously decline and fear
+his notice, as they used industriously to seek and covet it."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref107" id="fnref107" href="#fn107">[107]</a></span> On
+the same occasion, Horace Walpole tells us, "my mother * * * could not
+make her way (to pay her respects to the king and queen) between the
+scornful backs and elbows of her late devotees, nor could approach
+nearer to the queen than the third or fourth row; but no sooner was she
+descried by her Majesty, than the queen cried aloud, '<i>There I am sure
+I see a friend!</i>' The torrent divided and shrunk to either side: 'and
+as I came away,' said my mother, 'I might have walked over their heads
+if I had pleased.'"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref108" id="fnref108" href="#fn108">[108]</a></span> The general corruption and wickedness produced
+a remarkable misanthropy in the minds of men, which is reflected in the
+savage satire of Swift, in the bitter invective of Junius, in the
+cynicism of Lord Hervey. Sir Robert Walpole, said the latter, "had more
+warmth of affection and friendship for some particular people than one
+could have believed it possible for any one who had been so long raking
+in the dirt of mankind to be capable of feeling for so worthless a
+species of animals. One should naturally have imagined that the
+contempt and distrust he must have had for the species in gross, would
+have given him at least an indifference and distrust toward every
+particular."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref109" id="fnref109" href="#fn109">[109]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[145]<a name="page145" id="page145"></a></span>The mercenary character of Parliament allowed the first two Georges to
+have much their own way as long as the money held out. Liberty of the
+subject, if not in great danger, had certainly lost its natural
+guardian. Few seats depended on a direct and popular vote. Most of them
+were in the gift of noblemen or rich commoners, "rotten boroughs,"
+having only "the bare name of a town, of which there remains not so
+much as the ruins."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref110" id="fnref110" href="#fn110">[110]</a></span> Defoe tells us that the market price of a seat
+was a thousand guineas. The object of the purchaser was less often the
+service of his country, or even an honorable ambition, than the profit
+to be made from the sale of his vote. Members not infrequently had
+regular salaries from the government. "Sir Robert Walpole and the queen
+both told me separately," wrote Lord Hervey, "that it (the victory of
+the court) cost the king but 900<i>l</i>.&mdash;500<i>l</i>. to one man, and 400<i>l</i>.
+to another; and that even those two sums were advanced to two men who
+were to have received them at the end of the session had this question
+never been moved, and who only took this opportunity to solicit prompt
+payment."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref111" id="fnref111" href="#fn111">[111]</a></span> Lord Chesterfield, in the same letter in which he spoke
+of the corrupt influencing of elections as a high crime and
+misdemeanor, recommends the Earl of Marchmont to <i>bribe</i> "some of your
+venal peers" to confess that they took money to vote for the
+court.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref112" id="fnref112" href="#fn112">[112]</a></span> "Ever since Lord Granville went out," wrote Horace Walpole
+in 1744, "all has been in suspense. The leaders of the Opposition
+immediately imposed silence upon their party; everything passed without
+the least debate, in short, <i>all were making their bargains</i>. One <span class="pagenum">[146]<a name="page146" id="page146"></a></span>has
+heard of the corruption of courtiers, but, believe me the impudent
+prostitution of patriots, going to market with their honesty, beats it
+to nothing. Do but think of two hundred men <i>of the most consummate
+virtue</i>, setting themselves to sale for three weeks!"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref113" id="fnref113" href="#fn113">[113]</a></span> The
+corruption of Parliament and the indifference, of members to any
+interests other than their own, were pointedly expressed by Queen
+Caroline in her reply to an address by Lord Stair<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref114" id="fnref114" href="#fn114">[114]</a></span>:&mdash;"I must,
+therefore, once more ask you, my Lord, how you can have the assurance
+to talk to me of your thinking the sense of constituents, their
+interests, or their instructions any measure or rule for the conduct of
+their representatives in Parliament. * * * To talk, therefore, in the
+patriot strain you have done to me on this occasion, can move me, my
+Lord, to nothing but laughter."</p>
+
+<p>In the words of Mr. Lecky,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref115" id="fnref115" href="#fn115">[115]</a></span>
+the government was "corrupt,
+inefficient, and unheroic, but it was free from the gross vices of
+continental administrations; it was moderate tolerant, and economical;
+it was, with all its faults, a free government, and it contained in
+itself the elements of reformation." The national industry and
+resolution, particularly in the middle classes, brought about a great
+increase of wealth, a remarkable development of manufactures and
+commerce, which gave the country the extraordinary prosperity which it
+has since, almost without a check, enjoyed. The external appearance of
+England presented a new aspect. A fourth part of the whole land was
+redeemed from waste and put under cultivation.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref116" id="fnref116" href="#fn116">[116]</a></span> The advance in
+agriculture and manufactures, making <span class="pagenum">[147]<a name="page147" id="page147"></a></span>necessary better means of
+communication, introduced canals and substituted fine highways for the
+old muddy, robber-infested roads. The condition of these as late as
+1736 may be inferred from that of the road between Kensington and
+London: "The road between this place and London is grown so infamously
+bad, that we live here in the same solitude as we should do if cast on
+a rock in the middle of the ocean, and all the Londoners tell us there
+is between them and us a great, impassable gulf of mud. There are two
+roads through the Park, but the new one is so convex and the old one so
+concave, that by this extreme of faults they agree in the common one of
+being, like the high-road, impassable."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref117" id="fnref117" href="#fn117">[117]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Social life was marked by the same corruption, by the same absence of
+high aspirations and standards which we have seen in politics. The
+nation, especially the higher ranks, had not recovered from the license
+of the Restoration, while the agencies which can preserve virtue and
+refinement in a society were almost inactive. Religion, partly in
+consequence of the reaction which followed the civil wars, and partly
+in consequence of the spread of rational tendencies, had lost its hold
+on society, and no longer sufficed to keep it in check. Theological
+controversy, although it issue in narrowness and persecution, yet has
+the merit of keeping alive an appreciation of high moral qualities and
+aims. In the absence of strong religious feeling, there is yet in the
+human mind a natural preference for what is beautiful and honorable,
+usually taking the form of ideals, which may keep up a social tone.
+This may be seen in the age of Elizabeth, not a very religious period,
+but one in which poetry and elevation of thought overshadow coarseness
+and immorality. <span class="pagenum">[148]<a name="page148" id="page148"></a></span>The nineteenth century, again, is neither marked by
+strong religious feelings nor by any great tendency to idealization.
+And yet the nineteenth century has its standard, firmly based on public
+opinion, made up of a respect for decency and justice, a love of
+refinement, and an appreciation of the expediency as well as the
+attractiveness of virtue; a standard which influences many minds over
+which religion has little control. But in the earlier part of the
+eighteenth century, religion had ceased to govern, and had not yet
+attained that moral influence which, even in the absence of strong
+faith, establishes rectitude of conduct, philanthropy, and purity of
+thought in the minds of men. The ideals and aspirations of preceding
+centuries had no meaning for what Addison called an "understanding
+age," and the standard of order, refinement and taste of the present
+had yet to come. The low state of society was realized and revolted
+against by the best minds of the time. Gay lampooned it in the
+"Beggars' Opera," Swift satirized it in "Gulliver's Travels," Defoe
+became by force of circumstances a moral teacher; Addison, Steele, all
+the essayists preached lay sermons; the novelists set out with the
+object, less to amuse than to instruct, to improve their readers. This
+tendency, so marked in the literature of the time, is the evidence of
+the reforming influences at work. But many years passed before their
+effect was perceptible.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing attractive about George the First and his two ugly old
+mistresses, the "Elephant" and the "Maypole"; nor about his court of
+Germans, utilizing their time in England by accumulating money to carry
+back to Hanover when the harvest time had passed. George the Second,
+brave, but narrow and ill-tempered, embodied in himself the coarseness
+of the time. He <span class="pagenum">[149]<a name="page149" id="page149"></a></span>loved his wife, who was faithful to him through every
+outrage and every neglect. He caused one side to be taken out of her
+coffin, so that when he should be laid beside her his dust might mingle
+with hers. He esteemed her so highly, that in his grief at losing her,
+he went so far as to say that if she had not been his wife, he would
+have wished her for a mistress. To this wife, whom, in his own way, he
+sincerely loved and sincerely mourned, he confided all the details of
+his amours with other women. From Hanover, where he was acquiring
+Madame Walmoden as his mistress, "he acquainted the queen by letter of
+every step he took&mdash;of the growth of his passion, the progress of his
+applications, and their success, of every word as well as every action
+that passed&mdash;so minute a description of her person that, had the queen
+been a painter, she might have drawn her rival's picture at six hundred
+miles' distance. He added, too, the account of his buying her, and what
+he gave her, which, considering the rank of the purchaser, and the
+merits of the purchase as he set them forth, I think he had no great
+reason to brag of, when the first price, according to his report, was
+only one thousand ducats&mdash;a much greater proof of his economy than his
+passion."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref118" id="fnref118" href="#fn118">[118]</a></span> Among many extraordinary relations and expressions his
+letters contained, "there was one in which he desired the queen to
+contrive, if she could, that the Prince of Modena, who was to come the
+latter end of the year to England, might bring his wife with him; and
+the reason he gave for it was, that he heard her Highness was pretty
+free of her person, and that he had the greatest inclination imaginable
+to pay his addresses to a daughter of the late Regent of France, the
+Duke of Orleans&mdash;'un plaisir' (for he always wrote in <span class="pagenum">[150]<a name="page150" id="page150"></a></span>French), 'que je
+suis sur, ma chère Caroline, vous serez bien aise de me procurer, quand
+je vous dis combien je le souhaite.' Such a request to his wife
+respecting a woman he never saw, and during his connection with Madame
+Walmoden, speaks much stronger in a bare narrative of the fact, than by
+any comment or reflections; and is as incapable of being heightened as
+difficult to be credited."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref119" id="fnref119" href="#fn119">[119]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Queen Caroline bore all this without a murmur in order to retain her
+political influence with the king. To the power of the queen she
+sacrificed the feelings of the woman. With many good qualities and
+considerable ability, she shared in the prevailing coarseness. Her son,
+the Prince of Wales, was a very disagreeable person. Neither the queen
+nor the Princess Caroline "made much ceremony of wishing a hundred
+times a day that the prince might drop down dead of an apoplexy&mdash;the
+queen cursing the hour of his birth, and the Princess Caroline
+declaring she grudged him every hour he continued to breathe; and
+reproaching Lord Hervey" for ever having believed "the nauseous beast
+(those were her words) cared for anybody but his own nauseous
+self."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref120" id="fnref120" href="#fn120">[120]</a></span> The morning after the prince had been ordered to leave the
+palace, "the queen, at breakfast, every now and then repeated, 'I hope,
+in God, I shall never see him again'; and the king, among many other
+paternal <i>douceurs</i> in his valediction to his son, said,'Thank-God,
+to-morrow night the puppy will be out of my house.'"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref121" id="fnref121" href="#fn121">[121]</a></span> "My dear
+Lord" said the queen to Hervey, "I will give it to you under my own
+hand, if you are in any fear of my relapsing, that my dear first-born
+is the greatest ass and the greatest liar and the greatest <i>canaille</i>,
+and the greatest<span class="pagenum">[151]<a name="page151" id="page151"></a></span> beast in the whole world, and that I most heartily
+wish he was out of it."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref122" id="fnref122" href="#fn122">[122]</a></span> After the royal family, Sir Robert Walpole
+was the most prominent person in the country. He went about publicly
+with his mistress, and entertained his friends at his country-seat with
+orgies which disturbed the whole neighborhood. When the queen died he
+urged the princesses to get their father some new mistress to distract
+him. Lord Hervey says that Lady Sundon "had sense enough to perceive
+what black and dirty company, by living in a court, she was forced to
+keep."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref123" id="fnref123" href="#fn123">[123]</a></span> Lady Deloraine, who was suspected of being the king's
+mistress, "when she spoke seriously to Sir Robert Walpole, pretended
+not to have yet yielded; and said 'she was not of an age like a vain or
+a loving fool, but that if she did consent, that she would be well
+paid.'"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref124" id="fnref124" href="#fn124">[124]</a></span> "She told Lady Sundon, with whom she was very little
+acquainted, that the king had been very importunate these two years;
+and had often told her how unkind she was to refuse him; that it was
+mere crossness, for that he was sure her husband would not take it at
+all ill."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref125" id="fnref125" href="#fn125">[125]</a></span> The looseness of the marriage tie had been a prevailing
+evil ever since the Restoration. Steele wrote in the <i>Tatler</i> in 1710:
+"The wits of this island for above fifty years past, instead of
+correcting the vices of the age, have done all they could to inflame
+them. Marriage has been one of the common topics of ridicule that every
+stage scribbler hath found his account in; for whenever there is an
+occasion for a clap, an impertinent jest upon matrimony is sure to
+raise it. This hath been attended with very pernicious consequences.
+Many a country squire, upon his setting up for a man of the town, has
+<span class="pagenum">[152]<a name="page152" id="page152"></a></span>gone home in the gaiety of his heart and beat his wife. A kind husband
+hath been looked upon as a clown, and a good wife as a domestic annual
+unfit for the company or conversation of the <i>beau monde</i>. In short,
+separate beds, silent tables, and solitary homes have been introduced
+by your men of wit and pleasure of the age."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref126" id="fnref126" href="#fn126">[126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The prevailing immorality and coarseness were in keeping with the
+absence of sympathy with all elevation of thought and sentiment. "If a
+man of any delicacy were to attend the discourses of the young fellows
+of this age," wrote Steele, "he would believe that there were none but
+prostitutes to make the objects of passion."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref127" id="fnref127" href="#fn127">[127]</a></span> "Every woman is at
+heart a rake," thought Pope. Women were generally treated with
+disrespect, and distinctively female virtues were almost without
+appreciation. It is instructive to contrast the deeds of arms done in
+honor of a mistress in the Middle Ages, and the elevated sentiments
+held regarding women in what Addison called a "barbarous age," with the
+actions by which young men sometimes showed their devotion in the
+earlier part of the eighteenth century. The latter were as extravagant
+as the former, but extravagant after how different a manner. One young
+fellow, distinguished himself by drinking wine strained through his
+mistress' chemise; another, by drinking out of her shoe; another, by
+having her slipper torn to shreds, cooked, and served up as a dish.
+Coarseness of thought naturally brought on coarseness of action. Horace
+Walpole wrote in 1737, "'Tis no little inducement, to make me wish
+myself in France, that I hear gallantry is not left off there; that you
+may be polite, and not be thought awkward for it. <span class="pagenum">[153]<a name="page153" id="page153"></a></span>You know the pretty
+men of the age in England use the women with no more deference than
+they do their coach horses, and have not half the regard for them that
+they have for themselves."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref128" id="fnref128" href="#fn128">[128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Against the grosser faults of immorality and indecency Steele and
+Addison preached. But even they were insensible to an elevated view of
+the relations between men and women. Such a view was, however, taken by
+Defoe; a man whom Steele and Addison, as well as the polite world in
+general, looked upon as an adventurer, and one whose opinions on social
+subjects they disdained. "We reproach the sex every day," wrote Defoe,
+"with folly and impertinence, while I am confident, had they the
+advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than
+ourselves. * * * I cannot think that God ever made them so delicate, so
+glorious creatures, and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable
+and so delightful to mankind, with souls capable of the same enjoyments
+as men, and all to be only stewards of our houses, cooks, and
+slaves."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref129" id="fnref129" href="#fn129">[129]</a></span> Defoe stands almost alone in his remonstrance against the
+neglect of female education. But he stands more isolated still in his
+appreciation of womanly virtues, and in the enthusiasm with which he
+could speak of them. "A woman well-bred and well-taught, furnished with
+the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behavior, is a creature
+without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments;
+she is all softness and sweetness, love, wit, and delight; she is every
+way suitable to the sublimest wish; and the man that has such a one to
+his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her and be
+thankful."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref130" id="fnref130" href="#fn130">[130]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[154]<a name="page154" id="page154"></a></span>
+Love was hardly distinguished from mere animal desire. The poets wrote
+of it coldly and conventionally, as of a thing which existed only in
+name. The lover could only beg his mistress "to ease his pain." But the
+conventionality which extended through all thoughts and expressions
+relating to the higher emotions of the human soul, had no effect in
+diminishing the coarseness of thought and conversation. Men were
+conventional as regards the nobler sentiments of life, but they were
+not conventional in the spirit which excludes from conversation and
+literature the gross and the immoral. Chesterfield wrote to his son of
+honor, justice, and so forth, as qualities of which he should know the
+names, but of no consequence compared to "manners, good-breeding, and
+the graces." If a man blushed, it was not at his own indecency, nor at
+his own vice, but at the supposition that he could be so weak as to be
+influenced by sentiments of delicacy. Coarseness is, of course, quite
+separate from immorality, although the two are usually found together.
+In the earlier part of the eighteenth century there was a marked
+distinction between them. Swift's Stella, a woman of refinement, was
+highly indignant at remarks being made before her of a licentious
+character, but she herself used expressions of the grossest description
+without a thought of impropriety. The same distinction is seen in the
+essays and novels of the time. Swift, Defoe, Fielding, Richardson, all
+had a moral object in their fictions&mdash;the exposure and condemnation of
+vice, the encouragement of virtue. And yet most of these novels,
+especially intended to exert a good influence, are of so coarse a
+nature, and describe scenes so licentious that no parent would now
+allow them in their children's hands. The essayists wrote principally
+what <span class="pagenum">[155]<a name="page155" id="page155"></a></span>we should now look upon as sermons, or moral teachings, and yet
+very many of their papers are unfit to be read in a mixed society. Men
+and women were made then of coarser stuff than we. Their eyes and ears
+were less sensitive. They were, at best, accustomed to think and speak
+of things which to us seem disgusting, and of which, therefore, we
+think and speak as little as possible. In view of the circumstances
+which influenced society in the last century, this condition was a
+perfectly natural one. We must bear it in mind in reading contemporary
+literature, that we may not mistake an author's intention. But we must
+be careful in censuring what was, after all, only one necessary stage
+in the development of our own civilization. It must be said, also, that
+the coarseness of the eighteenth century was a healthy coarseness, bred
+of energetic natures and animal spirits. In our time, and in the midst
+of our advanced refinement there lurks a sickly sentimentality, a false
+modesty, and an unhealthy delicacy which are in a degree inimical to
+morality. We have novels in great numbers, not broadly coarse, as those
+of Fielding or Smollett, but insidiously immoral, painting vice and
+unbridled passions in an attractive light.</p>
+
+<p>The same rude and physical coarseness controlled the standard of taste,
+and introduced boisterousness and violence even into amusements. "The
+present grandeur of the British nation might make us expect," wrote
+Steele, "that we should rise in our public diversions and manner of
+enjoying life, in proportion to our advancement in glory and power.
+Instead of that, survey this town, and you will find rakes and
+debauchees are your men of pleasure; thoughtless atheists and
+illiterate drunkards call themselves free-thinkers; and gamesters,
+banterers, <span class="pagenum">[156]<a name="page156" id="page156"></a></span>biters, swearers, and twenty new-born insects more, are, in
+their several species, the modern men of wit."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref131" id="fnref131" href="#fn131">[131]</a></span> Walpole<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref132" id="fnref132" href="#fn132">[132]</a></span> wrote
+in 1744: "The town has been trying all this winter to drive pantomimes
+off the stage, very boisterously; for it is the way here to make even
+an affair of taste and sense a matter of riot and arms. Fleetwood, the
+master of Drury Lane, has omitted nothing to support them, as they
+supported his house. About ten days ago he let into the pit great
+numbers of bear-garden <i>bruisers</i> (that is the term), to knock down
+everybody that hissed. The pit rallied their forces and drove them out.
+I was sitting very quietly in the boxes contemplating all this. On a
+sudden the curtain flew up, and discovered the whole stage filled with
+blackguards armed with bludgeons and clubs, to menace the audience.
+This raised the greatest uproar."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Delany, whose character has excited so much admiration in her own
+and in succeeding generations, left, in her autobiography and letters,
+a picture of the society about her as seen by one of the most refined
+and cultivated women of the time. Like many others, she was struck with
+disgust at the coarseness and immorality which surrounded her. "It is
+enough to make one a cynic, to shun the world, and shut oneself up in a
+tub as Diogenes did; but I must acknowledge, though the age is very
+degenerate, that it is not quite void of perfection. I know some
+persons that still reconcile me to the world, and that convince me that
+virtue is not fled, though it is confined to a few."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref133" id="fnref133" href="#fn133">[133]</a></span> "The men have
+so despicable an opinion of women, and treat them by their words and
+<span class="pagenum">[157]<a name="page157" id="page157"></a></span>actions so ungenerously and inhumanly."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref134" id="fnref134" href="#fn134">[134]</a></span> "The women were never so
+audacious as now; this may well be called the brazen age."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref135" id="fnref135" href="#fn135">[135]</a></span> The
+material tone of society and its lack of sentiment were largely
+responsible for the low estimation in which women were held. Marriages
+were almost universally arranged on the simple basis of money, a
+circumstance which explains much of the conjugal infidelity and
+unhappiness which prevailed. "My Lady A.'s behaviour," wrote Mrs.
+Delany,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref136" id="fnref136" href="#fn136">[136]</a></span> "and some more wives' behaviour of the same stamp, has so
+disgraced matrimony that I am not surprised the men are afraid of it;
+and if we consider the loose morals of the men, it is strange the women
+are so easily won to their own undoing." Mrs. Delany, while a young
+married woman, although she was known to be of a virtuous character,
+was subjected to licentious attacks which fell little short of
+violence. It is hardly necessary to comment on the hard drinking and
+the hard swearing which were almost universal characteristics of
+gentlemen of fashion. Duelling was still a custom, and gambling was the
+favorite amusement at court, at the clubs, and in ladies'
+drawing-rooms. The title of gentleman depended on birth, and had
+nothing to do with personal conduct. Caste feeling was very strong.
+Gentlemen looked upon professional men or men of letters as beneath
+them, however superior they might be in manners, morals, or education.
+A curious instance of this caste feeling occurred in the case of
+Captain Vratz, who said of himself and companions on their way to the
+gallows for murder, that "God would show them some respect as they were
+gentlemen." When Gay's "Beggar's <span class="pagenum">[158]<a name="page158" id="page158"></a></span>Opera" was put on the stage, the
+fashionable world crowded to see their own coarseness and immorality
+exhibited in the persons of thieves and highwaymen, and to laugh at the
+truth of the Beggar's words: "Through the whole piece you may observe
+such a similitude of manners in high and low life, that it is difficult
+to determine whether (in the fashionable vices) the fine gentlemen
+imitate the gentlemen of the road, or the gentlemen of the road the
+fine gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>The lower classes of society were as ignorant and brutal as the higher
+were coarse and corrupt. Among the other qualities in which the times
+were deficient, was philanthropy. The measures which the wisdom and
+charity of the present have exerted to diminish crime, and to improve
+the condition of the poor, were then represented only by a harsh and
+cruel penal code, which had a powerful, though an indirect tendency to
+promote pauperism and to multiply criminals. Although population had
+greatly increased, no new provision had been made for religious
+teaching, and there were no schools but those of Edward and
+Elizabeth.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref137" id="fnref137" href="#fn137">[137]</a></span> Defective poor-laws, which forbade laborers to move
+from one parish to another in search of work, made pauperism in many
+cases the inevitable fate of the industrious. In the cities there was
+no adequate police regulation of the criminal classes; and this, too,
+at a time when peaceful habits were fast growing among the people at
+large, and police protection was more needed than ever before. At the
+same time there came upon the lower classes, the terrible scourge of
+gin. Violent and ignorant as these classes were, the effects upon them
+of so cheap and maddening a drink were incalculably debasing. "The
+drunkenness of the common <span class="pagenum">[159]<a name="page159" id="page159"></a></span>people," says an eye-witness, "was so
+universal by the retailing of a liquor called <i>gin</i>, with which they
+could get drunk for a groat, that the whole town of London, and many
+towns in the country swarmed with drunken people of both sexes from
+morning to night, and were more like a scene from a Bacchanal than the
+residence of a civil society."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref138" id="fnref138" href="#fn138">[138]</a></span> The sign which hangs over the
+inn-door in Hogarth's picture of Gin Lane, and announces that the
+customer can get drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, and have
+straw for nothing, was a copy, not an invention. Attempts to limit the
+traffic in gin were met by riots so fierce that the government was
+obliged to withdraw its measures. The violent natures of the common
+people appeared in their amusements as well as in their crimes. Their
+sports were of the most brutal kind, and almost all involved the
+sufferings of men or animals. Among other entertainments advertised to
+take place in London in 1729 and 1730, were "a mad bull to be dressed
+up with fireworks and turned loose in the game place, a dog to be
+dressed up with fireworks over him, a bear to be let loose at the same
+time, and a cat to be tied to the bull's tail, a mad bull dressed up
+with fireworks to be baited."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref139" id="fnref139" href="#fn139">[139]</a></span> Such amusements were interspersed
+with cock-fighting, prize fights, and boxing matches between women. The
+same brutality characterised the crimes of the period. Violent riots,
+aggravated by the plunder of gin-shops, attended the preaching of the
+Methodists, the Gin Act, and even the employment by Garrick of a few
+French dancers at Drury Lane Theatre. Piracy and smuggling were
+systematically carried on, accompanied by atrocious cruelties and
+murders. It was no uncommon practice for <span class="pagenum">[160]<a name="page160" id="page160"></a></span>the inhabitants of the
+sea-coast to lure vessels on shore by false signals in order to plunder
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Other causes, as well as the ignorance and brutality in which the lower
+classes almost necessarily lived, contributed to the number and
+impunity of criminals. It was only in 1736 that the streets of London,
+hitherto plunged at night in total darkness, began to be lighted for a
+few hours by lamps. The right of sanctuary, which still practically
+existed in such quarters as Whitefriars and the Mint afforded to
+criminals an easy and safe retreat beyond the reach of the law. The
+rougher elements of the upper as well as of the lower classes, made the
+streets impassable at night without great danger. They organized
+themselves into bands, and committed atrocious and wanton brutalities
+on inoffensive passers-by. One band, called the Modocs, indulged in the
+amusement called "tipping the lion" which consisted in flattening the
+nose of the victim on his face and boring out his eyes with the
+fingers. There were also the "dancing masters," who made people dance
+by pricking them with swords, the "sweaters," who pricked their victims
+with swords till they fell exhausted, and the "tumblers," who set women
+on their heads and mutilated their limbs.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref140" id="fnref140" href="#fn140">[140]</a></span> Others rolled women down
+hill in barrels, cut the faces of maid-servants, and slit the noses of
+watchmen. The criminal classes became so daring and numerous that the
+streets were insecure even in the day-time, "It is shocking to think
+what a shambles this country is grown!" wrote Walpole. "Seventeen were
+executed this morning, after having murdered the turnkey on Friday
+night, and almost forced open Newgate. One is forced to travel even at
+noon, as if one were going to battle."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref141" id="fnref141" href="#fn141">[141]</a></span> It was the <span class="pagenum">[161]<a name="page161" id="page161"></a></span>custom to go
+out at night accompanied by armed servants. Addison gave an amusing
+description of the precautions observed when Sir Roger de Coverley was
+taken to the theatre. "The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there
+at the appointed Hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put
+on the same Sword which he made use of at the Battle of <i>Steenkirk</i>.
+Sir Roger's Servants, and among the rest my old Friend the Butler, had,
+I found, provided themselves with good oaken Plants to attend their
+Master upon this occasion. When we had placed him in his Coach, with
+myself at his left hand, the Captain before him, and his Butler at the
+Head of his Footmen in the Rear, we convoyed him in safety to the
+Playhouse."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref142" id="fnref142" href="#fn142">[142]</a></span> "One night, in the beginning of November, 1749," wrote
+Walpole, "as I was returning from Holland House by moonlight, about ten
+at night, I was attacked by two highwaymen in Hyde Park, and the pistol
+of one of them going off accidentally, razed the skin under my left eye,
+left some marks of shot on my face, and stunned me."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref143" id="fnref143" href="#fn143">[143]</a></span> These men were
+taken about a year later. "I have been in town for a day or two, and
+heard no conversation but about M'Lean, a fashionable highwayman, who
+is just taken, and who robbed me among others. * * * His father was an
+Irish Dean; his brother is a Calvinist minister in great esteem at the
+Hague. * * * He took to the road with only one companion, Plunkett, a
+journeyman apothecary, my other friend. * * * M'Lean had a lodging in
+St. James Street, over against White's, and another at Chelsea; Plunkett
+one in Jermyn St., and their faces are as well known about St. James' as
+any gentleman who <span class="pagenum">[162]<a name="page162" id="page162"></a></span>lives in that quarter, and who, perhaps, goes upon the
+road too. M'Lean had a quarrel at Putney Bowling Green two months ago
+with an officer whom he challenged for disputing his rank; but the
+captain declined, till M'Lean should produce a certificate of his
+nobility, which he has just received. * * * As I conclude he will suffer,
+and wish him no ill, I don't care to have his idea, and am almost single
+in not having been to see him. Lord Mountford at the head of half White's
+went the first day: his aunt was crying over him: as soon as they were
+withdrawn she said to him, knowing they were of White's, 'My dear, what
+did the lords say to you? Have you ever been concerned with any of
+them?'&mdash;was not it admirable? What a favorable idea people must have
+of White's! and what if White's should not deserve a much better! But
+the chief personages who have been to comfort and weep over this fallen
+hero are Lady Caroline Petersham and Miss Asche: I call them Polly and
+Lucy."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref144" id="fnref144" href="#fn144">[144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The fact that death was the penalty for almost all serious violations
+of the law gave an additional zest to crime. The criminal looked upon
+himself, and was looked upon by others, as a brave man, and even those
+who abhorred the crime retained a certain admiration for the courage
+which they thought involved in its commission. Felons sat erect and
+proud in the cart which carried them to execution. Their great ambition
+was to die like "gentlemen," and they saw no disgrace in death by "the
+ladder and the cord," so long as it was borne with bravado. Criminals
+are frequent and prominent characters in contemporary fiction. The
+period contributed more than any other to the romance of crime, and a
+<span class="pagenum">[163]<a name="page163" id="page163"></a></span>glamour has been cast over the most infamous careers which has made
+them celebrated to the present day. The famous highwayman Dick Turpin,
+and one Parsons, the son of a baronet, educated at Eton, attained a
+public interest and admiration, in which the greatness of their crimes
+was forgotten in the dangers they incurred and the boldness with which
+they defied justice. When Jack Sheppard, the burglar, was finally
+captured after two remarkable escapes from Newgate,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref145" id="fnref145" href="#fn145">[145]</a></span> he became a
+popular hero. Great numbers of people visited him in prison and gave
+him presents of money. Several lives were written of him.</p>
+
+<p>But the most remarkable criminal career, and that which best
+illustrates the inefficiency of the law and the impunity and ferocity
+of criminals, is that of Johnathan Wild, surnamed the Great.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref146" id="fnref146" href="#fn146">[146]</a></span> This
+man spent some time in Newgate, and having become acquainted with the
+secrets and methods of its inhabitants, married a notorious woman who
+was well versed in similar knowledge. He then set up an establishment
+for receiving stolen goods, and organized thieves into regular bands.
+Some were to rob churches, others to pick pockets at theatres and
+fairs, others to rob on the streets and highways. He even divided the
+country into districts, and appointed a special gang to work in each.
+All these thieves were obliged to account to him for what they stole,
+and he disposed of it in London, or if that seemed too dangerous, he
+sent it abroad in a ship of his own. He attained over lesser criminals
+the most rigid authority and absolute power. His lieutenants were
+chosen among transported convicts who had returned before the
+expiration of their terms. <span class="pagenum">[164]<a name="page164" id="page164"></a></span>These were legally incapable of giving
+evidence against Wild, but he could send them to the gallows at a
+moment's notice, if suspicious of their fidelity, by information to the
+authorities. Over the common thieves he had nearly the same power.
+Those whom he suspected of retaining part of their booty, or whom he
+feared as witnesses against himself, were at once sent to the gallows
+by private information to the magistrates. On the other hand, a thief
+who was in danger of arrest, if useful and faithful, was taken into
+Wild's own house, protected, fed, and employed in counterfeiting or
+other in-door occupation. When a law was passed making it criminal to
+receive stolen goods, Wild opened an intelligence office for the
+discovery of missing articles. To that office came the thieves, like so
+many workmen, to deliver their booty and receive their wages, and
+there, too, came the robbed to describe their losses and name their
+rewards. If the reward were sufficient to satisfy Wild, he returned the
+article; otherwise he had it made unrecognizable by skilled workmen
+whom he employed for the purpose, and presented it to a faithful
+follower, or disposed of it in the regular course of business. It is
+impossible not to notice a certain resemblance between Johnathan Wild
+and Defoe's English Tradesman. The practical turn of mind, the absence
+of sentiment so characteristic of the times, are to be seen alike in
+the thief, the tradesman, and the gentleman. Conducted on purely
+business principles, like a mercer's shop or a marriage between noble
+families, without hatred or affection, anger or generosity, the work
+went on. Wild dealt in human lives with the same cold, money-making
+calculation which directed the disposal of a stolen watch. When public
+complaints were made, that although many robberies were committed few
+<span class="pagenum">[165]<a name="page165" id="page165"></a></span>thieves were apprehended, Wild supplied the gallows with thieves who
+were useless to him or lukewarm in his interest. When a large reward
+was offered for the apprehension of a criminal, Wild was usually able
+to deliver the man. If he was unable to do so, or was friendly to the
+criminal, he still secured the reward by giving false information
+against an innocent person, and supported his assertions by the perjury
+of his subordinates. By these methods he soon grew rich. He carried a
+silver wand which he asserted to be a badge of office given him by the
+government, and entered into secret leagues with corrupt magistrates.
+After a time he called himself a gentleman, and wore a sword, the first
+use of which was to cut off his wife's ear. At last he was detected in
+aiding the escape of a highwayman confined in Newgate, and being
+deprived of his power, he was easily convicted. He was hung in 1725,
+and on his way to the scaffold was almost pelted to death by the mob.</p>
+
+<p>The impunity with which Wild followed his long career of crime was not
+unusual. The authorities were inefficient and corrupt. Fielding,
+himself a police justice, makes a magistrate say in "Amelia": "And to
+speak my opinion plainly, such are the laws and such the method of
+proceeding that one would almost think our laws were made for the
+protection of rogues, rather than for the punishment of them." The laws
+bore hardly upon the poor and spared the rich. "The parson," complained
+Defoe in the "Poor Man's Plea," "preaches a thundering sermon against
+drunkenness, and the justice of the peace sets my poor neighbor in the
+stocks, and I am like to be much the better for either, when I know
+perhaps that this same parson and this same justice were both drunk
+together but the night before." The magistrates and <span class="pagenum">[166]<a name="page166" id="page166"></a></span>constables were as
+much in need of reform as the laws. "The greatest criminals in this
+town," said Walpole,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref147" id="fnref147" href="#fn147">[147]</a></span> "are the officers of justice; there is no
+tyranny they do not exercise, no villany of which they do not partake."
+Many of the magistrates were never impartial, except, as Fielding said:
+"when they could get nothing on either side." One class of constables
+was described by Fielding in "Amelia."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref148" id="fnref148" href="#fn148">[148]</a></span> The watchmen intended "to
+guard our streets by night from thieves and robbers, an office which at
+least requires strength of body, are chosen out of those poor old
+decrepit people, who are from their want of bodily strength rendered
+incapable of getting a livelihood by work. These men, armed only with a
+pole, which some of them are scarce able to lift, are to secure the
+persons and houses of his Majesty's subjects from the attacks of young,
+bold, stout, desperate, and well-armed villains. If the poor old
+fellows should run away from such enemies, no one, I think, can wonder,
+unless it be that they were able to make their escape." Defoe's
+pickpockets are always more afraid of being mobbed on the spot, than of
+being detected and punished by the police. Well known highwaymen not
+infrequently rode through the streets of London with armed companions,
+although large rewards were offered for their capture. Many of the
+constables were of the most villanous character. The following
+incident, recorded by Walpole, is only one of many instances of their
+brutality which might be mentioned.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref149" id="fnref149" href="#fn149">[149]</a></span> "There has lately been the
+most shocking scene of murder imaginable; a parcel of <i>drunken</i>
+constables took it into their heads to put the laws in <span class="pagenum">[167]<a name="page167" id="page167"></a></span>execution
+against <i>disorderly</i> persons, and so took up every woman they met till
+they had collected five or six and twenty, all of whom they thrust into
+St. Martin's round house, where they kept them all night, with doors
+and windows closed. The poor creatures, who could not stir or breathe,
+screamed as long as they had any breath left, begging at least for
+water; one poor wretch said she was worth eighteen-pence, and would
+gladly give it for a draught of water, but in vain! So well did they
+keep them there, that in the morning four were found stifled to death;
+two died soon after, and a dozen more are in a shocking way. In short,
+it is horrid to think what the poor creatures suffered. Several of them
+were beggars, who, from having no lodging, were necessarily found in
+the street, and others honest labouring women. One of the dead was a
+poor washer-woman, big with child, who was returning home late from
+washing. * * * These same men, the same night, broke into a bagnio in
+Covent Garden, and took up Jack Spencer, Mr. Stewart, and Lord George
+Graham, and would have thrust them into the round-house with the poor
+women if they had not been worth more than eighteen-pence!"</p>
+
+<p>Keepers of prisons bought their places with the distinct purpose of
+making money by extortions from the prisoners. The following is an
+account of the means pursued by Bainbridge, Warden of the Fleet, to
+extort money from one Solas, a poor man, imprisoned for debt<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref150" id="fnref150" href="#fn150">[150]</a></span>:
+"Bainbridge caused him to be turned into the dungeon, called the Strong
+Room of the Master's side. This place is a vault, like those in which
+the dead are <span class="pagenum">[168]<a name="page168" id="page168"></a></span>interred, and wherein the bodies of persons dying in the
+said prison are usually deposited till the coroner's inquest hath
+passed upon them; it has no chimney nor fireplace, nor any light but
+what comes over the door, or through a hole of about eight inches
+square. It is neither paved nor boarded; and the rough bricks appear
+both on the sides and top, being neither wainscotted nor plastered;
+what adds to the dampness and stench of the place, is its being built
+over the common sewer, and adjoining to the sink and dunghill where all
+the nastiness of the prison is cast. In this miserable place the poor
+wretch was kept by the said Bainbridge manacled and shackled for near
+two months. At length on receiving five guineas from Mr. Kemp, a friend
+of Solas's, Bainbridge released the prisoner from his cruel
+confinement. But though his chains were taken off, his terror still
+remained, and the unhappy man was prevailed upon by that terror, not
+only to labor <i>gratis</i> for the said Bainbridge, but to swear also at
+random all that he hath required of him; and the committee themselves
+saw an instance of the deep impression his sufferings had made upon
+him; for on his surmising from something said, that Bainbridge was to
+return again as Warden of the Fleet, he fainted, and the blood started
+out of his mouth and nose." This example is by no means an exceptional
+one. It is impossible, within the limits of this volume, to give an
+adequate idea of the disease, the squalor, the cruelties and abuses
+which existed in the prisons. Their interiors are often described by
+the novelists, who were unable to exaggerate the actual circumstances.
+Poor prisoners, when acquitted, were dragged back to prison and kept
+there till their dues were paid or they were released by death. Richer
+men were subjected to all sorts of <span class="pagenum">[169]<a name="page169" id="page169"></a></span>indignity and danger, even to that
+of small-pox, to force them to enrich their jailers.</p>
+
+<p>The social condition of England in the first half of the eighteenth
+century presents a material and unattractive aspect. Its most prominent
+characteristics are the corruption and coarseness of the upper classes,
+and the ignorant brutality of the lower. Still there existed beneath
+this exterior, qualities and habits in the highest degree favorable to
+civilization and social order. At a later time these qualities brought
+about reforms which did away with many of the worst abuses. Among the
+middle classes, fast rising to political and social prominence, lived
+an earnest morality, which at a later time took form in the great
+Methodist revival, and the rise of philanthropy. This persevering
+industry of the same classes added enormously to the wealth of the
+nation. When reform came, it came as a revolt against existing
+conditions, showing at once how bad those conditions were, and how
+strongly the popular mind inclined to a better state. A general feeling
+of disgust prevailed which left deep traces on contemporary literature,
+and produced a widespread misanthropy. The first half of the eighteenth
+century was to the period of the Restoration like the morning after a
+debauch. Rochester, in the time of Charles II, and Hervey, in the time
+of George II were representative men. The difference in the feelings
+with which these men looked upon life is significant. Rochester, in the
+full tide of dissipation, glories in his sensuality, and writes the
+"Maimed Debauchee."</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div>Should some brave youth (worth being drunk) prove nice,</div>
+    <div>And from his fair inviter meanly shrink,</div>
+    <div>'T would please the ghost of my departed vice,</div>
+    <div>If, at my council, he repent and drink.</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[170]<a name="page170" id="page170"></a></span>
+But Hervey represents the time when dissipation had run a long course,
+and disgust, sanctity, and misanthropy were succeeding. To him, as to
+Swift, men were "a worthless species of animals," their vices, natural;
+their virtues, affectation:</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div>Mankind I know, their nature and their art,</div>
+    <div>Their vice their own, their virtue but a part</div>
+    <div>Ill played so oft, that all the cheat can tell,</div>
+    <div>And dangerous only when 't is acted well,</div>
+
+.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.
+
+    <div>To such reflections when I turn my mind</div>
+    <div><i>I loathe my being, and abhor mankind</i>.</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn90" id="fn90" href="#fnref90">[90]</a></span>
+Carlyle, "Frederick the Great," p. 13. vol. i.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn91" id="fn91" href="#fnref91">[91]</a></span>
+Addison, "An Account of the Greatest English Poets."
+Quoted by Henry Morley, LL.D., "English Literature in the Reign of
+Victoria."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn92" id="fn92" href="#fnref92">[92]</a></span>
+Lecky's "History of England in the 18th Century," vol. i,
+p. 502.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn93" id="fn93" href="#fnref93">[93]</a></span>
+Lord Hervey, "Memoirs of George II," v. 3, p. 527.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn94" id="fn94" href="#fnref94">[94]</a></span>
+Hervey's "Mem. of George II," vol. 1, p. 147, note.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn95" id="fn95" href="#fnref95">[95]</a></span>
+Walpole's "Reminiscences"; Hervey's "Mem.," v. 2, p. 103, note.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn96" id="fn96" href="#fnref96">[96]</a></span>
+Walpole's "Mem. of George II," vol. 1, p. 87.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn97" id="fn97" href="#fnref97">[97]</a></span>
+Browne's "Estimate of the Times"; Lecky, "Hist. of 18th
+Century," vol. 1, p. 509.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn98" id="fn98" href="#fnref98">[98]</a></span>
+Lord Hervey, "Mem. of Geo. II," vol. i, p. 5.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn99" id="fn99" href="#fnref99">[99]</a></span>
+<i>Idem</i>, vol. i, p. 170.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn100" id="fn100" href="#fnref100">[100]</a></span>
+<i>Idem</i>, vol. i, p. 18.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn101" id="fn101" href="#fnref101">[101]</a></span>
+Hervey's "Mem.," i, 20.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn102" id="fn102" href="#fnref102">[102]</a></span>
+<i>Idem</i>, vol. 1, p. 208.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn103" id="fn103" href="#fnref103">[103]</a></span>
+Hervey's "Memoirs," 1, 39.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn104" id="fn104" href="#fnref104">[104]</a></span>
+<i>Idem</i>, ii, 360.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn105" id="fn105" href="#fnref105">[105]</a></span>
+<i>Idem</i>, ii, 31.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn106" id="fn106" href="#fnref106">[106]</a></span>
+<i>Idem</i>, vol. i, p. 91.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn107" id="fn107" href="#fnref107">[107]</a></span>
+Hervey's "Memoirs," vol. 1, p. 37.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn108" id="fn108" href="#fnref108">[108]</a></span>
+Hervey, 1, 22-25.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn109" id="fn109" href="#fnref109">[109]</a></span>
+Horace Walpole, "Reminiscences."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn110" id="fn110" href="#fnref110">[110]</a></span>
+Locke "On Civil Government," b. ii, ch. 13; Lecky's
+"History of the 18th Century," vol. I, p. 471.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn111" id="fn111" href="#fnref111">[111]</a></span>
+Hervey's "Memoirs," ii, 280.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn112" id="fn112" href="#fnref112">[112]</a></span>
+Chesterfield, "Correspondence," iii, 94.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn113" id="fn113" href="#fnref113">[113]</a></span>
+Walpole to Mann, Dec. 24, 1741.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn114" id="fn114" href="#fnref114">[114]</a></span>
+Hervey's "Memoirs," i, 172.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn115" id="fn115" href="#fnref115">[115]</a></span>
+"History of the Eighteenth Century," vol. 1, p. 512.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn116" id="fn116" href="#fnref116">[116]</a></span>
+Green's "Short History of the English People," pp. 768-9.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn117" id="fn117" href="#fnref117">[117]</a></span>
+Hervey, ii, 189, note.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn118" id="fn118" href="#fnref118">[118]</a></span>
+Hervey's "Memoirs," vol. i, p. 500.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn119" id="fn119" href="#fnref119">[119]</a></span>
+Hervey's "Memoirs," vol. i, p. 502.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn120" id="fn120" href="#fnref120">[120]</a></span>
+Lord Hervey's "Memoirs", ii, 255.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn121" id="fn121" href="#fnref121">[121]</a></span>
+<i>Idem</i>, ii, 434.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn122" id="fn122" href="#fnref122">[122]</a></span>
+Hervey's "Memoirs," ii, 472.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn123" id="fn123" href="#fnref123">[123]</a></span>
+Hervey's "Memoirs," ii, 350.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn124" id="fn124" href="#fnref124">[124]</a></span>
+<i>Idem</i>, i, 90.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn125" id="fn125" href="#fnref125">[125]</a></span>
+<i>Idem</i>, ii, 349.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn126" id="fn126" href="#fnref126">[126]</a></span>
+<i>Tatler</i>, No. 159, Saturday, April 15, 1710.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn127" id="fn127" href="#fnref127">[127]</a></span>
+Steele, <i>Tatler</i>, No. 5.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn128" id="fn128" href="#fnref128">[128]</a></span>
+Walpole to Montague, March 20, 1737.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn129" id="fn129" href="#fnref129">[129]</a></span>
+Wilson's "Memoirs of Defoe," vol. i, p. 265.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn130" id="fn130" href="#fnref130">[130]</a></span>
+Wilson's "Memoirs of Defoe," vol. i, p. 206.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn131" id="fn131" href="#fnref131">[131]</a></span>
+Steele, <i>Tatler</i>, No. 12 May 7, 1709.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn132" id="fn132" href="#fnref132">[132]</a></span>
+Walpole to Mann, Nov. 26, 1711.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn133" id="fn133" href="#fnref133">[133]</a></span>
+Letter to Mrs. Ann Granville, Dec. 5, 1739.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn134" id="fn134" href="#fnref134">[134]</a></span>
+Letter to Mrs. Ann Granville, Jan. 17, 1731-32.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn135" id="fn135" href="#fnref135">[135]</a></span>
+Letter to Mrs. Ann Granville, Nov. 18, 1729.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn136" id="fn136" href="#fnref136">[136]</a></span>
+Letter to Mrs. Ann Granville, Christmas-day, 1729.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn137" id="fn137" href="#fnref137">[137]</a></span>
+Green, "Short History of the English People," p. 717.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn138" id="fn138" href="#fnref138">[138]</a></span>
+Lord Hervey's "Memoirs of George II," vol. ii, p. 139.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn139" id="fn139" href="#fnref139">[139]</a></span>
+Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," p. 259; Lecky, "History
+of England in the 18th Century," vol. i, chap. iv.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn140" id="fn140" href="#fnref140">[140]</a></span>
+Lecky, "History of England in the 18th Century," vol. i,
+p. 522.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn141" id="fn141" href="#fnref141">[141]</a></span>
+Walpole to Sir H. Mann, March 23, 1752.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn142" id="fn142" href="#fnref142">[142]</a></span>
+The <i>Spectator</i>, "Sir Roger at the Playhouse."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn143" id="fn143" href="#fnref143">[143]</a></span>
+Horace Walpole, "Short Notes of My Life."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn144" id="fn144" href="#fnref144">[144]</a></span>
+Horace Walpole to Sir H. Mann, Aug. 2, 1750.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn145" id="fn145" href="#fnref145">[145]</a></span>
+See the "Newgate Calendar."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn146" id="fn146" href="#fnref146">[146]</a></span>
+See the "Newgate Calendar" and Pike's "History of
+Crime," vol. 2, chap. x.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn147" id="fn147" href="#fnref147">[147]</a></span>
+Walpole to Mann, bet. July 14 and 29, 1742.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn148" id="fn148" href="#fnref148">[148]</a></span>
+"Amelia," book i, chap. 2.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn149" id="fn149" href="#fnref149">[149]</a></span>
+Walpole to Mann, bet. July 14 and 29, 1742.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn150" id="fn150" href="#fnref150">[150]</a></span>
+"State Trials;" vol. xvii, p. 298. <i>Proceedings against
+John Higgins, Esq., Warden of the Fleet, Thomas Bainbridge, Esq., Warden of
+the Fleet, Richard Corbett, one of the Tipstaffs of the Fleet, and
+William Acton, Keeper of the Marshalsea Prison: 3 George II, A.D. 1729.
+Report of the Com. of the House of Commons</i>.
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>II.</h4>
+
+<p>Lord Hervey's bitter lines introduce us to Jonathan Swift. Nature,
+together with the character of his time, made the great Dean a
+misanthropist. Physical infirmity, disappointed hopes, and a long
+series of humiliations destroyed the happiness which should have
+belonged to his rare union of noble gifts,&mdash;his tall, commanding
+figure, his awe-inspiring countenance, his acute wit, and magnificent
+intellect. Naturally proud and sensitive to an abnormal degree, he was
+obliged to suffer the most galling slights. From his earliest years he
+hated dependence, and yet, until middle life he was forced to be a
+dependent. His education was furnished by the charity of relatives,
+between whom and himself there was no affection. His college degree was
+conferred in a manner which made it a disgrace rather than an honor.
+The long years which he passed in the household of Sir William Temple,
+subject to the humors and caprices of his master, embittered his temper
+at the time of life when it should have been most buoyant and hopeful.
+Thus began the melancholy and misanthropy which <span class="pagenum">[171]<a name="page171" id="page171"></a></span>marred his whole life,
+darkening his triumphs, turning such love as he had to give into a
+curse to those who received it, producing an eccentricity which often
+gave him the appearance of a madman, and finally bringing him to a
+terrible end&mdash;to die, as he himself foretold, like a blasted elm, first
+at the top. He kept his birthday as a day of mourning. He solemnly
+regretted his escape when nearly killed by an accident. He habitually
+parted from a friend with the wish that they might never meet again.
+Cæsar's description of Cassius is wonderfully applicable to Swift:<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref151" id="fnref151" href="#fn151">[151]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div class="in8">&mdash;&mdash;He reads much;</div>
+    <div>He is a great observer, and he looks</div>
+    <div>Quite through the deeds of men &mdash;&mdash;</div>
+    <div>Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort</div>
+    <div>As if he mocked himself, and scorn'd his spirit</div>
+    <div>That could be amused to smile at any thing.</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The character of Swift presents great apparent contradictions. Although
+full of good-will and appreciation for individuals, although exercising
+out of a small income the most discriminating and open handed
+generosity, there has never lived a man more bitter in his misanthropy,
+more fierce in his denunciation of mankind. Although capable of great
+and disinterested affection, he was unable to make his affection a
+source of happiness to himself or to others. Although he always chose
+for companionship the most refined and cultivated women, the wisest and
+most honored men, his mind dwelt by preference on the most terrible
+examples of human depravity, and he gave permanent form, in his
+literary productions, to ideas from which a healthy mind must <span class="pagenum">[172]<a name="page172" id="page172"></a></span>always
+turn with horror and disgust. His misanthropy was founded partly on
+observation of the evil and corruption which he saw about him, and
+partly on the suspicions and exaggerations of his own imagination. He
+gave up writing a history of England, because, in his own words, he
+found the characters of history such a pack of rascals that he would
+have no more to say to them. He made a "List of Friends," which he
+classified as Grateful, Ungrateful, Indifferent, and Doubtful. Of these
+friends, forty-four in number, only seventeen were marked with the <i>g</i>
+which signified that their friendship was trusted. We cannot
+disassociate Swift from his own time, nor can we attribute simply to a
+melancholy life or to mental aberration the revolting conceptions which
+his works contain. The coarseness and corruption which marked the
+private and public life of Swift's day had their share in the
+production of such poems as The "Lady's Dressing-Room," and such
+degrading views of human nature as are expressed in the "Voyage to the
+Houyhnhnms."</p>
+
+<p>It is a significant sign of the times that Hogarth, the greatest
+English painter, and Swift, the greatest English writer, should have
+employed their talents in caricature and in satire. In the wonderful
+allegory of the "Tale of a Tub," in which the corruptions and failings
+of the English, Roman, and Presbyterian churches were ridiculed in the
+persons of Jack, Peter, and Martin, Swift displayed at an early age his
+exuberant wit and surpassing satirical power. The "Tale of a Tub" was
+succeeded by the "Battle of the Books," an imaginary conflict between
+volumes in a library, which exposed the absurdity of the controversy
+over the relative merits of the ancients and the moderns. But Swift's
+satire became most fierce and brilliant when it was turned from rival
+creeds and rival literatures, and directed toward mankind itself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[173]<a name="page173" id="page173"></a></span>
+The "Travels of Lemuel Gulliver" were dropped, said the publisher, at
+his house, in the dark, from a hackney-coach. In regard to this work,
+the Dean followed his custom of sending out his writings to the world
+to make their way on their own merits, without the assistance of his
+name. But the authorship of the book could not long remain unknown
+before the storm of applause and curiosity which it immediately
+excited. It was a production, said Johnson,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref152" id="fnref152" href="#fn152">[152]</a></span> "so new and strange
+that it filled the reader with a mingled emotion of merriment and
+amazement. It was received with such avidity, that the price of the
+first edition was raised before the second could be made; it was read
+by the high and the low, the learned and illiterate. Criticism was for
+a while lost in wonder; no rules of judgment were applied to a book
+written in open defiance of truth and regularity." Whether read for the
+satire or the story, the adventures of Gulliver proved equally
+fascinating. They "offered personal and political satire to the readers
+in high life, low and coarse incidents to the vulgar, marvels to the
+romantic, wit to the young and lively, lessons of morality and policy
+to the grave, and maxims of deep and bitter misanthropy to neglected
+age and disappointed ambition."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref153" id="fnref153" href="#fn153">[153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The early part of the eighteenth century offered rich material to the
+satirist, and Swift brought to his work unparalleled fierceness and
+power. He attacked the corruption of the politician and the minister,
+the vanity and vice of the courtier, the folly and extravagance of the
+fashionable world, and gathering venom in his course, made his satire
+universal and painted the pettiness and deformity of the human race.
+But among <span class="pagenum">[174]<a name="page174" id="page174"></a></span>
+the follies and vices of mankind, vanity was the fault most
+offensive to Swift, and that which he lashed with his most bitter
+invective. To ridicule human pride, and to expose its inconsistency
+with the imperfection of man, is the ruling object of his great
+satirical romance. On Gulliver's return to England from the land of the
+Houyhnhnms, where, under the degraded form of Yahoos, he had studied
+mankind as they appeared when influenced by all human vices and brutal
+instincts unveiled by hypocrisy or civilization, he describes his
+horror at observing the existence of vanity among his countrymen who
+resembled Yahoos so closely;&mdash;</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>My reconcilement to the Yahoo kind in general might not be so
+    difficult, if they would be content with those vices and follies
+    only which nature has entitled them to. I am not in the least
+    provoked at the sight of a lawyer, a pickpocket, a colonel, a fool,
+    a lord, a gamester, a politician, a whoremonger, a physician, an
+    evidence, a suborner, an attorney, a traitor, or the like; this is
+    all according to the due course of things: but when I behold a lump
+    of deformity and diseases, both in body and mind, smitten with
+    pride, it immediately breaks all the measures of my patience;
+    neither shall I ever be able to comprehend how such an animal, and
+    such a vice, could tally together.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In the "Voyage to Lilliput" the follies and vanities of individuals and
+of parties are ridiculed by the representation of their practice among
+diminutive beings. Sir Robert Walpole suffered in the person of Flimnap
+the Lilliputian Premier, Tories and Whigs in the High-Heels and
+Low-Heels, Catholics and Protestants in the Big-endians and
+Small-endians. In the "Voyage to Brobdingnag," where Gulliver finds
+himself a pigmy among <span class="pagenum">[175]<a name="page175" id="page175"></a></span>
+giants, the general object of the satire is the
+same, but its application becomes more bitter and universal.
+Characteristics of the human race hardly perceptible in their ordinary
+proportions, attain a disgusting and monstrous prominence when seen in
+the huge persons of the Brobdingnagians. The king of this gigantic
+people is represented as a beneficent monarch, who directs all his
+energies toward the peace, prosperity, and material advancement of his
+subjects; who seeks with a cold, calculating mind, undisturbed by
+passion or prejudice, the greatest good of the greatest number. To this
+monarch Gulliver gave a description of his native country: "I artfully
+eluded many of his questions, and gave to every point a more favorable
+turn, by many degrees, than the strictness of truth would allow; for I
+have always borne that laudable partiality to my own country, which
+Dionysius Halicarnasseusis, with so much justice, recommends to a
+historian; I would hide the frailties and deformities of my political
+mother, and place her virtues and beauties in the most advantageous
+light." But the impression produced upon the King of Brobdingnag by
+Gulliver's relation expressed the widespread sense of evil which
+existed in Swift's day, which tinctured literature with misanthropy,
+and made Rousseau at a later time argue the superiority of the savage
+man over his civilized, but corrupt and hypocritical brother.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>He was perfectly astonished with the historical account I gave him
+    of our affairs during the last century; protesting: "It was only a
+    heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions,
+    banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction,
+    hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy,
+    lust, malice, and ambition could produce."</p>
+
+    <p><span class="pagenum">[176]<a name="page176" id="page176"></a></span>
+    His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate
+    the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with
+    the answers I had given; then, taking me into his hands, and
+    stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall
+    never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: "My little friend,
+    Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your
+    country; you have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice
+    are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws
+    are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose
+    interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding
+    them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which in
+    its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and
+    the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not
+    appear from all you have said, how any one perfection is required
+    toward the procurement of any one station among you; much less,
+    that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are
+    advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers for their conduct or
+    valor; judges for their integrity; senators for the love of their
+    country; or counsellors for their wisdom. * * * I cannot but
+    conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of
+    little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the
+    surface of the earth!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In the voyage to Laputa the satire is directed against the vanity of
+human wisdom, and the folly of abandoning useful occupations for the
+empty schemes of visionaries. The philosophers of Laputa had allowed
+their land to run to waste, and their people to fall into poverty in
+their attempts to "soften marble for pillows and pin-cushions," to
+"petrify the hoofs of a living horse to prevent them from foundering,"
+to "sow land with chaff," and to "extract sunbeams from cucumbers,
+which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm
+the air in raw, inclement summers." The satire cannot be considered
+<span class="pagenum">[177]<a name="page177" id="page177"></a></span>too broad when we consider the folly and credulity which, at the time
+of the South Sea mania, led many persons into sinking their whole
+fortunes in such enterprises as the company "To Fish up Wrecks on the
+Irish Coast," to "Make Salt-Water Fresh," to "Extract Silver from
+Lead," and to "Import Jackasses from Spain."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible within the limits of this volume to comment with any
+completeness on the application of Gulliver's Travels. The satire
+gathered strength and bitterness in its progress, until the limits of
+horror were reached in the voyage to the Houyhnhnms. This portion of
+the work cannot be considered to apply universally. Man does not here
+perceive a truthful reflection of himself. The Houyhnhnms, beings
+endowed with reason, but undisturbed and untempted by the passions or
+struggles of earthly existence, are not brutes, and are not to be
+compared with men. The Yahoos, in their total depravity, are not human;
+they represent, and that with a terrible truthfulness, the condition
+into which men may fall when their animal instincts and baser passions
+are allowed to subvert their reason and their noble qualities. The more
+a man suffers his better nature to yield to his lower, the more he
+resembles the detestable Yahoo. In this sense alone, the satire applies
+generally to mankind; but it applies with peculiar point to some
+characteristics of Swift's time. In reading the following passage, it
+is impossible not to be reminded of the treatment of Sir Robert Walpole
+by his former flatterers and sycophants when his power seemed at an
+end:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Some curious <i>Houyhnhnms</i> observe that in most herds there was a
+    sort of ruling <i>Yahoo</i>, * * * who was always more deformed in body
+    and mischievous in disposition than any of the rest; that this
+    leader had usually a favorite as like himself
+    <span class="pagenum">[178]<a name="page178" id="page178"></a></span>as he could get,
+    whose employment was to lick his master's feet * * * and drive the
+    female Yahoos to his kennel; for which he was now and then rewarded
+    with a piece of ass's flesh. This favorite is hated by the whole
+    herd, and, therefore, to protect himself, keeps always near the
+    person of his leader. He usually continues in office till a worse
+    can be found; but the very moment he is discarded, his successor,
+    at the head of all the <i>Yahoos</i> in that district, young and old,
+    male and female, come in a body, and * * * (defile) him from head
+    to foot.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But Swift, in his denunciation of men under the form of the Yahoos,
+disclosed the narrowness of his own misanthropy. When Gulliver has
+returned from his last voyage, with a mind which had dwelt on the
+beastliness and vice of the human race as it existed in the land of the
+Houyhnhnms, his warped judgment is unable to discern in his countrymen
+any attributes but those which they seem to share with the Yahoos:&mdash;</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>My wife and family received me with great surprise and joy, because
+    they concluded me certainly dead; but I must freely confess the sight
+    of them filled me only with hatred, disgust, and contempt; and the
+    more, by reflecting on the near alliance I had to them. * * * As soon
+    as I entered the house, my wife took me in her arms and kissed me;
+    at which, having not been used to the touch of that odious animal
+    for so many years, I fell into a swoon for almost an hour. At the
+    time I am writing, it is five years since my last return to England:
+    during the first year, I could not endure my wife or children in my
+    presence; the very smell of them was intolerable, much less could I
+    suffer them to eat in the same room. To this hour they dare not
+    presume to touch my bread, or drink out of the same cup; neither
+    was I ever able to let one of them take me by the hand.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[179]<a name="page179" id="page179"></a></span>
+Thus Swift himself, from the vividness with which he realized, and the
+intensity with which he hated, the vices and failings of humanity, was
+unable to duly appreciate the good, which, in some measure, always
+accompanies the evil.</p>
+
+<p>It was the habit of the great Dean to utter the witticisms which caused
+the continual delight or terror of all who approached him with the most
+stern composure. Such was the manner of the "Travels." The solemn and
+circumstantial narrative style, imitated from the old English explorers
+added verisimilitude to the incidents and point to the sarcasm.
+Trifles, personal to the traveller and of no consequence to the course
+of the story, gave an appearance of truth to the whole work. Thus
+Gulliver keeps the reader informed of the most minute details
+interesting to himself. "I took part of a small house in the Old Jewry;
+and being advised to alter my condition, I married Mrs. Mary Burton,
+second daughter to Mr. Edmund Burton, hosier, in Newgate Street, with
+whom I received four hundred pounds for a portion." In the same way he
+informs us carefully that the date of his sailing on the first voyage
+was May 4, 1699, from Bristol, and the storm which destroyed the ship
+arose when in the latitude of 30 degrees 2 minutes south. In a work of
+fiction only such events are expected as have a direct bearing upon the
+development of the plot, and when immaterial details are introduced,
+the reader is likely to be impressed with their truth. In this way the
+personality of Gulliver is kept up, and he remains, through whatever
+strange scenes he passes, the same honest, blunt English sailor.</p>
+
+<p>Yet more remarkable is the skill of the author in maintaining the
+probability of the allegory. When living <span class="pagenum">[180]<a name="page180" id="page180"></a></span>among the Lilliputians,
+Gulliver insensibly adopts their ideas of size. He admires as much as
+they the prowess of the horseman who clears his shoe at a single leap.
+When the committee of the Lilliputian king examine Gulliver's pockets,
+they describe his handkerchief as a "great piece of coarse cloth, large
+enough to be a foot-cloth to your majesty's chief room of state"; his
+purse is "a net, almost large enough for a fisherman," containing
+"several massy pieces of yellow metal, which, if they be real gold,
+must be of immense value." The same almost mathematical accuracy of
+proportion is kept up in the visit to Brobdingnag, and on Gulliver's
+return to his native country he experiences as much trouble in
+reaccustoming his mind to the ordinary standard as he had met with in
+adopting that of pigmies or giants. There was a country clergyman
+living in Ireland, who declared there were some things in Gulliver's
+Travels he could not quite believe. His difficulty probably occurred in
+the "Voyage to the Houyhnhnms." In the latter part of the work Swift
+allowed the fiction to yield to the exigencies of the satire. So long
+as we can imagine the existence of giants and pigmies, it is easy to
+realize all the circumstances connected with Gulliver's existence among
+them, but it is impossible to feel the same sense of reality in regard
+to horses who live in houses they could not build, and who eat oats
+they could not harvest.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref154" id="fnref154" href="#fn154">[154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The general desire for reform is not more clearly to be seen in Acts of
+Parliament than in the works of Swift and Addison. The earlier part of
+the century was marked by a strong realization of evil, and by a
+constantly growing inclination to suppress it. The first condition is
+illustrated by the fierce satire of "Gulliver's Travels," <span class="pagenum">[181]<a name="page181" id="page181"></a></span>the second
+by the earnest admonitions of the <i>Spectator</i>. The two great authors
+make a striking contrast. Swift, misanthropic, miserable, bitter;
+Addison, happy, loving mankind, admired alike by ally and opponent,
+Swift, dying mad; Addison, calm, conscious, employing his last moments
+to ask pardon of one he had offended. The same contrast is in their
+works. Swift dwelt and gloated on the evil about him, exposed it in
+more than its own deformity, and left his reader to reflect on his own
+degradation. Addison, to whom that evil was almost equally apparent,
+but who turned from its contemplation with horror, exerted all his
+talents to correct it. "The great and only end of these speculations,"
+he tells the reader of the <i>Spectator</i>, "is to banish vice and
+ignorance out of the territories of Great Britain."</p>
+
+<p>With solemn reproof and delicate raillery, Addison urged women to lay
+aside coarseness and folly, and preached against the licentiousness,
+swearing, gambling, duelling, and drunkenness of the men. He attacked
+with both argument and ridicule the idea so prevalent since the
+Restoration, that vice was necessarily associated with pleasure and
+elegance, virtue with Puritanism and vulgarity. To teach people to be
+witty without being indecent, gay without being vicious, such was the
+object of Addison. As M. Taine says, he made morality fashionable. To
+do this he exposed the folly and ugliness of vice. But he did more. He
+held up to the public view characters who exemplified his teachings,
+and were calculated to attract imitation. In the creation and
+delineation of these characters he unconsciously began the English
+novel.</p>
+
+<p>We should look in vain in the pages of Fielding, of Scott, or of George
+Eliot, for a more perfect sketch of <span class="pagenum">[182]<a name="page182" id="page182"></a></span>character than that of Sir Roger
+de Coverley. And the minor personages are little less delicately and
+naturally drawn. There is the Bachelor of the Inner-Temple, "an
+excellent critick," to whom "the time of the play is his hour of
+business"; Sir Andrew Freeport, the typical merchant; Captain Sentry,
+"a gentleman of great courage, good understanding, but invincible
+modesty"; Will Honeycomb, "an honest, worthy man where women are not
+concerned"; the clergyman, who has ceased to have "interests in this
+world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and
+conceives hope from his decays and infirmities." "These are my ordinary
+companions," says the <i>Spectator</i>, whom we soon learn to know very well
+too.</p>
+
+<p>Addison's knowledge of human nature, and his skill in delineating it in
+single touches, place him in the front rank of writers of fiction,
+notwithstanding the limit of his contributions to this department of
+literature. In a few words we are made to see and know the Quaker who
+reproves the insolent captain on the stage-coach: "Thy mirth, friend,
+savoureth of folly; thou art a person of a light mind; thy drum is a
+type of thee, it soundeth because it is empty." There is nothing
+wanting to the reader's perfect acquaintance with Will Wimble, the poor
+relation. All who know Worcestershire, says the <i>Spectator</i>, "are very
+well acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir Roger." His fame has
+spread from Worcestershire throughout the English-speaking world, where
+he has been loved and admired for more than a hundred and fifty years.
+Sir Roger de Coverley is not to be described by any pen but that of
+Addison. He exhibits, joined to a perfect simplicity, the qualities of
+a just, honest, useful man, and delightful companion. Our <span class="pagenum">[183]<a name="page183" id="page183"></a></span>acquaintance
+with him is a personal one. We know how he appears at his
+country-house, surrounded by admiring tenants and servants, and how he
+occupies himself in London, and whom he meets there. We know his
+ancestry, the extent and management of his estate, his long standing
+love affair with the beautiful widow, all his thoughts, opinions, and
+surroundings. All who read about Sir Roger remember him with affection.
+Addison dwelt with tenderness on every detail regarding him, and
+finally described Sir Roger's death to prevent any less reverential pen
+from trifling with his hero.</p>
+
+<p>Previous to the publication of the papers of the <i>Spectator</i> relating
+to Sir Roger de Coverley, there had been no attempt at what is a
+necessary constituent of the modern novel&mdash;the study of character.
+There had been the romance and the allegory. There had been the short
+love story. But with Addison, nature becomes the subject of fiction,
+and the novel is begun.</p>
+
+<p>In a review of the remarkable life of Daniel Defoe, he appears to us
+under the varied aspects of a tradesman, a pamphleteer, a politician, a
+novelist, and, through it all, a reformer. It is in his character as a
+novelist that he is now known, and that he is to be considered here.
+But there are few among the millions to whom "Robinson Crusoe" has
+brought pleasure, who know that the composition of that work was only
+one event in a long life of ceaseless labor, political and literary,
+and that its author's fame among his contemporaries was assured
+independently of it. Defoe's career was so full that both his chief
+biographers<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref155" id="fnref155" href="#fn155">[155]</a></span> have found three large volumes to be necessary to do
+it justice. And yet it was not until near <span class="pagenum">[184]<a name="page184" id="page184"></a></span>the end of that busy life,
+when the author was fifty-eight years old, feeling the approach of age
+and infirmity, and looking about for means to provide for a large
+family, that he added the writing of novels to his multifarious
+occupations.</p>
+
+<p>There is probably no writer with whose works his life and personality
+are more intimately connected. It is impossible to consider the one
+separate from the other. Defoe began to write novels as a tradesman, as
+a literary hack, and as a reformer. Being dependent on his pen for his
+bread, he wrote what was likely to bring in the most immediate return.
+He calculated exactly the value and quality of his wares. He gave to
+his fictions the same moral object which inspired his own life. His
+novels followed naturally on his other labors, and partook of their
+character. It was his custom, on the death of any celebrated person, to
+write his life immediately, and to send it to the world while public
+interest was still fresh. But being often unable to obtain complete or
+authentic information concerning the subject of his biography, he
+supplemented facts and rumors by plausible inventions. Fiction entered
+into his biographies, just as biography afterward entered into his
+novels. But in writing the lives of real individuals Defoe recognized
+the necessity of impressing his reader with a sense of the truth and
+exactitude of the narrative. This effect he attained by the use of a
+literary faculty which he possessed in a degree unequalled by any other
+writer&mdash;that of circumstantial invention. By the multiplication of
+small, unimportant details, each one of which is carefully dwelt upon,
+and by the insertion of uninteresting personal incidents and moral
+reflections, seeming true from their very dulness, he gave to his work
+a remarkable <span class="pagenum">[185]<a name="page185" id="page185"></a></span>verisimilitude. He did not even issue the book under his
+own name, but invented an authorship which would attract attention and
+credibility. Thus the "History of Charles XII" was announced on the
+title-page as "written by a Scot's gentleman in the Swedish service";
+and the "Life of Count Patkul" was "written by a Lutheran minister who
+assisted him in his last home, and faithfully translated out of a High
+Dutch manuscript."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref156" id="fnref156" href="#fn156">[156]</a></span> The same characteristics appear in all Defoe's
+works. He invents freely, giving the most elaborate details to support
+his assertions, and attains to an extraordinary degree the art of
+"lying like truth." In the "Journal of the Plague Year," Defoe assumed
+with his accustomed ease and skill the character of a plain, blunt
+London shopkeeper. He described with such apparent accuracy the
+observations of a man who had lived in the scene of that terrible
+calamity, giving curious incidents, anecdotes, statistics, after so
+methodical a manner, that it was long before any doubts were cast on
+the authenticity of the journal. It was a work of imagination, but so
+matter-of-fact, that it is difficult to believe the author had any
+imagination, and that he had not actually witnessed every occurrence he
+so calmly related. It is the same with the "Memoirs of a Cavalier." The
+civil wars are described by a young officer who took part in them, who
+gives a detailed account of his own opinions, his wardrobe, his horse,
+his lodgings. Lord Chatham quoted these memoirs as the true account of
+an eye-witness. From writing the life of a well known individual, Defoe
+had advanced to writing the life of a fictitious person placed amidst
+historical scenes. His next <span class="pagenum">[186]<a name="page186" id="page186"></a></span>step was to write the life of a fictitious
+person amidst fictitious scenes.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref157" id="fnref157" href="#fn157">[157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The "Journal of the Plague Year" had been issued to satisfy a popular
+interest excited by the appearance of the plague in France and the
+consequent fear of it in England. A similar public demand occasioned
+the composition of "Robinson Crusoe." A sailor named Alexander Selkirk
+had been "marooned" on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez, and
+after living there alone for more than four years, had been taken off
+by the same captain who had abandoned him. The interest taken in
+England in the narrative of this event revealed to Defoe's acute mind a
+great literary opportunity. But if he was indebted to the adventure of
+Selkirk for the fundamental idea of his novel, he was not the less
+original. Never has a greater individuality been given to a fictitious
+character, or a more vivid impression of life and reality to the
+circumstances surrounding him. The combination of ingenuity and
+simplicity which distinguishes the work, has, for a century and a half,
+had a peculiar fascination for children, and has awakened the wonder
+and admiration of men. There are three works of English fiction of
+imperishable interest, all of which have attained in a high degree the
+quality of reality, and have charmed alike all classes and ages. In the
+allegory of "The Pilgrim's Progress," the sense of reality was produced
+by the intense realization of the subject by the author, unassisted by
+any literary device. In "Gulliver's Travels" the effect was attained by
+a skilful observation of exact proportions, added to a circumstantial
+and personal method of narration, which Swift probably owed in some
+<span class="pagenum">[187]<a name="page187" id="page187"></a></span>measure to Defoe. If the reader can accept the possible existence of
+pigmies and giants, his credulity is put to no further strain. Defoe
+had no difficulty of the supernatural to overcome. He had a power
+almost as great as that of Bunyan of identifying himself with his hero;
+and he surpassed Swift in the power of circumstantial invention.</p>
+
+<p>The story of "Robinson Crusoe" is too intimately known to require
+comment. His over-mastering desire to go to sea, his being cast up by
+the breakers on the island, his endless labors, and the resolute
+determination which overcame them, his dangers, fears, and the
+consolation of religion, the foot-print on the sand, the companionship
+with Friday, and the final release, are recollections of our childhood
+too familiar to be dwelt upon. But in this very familiarity with
+Robinson himself, in the brightness and endurance of our idea of him,
+in our acquaintance with the inmost workings of his mind and heart, is
+contained the evidence that Defoe not only wrote a novel of adventure,
+as he had intended, but that he wrote also a novel of character.</p>
+
+<p>If the author of "Robinson Crusoe" could realize so thoroughly the
+difficulties and expedients of a man living on a desert island, he
+could deal yet more easily with the adventures and shifts of thieves
+and abandoned women which formed the subject of his other tales. In
+these minor works, now little known, Defoe displayed equal talents, but
+did not attain equal results. The enduring interest which must ever
+attach to the central idea of "Robinson Crusoe" the complete isolation
+of the man&mdash;gave that work a very exceptional claim to the attention of
+posterity. But it had other merits, which are not apparent in the same
+perfection in Defoe's lesser novels. Its design was single and
+concentrated, its chief character<span class="pagenum">[188]<a name="page188" id="page188"></a></span> natural and strongly marked, its
+plot coherent and complete. Moll Flanders and Colonel Jack are indeed
+well-drawn and real persons, and the design of the works which bear
+their names is clear, but in both cases the plot is merely a series of
+independent adventures, and the characters themselves could not, from
+their nature, long attract the attention of readers. "Colonel Jack,"
+"Captain Singleton," "Moll Flanders," and "Roxana," have been
+surpassed, and are neglected. "Robinson Crusoe" is, of its kind,
+perfect, and therefore enduring.</p>
+
+<p>But the works of Defoe have a historical, almost equal to their
+literary, interest. Whoever would attain a correct idea of the
+condition of the lower classes in the earlier part of the eighteenth
+century, should consult "Moll Flanders" and "Colonel Jack," as much as
+the "Newgate Calendar," and histories of crime and labor. What the
+author has described, he had seen.</p>
+
+<p>Defoe was throughout his life a reformer; a large proportion of the
+many pamphlets and occasional writings which fell from his pen have for
+their object the reformation or exposure of some abuse. Yet a large
+number of his fictitious characters are thieves and harlots. The
+criminal classes occupied the public mind in the first half of the
+eighteenth century to a remarkable degree, and Defoe was not mistaken
+in thinking that novels concerning those classes would interest and
+sell. He knew that the public taste was low, and his business was to
+cater to public taste. He said, in "More Reformation":<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref158" id="fnref158" href="#fn158">[158]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div>Let this describe the nation's character.</div>
+    <div>One man reads Milton, forty Rochester;</div>
+    <div>The cause is plain, the temper of the time.</div>
+    <div>One wrote the lewd, the other the sublime.</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[189]<a name="page189" id="page189"></a></span>To satisfy the forty who read Rochester, Defoe described the lives and
+occupations of pirates, pickpockets, highwaymen, and women of abandoned
+character. The title-pages of some of these novels cannot with decency
+be quoted, and the novels themselves are filled with criminal and
+licentious scenes. But the reforming inclination of Defoe himself, and
+that which we find in the general literature of the time, induced him
+to turn these scenes into a moral account. Moll Flanders is a low,
+cunning, thoroughly bad woman, and her life is placed quite bare before
+the reader. Yet Defoe asserts that the book is designed to teach a good
+lesson.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref159" id="fnref159" href="#fn159">[159]</a></span> "There is not a superlative villain brought upon the
+stage, but either he is brought to an unhappy end, or brought to be a
+penitent. There is not an ill thing mentioned, but it is condemned even
+in the relation; nor a virtuous, just thing, but it carries its praise
+along with it. * * * Upon this foundation the book is recommended to
+the reader, as a work from every part of which something may be
+learned, and some just and religious inference is drawn." Defoe,
+thoroughly a man of his time, thought he could put the coarsest and
+most vicious matter before his reader, and reasonably expect him to
+profit by the moral, without being hurt by contact with the vice. "All
+possible care," he says, "has been taken to give no lewd ideas, no
+immodest turns in the dressing up of this story. * * * To this purpose
+some of the vicious part of her life, which could not be modestly told,
+is quite left out, and several other parts very much shortened. What is
+left, 'tis hoped will not offend the chastest reader, or the modestest
+hearer." To any one acquainted with "Moll Flanders" this seems a
+strange statement. It exhibits the standard <span class="pagenum">[190]<a name="page190" id="page190"></a></span>of the age. Mrs. Behn said
+almost the same thing about her novels and plays. To make up for the
+low, vicious life unrolled before us, it is not enough that Moll at
+last "grew rich, lived honest, and died penitent."</p>
+
+<p>The aim of "Roxana, or the Fortunate Mistress," like that of "Moll
+Flanders," is to describe the gradual corruption of a woman, who is
+influenced by some conscientious scruples and misgivings, but the
+heroine is placed in a higher station of life. We have a curious
+commentary on the times in comparing the body of the work with the
+preface. "Roxana" is among the coarsest records of vice in English
+fiction. But yet it is to impart moral instruction. "In the manner she
+has told the story it is evident she does not insist upon her
+justification in any part of it; much less does she recommend her
+conduct, or, indeed, any part of it, except her repentance, to our
+imitation. On the contrary, she makes frequent excursions, in a just
+censuring and condemning her own practice. How often does she reproach
+herself in the most passionate manner, and guide us to make just
+reflections in the like cases?" The modern reader is astonished to find
+"that all imaginable care has been taken to keep clear of indecencies
+and immodest expressions; and, it is hoped, you will find nothing to
+prompt a vicious mind, but everywhere much to discourage and expose
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Defoe is much more successful in teaching a moral lesson in "Colonel
+Jack." The aim of this novel is to describe the course of a street-boy
+who takes to thieving before he knows that it is not a legitimate
+business, and who being possessed naturally of a good character is
+brought to repentance and reform when subjected to better influences.
+Defoe's preface has great significance when we consider the deplorable
+condition of the lower <span class="pagenum">[191]<a name="page191" id="page191"></a></span>classes and no better idea can be gained of the
+usual fate of the children of the poor than is afforded by this novel.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Here is room for just and copious observations on the blessings and
+    advantages of a sober and well-governed education, and the ruin of
+    so many thousands of all ranks in this Nation for want of it; here
+    also we may see how much public schools and charities might be
+    improved, to prevent the destruction of so many unhappy children,
+    as, in this town, are every year bred up for the executioner.</p>
+
+    <p>The miserable condition of multitudes of youth, many of whose
+    natural tempers are docible, and would lead them to learn the best
+    things, rather than the worst, is truly deplorable, and is
+    abundantly seen in the history of this man's childhood; where,
+    though circumstances formed him by necessity to be a thief,
+    surprising rectitude of principles remained with him, and made him
+    early abhor the worst part of his trade, and at length to forsake
+    the whole of it. Had he come into the world with the advantage of a
+    virtuous education, and been instructed how to improve the generous
+    principles he had in him, what a figure might he not have made,
+    either as a man or a Christian.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The promise of the preface is fulfilled. The whole work is a protest
+against the neglect of the education and training of the youth of the
+lower classes; and the life of Colonel Jack would be apt to have a good
+effect on youthful readers of the time. In Chapter X, when Jack has
+risen by his industry and humanity from being a slave on a Virginia
+plantation to the rank of an overseer, and finally to that of an
+independent planter, he makes a long digression to rejoice in his
+change of condition and character:</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum">[192]<a name="page192" id="page192"></a></span>
+
+    <blockquote><p>It was an inexpressible joy to me, that I was now like to be not
+    only a man, but an honest man; and it yielded me a greater
+    pleasure, that I was ransomed from being a vagabond, a thief, and a
+    criminal, as I had been from a child, than that I was delivered
+    from slavery, and the wretched state of a Virginia sold servant; I
+    had notion enough in my mind of the hardship of the servant or
+    slave, because I had felt it, and worked through it; I remembered
+    it as a state of labour and servitude, hardship and suffering. But
+    the other shocked my very nature, chilled my blood, and turned the
+    very soul within me; the thought of it was like reflections upon
+    hell and the damned spirits; it struck me with horror, it was
+    odious and frightful to look back on, and it gave me a kind of fit,
+    a convulsion or nervous disorder, that was very uneasy to me.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>These reflections remind us of the self-communings of Bunyan in "Grace
+Abounding in the Chief of Sinners." They express the feelings of
+remorse and the longings for a better state arising in the mind of a
+rough but conscientious man. They are the promptings of a strong moral
+nature, and illustrate those national qualities which brought about the
+reforms which distinguish the latter half of the eighteenth century.
+Colonel Jack took advantage of every opportunity for improvement. When
+a vagabond in Scotland, he learned with infinite pains to read and
+write. When a planter in Virginia, he took for his schoolmaster a
+transported felon, who knew Latin. This spirit of self-advancement by
+patient labor, by invincible resolution, is the spirit of Defoe's
+writings; it is the English characteristic which has raised the nation
+to all its prosperity and greatness.</p>
+
+<p>When "Robinson Crusoe" had attained celebrity, Defoe claimed that it
+was an allegory of his own life. A parallel might easily be drawn
+between the isolation of <span class="pagenum">[193]<a name="page193" id="page193"></a></span>
+the solitary sailor on his island, and that
+of the persecuted author in the heart of a great city. All the world,
+and particularly his literary brethren, had been against Defoe. Pope
+had put him into the "Dunciad," Swift had spoken of him as "the fellow
+who was pilloried, I forget his name," He had known oppression and
+poverty, the pillory and the prison. He has left us his own view of the
+aim of "Robinson Crusoe."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref160" id="fnref160" href="#fn160">[160]</a></span>
+"Here is invincible patience recommended
+under the worst of misery; indefatigable application and undaunted
+resolution under the greatest and most discouraging circumstances." And
+such is the moral of Defoe's own life.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Heywood had written a number of stories<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref161" id="fnref161" href="#fn161">[161]</a></span> resembling, in the
+licentiousness of their character and the flimsiness of their
+construction, the novels of Mrs. Behn. Toward the end of her life she
+wrote "Miss Betsey Thoughtless," which is believed to have suggested to
+Miss Burney some of the incidents in "Evelina." This novel was
+exceedingly popular, and had some merit, considering the period of its
+composition. It is among the earliest specimens of a domestic novel;
+the plot has interest, and the characters are life-like. It
+illustrates, if any illustration were needed, the prevailing absence of
+any elevated view, either of love, or of the relations between men and
+women. The book is made up of easy seductions and licentious talk, and
+represents its youthful characters as very familiar with dissolute
+scenes and thoughts.</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn151" id="fn151" href="#fnref151">[151]</a></span>
+"Julius Cæsar," Act. I, sc. 2. Quoted in Scott's "Life
+of Swift." For Swift, see also "Life" by Sheridan, by Roscoe, and by
+Forster.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn152" id="fn152" href="#fnref152">[152]</a></span>
+"Life of Swift."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn153" id="fn153" href="#fnref153">[153]</a></span>
+Sir W. Scott. "Life of Swift."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn154" id="fn154" href="#fnref154">[154]</a></span>
+See "Life of Swift," by Scott.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn155" id="fn155" href="#fnref155">[155]</a></span>
+Wilson "Life of Defoe." Lee, "Life of Defoe."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn156" id="fn156" href="#fnref156">[156]</a></span>
+See "Daniel Defoe," by William Minto, p. 135. American
+edition.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn157" id="fn157" href="#fnref157">[157]</a></span>
+William Minto, "Life of Defoe," p. 134:&mdash;"From writing
+biographies with real names attached to them, it was but a short step
+to writing biographies with fictitious names."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn158" id="fn158" href="#fnref158">[158]</a></span>
+"Memoir of Defoe," William Hazlitt, p. 30.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn159" id="fn159" href="#fnref159">[159]</a></span>
+See the preface to "Moll Flanders."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn160" id="fn160" href="#fnref160">[160]</a></span>
+Preface to the "Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn161" id="fn161" href="#fnref161">[161]</a></span>
+"Love in Excess," "The British Recluse," "The Injured
+Husband," "Jenny and Jemmy Bessamy," "The Fortunate Foundling."
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>III.</h4>
+
+<p>Samuel Richardson might have stood for Hogarth's "Industrious
+Apprentice." When a printer's boy, young
+<span class="pagenum">[194]<a name="page194" id="page194"></a></span>Samuel stole from his hours
+of rest and relaxation the time to improve his mind. He was careful not
+to tire himself by sitting up too late at night over his books, and
+purchased his own candles, so that his master, who called him the
+"pillar of his house," might suffer no injury from his servant's
+improvement.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref162" id="fnref162" href="#fn162">[162]</a></span>
+Thus Richardson persevered in the path of virtue,
+until, like the "Industrious Apprentice," himself, he married his
+master's daughter, succeeded to his business, and lived happy and
+respected, surrounded by all the blessings which should fall to the lot
+of the truly good.</p>
+
+<p>"I was not fond of play, as other boys," says the author of "Pamela";
+"my school-fellows used to call me <i>Serious</i> and <i>Gravity</i>; and five of
+them particularly, delighted to single me out, either for a walk, or at
+their fathers' houses, or at mine, to tell them stories, as they
+phrased it. Some I told them from my reading, as true; others from my
+head, as mere invention; of which they would be most fond. * * * <i>All
+my stories carried with them, I am bold to say, an useful
+moral</i>."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref163" id="fnref163" href="#fn163">[163]</a></span>
+In such a manner, and with such an intention, Richardson began his
+career as a novelist.</p>
+
+<p>The life of the stout, vain little printer was already well advanced,
+his fortune was assured, and he was surrounded by a group of
+affectionate relatives and admiring female friends, when he was asked
+by a publisher to write "a little book of familiar letters on the
+useful concerns in common life." While thinking over this proposal, be
+recollected a story once told him of a young servant-girl, whose honor
+was long attempted by a dissolute master, and who, by her resolute
+chastity, finally conquered his vicious <span class="pagenum">[195]<a name="page195" id="page195"></a></span>
+intentions, and was rewarded
+by honorable marriage with her thwarted seducer. And then it occurred
+to Richardson, that this story, "if written in an easy and natural
+manner, suitable to the simplicity of it, might possibly introduce a
+new species of writing, that might possibly turn young people into a
+course of reading different from the pomp and parade of romance
+writing, and, dismissing the improbable and marvellous, with which
+novels generally abound, might tend to promote the cause of religion
+and virtue." Such was the origin of a novel destined to make a new era
+in English fiction. It is evident that Richardson placed before himself
+two aims: to promote the cause of religion and virtue, and to introduce
+a new species of writing, and in both he succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>The name, "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded," sounds like a tract, and
+"Pamela" is, indeed, a very long tract. The contrast is curious between
+the moral object of the work and its contents. In the preface we are
+told that "Pamela" is to inculcate religion and morality in an easy and
+agreeable manner; it is to make vice odious, to make virtue truly
+lovely, and to give practical examples, "worthy to be followed, in the
+most critical cases, by the modest virgin, the chaste bride, and the
+obliging wife." Moreover, all this is to be done, "without raising a
+single idea throughout the whole, that shall shock the exactest
+purity." Yet, "Pamela" contains not a few scenes likely to inflame the
+imagination, and its subject, kept continually before the reader's
+mind, is the licentious pursuit of a young girl. This story would not
+now do for a tract. But it answered the purpose very well in the
+eighteenth century. Richardson had no fear his book would give the
+youthful reader any new knowledge of evil, or that the long account of
+Pamela's <span class="pagenum">[196]<a name="page196" id="page196"></a></span>
+attempted seduction would shock the "exactest purity" of his
+time. He simply described the dangers to which every attractive young
+woman was more or less subject by the prevailing looseness of morals,
+while, by the pathetic and resolute resistance of Pamela's chastity, he
+undoubtedly enlisted the sympathies of his reader on the side of
+virtue. The perusal of the book was recommended by Dr. Sherlock from
+the pulpit. One critic declared that it would do more good than twenty
+volumes of sermons; another, that if all other books were to be burnt,
+"Pamela" and the Bible should be preserved. A gentleman said that he
+would give it to his son as soon as he could read, that he might have
+an early impression of virtue.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref164" id="fnref164" href="#fn164">[164]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The moral of "Pamela" was virtue rewarded. That of "Clarissa,"
+Richardson's second novel, was virtue triumphant, even in disgrace and
+ruin. The heroine, to escape the tyranny of her parents who wished to
+force her into a marriage she abhors, throws herself on the protection
+of a lover, the famous Lovelace, who, failing to seduce her by any
+other means, lures her into a brothel, and there violates her person
+while she is rendered insensible by opiates. Lovelace offers to make
+reparation for his crime by marriage, but in refusing this offer, and
+in dying of a broken heart, Clarissa carries out the moral of the
+story.</p>
+
+<p>Richardson was blamed for making the libertine hero, Lovelace, more
+attractive than was consistent with moral effect. And to remedy this
+mistake, he undertook in "Sir Charles Grandison," his last novel, to
+draw the portrait of a man of <i>true honor</i>; "acting uniformly well
+through a variety of trying scenes, because all his actions are
+regulated by one steady principle: a man of religion and
+<span class="pagenum">[197]<a name="page197" id="page197"></a></span>virtue; of
+liveliness and spirit; accomplished and agreeable; happy in himself,
+and a blessing to others." Sir Charles then is not a man, but a model.
+"Pamela" and "Clarissa" remained virtuous through temptation and trial.
+But Grandison is a good man because he has no inducement to be
+otherwise. He can afford to be generous, because he is rich; he can
+afford to decline a duel, his reputation for skill in swordsmanship is
+so well established that he runs no danger of being called a coward; he
+is free from licentiousness, because his passions are under perfect
+control. The name of Sir Charles Grandison has passed into a proverb,
+and its mention calls up to the mind a man of the most dignified
+deportment, of the most delicate consideration for women, and of the
+most elaborate manners. But it must be remembered that in Sir Charles,
+our author drew the portrait of what a gentleman should be, and not of
+what a gentleman was. Even the most punctilious men of the time did
+not, like Grandison, hesitate to visit a sick person, because it would
+involve travelling on Sunday; nor did they, as he, refuse to have their
+horses' tails docked, because nature had humanely given those tails as
+a protection against flies. The Grandisonian manners are not to be
+taken as a picture of contemporary fashion. Richardson was unacquainted
+with aristocratic habits, and his high-flown love scenes were purely
+ideal. When he goes into high life, said Chesterfield, "he mistakes the
+modes." Not long before Sir Charles was making his formal and courtly
+addresses to Miss Byron, Walpole had written to George Montagu: "'Tis
+no little inducement to wish myself in France, that I hear gallantry is
+not left off there; that you may be polite, and not be thought awkward
+for it. You know the pretty <span class="pagenum">[198]<a name="page198" id="page198"></a></span>
+men of the age in England use the women
+with no more deference than they do their coach horses." Such was the
+state of things which the example of Sir Charles Grandison was intended
+to remedy.</p>
+
+<p>The moral design is an important element in Richardson's novels, but
+the extraordinary popularity of these works was owing to other causes.
+Richardson had known how to move his reader's heart, and how to give to
+his characters a deep personal interest. He had attempted to introduce
+"a new species of writing," and public enthusiasm testified to his
+success. Colly Cibber read "Clarissa" before its publication, and was
+wrought up into a high state of excitement by the story. "What a
+piteous, d&mdash;&mdash;d, disgraceful pickle you have placed her in!" he wrote
+to Richardson. "For God's sake, send me the sequel, or&mdash;I don't know
+what to say! * * * My girls are all on fire and fright to know what can
+possibly have become of her." And when he heard that Clarissa was to
+have a miserable end, he wrote the author: "God d&mdash;&mdash;n him, if she
+should."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref165" id="fnref165" href="#fn165">[165]</a></span>
+Mrs. Pilkington was not less distressed: "Spare her
+virgin purity, dear sir, spare it! Consider if this wounds both Mr.
+Cibber and me (<i>who neither of us set up for immaculate chastity</i>),
+what must it do with those who possess that inestimable
+treasure?"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref166" id="fnref166" href="#fn166">[166]</a></span>
+Miss Fielding, the sister of the novelist of that name, thus described,
+in a letter to its author, her feelings on reading "Clarissa": "When I
+read of her, I am all sensation; my heart glows. I am overwhelmed; my
+only vent is tears." One Thomas Turner, who kept a village shop in
+Sussex, thus recorded in his diary the impression produced upon him by
+the death of Clarissa: <span class="pagenum">[199]<a name="page199" id="page199"></a></span>
+"Oh, may the Supreme Being give me grace to
+lead my life in such a manner as my exit may in some measure be like
+that divine creature's."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref167" id="fnref167" href="#fn167">[167]</a></span> Johnson was an enthusiastic admirer of
+Richardson. Dr. Young looked upon him as an "instrument of Providence."
+Ladies at Ranelagh held up "Pamela," to show that they had the famous
+book.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref168" id="fnref168" href="#fn168">[168]</a></span>
+Nor was this interest confined to the last century. "When I
+was in India," said Macaulay to Thackeray, "I passed one hot season at
+the hills, and there were the governor-general, and the secretary of
+government, and the commander-in-chief, and their wives. I had "Clarissa"
+with me, and as soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a
+passion of excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her
+scoundrelly Lovelace. The governor's wife seized the book, and the
+secretary waited for it, and the chief justice could not read it for
+tears!" Macaulay "acted the whole scene," adds Thackeray; "he paced up
+and down the Athenæum library; I dare say he could have spoken pages
+of the book."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref169" id="fnref169" href="#fn169">[169]</a></span> But admiration of Richardson was still greater among
+foreigners. The novels were translated into French, Dutch, and German,
+and the enthusiasm they excited may be imagined from the warmth of
+Diderot's eulogy: "I yet remember with delight the first time ('Clarissa')
+came into my hands. I was in the country. How deliciously was I affected!
+At every moment I saw my happiness abridged by a page. I then experienced
+the same sensations those feel who have long lived with one they love,
+and are on the point of separation. At the close of the work I seemed to
+remain deserted. * * * <span class="pagenum">[200]<a name="page200" id="page200"></a></span>Oh, Richardson! thou singular genius in my eyes!
+thou shalt form my reading at all times. If, forced by sharp necessity,
+my friend falls into indigence; if the mediocrity of my fortune is not
+sufficient to bestow on my children the necessary cares for their
+education, I will sell my books,&mdash;but thou shalt remain! Yes, thou shalt
+rest in the <i>same class</i> with Moses, Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles, to
+be read alternately."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref170" id="fnref170" href="#fn170">[170]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>What was the secret by which the stout little printer excited such
+enthusiasm and won such eulogy? How did he appeal to natures so
+different as the worldly Lord Chesterfield, the country shopkeeper, and
+the impassioned Diderot? Richardson was the first novelist to stir the
+heart and to move the passions, and his power was the more striking
+that it was new. His study of human nature had begun early in life. "I
+was not more than thirteen," he says, "when three young women, unknown
+to each other, having an high opinion of my taciturnity, revealed to me
+their love secrets, in order to induce me to give them copies to write
+after, or correct, for answers to their lovers' letters. * * * I have
+been directed to chide, and even repulse, when an offence was either
+taken or given, at the very time when the heart of the chider or
+repulser was open before me, overflowing with esteem and affection; and
+the fair repulser, dreading to be taken at her word, directed <i>this</i>
+word, or <i>that</i> expression, to be softened or changed. One, highly
+gratified with her lover's fervor and vows of everlasting love, has
+said, when I have asked her direction, <i>I cannot tell you what to
+write; but</i> (her heart on her lips) <i>you cannot write too
+kindly</i>."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref171" id="fnref171" href="#fn171">[171]</a></span> With such an apprenticeship, <span class="pagenum">[201]<a name="page201" id="page201"></a></span>Richardson had come to
+possess a very delicate perception of character, and especially of
+female character. There was a certain effeminacy in his own nature
+which made him understand women better than men. His best creations are
+Pamela and Clarissa. Lovelace and Grandison are drawn from the outside;
+they are less real and natural. But Richardson leads his reader into
+the inmost recesses of his heroines' hearts. He is at home in
+describing the fears, the trials, and the final childlike rejoicings of
+Pamela. He attains to a high tragic effect in the death of Clarissa, a
+scene which Sir James Mackintosh ranked with Hume's description of the
+death of Mary Stuart. In this power to touch the heart and to move the
+passions of his reader lay the charm of Richardson's writing. But to
+paint perfection, rather than to study nature, was his object in "Sir
+Charles Grandison," and therefore that novel was less powerful in the
+author's day, and is less interesting in ours than "Pamela" and
+"Clarissa." We no longer need the example of the pompous Sir Charles to
+dissuade us from indecent language and drunkenness in a lady's
+drawing-room, and we can only laugh at the studied propriety of his
+faultless intercourse with Miss Byron:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>He kissed my hand with fervor, dropped down on one knee; again
+    kissed it&mdash;You have laid me, madam, under everlasting obligation;
+    and will you permit me before I rise&mdash;loveliest of women, will you
+    permit me to beg an early day?&mdash;</p>
+
+    <p>He clasped me in his; arms with an ardor&mdash;that displeased me not on
+    reflection. But at the time startled me. He then thanked me again
+    on one knee. I held out the hand he had not in his, with intent to
+    raise him; for I could not speak. He received it as a token of
+    favor; kissed it with ardor; <span class="pagenum">[202]<a name="page202" id="page202"></a></span>arose; <i>again</i> pressed my cheeks with
+    his lips. I was too much surprised to repulse him with anger; but
+    was he not too free? Am I a prude, my dear?</p>
+
+    <p>Restrain, check me, madam, whenever I seem to trespass on your
+    goodness. Yet how shall I forbear to wish you to hasten the day
+    that shall make you wholly mine? You will the rather allow me to
+    wish it, as you will then be more than ever your own mistress;
+    though you have always been generously left to a discretion that
+    never was more deservedly trusted to. Your will, madam, will ever
+    comprehend mine.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The verisimilitude of Richardson's novels, which is made so striking by
+his feminine attention to detail, may seem destroyed to modern readers
+by the apparent improbability of the narrative itself. It appears
+strange that young girls like Pamela or Clarissa should be so entirely
+in the power of their seducers, that incidents should be repeated with
+impunity which the existence of a police force would seem to make
+impossible. But the reader whose sense of probability is shocked by the
+unpunished and uninterrupted villanies of Mr. B. and of Lovelace, can
+find evidence of the security with which such crimes could be committed
+by the rich and influential in the Newgate calendar. The forcible
+detention in his own house, by Lord Baltimore, of a young girl, his
+atrocious treatment of her, and his escape from punishment, are
+incidents in real life not more remarkable than the fictions of the
+novelist.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Walter Scott lamented, early in the present century, the neglect
+into which the works of Richardson had fallen. That neglect has not
+since been diminished, for obvious reasons. "Surely, sir," said Erskine
+to Johnson, "Richardson is very tedious." "Why, sir," was the
+lexicographer's reply, "if you were to read Richardson for the <span class="pagenum">[203]<a name="page203" id="page203"></a></span>story,
+your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself,
+but you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only
+giving occasion to the sentiment." But the reader of today will agree
+with Erskine in thinking that Richardson is tedious. We have so many
+good novels which do not require the attention and labor exacted by
+him. We live so fast that we cannot spare the time for so much
+sentiment. These novels, like the elaborate embroideries of the last
+century, belong to a period when life was less full, and books less
+abundant. Samuel Richardson will take his place among the great authors
+who are much admired and little read, whose works every educated person
+should have heard of, but upon which very few would like to be
+examined.</p>
+
+<p>With Richardson's novels English fiction took a long step forward; but
+it made a still greater advance in the hands of Henry Fielding. The
+latter was peculiarly well fitted by his talents and experience to
+carry the novel to a high position of importance and artistic merit. He
+united a considerable dramatic, and a great narrative power with an
+exuberant wit and an extensive knowledge of men. Allied to a noble
+family, but oppressed by poverty, Fielding mingled during his life with
+all classes of society. The Hon. George Lyttleton was his friend and
+protector, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was his cousin. On the other hand,
+his poverty and improvidence constantly kept him, as Lady Mary put it,
+"raking in the lowest rinks of vice and misery." Richardson, who always
+denounced Fielding's works as "wretchedly low and dirty," said
+sneeringly: "his brawls, his jars, his jails, his spunging-houses are
+all drawn from what he has seen and known." But in this ungenerous
+sneer lay a substantial compliment. Fielding did describe what he had
+<span class="pagenum">[204]<a name="page204" id="page204"></a></span>seen and known, and the variety of his experience gave him a breadth
+and power in describing human nature which the confined life of
+Richardson could not afford. The two novelists cannot be fairly
+compared, nor should they be considered as rivals. They pursued
+different methods, and aimed at opposite effects. Each has a high place
+in English literature, which the greatness of the other cannot depress.
+Richardson is best able to make his reader weep, and Fielding to make
+him laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Fielding was a tall, handsome fellow, so full of life and spirits that
+"his happy disposition," to quote Lady Mary, "made him forget every
+evil when he was before a venison-pastry, or over a flask of
+champagne." This rollicking, careless joyousness is the tone of his
+books. Whether taken to a prison, an inn, or a lady's boudoir, whether
+watching the breaking of heads, the blackening of eyes, or the making
+of love, the reader is always kept smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Fielding is often censured by moralists for the coarseness of his
+novels. But had he not been coarse he would not have been true. He
+described life as it was in the eighteenth century, as he had seen it
+in the ups and downs of a checkered career. His characters were taken
+from the higher ranks and the lower. He placed the house, the
+amusements, the habits of a country gentleman before the reader with
+the faithfulness of a man who had hunted, feasted, and got drunk with
+country-gentlemen. He described the miserable prisons of his time as he
+only could who had mingled with their degraded inmates, and had exerted
+his power as a police magistrate to break up the gangs of ruffians who
+infested the streets. Thus Fielding's novels have a high historical, as
+well as a literary value. Mr. Lecky has testified to their importance
+in a reconstruction of the past by <span class="pagenum">[205]<a name="page205" id="page205"></a></span>placing "Amelia" among his
+authorities. Squire Allworthy, Squire Western, Tom Jones, Parson Adams,
+are characters to be studied by whoever would understand social life in
+the eighteenth century. The lovely Sophia, the modest Fanny, and above
+all Amelia, whom Thackeray considered "the most charming character in
+English fiction," are portraits in the gallery of history.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref172" id="fnref172" href="#fn172">[172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As Fielding set out to describe truth and nature as he saw them, the
+reader must put away his notions of refinement and delicacy. He must be
+prepared to be entertained by blows, licentious assaults, a tub of
+hog's blood thrown by a clergyman, coarse practical jokes, foul talk,
+all put before him without disguise or circumlocution. As he follows
+Parson Adams, Joseph, and Fanny in their journey, he must always be
+ready for a fight. Here is a specimen:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>"The captain * * * drew forth his hanger as Adams approached him,
+    and was levelling a blow at his head which would probably have
+    silenced the preacher forever, had not Joseph in that instant
+    lifted up a certain huge stone pot of the chamber with one hand,
+    which six beaux could not have lifted with both, and discharged it,
+    together with the contents, full in the captain's face. The
+    uplifted hanger dropped from his hand, and he fell prostrate on the
+    floor with a lumpish noise, and his half-pence rattled in his
+    pocket: the red liquor which his veins contained, and the white
+    liquor which the pot contained, ran in one stream down his face and
+    his clothes. Nor had Adams quite escaped, some of the water having
+    in its passage shed its honors on his head, and begun to trickle
+    down the wrinkles, or rather furrows, of his cheeks; when one of
+    the <span class="pagenum">[206]<a name="page206" id="page206"></a></span>
+    servants snatching a mop out of a pail of water, which had
+    already done its duty in washing the house, pushed it in the
+    parson's face; yet could he not bear him down; for the parson
+    wresting the mop from the fellow with one hand, with the other
+    brought his enemy as low as the earth."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref173" id="fnref173" href="#fn173">[173]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To obtain any adequate idea of the range of Fielding's pictures of
+human nature, the reader must consult the novels themselves. Propriety
+forbids the insertion here of quotations which could convey an
+impression of the happy dissoluteness of Tom Jones, the brutal
+coarseness of Squire Western, or the scenes of unblushing license which
+pervade the novels of Henry Fielding. But a sample of the witty, jovial
+tone which has made these novels so popular may be of interest to
+readers who are not inclined to open "Tom Jones" itself. The following
+scene was occasioned by the appearance of Molly Seagrim in church, in
+unaccustomed and ostentatious finery, and is described in the Homeric
+style, which Fielding sometimes adopted with such humorous effect.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>As a vast herd of cows in a rich farmer's yard, if, while they are
+    milked, they hear their calves at a distance, lamenting the robbery
+    which is then committing, roar and bellow: so roared forth the
+    Somersetshire mob an halloloo, made up of almost as many squalls,
+    screams, and other different sounds, as there were persons, or
+    indeed passions, among them. Some were inspired by rage, others
+    alarmed by fear, and others had nothing in theirs heads but the
+    love of fun; but chiefly Envy, the sister of Satan and his constant
+    companion, rushed among the crowd and blew up the fury of the
+    women; who no sooner came up to Molly than they pelted her with
+    dirt and rubbish.</p>
+
+    <p>Molly, having endeavored in vain to make a handsome retreat, faced
+    about; and laying hold of ragged Bess, who
+    <span class="pagenum">[207]<a name="page207" id="page207"></a></span>advanced in the front
+    of the enemy, she at one blow felled her to the ground. The whole
+    army of the enemy (though near a hundred in number), seeing the
+    fate of their general, gave back many paces, and retired beyond a
+    new dug grave; for the church-yard was the field of battle, where
+    there was to be a funeral that very evening. Molly pursued her
+    victory, and catching up a skull which lay on the side of the
+    grave, discharged it with such fury, that having hit a tailor on
+    the head, the two skulls sent equally forth a hollow sound at their
+    meeting, and the tailor took presently measure of his length on the
+    ground, where the skulls lay side by side, and it was doubtful
+    which was the more valuable of the two. Molly, then taking a thigh
+    bone in her hand, fell in among the flying ranks, and dealing her
+    blows with great liberality on either side, overthrew the carcass
+    of many a mighty hero and heroine. Recount, O muse, the names of
+    those who fell on this fatal day. First Jemmy Tweedle felt on his
+    hinder head the direful bone. Him the pleasant banks of sweetly
+    winding Stour had nourished, where he first learnt the vocal art,
+    with which, wandering up and down at wakes and fairs, he cheered
+    the rural nymphs and swains, when upon the green they interweaved
+    the sprightly dance; while he himself stood fiddling and jumping to
+    his own music. How little now avails his fiddle! He thumps the
+    verdant floor with his carcass. Next old Echepole, the sow-gelder,
+    received a blow in his forehead from our Amazonian heroine, and
+    immediately fell to the ground. He was a swinging fat fellow, and
+    fell with almost as much noise as a house. His tobacco-box dropt at
+    the same time from his pocket, which Molly took up as lawful
+    spoils. Then Kate of the Mill tumbled unfortunately over a
+    tombstone, which catching hold of her ungartered stocking, inverted
+    the order of nature, and gave her heels the superiority to her
+    head. Betty Pippin, with young Roger her lover, fell both to the
+    ground; where, O Perverse Fate! she salutes the earth, and he the
+    sky.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref174" id="fnref174" href="#fn174">[174]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[208]<a name="page208" id="page208"></a></span>
+Fielding had shown more than any predecessor the possibilities of
+fiction in the study of character and the illustration of manners, and
+to the art of the narrator, he had added that of the dramatist. The
+falling of the rug in Molly Seagrim's bedroom<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref175" id="fnref175" href="#fn175">[175]</a></span> is one of the
+happiest incidents ever devised, and no doubt suggested to Sheridan the
+falling of the screen in the "School for Scandal." But the chief
+distinction of Fielding lies in his having carried the novel to a high
+point as a work of art. It was the opinion of Coleridge that the
+"Oedipus Tyrannus," "The Alchemist," and "Tom Jones," were the three
+most perfect plots ever planned.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref176" id="fnref176" href="#fn176">[176]</a></span> It is to this excellence of
+plot&mdash;the subordination of each minor circumstance to the general aim,
+the skill with which all events are made to lead up to the final
+dénouement&mdash;that Fielding, if any one, deserves the title of the
+founder of the English novel. But to give this title to any individual
+is a manifest injustice. The novel was developed, not created; and in
+that development many minds took part. Short love stories had been made
+familiar in England by the Italian writers. Such, also, had been
+produced by Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley, and Mrs. Heywood. Defoe had written
+novels of adventure, in one of which, at least, is found the
+combination of a character well drawn and a plot well executed. In the
+number of his characters and the complication of his plot, Richardson
+had surpassed Defoe. It is the merit of Fielding to have combined in a
+far greater degree than those who had gone before the characteristic
+qualities of the novel. In others we see the promise, in him the
+fulfilment.</p>
+
+<p>And this was in no respect the result of an accident. <span class="pagenum">[209]<a name="page209" id="page209"></a></span>Fielding looked
+upon his first work as a new attempt in English literature. "Joseph
+Andrews" was first intended to be merely a satire on "Pamela." But study
+and reflection on the nature of his work determined Fielding to produce
+a "prose epic." "The epic as well as the drama," he said in the preface,
+"is divided into tragedy and comedy." Now, he continued, "when any kind
+of writing contains all the other parts (of the epic), such as fable,
+action, characters, sentiments, and diction, and is deficient in metre
+only; it seems, I think, reasonable to refer it to the epic." Such, too,
+was the opinion of the Chevalier Bunsen. "The romance of modern times,"
+he says in his preface to "Soll und Haben" * * * "represents the latest
+<i>stadium</i> of the epic. Every romance is intended, or ought to be, a new
+Iliad or Odyssey; in other words, a poetic representation of a course of
+events consistent with the highest laws of moral government, whether it
+delineate the general history of a people, or narrate the fortunes of a
+chosen hero. * * * The excellence of a romance, like that of an epic or
+a drama, lies in the apprehension and truthful exhibition of the course
+of human things."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref177" id="fnref177" href="#fn177">[177]</a></span> Lord Byron expressed his opinion that Fielding
+had realized this view of the nature of the novel by calling him the
+prose Homer of human nature.</p>
+
+<p>Fielding's novels are now considered unfit for general perusal. In
+considering the coarseness and immorality of a writer, the intention and
+the result must be separated. That Fielding's works are coarse, and that
+they contain scenes and characters of a dissolute nature, is neither to
+be denied nor to be regretted. If they were more pure, they would be
+less valuable from a historical point of <span class="pagenum">[210]<a name="page210" id="page210"></a></span>view; less true to nature, and
+therefore less artistic. That the author's intention was far from the
+production of works with an evil tendency, is evident. He was careful
+to say in the preface to "Joseph Andrews": "It may be objected to me
+that I have against my own rules introduced vices, and of a very black
+kind, in this work. To which I shall answer first, that it is very
+difficult to pursue a series of human actions, and keep clear from them.
+Secondly, that the vices to be found here are rather the accidental
+consequences of some human frailty or foible, than causes habitually
+existing in the mind. Thirdly, that they are never set forth as the
+objects of ridicule, but detestation. Fourthly, that they are never
+the principal figure at that time on the scene; and lastly, they never
+produce the intended evil." And again, still more strongly, Fielding
+claims the merit of purity and moral effect for "Tom Jones," "I hope
+my reader will be convinced, at his very entrance on this work, that
+he will find, in the whole course of it, nothing prejudicial to the
+cause of religion and virtue; nothing inconsistent with the strictest
+rules of decency, nor which can offend the chastest eye in the perusal.
+On the contrary, I declare, that to recommend goodness and innocence
+hath been my sincere endeavor in this history. * * * Besides displaying
+that beauty of virtue which may attract the admiration of mankind, I have
+attempted to engage a stronger motive to human action in her favor, by
+convincing men that their true interest directs them to a pursuit of her.
+For this purpose I have shown, that no acquisitions of guilt can
+compensate the loss of that solid inward comfort of mind, which is the
+sure companion of innocence and virtue; nor can in the least balance the
+evil of that horror and anxiety which, in their room, guilt introduced
+into our bosoms."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[211]<a name="page211" id="page211"></a></span>
+Thus, it is evident, that Fielding had no desire to write what might be
+harmful. The contrast between his promise and his fulfilment is simply
+an illustration of the standard of his time. His novels are coarse to a
+degree which may nullify their merits in the eyes of some readers of
+the present day, and may unfit them for the perusal of very young
+people. But this is simply because the standard in such matters has
+changed, and not because the novels were purposely made dissolute.
+Their coarseness was adapted to the lack of refinement in thought and
+speech characteristic of that time. Fielding wished to "laugh mankind
+out of their follies and vices." In his coarseness there is always an
+open, frank laughter. There is none of that veiled pruriency which
+lurks underneath the more conventionally expressed, but really vicious
+sentiments that are to be found in too many novels of our own day.</p>
+
+<p>The novel was well defined in character and well established in
+popularity when Smollett entered the field so well occupied by
+Richardson and Fielding. On this account his works have a less
+important place in the history of fiction than those of his
+predecessors. While he added greatly to the store of fictitious
+writing, he developed no new ideas concerning it. Fielding had
+announced at the outset of his career as a novelist that he had taken
+Cervantes as a prototype, and the influence of the great Spanish writer
+is plainly visible in "Joseph Andrews." But in the literary workmanship
+of his two later novels, Fielding's entire originality is undeniable.
+Smollett, however, is plainly an imitator of Le Sage. He did not aim at
+that artistic construction of plot, which is Fielding's chief merit.
+The novel, in his hands, became rather a series of adventures, linked
+together by <span class="pagenum">[212]<a name="page212" id="page212"></a></span>their occurrence to the same individuals. "A novel," he
+said, "is a large, diffused picture, comprehending the characters of
+life, disposed in different groups, and exhibited in various attitudes,
+for the purposes of a uniform plan and general occurrence, to which
+every individual figure is subservient. But this plan cannot be
+executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a principal
+personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the
+clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene by virtue of his
+importance."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref178" id="fnref178" href="#fn178">[178]</a></span> But Smollett presents the "different groups" and
+"various attitudes" of his "diffused picture" with a luxuriance of
+imagination, a fidelity to nature, and an exuberance of broad humor
+which inspire interest even when they occasion disgust. If he added
+nothing new to the novel from a purely literary point of view, his
+works have an exceptional historical value.</p>
+
+<p>His life was well adapted to educate him as an observer and student of
+human nature. Of a good Scotch family, but obliged by poverty to rely
+on his own efforts for a living, he mixed familiarly with varied
+classes of men. As a surgeon in London, he came in contact with the
+middle and lower ranks of the city, from which many of his best
+characters are taken. As surgeon's mate on board a man-of-war, he
+obtained that acquaintance with a seafaring life which was afterward
+turned to such excellent account.</p>
+
+<p>Of Smollett's works, "Humphrey Clinker" is the most humorous, "Roderick
+Random" the simplest and most natural, "Perigrine Pickle," the most
+elaborate and brilliant. The reader is conducted from adventure to
+adventure with an unfailing interest, sustained by the <span class="pagenum">[213]<a name="page213" id="page213"></a></span>distinctness of
+the picture and the brightness of the coloring. The characters met with
+are natural and well studied. Trunnion, Hatchway, Pipes, Lieutenant
+Bowling, and Jack Rattlin are all distinctly seamen, and yet each has a
+marked individuality of his own. Matthew Bramble and Winifred Jenkins
+are among the best-drawn and most entertaining of fictitious
+personages. Smollett's humor is usually of the broadest and most
+elementary kind. It consists largely of hard blows, <i>a-propos</i>
+knockdowns, and practical jokes. More than any novelist, he illustrates
+the coarseness of his time. His pages are filled with cruelties and
+blackguardism. Many of his principal characters are dissolute without
+enjoyment, and brutal without good nature. Modern taste is shocked by
+the succession of repulsive scenes and degrading representations of
+vice which are often intended to amuse, and always to entertain. But it
+is because life in the eighteenth century had so many repulsive
+features, that the novels of the time often repel the modern reader,
+There is nothing strained or uncommon in the experiences of Miss
+Williams while in prison:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>There I saw nothing but rage, anguish, and impiety; and heard
+    nothing but groans, curses, and blasphemy. In the midst of this
+    hellish crew, I was subjected in the tyranny of a barbarian, who
+    imposed upon me tasks that I could not possibly perform, and then
+    punished my incapacity with the utmost rigor and inhumanity. I was
+    often whipped into a swoon, and lashed out of it, during which
+    miserable intervals I was robbed by my fellow-prisoners of every
+    thing about me, even to my cap, shoes, and stockings; I was not
+    only destitute of necessaries, but even of food, so that my
+    wretchedness was extreme. Not one of my acquaintance, to whom I
+    imparted my <span class="pagenum">[214]<a name="page214" id="page214"></a></span>
+    situation, would grant me the least succor or regard,
+    on pretence of my being committed for theft; and my landlord
+    refused to part with some of my own clothes, which I sent for,
+    because I was indebted to him for a week's lodging. Overwhelmed
+    with calamity, I grew desperate, and resolved to put an end to my
+    grievances and life together; for this purpose I got up in the
+    middle of the night, when I thought everybody around me asleep, and
+    fixing one end of my handkerchief to a large hook in the ceiling
+    that supported the scales on which the hemp is weighed, I stood
+    upon a chair, and making a noose on the other end, put my neck into
+    it with an intention to hang myself; but before I could adjust the
+    knot, I was surprised and prevented by two women who had been awake
+    all the while, and suspected my design. In the morning my attempt
+    was published among the prisoners, and punished with thirty
+    stripes, the pain of which co-operating with my disappointment and
+    disgrace, bereft me of my senses, and threw me into an ecstasy of
+    madness, during which I tore the flesh from my bones with my teeth,
+    and dashed my head against the pavement.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref179" id="fnref179" href="#fn179">[179]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>While Smollett mingled such scenes of misery with coarse adventures and
+coarse humor, he is yet always true to nature and always picturesque.
+He keeps the reader's attention even when he offends his taste. He
+impaired the literary merit of "Perigrine Pickle," but at the same time
+added to its dissolute character and its immediate popularity by the
+forced insertion of the licentious "Memoirs of a Lady of Quality." Now
+a serious blemish, these memoirs formed at the time an added attraction
+to the book. They were eagerly read as the authentic account of Lady
+Vane, a notorious woman of rank, and were furnished to Smollett by
+herself, <span class="pagenum">[215]<a name="page215" id="page215"></a></span>in the hope, fully gratified, that her infamous career might
+be known to future generations.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref180" id="fnref180" href="#fn180">[180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That the standard of public taste was rising, would appear from the
+fact that in the second edition of "Perigrine Pickle," Smollett found
+it advisable to "reform the manners and correct the expression" of the
+first; but when "he flatters himself that he has expunged every
+adventure, phrase, and insinuation that could be construed by the most
+delicate reader into a trespass upon the rules of decorum," he does not
+give a high idea of the standard of the "most delicate reader." But
+Smollett has left an account of his own views regarding the moral
+effect of the pictures of vice and degradation which his works contain,
+and that account is a striking statement of contemporary feeling upon
+the subject:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>The same principle by which we rejoice at the remuneration of
+    merit, will teach us to relish the disgrace and discomfiture of
+    vice, which is always an example of extensive use and influence,
+    because it leaves a deep impression of terror upon the minds of
+    those who were not confirmed in the pursuit of morality and virtue,
+    and, while the balance wavers, enables the right scale to
+    preponderate. * * * The impulses of fear, which is the most violent
+    and interesting of all the passions, remain longer than any other
+    upon the memory; and for one that is allured <span class="pagenum">[216]<a name="page216" id="page216"></a></span>to virtue by the
+    contemplation of that peace and happiness which it bestows, an
+    hundred are deterred from the practice of vice, by the infamy and
+    punishment to which it is liable from the laws and regulations of
+    mankind. Let me not, therefore, be condemned for having chosen my
+    principal character from the purlieus of treachery and fraud, when
+    I declare that my purpose is to set him up as a beacon for the
+    benefit of the inexperienced and the unwary, who, from the perusal
+    of these memoirs, may learn to avoid the manifold snares with which
+    they are continually surrounded in the paths of life; while those
+    who hesitate on the brink of iniquity may he terrified from
+    plunging into that irremediable gulph, by surveying the deplorable
+    fate of Ferdinand Count Fathom.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref181" id="fnref181" href="#fn181">[181]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This passage illustrates with remarkable fidelity the attitude, not
+only of Smollett, but of the other novelists and the general public of
+the first half of the eighteenth century, toward vice and crime. The
+consciousness of evil and the desire for reformation were prominent
+features of the time. But to deter men from wrong-doing, fear was the
+only recognized agent. There was absolutely no feeling of philanthropy.
+There was no effort to prevent crime through the education or
+regulation of the lower classes; there was no attempt to reform the
+criminal when convicted. The public fear of the criminal classes was
+expressed in the cruel and ineffective code which punished almost every
+offense with death. The corruptions which pervaded the administration
+of justice made it almost impossible to punish the wealthy and
+influential. When Smollett declared that the miserable fate of Count
+Fathom would deter his reader from similar courses by a fear of similar
+punishment, when Defoe urged the moral usefulness of "Moll Flanders"
+and <span class="pagenum">[217]<a name="page217" id="page217"></a></span>"Roxana," the two novelists simply expressed the general feeling
+that the sight of a malefactor hanging on the gallows was the most
+effective recommendation to virtue. In the same spirit in which justice
+exposed the offender in the stocks to public view, the novelist
+described his careers of vice ending in misery, and Hogarth conducted
+his Idle Apprentice from stage to stage till Tyburn Hill is reached.
+The same moral end is always in view, but the lesson is illustrated by
+the ugliness of vice, and not by the beauty of virtue. In our time we
+have reason to be thankful for a criminal legislation tempered by mercy
+and philanthropy. We have attained, too, a standard of taste and of
+humanity which has banished the degrading exhibitions of public
+punishments, which has largely done away with coarseness and brutality,
+and has added much to the happiness of life. In fiction, the writer who
+wishes to serve a moral purpose attains his end by the more agreeable
+method of holding up examples of merit to be imitated, rather than of
+vice to be shunned.</p>
+
+<p>But when the great novelists of the eighteenth century were writing,
+the standard of taste was extremely low. The author knew that he was
+keeping his reader in bad company, and was supplying his mind with
+coarse ideas, but he believed that he might do this without offense.
+Defoe thought that "Moll Flanders" would not "offend the chastest
+reader or the modestest hearer"; Richardson, that the prolonged effort
+to seduce Pamela could be described "without raising a single idea
+throughout the whole that shall shock the exactest purity"; Fielding,
+that there was nothing in "Tom Jones" which "could offend the chastest
+eye in the perusal." Nor, as concerned their own time, were they
+mistaken. They clearly <span class="pagenum">[218]<a name="page218" id="page218"></a></span>understood the distinction between coarseness
+and immorality. The young women who read "Tom Jones" with enthusiasm
+were not less moral than the women who now avoid it, they were only
+less refined. They did not think vice less reprehensible, but were more
+accustomed to the sight of it, and therefore less easily offended by
+its description.</p>
+
+<p>While the novels of which we have been speaking were making their first
+appearance, there lived in Kent a charming young lady who went by the
+name of "the celebrated Miss Talbot." She had attained this distinction
+by her great cultivation. She had studied astronomy and geography, was
+"mistress of French and Italian," and knew a little Latin. When she was
+only twenty years of age, the Dean of Canterbury spoke of her with high
+admiration. Her acquaintance was eagerly sought by accomplished young
+ladies, and by none more successfully than "the learned" Miss Carter.
+Both of these girls read the novels of the day, and fortunately
+recorded some of their opinions in the letters which passed between
+them.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref182" id="fnref182" href="#fn182">[182]</a></span> "I want much to know," wrote Miss Talbot, "whether you have
+yet condescended to read 'Joseph Andrews.'" "I must thank you," replied
+Miss Carter, "for the perfectly agreeable entertainment I have met in
+reading 'Joseph Andrews.' It contains such a surprising variety of
+nature, wit, morality, and good sense, as is scarcely to be met with in
+any one composition, and there is such a spirit of benevolence through
+the whole, as, I think renders it peculiarly charming," Some years
+later the Bishop of Gloucester came to visit Miss Talbot's family, and
+read "Amelia," <span class="pagenum">[219]<a name="page219" id="page219"></a></span>the young lady wrote, while he was nursing his cold by
+the fireside. Miss Carter replied that "in favor of the bishop's cold,
+his reading 'Amelia' in silence may be tolerated, but I am somewhat
+scandalized that, since he did not read it to you, you did not read it
+yourself." "The more I read 'Tom Jones,'" wrote Miss Talbot, "the more
+I detest him, and admire Clarissa Harlowe,&mdash;yet there are in it things
+that must touch and please every good heart, and probe to the quick
+many a bad one, and humor that it is impossible not to laugh at." "I am
+sorry," replied Miss Carter, "to find you so outrageous about poor Tom
+Jones; he is no doubt an imperfect, but not a detestable character,
+with all that honesty, good-nature, and generosity." Miss Talbot, in a
+later letter, said that she had once heard a lady piously say to her
+son that she wished with all her heart he was like Tom Jones.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref183" id="fnref183" href="#fn183">[183]</a></span> In
+1747 "Clarissa" was read aloud at the palace of the Bishop of Oxford,
+Miss Talbot's uncle. "As for us," she wrote, "we lived quite happy the
+whole time we were reading it, and we made that time as long as we
+could, too, for we only read it <i>en famille</i>, at set hours, and all the
+rest of the day we talked of it. One can scarcely persuade one's self
+that they are not real characters and living people." Even "Roderick
+Random" made part of the young ladies' reading. "It is a very strange
+and a very low book," commented the Bishop's celebrated niece, "though
+not without some characters in it, and, I believe, some very just,
+though very wretched descriptions."</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn162" id="fn162" href="#fnref162">[162]</a></span>
+Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson," vol. 1, p. 42.
+Scott's "Life of Richardson."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn163" id="fn163" href="#fnref163">[163]</a></span>
+Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson," vol. 1, p. 37.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn164" id="fn164" href="#fnref164">[164]</a></span>
+<i>Edinburgh Review</i>. Oct., 1804. Scott's "Life of
+Richardson," note.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn165" id="fn165" href="#fnref165">[165]</a></span>
+Richardson's correspondence, 1748.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn166" id="fn166" href="#fnref166">[166]</a></span>
+Richardson's correspondence. Forsyth's "Novels and
+Novelists," p. 251.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn167" id="fn167" href="#fnref167">[167]</a></span>
+See the interesting "Glimpses of Our Ancestors," by
+Charles Fleet, p. 33.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn168" id="fn168" href="#fnref168">[168]</a></span>
+Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn169" id="fn169" href="#fnref169">[169]</a></span>
+W.M. Thackeray, "Nil Nisi Bonum", <i>Cornhill Mag</i>., No. 1.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn170" id="fn170" href="#fnref170">[170]</a></span>
+D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," art. "Richardson."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn171" id="fn171" href="#fnref171">[171]</a></span>
+Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson," vol. I, p. 40.
+Scott's "Life of Richardson."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn172" id="fn172" href="#fnref172">[172]</a></span>
+The reader may find some curious examples of the
+fidelity with which Fielding portrayed contemporary character and
+manners in comparing passages in "Tom Jones," with "Glimpses of our
+Ancestors," by Charles Fleet, pp. 38, 39, <i>et passim</i>.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn173" id="fn173" href="#fnref173">[173]</a></span>
+"Joseph Andrews," book III, chap. 9.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn174" id="fn174" href="#fnref174">[174]</a></span>
+"Tom Jones," book iv, ch. 8.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn175" id="fn175" href="#fnref175">[175]</a></span>
+Samuel Rogers, "Table Talk," p. 227.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn176" id="fn176" href="#fnref176">[176]</a></span>
+Coleridge, "Table Talk," p. 339, vol. 2, London, 1835.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn177" id="fn177" href="#fnref177">[177]</a></span>
+Preface to "Debit and Credit" ("Soll und Haben"), by
+Gustav Freitag.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn178" id="fn178" href="#fnref178">[178]</a></span>
+"Adventures of Count Fathom," letter of dedication.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn179" id="fn179" href="#fnref179">[179]</a></span>
+"Roderick Random," chap. xxiii.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn180" id="fn180" href="#fnref180">[180]</a></span>
+'The wife of William, second Viscount Vane, "was the too
+celebrated Lady Vane; first married to Lord William Hamilton, and
+secondly to Lord Vane; who has given her own extraordinary and
+disreputable adventures to the world in Smollett's novel of 'Perigrine
+Pickle,' under the title of 'Memoirs of a Lady of Quality.'"&mdash;Walpole
+to Mann, Nov 23, 1743. "The troops continue going to Flanders, but
+slowly enough. Lady Vane has taken a trip thither after a cousin of
+Lord Berkeley, who is as simple about her as her own husband is, and
+has written to Mr. Knight at Paris to furnish her with what money she
+wants. He says she is vastly to blame, for he was trying to get her a
+divorce from Lord Vane, and then would have married her himself. Her
+adventures are worthy to be bound up with those of my good
+sister-in-law, the German Princess, and Moll Flanders."&mdash;Walpole to
+Mann, June 14, 1742.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn181" id="fn181" href="#fnref181">[181]</a></span>
+"Adventures of Count Fathom," letter of dedication.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn182" id="fn182" href="#fnref182">[182]</a></span>
+"The Carter and Talbot Correspondence," Ed. by Rev.
+Montagu Pennington, 1809.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn183" id="fn183" href="#fnref183">[183]</a></span>
+See "The Carter and Talbot Correspondences."
+</div>
+
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<span class="pagenum">[220]<a name="page220" id="page220"></a></span>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CONTINUED.<br />
+  I.&mdash;THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL.<br />
+ II.&mdash;STERNE, JOHNSON, GOLDSMITH, AND OTHERS.<br />
+III.&mdash;MISS BURNEY, AND THE FEMALE NOVELISTS.<br />
+ IV.&mdash;THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL.
+</h3>
+
+<h4>I.</h4>
+
+<p>We have observed in the earlier works of fiction of the eighteenth
+century, together with great coarseness of thought and manners, the
+reflection of a strong moral and reforming tendency. As early as the
+reign of William III, Parliament had requested the king to issue
+proclamations to justices of the peace, instructing them to put in
+execution the neglected laws against open licentiousness.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref184" id="fnref184" href="#fn184">[184]</a></span> In 1698,
+Collier published his "Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of
+the English Stage," a powerful and effective protest against the
+depravity of the drama. At about the same time had been formed the
+Societies for the Reformation of Manners, which energetically attacked
+the more flagrant forms of crime. "England, bad as she is," wrote Defoe
+in 1706, "is yet a reforming nation; and the work has made more
+progress from the court even to the street, than, I believe, any nation
+in the world can parallel in such a time and in such circumstances."
+Toward the middle of the century, these tendencies took effect in the
+<span class="pagenum">[221]<a name="page221" id="page221"></a></span>Methodist Revival, a movement destined to exert a profound influence
+on society. Accompanying this revival, or resulting from it, were many
+important reforms. The corruption of political life gradually
+diminished. A new patriotism and unselfishness began to appear in
+public men. A spirit of philanthropy arose which corrected some of the
+worst social abuses. Under the leadership of the noble John Howard, the
+prisons, so long the abandoned haunts of squalor, oppression, and
+misery, were considerably redeemed from their shameful condition. Beau
+Nash marked the progress of peaceful and law-abiding habits by formally
+forbidding the wearing of swords wherever his fashionable authority was
+recognized. In the fiction of the latter half of the eighteenth century
+is illustrated a gradual transition of morals and taste from the
+unbridled coarseness of the century's earlier years to the comparative
+refinement of our own times.</p>
+
+<p>There lived in Sussex about the time of the Methodist revival, a
+thriving shopkeeper named Thomas Turner. He had received a good
+education, and in early life had been a schoolmaster. On reading
+"Clarissa" he had exclaimed, what would have gladdened the heart of
+Richardson: "Oh, may the Supreme Being give me grace to lead my life in
+such a manner as my exit may in some measure be like that divine
+creature's!" His literary tastes were so pronounced and varied that in
+the space of six weeks he had read Gray's "Poems," Stewart "On the
+Supreme Being," the "Whole Duty of Man," "Paradise Lost and Regained,"
+"Othello," the "Universal Magazine," Thomson's "Seasons," Young's
+"Night Thoughts," Tournefort's "Voyage to the Levant," and "Perigrine
+Pickle." This scholarly tradesman kept a <span class="pagenum">[222]<a name="page222" id="page222"></a></span>diary, in which he recorded
+his thoughts, his studies, and his amusements with a frankness which
+deserves the thanks of posterity. Some passages of his diary, in their
+illustration of the combination of licence, coarseness, and moral
+earnestness characteristic of the writer's time may greatly assist us
+in appreciating the power and influence of the religious revival.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref185" id="fnref185" href="#fn185">[185]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I went to the audit and came home drunk. But I think never to exceed
+the bounds of moderation more. * * * "Sunday, 28th, went down to Jones',
+where we drank one bowl of punch and two muggs of bumboo; and I came
+home again in liquor. Oh, with what horrors does it fill my heart, to
+think I should be guilty of doing so, and on a Sunday, too! Let me once
+more endeavour, never, no never, to be guilty of the same again. * * * I
+read part of the fourth volume of the <i>Tatler</i>; the oftener I read it,
+the better I like it. I think I never found the vice of drinking so well
+exploded in my life, as in one of the numbers." In January, 1751,
+"Mr. Elless (the schoolmaster), Marchant, myself, and wife sat down to
+whist about seven o'clock, and played all night; very pleasant, and I
+think I may say innocent mirth, there being no oaths nor imprecations
+sounding from side to side, as is too often the case at cards."
+February 2, "we supped at Mr. Fuller's, and spent the evening with a
+great deal of mirth, till between one and two. Tho, Fuller brought my
+wife home on his back, I cannot say I came home sober, though I was far
+from being bad company. I think we spent the evening with a great deal
+of pleasure." March 7th, a party met at Mr. Joseph Fuller's,
+"drinking," records our diarist, "like horses, as <span class="pagenum">[223]<a name="page223" id="page223"></a></span>the vulgar phrase
+is, and singing, till many of us were very drunk, and then we went to
+dancing, and pulling of wigs, caps, and hats; and thus we continued in
+this frantic manner, behaving more like mad people than they that
+profess the name of Christians." Three days after, the same amusements
+are enjoyed at the house of Mr. Porter, the clergyman of the parish,
+except "there was no swearing and ill words, by reason of which Mr.
+Porter calls it innocent mirth, but I in opinion differ much
+therefrom." Mr. Turner had no great reason to respect the opinion of
+clergymen on such matters. Soon after, "Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, the curate of
+Laughton, came to the shop in the forenoon, and he having bought some
+things of me (and I could wish he had paid for them), dined with me,
+and also staid in the afternoon till he got in liquor, and being so
+complaisant as to keep him company, I was quite drunk. How do I detest
+myself for being so foolish!" A little later, Mr, Turner attended a
+vestry meeting, at which "we had several warm arguments, and several
+vollies of execrable oaths oftentime redounded from almost all parts of
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>"About 4 P.M. I walked down to Whyly. We played at bragg the first part
+of the even. After ten we went to supper, on four broiled chicken, four
+boiled ducks, minced veal, cold roast goose, chicken pastry, and ham.
+Our company, Mr. and Mrs. Porter, Mr. and Mrs. Coates, Mrs. Atkins,
+Mrs. Hicks, Mr. Piper and wife, Joseph Fuller and wife, Tho. Fuller and
+wife, Dame Durrant, myself and wife, and Mr. French's family. After
+supper our behaviour was far from that of serious, harmless mirth; it
+was downright obstreperious, mixed with a great deal of folly and
+stupidity. Our diversion was dancing or jumping about, without a violin
+or any musick, singing of <span class="pagenum">[224]<a name="page224" id="page224"></a></span>foolish healths, and drinking all the time
+as fast as it could be well poured down; and the parson of the parish
+was one among the mixed multitude. If conscience dictates right from
+wrong, as doubtless it sometimes does, mine is one that I may say is
+soon offended: for, I must say, I am always very uneasy at such
+behavior, thinking it not like the behaviour of the primitive
+Christians, which, I imagine, was most in conformity to our Saviour's
+gospel.</p>
+
+<p>"Thursday, Feb, 25th. This morning, about six o'clock, just as my wife
+was got to bed, we was awaked by Mrs. Porter, who pretended she wanted
+some cream of tartar; but as soon as my wife got out of bed, she vowed
+she should come down. She found Mr. Porter (the clergyman), Mr. Fuller,
+and his wife, with a lighted candle, and part of a bottle of port wine
+and a glass. The next thing was to have me down stairs, which being
+apprised of, I fastened my door. Up stairs they came, and threatened to
+break it open; so I ordered the boys to open it, when they poured into
+my room; and as modesty forbid me to get out of bed, so I refrained;
+but their immodesty permitted them to draw me out of bed, as the phrase
+is, topsy-turvey; but, however, at the intercession of Mr. Porter, they
+permitted me to put on * * * my wife's petticoats; and in this manner
+they made me dance, without shoes and stockings, until they had emptied
+a bottle of wine, and also a bottle of my beer. * * * About three
+o'clock in the afternoon, they found their way to their respective
+homes, beginning to be a little serious, and, in my opinion, ashamed of
+their stupid enterprise and drunken perambulation. Now let any one call
+in reason to his assistance, and reflect seriously on what I have
+before recited, and they will join me in <span class="pagenum">[225]<a name="page225" id="page225"></a></span>thinking that the precepts
+delivered from the pulpit on Sunday, though delivered with the greatest
+ardour, must lose a great deal of there efficacy by such examples."</p>
+
+<p>Such were the amusements and such the moral reflections of a country
+tradesman in the middle of the last century, Fielding, Smollett, and
+the other novelists described the same kind of life: the same
+succession of brawls, drunken sprees, cock-fights, boxing matches, and
+bull-baitings. It would be difficult to imagine a state of society more
+ripe for a revival. Mr. Thomas Turner had moral and religious
+aspirations, but these could not be satisfied by the clergyman of his
+parish or the curate of Laughton, the companions of his debauches but
+not the sharers of his remorse. When the clergy were sincere and moral,
+they were still too cold and commonplace to seriously influence their
+flocks. The sermons of the time were at best, moral essays, teaching
+little, as Mr. Lecky says, "that might not have been taught by
+disciples of Socrates and Confucius." They might encourage honesty and
+temperance where those virtues already existed, but they had no spell
+to arouse religious feelings, nor to reclaim the vicious. How great,
+then, must have been the effect of the impassioned eloquence of a
+Whitefield, which could draw tears from thousands of hardened colliers,
+upon such a society as that of Mr. Turner and his friends, accustomed
+only to the discourses of their boon companion, the Rev. Mr. Porter.
+The prevailing licence and the prevailing moral consciousness were
+elements especially adapted to the work of the religious revivalist.
+The effect of the sermons of Berridge is thus described by an
+eye-witness<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref186" id="fnref186" href="#fn186">[186]</a></span>:</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum">[226]<a name="page226" id="page226"></a></span>
+
+    <blockquote><p>I heard many cry out, especially children, whose agonies were
+    amazing. One of the eldest, a girl of ten or twelve years old, was
+    full in my view, in violent contortions of body, and weeping aloud,
+    I think incessantly, during the whole service. * * * While poor
+    sinners felt the sentence of death in their souls, what sounds of
+    distress did I hear! Some shrieking, some roaring aloud. The most
+    general was a loud breathing, like that of people half strangled
+    and gasping for life. And indeed, almost all the cries were like
+    those of human creatures dying in bitter anguish. Great numbers
+    wept without any noise; others fell down as dead; some sinking in
+    silence; some with extreme noise and violent agitation. I stood on
+    the pew seat, as did a young man in an opposite pew&mdash;an
+    able-bodied, fresh, healthy countryman. But in a moment, when he
+    seemed to think of nothing less, down he dropped with a violence
+    inconceivable. The adjoining pews seemed shook with his fall. I
+    heard afterward the stamping of his feet, ready to break the boards
+    as he lay in strong convulsions at the bottom of the pew. * * *
+    Among the children who felt the arrows of the Almighty I saw a
+    sturdy boy about eight years old, who roared above his fellows, and
+    seemed, in his agony, in struggle with the strength of a grown man.
+    His face was red as scarlet; and almost all on whom God laid his
+    hand turned either red or almost black. * * * A stranger, well
+    dressed, who stood facing me, fell backward to the wall; then
+    forward on his knees, wringing his hands and roaring like a bull.
+    His face at first turned quite red, then almost black. He rose and
+    ran against the wall till Mr. Keeling and another held him. He
+    screamed out "Oh! what shall I do? what shall I do? Oh, for one
+    drop of the blood of Christ!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>These were violent remedies, but they were applied to a powerful
+disease. If the revivalists did harm by the religious terrorism which
+they excited, they yet had a powerful and wide-spread influence for
+good. They <span class="pagenum">[227]<a name="page227" id="page227"></a></span>awakened religious feelings among the people, and diffused
+a new earnestness among the clergy. A spirit of philanthropy was born
+with their teachings which has gone on growing until it now extends a
+protecting arm even to brutes. The societies for the prevention of
+cruelty to children and to animals are part of a great philanthropic
+movement which began at the end of the eighteenth century, which has
+carried into practical, every-day life the spirit of Christianity, and
+has given to the words mercy and charity, the signification of real and
+existing virtues. Horses, dogs, even rats, are now more safe from
+wanton brutality than great numbers of men and women in the eighteenth
+century. To any one who studies that period, the stocks, the whipping
+post, the gibbet, cock fights, prize-fights, bull-baitings, accounts of
+rapes, are simply the outward signs of an all-pervading cruelty. If he
+opens a novel, he finds that the story turns on brutality in one form
+or other. It is not only in such novels as those of Fielding and
+Smollett, which are intended to describe the lower classes of society,
+and in which blackened eyes and broken heads are relished forms of wit,
+that the modern reader is offended by the continual infliction of pain.
+Goldsmith gives Squire Thornhill perfect impunity from the law and from
+public opinion in his crimes. Mackenzie does not think of visiting any
+legal retribution on his "Man of the World." Godwin wrote "Caleb
+Williams" to show with what impunity man preyed on man, how powerless
+the tenant and the dependent woman lay before the violence or the
+intrigue of the rich. And it is not only that a crime should be
+committed with perfect security which would now receive a severe
+sentence at the hands of an ordinary judge and jury which surprises the
+reader of to-day, but that scenes <span class="pagenum">[228]<a name="page228" id="page228"></a></span>which would now shock any person of
+common humanity or taste, were, in the last century, especially
+intended to amuse. In Miss Burney's "Evelina," Captain Mirvan
+continually insults and maltreats Mme. Duval, the grandmother of the
+heroine, in a manner which would not only be inconceivable in a
+gentleman tolerated in society, but in a blackguard, not entirely
+bereft of feelings of decency or good-nature. While she is a guest in
+his own house, he torments her with false accounts of the sufferings of
+a friend; sends her on a futile errand to relieve those sufferings in a
+carriage of his own, and then, disguised as a highwayman, he assaults
+her with the collusion of his servants, tears her clothes, and leaves
+her half dead with terror, tied with ropes, at the bottom of a ditch.
+When Mme. Duval relates her ill-treatment to her granddaughter, Evelina
+could only find occasion to say: "Though this narrative almost
+compelled me to laugh, yet I was really irritated with the captain, for
+carrying his love of tormenting&mdash;sport, he calls it to such harshness
+and unjustifiable extremes." And Miss Burney expected, no doubt with
+reason, that her reader would be amused by all this.</p>
+
+<p>In the same work a nobleman and a fashionable commoner are described
+as settling a bet by a race between two decrepit women over eighty
+years of age. "When the signal was given for them to set off, the
+poor creatures, feeble and frightened, ran against each other: and
+neither of them being able to support the shock, they both fell on
+the ground. * * * Again they set off, and hobbled along, nearly even
+with each other, for some time, yet frequently, to the inexpressible
+diversion of the company, they stumbled and tottered. * * * Not long
+after, a foot of one of the poor women slipped, <span class="pagenum">[229]<a name="page229" id="page229"></a></span>and with great force
+she came again to the ground. * * * Mr. Coverley went himself to help
+her, and insisted that the other should stop. A debate ensued, but the
+poor creature was too much hurt to move, and declared her utter
+inability to make another attempt. Mr. Coverley was quite brutal; he
+swore at her with unmanly rage, and seemed scarce able to refrain even
+from striking her." It would be impossible perhaps to find a party of
+the upper ranks gathered at a country house at the present time,
+composed of persons who could have endured, without remonstrance, such
+treatment of a pair of superannuated horses; yet Miss Burney describes
+the efforts and sufferings of these old women as affording
+inexpressible diversion to the ladies and gentlemen who figure in her
+novel, and she evidently expects the reader to be equally entertained.
+"Evelina" was written by a young woman who saw the best society, who
+was maid of honor to Queen Charlotte, who was universally admired for
+her delicacy and her talents, and whose novels are among the most
+refined of the time.</p>
+
+<p>The higher ranks were much less influenced by the religious revival
+than the lower. Although certainly not less in need of reformation,
+they were far less inclined to welcome it. The fashionable indifference
+to religion was an obstacle which Wesley found much more difficult to
+overcome than the brutal ignorance of the inmates of Newgate. After
+listening to a sermon by Whitefield, Bolingbroke complimented the
+preacher by saying that he had "done great justice to the divine
+attributes." The Duchess of Buckingham's remarks on the preaching of
+the Methodists, in a letter to Lady Huntingdon, are an amusing
+commentary on the times. "I thank your ladyship for the information
+concerning the Methodist <span class="pagenum">[230]<a name="page230" id="page230"></a></span>preachers. Their doctrines are most
+repulsive, and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect
+toward their superiors, in perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks
+and do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told that you
+have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl the earth.
+This is highly offensive and insulting, and I cannot but wonder that
+your ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with
+high rank and good-breeding."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref187" id="fnref187" href="#fn187">[187]</a></span> High rank and good-breeding,
+however, in the society of which the Duchess of Buckingham was so
+proud, were not considered inconsistent with habitual drunkenness,
+indecency, and profanity. The vices which "the common wretches that
+crawl the earth" practised in addition to these, her Grace would have
+had difficulty in mentioning.</p>
+
+<p>Still, in the latter half of the eighteenth century is to be traced a
+continual improvement, which is reflected in contemporary fiction. As a
+remarkable example of the change which took place may be mentioned the
+instance of the Earl of March. "As Duke of Queensberry, at nearer
+ninety than eighty years of age, he was still rolling in wealth, still
+wallowing in sin, and regarded by his countrymen as one whom it was
+hardly decent to name, because he did not choose, out of respect for
+the public opinion of 1808, to discontinue a mode of existence which in
+1768 was almost a thing of course" among the higher ranks.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref188" id="fnref188" href="#fn188">[188]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn184" id="fn184" href="#fnref184">[184]</a></span>
+Wilson's "Memoirs of Daniel Defoe."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn185" id="fn185" href="#fnref185">[185]</a></span>
+For the diary of Thomas Turner, see "Glimpses of our
+Ancestors," by Charles Fleet, pp. 31-52.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn186" id="fn186" href="#fnref186">[186]</a></span>
+For these manifestations, see Wesley's "Journal," and
+Lecky's "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," vol. II, chap.
+ix.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn187" id="fn187" href="#fnref187">[187]</a></span>
+Lecky, "Hist. of England in the 18th Century," vol. ii,
+chap. 9.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn188" id="fn188" href="#fnref188">[188]</a></span>
+See Trevelyan's "Early History of Charles James Fox,"
+Harper's ed., p. 75.
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>II.</h4>
+
+<p>In 1759, were published the first two volumes of
+<span class="pagenum">[231]<a name="page231" id="page231"></a></span>"Tristram Shandy," a
+singular and brilliant medley of wit, sentiment, indecency, and study
+of character. Laurence Sterne was a profligate clergyman, a dishonest
+author, and an unfaithful husband. He wrote "Tristram Shandy," and he
+wrote a great many sermons. He descended to the indulgence of low
+tastes, and rose to an elevated strain of thought, with equal facility.
+He was a man who knew the better and followed the worse. His talents
+made him a welcome guest at great men's tables, where he paid for his
+dinner by amusing the company with a brilliant succession of witticisms
+and indecent anecdotes, which, to his hearers, derived an additional
+piquancy from the fact that they proceeded from the mouth of a divine.
+But although the man was in many respects contemptible, although he
+disgraced his priestly character by his profligacy, and his literary
+character by a shameless plagiarism,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref189" id="fnref189" href="#fn189">[189]</a></span> he possessed in a high degree
+a quality which must give him a distinguished place in English fiction.
+His borrowed plumage and his imitation of Rabelais' style apart, Sterne
+had originality, a gift at all times rare, and always, perhaps,
+becoming rarer. As a humorist, he is to be classed with Fielding and
+Smollett, but as a novelist, his position in the history of fiction is
+separate and unique.</p>
+
+<p>"Tristram Shandy" has all the elements of a novel <span class="pagenum">[232]<a name="page232" id="page232"></a></span>except the plot. The
+author has no story to tell. His aim is to amuse the reader by odd and
+whimsical remarks on every subject and on every personage whose
+peculiarities promise material for humor and satire. Sterne is
+perpetually digressing, moralizing commenting on every trivial topic
+which enters into his story, until the story itself is completely lost,
+if, indeed, it can be said ever to have been begun. The absence of
+arrangement is so marked that it is very difficult to turn to a passage
+which in a previous perusal has struck the eye. The eccentricity and
+whimsicality of the book contributed greatly to its immediate
+popularity. But the same characteristics which seem brilliant when
+novel, soon become dull when familiar, and although "Tristram Shandy"
+will always afford single passages of lasting interest to the lover of
+literature, the work as a whole is not a little tedious when read
+continuously from cover to cover.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of his literary medley, Sterne introduces his reader to a
+group of characters amongst the most odd and original in fiction. Mr.
+Shandy, with his syllogisms and his hypotheses, his "close reasoning
+upon the smallest matters"; Yorick, the witty parson, whose epitaph,
+<i>Alas! Poor Yorick</i>! expresses so tenderly the amiable faults for which
+he suffered; Captain Shandy, that combination of simplicity,
+gentleness, humanity, and modesty, are all creations which deserve to
+rank with the most individual and happily conceived of fictitious
+personages. Sterne makes a character known to the reader by a
+succession of delicate touches rather than by description. He seems to
+enter into an individual, and make him betray his peculiarities by
+significant actions and phrases. Thus Mr. Shandy exposes at once the
+nature of his mind and the vigor of his "hobby-horse," when he
+<span class="pagenum">[233]<a name="page233" id="page233"></a></span>exclaims to his brother Toby: "What is the character of a family to an
+hypothesis?"</p>
+
+<p>The combination of sentiment, pathos, and humor which Sterne sometimes
+reached with remarkable success, is particularly apparent in every
+incident which concerns the celebrated Captain Toby Shandy, for the
+creation of which character this author may most easily be forgiven his
+indecencies and his literary thefts. Uncle Toby's sympathy with
+Lefevre, a poor army officer, on his way to join his regiment, who died
+in an inn near Shandy's house, is exquisitely painted throughout, and
+the colloquy between the captain and his faithful servant, Corporal
+Trim, when the death of the officer is imminent, is probably the finest
+passage which ever fell from the skilful pen of Laurence Sterne:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>A sick brother-officer should have the best quarters, Trim; and if
+    we had him with us,&mdash;we could tend and look to him.&mdash;Thou art an
+    excellent nurse thyself, Trim: and what with thy care of him, and
+    the old woman's, and his boy's, and mine together, we might recruit
+    him again at once, and set him upon his legs.</p>
+
+    <p>&mdash;In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, smiling, he
+    might march.&mdash;He will never march, an' please your Honour, in this
+    world, said the Corporal.&mdash;He <i>will</i> march, said my uncle Toby,
+    rising up from the side of the bed with one shoe off.&mdash;An' please
+    your Honour, said the Corporal, he will never march but to his
+    grave. He <i>shall</i> march, cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot
+    which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch,&mdash;he <i>shall</i>
+    march to his regiment.&mdash;He cannot stand it, said the Corporal.&mdash;He
+    shall be supported, said my uncle Toby.&mdash;He'll drop at last, said
+    the Corporal, and what will become of his boy? He <i>shall not</i> drop
+    said my uncle Toby, firmly,&mdash;Ah, well-a-day!&mdash;do what we can for
+    <span class="pagenum">[234]<a name="page234" id="page234"></a></span>him, said Trim, maintaining his point,&mdash;the poor soul will
+    die.&mdash;<i>He shall not die, by G&mdash;</i>, cried my uncle Toby.</p>
+
+    <p>&mdash;The <i>accusing spirit</i>, which flew up to Heaven's chancery with
+    the oath, blushed as he gave it in;&mdash;and the <i>recording angel</i>, as
+    he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it out
+    for ever.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref190" id="fnref190" href="#fn190">[190]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Ye, who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue
+with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform
+the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day
+will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas,
+Prince of Abyssinia." Thus begins the famous tale which Dr. Johnson
+made the repository of so much of his wisdom, and so beautiful an
+example of English style. Rasselas and his royal brothers and sisters
+live in a secluded portion of the earth known as the Happy Valley,
+where, completely isolated from the world, they await their succession
+to the crown of the imaginary land of Abyssinia, surrounded by every
+luxury which can make life agreeable, and shut off from all knowledge
+of those evils which can make it painful. The aim of the story is to
+show the vanity of expecting perfect happiness, and the folly of
+sacrificing present advantages for the delusive promises of the future.</p>
+
+<p>The scene opens in the Happy Valley, where there is all that labor or
+danger can procure or purchase, without either labor to be endured or
+danger to be dreaded. Rasselas illustrates the habitual discontent of
+man by wearying of the monotonous happiness of his royal home, and,
+together with his sister Nekayah, who shares his ennui, and Imlac, a
+man of learning, he escapes from the abode of changeless joys and
+perpetual merriment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[235]<a name="page235" id="page235"></a></span>
+Once beyond the barriers of the Happy Valley, Rasselas and Nekayah
+seek in the various ranks and conditions of men the abode of true
+happiness. It is sought in vain amidst the hollow and noisy pleasures
+of the young and thoughtless; in vain among philosophers, whose
+theories so ill accord with their practice; in vain among shepherds,
+whose actual life contrasts so painfully with the descriptions of the
+poet; in vain in crowds, where sorrow lurks beneath the outward smile;
+in vain in the cell of the hermit, who counts the days till he shall
+once more mix with the world. The task becomes more hopeless with each
+new disappointment. Rasselas pursues his investigation among the higher
+ranks, in courts and cities; Nekayah, hers among the poor and humble,
+in the shop and the hamlet. But when the brother and sister meet to
+share their experiences, they both have the same tale to tell of human
+discontent. Finally, in returning disappointed to Abyssinia, they
+illustrate the tendency among men to look back with regret on the early
+pleasures of life, abandoned for the impossible happiness which
+discontent had taught them to seek.</p>
+
+<p>On this slight thread of narrative, Johnson strung his thoughts with
+great felicity. The characters, by the different view which they
+entertain of life, are distinct and individual. The book is filled with
+pregnant and beautiful passages, which leave a deep impression on the
+reader. The words in which Imlac describes to the Prince and Princess
+the dangers of an unrestrained imagination, might, with equal
+propriety, find a place in a scientific treatise on the causes of
+insanity, and in a collection of beautiful literary extracts:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination out upon the
+    wing, is often the sport of those who delight too <span class="pagenum">[236]<a name="page236" id="page236"></a></span>much in silent
+    speculation. When we are alone, we are not always busy; the labour
+    of excogitation is too violent to last long; the ardour of inquiry
+    will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing
+    external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own
+    thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is
+    pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity,
+    and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present
+    moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible
+    enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The
+    mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all
+    combinations, and riots in delights which nature and fortune, with
+    all their bounty, cannot bestow.</p>
+
+    <p>In time, some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all
+    other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in
+    weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favorite conception,
+    and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended with
+    the bitterness of truth. By degrees, the reign of fancy is
+    confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time, despotic. Then
+    fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon
+    the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref191" id="fnref191" href="#fn191">[191]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The resemblance between Johnson's "Rasselas" and Voltaire's "Candide"
+is so marked, that had either author seen the other's work, he must
+have been suspected of imitation. But while both these great minds were
+writing at nearly the same time on the same theme of human misery, the
+lessons they taught differed in a manner which is strongly illustrative
+of the differences between the two men and their respective
+surroundings. French scepticism and distrust of divine power led
+Voltaire to impute human griefs to the incapacity of the <span class="pagenum">[237]<a name="page237" id="page237"></a></span>Creator. But
+Johnson, writing "Rasselas" in an hour of sorrow, to obtain means to
+pay for his mother's funeral, taught that that happiness, which this
+world can not afford, should be sought in the prospect of another and a
+better.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref192" id="fnref192" href="#fn192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All readers of Boswell know how the "Vicar of Wakefield" found a
+publisher. How Goldsmith's landlady arrested him for his rent, and how
+he wrote to Johnson in his distress. How the kind lexicographer sent a
+guinea at once, and followed to find the guinea already changed, and a
+bottle of Madeira before the persecuted but philosophical author. How
+Johnson put the cork in the bottle, and after a hasty glance at the MS.
+of the "Vicar of Wakefield," went out and sold it for sixty pounds. And
+how triumphantly Goldsmith rated his landlady.</p>
+
+<p>In the hands of that bookseller, who purchased the novel as much out of
+charity as in hope of profit, the "Vicar of Wakefield" remained
+neglected, until the publication of "The Traveler" had made the author
+famous. This interval would have afforded Goldsmith ample time to
+correct the obvious inconsistencies and faults which his work
+contained. But in the spirit of a man who depended on his pen for his
+bread, he made no effort to improve what had already brought him all
+this remuneration for which he could hope. This is the more to be
+regretted, that very little revision would have been sufficient, to
+make the "Vicar of Wakefield" as perfect in its construction as in its
+style and spirit. "There are a hundred faults in this thing," says the
+preface, "and a hundred things might be said to prove them beauties.
+But it is needless. A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it
+may be very dull without a single <span class="pagenum">[238]<a name="page238" id="page238"></a></span>absurdity. The hero of this piece
+unites in himself the three greatest characters upon earth;&mdash;he is a
+priest, a husbandman, and the father of a family. He is drawn as ready
+to teach, and ready to obey&mdash;as simple in affluence, and majestic in
+adversity."</p>
+
+<p>These few words are not an inaccurate statement of the merits and
+demerits of the "Vicar of Wakefield." Faults there are, certainly. The
+improbability of Sir William Thornhill's being able to go about among
+his own tenantry <i>incognito</i>, without other disguise than a change of
+dress; the inconsistency of the philanthropist's allowing his
+villainous nephew to retain possession of the wealth which he used only
+to assist him in his crimes; and, finally, the impossibility of that
+nephew's being so nearly of an age with Sir William himself, when he
+must have been the son of a younger brother, are all blemishes which
+Goldsmith might easily have removed, had he not relied on the opinion
+which he expressed in Chapter xv, "the reputation of books is raised,
+not by their freedom from defect, but by the greatness of their
+beauties."</p>
+
+<p>Such a rule would be an obviously dangerous one for an author to
+follow. But Goldsmith's confidence in the beauties of his novel was
+fully justified by the verdict of the world. No novelist has more
+deeply imbued his work with his own genius and spirit, and none have
+had a more beneficent genius, nor a more beautiful spirit to impart
+than the author of "The Deserted Village." The exquisite style, the
+delicate choice of words, the amiability of sentiment, so peculiarly
+his own, and so well suited to express the simple beauty of his
+thoughts, give a charm to the work which familiarity can only endear.
+Dr. Primrose, preserving his simplicity, his modesty, and <span class="pagenum">[239]<a name="page239" id="page239"></a></span>his nobility
+of character alike when surrounded by the pleasures of his early and
+prosperous home, when struggling with the hardships of his ruined
+fortune, and when rewarded at last by the surfeit of good-fortune which
+follows his trial, stands high among the most noble conceptions of
+English fiction. "We read the 'Vicar of Wakefield,'" said the great Sir
+Walter, "in youth and in age. We return to it again and again, and
+bless the memory of an author who contrives so well to reconcile us to
+human nature."</p>
+
+<p>Goethe, when in his eighty-first year, declared that Goldsmith's novel
+"was his delight at the age of twenty, that it had in a manner formed a
+part of his education, influencing his tastes and feelings throughout
+life, and that he had recently read it again from beginning to end,
+with renewed delight, and with a grateful sense of the early benefit
+derived from it." "Rogers, the Nestor of British literature, whose
+refined purity of taste and exquisite mental organization rendered him
+eminently calculated to appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of
+all the books, which, through the fitful changes of three generations
+he had seen rise and fall, the charm of the 'Vicar of Wakefield' had
+alone continued as at first; and could he revisit the world after an
+interval of many more generations, he should as surely look to find it
+undiminished." So wrote Washington Irving; and if the reader is
+inclined to look for the causes of the extraordinary endurance of
+Goldsmith's work, he can find them nowhere better stated than in the
+words of John Forster: "Not in those graces of style, nor even in that
+home-cherished gallery of familiar faces can the secret of its
+extraordinary fascination be said to consist. It lies nearer the heart.
+A something which <span class="pagenum">[240]<a name="page240" id="page240"></a></span>has found its way <i>there</i>; which, while it amused,
+has made us happier; which, gently interweaving itself with our habits
+of thought, has increased our good-humour and charity; which,
+insensibly it may be, has corrected wilful impatiences of temper, and
+made the world's daily accidents easier and kinder to us all; somewhat
+thus should be expressed, I think, the charm of the 'Vicar of
+Wakefield.'"</p>
+
+<p>In 1760 was published "Chrysal, the Adventures of a Guinea," by Charles
+Johnstone, the author of several deservedly forgotten novels.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref193" id="fnref193" href="#fn193">[193]</a></span> The
+first volume was sent to Dr. Johnson for his opinion, who thought, as
+Boswell tells us, that it should be published&mdash;an estimate justified by
+the considerable circulation which the book enjoyed.</p>
+
+<p>Chrysal is an elementary spirit, whose abode is in a piece of gold
+converted into a guinea. In that form the spirit passes from man to
+man, and takes accurate note of the different scenes of which it
+becomes a witness. This is a natural and favorable medium for a satire,
+which Johnstone probably owed, in some measure, both to the "Diable
+Boiteux" of Gil Blas, and the "Adventures of a Halfpenny" of Dr.
+Bathurst. The circulation of the guinea enables the author to describe
+the characteristics of its possessors as seen by a truthful witness,
+and he has taken advantage of his opportunity to produce one of the
+most disgusting records of vice in literature. A depraved mind only
+could find any pleasure in reading "Chrysal," and whoever is obliged to
+read it from cover to cover for the purpose of describing it to others,
+must find himself, at the end of his task, in sore vexation of spirit.
+Human depravity is never an agreeable subject <span class="pagenum">[241]<a name="page241" id="page241"></a></span>for a work of
+entertainment, and while Swift's genius holds the reader fascinated
+with the horror of his Yahoos, the ability of a Manley or a Johnstone
+is not sufficient to aid the reader in wading through their vicious
+expositions of corruption. It must be said that Johnstone had some
+excuse. If he were to satirize society at all, it was better that he
+should do it thoroughly; that he should expose official greed and
+dishonesty, the orgies of Medenham Abbey, the infamous extortions of
+trading justices, in all their native ugliness. It must be said that
+the time in which he lived presented many features to the painter of
+manners which could not look otherwise than repulsive on his canvas.
+But his zeal to expose the vices of his age led him into doing great
+injustice to some persons, and into grossly libelling others. He
+imputed crimes to individuals of which he could have had no knowledge;
+and he shamefully misrepresented the Methodists and the Jews. If
+Johnstone had wished to see how offensive a book he might write, and
+how disgusting and indecent a book the public of his day would read and
+applaud, he might well have brought "Chrysal" into the world. If he had
+intended, by exposing crime, to check it, he had better have burned his
+manuscript. He has added one other corruption to those he exposed, and
+one other evidence of the lack of taste and decency which characterized
+his time. No man can plead the intention of a reformer as an excuse for
+placing before the world the scenes and suggestions of unnatural crime
+which sully the pages of "Chrysal," and if men do, in single instances,
+fall below the level of brutes, he who gloats over their infamy and
+publishes their contagious guilt deserves some share of their odium.</p>
+
+<p>The novels of Henry Mackenzie have a charm of their <span class="pagenum">[242]<a name="page242" id="page242"></a></span>own, which may be
+largely attributed to the fact that their author was a gentleman.
+Whoever has read, to any extent, the works of fiction of the eighteenth
+century, must have observed how perpetually he was kept in low company,
+how rarely he met with a character who had the instincts as well as the
+social position of a gentleman. A tone of refined sentiment and dignity
+pervades "The Man of Feeling," which recalls the "Vicar of Wakefield,"
+and introduces the reader to better company and more elevated thoughts
+than the novels of the time usually afford. "The Man of Feeling" is
+hardly a narrative. Harley, the chief character, is a sensitive,
+retiring man, with feelings too fine for his surroundings. The author
+places him in various scenes, and traces the effect which each produces
+upon his character. The effect of the work is agreeable, though
+melancholy, and the early death of Harley completes the delineation of
+a man too gentle and too sensitive to battle with life.</p>
+
+<p>In his next novel Mackenzie described the counterpart of Harley, "The
+Man of the World." Almost any writer of the present day who took a man
+of the world for his hero, would draw him as a calm, philosophical
+person, neither very good nor very bad,&mdash;one who took the pleasures and
+troubles of life as they came, without quarrelling with either. But the
+man of the world as Mackenzie paints him, and as the eighteenth century
+made him, was quite another individual. Sir Thomas Sindall is a villain
+of the heroic type. Not one, simply, who does all the injury and
+commits all the crimes which chance brings in his way. He labors with a
+ceaseless persistency, and a resolution which years do not diminish, to
+seduce a single woman. Without any apparent passion, he finally
+accomplishes his object by force, after having spent several <span class="pagenum">[243]<a name="page243" id="page243"></a></span>years in
+ruining her brother to prevent his interference. The long periods of
+time, the great expenditure of vital energy, and the exhaustless fund
+of brutality which are consumed by the fictitious villains of the
+eighteenth century in gratifying what would seem merely a passing
+inclination, astonish the reader of to-day. The crime of rape, rarely
+now introduced into fiction, and rarely figuring even in criminal
+courts, is a common incident in old novels, and as commonly, remains
+unpunished. In Sir Thomas Sindall, Mackenzie meant to present a
+contrast to the delicate and benevolent character of Harley. Both are
+extremes, the one of sensibility, the other of brutality. Harley was a
+new creation, but Sindall quite a familiar person, with whom all
+readers of the novels of the last century have often associated.</p>
+
+<p>It was suggested very sensibly to Mackenzie, that the interest of most
+works of fiction depended on the <i>designing</i> villainy of one or more
+characters, and that in actual life calamities were more often brought
+about by the innocent errors of the sufferers. To place this view
+before his readers, Mackenzie wrote "Julia de Roubigné," in which a
+wife brings death upon herself and her husband by indiscreetly, though
+innocently, arousing his jealousy. Sir Walter Scott ranked this novel
+among the "most heart-wringing histories" that ever were written&mdash;a
+description which justly becomes it. Mackenzie's aim was less to weave
+a complicated plot, than to study and move the heart; and to the lover
+of sentiment his novels may still be attractive.</p>
+
+<p>The "Fool of Quality," by Henry Brooke, has had a singular history. The
+author was a young Irishman of a fine figure, a well-stored mind, and a
+disposition of particular <span class="pagenum">[244]<a name="page244" id="page244"></a></span>gentleness. He was loved by Pope and
+Lyttleton, caressed by the Prince of Wales, and honored by the friendly
+interest of Jonathan Swift. Married before he was twenty-one to a young
+girl who presented him with three children before she was eighteen, his
+life was a constant struggle to provide for a family which increased
+with every year. After a long period of active life, passed in literary
+occupations, he retired to an obscure part of Ireland, and there died,
+attended by a daughter, the only survivor of twenty-two children, who
+remembered nothing of her father "previous to his retirement from the
+world; and knew little of him, save that he bore the infirmities and
+misfortunes of his declining years with the heroism of true
+Christianity, and that he was possessed of virtues and feelings which
+shone forth to the last moment of his life, unimpaired by the
+distractions of pain, and unshaken amid the ruins of genius."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref194" id="fnref194" href="#fn194">[194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The "Fool of Quality" was first published in 1766, and received a
+moderate share of public attention. Its narrative was extremely slight.
+Harry, the future Earl of Moreland, was stolen from his parents by an
+uncle in disguise; and the five volumes of the work consist almost
+entirely of an account of the education of the child, and the various
+incidents which affected or illustrated his mental growth. One day John
+Wesley chanced to meet with it, and although he required his followers
+"to read only such books as tend to the knowledge and love of God," he
+was tempted to look into this particular novel. The "whimsical title"
+at first offended him, but as he proceeded, he became so enthusiastic
+over the moral excellence of the work, that he expunged some offensive
+passages it contained, and republished it for the <span class="pagenum">[245]<a name="page245" id="page245"></a></span>benefit of the
+Methodists. "I now venture to recommend the following treatise," said
+Wesley to his people, "as the most excellent in its kind that I have
+seen either in the English or any other language. * * * It perpetually
+aims at inspiring and increasing every right affection; at the
+instilling gratitude to God and benevolence to man. And it does this
+not by dry, dull, tedious, precepts, but by the liveliest examples that
+can be conceived; by setting before your eyes one of the most beautiful
+pictures that ever was drawn in the world. The strokes of this are so
+delicately fine, the touches so easy, natural, and affecting, that I
+know not who can survey it with tearless eyes, unless he has a heart of
+stone. I recommend it, therefore, to all those who are already, or who
+desire to be, lovers of God and man." It was not as a good novel that
+Wesley either enjoyed or republished the "Fool of Quality." He
+recommended it for the excellence of its moral, and the "Fool of
+Quality" would have been allowed to slumber forever on Methodist
+book-shelves, had it not been revived by a man who was an equally good
+judge of a moral and a work of fiction.</p>
+
+<p>But, in regard to this novel, it must be admitted that Charles
+Kingsley's judgment was seriously at fault. He saw both its qualities
+and its faults, but he did not realize that a good purpose will not
+make up for a poor execution. The causes of the neglect of the book,
+said the Canon in his preface, are to be found "in its deep and grand
+ethics, in its broad and genial humanity, in the divine value which it
+attaches to the relations of husband and wife, father and child, and to
+the utter absence, both of that sentimentalism and that superstition
+which have been alternately debauching of late years the minds of the
+young. And if he shall <span class="pagenum">[246]<a name="page246" id="page246"></a></span>have arrived at this discovery, he will be able
+possibly to regard at least with patience those who are rash enough to
+affirm that they have learnt from this book more which is pure, sacred,
+and eternal, than from any which has been published since Spenser's
+'Fairy Queen.'"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref195" id="fnref195" href="#fn195">[195]</a></span> On the testimony of Wesley and of Kingsley, all
+the merits of a moral nature which they claim for the "Fool of Quality"
+will readily be accorded to it. But it is very doubtful that such
+qualities would necessarily interfere with the success of a work of
+fiction. The real reason why very few who can help it will read this
+novel, lies in those characteristics which Kingsley himself admitted
+would appear to the average reader. "The plot is extravagant as well as
+ill-woven, and broken, besides, by episodes as extravagant as itself.
+The morality is quixotic, and practically impossible. The sermonizing,
+whether theological or social, is equally clumsy and obtrusive. Without
+artistic method, without knowledge of human nature and the real world,
+the book can never have touched many hearts and can touch none
+now."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref196" id="fnref196" href="#fn196">[196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is singular that Kingsley should have expected that a book with so
+many and so evident faults could have remained popular simply because
+its moral was a good one. If he had sat down to warn the world against
+Henry Brooke's novel, he could hardly have expressed himself with more
+effect. Whatever merit it may have is buried under a mass of dulness
+almost impossible to penetrate, and a silliness pervades the characters
+and the conversations which makes even the lighter portions unreadable.
+The "Fool of Quality" has all the drawbacks of a novel of purpose in an
+exaggerated form. <span class="pagenum">[247]<a name="page247" id="page247"></a></span>The improvement of his reader is a laudable object
+for a novelist. But it is an object which can be successfully carried
+out in a work of art, only very indirectly. An author may have a great
+influence for good, but that influence can be obtained, not by
+deliberate sermonizing, but only by tone of healthy sentiment which
+insensibly elevates the reader's mind.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the number and variety of
+works of fiction rapidly increased. William Beckford, whom Byron calls
+in "Childe Harold," "Vathek, England's wealthiest son," wrote in his
+twentieth year the oriental romance "Vathek," which excited great
+attention at the time. It was composed in three days and two nights,
+during which the author never took off his clothes. Byron considered
+this tale superior to "Rasselas." It represented the downward career of
+an oriental prince, who had given himself up to sensual indulgence, and
+who is allured by a Giaour into the commission of crimes which lead him
+to everlasting and horrible punishments. "Vathek" gives evidence of a
+familiarity with oriental customs, and a vividness of imagination which
+are remarkable in so youthful an author. The descriptions of the Caliph
+and of the Hall of Eblis are full of power. But in depth of meaning,
+and in that intrinsic worth which gives endurance to a literary work,
+it bears no comparison to "Rasselas." The one affords an hour's
+amusement; the other retains its place among those volumes which are
+read and re-read with constant pleasure and satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>The novels of Richard Cumberland, "Henry," "Arundel," and "John de
+Lancaster," contain some well-drawn characters and readable sketches of
+life. But Cumberland <span class="pagenum">[248]<a name="page248" id="page248"></a></span>had little originality. He aimed without success
+at Fielding's constructive excellence, and imitated that great master's
+humor, only to reproduce his coarseness. The character of Ezekiel Daw,
+the Methodist, in "Henry," is fair and just, and contrasts very
+favorably with the libellous representations of the Methodist preachers
+in Graves' "Spiritual Quixote," and other contemporary novels. Another
+writer of fiction of considerable prominence in his day, but of none in
+ours, was Dr. Moore, whose "Zeluco" contained some very lively "Views
+of human nature, taken from life and manners, foreign and domestic,"
+but also some very disagreeable exhibitions of human degradation and
+vice.</p>
+
+<p>The influence of the French Revolution in England is apparent in the
+works of several novelists who wrote at the end of the eighteenth
+century. Thomas Holcroft embodied radical views in novels now quite
+forgotten.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref197" id="fnref197" href="#fn197">[197]</a></span> Robert Bage has left four works containing opinions of
+a revolutionary character&mdash;"Barham Downs," "James Wallace," "The Fair
+Syrian," and "Mount Henneth." These novels are written in the form of a
+series of letters and have little narrative interest. The author has
+striven, sometimes successfully, at a powerful delineation of
+character, but his works are too evidently a vehicle for his political
+and philosophical opinions. He represents with unnatural consistency
+the upper classes as invariably corrupt and tyrannical, and the lower
+as invariably honest and deserving. His theories are not only
+inartistically prominent, but are worthless and immoral. He looks upon
+a tax-gatherer as a thief, and condones feminine unchastity as a
+trivial and unimportant offence.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist most deeply embued with the doctrines of the French
+Revolution was William Godwin&mdash;a man of <span class="pagenum">[249]<a name="page249" id="page249"></a></span>great literary ambition, and
+less literary capacity. His "Life of Chaucer" has the merits of a
+compilation, but not those of an original literary work. His political
+and social writings were merely reproductions of French revolutionary
+views, and were entirely discredited by Malthus' attacks upon them. The
+same lack of originality and of independent power characterized
+Godwin's novels. They all have a patch-work effect, and in all may be
+found the traces of imitation. "St. Leon" and "Mandeville"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref198" id="fnref198" href="#fn198">[198]</a></span> are
+dull attempts in the direction of the historical novel. "Fleetwood, or
+the New Man of Feeling" embodies some of the author's social views, and
+contains evidence of an imitation of Fielding and Smollett, in which
+only their coarseness is successfully copied.</p>
+
+<p>But Godwin gave one book to the world which has acquired a notoriety
+which entitles it to a more extended notice than its intrinsic merits
+would otherwise justify. "Caleb Williams" was first published in 1794,
+and was widely read. Lord Byron is said to have threatened his wife
+that he would treat her as Falkland had treated Caleb Williams, and
+this fact brought the novel into prominence with the Byron controversy,
+and occasioned its republication in the present century. The author
+tells us that his object was "to comprehend a general review of the
+modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism by which man becomes the
+destroyer of man." And this was to be done "without subtracting from
+the interest and passion by which a performance of this sort (a novel)
+ought to be characterized." In both his didactic and his artistic
+purpose the author must be said to have failed. The story is briefly as
+follows: Falkland, who is <span class="pagenum">[250]<a name="page250" id="page250"></a></span>represented as a man whose chief thought and
+consideration consist in guarding his honor from stain, stabs Tyrrel,
+his enemy, in the back, at night. He then allows two innocent men to
+suffer for the murder on the gallows. His aim, during the remainder of
+his life, is to prevent the discovery of his crime and the consequent
+disgrace to his name. Caleb Williams enters his employment as a
+secretary, discovers the secret with the greatest ease, and promises
+never to betray his patron. Williams soon becomes weary of his
+position, and attempts to escape. He is accused by Falkland of robbery
+and is imprisoned. He escapes from prison, and wanders about the
+country, always pursued by the hirelings of his master who use every
+means to render his life miserable. Finally he openly accuses Falkland
+of his crime, who confesses it and dies. The story is full of the most
+evident inconsistencies. There is no adequate reason for Tyrrel's
+hatred of Falkland, which leads to the murder. It is inconceivable that
+a man of Falkland's worship of honor should commit so dastardly a
+crime, and should suffer two innocent men to pay its penalty. The
+facility with which Falkland allows his secretary to discover a secret
+which would bring him to the gallows is entirely inconsistent with the
+strength of mind which the author imputes to his hero. Finally, the
+confession of crime, after so many years of secrecy, and when
+conscience must have been blunted by time and habit, is without
+adequate cause. The characters are very slightly sketched, and excite
+neither interest nor sympathy. Emily Melville resembles Pamela too
+closely, and Tyrrel is a poor reproduction of Squire Western.</p>
+
+<p>Godwin tells us that, when thinking over "Caleb Williams," he said to
+himself a thousand times: "I will write <span class="pagenum">[251]<a name="page251" id="page251"></a></span>a tale, that shall constitute
+an epoch in the mind of the reader, that no one, after he has read it,
+shall ever be exactly the same man that he was before." The effort, and
+straining after effect which this confession implies, are evident
+throughout the work. The reader's curiosity is continually excited by
+the promise of new interest and new developments, but he is as
+continually disappointed. The main idea of the story is certainly a
+striking one, but it is feebly carried out. The constitution of society
+cannot be effectively attacked by so improbable and exceptional an
+illustration of tyranny as the persecution of Caleb Williams.</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn189" id="fn189" href="#fnref189">[189]</a></span>
+It would be difficult to find a more bare-faced and
+impudent literary theft than the case in which Sterne appropriated to
+himself the remonstrance of Burton ("Anatomy of Melancholy"), against
+that very plagiarism which he (Sterne) was then committing. Burton
+said: "As apothecaries, we make new mixtures, every day pour out of one
+vessel into another * * * We weave the same web, still twist the same
+rope again and again." Sterne says, with an effrontery all his own:
+"Shall we forever make new books, as apothecaries make new medicines,
+by pouring only out of one vessel into another? Are we forever to be
+twisting and untwisting the same rope&mdash;forever in the same track?
+forever at the same pace?" For Sterne's plagiarism, see Dr. Ferriar's
+"Essay and Illustrations," also Scott's "Life of Sterne."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn190" id="fn190" href="#fnref190">[190]</a></span>
+"Tristram Shandy," orig. ed., vol. viii, chap. 8.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn191" id="fn191" href="#fnref191">[191]</a></span>
+"Rasselas," chap. xliv. Contrast with Porter on "The
+Human Intellect," pp. 371-2.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn192" id="fn192" href="#fnref192">[192]</a></span>
+See Scott's "Memoir of Johnson."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn193" id="fn193" href="#fnref193">[193]</a></span>
+"The Reverie," "The History of Arbaces," "The Pilgrim,"
+"The History of John Juniper."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn194" id="fn194" href="#fnref194">[194]</a></span>
+The facts of Brooke's life are taken from the
+introduction to the "Fool of Quality," by Rev. Charles Kingsley, New
+York, 1860.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn195" id="fn195" href="#fnref195">[195]</a></span>
+Charles Kingsley, preface to the "Fool of Quality."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn196" id="fn196" href="#fnref196">[196]</a></span>
+Kingsley's preface to "Fool of Quality."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn197" id="fn197" href="#fnref197">[197]</a></span>
+"Alwyn," "Anna St. Ives," "Hugh Trevor," "Bryan Perdue."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn198" id="fn198" href="#fnref198">[198]</a></span>
+Published in 1817, when the author was far advanced in years.
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>III.</h4>
+
+<p>The publication of "Evelina," in 1778, made a sensation which the
+merits of the work fully justified. The story of Miss Burney's<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref199" id="fnref199" href="#fn199">[199]</a></span>
+early life, her furtive attempts at fictitious composition, the great
+variety of artistic and political characters who passed in review
+before her observant eyes at Dr. Burney's house have been made familiar
+by her own diary and letters. Petted and admired by Johnson, Mrs.
+Thrale, and the brilliant literary society of which they formed the
+centre, she lived sufficiently far into the present century to see the
+works of her early friends enrolled among the classics or consigned to
+oblivion, and to recognize that the approval of posterity had been
+added to the early fame of her own writings. As a very young girl,
+unnoticed by the distinguished persons who frequented her father's
+house, she had studied with careful attention the characters and
+manners of those who talked and moved about her. A strong desire to
+reproduce the impressions which filled <span class="pagenum">[252]<a name="page252" id="page252"></a></span>her mind induced Miss Burney in
+her sixteenth year to devote her stolen hours of seclusion to
+fictitious composition. Discouraged in her early efforts by her
+stepmother, her habits of observation remained active, and took form,
+when the authoress was twenty five years old, in the famous novel of
+"Evelina." The book was issued secretly and anonymously, the publisher
+even being ignorant of the writer's true name. But the immediate
+popularity and admiration which greeted the work soon led to its open
+acknowledgment by the happy young authoress.</p>
+
+<p>And "Evelina" fully deserved the praise and interest which it obtained
+and still excites. The aim was to describe the difficulties and
+sensations of a young girl just entering life. The heroine chosen by
+Miss Burney was one whose circumstances particularly well suited her to
+form the centre of a varied collection of characters and of a
+comprehensive picture of contemporary society. Well connected on her
+father's side, Evelina moved in fashionable circles with the Mirvan
+family. On account of the origin of her mother she was brought into
+close contact with humbler personages, with Madame Duval and the
+Brangtons. Hence this novel presents to the reader a variety of social
+scenes which gives it a value possessed by no other work of fiction of
+the eighteenth century. No novelist has described so well or so fully
+the aspect of the theatres, of Vauxhall and Ranelagh, of Bath in the
+season, of the ridottos and assemblies of the London fashionable world.
+The shops, the amusements and the manners of the middle classes are
+made familiar to Evelina by her association with the Brangtons, and add
+greatly to the breadth of this valuable picture of metropolitan life.
+With a feminine attention to detail, <span class="pagenum">[253]<a name="page253" id="page253"></a></span>and a quick perception of salient
+characteristics, Miss Burney described the world about her so
+faithfully and picturesquely as to deserve the thanks of every student
+of social history. The novel of "Evelina," the letters of Horace
+Walpole and Mrs. Delany corroborate each other, and may be
+appropriately placed on the same shelf in a well-ordered library.</p>
+
+<p>In the painting of manners Miss Burney was eminently successful. But
+she was hardly less so in a point in which excellence could not have
+been expected in so youthful a writer. The plot of "Evelina" is
+constructed with a skill worthy of a veteran. Fielding alone, of the
+eighteenth century novelists, can be said to surpass Miss Burney in
+this respect. The whole story of the mischances and misunderstanding of
+Evelina's intercourse with Lord Orville, the skill with which the
+various personages are brought into contact with each other and made to
+contribute to the final <i>dénoument</i>, compose a truly artistic success.
+The introduction of Macartney and his marriage to the supposed daughter
+of Sir John Belmont form a very happy and effective invention.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to her sketches of character, it may be objected that Miss
+Burney lacked breadth of treatment, that she dwelt on one distinctive
+characteristic at the expense of the others. But still, Lord Orville,
+though somewhat too much of a model, and Mrs. Selwyn, though somewhat
+too habitually a wit, are vivid and life-like characters. The Brangtons
+and Sir Clement Willougby are nature itself, and the girlish nature of
+Evelina is betrayed in her letters with great felicity.</p>
+
+<p>It is no small triumph for Miss Burney, who has had so many and so
+deserving competitors in the department of literature to which she
+contributed, that her novels <span class="pagenum">[254]<a name="page254" id="page254"></a></span>should have remained in active
+circulation for more than a century after their publication. "Cecilia"
+has much the same merits which distinguished "Evelina," and the two
+novels bid fair to hold their own as long as English fiction retains
+its popularity. Johnson considered Miss Burney equal to Fielding. But
+although she possessed qualities similar to his&mdash;constructive power and
+picturesqueness&mdash;she possessed them in a lesser degree. In the
+management of the difficulties of the epistolary form of novel-writing,
+she surpassed Richardson in verisimilitude and concentration.</p>
+
+<p>Some readers of the present day object to Miss Burney's novels that
+they contain so many references to "delicacy" and "propriety" that an
+air of affectation is produced. But at the time when "Evelina" was
+written, a perpetual discretion in actions and words was absolutely
+necessary to a young woman who did not wish to be subjected to
+libertine advances. Society is now so much more generally refined that
+there is far less danger of such misconstruction, and far less need for
+a young girl to be always on her guard. A sound objection, on the
+ground of taste, may be made against the excessively prolonged account
+of Captain Mirvan's brutalities. The effect might have been as well
+produced in a much shorter space, and the reader spared the
+uninteresting scenes which now fill so many repulsive pages. For this
+defect, however, we must blame the times more than the author.</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte Lennox was the daughter of Sir James Ramsay, Lieutenant
+governor of New York, where she was born in 1720. When fifteen years of
+age she was sent to London, and there supported herself by her pen.
+Johnson said that he had "dined at Mrs. Garrick's with Mrs. <span class="pagenum">[255]<a name="page255" id="page255"></a></span>Carter,
+Miss Hannah More, and Miss Fanny Burney: three such women are not to be
+found. I know not where I could find a fourth, except Mrs. Lennox, who
+is superior to them all." Such high praise was not called forth by Mrs.
+Lennox's novels, which have little originality or power. "The Female
+Quixote" is an entertaining satire on the old French romances, but
+"Sophia," and "Euphemia" are without any special interest.</p>
+
+<p>A writer of more ability, whose name is still remembered by
+novel-readers, is Mrs. Inchbald. She was overcome in early life by an
+enthusiasm for the stage; ran away from home to find theatrical
+employment, and remained for many years a popular London actress.
+Although possessed of great and durable beauty, and the object of
+constant attention from aristocratic admirers, it is believed that her
+reputation continued unsullied. Her poverty, largely caused by a
+worthless husband, obliged her to perform the most menial labors. She
+rejoiced on one occasion that the approach of warmer weather released
+her from the duty of making fires, scouring the grate, sifting the
+cinders, and of going up and down three pair of long stairs with water
+or dirt. All this Mrs. Inchbald thought that she could cheerfully bear,
+but the labor of being a fine lady the remainder of the day was almost
+too much for her. "Last Thursday," she wrote to a friend, "I finished
+scouring my bed-chamber, while a coach with a coronet and two footmen
+waited at the door to take me an airing."</p>
+
+<p>The same courage and industry were carried by Mrs. Inchbald into her
+literary labors, the profits of which enabled her to live with
+considerable comfort toward the end of her life. She left a large
+number of plays, many of which had been acted with success, and two
+novels, <span class="pagenum">[256]<a name="page256" id="page256"></a></span>"A Simple Story," published in 1791, and "Nature and Art,"
+published five years later. Neither of these works has much merit from
+a critical point of view. They are faulty in construction, and give
+frequent evidence of the authoress' lack of education.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, in her ability to excite the interest and to move the feelings of
+her reader, Mrs. Inchbald met with great success. Her novels are of the
+pathetic order, and appeal to the sympathies with a sometimes powerful
+effect. Maria Edgeworth was deeply moved by the "Simple Story." "Its
+effect upon my feelings," she said after reading it for the fourth
+time, "was as powerful as at the first reading; I never read <i>any</i>
+novel&mdash;I except none,&mdash;I never read any novel that affected me so
+strongly, or that so completely possessed me with the belief in the
+real existence, of all the persons it represents. I never once
+recollected the author whilst I was reading it; never said or thought,
+<i>that's a fine sentiment</i>,&mdash;or, <i>that is well expressed</i>&mdash;or, <i>that is
+well invented</i>; I believed all to be real, and was affected as I should
+be by the real scenes, if they had passed before my eyes; it is truly
+and deeply pathetic."</p>
+
+<p>The sisters, Harriet and Sophia Lee, wrote a number of stories gathered
+together under the rather unfortunate title of "The Canterbury Tales,"
+which had a long-continued popularity. "The Young Lady's Tale," and
+"The Clergyman's Tale" were written by Sophia; all the others, together
+with the novel "Errors of Innocence," belonged to Harriet. These
+stories have great narrative interest, and contain some powerfully
+drawn characters. Byron was deeply affected by some of them. Of the
+"German's Tale," he confessed: "It made a deep impression on me, and
+may be said to contain the germ of <span class="pagenum">[257]<a name="page257" id="page257"></a></span>much that I have since written." It
+not only contained the germ of "Werner," but supplied the whole
+material for that tragedy. All the characters of the novel are
+reproduced by Byron except "Ida," whom he added. The plan of Miss Lee's
+work is exactly followed, as the poet admitted, and even the language
+is frequently adopted without essential change.</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte Smith was a woman of talent and imagination who was driven to
+literature for aid in supporting a large family abandoned by their
+spendthrift father. She was among the most prolific novelists of her
+time, but only one work, "The Old Manor House," enjoyed more than a
+passing reputation, or has any claim to particular mention here. The
+chief merit of Charlotte Smith's novels lies in their descriptions of
+scenery, an element only just entering into the work of the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>Clara Reeve and the celebrated Mrs. Radcliffe did much to sustain the
+prominent position which women were taking in fictitious composition,
+and their works will be commented upon in connection with the romantic
+revival, to which movement they were eminent contributors.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the number and variety of
+works of fiction increased with remarkable rapidity. The female sex
+supplied its full share, both in amount and in excellence of work. But
+those who desire to see the advent of women into new walks of active
+life on the ground that their presence and participation add to the
+purity of every occupation they adopt, can find no illustration of the
+theory in the connection of women with fictitious composition. Mrs.
+Behn, Mrs. Manley, and Mrs. Heywood, the earliest female novelists,
+produced the most inflammatory and licentious novels of
+<span class="pagenum">[258]<a name="page258" id="page258"></a></span>their time. At
+a later period, during the eighteenth century, although some female
+writers exhibited a very exceptional refinement, the majority showed in
+this respect no marked superiority to their masculine contemporaries.
+In our own time, whoever would make a list of those novels which are
+most evidently immoral in their teachings and licentious in their tone,
+would be obliged to seek them almost quite as much among the works of
+female writers, as among those of the rougher sex.</p>
+
+<p>To write a really excellent novel, is among the most difficult of
+literary feats. But to write a poor one has often been found an easy
+undertaking. The apparent facility of fictitious composition has
+deceived great numbers of literary aspirants, and has filled the
+circulating libraries with a vast collection of thoroughly worthless
+productions. This unfortunate fecundity, to which the department of
+fiction is subject, began to be conspicuous at the end of the
+eighteenth century,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref200" id="fnref200" href="#fn200">[200]</a></span> and excited much opposition to novels of all
+kinds. Hannah More, in her essays on female education, inveighed
+against the evil in terms which are quite as applicable at the present
+day. "Who are those ever multiplying authors, that with unparalleled
+fecundity are overstocking the world with their quick-succeeding
+progeny? They are <i>novel-writers</i>; the easiness of whose productions is
+at once the cause of their own fruitfulness, and of the almost
+infinitely numerous race of imitators to whom they give birth. Such is
+the frightful facility of this species of composition, that every raw
+girl, while she reads, is tempted to fancy that she can also write. And
+as Alexander, on perusing the Iliad, found by congenial sympathy the
+image of Achilles <span class="pagenum">[259]<a name="page259" id="page259"></a></span>
+stamped on his own ardent soul, and felt himself the
+hero he was studying; and as Correggio, on first beholding a picture
+which exhibited the perfection of the graphic art, prophetically felt
+all his own future greatness, and cried out in rapture: 'And I, too, am
+a painter!' So a thorough-paced novel-reading miss, at the close of
+every tissue of hackneyed adventures, feels within herself the stirring
+impulse of corresponding genius, and triumphantly exclaims: 'And I,
+too, am an author!' The glutted imagination soon overflows with the
+redundance of cheap sentiment and plentiful incident, and, by a sort of
+arithmetical proportion, is enabled by the perusal of any three novels,
+to produce a fourth; till every fresh production, like the prolific
+progeny of Banquo, is followed by</p>
+
+    <div class="center">'Another, and another, and another!'"</div>
+
+<br />
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn199" id="fn199" href="#fnref199">[199]</a></span>
+Afterward Madame D'Arblay.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn200" id="fn200" href="#fnref200">[200]</a></span>
+See the "Progress of Romance," by Clara Reeve, for the
+names of many now forgotten novels, for which room cannot be spared
+here.
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>IV.</h4>
+
+<p>The writers who took the chief part in originating and sustaining the
+romantic revival in English fiction were Horace Walpole, Clara Reeve,
+and Mrs. Radcliffe. As we have called upon the testimony of Walpole so
+often in this work, and as we are now to consider him as an author,
+some account of his personal appearance may be of interest. "His
+figure," says Miss Hawkins, "was not merely tall, but long and slender
+to excess; his complexion, and particularly his hands, of a most
+unhealthy paleness. His eyes were remarkably bright and penetrating,
+very dark and lively:&mdash;his voice was not strong, but his tones were
+extremely pleasant, and, if I may so say, highly gentlemanly. I do not
+remember his common gait; he always entered a room in that style of
+affected delicacy which fashion had then made almost <span class="pagenum">[260]<a name="page260" id="page260"></a></span>natural; <i>chapeau
+bras</i> between his hands as if he wished to compress it, or under his
+arm; knees bent, and feet on tiptoe, as if afraid of a wet floor. His
+dress in visiting was most usually, in summer, when I most saw him, a
+lavender suit, the waistcoat embroidered with a little silver, or of
+white silk worked in the tambour, partridge silk stockings, and gold
+buckles, ruffles and frill generally lace. I remember, when a child,
+thinking him very much under-dressed, if at any time, except in
+mourning, he wore hemmed cambric. In summer, no powder, but his wig
+combed straight, and showing his very smooth, pale forehead, and queued
+behind; in winter, powder."</p>
+
+<p>Posterity has cause to regret that Horace Walpole, of all men best
+fitted by personal knowledge and ability to draw a picture of the
+brilliant society of his time, should have contributed no work in the
+department of realistic fiction. Had the keen observation and
+experience of the world so conspicuous in his letters been brought to
+bear on a narrative of real life not less ably constructed than that of
+"The Castle of Otranto," an addition of no little value to the social
+history of the eighteenth century must have been the result. But
+although Walpole attempted no novel in which he might have depicted the
+fashionable life of which he was so faithful a chronicler, he yet tried
+an experiment in fiction for which he was peculiarly qualified by his
+antiquarian studies and his fondness for the arts and customs of feudal
+times.</p>
+
+<p>The object of "The Castle of Otranto" was to unite the characteristic
+elements of the ancient romance with those of the modern novel. It was
+attempted to introduce into a narrative constructed with modern order
+and sequence, such supernatural events as controlled the incidents of
+romantic fiction. To accomplish this result, it was necessary <span class="pagenum">[261]<a name="page261" id="page261"></a></span>that the
+<i>mise en scène</i> should be impressive and awe-inspiring, that the
+reader's mind should be insensibly prepared by strange surroundings for
+extraordinary incidents. In his selection of age and scene, Walpole was
+highly judicious. He chose the feudal period, when superstition
+accorded the most ready belief to supernatural agencies. He introduced
+his reader to a huge, gloomy castle, furnished with towers, donjons,
+subterranean passages, and trapdoors. He took for his hero, Manfred, a
+fierce and cruel knight, who had obtained his lands by duplicity and
+blood; whose chief aim in life was to continue his posterity in
+possession of wrongfully acquired power. He added subordinate
+characters of a kind to aid the effect of supernatural phenomena: a
+monk in a neighboring convent, who threatened Manfred with divine
+visitation for his crimes; superstitious servants, whose easy fears
+exaggerated every unusual sound or foot-fall. He gave an interest to
+his narrative by the love passages of Manfred's daughters which were
+perpetually at the mercy of the fate which hung over the castle. He
+introduced his supernatural effects in the form of a gigantic gauntlet
+seen on the stair-rail; a gigantic helmet which crushed the son and
+heir of the house as he was about to be married and to carry out his
+father's hopes; a skeleton monk who urged the rightful owner of the
+castle to take his own from the usurper's hands.</p>
+
+<p>In attempting to make a regularly constructed narrative depend on
+supernatural agencies, Walpole undoubtedly succeeded as far as success
+was possible. But it may be said without hesitation that real success
+was unattainable. The very merits of "The Castle of Otranto" sustain
+this decision. The experiment had a fair trial. The narrative of
+Manfred's crimes and the punishments <span class="pagenum">[262]<a name="page262" id="page262"></a></span>visited upon them, the characters
+and actions of subordinate personages are all managed with skill; while
+the supernatural agencies are introduced at the proper times and have
+the expected effects. But the real test of success in such an attempt
+must lie in the impression made on the reader's mind. And this
+impression may be of two kinds. Let us imagine a group of young people
+sitting about the dying embers of a fire on a winter's evening,
+listening to a ghost story. The black darkness, the sound of the wind
+howling without, accord with the low tones, the dim light, and the tale
+of horror within. The minds of the listeners insensibly cast off their
+ordinary trains of thought, and give themselves up to the unreal
+impressions of the moment. The incredible circumstances of the
+apparition are accepted without question or criticism; the impression
+of the supernatural occurrences is alone thought of and enjoyed. But
+now, let the same tale be read aloud after breakfast, from a newspaper,
+with the affidavits of the witnesses of the apparition duly attached,
+and only laughter can be the result.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us apply the same test to romance. We open the "Morte d'Arthur";
+we find ourselves at once in an unreal, almost nameless land; we meet
+with knights whom we only know apart by their armor, and queens ambling
+through pathless forests on white palfreys; we attend brilliant
+tournaments and witness superhuman deeds of arms. Our minds, untroubled
+by scepticism and thoughtless of unreality, yield themselves to the
+poetical illusion. Who stops to think of the incredible when Sir
+Bedivere hurls into the lake the dying Arthur's sword Excalibur?</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Then Sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly took
+    it up, and went to the water side, and there <span class="pagenum">[263]<a name="page263" id="page263"></a></span>he bound the girdle
+    about the hilts, and then he threw the sword as far into the water
+    as he might, and there came an arm and an hand above the water, and
+    met it, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and
+    then vanished away the hand with the sword in the water.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But when we are introduced to the castle of Otranto, when we know its
+dimensions and appearance, when we have become acquainted with its
+inmates, and have been made to realize that they are flesh and blood
+like ourselves, we cannot receive without a shock the account of the
+supernatural occurrences by which they are affected. It is as if we
+listened to a ghost story in the glare of daylight, and in the full
+activity of our critical faculties.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>"Thou art no lawful prince," said Jerome; "thou art no prince&mdash;go,
+    discuss thy claim with Frederic; and when that is done&mdash;&mdash;" "It is
+    done," replied Manfred; "Frederic accepts Matilda's hand, and is
+    content to waive his claim, unless I have no male issue." As he
+    spoke these words three drops of blood fell from the nose of
+    Alfonso's statue.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"The Castle of Otranto" is an entertaining, well-constructed romance
+which may absorb the attention of young people, and indeed of all
+readers who delight in tales of superstitious horror. But looked upon
+as a work of art, it contains discordant elements. The realistic manner
+in which the scene and characters are made known, the exactitude with
+which the incidents are combined, are in constant opposition to that
+poetical ideality without which the supernatural cannot take possession
+of the mind. In reading the "Morte d'Arthur" we are insensibly
+penetrated by an atmosphere of the marvellous which makes a giant a
+natural companion, and a magic <span class="pagenum">[264]<a name="page264" id="page264"></a></span>sword a necessary part of a warrior's
+outfit. But Manfred and his family are so essentially human, and their
+surroundings are so realistic, that the reader's sense of congruity is
+shocked by the introduction of a bleeding statue or a skeleton monk.</p>
+
+<p>This was evident to Miss Clara Reeve, who hoped to attain success in
+the attempt to unite the romance and the novel by limiting all
+supernatural occurrences to the verge of probability. It is obvious
+that the line would be difficult to draw. Miss Reeve drew it at ghosts.
+In the "Old English Baron," she took a story similar to that of
+Walpole. She presented to the reader a castle whose real owner had been
+murdered, and of which the rightful heir, ignorant of his birth, lived
+as a dependent on the wrongful possessor. The story turned on the
+revelation of the secret by the ghost of the murdered knight.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>"God defend us!" said Edmund; "but I verily believe that the person
+    that owned this armor lies buried under us." Upon this a dismal,
+    hollow groan was heard, as if from underneath. A solemn silence
+    ensued, and marks of fear were visible upon all three; the groan
+    was thrice heard.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To the average mind of the present day Clara Reeve's ghost is not less
+improbable and incredible than Walpole's gigantic helmet. If the reader
+is prepared by the poetic nature of a narrative for the influence of
+the supernatural, he will receive all marvels with equal ease; but if
+he be not prepared, if his mind be occupied during the greater part of
+the work with actual and ordinary occurrences, any supernatural event
+is rejected. Miss Reeve introduced far less of the incredible than her
+predecessor, but she did not approach Walpole in the adaptation of <span class="pagenum">[265]<a name="page265" id="page265"></a></span>her
+scenes to supernatural effects. It requires less imagination to see a
+figure walk out of a portrait in the gloomy castle of Otranto, than to
+hear the groan of Miss Reeve's spectre.</p>
+
+<p>The incompatibility of the real and the unreal in the same work is
+sufficiently shown by the course pursued by the different writers who
+took part in the romantic revival. Walpole had boldly introduced a
+skeleton monk, and had crushed one of his characters by a gigantic
+helmet which fell from the sky. Clara Reeve's sense of congruity was
+shocked by so strong a contrast between the usual and the
+extraordinary, and therefore limited herself to a single supernatural
+effect, which might inspire fear while yet remaining within the bounds
+of superstitious credulity. The next and greatest contributor to the
+romantic revival still further modified the methods of her
+predecessors, and in so modifying them, testified her doubts of their
+efficacy. Mrs. Radcliffe's plan was not to summon a spectre from his
+resting-place and to make him move among flesh and blood personages.
+She simply described the superstitious fears of her heroes and
+heroines, and sought to make her reader share in them. She excited the
+imagination by highly wrought scenes of horror, but instead of
+ascribing those scenes to the intervention of supernatural beings, she
+showed them to proceed from natural causes. The terror felt, by her
+fictitious characters and shared by the reader, was not so much
+inspired by real dangers from without, as by superstitious fear within.
+The following passage will illustrate Mrs. Radcliffe's method of
+dealing with the supernatural:</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>From the disturbed slumber into which she then sunk, she was soon
+    awakened by a noise, which seemed to arise within
+    <span class="pagenum">[266]<a name="page266" id="page266"></a></span>her chamber; but
+    the silence that prevailed, as she tearfully listened, inclined her
+    to believe that she had been alarmed by such sounds as sometimes
+    occur in dreams, and she laid her head again upon the pillow.</p>
+
+    <p>A return of the noise again disturbed her, it seemed to come from
+    that part of the room which communicated with the private
+    staircase, and she instantly remembered the odd circumstance of the
+    door having been fastened during the preceding night by some
+    unknown hand. The late alarming suspicion concerning its
+    communication also occurred to her. Her heart became faint with
+    terror. Half raising herself from the bed, and gently drawing aside
+    the curtain, she looked toward the door of the staircase, but the
+    lamp that burnt on the hearth spread so feeble a light through the
+    apartment, that the remote parts of it were lost in shadow. The
+    noise, however, which she was convinced came from the door,
+    continued. It seemed like that made by the undrawing of rusty
+    bolts, and often ceased, and was then renewed more gently, as if
+    the hand that occasioned it was restrained by a fear of discovery.
+    While Emily kept her eyes fixed on the spot, she saw the door move,
+    and then slowly open, and perceived something enter the room, but
+    the extreme duskiness prevented her perceiving what it was. Almost
+    fainting with terror, she had yet sufficient command over herself
+    to check the shriek that was escaping from her lips, and, letting
+    the curtain drop from her hand, continued to observe in silence the
+    motions of the mysterious figure she saw. It seemed to glide along
+    the remote obscurity of the apartment, then paused, and, as it
+    approached the hearth, she perceived, in the stronger light, what
+    appeared to be a human figure. Certain remembrances now struck upon
+    her heart, and almost subdued the feeble remains of her spirit. She
+    continued, however, to watch the figure, which remained for some
+    time motionless, but then, advancing slowly toward the bed, stood
+    silently at the feet, where the curtains, being a little open,
+    allowed her still to see it; terror, however, had
+    <span class="pagenum">[267]<a name="page267" id="page267"></a></span>now deprived her
+    of the power of discrimination, as well as that of utterance.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref201" id="fnref201" href="#fn201">[201]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This scene is an excellent example of Mrs. Radcliffe's power of
+depicting and exciting fear. The loneliness of Emily in the castle, her
+dread of real dangers inclining her mind to expect the unreal, are
+shown with an art of which neither Walpole nor Reeve were capable. But,
+while these writers would have introduced a real spectre as the
+disturber of Emily's slumber, Mrs. Radcliffe is contented with the
+terror she has aroused, and hastens to explain its cause.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Having continued there a moment, the form retreated towards the
+    hearth, when it took the lamp, held it up, surveyed the chamber for
+    a few moments, and then again advanced towards the bed. The light
+    at that instant awakening the dog that had slept at Emily's feet,
+    he barked loudly, and, jumping to the floor, flew at the stranger,
+    who struck the animal smartly with a sheathed sword, and springing
+    towards the bed, Emily discovered&mdash;Count Morano.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>These passages afford evidence of both the strength and the weakness of
+Mrs. Radcliffe's work. She chose a scene calculated to inspire horror,
+she subjected to its influence a lonely female, and she then described
+with blood-curdling minuteness each detail which could enhance the
+sense of hidden danger which it was her purpose to excite. While the
+reader follows such portions of her writings, he is carried by the
+force and picturesqueness of Mrs. Radcliffe's language into a condition
+of sympathy with the fears of the fictitious personage. But the moment
+that the scene of horror is <span class="pagenum">[268]<a name="page268" id="page268"></a></span>
+past, that the hidden danger is revealed,
+that, it turns out to be no ghost but only a Count Morano, all Mrs.
+Radcliffe's power is required to prevent an anti-climax. This weakness
+is very different from that of Walpole or Reeve. They failed to excite
+the feeling of superstitious fear. Mrs. Radcliffe excited it, but she
+destroyed its effect by revealing the inadequacy of its cause. The
+works of Walpole, Clara Reeve, and particularly of Mrs. Radcliffe,
+contain very decided merits. They made a school which has found many
+admirers and has given a vast deal of pleasure. But the school was
+founded on wrong principles and could not endure. It is impossible for
+the mind to enjoy the supernatural while it is chained down to
+every-day life by realistic descriptions of scenes and persons. And it
+is equally impossible to permanently please by fear-inspiring
+narratives, when the reader is aware that all the while there is no
+sufficient cause for the hero's terror.</p>
+
+<p>But what Mrs. Radcliffe attempted, she carried out with a very great
+skill. She placed the scenes of her narratives in Sicily, in Italy, or
+the south of France, and made good use of the warm natures and vivid
+imaginations which are born of southern climates. Every aid which an
+effective <i>mise en scène</i> could supply to her supernatural effects was
+most skilfully brought into play. Lonely castles, secret passages,
+gloomy churches, and monkish superstitions,&mdash;all were adapted to the
+tale of unknown dangers and fearful predicaments which Mrs. Radcliffe
+had to tell. She kept up with remarkable strength a supernatural tone
+which insensibly aids the imagination. In her descriptions of scenery,
+she chose nature in its most awe-inspiring forms, and instilled into
+the reader's mind the same sense of the insignificance of
+<span class="pagenum">[269]<a name="page269" id="page269"></a></span>man, under
+the influence of which her heroes and heroines so continually remain.
+We are reminded of Buckle's description of the effect of nature upon
+human imagination and credulity when we notice the striking manner in
+which Mrs. Radcliffe moulded the surroundings of her heroes and
+heroines, and made their minds susceptible to superstitious terror.</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>From Beaujeu the road had constantly ascended, conducting the
+    travellers into the higher regions of the air, where immense
+    glaciers exhibited their frozen horrors, and eternal snow whitened
+    the summits of the mountains. They often paused to contemplate
+    these stupendous scenes, and, seated on some wild cliff, where only
+    the ilex or the larch could flourish, looked over dark forests of
+    fir, and precipices where human foot had never wandered, into the
+    glen&mdash;so deep that the thunder of the torrent, which was seen to
+    foam along the bottom was scarcely heard to murmur. Over these
+    crags rose others of stupendous height and fantastic shape; some
+    shooting into cones; others impending far over their base, in huge
+    masses of granite, along whose broken ridges was often lodged a
+    weight of snow, that, trembling even to the vibration of a sound,
+    threatened to bear destruction in its course to the vale. Around on
+    every side, far as the eye could penetrate, were seen only forms of
+    grandeur the long perspective of mountain tops, tinged with
+    ethereal blue, or white with snow; valleys of ice, and forests of
+    gloomy fir. * * * The deep silence of these solitudes was broken
+    only at intervals by the scream of the vultures, seen cowering
+    round some cliff below, or by the cry of the eagle sailing high in
+    the air; except when the travellers listened to the hollow thunder
+    that sometimes muttered at their feet.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref202" id="fnref202" href="#fn202">[202]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Lewis in "The Monk," and Maturin in "The Family of
+<span class="pagenum">[270]<a name="page270" id="page270"></a></span>Montorio," carried
+the principles of the Radcliffe school beyond the verge of absurdity.
+Their novels are wild melodramas, the product of distorted
+imaginations, in which endless horrors are mingled with gross
+violations of decency. "The Monk" and "The Family of Montorio" had a
+great reputation in their day, and in contemporary criticism we find
+their praise sung and their immortality predicted. But, while they
+illustrate, on the one hand, the temporary vogue an author may acquire
+by highly-wrought clap-trap and flashy flights of imagination, they
+show very plainly, in the oblivion which has overtaken them, how little
+such characteristics avail in the race for enduring fame.</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn201" id="fn201" href="#fnref201">[201]</a></span>
+"The Mysteries of Udolpho," chap. xix.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn202" id="fn202" href="#fnref202">[202]</a></span>
+"The Mysteries of Udolpho," ch. iv.
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>V.</h4>
+
+<p>At the end of the eighteenth century, the novel had become established
+as a popular form of literature, and the number of its votaries had
+begun to assume the proportions which have since made novelists by far
+the most numerous literary body. Some writers, perhaps, have been
+omitted who deserved mention as much as some who have been commented
+upon. But all have been spoken of, it is believed, who contributed any
+new ideas or methods to the art of fictitious composition.</p>
+
+<p>The novel had, indeed, taken the place of the stage to a very great
+extent. If we compare the productions of the dramatist with those of
+the novelist, as regards both quantity and merit, during the last
+hundred and fifty years, we shall perceive a great preponderance in
+favor of the writer of fiction. Although there are some respects in
+which the novel cannot compete with the drama, there are obvious
+reasons why the former should be much better adapted than the latter to
+modern requirements. <span class="pagenum">[271]<a name="page271" id="page271"></a></span>
+Great changes have come over the audience. With
+the progress of civilization, life has become less and less dramatic,
+and affords fewer striking scenes and violent ebullitions of passion.
+It not only furnishes far less material for stage effects, but also
+supplies little of that sympathy which the dramatist must find in the
+minds of his audience. While life has become less dramatic, it has
+become far more complex, and requires a broader treatment in its
+delineation than the restrictions of the stage can allow.</p>
+
+<p>As we look back upon the fiction of the eighteenth century it is
+evident that the novel, like the play, is capable of great uses and of
+great abuses, according to the spirit in which it is written. In the
+hands of Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Goldsmith, and Miss Burney, it
+reached a high position as a work of art. It retained, indeed, much of
+the manner of the story of adventure, inasmuch as the interest was more
+commonly made to depend on the fortunes of a chosen hero than on the
+development of a well constructed plot. But "Robinson Crusoe," "Tom
+Jones," "The Vicar of Wakefield," and "Evelina," are works which
+deserve and possess the interest of the present time. Such books as
+these are to be cherished as precious legacies from the years that have
+gone before. They have given, in the course of their long active
+circulation, an incalculable amount of pleasure. They have supplied
+posterity with a picturesque view of the life and manners of their
+ancestors which could not be acquired from any other source. But while
+the fiction of the eighteenth century includes much that is valuable
+from a literary and from a historical point of view, it includes also a
+great quantity of worthless and injurious writing. By far the larger
+number of <span class="pagenum">[272]<a name="page272" id="page272"></a></span>
+novels published were of a kind likely to exert an evil
+influence on their readers. Their coarseness and licentiousness had a
+strong tendency to disseminate the morbid thoughts and unregulated
+passions which dictated their production. So general was the feeling
+that a work of fiction would probably contain immoral and debasing
+views of life, that the novel and the novelist, were both looked upon
+askance. "In the republic of letters," said Miss Burney, "there is no
+member of such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his
+brethren of the quill, as the humble novelist; nor is his fate less
+hard in the world at large, since, among the whole class of writers
+perhaps not one can be named of which the votaries are more numerous
+but less respectable." Miss Edgeworth, in the beginning of the present
+century, felt it necessary to call her first novel "a moral tale,"
+because so much folly, error, and vice are disseminated in books
+classed "under the denomination of novels." A great part of the fiction
+of the last century, as indeed of our own time, possesses neither the
+value of a work of art nor that belonging to the description and
+preservation of contemporary manners. Nor could the excuse of the
+amusement they afforded be called up in their favor. No amusement is
+worth having which is not healthy and innocent. The general prejudice
+which formerly existed against novels very much lessened their
+circulation, and lessened the evil done by licentious productions.
+Careful parents did not allow a novel in their children's hands which
+had not passed an examination&mdash;a precaution now too generally
+neglected.</p>
+
+<p>But notwithstanding all the trash, and worse than trash, which has gone
+into circulation under the broad and attractive term of novel, it is
+evident that the <span class="pagenum">[273]<a name="page273" id="page273"></a></span>
+English speaking public on both sides of the Atlantic
+demand purity in the works of fiction which are submitted to its
+judgment. While no literary work can present a greater claim to
+permanent favor than a really good novel, none is more certain to be
+quite ephemeral than a bad one, whether its badness consist in the
+manner or the matter. For more than a hundred years "The Vicar of
+Wakefield" has held its own, while hundreds of novels which created
+more sensation at the time of their appearance have fallen into
+everlasting oblivion. And this triumph is not only due to literary
+excellence, but to the human excellence of the conception which
+Goldsmith gave to the world.</p>
+
+<hr class="long" />
+
+<span class="pagenum">[274]<a name="page274" id="page274"></a></span>
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>
+   I.&mdash;THE NOVEL IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.<br />
+  II.&mdash;THE NOVEL OF LIFE AND MANNERS.<br />
+ III.&mdash;OF SCOTCH LIFE.<br />
+  IV.&mdash;OF IRISH LIFE.<br />
+   V.&mdash;OF ENGLISH LIFE.<br />
+  VI.&mdash;OF AMERICAN LIFE.<br />
+ VII.&mdash;THE HISTORICAL NOVEL.<br />
+VIII.&mdash;THE NOVEL OF PURPOSE.<br />
+  IX.&mdash;THE NOVEL OF FANCY.<br />
+   X.&mdash;USE AND ABUSE OF FICTION.
+</h3>
+
+<h4>I.</h4>
+
+<p>Fiction has absorbed so much of the literary talent of the present
+century, and has attained so important a place in the lives and
+thoughts of the reading public, that, in this chapter, we will attempt
+a description of its varied forms, and an inquiry into its uses and
+abuses, rather than an extended criticism of individual writers.
+Allibone's "Dictionary of Authors" contains two thousand two hundred
+and fifty-seven names of writers of fiction, by far the greater number
+of which belong to the nineteenth century, and every year adds to the
+list.</p>
+
+<p>There is no better example of the closeness of the connection between
+society and its literature than is supplied by the novel. Every change
+in the public taste has been followed by a corresponding variety of
+fiction, until it is difficult to enumerate all the schools into which
+novelists have divided themselves. During the present century, life has
+become far more complex and the reading public far more exacting,
+varied, and <span class="pagenum">[275]<a name="page275" id="page275"></a></span>
+extended than ever before. Steam and electricity have
+brought distant countries into close communion, and have awakened a
+feeling of fellowship among the different nations of the civilised
+world which has greatly widened the horizon of human interests. The
+spread of education, the increase and distribution of wealth, together
+with the cheapness of printing, have largely increased the number and
+variety of those who seek entertainment from works of fiction. The
+novel-reader is no longer content with the description of scenes and
+characters among which his own life is passed. He wishes to be
+introduced to foreign countries, to past ages, and to societies and
+ranks apart from his own. He wishes also to find in fiction the
+reflection of his own tastes and the discussion of his own interests.
+He seeks psychology, or study of character, or the excitement of a
+complicated plot, or the details and events of sea-faring, criminal, or
+fashionable life. All of these different tastes the novelist has
+undertaken to gratify.</p>
+
+<p>Under the extensive head of the novel of life and manners, the habits,
+modes of thought, and peculiarities of language of Scotland, Ireland,
+England, and the United States, with many sub-divisions of provinces
+and cities, have been studied and described. The novelist has extended
+his investigations into Eastern countries, and has portrayed the
+customs and institutions of Oriental life. He has taken his characters
+from historic times, and has recommended the past for the instruction
+or amusement of the present. The experience of the soldier and the
+sailor have taken their place among the incidents of fiction; the
+adventures and crimes of blacklegs and convicts have been drawn upon to
+gratify palates sated with the weak <i>pabulum</i> of the fashionable novel.</p>
+<span class="pagenum">[276]<a name="page276" id="page276"></a></span>
+
+<p>Fiction has not been confined to the study of manners and character,
+but has been extensively used to propagate opinions and to argue
+causes. Novels have been written in support of religious views,
+Catholic, High-Church, and Low-Church; political novels have supported
+the interests of Tory, Whig, anti-slavery, and civil service;
+philosophical novels have exposed the evils of society as at present
+constituted, and have built up impossible utopias. Besides the novel of
+purpose, there has been the novel of fancy, in which the imagination
+has been allowed to soar unchecked in the regions of the unreal and the
+supernatural.</p>
+
+<p>With so great a variety of works of fiction, it is not surprising to
+find a corresponding variety of authorship. Lords and ladies, generals
+and colonels have entered the lists against police court reporters and
+female adventurers. The novel is no longer the exclusive work of a
+professional author. Amateurs have attempted it to pass the time which
+hung heavily on their hands; to put into form their dreams or
+experiences; to gratify a mere literary vanity. The needy nobleman has
+made profitable use of his name on the title-page of a novel purporting
+to give information concerning fashionable life. But the most
+remarkable characteristic of novel-writing has been the important part
+taken by women. They have adopted fiction as their special department
+of literature, and have shown their capacity for it by the production
+of novels which fully equal in number and almost equal in merit the
+works of their masculine rivals. On her own ground, George Eliot has no
+superior, while the writings of Miss Austen, of Miss Edgeworth, of Miss
+Ferrier, of Mrs. Stowe, not to mention many others, are to be ranked
+among the best works of fiction in any language. But
+<span class="pagenum">[277]<a name="page277" id="page277"></a></span>while women have
+contributed their full share of novels, both as regards quantity and
+merit, they have also contributed much more than what we think their
+full share of worthless and immoral writing. Bad women will have
+literary capacity as well as bad men, but it is doubly shocking to find
+that the prurient thoughts, the indecent allusions, and immoral
+opinions which are often met with in the novels of the day proceed from
+that sex which ought to be the stronghold of modesty and virtue.</p>
+
+<p>And this matter becomes very important when we consider the position
+which works of fiction have attained in the present century. In the
+days of Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Heywood, Fielding, or Smollett, coarseness of
+thought and language was so general that it naturally had a prominent
+place in novels. All persons who objected to licentious scenes and
+gross expressions in the reading of themselves or their children
+excluded works of fiction. As Miss Edgeworth said, most novels were
+filled with vice or folly, and as Miss Burney complained, no body of
+literary men were so numerous, or so little respectable as novelists.
+But, in the hands of such writers as Sir Walter Scott, as Miss Ferrier,
+as Miss Austen, as Dickens, as Thackeray, as Charles Kingsley, as Mr.
+Anthony Trollope, the novel has achieved for itself a position of
+respectability and dignity which seems to remain unimpaired,
+notwithstanding the efforts of many authors to destroy it. Works of
+fiction are to be found in every home, in the hands of parents, in the
+hands of young boys and girls. The word novel has been given so high a
+signification by the great names which are associated with it, that
+parental censorship has almost ceased. It is impossible that a form of
+literature to which so many and so great minds have been devoted, and
+which takes so prominent a place <span class="pagenum">[278]<a name="page278" id="page278"></a></span>
+in the favor of the reading public,
+should not be without a powerful influence. Let us look more closely at
+the works of fiction of the nineteenth century, and then endeavor to
+determine how far their influence has been for good, and how far for
+evil.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4>II.</h4>
+
+<p>It is the especial province of the novel of life and manners to be as
+far as possible a truthful reflection of nature. And the more it
+approaches to this condition, the more realistic it is said to be. But
+the word realism is a vague term, and is constantly employed to express
+different ideas. As far as it applies to the novel, it usually
+signifies an author's fidelity to nature. But even with this
+definition, the term realism has no very definite meaning unless all
+persons agree as to what constitutes nature. There is a great
+difference in men according as they are looked at with the eye of a
+Raphael or of a Rembrandt. There has been a strong tendency among
+novelists of the present century who have written since Scott, to
+devote themselves more to the common characters and incidents of
+every-day life; to describe the world as it appears to the ordinary
+observer, who rarely associates with either heroes or villains, and has
+little experience of either the sublime or the marvellous. Such was the
+expressed object of Thackeray, and such is the general character of the
+works of George Eliot and of Mr. Anthony Trollope. This tendency has
+been carried to an extreme by some English novelists, and above all by
+the Frenchman, Emile Zola, who have not only thrown aside entirely the
+romantic element in their fictions, but have shown their ideas of
+realism to consist in the base and the ignoble, and have confined their
+studies to the vices and degradation of the human species.<span class="pagenum">[279]<a name="page279" id="page279"></a></span></p>
+
+<p>An admirer of Thackeray and an admirer of Zola would consider the works
+of his favorite author to be realistic, and yet nature appears under
+very different aspects in the pages of the two novelists. But the
+partisans of Thackeray and those of Zola would probably unite in the
+opinion that Sir Walter Scott was not realistic; they would call him
+romantic, and claim that he painted ideal scenes and ideal characters.
+But among those who read and re-read the novels of Scott, by far the
+greater number believe that "The Wizard of the North" was true to
+nature, that Jeanie Deans and Rob Roy and Meg Merrilies were not
+impossible characters. There are many who enter into the scenes
+described by Scott with as much feeling of reality as is experienced by
+those who follow the career of a Pendennis, of a Duke of Omnium, or of
+a Nana. A novelist, then, is realistic or not realistic according to
+the views which he and his reader entertain of nature. To the optimist,
+to the youthful and romantic, "The Heart of Midlothian" and "Guy
+Mannering" will seem a truthful representation of life. The more
+worldly and practical will find their idea of reality in "The Mill on
+the Floss," in "Vanity Fair," in "The Prime Minister." And finally
+those whose taste or lot has kept them "raking in the dirt of mankind"
+will think their view of truth best expressed by "L'Assommoir" or
+"Nana."</p>
+
+<p>But we would not be understood to mean that a novelist or a painter is
+realistic, because he represents nature as it appears to him, whether
+he look at it through a glass <i>couleur de rose</i>, or with the distorted
+eye of a cynic. He may describe the sublime, the ordinary, or the vile,
+as nature supplies examples of all three, and yet be realistic, so long
+as he presents any one of these conditions
+<span class="pagenum">[280]<a name="page280" id="page280"></a></span>without exaggeration, and
+without too extended an application.</p>
+
+<p>The writers who have devoted themselves to the novel of life and
+manners have all sought to be realistic, and the value of their work
+largely depends on the success which has attended their efforts in this
+direction. The enduring vitality of "Tom Jones" is due to Fielding's
+fidelity to nature, and it is safe to predict that no novel which fails
+in this respect can have more than an ephemeral reputation. Nothing
+could be more false than the views of contemporary life contained in a
+large part of the fiction of the present day, and the future historian
+who looks to the novel of the nineteenth century for information
+concerning morals and social habits will have to exercise a constant
+discrimination.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4>III.</h4>
+
+<p>Scottish life and manners have been made familiar to the world by a
+series of brilliant novelists, first among whom stands the greatest
+figure in the history of English fiction. Sir Walter Scott was
+qualified to an extraordinary degree for the great work he was destined
+to perform for his country and for the novel. His ancestry, the
+traditions among which he grew up, his in-born love of legendary lore,
+his vivid imagination and keenness of sympathy all fitted him to
+appreciate and to put into enduring form the latent romance which
+pervaded his beloved Scotland. His practical experience as a lawyer and
+as a sheriff, gave him a clear insight into the institutions of his
+country. Previous to the publication of "Waverley," Scotland was a
+comparatively unknown land. Even Englishmen had little knowledge of its
+national habits, of its traditions, or its scenery. To Scotchmen,
+<span class="pagenum">[281]<a name="page281" id="page281"></a></span>the
+history of their country was little more than a skeleton, till the
+magic wand of Scott it filled it with flesh and blood, and gave it new
+life and animation. "Up to the era of Sir Walter," says an eminent
+Scotchman, "living people had some vague, general, indistinct notions
+about dead people mouldering away to nothing, centuries ago, in regular
+kirk-yards and chance burial-places, 'mang muirs and mosses many O,'
+somewhere or other in that difficultly distinguished and very debatable
+district called the Borders. All at once he touched their tombs with a
+divining-rod, and the turf streamed out ghosts, some in woodmen's
+dresses, most in warriors' mail; queer archers leapt forth, with yew
+bows and quivers, and giants stalked shaking spears! The gray
+chronicler smiled, and taking up his pen, wrote in lines of light the
+annals of the chivalrous and heroic days of auld feudal Scotland. The
+nation then, for the first time, knew the character of its ancestors;
+for these were not spectres&mdash;not they, indeed,&mdash;nor phantoms of the
+brain, but gaunt flesh and blood, or glad and glorious;&mdash;base-born
+cottage churls of the olden time, because Scottish, became familiar to
+the love of the nation's heart, and so to its pride did the high born
+lineage of palace kings. * * * We know now the character of our own
+people as it showed itself in war and peace&mdash;in palace, castle, hall,
+hut, hovel, and shieling&mdash;through centuries of advancing civilization."</p>
+
+<p>And it was not only to his countrymen that Scott made vivid and
+familiar the history of his native land. Since his genius described the
+Highland fastnesses, and peopled them with the chiefs and maidens of
+old, all the world feels at home in that land at once so small and so
+great. In Italy, in France in Germany, in America, Jeanie Deans and the
+Master of Ravenswood are household friends,
+<span class="pagenum">[282]<a name="page282" id="page282"></a></span>and Scottish life and
+habits are known to tens of thousands who never leave their native
+town.</p>
+
+<p>Besides making his country celebrated by his writings, Scott placed the
+novel on the firm foundation in public estimation which it has since
+retained. He redeemed its character from the disrepute into which it
+had fallen. He used it not only as a means of giving acute and
+healthful pleasure, but he made it the medium for moral and
+intellectual advancement. The purity of thought which pervades all his
+writings, the never-failing nobility of the views of life which he
+placed before his readers can have no other than an elevating
+influence.</p>
+
+<p>Scott's literary success was due both to genius and to industry. Of his
+early precocity Mrs. Cockburn has left a remarkable instance.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref203" id="fnref203" href="#fn203">[203]</a></span> "I
+last night supped in Mr. Walter Scott's. He has the most extraordinary
+genius of a boy I ever saw. He was reading a poem to his mother when I
+went in. I made him read on; it was the description of a shipwreck. His
+passion rose with the storm. He lifted his eyes and hands: 'There's the
+mast gone!' says he. 'Crash it goes! They will all perish!' After his
+agitation he turns to me: 'That is too melancholy,' says he. 'I had
+better read you something more amusing.' I preferred a little chat, and
+asked his opinion of Milton and other books he was reading, which he
+gave me wonderfully. One of his observations was: 'How strange it is
+that Adam, just new come into the world, should know every thing! That
+must be the poet's fancy,' says he. But when told he was created
+perfect by God, he instantly yielded. When taken to bed last night, he
+told his aunt he liked that lady.
+<span class="pagenum">[283]<a name="page283" id="page283"></a></span>'What lady?' says she. 'Why, Mrs.
+Cockburn, for I think she is a virtuoso,&mdash;like myself.' 'Dear Walter,'
+says Aunt Jenny, 'what is a virtuoso?' 'Don't ye know? Why, it's one
+who wishes and will know every thing.' Now, sir, you will think this a
+very silly story. Pray, what age do you suppose this boy to be? Name
+it, now, before I tell you. 'Why, twelve or fourteen.' No such thing;
+he is not quite six years old. He has a lame leg, for which he was a
+year at Bath, and has acquired the perfect English accent, which he has
+not lost since he came, and he reads like a Garrick. You will allow
+this an uncommon exotic."</p>
+
+<p>The vivid imagination and love of knowledge which Scott displayed from
+his earliest years were supplemented throughout his life by an
+assiduous self-cultivation. The great and varied body of legendary lore
+which he accumulated, together with his ever active and universal
+sympathy with mankind, made the chief elements in his fictions. There
+is no one respect in which the Waverley novels are pre-eminent. As
+regards plot, Scott has been frequently surpassed. While "Kenilworth,"
+the "Bride of Lammermoor," and "Ivanhoe," are well constructed, the
+plan of "Rob Roy" and "The Monastery" are lacking in sequence. Other
+novelists, too, have drawn character with quite as much power. But the
+Waverly novels have attained their supreme position in public
+estimation by a rare and well balanced union of different qualities.
+They contain beautiful examples of the sublime, and amusing examples of
+the ludicrous. They reflect nature in various phases, and always with
+picturesqueness, power, and truth. Of Scott's historical novels we
+shall speak elsewhere. Of those which relate especially to his own
+country, the most remarkable merit consists
+<span class="pagenum">[284]<a name="page284" id="page284"></a></span>in the fidelity with which
+they have reflected the Scotch nationality. On this account they will
+always possess a value for the student of social history.</p>
+
+<p>Of the estimation in which these novels have been held by the world,
+and the immense area over which their influence has extended, some idea
+may be formed from the fact that the actual profits which accrued from
+them to the author or to his estate shortly after his death, exceeded
+two millions of dollars. When we add to this sum the profits of the
+publishers, and when we consider the number of translations issued in
+Europe and the editions printed since Scott's death in Great Britain
+and America, we can realize how vast a sum the world has been glad to
+pay for the possession of these invaluable works.</p>
+
+<p>Following the great Sir Walter in the description of Scottish life and
+manners, are many well-known writers. John Galt, in the "Annals of the
+Parish," gave many humorous descriptions of national character. In
+Wilson's "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," in "The Ettrick
+Shepherd," in the works of Scott's son-in-law, Lockhart, are scenes and
+characters still very familiar to novel readers. Jane Porter embodied
+rather ideal views of history in "Thaddeus of Warsaw," and "The
+Scottish Chiefs." The talents of Miss Ferrier, of Mrs. Oliphant, and of
+Mr. William Black have kept up the interest which the world has learned
+to take in every thing appertaining to the land which Sir Walter Scott
+taught it to know and love so well.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref204" id="fnref204" href="#fn204">[204]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn203" id="fn203" href="#fnref203">[203]</a></span>
+Mrs. Cockburn to Rev. Dr. Douglas, 1777; Lockhart's
+"Life of Scott."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn204" id="fn204" href="#fnref204">[204]</a></span>
+Other novelists belonging especially in Scotland and of
+considerable reputation, are Maria Porter, Elizabeth Hamilton, A.
+Cunningham, Mrs. Johnstone, Hogg, Picken, Moir, Sir T.D. Lauder, Hugh
+Miller, George MacDonald.
+</div>
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[285]<a name="page285" id="page285"></a></span>
+
+
+<h4>IV.</h4>
+
+<p>First among the contributors to the novel of Irish life and manners may
+be mentioned Maria Edgeworth, by whose successful labors Scott was
+first inspired to undertake his own. In Miss Edgeworth's works, Ireland
+found a true exposition of her wrongs and her virtues; and also of her
+follies and errors. The evils of absenteeism were powerfully
+illustrated in the novel of the same name. In "Castle Rackrent," the
+trials and difficulties of landlord and tenant were described with
+genuine sympathy and dramatic force. The peculiarities of Irish temper
+and character have been studied by Miss Edgeworth with a fidelity which
+has given her novels the same national stamp and value which belong to
+those of Scott. Like him, too, she did much to raise fiction in
+character, scope, and influence. Whether describing Irish, English, or
+fashionable life, she is always true to nature, always pure and
+elevated in tone. Her works are neither marred by the coarseness of the
+past, nor by the false delicacy of the present. She studiously avoids
+error and exaggeration in every form. Sentimentality and mock heroism
+have no place in her pages. While she is wanting in poetry, she is
+singularly rich in the scenes and characters of every-day life, and her
+novels are marked by a common-sense knowledge of the world which never
+degenerates into commonplace.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Edgeworth has been ably followed by several students of Irish
+life. William Carleton's "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry,"
+the novels of Samuel Lover and of John Banim are still well known.
+Thomas Crofton Croker, with whose amusing description of the "Last of
+the Irish Sarpints," the reader is probably familiar, has studied his
+countrymen's superstitions and <span class="pagenum">[286]<a name="page286" id="page286"></a></span>
+peculiarities with great success.
+Charles James Lever has long retained a well-deserved popularity by the
+production of about thirty jovial dashing novels, among which the most
+celebrated is "Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon."<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref205" id="fnref205" href="#fn205">[205]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn205" id="fn205" href="#fnref205">[205]</a></span>
+Among other novelists of Irish life and manners may be
+mentioned Lady Morgan, Mrs. S.C. Hall, Gerald Griffin, T.C. Grattan,
+Justin MacCarthy, and others.
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h4>V.</h4>
+
+<p>Novels relating particularly to English life and manners have been
+greater in number and more varied in character than those of any other
+country. A large volume would be necessary to do any critical justice
+to the many distinguished writers whom we can only briefly notice here.
+The most considerable subdivision of the English novel has been that
+occupied with the study of domestic life,&mdash;a department for which women
+are particularly fitted, and in which they have been eminently
+successful.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Opie's "Simple Tales," "Tales of Real Life," and "Tales of the
+Heart," although displaying no great talent in construction or style,
+excel in a natural pathos and a delicacy of sentiment which have made
+them popular for many years. Miss Edgeworth brought to the study of
+English life the same practical views and library talents which we have
+seen in her Irish novels. Her children's stories, "Frank," "Harry and
+Lucy," and "Rosamund" were among the first contributions to juvenile
+fiction. "Helen," in which she exposed the evils of untruthfulness, is
+a good example of the success with which this admirable woman could
+combine entertainment and moral elevation. Jane Austen's name has long
+<span class="pagenum">[287]<a name="page287" id="page287"></a></span>
+been linked with that of Miss Edgeworth, as the two most powerful
+female novelists of the earlier part of the century. In "Pride and
+Prejudice," "Emma," "Mansfield Park," "Sense and Sensibility," she
+described the country gentry and middle classes of society. She
+depended neither on exciting scenes, nor on highly wrought effects of
+human passion for the interest of her stories, but studied every-day
+life and ordinary people with a sympathy and power of observation which
+imparted a deep interest to all her works. Miss Ferrier's novels,
+"Inheritance" and "Marriage," were greatly admired by Scott, and now,
+some sixty years later, are still widely read, and receive the honor of
+both cheap and expensive editions. Miss Ferrier's skill in the
+construction of a plot, her natural studies of character and the
+liveliness of her descriptions have kept her works popular,
+notwithstanding great changes in the public taste. Mrs. Trollope, the
+mother of a more celebrated son, contributed largely to the English
+domestic novel. The pathetic story of the lives of the Brontë sisters,
+supplied by Mrs. Gaskell, has deepened the interest excited by the
+early popularity of "Jane Eyre." Charlotte was the most talented of the
+family, and won a widespread admiration by her knowledge of life, her
+freshness, her vigor, and her innocent disregard of conventionality.
+Mrs. Gaskell described the life and trials of the manufacturing classes
+with great ability in "Mary Barton" and other novels. Miss Yonge,
+author of the "Heir of Redclyffe," Mrs. Henry Wood, author of "East
+Lynne," and Mrs. Lynn Linton have added largely to this department of
+fiction. The Baroness Tautphoeus described English and German life in
+the particularly fascinating novels, "Quits," "At Odds," and "The
+Initials." Miss Thackeray has <span class="pagenum">[288]<a name="page288" id="page288"></a></span>
+made good use of talents inherited from
+her father. Mary R. Mitford and Mrs. Alexander have written many
+entertaining and popular novels. Miss Mulock began a long list of
+successful works with "The Ogilvies" and "John Halifax."</p>
+
+<p>But by far the greatest female novelist who has devoted her talents to
+the English domestic novel, and by far the greatest female writer in
+the language is undeniably George Eliot. Women almost invariably leave
+the stamp of their sex upon their work. But George Eliot took and held
+a man's position in literature from the outset of her career. It was
+not that she was unfeminine. She brought to her work a woman's sympathy
+and a woman's attention to detail. But in breadth of conception, in
+comprehensiveness of thought, her mind was essentially masculine. Her
+appreciation of varieties and shades of character was almost
+Shakespearian. She could describe the self-indulgence of a Hetty Sorrel
+leading to cruelty, and that of a Tito leading to treachery, with
+perfect distinctness. She could enter into the generous aspirations of
+a Savonarola, and the selfish desires of a Grandcourt, with equal
+perspicuity. Her readers do not feel less familiar with the dull
+barrenness of Casaubon than with the pregnant vivacity of Mrs. Poyser.
+In the study of the inward workings of the human mind, George Eliot is
+unsurpassed by any novelist. Thackeray alone can dispute her
+pre-eminence in this respect. However much the reader may recoil from
+the horror of Little Hetty's crime, he cannot deny that it follows as a
+natural consequence. Although Dorothea's marriages are extremely
+disappointing, the train of thought which led her to enter into them is
+traced with unerring clearness.</p>
+
+<p>An obstacle to the popularity of George Eliot's novels
+<span class="pagenum">[289]<a name="page289" id="page289"></a></span>lies in the
+slowness of their movement. The author's soliloquies, comments, and
+reflections, which are so much valued by her especial admirers,
+constantly interrupt the course of the narrative, and prove cumbersome
+to such readers as enjoy a rapid, flowing story. But without these
+interruptions, how much of George Eliot's best wisdom would be lost!
+How many significant phrases would be lost from familiar language! The
+commentaries of the authoress herself on the incidents of her tale give
+her works a value which inclines us to take up her volumes again and
+again, long after the stories themselves have become familiar. We never
+weary of such sentences as the following from "Adam Bede": "There is no
+despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our
+first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have
+suffered and be healed, to have despaired and to have recovered hope."
+Not less beautiful and concentrated are those few words on woman's love
+in "Middlemarch":&mdash;"Those childlike caresses which are the bent of
+every sweet woman, who has begun by showering kisses on the hard pate
+of her bald doll, creating a happy soul within that woodenness from the
+wealth of her own love."</p>
+
+<p>A faculty which George Eliot possessed in common with Dickens and
+Thackeray was that of making very ordinary people interesting. And this
+is a talent characteristic of the best minds which have contributed to
+fiction or the drama. Shakespeare possessed it in a high degree, and
+the best creations of Scott are ordinary, unheroic persons. The faculty
+arises from superior powers of observation. Some people will take a
+walk through a picturesque country or a crowded city without having
+seen any thing worthy of remark. Others will pass over the
+<span class="pagenum">[290]<a name="page290" id="page290"></a></span>same
+ground, and return overflowing with description. In the same manner,
+the great number of men and women pass through life finding every thing
+commonplace, and the observing sympathy of a Thackeray, a Miss Austen,
+or a George Eliot is necessary to light up the unnoticed figures which
+throng the path. George Eliot is particularly happy in drawing a really
+ordinary person, especially when a little pretension is added. She must
+have written Mr. Brooke's opinion of women with true enjoyment: "There
+is a lightness about the feminine mind&mdash;a touch and go&mdash;music, the fine
+arts, that kind of thing&mdash;they should study those up to a certain
+point, women should; but in a light way, you know." But though Mrs.
+Poyser be humble, she is far from ordinary. "Some folks' tongues," she
+says, "are like the clocks as run on strikin', not to tell you the time
+o' the day, but because there's summat wrong i' their own inside."</p>
+
+<p>So long as George Eliot confined herself to her own sphere of action,
+she exhibited the same remarkable powers. But even her great name could
+not command admiration for "The Spanish Gypsy." Her limitations clearly
+appeared in "Daniel Deronda." When describing the characters and
+intercourse of Grandcourt and Gwendolen, when dealing with every thing
+English in that variously estimated work, she remained the great author
+of "Adam Bede" and "Silas Marner." But in undertaking the discussion of
+the religion and social position of the Jews, she mistook her own
+talents, and created in Daniel Deronda, an indefinite combination of
+virtues unworthy of her genius.</p>
+
+<p>We have now noticed fifteen women, from Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen
+to George Eliot, who have <span class="pagenum">[291]<a name="page291" id="page291"></a></span>
+contributed to the single department of
+fiction concerned with English domestic life. Many other names almost
+equally deserving and equally celebrated might be added to the list.
+The enduring popularity of their works is sufficient commentary on the
+success with which woman's talent has been directed toward fiction. Not
+only have the productions of these writers a high literary value, but
+their widespread circulation has afforded a really healthful amusement
+to tens of thousands, and their influence has been uniformly for
+good.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref206" id="fnref206" href="#fn206">[206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The novels of English domestic life written by men have been little
+more numerous or able, but much more extended in scope. "Tremaine" and
+"De Vere," of R. Plumer Ward, contain clever sketches of character, but
+the narrative is loaded down with political and philosophical
+disquisitions. Theodore Hook's stories were as unequal as his life.
+Almost all bear the marks of haste and carelessness, and yet very few
+are without some portion of that pointed wit and delicate humor which
+delineated Jack Brag, or described Mr. Abberley's dinner party in the
+"Man of Many Friends." Richard Harris Barham is well known as the
+author of the witty "Ingoldsby Legends," and Samuel Warren as the
+author of "Ten Thousand a Year." Charles Kingsley described the life
+and grievances of mechanics in "Alton Locke." Charles Reade began a
+long series of popular novels with "Peg Woffington" and "Christie
+Johnstone." His best work is "Never Too Late to Mend," in which he
+criticized <span class="pagenum">[292]<a name="page292" id="page292"></a></span>
+prison discipline, and described the striking scenes of the
+Australian gold-fields. Few novels of the present day contain a more
+interesting story or more lifelike delineations of character. Wilkie
+Collins' greatest power lies in the construction of his plot; the
+"Moonstone" and the "Woman in White," are among the most absorbing
+narratives in the whole range of fiction. His studies of the morbid
+workings of the mind are often striking, but with the exception of
+Count Fosco and a few others, his characters are not strongly marked.
+Thomas Hughes accomplished a truly noble work in the composition of
+"Tom Brown's School Days" and "Tom Brown at Oxford,"&mdash;books which have
+found their way to every boy's heart, and have appealed to all that was
+most healthful and manly there. The novels of Benjamin d'Israeli are
+chiefly interesting in their relation to the character of their
+illustrious author. As works of art they are faulty in construction,
+exaggerated in description, and unnatural in effect. "Vivian Gray" and
+"Lothair" cannot pretend to be truthful studies of English life, nor
+would their author, probably, have represented them as such. But so
+much of the great statesman's power was instilled into his novels that
+they have a certain interest even for those who are most alive to their
+faults. They are the conceptions of a very rich imagination, and
+contain many pictures which, if untrue to nature, are still extremely
+vivid. D'Israeli's chief literary, and perhaps also his chief political
+characteristic, was a constant endeavor to make striking effects. The
+reader may be sure to find nothing commonplace in his writings. Every
+scene and every character is painted in the brightest of colors. If the
+background be sombre, it will simply throw out more brilliantly the
+figures in the foreground. <span class="pagenum">[293]<a name="page293" id="page293"></a></span>
+It is said that most men have a favorite
+word. That of d'Israeli was "wondrous." He took his reader into
+wondrous baronial halls, filled with wondrous gems, with wondrous
+tapestries, with wondrous paintings, and introduced him to wondrous
+dukes and duchesses, looking out from wondrous dark orbs, and breathing
+through almond-shaped nostrils. He loved to bring the royal family on
+the scene, and to trace the awe-inspiring effect of their august
+presence. When we open a novel of d'Israeli's we are certain of moving
+in a brilliant society, although one belonging to a yet undiscovered
+world. Women whose political influence changes the map of Europe,
+irresistible Catholic priests are mingled with impudent adventurers and
+professional toad-eaters. And over every thing is cast, by d'Israeli's
+Eastern imagination, a glamour of unlimited wealth, of numberless
+coronets, and of soaring ambitions. The political career of the Earl of
+Beaconsfield is one of the most remarkable in history, and even his
+opponents cannot withhold admiration from the great abilities and
+undaunted resolution which brought that career to its triumphant close.
+But the novels of the Earl of Beaconsfield have little value beyond
+their reflection of his dreams and his ambition.</p>
+
+<p>Among the most famous writers of fiction of the nineteenth century will
+always be mentioned the name of Sir Bulwer Lytton. More than any other
+writer, he studied and developed the novel as a form of literature.
+Almost every novelist has taken some special field and has confined
+himself to that. Dickens, George Eliot, Thackeray made occasional
+incursions on historic ground, but still their chief work was expended
+upon the novel of life and manners. Lytton attempted, and successfully,
+every department of fiction. In "Zanoni," he gave to the world
+<span class="pagenum">[294]<a name="page294" id="page294"></a></span>a novel
+of fancy; in "Pelham" and "The Disowned," fashionable novels: in "Paul
+Clifford," a criminal novel; in "Rienzi," "Harold," "The Last of the
+Barons," historical novels; in "What Will He Do With It?" a novel of
+familiar life. And he brought to each variety of fiction the same
+artistic sense, the same knowledge of the world, and keen observation.
+To describe English life in all its phases, he was particularly fitted.
+Born in a high rank, he was perfectly at home in his descriptions of
+the upper classes, and never slow in exposing their vices. His studies
+of men took so universal a form that he became familiar even with the
+slang terms of pickpockets and house-breakers. "What Will He Do With
+It?" combines examples of the heroic, the humorous, the pathetic, and
+the villainous, and affords, perhaps, the best general view of the
+author's varied talents. Sir Bulwer Lytton is one of the most
+voluminous writers of a very prolific class, and yet he has never
+repeated himself. Mr. Anthony Trollope and several other novelists have
+shown how fallacious is the idea that the imagination is a fickle
+mistress to be courted and waited for. They have proved that she can be
+made to settle down and accustomed by habit to working at stated hours
+and for regular periods. But Bulwer Lytton not only forced his
+imagination to continuous labor, but he was able to insure an unending
+novelty of conception. In each one of his novels we are introduced to
+an entirely new set of characters inhabiting quite unfamiliar scenes.</p>
+
+<p>With a few exceptions, Mr. Anthony Trollope has confined himself to the
+novel of English social life, but that mine he has worked with
+wonderful assiduity and success. In "The Warden," in "Barchester
+Towers," are studies of clerical character for which this writer has
+won a <span class="pagenum">[295]<a name="page295" id="page295"></a></span>
+special reputation. "The Small House at Allington" is a love
+story of particular fascination. Few writers have described the
+manifestations of love in the acts and thoughts of a modest, sweet girl
+as delicately as Mr. Trollope has done in the case of the deserted
+Lily. Her rejection of a second suitor is felt by the reader to be the
+inevitable consequence of so pure a passion, and the treachery of
+Crosbie is traced through its various gradations with true fidelity to
+nature. "Phineas Finn" is an excellent example of a parliamentary
+novel. That work and its companions, "Phineas Redux," "The Prime
+Minister," and "The Duke's Children," keep up our acquaintance with the
+family and connections of Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, than
+which few groups of fictitious characters are more continuously
+interesting. Mr. Trollope's novels will have a special value for the
+future student of English social life in the nineteenth century. The
+race-course, the hunting field, the country seat, Piccadilly, Hyde
+Park, the life of clubs and parliament, are described by him with
+photographic minuteness. And the novel-reader of to-day derives a
+constant pleasure from his books, notwithstanding the fact that the
+monotony of modern life is somewhat too closely reflected in them.</p>
+
+<p>The works of no writer in the English language, except those of Scott,
+have attained so immediate a reputation and have won so wide-spread a
+popularity as the novels of Charles Dickens. "In less than six months
+from the appearance of the first number of the 'Pickwick Papers,'" said
+the <i>London Quarterly Review</i> in 1837, "the whole reading public were
+talking about them, the names of Winkle, Warden, Weller, Snodgrass,
+Dodson and Fogg, had become familiar in our mouths as
+<span class="pagenum">[296]<a name="page296" id="page296"></a></span>household terms;
+and Mr. Dickens was the grand object of interest to the whole tribe of
+'Leo-hunters,' male and female, of the metropolis. Nay, Pickwick
+chintzes figured in linen-drapers' windows, and Weller corduroys in
+breeches-makers' advertisements; Boz cabs might be seen rattling
+through the streets; and the portrait of the author of 'Pelham' or
+'Crichton' was scraped down or pasted over to make room for that of the
+new popular favourite in the omnibuses." For forty years the writings
+of this great novelist have held their place in the public esteem
+without any sensible diminution. Hundreds of thousands, old and young,
+in Great Britain, in America, in every country of Europe, have followed
+the fortunes of Nicholas Nickleby, of David Copperfield, of Oliver
+Twist, and of numberless other celebrated characters with unflagging
+interest. Perhaps Dickens' most remarkable achievement lay in the
+number of his creations, and in the distinctness with which he could
+impress them on the memory of his readers. Of the great host of figures
+who throng his scenes, how many we remember! Their names remain stamped
+on our minds, and some of their characteristic phrases, like Micawber's
+"Something will turn up," or Tapley's "There's some credit in being
+jolly here," have passed into current phrases. Dickens' great object
+was to celebrate the virtues of the humbler ranks of life, and to
+expose the acts of injustice or tyranny to which they are subjected.
+This he did in a spirit of the truest philanthropy and most universal
+benevolence. The helpless victims of oppression, like little Oliver
+Twist, or the inmates of Dotheboys Hall, found in him an effective
+champion. Never has hypocrisy, the besetting vice of this age, been so
+mercilessly exposed as in the works of Dickens. It is
+<span class="pagenum">[297]<a name="page297" id="page297"></a></span>not only in such
+a character as Pecksniff that its ugliness is revealed, but wherever
+pretence hides guilt behind a sanctimonious countenance, the mask is
+surely torn off. Dickens hated hypocrisy as Thackeray hated snobbism.
+And both, in their zeal, occasionally saw the hypocrite or the snob
+where he did not exist. Dealing, as Dickens did, so exclusively with
+common and low-born characters, it is remarkable that his books so
+rarely leave any impression of vulgarity behind them. And this result
+is due to the author's love of truth and detestation of all pretence.
+There can be no vulgarity without pretension. A great many novels of
+the day are extremely vulgar, because they describe ill-bred people and
+represent them to the reader as ladies and gentlemen. But Dickens'
+shopkeeper or street-sweeper makes no pretence to gentility, and
+therefore is as far from being vulgar as the man who has never known
+what it was to be any thing but a gentleman. The faults, like the
+merits, of Dickens' work resulted from the exuberance and power of his
+imagination. The same vividness of conception which gives such life to
+his description of a thunderstorm or of a quiet family scene, sometimes
+betrayed him into exaggeration and caricature. And yet when we consider
+the number and variety of the figures conjured up by his creative mind,
+from Paul Dombey to the Jew, Fagin, it is extraordinary that to so few
+this criticism will apply.</p>
+
+<p>Dickens' vast popularity resulted only in part from the artistic merit
+of his works. The breadth of his canvas, his intense realization of
+fictitious scenes, and his extraordinary descriptive power are
+qualities enough to win for him his eminent position in fiction. But
+the affection felt for Dickens as a man, which has made him occupy so
+much the hearts as well as the minds of the reading
+<span class="pagenum">[298]<a name="page298" id="page298"></a></span>public, was
+attracted by qualities apart from those which excited admiration for
+the author. Dickens was essentially a national writer in the variety of
+the characters with whom he brought his readers into communion. He was
+essentially popular, from the fact that he dealt with the masses and
+not with any particular class. He was essentially English, in that he
+was the apostle of home. No novelist who has treated domestic life has
+so thoroughly caught its spirit, and has so sympathetically traced its
+joys and sorrows, its trials and recompenses. Family life has been for
+more than two centuries gradually supplanting the life of the camp and
+the court. It is in the domestic circle that men now find the interest
+which was formerly sought in adventure or publicity. Not only in the
+Christmas stories, especially devoted to the celebration of home, but
+through all his great fictions Dickens made domestic life his chief
+study. And he is, above all others, the favorite household novelist.
+While he lived, each new work of his was welcomed alike by parent and
+child, and when he died, there were few homes where books ever came
+that the loss of a friend was not felt.</p>
+
+<p>Scott, Dickens, almost all the great English novelists described heroes
+and heroines. They made their chief character an embodiment of virtue
+or strength, and strove to win for him the admiration of the reader.
+Even Tom Jones was a hero to Fielding, and Roderick Random to Smollett.
+But Thackeray said to himself as he looked out on the world, that
+humanity was not made up of heroes and villains. He had never met with
+the truly heroic, nor with the utterly depraved. It seemed to him that
+human nature lay between the two extremes. In "Vanity Fair," in
+"Pendennis" and in "The Newcomes"
+<span class="pagenum">[299]<a name="page299" id="page299"></a></span>
+he resolved to describe man as he
+was, with virtues and failings, with occasional glimpses of the noble,
+and more common exhibitions of the mean and the little. Young men were
+to appear in his pages with their weakness and selfishness; young girls
+with their silliness and affectation. Thackeray, in a word, was to be
+more realistic than his predecessors in fiction had dared to be. He was
+to show his readers what they really were, and not what they would wish
+to be.</p>
+
+<p>But in Thackeray's novels is evident the difficulty of establishing any
+generally accepted standard of realism. If this quality consists in
+representing a character as speaking and acting just as we should
+expect such a character to speak and act, Thackeray succeeded as
+perhaps no novelist, except Fielding, had done before him. Becky Sharp,
+Sir Pitt Crawley, Pendennis, Clive Newcome, all use such words as the
+reader would expect from them. Their actions are the natural results of
+the trains of thought into which the author has given us an insight.
+When the old reprobate, Lord Steyne, discovers that Becky Sharp had
+appropriated to herself the money which he had given her to restore
+poor Miss Briggs' stolen property, he is not indignant at the
+deception. The admiration of the noble rogue is only increased for the
+woman who has shown herself to be possessed of a more astute roguery
+than his own:&mdash;</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>"What an accomplished little devil it is!" thought he. "What a
+    splendid actress and manager! She had almost got a second supply
+    out of me the other day with her coaxing ways. She beats all the
+    women I have ever seen in the course of all my well-spent life!
+    They are babies compared to her. I am a green-horn myself and a
+    fool in her hands&mdash;an old fool. She is unsurpassable in lies." His
+    lordship's admiration for Becky <span class="pagenum">[300]<a name="page300" id="page300"></a></span>
+    rose immeasurably at this proof of
+    her cleverness. Getting the money was nothing&mdash;but getting double
+    the sum she wanted and paying nobody&mdash;it was a magnificent stroke.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In his delineation of character, in the perfect naturalness with which
+all his personages act out their respective parts, no novelist is more
+realistic than Thackeray. But realism has a broader application. A
+novelist who takes every-day life for his subject has not only to give
+the stamp of nature to all his scenes and individuals, but he must so
+write, that at the end of his book the reader will have the impression
+that real life, with its due apportionment of good and evil, of
+happiness and grief, has been placed before him. Some readers will
+receive that impression from Thackeray's novels; but they will be those
+who think that the evil and the unhappiness predominate. So thought the
+author himself. But the world in general think differently, and agree
+to look upon Thackeray as a satirist.</p>
+
+<p>As such, he ranks in English literature second only to Swift. To the
+great Dean, man was a lump of deformity and disease. He saw in humanity
+little besides its vice, and painted his species in colors under which
+few men have been willing to recognize a portrait. Thackeray's genial
+disposition naturally made him far less bitter than Swift. He neither
+saw nor portrayed the monstrous vice which excited the hatred of the
+satirist of the eighteenth century. To Thackeray, men were weak rather
+than bad, selfish rather than vicious. George Osborne braves the
+consequences of marrying poor Amelia Sedley, and yet prefers his own
+pleasure to that of his wife. Rawdon Crawley is ignorant, rude, and
+unprincipled, but yet is loving and faithful to Rebecca. Weakness,
+pettiness, self-deception were the main objects of Thackeray's
+<span class="pagenum">[301]<a name="page301" id="page301"></a></span>satire.
+Where are the absurdities of youthful woman-worship held up to such
+derision as in Pendennis' love for Miss Costigan!</p>
+
+    <blockquote><p>Pen tried to engage her in conversation about poetry and about her
+    profession. He asked her what she thought about Ophelia's madness,
+    and whether she was in love with Hamlet or not? "In love with such
+    a little ojus creature as that stunted manager of a Bingley?" She
+    bristled with indignation at the thought. Pen explained that it was
+    not of her he spoke, but of Ophelia of the play. "Oh, indeed, if no
+    offense was meant none was taken: but as for Bingley, indeed, she
+    did not value him&mdash;not that glass of punch." Pen next tried her on
+    Kotzebue. "Kotzebue? who was he?" "The author of the play in which
+    she had been performing so admirably." "She did not know that, the
+    man's name at the beginning of the book was Thompson," she said.
+    Pen laughed at her adorable simplicity.... "How beautiful she is,"
+    thought Pen, cantering homewards. "How simple and how tender! How
+    charming it is to see a woman of her genius busying herself with
+    the humble affairs of domestic life, cooking dishes to make her old
+    father comfortable, and brewing him drink! How rude it was of me to
+    begin to talk of professional matters, and how well she turned the
+    conversation! ... Pendennis, Pendennis,&mdash;how she spoke the word!
+    Emily! Emily! how good, how noble, how beautiful, how perfect she
+    is!"<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref207" id="fnref207" href="#fn207">[207]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Thackeray's satire is all the more powerful in that it is directed
+against foibles more than against vices. Many a reader who will reject
+Swift's portrait of man as a libel, cannot but feel a twinge at
+Thackeray's delicate pencillings. After dwelling on the worldliness,
+the hypocrisy, the self-seeking of the inmates of Queen's Crawley, how
+softly but how terribly he scourges them!
+<span class="pagenum">[302]<a name="page302" id="page302"></a></span>"These honest folks at the
+Hall, whose simplicity and sweet rural purity surely show the advantage
+of a country life over a town one." His praise is the severest cut of
+all. "Dear Rebecca," "the dear creature," and we wince for Becky. "What
+a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the banker's! How
+tenderly we look at her faults, if she be a relative." "These money
+transactions, these speculations in life and death&mdash;these silent
+battles for reversionary spoil&mdash;make brothers very loving toward each
+other in Vanity Fair."</p>
+
+<p>Thackeray is the novelist whose works depend in the least degree on
+narrative interest. The characters are so clearly drawn and so
+interesting, the manner of Thackeray's writing is so uniformly
+entertaining, that his books can always be opened at random and read
+with pleasure. "Henry Esmond" is the only novel in which the plot is
+carefully constructed. The others are a string of consecutive chapters,
+each one of which possesses its individual interest.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref208" id="fnref208" href="#fn208">[208]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The novel of English life and manners includes many subdivisions. Among
+the writings of Miss Edgeworth, Miss Ferrier, Bulwer Lytton, Mr.
+Anthony Trollope, and others, are novels which deal to a greater or
+less extent with fashionable life. A number of novelists, principally
+female, have confined their studies to the aristocratic
+classes.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref209" id="fnref209" href="#fn209">[209]</a></span>
+But the so called fashionable novel is most often
+<span class="pagenum">[303]<a name="page303" id="page303"></a></span>the composition of
+adventurers whose catch-penny productions aim at affording, to the
+middle or lower ranks, information concerning the habits of the
+aristocracy. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that
+fashionable life in these novels is such as it might appear to an
+imaginative kitchen-maid whose idea of up-stairs existence is founded
+on the gossip of servants. When written by persons conversant with
+their subject, the fashionable novel forms a legitimate subdivision of
+the novel of life and manners. But it is most often a noxious weed. Its
+cultivators constantly make up for lack of talent by the excitement of
+immoral scenes, and give to their audience of sempstresses and grooms a
+most degraded view of aristocratic life. Even when harmless in matter,
+its rank luxuriance fills up space much better occupied by the flowers
+of literature.</p>
+
+<p>The eminent criminal novel is taken as a tonic by minds satiated with
+the vapidity of fashionable fiction. From Lytton's "Paul Clifford," and
+Ainsworth's "Jack Sheppard," down to "Merciless Ben, the Hair-Lifter,"
+criminal narrative has been occupied with endowing burglars and
+murderers with the graces of gentlemen and the moral worth of Christian
+missionaries. In its celebration of successful crime, and its
+representation under a heroic aspect of villains and blacklegs, no
+species of fiction is more false to nature or more injurious to
+youthful readers.</p>
+
+<p>To such writers as George A. Lawrence and "Ouida" the world is indebted
+for the "Muscular Novel," which combines all the worst elements of both
+fashionable and criminal narrative. In "Guy Livingstone," "Strathmore,"
+and a hundred similar fictions, the reader is introduced to men of
+extraordinary physical development, <span class="pagenum">[304]<a name="page304" id="page304"></a></span>
+whose strength is proof against
+the wildest dissipation; to women of extraordinary beauty, whose charms
+are enhanced in proportion to their coarseness and lack of modesty.
+Jack Sheppard, reposing on a velvet couch, smoking a perfumed
+cigarette, and worshipped by two or three ornaments of the demi-monde,
+is the type most admired by the muscular novelist. Lawrence and "Ouida"
+have brought to their work a literary power which has given them
+considerable notoriety; and has placed them at the head of their
+particular school; but it is a school whose distinctive characteristics
+consist in extravagance, unhealthiness of tone, and falseness to
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>English military life has been ably described by such writers as E.
+Napier, G.R. Gleig, W.H. Maxwell, and James Grant. But as a maritime
+nation, England has been much more prolific of naval novelists. At the
+head of these stands Captain Marryat, who has celebrated the pleasures
+and described the incidents of sea-faring life in about thirty jovial,
+dashing books. Among the great number of odd and entertaining
+characters sketched by his hand, "Peter Simple" and "Midshipman Easy"
+are perhaps the most interesting. Marryat's narratives are not
+carefully constructed, but flow on gracefully and easily, enlivened by
+an inexhaustible fund of humor, and enriched by an endless succession
+of bright or exciting scenes. The names of Captain Glassock, Howard,
+Trelawney, Captain Chamier, Michael Scott, and the author of the "Wreck
+of the Grosvenor," are among those most prominently associated with the
+marine novel. These writers have not only dealt with the adventures of
+a sailor's life and the peculiarities of a sailor's character, but have
+studied the influence of the sea on the human mind.<span class="pagenum">[305]<a name="page305" id="page305"></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Through the great interest felt by Englishmen in the manners and
+customs of Eastern nations, Oriental novels have become a recognized
+department of English fiction. In the eighteenth century, Johnson, in
+"Rasselas," and Beckford, in "Vathek," had drawn on the romantic
+features of Eastern life. In the present century successful attempts
+have been made to study Oriental character through the medium of the
+realistic novel. Hope, in "Anastasius," described the vices and
+degradation of Turkey and Greece in the person of his hero. In James
+Morier's "Hajji Baba of Ispahan" and "Ayesha," are vivid delineations
+of Eastern character and highly humorous sketches of Persian life.
+James Baillie Fraser, in "The Kuzzilbash," and Miss Pardoe in a number
+of tales, have still further enriched the department of Oriental
+fiction.</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn206" id="fn206" href="#fnref206">[206]</a></span>
+Other women who have contributed to the English domestic
+novel&mdash;. Mary K. Mitford, Mrs. Crowe, Mrs. Marsh, Lady Georgiana
+Fullerton, Miss Kavanaugh, Geraldine Jewsbury, Mrs. Alexander, S.
+Bunbury, C. Sinclair, A. Strickland, M.C. Clarke, L.S. Costello, C.
+Crowe, A.H. Drury, S. Ellis, M. Howitt, Mrs. Hubback, Hon. Mrs. Norton,
+M.A. Power, E. Sewell, Mrs. Marquoid, Hesba Stretton, Florence Marryat,
+Elizabeth Wetherell, Sarah Tytler, C.C. Fraser-Tytler, C. Craik, Hon.
+Mrs. Chetwind, M.M. Grant, A.E. Bray, and others.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn207" id="fn207" href="#fnref207">[207]</a></span>
+"Pendennis," Chap. v.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn208" id="fn208" href="#fnref208">[208]</a></span>
+Many other well-known writers have contributed to the
+English domestic novel: Thomas Love Peacock, H. Coke, Samuel Philips,
+Angus B. Reach, Albert Smith, R. Cobbold, Edmund Yates, Thomas A.
+Trollope, Thomas Hardy, James Payn, George Augustus Sala, William
+Thornbury, the author of "The Bachelor of the Albany," Mortimer
+Collins, G.H. Lewes, Shirley Brooks, Douglas Jerrold, C. Crowley, T. de
+Quincey, S.W. Fullom, J. Hannay, W. Howitt, C. Mackay, G.J.
+Whyte-Melville, T. Miller, L. Ritchie, F.E. Smedley, J.A. St. John, M.F.
+Tupper, F.M. Whitly, F. Williams, C.L. Wraxall, and others.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn209" id="fn209" href="#fnref209">[209]</a></span>
+T.H. Lister, Marquis of Normanby, Lady Caroline Lamb,
+Countess of Morley, Lady Charlotte Bury, Lady Dacre, Mrs. Gore, Lady
+Blessington.
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>VI.</h4>
+
+<p>James Fenimore Cooper said in regard to the materials for American
+fiction: "There is a familiarity of the subject, a scarcity of events,
+and a poverty in the accompaniments that drive an author from the
+undertaking in despair." But the truth of this statement has been
+greatly modified, if not quite refuted, by the work of that great
+novelist and of several others who have succeeded him. It is true that
+American life presents less salient characteristics than that of
+Europe; that class distinctions are less marked; and that the energies
+of the nation are still so much confined to strictly utilitarian
+objects, that life moves along with unpicturesque sameness and
+evenness. But mankind remains equally complicated and equally
+interesting under whatever circumstances it may be placed. The vast
+extent of American territory and the
+<span class="pagenum">[306]<a name="page306" id="page306"></a></span>infinite variety of its
+inhabitants afford material to the novelist which yet remains almost
+untouched. New England, New York, the Southern States, and, above all,
+the Great West, are rich in special customs, traditions, and habits of
+thought with which fiction has only begun to concern itself. The
+visitor to Washington cannot fail to be struck by the variety of men
+who jostle each other in that cosmopolitan city. The New England
+farmer, the New York banker, the Southern planter, the Western herder
+or grain merchant, the California mine-owner, the negro, and perhaps a
+stray visiting Indian chief, represent widely differing and highly
+interesting forms of life and opinion. Whenever native genius has cast
+aside foreign influence and has found inspiration in American
+traditions and institutions, the extent and richness of its literary
+material have been made manifest.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest examples of fiction in the United States were tentative
+and lacking in originality. At the close of the eighteenth century,
+Charles Brockden Brown began the career of the first American novelist
+with "Wieland." His pecuniary necessities and the slight encouragement
+offered at that time to American authors made it impossible for him to
+afford the time and care essential to artistic finish. His novels are
+of an imaginative and psychological character, often interesting in
+parts from the intense mental excitement which they describe. They were
+much admired by the English novelist Godwin, whose works they resemble
+in intensity of conception and faultiness of execution. A novel called
+"Charlotte Temple," by Susanna Rowson, obtained a wide circulation in
+the beginning of the present century, due much more to its foundation
+on a notorious scandal than to its own literary merit. "Modern
+Chivalry; or the <span class="pagenum">[307]<a name="page307" id="page307"></a></span>
+Adventures of Captain Farrago and Teague O'Reagan,
+his Servant"&mdash;a poor imitation of "Don Quixote"&mdash;as a satire directed
+against the Democratic party by H.H. Brackenridge. R.H. Dana's "Tom
+Thornton" and "Paul Felton" have little claim to attention beyond the
+excitement of their rather sensational stories.</p>
+
+<p>But with the publication of "The Spy," Cooper opened a thoroughly
+national vein, and began a literary career which showed how little
+native genius need rely on foreign influence or on foreign subjects. He
+described the stirring events and the moral heroism of the American
+Revolution with patriotic sympathy and original literary power. He
+touched the romantic chords of that great struggle with a delicacy
+which met with a world-wide response. Not only did Americans feel that
+in Cooper's novels the picturesque and characteristic features of their
+country were delineated by a master-hand, but in almost every European
+land, translations of "The Spy," "The Pioneers," or "The Pathfinder,"
+testified to the universal interest excited by the examples of
+simplicity, endurance, and sagacity which formed the subjects of
+Cooper's pen. In "The Pioneers," "The Last of the Mohicans," "The
+Prairie," "The Pathfinder," and "The Deer-slayer" figures the character
+of Leatherstocking, than whom no fictitious personage has a greater
+claim to interest. His bravery, resolution, and woodland skill make him
+a type of the hardy race who pushed westward the reign of civilization.
+The scenes among which he lived, the primeval forest, the great inland
+lakes, the hunter's camp, and Indian wigwam were described by Cooper
+with a fidelity and picturesqueness which will always give to his works
+a national value. Now that farms and manufacturing towns cover what a
+century ago was a trackless <span class="pagenum">[308]<a name="page308" id="page308"></a></span>
+wilderness, where backwoodsmen and Indians
+shot bear and deer, it would be almost impossible for us to realize the
+previous condition of our now populous country were it not for the
+novels of Cooper. And this great writer not only described the wild
+aspect of American scenery and the hardly less wild features of pioneer
+character. He painted with equal skill the life of the American sailor,
+at a time when that life had an interest and excitement it no longer
+possesses. Long Tom Coffin, Tom Tiller, Bob Yarn, belonged to a period
+when the United Stales was a maritime country, before American
+enterprise and industry were shut off from the sea by legislative
+imbecility. No marine novelist has given a more life-like impression of
+a ship than Cooper, and none have excelled him in descriptions of the
+sea and in studies of those peculiar forms of human nature produced by
+life on the ocean. So long as Cooper confined himself to purely
+national subjects, his success was brilliant and continuous; but many
+of his works show the effect of misdirected talent, and have fallen
+into neglect.</p>
+
+<p>The "Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and "Rip Van Winkle" are the specimens
+of American fiction most intimately associated with New York. In these
+stories the traditions and scenery of the Hudson River were treated by
+Washington Irving with all the richness of imagination and delicacy of
+expression of which he had so great a store. Some part of that romantic
+interest afforded to the traveller by the castles of the Rhine, has
+been imparted to the Hudson by the exquisite pages of the "Sketch
+Book." The stories of Nathaniel P. Willis and some of the novels of
+Bayard Taylor and of J.G. Holland also belong especially to New York.</p>
+
+<p>At the head of New England, and, indeed, of American
+<span class="pagenum">[309]<a name="page309" id="page309"></a></span>writers of
+fiction, stands Nathaniel Hawthorne. His three great works, "The
+Scarlet Letter," "The House of the Seven Gables," and "The Blithedale
+Romance," are the finest specimens of imaginative writing which
+American genius has yet produced. The interest of Hawthorne's novels
+lies almost entirely in their subtle and astute studies of the hidden
+workings of the human mind. His fictions are remarkable for their want
+of action. "The Scarlet Letter" can hardly be said to have a plot. The
+series of chapters which intervene between the exhibition of Hester
+Prynne on the scaffold and the voluntary self-exposure there of the
+Puritan minister, simply represent gradual changes from the first to
+the last situation of the principal characters. But narrative
+excitement was never Hawthorne's object, and the want of it is never
+felt by his reader. Each scene is an appropriate sequel to the last,
+and a natural introduction to the next. Each chapter has its special
+interest,&mdash;the analysis of a condition of mind, a dramatic situation,
+or a highly finished domestic picture. It is in the delineation of
+character and the study of human motives that Hawthorne's chief
+excellence as a novelist consists. Nothing can exceed the penetration
+and vividness with which such persons as Zenobia, in "The Blithedale
+Romance," and Holgrave, in "The House of the Seven Gables," are
+described. The homeward walk of the fallen young minister, in "The
+Scarlet Letter," when he had resolved to desert his flock and to
+connect himself again with Hester Prynne, is an unsurpassed delineation
+of sudden moral degeneration. There is nothing of modern realism in
+Hawthorne's novels, and yet they leave a realistic impression behind
+them. The greater number of his characters appear to us rather as
+representatives of certain mental
+<span class="pagenum">[310]<a name="page310" id="page310"></a></span>conditions then as real flesh and
+blood. Neither in the dialogue, nor in what may be called the
+"properties" of his writing did Hawthorne strive at realistic effects.
+Still, when the reader lays down "The Scarlet Letter," or "The House of
+the Seven Gables," he insensibly feels himself embued with the spirit
+and atmosphere of Puritan New England. Hawthorne was so intensely a New
+Englander in his sympathies, prejudices, and habits of mind, that his
+writings were always colored by the thought and sentiment of his native
+land. In "The Scarlet Letter," there is little evidence of the use of
+historical researches, and yet in that volume, colonial life has been
+made real and actual to us by the very intensity of the author's
+national feeling.</p>
+
+<p>New England fiction includes a number of other celebrated and honored
+names. Catherine M. Sedgwick began her literary career with "Hope
+Leslie," a story founded on the early history of Massachusetts, which
+was followed by "Redwood" and "The Linwoods, or Sixty Years Since in
+America." Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes studied New England village life in
+"Elsie Venner," and Sylvester Judd that of the Maine backwoods in
+"Margaret." Mr. T.W. Higginson has written "Malbone." Mr. W.D. Howells,
+Rev. Edward Everett Hale, and Miss E.S. Phelps are still adding to
+their reputations.</p>
+
+<p>Among the novels relating to life in the Southern States, "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin" is the most prominent. The circulation and fame of this book
+have been the most remarkable phenomenon in the annals of literature.
+Within a year, more than two hundred thousand copies were sold in the
+United States, and fully a million in England. Thirteen different
+translations were issued in Germany, four in France, and two in Russia;
+the Magyar <span class="pagenum">[311]<a name="page311" id="page311"></a></span>
+language boasted three separate versions; the Wallachian,
+two; the Welsh, two; and the Dutch, two; while the Armenian, Arabic,
+Romaic, and all the European languages had at least one version. The
+book was dramatized in not less than twenty different forms, and was
+acted all over Europe. In France, and still more in England, all other
+books and all other subjects became, for the time, secondary to "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin." This extraordinary popularity was chiefly due to the
+importance and novelty of the subject treated. Mrs. Stowe imparted a
+considerable narrative interest to her work, and gave to her characters
+a very life-like effect. Her pathetic and humorous scenes are natural
+and well arranged. The peculiarities of negro life and habits of
+thought are placed before the reader with genuine sympathy and truth.
+Uncle Tom and Topsy are fine and original creations. But taken simply
+as a novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is not more remarkable than a hundred
+others, and cannot compete with such works as "Tom Jones," "Adam Bede,"
+or "David Copperfield." Mrs. Stowe's extraordinary success was fully
+deserved, but it resulted less from the literary excellence of her
+work, than from the fact that when one great subject rose pre-eminent
+in the public mind, she was able to embody it in a popular and easily
+comprehended form. Gilmore Simms and John P. Kennedy have contributed
+largely to the novel of Southern life. Mr. G.W. Cable is now studying
+Louisiana characters, and Judge Tourgee the general condition of the
+South since the war.</p>
+
+<p>Novels descriptive of Western life have been written by Charles Fenno
+Hoffman, James Hall, Timothy Flint, Thomas, and O'Connell. But none of
+these writers have given such original sketches of character, or have
+so <span class="pagenum">[312]<a name="page312" id="page312"></a></span>
+graphically portrayed the spirit of life in the far West as Mr.
+Bret Harte. "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and the other stories of this
+talented writer have opened a vein of romance where it was least
+expected.</p>
+
+<p>American fiction has been exceptionally rich in stories adapted to the
+juvenile mind, among which the most prominent are Mrs. Whitney's "Faith
+Gartney's Girlhood," Miss Alcott's "Little Women," and Mr. T.B.
+Aldrich's "Story of a Bad Boy." Edgar Allan Poe's "Tales of the
+Grotesque and the Arabesque," are remarkable for intensity and
+vividness of conception, combined with a circumstantial invention
+almost equal to that of Defoe. Mrs. Burnett and Mr. J.W. De Forest are
+still writing excellent novels of American life; and Mr. Henry James,
+Jr., is studying that peculiar form of human nature known as the
+American in Europe.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref210" id="fnref210" href="#fn210">[210]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn210" id="fn210" href="#fnref210">[210]</a></span>
+Other American writers of fiction:&mdash;R.B. Kimball, Herman
+Melville, Dr. R. Bird, John Neal, H.W. Longfellow, Washington Allston,
+Maria S. Cummins, W.G. Simms, Theodore Winthrop, Mary J. Holmes, Mrs.
+Terhune, Augusta Evans Wilson, Catherine Sedgwick Valerio.
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>VII.</h4>
+
+<p>The historical novel is obviously a subdivision of the novel of life
+and manners. But, dealing as it does with remote ages, with forgotten
+opinions and long-disused customs, it has to reconstruct where the
+novel of contemporary life has only to illustrate. Strict historical
+accuracy can hardly be expected in fiction concerned with the past. The
+details of life, always difficult to seize, are almost beyond the reach
+of the novelist who deals with a subject with which he has had no
+personal experience. A certain amount of accuracy concerning dress,
+customs, peculiarities of opinion and language are necessary to give to
+a historical novel the effect of
+<span class="pagenum">[313]<a name="page313" id="page313"></a></span>verisimilitude. But what is chiefly
+requisite in such a work is that the general spirit of the period
+treated should be successfully caught; that the reader should find
+himself occupied with a train of associations and sympathies which
+insensibly withdraws his thoughts from their ordinary channels, and
+occupies them with the beliefs, opinions, and aspirations of a totally
+different state of society.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the special merit of Scott's historical novels. Many
+inaccuracies of fact might be pointed out in them. His study of the
+character of James I, in "The Fortunes of Nigel," is in several
+respects entirely mistaken. His description of a euphuist in "The
+Monastery" bears no resemblance whatever to the followers of John Lyly.
+In "The Talisman" and in "Ivanhoe," of which the scenes are laid in the
+time of Richard Coeur de Lion, the reader recognises little realism
+of language. But as Scott's historical novels deal with periods
+extending from that of the crusades down to the Pretender's attempt in
+1745, an intimate knowledge of the innumerable social changes and
+peculiarities is not to be expected.</p>
+
+<p>It is, indeed, to be doubted that a novelist can so reproduce a distant
+epoch as to satisfy the ideas of careful historical students. He can,
+however, make familiar to his readers the general spirit of a time.
+And, in this, Scott was eminently successful. "Kenilworth" gives a
+vivid picture of the gay picturesqueness of Elizabeth's age.
+"Woodstock" contains a fine contrast between the Cavalier and the
+Puritan character. "Quentin Durward" affords a lasting impression of
+the times of Louis XI and Charles the Bold. Scott's strong national
+feeling and his intense sympathy with the traditions of his native land
+naturally gave to his Scotch fictions a
+<span class="pagenum">[314]<a name="page314" id="page314"></a></span>particular historical value.
+"The Legend of Montrose," describing the civil war in the sixteenth
+century; "Old Mortality," dealing with the rebellion of the
+Covenanters; and "Waverley," occupied with the Pretender's troubles in
+the middle of the eighteenth century, threw into bold relief widely
+differing periods of Scotch history. Its is, indeed, extraordinary that
+one mind should have been able to seize so many and so varied
+historical conditions as are treated in the Waverley novels. Of these
+works, about fourteen deal with entirely distinct epochs, each one of
+which is given its individual character and obtains its appropriate
+treatment.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref211" id="fnref211" href="#fn211">[211]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Bulwer Lytton's "Last Days of Pompeii," and "Harold, the Last of the
+Saxon Kings," are both powerful, ingenious, and interesting narratives,
+and they give as definite an idea, perhaps, of the times of which they
+treat as is possible after so long a lapse of time. "Rienzi" leaves a
+greater impression of verisimilitude. "The Last of the Barons" is
+somewhat clogged by its superabundance of historic incident, but still
+affords a striking view of declining feudalism. In the "Tale of Two
+Cities" and "Barnaby Rudge," Dickens described the sanguinary scenes of
+the French Revolution and the Lord Gordon Riots with his never-failing
+power. Since the Waverley novels, the most perfect specimen of English
+historical fiction has been "Henry Esmond." The artistic construction
+of its plot, and the life-like reality of its characters, place it
+first among Thackeray's works. But its pre-eminence among historical
+novels is due to the fact that it reproduces so vividly the spirit and
+atmosphere <span class="pagenum">[315]<a name="page315" id="page315"></a></span>
+of a past age. All the thoughts, opinions, and actions of
+the characters in "Henry Esmond" are such as we should expect from
+persons living in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Whoever is
+familiar with the pages of the "Spectator" will notice how faithfully
+Thackeray adopted the language of Steele and Addison. It is true that
+he had a far less difficult task before him in describing the age of
+Queen Anne than fell to the lot of Bulwer Lytton in "The Last Days of
+Pompeii." The latter work required far more historical research and a
+far greater effort of the imagination. But while in Lytton's novel the
+reader cannot divest himself of a certain sense of unreality, he feels
+that "Henry Esmond" really carries him back to the period it portrays.</p>
+
+<p>George Eliot's "Romola" must always retain a high place in historical
+fiction. But its author's great creative power led her to bestow more
+pains on such of the characters as proceeded from her own imagination,
+than on those whom history provided ready-made. The reader's memory
+retains a more vivid impression of Tito than it does of Savonarola.
+Charles Kingsley's "Hypatia" and "Westward Ho!" are among the most
+prominent of recent historical novels. The latter aimed at describing
+the time of Elizabeth, but resembles more closely that of Cromwell.
+John Gibson Lockhart, in "Valerius," and Mr. Wilkie Collins in
+"Antonina," have studied the life of ancient Rome. James Fenimore
+Cooper in "The Spy" and "The Pioneers" threw into bold relief the
+stirring incidents of American colonial and revolutionary times.
+Nathaniel Hawthorne reproduced the spirit of Puritan New England in
+"The Scarlet Letter," of which mention has already been made.</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn211" id="fn211" href="#fnref211">[211]</a></span>
+Horace Smith, Sir T.D. Lauder, and G.P.R. James are
+well-known historical novelists who have written under the influence of
+Scott. W. Harrison Ainsworth has made use of historical material in
+"The Tower of London," and similar writings.
+</div>
+
+<span class="pagenum">[316]<a name="page316" id="page316"></a></span>
+
+<h4>VIII.</h4>
+
+<p>The novel of purpose may be defined as a work of fiction of which the
+main object is to teach a lesson or to advocate a principle. Strictly
+speaking, every good novel has a purpose, or some well-defined aim, if
+it be only that of affording entertainment. But the novel of purpose
+distinctly subordinates the amusement of the reader to his improvement
+or information. With a few exceptions, such as "The Fool of Quality,"
+this species of fiction is the product of the nineteenth century. It
+has special difficulties to contend against. To combine a didactic aim
+with artistic excellence is among the most difficult of literary
+experiments. If the lesson or principle to be inculcated be given too
+much prominence, the reader who opens the book for entertainment will
+shut it very soon in spite of any prospective self-improvement. If
+narrative interest or artistic beauty be the most striking feature of
+the work, its serious aim will be unnoticed. The safest plan for the
+writer of the novel of purpose to pursue, is to openly acknowledge his
+object, and to place that object before the reader in as attractive a
+manner as possible. But he cannot expect to attain success unless the
+principle he advocates be one of general interest and importance. Nor
+can he expect, when that principle has obtained acceptance, that the
+work in which it is urged can have any further prominence. He must be
+content that his object is attained, and that his book, having served
+its purpose, falls into obscurity.</p>
+
+<p>Some of Miss Edgeworth's tales, and such novels as Miss Brunton's
+"Self-Control" and "Discipline," were among the earliest specimens of
+fiction having the <span class="pagenum">[317]<a name="page317" id="page317"></a></span>
+professed object of moral improvement. These books
+were very popular at a time when a well-justified prejudice against
+novels prevailed. But since the character of fiction has been raised to
+its present standard of purity, professedly moral novels have become
+unnecessary for general reading. The successors of Miss Edgeworth's and
+Miss Brunton's works now appear in the form of temperance novels and
+Sunday-school books. A curious form of the novel of purpose is that
+written in the interest of religious sects or special tenets, of which
+specimens may be found in the writings of Elizabeth M. Sewell, who
+advocated High Church doctrines. Harriet Martineau made very successful
+use of fiction in conveying her ideas on political economy. In "Ginx's
+Baby," by Mr. Edward Jenkins, the popularity and interest of a
+political pamphlet had been greatly increased by the assistance of a
+narrative form.</p>
+
+<p>The most important specimens of the novel of purpose are those written
+in the interest of some injured or suffering class. A mere recital of
+general grievances is not likely to have much effect on the public
+mind. But a novelist who can interest a considerable body of readers in
+a few well-chosen characters, who can subject his fictitious personages
+to the evils which he means to expose, and thus arouse the sympathy and
+indignation of a large number of people, can make a novel of purpose a
+very effective weapon of reform. Individuals are much more interesting
+than bodies of men, and the sufferings of little Oliver Twist or of the
+inmates of Dotheboys Hall, as related by Dickens, will arouse public
+attention far more actively than the report of an examining committee.
+But although a novelist may accomplish great results by such devotion
+to a philanthrophic object, he can hardly
+<span class="pagenum">[318]<a name="page318" id="page318"></a></span>
+avoid injury to the artistic
+effect and permanent value of his work. Many passages in Dickens'
+novels which have had a great influence in the cause of reform, cannot
+fail, in the future, when the evil exposed is no longer felt, to be a
+drag on the works which contain them.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Kingsley described the grievances of mechanics in "Alton
+Locke," a work in which the artistic elements are much subordinated to
+the didactic. A more powerful novel of purpose is Mrs. Gaskell's "Mary
+Barton," which enlists the sympathies of the reader very strongly with
+the trials of the manufacturing classes. Not of more literary
+excellence, but dealing with a subject of far wider interest than that
+of "Mary Barton," was the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" of Mrs. Stowe. This work
+is a wonderful example of the capacities of fiction for moving the
+public mind. Before its publication, great numbers of ordinarily humane
+people had a general, ill defined horror of slavery. It was felt to be
+a barbarous institution, a blot on American civilization. But to most
+people it was a distant abuse, with which they seldom or never came in
+contact, and of which they only heard the evil effects in a general
+way. But with the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" the whole Northern
+public were brought face to face with the question of slavery. Here
+were individuals, made real and interesting by the power of the
+novelist, subjected to tyranny and suffering from which every generous
+nature recoiled. Slavery then assumed a new and more personal aspect,
+and thousands who were indifferent to the rights of the negroes in
+general felt a sympathy with the fate of Uncle Tom which easily
+extended to the sufferings of the whole race. But the extraordinary
+reputation and circulation given to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by the
+world-wide interest in its subject,
+<span class="pagenum">[319]<a name="page319" id="page319"></a></span>
+could not be sustained when public
+interest in that subject declined; and the volume which at one time
+occupied the attention of the whole civilized world, fell into
+comparative obscurity when its mission was accomplished.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4>IX.</h4>
+
+<p>Works of fiction occupied with purely imaginary or supernatural
+subjects have been comparatively rare. While Byron, Shelley and his
+wife were living at the Lake of Geneva, a rainy week kept them indoors,
+and all three occupied themselves with reading or inventing ghost
+stories. Mrs. Shelley, who was the daughter of Godwin the novelist, and
+who inherited his intensity of imagination, reproduced the impressions
+then made upon her mind in the remarkable but disagreeable romance of
+"Frankenstein." The story is related by a young student, who creates a
+monstrous being from materials gathered in the tomb and the
+dissecting-room. When the creature is made complete with bones,
+muscles, and skin, it acquires life and commits atrocious crimes. It
+murders a friend of the student, strangles his bride, and finally comes
+to an end in the Northern seas. While some parts of the story are
+written with considerable power, the general effect is exceedingly
+unpleasant. Bulwer Lytton's "Zanoni," a peculiarly fanciful work,
+unfolds the mysteries of the Rosicrucians. In "Alice's Adventures in
+Wonderland," the freaks and vagaries of the imagination in sleep are
+vividly traced. The curious mixture of the actual and the unreal, the
+merging of wholly different ideas in one conception, so frequent in
+dreams, are described with extraordinary skill and delicacy. The
+childlike simplicity of Alice's mind is charmingly maintained, and the
+exquisite vein of humor which runs <span class="pagenum">[320]<a name="page320" id="page320"></a></span>
+through the whole book makes it one
+of the most delightful as well as one of the most remarkable of
+fictions.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4>X.</h4>
+
+<p>In an article published in <i>The Ninteenth Century</i>, Mr. Anthony
+Trollope expressed his views on the good and evil influences exerted by
+works of fiction, and he has repeated very much the same opinions in
+his interesting book on Thackeray.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref212" id="fnref212" href="#fn212">[212]</a></span>
+"However poor your matter may
+be," he says, "however near you may come to that 'foolishest of
+existing mortals,' as Carlyle presumes some unfortunate novelist to be,
+still, if there be those who read your works, they will undoubtedly be
+more or less influenced by what they find there. And it is because the
+novelist amuses that he is thus influential. The sermon too often has
+no such effect, because it is applied with the declared intention of
+having it. The palpable and overt dose the child rejects; but that
+which is cunningly insinuated by the aid of jam or honey is accepted
+unconsciously, and goes on its curative mission. So it is with the
+novel. It is taken because of its jam and honey. But, unlike the
+honest, simple jam and honey of the household cupboard, it is never
+unmixed with physic. There will be the dose within it, either curative
+or poisonous. The girl will be taught modesty or immodesty, truth or
+falsehood; the lad will be taught honor or dishonor, simplicity or
+affectation. Without the lesson the amusement will not be there. There
+are novels which certainly teach nothing; but then neither can they
+amuse any one. I should be said to insist absurdly on the power of my
+own confraternity if I were to declare that the bulk of the young
+people in the upper and <span class="pagenum">[321]<a name="page321" id="page321"></a></span>
+middle classes receive their moral teaching
+chiefly from the novels they read. Mothers would no doubt think of
+their own sweet teaching: fathers of the examples which they set: and
+schoolmasters of the influence of their instructions. Happy is the
+country that has such mothers, fathers, schoolmasters! But the novelist
+creeps in closer than the schoolmaster, closer than the father, closer
+almost than the mother. He is the chosen guide, the tutor whom the
+young pupil chooses for herself. She retires with him, suspecting no
+lesson, safe against rebuke, throwing herself head and heart into the
+narration as she can hardly do into her task-work; and there she is
+taught how she shall learn to love; how she shall receive the lover
+when he comes; how far she should advance to meet the joy; why she
+should be reticent, and not throw herself at once into this new
+delight. It is the same with the young man, though he would be more
+prone even than she to reject the suspicion of such tutorship. But he,
+too, will there learn either to speak the truth, or to lie; and will
+receive from his novel lessons either of real manliness, or of that
+affected apishness and tailor-begotten demeanor which too many
+professors of the craft give out as their dearest precepts."</p>
+
+<p>Such are the views of a close observer of human nature, whose works
+have had an exceedingly wide and an always excellent influence. While
+Mr. Trollope has probably exaggerated the educational power of the
+novel, it cannot be denied that this form of literature takes a
+considerable part in moulding the opinions and standards of the young.
+The impressions of life derived from novels are almost as strong as
+those we receive from what is passing in the world about us. If a work
+of fiction form a truthful reflection of nature, it must hold up
+<span class="pagenum">[322]<a name="page322" id="page322"></a></span>to
+the reader's view examples of evil as well as examples of good; it must
+deal with depravity as well as with virtue. And, therefore, all that
+can be expected from the novelist is that he should endeavor to
+represent life as it is, with its due apportionment of beauty and of
+ugliness. And so much is demanded not only by the moralist, but by the
+critic. Many writers who have described the life of criminals, who have
+endeavored to make infamous careers attractive, and have pandered to
+the lower tastes of the reading public, would urge in their own
+defence: that they have nothing to do with morality; that their object
+is to produce a work of art; that no question of the good or evil
+effect of their writing should be allowed to trammel their imagination.
+But the critic would rightly reply, that truth at least must be
+respected in a work of art; that the imagination must not be allowed
+the liberty of misrepresentation; and that the novelist in whose pages
+vice predominates, or is given an alluring aspect, is no more artistic
+than the writer of Sunday-school books. In judging the influence
+exerted by the great body of writers of fiction whose names have been
+mentioned in this chapter, I shall therefore proceed on the
+understanding that that novelist who writes almost exclusively of good
+people is not necessarily the one whose influence has been the best,
+nor that he who has drawn many weak or evil-doing characters has
+necessarily taught the worst lessons. The standard by which we must
+judge an author, as well from an artistic as from a moral point of
+view, must be founded on the recognition that both good and evil
+prevail in the world, and that whoever undertakes to give a picture of
+life must paint both the evil and the good in their true colors.</p>
+<span class="pagenum">[323]<a name="page323" id="page323"></a></span>
+
+<p>In commenting on the fiction of the eighteenth century, its prevailing
+coarseness was reprehended. But this characteristic was objected to on
+the score of taste, but not at all on that of truth or morality. The
+novelist of that time would not have faithfully represented the society
+about him had he not allowed himself that license which universally
+prevailed. Nor could the coarseness of the eighteenth-century writer be
+objected to on moral grounds. Morality is concerned with thoughts, not
+with expression. Whether we speak plainly the ideas in our mind,
+whether we communicate them by means of some, circumlocution, or
+whether we keep them wholly to ourselves, is a matter of fashion, not
+of morality.<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref213" id="fnref213" href="#fn213">[213]</a></span>
+Our great-grandmothers were not less chaste because
+they spoke of things regarding which we remain silent in a mixed
+society: they were simply less squeamish. Mrs. Behn in her day, and
+Fielding in his, described a licentious scene openly and honestly
+without a suspicion of evil.</p>
+
+<p>But a great change has come over public taste, and I may even say over
+public morality, during the present century. Licentious conduct is no
+longer a venial offence; gross and immodest expressions are no longer
+allowed in respectable society. The improvement has certainly been
+great, although not as great as it seems. Out of our higher morality,
+out of our new and boasted refinement, has sprung a vice more ugly than
+coarseness, more degrading than sensuality, and that vice is hypocrisy,
+which shelters all others behind its deceptive mask. Many a parent now
+winks at the hidden vice of a son, the exposure of which would fill him
+with shame and indignation. Thousands of young men feel that they can
+<span class="pagenum">[324]<a name="page324" id="page324"></a></span>
+privately lead a life of dissipation, so long as they keep a
+respectable face to the world. It is not the vice that society
+punishes, it is the being found out. So when we think of our improved
+morality and refinement, we must temper our pride with the reflection
+that we may be simply more hypocritical, and not more virtuous than our
+ancestors. Still, the fact that licentiousness must now wear a mask of
+respectability, that social status is now greatly affected by moral
+worth, shows that a real advance has been made. This advance has left
+plainly marked traces on the fiction of our time, where, too, we shall
+find plentiful evidence of that hypocrisy which has become our
+besetting sin.</p>
+
+<p>As we look back upon the list of the great authors who have written in
+the present century, it must be with a feeling of gratitude for the
+benefits they have conferred. They have devoted their lives to the
+production of literary works, the beauty and excellence of which have
+incalculably elevated the public taste. They have held up ideals and
+noble conceptions which insensibly impart a dignity to life, and an
+encouragement to youthful aspiration. They have described so truthfully
+and sympathetically the character and aims of different classes and
+different peoples, that whoever reads their works cannot but feel
+himself drawn nearer to great divisions of the human race, which he had
+hitherto regarded with an indifferent or a prejudiced eye. The novels
+of Scott, of Dickens, of Thackeray, of George Eliot, of Miss Austen, of
+Miss Ferrier, of very many others, have afforded to hundreds of
+thousands, young and old, a never failing source of healthful
+entertainment. Domestic life, as well in the cottage as the castle, has
+been cheered and enlivened by their presence. Their examples of
+heroism, <span class="pagenum">[325]<a name="page325" id="page325"></a></span>
+of patience, of generosity, have excited the emulation of the
+young, while their pictures of selfishness and vice have stifled many
+an evil inclination and have given birth to many a good resolution.</p>
+
+<p>Such writers as these have expressed the best tendencies of the age.
+And they have been able to do so because they themselves are among the
+best men and women of their time. But, unfortunately, as the nineteenth
+century has many evil characteristics, and as depraved and weak-minded
+persons are often endowed with some literary capacity, a great deal of
+poisonous matter has unavoidably come to the surface in English
+fiction. The writers who have prostituted their talents in pandering to
+the low tastes of their readers, have carefully avoided any such open
+representation of vice as was permissible in the last century. But they
+have hidden under an outward respectability of words the most immoral
+and degrading thoughts. They have recognized the fact that a not
+inconsiderable number of persons would be be glad to find in a work of
+fiction the same gross ideas which occupy their own minds. And thus a
+more dangerous, because a more insidious, species of literature has
+sprung up. The absence of parental censorship, the general freedom with
+which works of fiction are allowed to enter almost every household,
+permit these novels to fall into the hands of the youngest and most
+susceptible. The young girl or boy whose parents carefully put away the
+newspaper which contains an account of a divorce trial or a rape, is
+very possibly reading a novel of which the main interest lies in a
+detailed description of a seduction. It is not of the so-called "dime
+novels" or of the stories published in a police gazette to which
+reference is made, but to books issued by respectable publishers and
+<span class="pagenum">[326]<a name="page326" id="page326"></a></span>
+often written by women. Of these novels, the subject is the unlawful
+gratification of the passions. Bigamy, seduction, adultery, are the
+incidents on which the story turns, and an effort is always made by the
+novelist to give to the sinners as attractive and interesting an aspect
+as possible, and to hold up any respectable people who may appear in
+the book to the contempt and derision of the reader. Perhaps we would
+be wrong in blaming a writer for his or her vulgarity. This is a fault
+into which some authors fall unconsciously, and is a part of their
+nature which they cannot shake off. If Rhoda Broughton or "Ouida" were
+to cease being vulgar in print, they would be obliged to stop writing
+altogether, a public benefit which we can hardly expect them to confer.
+But we have a right to severely call an author to task for representing
+vice in an attractive aspect, for condoning offences against morality,
+for depicting licentiousness as unattended by retributive consequences.
+In so doing, a writer is false to art and to nature, as well as to
+morality.</p>
+
+<p>Critics have done their utmost to discourage and expose this kind of
+literature. The pages of <i>The Spectator</i>, of <i>The Saturday Review</i>, of
+<i>The Athenæum</i>, of <i>The London Examiner</i>, of <i>The Nation</i>, are full of
+reviews which denounce in unmeasured terms the vulgarity and pruriency
+of much of the fiction of the present day. But their censure can have
+little practical effect. So long as a class of corrupt readers exists,
+so long will evil-minded men and women find a sale for the low
+conceptions of their depraved minds. Parents alone, by supervising the
+reading of their children, can prevent the evil effects of immoral
+novels. Some may think that I have exaggerated the bad characteristics
+of modern fiction. A few examples of objectionable works will be found
+at the <span class="pagenum">[327]<a name="page327" id="page327"></a></span>
+foot of this page,<span class="fnref"><a name="fnref214" id="fnref214" href="#fn214">[214]</a></span>
+an acquaintance with which will sustain my remarks.</p>
+
+<p>The reader may possibly object that these are obscure names in
+literature, and that they represent writers whose works are ephemeral.
+The names chosen are the most prominent in the class to which they
+belong. Their obscurity is a redeeming feature of the society which can
+tolerate their existence. Although writers are able to find a sale for
+the most disgusting productions; although the critic is continually
+obliged, in reviewing current literature, to wade through the nastiest
+mire, it yet remains certain that public taste is not pleased with the
+vile. A limited circulation will be found for immoral novels among a
+depraved class, but it is to be said, for the credit of the nineteenth
+century, that talents prostituted can never bring fame. The conceptions
+of a Goldsmith, a Scott, a Dickens, a Thackeray, a George Eliot, remain
+among the dearest possessions of all English-speaking people. But the
+unhealthy, unnatural, and hideous pictures given to the world by
+vicious men and women receive the same wages as the sin they portray.</p>
+
+<div class="fn">
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn212" id="fn212" href="#fnref212">[212]</a></span>
+In Mr. John Morley's edition of "English Men of
+Letters," chapter ix.
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn213" id="fn213" href="#fnref213">[213]</a></span>
+See Macaulay on "The Comic Dramatists."
+<br /><br />
+<span class="fnnum"><a name="fn214" id="fn214" href="#fnref214">[214]</a></span>
+See "Strathmore," and others, by "Ouida"; "Not Wisely,
+But Too Well," "Red as a Rose Is She," "Joan," by Rhoda Broughton;
+"Cherry Ripe," by Helen Mathers; "The Lovels of Arden," by Miss
+Braddon; "Under which Lord?" by Mrs E.L. Linton; "A Romance of the
+Nineteenth Century," by W.H. Mallock; "Children of Nature," by the Earl
+of Desart. A long list of very nasty books might easily be added, but
+these will be sufficient to illustrate the bad tendencies of fiction,
+and to show how thoroughly female authors have kept pace in immodesty
+and indecency with their rivals of the less pretentious sex.
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="center">THE END.</div>
+
+<hr class="long" />
+</div>
+
+<div id="index">
+<span class="pagenum">[329]<a name="page329" id="page329"></a></span>
+<h2>INDEX.</h2>
+
+<ul>
+    <li>Addison, <a href="#page180">180</a></li>
+    <li>Ainsworth, H., <a href="#page303">303</a></li>
+    <li>Alcott, Miss, <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Aldrich, T.B., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Alexander, Mrs., <a href="#page288">288</a></li>
+    <li>Alice's Adventures in Wonder Land, <a href="#page319">319</a></li>
+    <li>Allston, W., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Amadis of Gaul, <a href="#page46">46</a></li>
+    <li>"Arcadia," Greene's, <a href="#page83">83</a>
+        <ul class="sub"><li>Sidney's, <a href="#page92">92</a></li></ul></li>
+    <li>"Argenis", <a href="#fn81">101, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Arthur, King, <a href="#page21">21</a>, <a href="#page39">39</a>
+        <ul class="sub"><li>Combat with Accolon, <a href="#page31">31</a></li></ul></li>
+    <li>Atalantis, The New, <a href="#page123">123</a></li>
+    <li>Austen, Jane, <a href="#page287">287</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Banim, John, <a href="#page285">285</a></li>
+    <li>Barclay, Robert, <a href="#fn81">101, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Barham, R.H., <a href="#page291">291</a></li>
+    <li>Beckford, W., <a href="#page247">247</a></li>
+    <li>Behn, Aphra, <a href="#page125">125</a></li>
+    <li>Bird, R., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Black, W., <a href="#page284">284</a></li>
+    <li>Blessington, Mrs., <a href="#fn209">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Boyle, Roger, <a href="#page121">121</a></li>
+    <li>Brackenridge, H.H., <a href="#page307">307</a></li>
+    <li>Braddon, M.E., <a href="#fn214">327</a></li>
+    <li>Bray, A.E., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Brooke, H., <a href="#page243">243</a></li>
+    <li>Brooks, S., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Broughton, R., <a href="#fn214">327</a></li>
+    <li>Brown, C.B., <a href="#page306">306</a></li>
+    <li>Brunton, Mrs., <a href="#page316">316</a></li>
+    <li>Bunbury, S., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Bunyan, John, <a href="#page106">106</a></li>
+    <li>Burnett, Mrs., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Burney, Miss, <a href="#page251">251</a></li>
+    <li>Bury, Lady C., <a href="#fn209">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Cable, G.W., <a href="#page311">311</a></li>
+    <li>Calprenède, <a href="#page119">119</a></li>
+    <li>Carleton, W., <a href="#page285">285</a></li>
+    <li>Chamier, Capt., <a href="#page304">304</a></li>
+    <li>Charlemagne, <a href="#page21">21</a>, <a href="#page24">24</a></li>
+    <li>Chaucer, <a href="#page42">42</a></li>
+    <li>Chetwind, Mrs., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Chivalry, Decline of, <a href="#page45">45</a>
+        <ul class="sub"><li>Origin of, <a href="#page17">17</a></li>
+        <li>Rise of, <a href="#page9">9</a></li>
+        <li>Romances of, chap., <a href="#page1">1</a></li>
+        <li>Theory and Practice of, <a href="#page14">14</a></li></ul></li>
+    <li>Clarke, M.C., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Cobbold, R., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Coke, H., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Collins, M., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Collins, W., <a href="#page292">292</a>, <a href="#page315">315</a></li>
+    <li>Cooper, J.F., <a href="#page307">307</a>, <a href="#page315">315</a></li>
+    <li>Costello, L.S., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Craik, G., <a href="#fn206">295</a></li>
+    <li>Croker, T.C., <a href="#page285">285</a></li>
+    <li>Crowe, C., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Crowe, Mrs., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Crowley, G., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Cummins, M.S., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Cunningham, A., <a href="#fn204">281</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Dacre, Lady, <a href="#fn209">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Dana, R.H., <a href="#page307">307</a></li>
+    <li>D'Arblay, Mme., <a href="#fn199">281</a></li>
+    <li>Defoe, D., <a href="#page183">183</a></li>
+    <li>De Forest, J.W., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Deloney, T., <a href="#page51">51</a></li>
+    <li>De Quincey, T., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Desart, Earl of, <a href="#page327">327</a></li>
+    <li>Dickens, C., <a href="#page295">295</a>, <a href="#page314">314</a></li>
+    <li>D'Israeli, B., <a href="#page293">293</a></li>
+    <li>Drury, A.H., <a href="#page206">206</a></li>
+</ul>
+<span class="pagenum">[330]<a name="page330" id="page330"></a></span>
+<ul>
+    <li>Edgeworth, M., <a href="#page285">285</a></li>
+    <li>"Eliana", <a href="#page121">121</a></li>
+    <li>Eliot, George, <a href="#page288">288</a>, <a href="#page315">315</a></li>
+    <li>Ellis, G., <a href="#page206">291</a></li>
+    <li>"Euphues", <a href="#page76">76</a></li>
+    <li>Euphuism, <a href="#page76">76</a>, <a href="#fn62">82, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Excalibur, <a href="#page26">26</a>, <a href="#page39">39</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Ferrier, Miss, <a href="#page284">284</a>, <a href="#page287">287</a></li>
+    <li>Fielding, Henry, <a href="#page203">203</a></li>
+    <li>Flint, T., <a href="#page311">311</a></li>
+    <li>Ford, E., <a href="#fn27">47, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Fraser, J.B., <a href="#page305">305</a></li>
+    <li>Fraser-Tytler, C.C., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Friar Bacon, <a href="#page52">52</a></li>
+    <li>Friar Rush, <a href="#page54">54</a></li>
+    <li>Fullerton, Lady G., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Fullom, S.W., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Galahad, Sir, <a href="#page35">35</a>, <a href="#page37">37</a></li>
+    <li>Galt, John, <a href="#page284">284</a></li>
+    <li>Gaskell, Mrs., <a href="#page287">287</a>, <a href="#page318">318</a></li>
+    <li>Geoffrey of Monmouth, <a href="#page24">24</a></li>
+    <li>"George-a-Green", <a href="#page50">50</a></li>
+    <li>Glassock, Capt., <a href="#page304">304</a></li>
+    <li>Gleig, G.R., <a href="#page304">304</a></li>
+    <li>Godwin, Francis, <a href="#fn81">101, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Godwin, W., <a href="#page248">248</a></li>
+    <li>Goldsmith, O., <a href="#page227">227</a></li>
+    <li>Gomberville, <a href="#page119">119</a></li>
+    <li>Gore, Mrs., <a href="#fn209">303, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Grant, James, <a href="#page304">304</a></li>
+    <li>Grant, M.M., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Grattan, T.C., <a href="#page286">286</a></li>
+    <li>Graves, <a href="#page248">248</a></li>
+    <li>Greene, Robert, <a href="#page82">82</a></li>
+    <li>Griffin, Gerald, <a href="#page286">286</a></li>
+    <li>Guenever, <a href="#page23">23</a>, <a href="#page34">34</a>, <a href="#page39">39</a></li>
+    <li>Gulliver's Travels, <a href="#page173">173</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Hale, E.E., <a href="#page310">310</a></li>
+    <li>Hall, J., <a href="#page311">311</a></li>
+    <li>Hall, S.C., <a href="#page286">286</a></li>
+    <li>Hamilton, E., <a href="#page284">284</a></li>
+    <li>Hannay, J., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Hardy, T., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Harte, Bret, <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Hawthorne, N., <a href="#page309">309</a></li>
+    <li>"Helyas", <a href="#fn27">46, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Heroic Romance, <a href="#page119">119</a></li>
+    <li>Heywood, Mrs., <a href="#page193">193</a></li>
+    <li>Higginson, T.W., <a href="#page310">310</a></li>
+    <li>Hoffman, C.F., <a href="#page311">311</a></li>
+    <li>Hogg, <a href="#page284">284</a></li>
+    <li>Holcroft, T., <a href="#page248">248</a></li>
+    <li>Holland, J.G., <a href="#page308">308</a></li>
+    <li>Holmes, M.J., <a href="#fn210">314</a></li>
+    <li>Holmes, O.W., <a href="#page310">310</a></li>
+    <li>Hook, Theodore, <a href="#page291">291</a></li>
+    <li>Hope's "Anastasius", <a href="#page305">305</a></li>
+    <li>Howard, <a href="#page304">304</a></li>
+    <li>Howells, W.D., <a href="#page310">310</a></li>
+    <li>Howitt, M., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Howitt, W., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Hubback, Mrs., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Hughes, Thomas, <a href="#page292">292</a></li>
+    <li>Humor in Sidney's "Arcadia", <a href="#page100">100</a>
+        <ul class="sub"><li>in the "Morte d'Arthur", <a href="#page40">40</a></li></ul></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Ideality in Fiction, <a href="#page111">111</a></li>
+    <li>Igraine, <a href="#page25">25</a></li>
+    <li>Inchbald, Mrs., <a href="#page255">255</a></li>
+    <li>Irving, W., <a href="#page308">308</a></li>
+    <li>Isould, <a href="#page34">34</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>"Jack, the Giant-killer", <a href="#page24">24</a></li>
+    <li>James, G.P.R., <a href="#fn211">311</a></li>
+    <li>James, H., Jr., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Jenkins, E., <a href="#page317">317</a></li>
+    <li>Jerrold, Douglas, <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Jewsbury, Geraldine, <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Johnson, Dr., <a href="#page234">234</a></li>
+    <li>Johnson, R., <a href="#fn27">46, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Johnstone, C., <a href="#page240">240</a></li>
+    <li>Johnstone, Mrs., <a href="#page284">284</a></li>
+    <li>Judd, S., <a href="#page310">310</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Kavanagh, Miss, <a href="#fn206">219</a></li>
+    <li>Kennedy, J.P., <a href="#page311">311</a></li>
+    <li>Kimball, R.B., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Kingsley, C., <a href="#page291">291</a>, <a href="#page315">315</a>, <a href="#page318">318</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>"Lady of the Lake", <a href="#page26">26</a></li>
+    <li>Lamb, Lady C., <a href="#fn209">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Launcelot, <a href="#page22">22</a>, <a href="#page34">34</a>, <a href="#page39">39</a></li>
+    <li>Lauder, Sir T.D., <a href="#page284">284</a>, <a href="#fn211">314</a></li>
+    <li>Lawrence, Geo. A., <a href="#page303">303</a></li>
+    <li>"Lear, King", <a href="#page24">24</a></li>
+    <li>Lee, Harriet and Sophia, <a href="#page256">256</a></li>
+    <li>Lennox, C., <a href="#page254">254</a></li>
+    <li>Lever, C.J., <a href="#page286">286</a></li>
+    <li>Lewes, G.H., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Lewis, <a href="#page269">269</a><span class="pagenum">[331]<a name="page331" id="page331"></a></span></li>
+    <li>Linton, E.L., <a href="#page327">327</a></li>
+    <li>Lister, T.H., <a href="#fn209">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Lockhart, <a href="#page284">284</a>, <a href="#page315">315</a></li>
+    <li>Lodge, T., <a href="#page88">88</a></li>
+    <li>Longfellow, H.W., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Lover, S., <a href="#page285">285</a></li>
+    <li>Lyly, J., <a href="#page75">75</a></li>
+    <li>Lytton, Bulwer, <a href="#page293">293</a>, <a href="#page314">314</a>, <a href="#page319">319</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>MacCarthy, J., <a href="#fn205">266</a></li>
+    <li>MacDonald, G., <a href="#page284">284</a></li>
+    <li>Mackay, C., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Mackenzie, H., <a href="#page241">241</a></li>
+    <li>Marquoid, Mrs., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Malory, Sir Thomas, <a href="#page25">25</a></li>
+    <li>Mallock, W. H., <a href="#page327">327</a>, <i>note</i></li>
+    <li>"Man in the Moon", <a href="#page101">101</a>, <i>note</i></li>
+    <li>Manley, Mrs., <a href="#page123">123</a></li>
+    <li>Mapes, Walter, <a href="#page24">24</a></li>
+    <li>Marryat, Capt., <a href="#page304">304</a></li>
+    <li>Marryat, F., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Marsh, Mrs., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Martineau, H., <a href="#page317">317</a></li>
+    <li>Mathers, H., <a href="#page327">327</a></li>
+    <li>Maturin, <a href="#page269">269</a></li>
+    <li>Maxwell, W.H., <a href="#page304">304</a></li>
+    <li>Meliadus, <a href="#page25">25</a></li>
+    <li>Melville, H., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Merlin, <a href="#page24">24</a></li>
+    <li>Miller, H., <a href="#page284">284</a></li>
+    <li>Miller, T., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Mitford, M.R., <a href="#page288">288</a></li>
+    <li>Moir, <a href="#page284">284</a></li>
+    <li>Moore, Dr., <a href="#page248">248</a></li>
+    <li>Moore, Sir T., <a href="#page56">56</a></li>
+    <li>Morier, J., <a href="#page305">305</a></li>
+    <li>Morgan, Lady, <a href="#page286">286</a></li>
+    <li>Morgana, <a href="#page26">26</a></li>
+    <li>Morley, Countess of, <a href="#fn209">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>"Morte d'Arthur", <a href="#page24">24</a>, <a href="#page40">40</a></li>
+    <li>Mulock, Miss, <a href="#page288">288</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Napier, E., <a href="#page304">304</a></li>
+    <li>Neal, J., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Newcastle, Duchess of, <a href="#page122">122</a></li>
+    <li>Normanby, Marquis of, <a href="#fn209">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Norton, Hon. Mrs., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Novel, Development of, <i>see</i> Addison, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding</li>
+    <li>Novel, in the xixth Century, <a href="#page274">274</a>
+        <ul class="sub"><li>of American Life, <a href="#page305">305</a></li>
+        <li>of English Life, <a href="#page291">291</a></li>
+        <li>of Irish Life, <a href="#page285">285</a></li>
+        <li>of Scotch Life, <a href="#page280">280</a></li>
+        <li>Criminal, <a href="#page303">303</a></li>
+        <li>Fashionable, <a href="#page303">303</a></li>
+        <li>Historical, <a href="#page313">313</a></li>
+        <li>Immoral, <a href="#page303">303</a></li>
+        <li>Military, <a href="#page304">304</a></li>
+        <li>Muscular, <a href="#page303">303</a></li>
+        <li>Naval, <a href="#page304">304</a></li>
+        <li>Oriental, <a href="#page305">305</a></li>
+        <li>of fancy, <a href="#page319">319</a></li>
+        <li>of purpose, <a href="#page316">316</a></li></ul></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>O'Connell, <a href="#page311">311</a></li>
+    <li>Oliphant, Mrs., <a href="#page284">284</a></li>
+    <li>Opie, Mrs., <a href="#page286">286</a></li>
+    <li>"Ornatus and Artexia", <a href="#fn27">46, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>"Oroonoko", <a href="#page126">126</a></li>
+    <li>Orrery, Earl of, <a href="#page121">121</a></li>
+    <li>Ouida, <a href="#page303">303</a>, <a href="#page326">326</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Palmerin of England, <a href="#page46">46</a></li>
+    <li>Palomides, Sir, <a href="#page35">35</a></li>
+    <li>"Pandosto", <a href="#page85">85</a></li>
+    <li>Pardoe, Miss, <a href="#page305">305</a></li>
+    <li>"Parismus", <a href="#fn27">47, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Parthenissa, <a href="#page121">121</a></li>
+    <li>Payn, J., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Peacock, T.L., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Pendragon, Uther, <a href="#page25">25</a></li>
+    <li>Perceval le Gallois, <a href="#page25">25</a></li>
+    <li>"Pheander", <a href="#fn27">17, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Phelps, E.S., <a href="#page310">310</a></li>
+    <li>Philips, S., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>"Philomela", <a href="#page86">86</a></li>
+    <li>Picken, <a href="#page284">284</a></li>
+    <li>"Pilgrim's Progress", <a href="#page108">108</a></li>
+    <li>Poe, E.A., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Porter, Jane, <a href="#page284">284</a></li>
+    <li>Porter, Maria, <a href="#page284">284</a></li>
+    <li>Power, M.A., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Radcliffe, Ann, <a href="#page265">265</a></li>
+    <li>Reach, A.B., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Reade, C., <a href="#page291">291</a></li>
+    <li>Realism, <a href="#page279">279</a></li>
+    <li>Reeve, Clara, <a href="#page264">264</a></li>
+    <li>Religious Revival, <a href="#page220">220</a></li>
+    <li>Richardson, Samuel, <a href="#page193">193</a><span class="pagenum">[332]<a name="page332" id="page332"></a></span></li>
+    <li>Ritchie, L., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Robin Hood, <a href="#page47">47</a></li>
+    <li>"Robert the Devil," <a href="#fn27">47, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Roberts, H., <a href="#fn27">47, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Romantic Revival, <a href="#page259">259</a></li>
+    <li>"Rosalynde," <a href="#page88">88</a></li>
+    <li>Round Table, <a href="#page26">26</a>, <a href="#page33">33</a>, <a href="#page38">38</a></li>
+    <li>Rowson, S., <a href="#page306">306</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>"Saint Gréal," <a href="#page25">25</a>, <a href="#page35">35</a></li>
+    <li>Sala, Geo. Aug., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Scott, Michael, <a href="#page304">304</a></li>
+    <li>Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#page280">280</a>, <a href="#page313">313</a></li>
+    <li>Scudéri, <a href="#page119">119</a></li>
+    <li>Sedgwick, C.M., <a href="#page310">310</a></li>
+    <li>"Seven Champions of Christendom," <a href="#fn27">46, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Sewell, E., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Sewell, E.M., <a href="#page317">317</a></li>
+    <li>Shelley, Mrs., <a href="#page319">319</a></li>
+    <li>Sidney, Sir Phillip, <a href="#page91">91</a></li>
+    <li>Simms, G., <a href="#page311">311</a></li>
+    <li>Simms, W., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Sinclair, C., <a href="#fn206">307</a></li>
+    <li>Smedley, F.E., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Smith, A., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Smith, C., <a href="#page257">257</a></li>
+    <li>Smith, H., <a href="#fn211">314</a></li>
+    <li>Smollett, T., <a href="#page211">211</a></li>
+    <li>Sterne, L., <a href="#page231">231</a></li>
+    <li>St. John, J.A., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Stowe, H.B., <a href="#page310">310</a>, <a href="#page318">318</a></li>
+    <li>Stretton, H., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Strickland, A., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Swift, J., <a href="#page170">170</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Tautphoeus, Baroness, <a href="#page287">287</a></li>
+    <li>Taylor, B., <a href="#page308">308</a></li>
+    <li>Terhune, Mrs., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Thackeray, Miss, <a href="#page287">287</a></li>
+    <li>Thackeray, W.M., <a href="#page298">298</a>, <a href="#page314">314</a></li>
+    <li>Thomas, <a href="#page311">311</a></li>
+    <li>"Thomas of Reading," <a href="#page50">50</a></li>
+    <li>Thornbury, W., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>"Tom-a-Lincoln," <a href="#page46">46</a></li>
+    <li>Tourgee, Judge, <a href="#page311">311</a></li>
+    <li>Trelawney, <a href="#page304">304</a></li>
+    <li>Tristram, <a href="#page22">22</a>, <a href="#page25">25</a>, <a href="#page30">30</a>, <a href="#page34">34</a></li>
+    <li>Trollope, A., <a href="#page294">294</a>, <a href="#page295">295</a></li>
+    <li>Trollope, Mrs., <a href="#page287">287</a></li>
+    <li>Trollope, T.A., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Tupper, M.F., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Turner, T., Diary of, <a href="#page221">221</a></li>
+    <li>Tytler, S., <a href="#fn206">297</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Valerio, C.S., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Walpole, Horace, <a href="#page259">259</a></li>
+    <li>Ward, R. Plumer, <a href="#page291">291</a></li>
+    <li>Warren, S., <a href="#page291">291</a></li>
+    <li>Wetherell, E., <a href="#fn206">291</a></li>
+    <li>Whitly, F.M., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Whitney, Mrs., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Whyte-Melville, G.J., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Wilson, A.E., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Wilson, Prof., <a href="#page284">284</a></li>
+    <li>Williams, F., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Willis, N.P., <a href="#page308">308</a></li>
+    <li>Winthrop, T., <a href="#page312">312</a></li>
+    <li>Wood, Mrs. H, <a href="#page287">287</a></li>
+    <li>Wraxall, C.L., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+</ul>
+<ul>
+    <li>Yates, E., <a href="#fn208">302, <i>note</i></a></li>
+    <li>Yonge, Miss, <a href="#page287">287</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of English Prose Fiction
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+Project Gutenberg's A History of English Prose Fiction, by Bayard Tuckerman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A History of English Prose Fiction
+
+Author: Bayard Tuckerman
+
+Release Date: March 13, 2005 [EBook #15350]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSE FICTION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Lynn Bornath, Leonard Johnson and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A HISTORY
+
+OF
+
+ENGLISH PROSE FICTION
+
+
+
+BY
+
+BAYARD TUCKERMAN
+
+
+
+NEW YORK & LONDON
+G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+The Knickerbocker Press
+1894
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT BY
+G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+1882
+
+
+
+
+TO
+MY FATHER,
+THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+It is attempted in this volume to trace the gradual progress of English
+Prose Fiction from the early romance to the novel of the present day,
+in such connection with the social characteristics of the epochs to
+which these works respectively belong, as may conduce to a better
+comprehension of their nature and significance.
+
+As many of the earlier specimens of English fiction are of a character
+or a rarity which makes any acquaintance with them difficult to the
+general public, I have endeavored so to describe their style and
+contents that the reader may obtain, to some degree, a personal
+knowledge of them.
+
+The novels of the nineteenth century are so numerous and so generally
+familiar, that, in the chapter devoted to this period, I have sought
+rather to point out the great importance which fiction has assumed, and
+the variety of forms which it has taken, than to attempt any exhaustive
+criticism of individual authors--a task already sufficiently performed
+by writers far more able to do it justice.
+
+THE AUTHOR.
+
+B.T.
+
+"_The Benedick._"
+NEW YORK, Aug. 22, 1882.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE ROMANCE OF CHIVALRY ........................................   1
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHAUCER, TALES OF THE YEOMANRY, SIR T. MORE'S "UTOPIA"..........  42
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. LYLY, GREENE, LODGE, SIDNEY  .............  60
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE PURITANS, "THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS" ......................... 102
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE RESTORATION. ROGER BOYLE, MRS. MANLEY, MRS. BEHN ........... 112
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. SWIFT, ADDISON, DEFOE, RICHARDSON,
+FIELDING, SMOLLETT ............................................. 134
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CONTINUED. STERNE, JOHNSON, GOLDSMITH,
+AND OTHERS. MISS BURNEY AND THE FEMALE NOVELISTS.
+THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL ........................................... 220
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE NOVEL IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE NOVEL OF
+LIFE AND MANNERS. OF SCOTCH LIFE. OF IRISH LIFE.
+OF ENGLISH LIFE. OF AMERICAN LIFE. THE HISTORICAL
+NOVEL. THE NOVEL OF PURPOSE. THE NOVEL OF FANCY.
+USE AND ABUSE OF FICTION ...................................... 274
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE ROMANCE OF CHIVALRY.
+
+
+I
+
+In the midst of an age of gloom and anarchy, when Feudalism was slowly
+building up a new social organization on the ruins of the Roman Empire,
+arose that spirit of chivalry, which, in its connection with the
+Christian religion, forms so sharp a division between the sentiments of
+ancient and modern times. Following closely on the growth of chivalry
+as an institution, there came into being a remarkable species of
+fiction, which reflected with great faithfulness the character of the
+age, and having formed for three centuries the principal literary
+entertainment of the knighthood of Europe, left on the new
+civilization, and the new literature which had outgrown and discarded
+it, lasting traces of its natural beauty. Into the general fund of
+chivalric romance were absorbed the learning and legend of every land.
+From the gloomy forests and bleak mountains of the North came dark and
+terrible fancies, malignant enchanters, and death-dealing spirits,
+supposed to haunt the earth and sea; from Arabia and the East came
+gorgeous pictures of palaces built of gold and precious stones, magic
+rings which transport the bearer from place to place, love-inspiring
+draughts, dragons and fairies; from ancient Greece and Rome came
+memories of the heroes and mysteries of mythology, like old coins worn
+and disfigured by passing, through ages, from hand to hand, but still
+bearing a faint outline of their original character. All this mass of
+fiction was floating idly in the imaginations of men, or worked as an
+embellishment into the rude numbers of the minstrels, when the mediaeval
+romancers gathered it up, and interweaving it with the traditions of
+Arthur and Charlemagne, produced those strange compositions which are
+so entirely the product and repository of the habits, superstitions,
+and sympathies of the Middle Ages that they serve to
+
+     "Hold the mirror up to Nature,
+      To show Vice its own image, Virtue its own likeness,
+      And the very age and body of the times,
+      His form and pressure."
+
+The men who wrote, and the men who read these romances, the first
+springs of our modern fiction, were influenced by two dominant ideas:
+"One religious, which had fashioned the gigantic cathedrals, and swept
+the masses from their native soil to hurl them upon the Holy Land; the
+other secular, which had built feudal fortresses, and set the man of
+courage erect and armed within his own domain."[1] These two ideas were
+outwardly expressed in the Roman Church and the Feudal System.
+
+During the anarchy of the Middle Ages, every man was compelled to look
+upon war as his natural occupation, if he hoped to preserve life or
+property. His land was held as a condition of military service. As long
+as there was no effective administration of justice, redress for the
+aggrieved lay in the sword alone. A military career had no rival in the
+eyes of the ambitious and the noble. There was no learning, no art, to
+share with skill in arms, the honors to which a youth aspired. Religion
+and love, the most powerful inspirations of his moral life, made force
+of arms the merit most worthy of their rewards. The growth of the
+people in the mechanical arts took the direction of improving the
+instruments of warfare; the increase of refinement and humanity tended
+less to diminish war than to make it more civilized, showy, and
+glorious. The armies of the Romans seem prosaic when we turn to the
+brilliant array of chivalry, to the ranks of steel-clad knights
+couching the lance to win fame, the smile of woman, or the reward of
+religious devotion;--men to whom war seemed a grand tournament, in
+which each combatant, from the king to the poorest knight, was to seek
+distinction by his strength and valor. It was through the senses, and
+especially through the eye, that the feudal imagination was moved.
+Every heart was kindled at the sight of shining armor, horses with
+brilliant trappings, gorgeous dress, and martial show. The magnificent
+Norman cathedrals struck the mind with devotional awe; the donjons and
+towers of the great baronial castles were suggestive of power and
+glory. To the impressibility of the senses was added the romantic
+spirit of adventure, which kept the knighthood of Europe in a constant
+ferment, and for lack of war, burst forth in tournaments, in private
+feuds, or in the extravagances of knight-errantry. The feudal system,
+growing up to meet the necessities of conquerors living on conquered
+territory, and founded on the principle of military service as a
+condition of land tenure, made of Europe a vast army. The military
+profession was exalted to an importance which crushed all effort of a
+more useful or progressive nature; the military class, including all
+who possessed land, and did not labor upon it, became an aristocracy
+despising peaceful occupations, whose most powerful prejudice was pride
+of birth, whose ruling passion was love of war. Under the influence of
+this military spirit, intellectual was subordinated to active life; a
+condition of ignorance and danger was sustained; an overwhelming
+reverence for the supernatural was produced, and there resulted that
+predominance of the imagination over the reason of man which forms the
+distinctive feature of Romantic Fiction.
+
+While the feudal system formed the framework of society, and, as much
+by inspiration as by law, governed the outward actions of men, the
+human mind was in complete, and almost universally willing, subjection
+to theological influence. The state of war, or of readiness for war,
+which was the inevitable accompaniment of feudal tenure, did much to
+sustain the state of profound ignorance and consequent superstition in
+which the people of mediaeval times were plunged, both by preventing the
+pursuit of peaceful occupations and the growth of knowledge, and by
+increasing the element of danger in life, which always inclines the
+human mind to a belief in the supernatural. The same results were
+brought about by the character and aims of the Roman Church. The
+unswerving purpose of that church was to govern, temporally as well as
+spiritually. She sought to supply to men from her own store all the
+knowledge which was necessary for their welfare, and that knowledge was
+limited to dogmas and beliefs which would strengthen the power of the
+priesthood. A strict and absolute acceptance of the truths of
+Christianity as she defined them, and a humble obedience to the clergy
+were made the sole and necessary conditions of salvation. A questioning
+of those truths or a violation of that obedience was a crime before
+which murder and license faded into insignificance. The spirit of doubt
+and of inquiry which alone leads to knowledge, and through knowledge to
+civilization, was repressed by excommunication or in blood. As long as
+men continued in a state of helpless ignorance and willing credulity,
+the church was a fitting, even a beneficent, mistress and guide. For
+centuries she was the sole teacher and the sole external source of
+moral elevation. For centuries she alone pointed out the distinction
+between right and wrong, the beauty of virtue, and the ugliness of sin.
+Whatever there was in life to raise men above their earthly struggles,
+their evil passions, and the despair of a hard and dangerous existence,
+was supplied by her. The consolations of religion, the ennobling
+acquaintance with the character of Christ, and the hope of salvation
+through Him were incalculable blessings. Her aid in suppressing
+disorder and in establishing a respect for law and government is not to
+be overlooked. She presented in her own organization an example of
+authority, of system, and of obedience, which, despite many failings
+and abuses, was of great value to the world. But there is in human
+nature an irrepressible tendency toward growth and progress, and when
+this tendency began to show itself in the Middle Ages, it found in the
+theological spirit, then personated by the Roman Church, its most
+bitter and most powerful enemy. The church, which had hitherto been a
+teacher and guide, became the champion of barbarism and the genius of
+retrogression. Instead of adapting herself to the growing wants of
+mankind, instead of preserving her influence and power by inward
+progress proportionate to that which she saw advancing without, she
+sought, stationary herself, to keep the world stationary, and to stamp
+out in blood the progressive spirit of man. Hence it is that the
+blessings of our modern life have been achieved in spite of the Roman
+Church, which should have promoted them, and the history of modern
+civilization and modern knowledge is in so large a part the history of
+emancipation from the tyranny of the theological spirit,--that is, the
+clerical opposition to mental and material advancement, both of which
+are as necessary to moral advancement as they are to the happiness of
+men. This spirit has been the same in every country and in every age,
+when the spiritual has exceeded the secular power, and its lamentable
+effects may be traced as well in the gloomy Protestant theocracy of
+Scotland as in the Catholic Inquisition of Spain. During the period,
+however, when the romances of chivalry were principally written and
+enjoyed, the convulsions arising from attempts to burst the bonds by
+which the minds of men were restrained, had not yet been sensibly felt.
+The church was still the controlling intellectual influence. A dark
+cloud of ignorance and superstition hung over Europe, to be dispelled
+at last by the new growth of learning, and the consequences following
+upon it. The best intelligence of the time was confined to the clergy,
+who used it skilfully to maintain their authority. By every device they
+sought to usurp to themselves the sole power of ministering to popular
+wants. Nothing which could strike the mind through the senses was
+neglected. They offset tournaments by religious shows and pageantry,
+rivalled the attractions of the harp by sacred music, and to wean their
+flocks from the half dramatic entertainments of the minstrels, they
+invented the Miracle Play and the Mystery. The church forced herself on
+the attention of every man without doors or within, by the friars
+black or gray who met him at every turn, by the imposing monasteries
+which formed a central figure in every landscape, and by the festivals
+and processions of priests which made the common occasions for the
+assemblage of the people. The constant recurrence of holy days and
+fasts called the mind to the consideration of spiritual things, and the
+rough superstition of the time was deeply excited when the approach of
+death in a household brought the priestly train with lighted tapers,
+and the awe-inspiring ceremonies with which the lingering soul was sent
+on its way.
+
+The military nature of feudalism explains the predominance of warlike
+incidents in romantic fiction, and the character of the Roman Church
+gives us an insight into the causes which, in addition to the ignorance
+of the time, induced men to refer all remarkable events to supernatural
+influence, and prepared their minds for the unquestioning belief in the
+fictions which are so important a characteristic of the romances of
+chivalry. The low standard of morality also, which is reflected in the
+same pages, is due quite as much to the predominance of the dogmatic
+over the moral element of Christianity, as to the unrefined and rude
+conditions of life.
+
+There is much that is picturesque and brilliant in the times, but much
+more that is terrible. The nobles and knights, who lived sword in hand
+behind their battlements and massive walls, were the rulers of the
+country. Their ungoverned passions and their love of fighting for its
+own sake or for that of revenge, were perpetual dangers to internal
+peace. There was no power sufficient to keep them in check. The
+lawlessness and anarchy caused by the ceaseless quarrels between baron
+and baron, found but a feeble remedy in the laws of King or Church. Of
+the darkness of the earlier Middle Ages Von Sybel[2] gives a graphic
+picture: "Monarchies sank into impotence; petty lawless tyrants
+trampled all social order under foot, and all attempts after scientific
+instruction and artistic pleasures were as effectually crushed by this
+state of general insecurity as the external well-being and material
+life of the people. This was a dark and stormy period for Europe,
+merciless, arbitrary, and violent. It was a sign of the prevailing
+feeling of misery and hopelessness that, when the first thousand years
+of our era were drawing to their close, the people in every country in
+Europe looked with certainty for the destruction of the world. Some
+squandered their wealth in riotous living, others bestowed it, for the
+good of their souls, on churches and convents; weeping multitudes lay
+day and night about the altars; some looked forward with dread, but
+most with secret hope, toward the burning of the earth and the falling
+in of heaven." Gradually some order and security succeeded this chaos.
+The church exerted all her strength in subduing violence, and the
+character of her remedies are illustrative of the evils they were
+intended to abate. The truce of God set apart the days between Thursday
+and Monday of each week as a time of peace, when private quarrels
+should be suspended. The peace of the king forbade the avenging of an
+alleged injury until forty days after its commission. The Council of
+Clermont ordered that every noble youth on attaining the age of twelve
+years should take an oath to defend the oppressed, the widows, and the
+orphans.[3] Much superfluous energy was exhausted in the crusades. In
+England the growth of the universities and the study and development of
+law aided the establishment of social order, while the spread of
+commerce and the improvements in husbandry brought with wealth some
+refinement and luxury. The baronage wrested from the crown those
+liberties which finally became the common property of all. Trade pushed
+the inhabitants of the towns into prominence as an important class
+whose influence was thrown entirely into the scale of peace and quiet,
+on which its prosperity depended. No element of change was more
+essential, and none was greater in its civilizing effects than the
+development of the chivalric spirit into an institution of which the
+laws and customs were observed from England to Sicily. Its influence
+worked directly upon the disturbing classes of society. Only time and
+the slow march of civilization could calm the restlessness and the
+martial spirit of the powerful, but chivalry introduced into warfare
+knightly honor and generosity, and into social life a courtesy and
+gallantry which formed a strong ally to religion in bringing out the
+better sentiments of humanity. At a time when force was greater than
+law, when the weak and defenceless were at the mercy of the powerful,
+when women were never safe from the attacks of the brutal, a body of
+men who were sworn to redress wrongs, to succor the oppressed, and to
+protect women and children, could not fail to be highly beneficial and
+to win the reverence of mankind. To be a good knight was to be the salt
+of the earth. The church gave easy absolution to the champion of the
+weak,--the soldier of God. Women smiled upon the cavalier whose
+profession was her service, and whose deeds, as well as the glitter of
+his arms and the fascination of his martial appearance, flattered her
+pride and gratified her imagination.
+
+Yet, in considering the period of chivalry, we must not yield too much
+to the attraction of its brilliant show, its high flown sentiments, and
+knightly valor. Beneath religion there ever lurked a bigoted
+superstition; beneath valor, cruelty; beneath love, mere brutal
+passion. The sympathies of the order were much confined to the higher
+classes, and there was little feeling for the sufferings of the common
+people. The reign of Edward the Third embraces the most brilliant days
+of chivalry. About that period is spread a mist of manly gallantry and
+feminine charms which conceals the darkness beneath. The Black Prince,
+after winning his spurs at Cressy, carried fire and sword among the
+peaceful and defenceless inhabitants of Garonne, gratifying a greed of
+gain by blood and rapine. The gallant deeds of Sir Walter de Manny, of
+Sir John Chandos, the fame of Edward himself, only make darker by
+contrast the desolation and suffering by which their glory was
+purchased. The poetic illusion inspired by Froissart's chronicles of
+knightly deeds and manners is rudely torn when we read Petrarch's
+description of France after the battle of Poitiers; "I could not
+believe that this was the same France which I had seen so rich and
+flourishing. Nothing presented itself to my eyes but a fearful
+solitude, land uncultivated, houses in ruins. Even the neighborhood of
+Paris showed everywhere the marks of desolation and conflagration. The
+streets are deserted, the roads overgrown with weeds, the whole is a
+vast solitude."[4]
+
+It is among the Northern conquerors that we must look for the origin of
+the spirit of chivalry, which consisted first and chiefly in manly
+valor exerted to obtain the favor of woman. Of this there is no trace
+in any ancient civilization. Among the barbarous tribes of the North,
+physical strength and military prowess were the qualities most
+essential in a man, and woman naturally looked upon them as the merit
+she most loved, especially as they were needed for her own protection.
+But this condition is natural to all barbarous and warlike peoples, and
+cannot by itself account for that sentiment which we call chivalric. To
+the valor of the Goths were joined an extraordinary reverence and
+respect for their women, due, as these feelings always must be, to
+feminine chastity. The virtue for which the Northern women were
+distinguished elevated them to a position to which the females of other
+uncivilized nations never approached. It gave them a large influence in
+both public and private affairs, and made them something to be won, not
+bought. To obtain his wife the Northern warrior must have deserved her,
+he must have given proofs that he was worthy of the woman who had
+preserved her chastity inviolate, and for whom love must be mingled
+with respect.[5] It is curious to observe how exactly these sentiments,
+which existed at so early a period among the Gothic nations, were
+continued into feudal times. Take, as one instance, the exclamation of
+Regner Lodbrog, the famous Scandinavian chieftain, who about the year
+860 rescued a princess from a fortress in which she was unjustly
+confined, and received her hand as his reward: "I made to struggle in
+the twilight that yellow haired chief, who passed his mornings among
+the young maidens and loved to converse with widows. He who aspires to
+the love of young virgins ought always to be foremost in the din of
+arms!"[6] Compare to this a scene at Calais about the middle of the
+fourteenth century. Edward III had just accomplished an adventure of
+chivalry. Serving under the banner of Sir Walter de Manny as a common
+knight, he had overcome in single combat the redoubted Sir Eustace de
+Ribeaumont, who had brought the king twice on his knees during the
+course of the battle. Edward that evening entertained all his French
+prisoners as well as his own knights at supper, and at the conclusion
+of the feast he adjudged the prize of valor for that day's fighting to
+Sir Eustace de Ribeaumont, and removing a chaplet of pearls from his
+own head, he placed it on that of the French knight, with the
+significant words[7]: "Sir Eustace, I present you with this chaplet as
+being the best combatant this day, either within or without doors; and
+I beg of you to wear it this year for love of me. I know that you are
+lively and amorous, and love the company of ladies and damsels;
+therefore say wherever you go that I gave it to you." But the chivalry
+of the Goths was only the seed of the plant which flourished so
+luxuriantly under better conditions in later times. The feudal system
+fostered the growth of the sentiment into the institution, as a
+palliative to anarchy and as an ornament to life, while the Church,
+always eager to absorb enthusiasm and power into her own ranks, adopted
+the institution as the Holy Order, and adding religious devotion to the
+inspiration of love, directed the energies of chivalry into the work of
+civilization, and made the knight the champion of the weak, in addition
+to his character as a valiant soldier.
+
+It is difficult in considering a period so remote and so peculiar as
+that of chivalry, to fix the limit between the actual and the
+imaginary, between the character of the ideals which men placed before
+themselves, and the extent to which these ideals were realized. That
+the writings of the romancers were exaggerations of actual manners
+rather than inventions, is shown by the descriptions of the habits and
+inmates of mediaeval castles, which form so interesting a portion of
+Froissart's chronicles, and give such striking and life like
+illustrations of the society which at once inspired and enjoyed the
+romances of chivalry. The castle of the Earl of Foix and the Earl
+himself would have seemed quite natural in the pages of a romance:
+"Ther was none more rejoysed in dedes of armes than the erle dyde: ther
+was sene in his hall, chambre, and court, knightes and squyers of
+honour going up and downe, and talking of armes and amours; all honour
+ther was found, all maner of tidyngs of every realme and countre ther
+might be herde, for out of every countree ther was resort, for the
+valyantness of this erle." Of "armes and amours" the knights and ladies
+loved to talk, and arms and amours formed the burden of the ponderous
+tomes which the Earl of Foix caused to be read before him. The
+adventures of knights-errant, and their obligation to render aid and
+comfort to "all distressed ladies and damsels," have a charming
+illustration in the championship of the cause of Isabel, Queen of
+Edward the Second of England, by Sir John of Hainault, and the words
+used by the latter in undertaking the enterprise were the echo of the
+chivalric feeling of the time. As soon as the arrival of Queen Isabel
+in Hainault was known, "this Sir John, being at that time very young
+and panting for glory, like a knight-errant mounted his horse, and,
+accompanied by a few persons, set out from Valenciennes for
+Ambreticourt, where he arrived in the evening and paid the Queen every
+respect and honour." Notwithstanding the remonstrances and objections
+which were raised against his undertaking so perilous an adventure as
+the invasion of England, "the gallant knight would not change his
+purpose, saying, 'that he could die but once; that the time was in the
+will of God; and that all true knights were bound to aid, to the utmost
+of their power, all ladies and damsels driven from their kingdoms
+comfortless and forlorn.'" To suppose that the romances formed an
+accurate reflection of actual life would show an entire ignorance of
+their nature; but there can be no doubt that these fictions were the
+natural outcome of existing thought and manners; that they were
+sufficiently life-like to interest; and that they increased and
+intensified the habits and ideas in which they had their origin.
+
+The combination of qualities and motives which we are accustomed to
+express in the general term of chivalry was the mediaeval ideal of
+virtue, and as such was in practice inevitably subject to imperfection
+and inconsistency. The Roman _virtus_ was simply courage. Chivalry
+meant courage and skill in arms, united to gentle birth, to courtesy,
+to gallantry, and to a faithful observance of the laws of combat; the
+whole inspired by military glory, religious enthusiasm, or devotion to
+women. We should admire the greatness and nobility of this ideal,
+standing out as it does against a background of lawlessness and
+ignorance, rather than complain that in practice its valor often
+degenerated into ferocity, its Christianity into narrow bigotry, its
+worship of women into license and brutality. Chivalry, supplying a
+standard of excellence adapted by its nature to excite the admiration
+of men, did much to refine and civilize the rude age in which it arose;
+and this result is not belittled by the fact that that standard was
+pitched above the possibility of human attainment. Chivalry was the
+spontaneous expression of what was best in the time, and gave sentiment
+and charm to lives otherwise hard and barren. Its very exaggerations
+and grotesqueness illustrate the eagerness with which it was received,
+and the greatness of the want which it supplied. This was an ideal,
+too, separate and distinct from any that had been known before,
+possessing enduring characteristics of greatness and beauty which have
+never ceased to command sympathy and admiration. Though changed in
+outward form, and appearing under different manifestations, the
+chivalry of the Middle Ages is essentially the chivalry of to-day, but
+it now exerts a moral and intellectual, instead of a physical force.
+
+The new dignity which woman assumed in connection with the growth of
+chivalry was owing considerably to a cause separate from the Northern
+sentiment concerning them, and as the position of women is an important
+part of the social condition we are now examining, a glance at this
+other cause will not be without value or interest. It is indeed
+remarkable that in the Middle Ages woman should for the first time have
+attained her true rank, and that the highest conception of the female
+character which the world had yet known should have been developed in
+so rude and ferocious a time. The estimation in which women were held
+among Eastern nations was little lower than their position among the
+Jews. Where polygamy exists, and where purchase-money is paid to the
+father of the bride, women never attain to high appreciation or
+respect. Beauty rather than virtue was the ideal of Greece. The women
+of that country, living in continual seclusion, deprived alike of
+opportunities for attaining culture or exerting influence, became
+narrowed in thought and intelligence, and passed their lives in
+obscurity under the control of their husbands or sons.[8] Roman history
+gives us examples of female excellence and distinction, and represents
+women during some periods in a better position than had previously been
+known. But the female sex was never accorded among the Romans the
+general respect for its peculiar virtues, and the consideration for its
+weakness which forms one of the brightest pages of modern civilization.
+With the spread of Christianity, there was for centuries no
+improvement. The low standard by which the Jews had judged the sex
+exerted a strong and an evil influence. The spirit of asceticism,
+rapidly gaining ground in the Roman Church, pointed out absolute
+chastity in both sexes as the only praiseworthy condition of life, made
+marriage only an excusable sin, and recognized in that relationship,
+merely its use for the propagation of the species. Views so absurd and
+unnatural could not fail in producing the most evil results. Woman came
+to be regarded by the church as the origin of all sin, the favorite
+medium of the temptations of the Devil, the sanctity and happiness of
+marriage were interfered with, and the priesthood, debarred from that
+condition, showed themselves not insensible to the charms they so
+fiercely denounced, and presented to their flocks demoralizing examples
+of profligacy. The Northern invaders brought with them their own ideas
+concerning women, rough and crude, but containing the germ of much
+good. Being met by Christianity, they embraced it in large numbers,
+unreflectingly, at the command of their leaders. But in embracing it
+they changed it to suit themselves. Their minds were unfit for the
+reception of the dogmas of the church, or for the realization and
+worship of an invisible being. They seized on the ideas of Christ, the
+Virgin Mary, and the Saints, and worshipped in a great degree their old
+gods under the new names. But of the new objects of worship, Mary most
+struck their imaginations and won their affection. The meek and
+forgiving Christ was unsuited to their fierce and warlike dispositions.
+But Mary, the beautiful, the tender, the merciful mother of God became
+the object of an enthusiastic adoration, and with the worship of Mary
+the position of the whole sex was elevated. The brutish and unnatural
+teachings of the Fathers were overridden by the new and noble ideas
+which were springing up. Doctrines such as that of the Immaculate
+Conception rapidly won ground, and Catholic Mariolatry, taking root in
+the fertile soil of Northern chivalry, worked benefits which have
+lasted down to our own time, and conferred great blessings upon it.
+
+The purely military character of feudalism impressed itself on the
+habits of the time, and moulded domestic life, amusements and education
+in strict accordance with it. The castles of the great lords and
+knights were "academies of honour" for the children of their dependents
+and less wealthy neighbors; the court yards became the scene of martial
+exercises, and the presence of noble women within the walls afforded an
+opportunity for the cultivation of gentle manners, and for the growth
+of that feeling of reverence for the fair sex which was to form so
+important an element in the boys' later life. The "gentle damoiseau,"
+confided at the age of seven or eight to the care of a knight whose
+reputation for prowess and courtesy ensured a good example, learned
+modesty and obedience in the performance of menial services, then
+considered honorable; in the court-yard of the castle he was
+instructed in horsemanship, and in the use of the lance, the bow, and
+the sword. In the dangers and hardships of the chase the principal
+occupation in time of peace,--he was inured to fatigue, hunger, and
+pain; he learned to sound the horn at the different stages of the hunt,
+to dress the game when killed, and to carve it on the table.[9] He
+waited upon the ladies in their apartments as upon superior beings,
+whose service, even the most menial, was an honor. While yet a
+damoiseau, and before he had attained the rank of squire, the youth was
+expected to choose one girl who should receive his special admiration
+and service, in whose name his future knightly deeds should be
+performed, who should be his inspiration in battle, the reward of his
+valor, and the object of his gallantry. In the loves of Amadis and
+Oriana, so famous in romance, we have a simple and charming description
+of the first budding of the chivalric sentiment. "Oriana was about ten
+years old, the fairest creature that ever was seen; wherefore she was
+called the one 'without a peer.' * * * The Child of the Sea (Amadis)
+was now twelve years old, but in stature and size he seemed fifteen,
+and he served the queen; but now that Oriana was there, the queen gave
+her the Child of the Sea, that he should serve her, and Oriana said
+that 'it pleased her'; and that word which she said the child kept in
+his heart, so that he never lost it from his memory, and in all his
+life he was never weary of serving her, and his heart was surrendered
+to her; and this love lasted as long as they lasted, for as well as he
+loved her did she also love him. But the Child of the Sea, who knew
+nothing of her love, thought himself presumptuous to have placed his
+thoughts on her, and dared not speak to her; and she, who loved him in
+her heart, was careful not to speak more with him than with another;
+but their eyes delighted to reveal to the heart what was the thing on
+earth that they loved best. And now the time came that he thought he
+could take arms if he were knighted; and this he greatly desired,
+thinking that he would do such things that, if he lived, his mistress
+should esteem him."[10]
+
+Life in a Norman castle was at best hard and comfortless. In summer it
+was enlivened by hunting and hawking, by tournaments and pageantry. The
+gardens which usually surrounded a castle formed a resource for the
+female portion of the inhabitants, who are often represented in the
+illuminations of the time as occupied in tending the flowers or in
+making garlands. But in winter there were few comforts to lessen the
+suffering, and few resources to vary the monotony of life. The passages
+in the romances which hail the return of spring, are full of
+thankfulness and delight. Chess, dice, and cards, as well as many
+frolicsome games, served, with the aid of the minstrels, to afford
+amusement. The women had their occupations of spinning, sewing, and
+embroidery, while some of the accomplishments they cultivated may be
+inferred from the following passage in the folio of old Sir Joshua
+Barnes: "And now the ladies themselves, with many noble virgins, were
+meditating the various measures their skilful feet were to make, the
+pleasant aires their sweet voices should warble, and those soft
+divisions their tender fingers should strike on the yielding
+strings."[11] Life was lacking in physical comforts, and still more in
+refinement. The dining-hall became at night the sleeping place of a
+promiscuous crowd of retainers. There was a very imperfect separation
+of the sexes at any time. Men and women ate with their fingers, and
+threw the refuse of their meal on the table, or amidst the straw on the
+floor, to be devoured by the cats and dogs which swarmed about. Read
+the directions for ladies' table manners given by Robert de Blois: "If
+you eat with another (_i.e._, in the same plate), turn the nicest bits
+to him, and do not go picking out the finest and largest for yourself,
+which is not courteous. Moreover, no one should eat greedily a choice
+bit which is too large or too hot, for fear of choking or burning
+herself. * * * Each time you drink wipe your mouth well, that no grease
+may go into the wine, which is very unpleasant to the person who drinks
+after you. But when you wipe your mouth for drinking, do not wipe your
+eyes or nose with the table-cloth, and avoid spilling from your mouth
+or greasing your hands too much."[12] The same authority on manners and
+etiquette warns ladies against scolding and disputing, against swearing
+and getting drunk, and against some other objectionable actions which
+betray a great lack of feminine modesty. The "Moral Instructions" of
+the Chevalier de la Tour Landry present a picture of coarseness and
+immorality among both men and women, which shows how incompatible was
+the barrack-like existence of feudal times with the practice of any
+sort of self-restraint or purity of life.
+
+Of such a character, then, was the audience which the mediaeval
+romancers had to please. A class essentially military, ferocious, and
+accustomed to shedding blood, yet preserving in their violence a
+certain observance of laws of honor and courtesy; setting before
+themselves more often an ideal of glory and nobility, than an object of
+plunder or conquest; cultivating a consideration and gallantry toward
+women, remarkable in view of the necessarily rough and unrefined
+circumstances of their life; highly imaginative and adventurous;
+rejoicing in brilliancy of dress and show; filling the monotony of
+peace by tournaments, martial games, and the entertainments of the
+minstrels.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Taine: History of Eng. Lit., Van Laun's trans. chap. 3,
+pt. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 2: "Hist. of Crusades," p. 11; Sir E. Strachey, Introd. to
+"Morte d'Arthur."]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mill's "Chivalry."]
+
+[Footnote 4: Quoted in Green's "Short History of the English People."
+p. 224.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Warton's "Hist. of English Poetry," Dissert. i.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Quoted by Warton, "Hist. of Poetry," Dis. i.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Froissart's "Chronicles," v. ii, p. 248, Johnes' Trans.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Lecky's "History of Morals," chap. 5, vol. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Scott's "Essay on Chivalry."]
+
+[Footnote 10: "Amadis of Gaul," Southey's ed. vol. 1, p. 40. This
+romance belongs to a late period of romantic fiction, but the passage
+cited is a good illustration of mediaeval sentiment.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Sir J. Barnes' "History of Edward III."]
+
+[Footnote 12: Wright's "Manners and Sentiments in the Middle Ages,"
+p. 276.]
+
+
+
+II.
+
+The romances of chivalry sprang to life a logical production of the
+times. Their authors seized on the character of a king and a
+warrior--their highest conception of greatness, in the persons of
+Charlemagne and Arthur. Regardless of anachronism, they represented
+their heroes as the centre of a chivalric court, accoutred in the arms,
+and practising the customs of later centuries; they created in fact a
+new Arthur and a new Charlemagne, adapted to the new times. They
+brought to light the almost forgotten characters of antiquity. They
+represented Jason and Alexander invested with chivalric attributes and
+affected by mediaeval superstitions. Hercules, according to them,
+performed his labors, not because of the wrath of Juno or the command
+of Jove, but, like a true knight-errant, to gain the favor of a
+Boeotian princess. Virgil the poet was transformed into Virgil the
+enchanter. The chief heroes were surrounded with restless knights,
+whose romantic adventures afforded unlimited range to the imagination,
+and delighted the chivalric mind. The romancers mingled with their
+endless tales of "arms and amours," the superstitions and myths which
+occupied the minds of men to the exclusion of all real knowledge and
+inquiry. The gloomy and terrible fictions which had adorned the songs
+of Northern scalds, the bright and fanciful imagery contained in the
+tales of Arabia and the East which the crusaders brought back with them
+into Europe, the superstitions of Christianity itself, were given only
+a greater influence in the lives of fictitious heroes than they were
+supposed to have in those of living men. Perfectly suited to the times,
+and in fact born of them, the romances took at once a powerful hold on
+the popular imagination. The characters of Arthur, of Launcelot and of
+Tristram became the objects of an ardent admiration, and the standards
+of excellence to which many strove to attain. The most exaggerated
+ideas of chivalry contained in the romances were adopted in actual
+life. Knights and ladies took upon themselves adventures and cultivated
+manners, which vied in extravagance with those of imaginary beings. The
+personality of King Arthur was so intensely realized, that for
+centuries it was believed that he would one day return from beyond the
+grave to resume his glorious rule. On his tomb were supposed to be
+inscribed the words:
+
+      Hic jacet Arthurus rex, quondam rexque futurus.
+
+Henry II visited his legendary grave at Glastonbury, and named his
+grandson Arthur. Edward I held a Round Table at Kenilworth. Remarkable
+features of nature--rocks, caves, and mounds were associated in the
+popular mind with the achievements of Arthur, and many are connected
+with them by name at the present day.
+
+But the romances relating to Arthur were far more than the reflection
+of passing thoughts and customs destined to perish with the
+generations who read them. They embodied the ideals of the English race
+six centuries ago, and although appearing in a different form, those
+ideals are still our own. The examples presented in romantic fiction of
+manly courage, of self-sacrificing devotion, of simplicity of
+character, and of chivalric consideration for the weakness of the
+female sex, may excite our admiration and sympathy, as well as that of
+a fierce and untutored knighthood. These tales were the product of the
+English mind in its boyhood, and it is to the youth of our day that
+they are best adapted and most attractive; but the rationalism of the
+nineteenth century may find in their spirit of simple faith, of
+unquestioning belief and trust, much that is beautiful in human life
+which modern thought and science have swept away. It is on account of
+the enduring character of the ideals, of which the Arthurian legends
+were the spontaneous expression, that these works, although contained
+in a rude form, without artistic plan or literary merit to give them
+permanence, have never wholly passed from the acquaintance of men. The
+rude force and beauty of mediaeval fiction has been deeply felt by many
+of the greatest minds which have contributed to modern literature. To
+the perusal of the story of Launcelot and Guenever Dante ascribes the
+coming of Paolo and Francesca _al doloroso passo_. While the other
+works of Ariosto have fallen into obscurity, his "Orlando Furioso" has
+achieved a lasting fame. One of the greatest poems in the German
+language, the "Oberon" of Wieland, is almost a reproduction of a
+chivalric romance. The reader of Milton is often reminded of
+
+                              Uther's son,
+      Begirt with British and Armoric knights.
+
+Spenser transferred romantic fiction into the region of allegory, and
+gave to English literature the immortal "Faery Queen." In our own day
+the "Idyls" of Tennyson have made the legends of Arthur a part of our
+common thought, and the Knights of the Round Table familiar in almost
+every household. The romances of chivalry fall naturally into three
+general classes: those relating to Charlemagne and his peers; those
+relating to classical and mythological heroes; and, finally, the tales
+connected with King Arthur. The strong similarity which exists in the
+character and incidents of these three classes makes an acquaintance
+with one of them sufficient for the purpose of this work. The "Morte
+d'Arthur" and the romances of which it forms a compendium will therefore
+be chiefly considered, as being the most interesting in their bearing
+on English fiction.
+
+In the early part of the twelfth century, Walter Mapes, Archdeacon of
+Oxford, while travelling in France, became possessed of a book written
+in the British or Armoric language, which treated of the history of
+kings of Britain, and was undoubtedly even at that time of considerable
+antiquity. Little is known concerning this curious work. It related the
+fabulous martial deeds of British kings, of whose existence there is no
+previous record, their victories over giants and dragons, and the
+various supernatural influences to which they were subject. Hence comes
+the story of King Lear and of Jack the Giant-Killer, and here are first
+met the characters of King Arthur and the enchanter Merlin. This book
+having been translated into Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth, a
+Benedictine monk, at once attained a great popularity and reputation;
+and for several centuries was universally accepted as true history. A
+number of metrical romances soon appeared to gratify the taste which
+Geoffrey's chronicle had excited, and in the first half of the
+thirteenth century the same stories began to be written in prose. From
+this time until the middle of the fifteenth century most of what we now
+call romantic fiction was produced, although many imitations and
+translations appeared in England for more than a century afterward. The
+exact dates of the different romances and the names of their authors
+cannot be positively established, as the early copies were undated, and
+the names prefixed to them are believed to be fictitious. During this
+period were given to the world, among many others, the romances of
+Merlin the Enchanter, of Launcelot du Lac, of Meliadus, of his son
+Tristram, of Gyron le Courtoys, of Perceval le Gallois, and, finally,
+that of the Saint Greal, in which the whole body of knights-errant are
+represented, probably by some monkish writer, in the search for the
+Holy Cup which had held the blood of Christ. At last Sir Thomas Malory,
+a London knight, well read in chivalric literature, combined these
+tales in the volume he called the "Morte d'Arthur," an excellent
+specimen of a chivalric romance, which was printed by Caxton in 1485,
+and has since appeared in many editions down to the present day.
+
+The influence of the supernatural appears in the very beginning of the
+"Morte d'Arthur," and throughout we trace its controlling effect upon
+the incidents of the story. It is by the help of Merlin's magic that
+King Uther Pendragon slays the Duke of Cornwall, and assuming the
+likeness of his rival, obtains possession of his wife Igraine, "a faire
+ladye, and a passing wyse," from which union Arthur is born. On the
+death of Uther, when the chief nobles and knights are summoned to
+London by the Archbishop of Canterbury to choose a new king, it is
+Merlin's art which discovers to them a sword imbedded in a great rock
+in the churchyard of St. Paul's bearing the inscription: "Whoso pulleth
+this sword out of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all
+England"; and it is by the same supernatural aid that the stripling
+Arthur, whose birth is unknown, fulfils the task which all had essayed
+in vain. By the friendly influence of Merlin, Arthur receives his
+famous sword Excalibur from the hands of the Lady of the Lake, with the
+scabbard whose wearer can lose no blood; he defeats with great
+slaughter the hosts of the eleven kings who dispute his throne; and
+obtains in marriage the celebrated Guenever, who brings him in dowry
+the Table Round. But Merlin, who could do so much for others, had the
+power only to foresee, and not to avert, his own impending fate.
+Enamoured of a fickle damsel, who soon tires of his love, the great
+enchanter discloses his secrets to her, and with a sad farewell and
+final advice to Arthur, he suffers himself to be imprisoned forever in
+the rock which his own magic had wrought, by the spell which he had
+intrusted to his treacherous mistress. The friendly arts of Merlin are
+succeeded by the machinations of the malicious fairy Morgana, and the
+watchful care of the the Lady of the Lake. To excite the childlike
+wonder of his readers, the romancer turns knights to stone, or makes
+them invisible; he introduces enchanted castles, vessels that steer
+themselves, and the miraculous properties of the Saint Greal, Arthur
+and Tristram fight with dragons and giants. The loves of Tristram and
+Isoud arise from the drinking of an amorous potion. The chastity of
+knight and damsel is determined by the magic horn, whose liquor the
+innocent drink, but the guilty spill; and by the enchanted garland,
+which blooms on the brow of the chaste, but withers on that of the
+faithless. Inventions such as these were regarded as facts, or at least
+as possible occurrences, by the readers of romantic fiction. Men
+believed what they were told, and to doubt, to inquire were
+intellectual efforts which they knew not how to make, and which all the
+influences of their life opposed their making. There were no fictions
+in the romances more improbable than the accounts of foreign parts
+brought back by travellers. Sir John of Mandeville was not doubted when
+he wrote that he had met with a race of men who had only one eye, and
+that in the middle of the forehead, or a people with only one foot and
+that one large enough to be used as a parasol. The knight who had
+mastered the art of reading looked upon such stories as curious facts.
+His religion was a religion of miracles, and, ignorant of natural laws,
+he was accustomed to refer any unusual occurrence to the influence of
+supernatural beings, a habit of thought which presented an ever-ready
+solution to mysteries and problems otherwise inexplicable.
+
+The entire credence accorded to the supernatural features of the
+romance gave to it a power and an interest which has now, of course,
+disappeared; but the influence of the supernatural upon the work is so
+strong, that even the modern reader, wandering with Launcelot and
+Tristram in a world of wonders, meets a giant without surprise, and
+feels at home in an enchanted castle.
+
+When Arthur is finally established on his throne, the knights of the
+Round Table begin their wonderful career of adventure and gallantry.
+With them the reader roams over a vague and unreal land called Britain
+or Cornwall, in full armor, the ever ready lance in rest. At almost
+every turn a knight is met who offers combat, and each detail of the
+conflict--the rush of the horses, the breaking of lances, the final
+hand-to-hand with swords--is described with a minuteness which only the
+military enthusiasm of the Middle Ages could thoroughly appreciate.
+Sometimes our hero meets a damsel who tells a tale of wrong, and leads
+the knight to champion her cause; again, he encounters some old
+companion in arms, breaks a lance upon him by way of friendly
+salutation, and wanders with him in search of adventures, inquiring of
+a chance peasant or dwarf, of a wrong to be avenged, or a danger to be
+incurred. The reader attends tournaments, of which every blow and every
+fall are chronicled. He becomes familiar with the respective merits and
+prowess of a hundred different champions. He learns the laws of
+judicial combat, and the intricate rules of the chivalric code. With
+imagination aroused and sympathies excited he enters a life of
+alternate combat and love, almost real in the consistency of its
+improbability. Three gallant knights, Sir Gawaine, Sir Marhaus, and Sir
+Uwaine set out together in search of adventures.
+
+    At the last they cam in to a grete forest that was named the
+    countreye and foreste of Arroy and the countrey of straunge
+    auentures. In this countrey, said syr Marhaus cam neuer knyghte syn
+    it was crystened, but he fonde straunge auentures, and soo they
+    rode, and cam in to a depe valey ful of stones, and ther by they
+    sawe a fayr streme of water, aboue ther by was the hede of the
+    streme, a fayr fontayne, & thre damoysels syttynge therby. And
+    thenne they rode to them, and eyther salewed other, and the eldest
+    had a garland of gold aboute her hede, and she was thre score
+    wynter of age, or more, and her here[13] was whyte under the
+    garland. The second damoysel was of thirty wynter of age, with a
+    serkelet of gold aboute her hede. The thyrd damoysel was but xv
+    year of age, and a garland of floures aboute her hede. When these
+    knyghtes had soo beholde them, they asked hem the cause why they
+    sat at that fontayne; we be here, sayd the damoysels for thys
+    cause, yf we may see ony erraunt knyghtes to teche hem unto
+    straunge auentures, and ye be thre knyghtes that seken auentures,
+    and we be thre damoysels, and therfore eche one of yow must chose
+    one of us. And whan ye haue done soo, we wylle lede yow vnto thre
+    hyhe wayes, and there eche of yow shall chese a wey and his
+    damoysel wyth hym. And this day twelue monethe ye must mete here
+    ageyn and god sende yow your lyues, and ther to ye must plyzte your
+    trouthe. This is wel said, sayd Syr Marhaus. * * * Thenne euery
+    damoysel took her knyght by the raynes of his brydel, and broughte
+    him to the thre wayes, and there was their othe made to mete at the
+    fontayne that day twelue moneth and they were lyvynge, and soo they
+    kyst and departed, and eueryche knyghte sette his lady behynde
+    him.[14]
+
+Sir Alysandre le Orphelin holds a piece of ground against all comers. A
+damsel called La Belle Alice proclaims at Arthur's court that whoever
+overthrows him, shall have herself and all her lands. Many knights
+undertake the adventure, but all are defeated by Sir Alysandre.
+
+    And whanne La Beale Alys sawe hym juste soo wel, she thought hym a
+    passynge goodly knyght on horsbak. And thenne she lepte out of her
+    pauelione, and toke Syr Alisandre by the brydel, and thus she sayd;
+    Fayre knyght, I require the of thy knyghthode, shewe me thy vysage.
+    I dar wel, sayd Sir Alysander shewe my vysage. And then he put of
+    his helme, and she sawe his vysage, she said; O swete Jhesu! the I
+    must loue and neuer other. Thenne shewe me your vysage, said he.
+    Thenne she unwympeled her vysage. And whanne he saw her, he sayde,
+    here haue I fond my loue and my lady. Truly fayre lady, said he, I
+    promise yow to be your knyghte, and none other that bereth the lyf.
+    Now, gentil knyghte, said she, telle me your name. My name is, said
+    he, Alysander le Orphelyn. Now damoysel, telle me your name, said
+    he. My name is, said she, Alys la Beale Pilggrym. And whan we be
+    more at oure hertes ease both ye and I shalle telle other of what
+    blood we be come. Soo there was grete loue betwyxe them. And as
+    they thus talked, ther came a knyghte that hyght Harsouse le
+    Berbuse, and axed parte of sir Alysanders speres. Thenne Sir
+    Alysander encountred with hym, and at the fyrst Sir Alysander smote
+    hym ouer his hors croupe.[15]
+
+Sir Tristram is thus welcomed at Arthur's court:
+
+    Thenne Kynge Arthur took Sir Tristram by the hand, and wente to the
+    table round. Thenne came Quene Guenever and many ladyes with her,
+    and alle the ladyes sayden at one voyce, welcome Sir Tristram,
+    welcome, said the damoysels, welcome said knightes, welcome said
+    Arthur, for one of the best knyghts and the gentylst of the world,
+    and the man of moost worship, for all manner of hunting thou berest
+    the pryce, and of all mesures of blowynge thou art the begynninge,
+    and of alle the termes of huntynge and haukinge ye are the
+    begynner, of all Instrumentes of musyke ye are the best, therefor
+    gentyl knyght, said Arthur, ye are welcome to this courte.[16]
+
+The description of the combat between King Arthur and Accolon is
+perhaps the most interesting of the kind which the "Morte d'Arthur"
+contains. Accolon of Gaul had by the aid of Morgan le Fay obtained
+possession of Arthur's enchanted sword and scabbard.[17]
+
+    And thenne they dressyd hem on bothe partyes of the felde, & lete
+    their horses renne so fast that eyther smote other in the myddes of
+    the shelde, with their speres hede, that bothe hors and man wente
+    to the erthe. And thenne they sterte up bothe, and pulled oute
+    their swerdys, * * * And so they went egrely to the battaille, and
+    gaf many grete strokes, but alweyes Arthurs swerd bote[18] not like
+    Accolon's swerd. But for the most party euery stroke that Accolon
+    gaf he wounded sore Arthur, that it was merucylle he stode. And
+    alweyes his blood fylle from him fast. When Arthur behelde the
+    ground so sore bebledde he was desmayed, and thenne he demed
+    treason that his swerd was chaunged, for his swerd boote not
+    styl[19] as it was wont to do, therefore he dredde hym sore to be
+    dede, for euer hym seemed that the swerd in Accolons hand was
+    Excalibur, for at euery stroke that Accolon stroke he drewe blood
+    on Arthur. Now knyghte, said Accolon unto Arthur, kepe the wel from
+    me, but Arthur ansuered not ageyne, and gat hym suche a buffet on
+    the helme that he made hym to stoupe nygh fallynge doune to the
+    earthe. Thenne Sir Accolon with drewe hym a lytel, and cam on with
+    Excalibur on hyghe, and smote Syr Arthur suche a buffet that he
+    felle nyhe to the erthe. Thenne were they wroth bothe, and gaf eche
+    other many sore strokes, but alweyes Syr Arthur lost so muche blood
+    that it was merucille he stode on his feet, but he was so ful of
+    knighthode, that knyghtly he endured the payne. And Syr Accolon
+    lost not a dele of blood, therefore he waxed passynge lyghte, and
+    Syr Arthur was passynge feble, and wende veryly to have dyed, but
+    for al that he made countenaunce as though he myghte endure, and
+    helde Accolon as shorte as he myght. But Accolon was bolde by cause
+    of Excalibur that he waxed passynge hardy. * * * And therewith he
+    cam fyersly upon Arthur, and syre Arthur was wrothe for the blood
+    that he had lost, and smote Accolon on hyhe upon the helme soo
+    myztely that he made hym nyhe to falle to the erthe. And therewith
+    Arthurs swerd brast at the crosse and felle in the grasse amonge
+    the blood, and the pommel and the sure handels he helde in his
+    handes. When syr Arthur sawe that, he was in grete fere to dye, but
+    alweyes he helde vp his shelde and lost no ground nor bated no
+    chere. Thenne syre Accolon beganne with wordes of treason, and sayd
+    knyghte thow arte overcome, and mayste not endure, and also thow
+    arte wepenles, and thow hast loste moche of thy blood, and I am ful
+    lothe to slee the, therfor yelde the to me as recreaunt. Nay, saide
+    syre Arthur I maye not so, for I haue promysed to doo the bataille
+    to the vttermost by the feythe of my body whyle me lasteth the lyf,
+    and therfor I had leuer to dye with honour than to lyve with shame.
+    And yf it were possyble for me to dye an C tymes, I had leuer to
+    dye so ofte, than yelde me to the, for though I lacke wepen, I
+    shalle lacke no worship. And yf thou slee me wepenles that shalle
+    be thy shame. Wel, sayd Accolon, as for the shame I wyl not spare.
+    Now kepe the from me, for thow arte but a dede ma. And therwith
+    Accolon gaf hym suche a stroke that he felle nyghe to the erthe,
+    and wolde haue had Arthur to haue cryed hym mercy. But syre Arthur
+    pressed unto Accolon with his sheld and gaf hym with the pomel in
+    his hand suche a buffet that he wente thre strydes abak. * * * And
+    at the next stroke Syr Accolon stroke hym suche a stroke that by
+    the damoysels enchauntement the swerd Excalibur felle oute of
+    Accolons hande to the erthe. And therwith alle syre Arthur lyghtely
+    lepte to hit, and gate hit in his hand, and forwith al he knewe
+    that it was his suerd Excalibur, & sayd thow hast ben from me al to
+    long, & moche dommage hast thow done me. * * * And therwith syr
+    Arthur russhed on hym with hys myghte, and pulled hym to the erthe,
+    and thenne russhed of his helme, and gaf hym suche a buffet on the
+    hede that the blood cam oute at his eres, his nose & his mouthe.
+    Now wyll I slee the said Arthur. Slee me ye may wel, said Accolon,
+    and it please yow, for ye ar the best knyghte that euer I fonde,
+    and I see wel that god is with yow.
+
+The knights of the Round Table had much more difficulty in dealing with
+one another than in overcoming the most redoubtable giants. Sir
+Launcelot arrived at a giant's castle,[20] and "he looked aboute, and
+sawe moche peple in dores and wyndowes that sayd fayre knyghte thow art
+unhappy. Anone with al cam there vpon hym two grete gyaunts wel armed
+al sauf the hedes, with two horryble clubbes in theyr handes. Syre
+Launcelot put his sheld afore hym and put the stroke aweye of the one
+gyaunt, and with his swerd he clafe his hede a sondre. Whan his felaw
+sawe that, he ran awey as he were wood, for fere of the horryble
+strokes, & laucelot after hym with al his myzt & smote hym on the
+sholder, and clafe hym to the nauel. Thenne Syre Launcelot went in to
+the halle, and there came afore hym thre score ladyes and damoysels,
+and all kneled unto hym, and thanked God and hym of their
+delyveraunce." The horrors of battle as recounted by the romancers lose
+much of their painfulness by the enjoyment which the combatants take in
+them, and by the facility with which the most terrible wounds are
+healed. The mediaeval passion for conflict and violence could hardly be
+more strikingly illustrated than by the words of the mother of
+Tristram, who had just given birth to her son in the midst of a forest,
+and being far from human aid, sees that her end is near. "Now lete me
+see my lytel child for whome I haue had alle this sorowe. And whan she
+sawe hym she said thus, A my lytel sone, thou hast murthered thy moder,
+and therfore I suppose, thou that art a murtherer soo yong, thou arte
+ful lykely to be a manly man in thyn age."[21]
+
+From the recital of combats we turn to tales of love. The most
+interesting of these relate to Launcelot and Guenever, and to Tristram
+and Isould. They differ in many respects, and yet share the noteworthy
+feature that both the women are already married, and their lovers are
+connected by ties of relationship or of great intimacy with the
+husbands whom they wrong. Arthur, however, is made to preserve,
+throughout the story of his deception, the same dignity and the same
+respect which he had always possessed, and in the loyalty of his
+character never admits a doubt of his wife's virtue; while King Mark,
+the husband of Isould, loses the sympathy of the reader by his
+treachery and cowardice, and is always conscious of Isould's
+infidelity. Guenever and Launcelot feel the deeper and the nobler
+passion, as theirs is inspired solely by each other's merit, while that
+of Isould and Tristram is inflamed by an amorous potion. The immorality
+of these love stories was not in the Middle Ages the same immorality
+which it would be considered at present. The conditions of life were
+all opposed to self restraint. The standard of morals was set by the
+church, and according to her interpretation of Christianity, continence
+was so subsidiary to orthodoxy, that what would now be considered a
+crime, was in the Middle Ages an irregularity which need not weigh on
+the conscience. Evidence of this is amply supplied by the social
+history of the time, and the fact is fully illustrated by the
+romances. The authors of these compositions, from their tendency to
+idealization, held up to their readers a higher view of virtue in every
+respect than was practised in actual life, and in their writings,
+conjugal infidelity is of constant occurrence. The fictitious
+personages who indulge in licence are but dimly conscious of
+wrong-doing, and almost the only evidence of a realization of their
+fault is in the Quest of the Saint Greal, when Launcelot and other
+noble knights acknowledge that the attainment of the sacred prize is
+not for them as being "sinful men," and the quest is achieved by the
+spotless Sir Galahad, who, impersonating the purifying influence of
+Christianity, forms the most striking character conceived by the
+fertile imagination of the Middle Ages. The virtue of constancy was far
+more admired than that of chastity, and it is said of Guenever, whose
+sin had brought such calamity upon the Round Table, that "as she was a
+true lover, so she had a good end."
+
+Launcelot and Tristram vie with one another in the deeds of chivalry
+which they accomplish in honor of their ladies, and the intimacy which
+exists between the two knights and their mistresses adds much to the
+interest of the story. A fine touch in the loves of Tristram and Isould
+is the introduction of Sir Palomides, a valiant knight, almost the
+equal of Tristram in prowess, who loves Isould as passionately as his
+successful rival, but finds no favor to reward a long career of
+devotion. The passions of jealousy and hatred on the one hand, and
+knightly courtesy and honor on the other, which alternately sway the
+two warriors, and struggle for the mastery in their relations with each
+other, form a touching picture, and show that the romancers could
+occasionally rise above the description of conflicts to a study of the
+heart and character of men.
+
+That our lovers felt a deep and absorbing passion, there can be no
+doubt. Sir Dynas, the Seneschal, tells the Queen la Belle Isould that
+Sir Tristram is near: "Thenne for very pure joye la Beale Isould
+swouned, & whan she myghte speke, she said, gentyl knyghte Seneschall
+help that I myghte speke with him, outher my herte will braste." They
+meet, and then "to telle the joyes that were between la Beale Isoud and
+sire Tristram, there is no tongue can telle it, nor herte thinke it,
+nor pen wryte it." When Tristram thought Isoud unfaithful, he "made
+grete sorowe in so much that he fell downe of his hors in a swoune, and
+in suche sorowe he was in thre dayes and thre nyghtes." When he left
+her, Isoud was found "seke in here bedde, makynge the grettest dole
+that ever ony erthly woman made." "Sire Alysander beheld his lady Alys
+on horsbak as he stood in her pauelione. And thenne was he soo
+enamoured upon her that he wyst not whether he were on horsbak or on
+foote." Sir Gareth falls in love at first sight: "and euer the more syr
+Gareth behelde that lady, the more he loued her, and soo he burned in
+loue that he was past himself in his reason, and forth toward nyghte
+they wente unto supper, and sire Gareth myghte not ete for his loue was
+soo hot that he wyst not wher he was."
+
+The Roman war introduced into the "Morte d'Arthur" is a curious
+illustration of the vagueness of the historical groundwork of the
+romances of chivalry. The memory of Roman power was still too great to
+permit a warrior to achieve greatness without having matched his
+strength against that of Rome, and thus we have the singular spectacle
+of King Arthur with his adventurous knights, clad in mail, passing
+easily through "Almayne" into Italy, conquering giants by the way, and
+reducing the Emperor Lucius to dependence.
+
+The story of the Saint Greal originally formed a distinct romance, but
+it was the dull production of some ascetic monk, who thought that the
+knights of the Round Table were too much occupied with secular
+pursuits, and who found no greater encomium to pass upon Sir Galahad,
+than to call him a "maid." But the idea of the Christian knighthood
+setting out to seek the Holy Cup was "marvellous and adventurous," and
+so well suited to please the mediaeval mind that we find this quest
+introduced into several of the romances of chivalry, and it appears,
+though in an incomplete form, in the "Morte d'Arthur." The adventures
+met with by the knighthood are much the same as when they were pursuing
+a less lofty object. Sir Galahad occupies the intervals between his
+serious occupations with rolling his father Sir Launcelot and other
+noble knights into the dust in the usual unsaintly fashion. The
+supernatural element is stronger perhaps in the story of the Saint
+Greal than in any other romance, and the monkish inspiration of the
+work is everywhere manifest. When Sir Galahad rescues the inmates of
+the Castle of Maidens by overthrowing their oppressors, the romancer
+points out that the Castle of Maidens "betokeneth the good souls that
+were in prison before the incarnation of Jesu Christ." It is here also
+that we learn that "Sir Launcelot is come but of the eighth degree from
+our Lord Jesu Christ, and Sir Galahad is of the ninth degree from our
+Lord Jesu Christ; therefore I dare say that they may be the greatest
+gentlemen of the world."
+
+When we have read of the "byrth, lyf and actes of Kyng Arthur, of his
+noble knyghtes of the rounde table, theyr mervayllous enquests and
+aduentures, th' achyeuyng of the sangreal," we come to the "dolorous
+deth and departyng out of this world of them." It is indeed a "pytous
+hystory." Long drawn out as the romance is, serious tax though it
+sometimes be on the reader's patience, the author succeeds in making us
+so familiar with all his heroes, in inspiring us with so deep and
+active a sympathy with them, that it is with a real sadness that we
+read of the dissensions brought about by the loves of Launcelot and
+Guenever, the deserted Round Table, the separation of life-long
+companions, and the fraternal war between Sir Launcelot, Sir Gawaine,
+and King Arthur. Their love for each other was so strong that it is not
+wholly quenched even in the sanguinary struggles which follow, and it
+bursts forth in full vigor when death comes upon them in the midst of
+their fury. Sir Gawaine is the first to go, using his last strength to
+write to Sir Launcelot begging his forgiveness: "I byseche the, Sir
+Launcelot, to retorne ageyne vnto this realme, and see my tombe, &
+praye some prayer more or lesse for my soule."
+
+    Whan syr Arthur wyst that syre Gawayne was layd so lowe he went
+    vnto hym, and there the kyng made sorowe oute of mesure, and took
+    sire Gawayne in his armes, and thryes[22] he there swouned. And
+    thenne whan he awaked, he sayd, allas Sir Gawayne my sisters sone,
+    here now thou lyggest[23], the man in the world that I loued moost,
+    and now is my joye gone, for now my neuewe syre Gawayne I will
+    discouer me vnto your persone, in syr Launcelot & you I had moost
+    my joye and myn affyaunce, & now haue I lost my joye of you bothe,
+    wherefor all myn erthely joye is gone from me.[24]
+
+We turn from the death of Sir Gawaine only to witness the mortal blow
+dealt to King Arthur; to see his famous sword Excalibur, which he had
+borne so nobly and so long, returned to the Lady of the Lake; and the
+almost lifeless body of the great king carried away over the water by
+the fairy queens, disappearing at last beneath the horizon. Guenever
+would seen to have deserved a harder fate than simply to retire to a
+nunnery of which she is made the abbess. Sir Launcelot dies a holy man
+and a monk, saying masses for the souls of his old companions in arms.
+With his death the old glory of the Round Table passes away forever.
+
+    And whan syr Ector herd suche noyse & lyghte in the quyre of joyous
+    Garde, he alyghted and put his hors from hym, and came in to the
+    quyre, & there he sawe men synge the seruyse full lamentably. And
+    alle they knewe syre Ector, but he knewe not them. Thenne went syr
+    Bors to syr Ector, & tolde him how there laye hys broder syr
+    Launcelot dede, and then syr Ector threwe his shelde, hys swerde &
+    helme from hym. And whan he behelde syr Launcelot's vysage, he
+    felle donne in a sowne. And when he awakyd it were harde for any
+    tonge to telle the doleful complayntes that he made for his broder.
+    A, syr Launcelot, he sayd, thou were head of all Crysten knyztes,
+    and now I dare saye, sayd syr Ector, thou syr Launcelot, ther thou
+    lyest, that thou were neuer matched of none erthely knyghtes
+    handes. And thou were the curtoyste knyghte that ever bare shelde.
+    And thou were the truest frend to thy louer that euer bestradde
+    hors, & thou were the truest louer of a synfull man that euer loued
+    woman. And thou were the kyndest man that euer stroke wyth swerde.
+    And thou were the goodelyest persone that euer came among prees of
+    knyghtes. And thou were the mekest man & the gentylest that euer
+    ete in halle amonge ladyes. And thou were the sternest knyghte to
+    thy mortall foo that euer put spere in the reyst. Thenne there was
+    wepyng & dolour oute of mesure.[25]
+
+The literary form of the "Morte d'Arthur" admits of description rather
+than of criticism. A noble and forcible simplicity of expression
+pervades the old Norman French in which the romances of chivalry were
+first written, which is well reflected in the English of Sir Thomas
+Malory. Of plot there is none. The same vagueness pervades the course
+of the narrative, which is characteristic of the historical groundwork,
+the geography, and the time of action. Most of the incidents depend on
+chance. Life in the Middle Ages was a very serious affair, and in the
+romances there was almost no attempt at wit or humor. In the "Morte
+d'Arthur," perhaps the only passage which might have raised a laugh among
+the early readers of the romance, is that in which King Arthur's fool
+Dagonet is clad in Sir Mordred's armor, and in that disguise is made to
+chase before him the coward King Mark. The authors of the romances of
+chivalry never attempted delineation of character. Their heroes are
+good knights or bad knights, and in either case possess only the
+particular qualities which would place them in one of these categories.
+The female characters are still more slightly drawn, and show no
+distinct attributes except beauty and a capacity to love.
+
+In laying down the "Morte d'Arthur," and bidding farewell to the
+Middle Ages with their heroes of chivalry, we come to the end of a most
+picturesque period of English history,--a period marked by lights and
+shadows, rather than by distinct forms. There was ferocity, and there
+was courtesy; there was brilliant show and rude coarseness; there were
+scenes of blood and scenes of noble chivalry. In the next chapter we
+shall notice the tendencies which were at work to replace this state of
+society by a better. But to the Middle Ages will always be traced much
+that is distinctive of English character, and in the history of fiction
+we may fairly allow to the knights of romance the legendary charm and
+fascination which hang about their bright helmets in the long vista of
+departed years.
+
+
+[Footnote 13: Hair.]
+
+[Footnote 14: "Morte d'Arthur." Southey's reprint from Caxton's ed.,
+1485, chaps. xix and xx. book 4.]
+
+[Footnote 15: "Morte d'Arthur," book 10, chap. xxxix.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Southey's "Morte d'Arthur," vol. 2, p. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 17: "Morte d'Arthur," book 4, chap. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Hit, cut.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Cut not steel.]
+
+[Footnote 20: "Morte d'Arthur," book 6, ch. x.]
+
+[Footnote 21: "Morte d'Arthur," book 8, ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 22: Thrice.]
+
+[Footnote 23: Liest.]
+
+[Footnote 24: "Morte d'Arthur," book 22, chap. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 25: "Morte d'Arthur," book 22, chap. xiii.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAUCER. POPULAR TALES. MORE'S "UTOPIA."
+
+
+In the history of English intellectual development between the vague
+ignorance of the Middle Ages and the new growth of learning in the
+sixteenth century, stands the great figure of Chaucer. The first
+English writer possessing dramatic power, he is the first also to unite
+with the art of story-telling, the delineation and study of human
+character. In his translation of the "Romaunt of the Rose" he belongs
+to the Middle Ages,--a period of uncontrolled imagination, of
+unsubstantial creations, of external appearances copied without
+reflection. In his "Canterbury Tales" he belongs to the present,--when
+Reason asserts her authority, gives the stamp of individual reality to
+the characters of fiction, and studies the man himself behind his
+outward and visible form.
+
+The creations of romantic fiction were unreal beings distinguished by
+different names, by the different insignia on their shields, and by the
+degree in which they possessed the special qualities which formed the
+ideal of mediaeval times. The story of their lives was but a series of
+adventures, strung together without plan, the overflow of an active but
+ungoverned imagination. The pilgrims to the shrine of Canterbury are
+men and women, genuine flesh and blood, as thoroughly individual and
+distinct as the creations of Shakespeare and of Fielding. They dress,
+they talk, each one after his own manner and according to his position
+in life, telling a story appropriate to his disposition and suitable to
+his experience. The knight, with armor battered in "mortal battailles"
+with the Infidel, describes the adventures of Palamon and Arcite, a
+tale of chivalry. The lusty young squire, bearing himself well, "in
+hope to stonden in his lady grace," tells an Eastern tale of love and
+romance. The prioress, "all conscience and tendre herte," relates the
+legend of "litel flew of Lincoln," murdered by the Jews for singing his
+hymn to the Virgin. The clerk of Oxford, who prefers to wealth and
+luxury his "twenty bookes clad in blak or reede," contributes the story
+of the patient Griselda.
+
+The "Canterbury Tales" are so familiar that an extended notice of them
+here would be superfluous, especially as we are dealing with narratives
+in prose form. But in seeking to trace the origin and progress of the
+English novel as it is now written, we must record the first appearance
+of its special characteristics in the works of Chaucer. Here are first
+to be seen real human beings, endowed with human virtues and subject to
+human frailties; here fictitious characters are first represented amid
+the homely scenes of daily life; here they first become living
+realities whose nature and dispositions every one may understand, and
+with whose thoughts every one may sympathize. We must notice, also, the
+significant fact that of the thirty-two pilgrims who jogged along
+together that April day, four were of a military character, eleven
+belonged to the clergy, and seventeen were of the common people. A
+century before Chaucer's time, when the feudal spirit was still
+all-powerful, there were but two classes of men thought worthy of
+consideration, the knighthood and the clergy; and in the romances of
+chivalry knights and priests exclusively composed the _dramatis
+personae_. But the slow progress of the masses, in whom lies the chief
+strength of a nation, becomes visible in Chaucer's time. In the towns
+the tradesmen were rising to wealth and consideration. In the country
+the yeomanry--the laborers and farmers--were throwing off their
+serfdom, and emerging from the chrysalis of obscurity in which they had
+long been hidden. At Cressy and Poitiers the English archers disputed
+with the knighthood the honors of victory. While Chaucer was planning
+the "Canterbury Tales," introducing into his gallery of contemporary
+portraits more figures of tradesmen than of knights or priests, the
+Peasant Revolt took place; the common people, long trodden in the dust,
+rose in defence of their rights as men, and John Ball, the "mad priest
+of Kent," asked questions of the yeomen about him which showed how
+surely the Middle Ages were becoming a part of the past. "By what right
+are they whom we call lords greater folk than we? * * * If we all came
+of the same father and mother, of Adam and Eve, how can they say or
+prove that they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain
+for them by our toil what they spend in their pride?" * * * "When Adam
+delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"[26] As in the history
+of Chaucer's time, so in his "Canterbury Tales" we perceive the decline
+of feudal and priestly tyranny which had gone hand in hand: the one
+keeping up a perpetual state of war and violence; the other limiting
+and enfeebling the human intellect, the activity of which could alone
+raise mankind out of barbarism.
+
+The passion for war and for a military life which had kept Europe in a
+state of constant disturbance during the Middle Ages, which had brought
+about the Hundred Years' struggle between England and France, and which
+had found its worst issue in the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth
+century, had, in the sixteenth century largely spent its force. The
+pomp and luxury of chivalry had lessened the activity of military
+feelings. The expense entailed by chivalric pageantry had diminished
+the power of the nobles over their dependents. Many feudal barons were
+obliged to sell liberty and privileges to part of their bondsmen to
+obtain the wherewithal to maintain the remainder. The gradual growth of
+the towns and of trade produced a class which, having all to lose and
+nothing to gain by war, threw its influence against disorder. The
+advance in the study and practice of law diminished habits of violence
+by furnishing legal redress. But the most powerful agent in destroying
+the old warlike taste was the invention of gunpowder. In the Middle
+Ages the whole male population had been soldiers in spirit and in fact.
+But the application of gunpowder to the art of war made it necessary
+that men should be especially trained for the military profession. A
+limited number were therefore separated from the main body of the
+people, who occupied themselves exclusively with military affairs,
+while the remainder were left to pursue the hitherto neglected arts of
+peace. The love of war and the indifference to human suffering so long
+nourished by feudalism could only be thoroughly extinguished by
+centuries of gradual progress. The heads of queens and ministers of
+state falling from the block attest the strength of these feelings in
+Henry the Eighth's time. They were, however, fast losing ground before
+the new growth of learning. Their decline is illustrated by the fiction
+of the sixteenth century, as their full power was depicted in the early
+romances of chivalry.
+
+In the sixteenth century, chivalry as an institution, and even as an
+influential ideal had entirely passed away. The specimens of romantic
+fiction which were read during the reigns of Henry the Eighth and of
+Elizabeth could no longer appeal to an entirely warlike and
+superstitious class. They were modified to meet new tastes, and in the
+process became superior in literary merit, but inferior in force and
+interest. This is especially true of the romances translated from the
+Spanish. Amadis of Gaul and Palmerin of England show merits of
+narrative sequence and elegance of expression which did not belong to
+the earlier romances, of which the "Morte d'Arthur" formed a
+compendium. But the chivalry of Amadis and Palmerin was polished,
+refined and exaggerated till it became entirely fanciful and lost the
+old fire and spirit. In the so-called tales of chivalry produced or
+adapted by English writers during this century there is no trace of the
+poetry and interest of chivalric sentiments. In "Tom-a-Lincoln," the
+Red Rose Knight, the noble King Arthur is represented as an old dotard,
+surrounded by knights who bear no resemblance in person or in the
+nature of their adventures to their prototypes of romantic fiction.[27]
+
+The ideal character of the yeomanry succeeded to the ideal character
+of the knighthood; Robin Hood and his merry companions took the place
+in the popular mind which belonged to King Arthur and his knights of
+the Table Round. The yeomen of England were imbued with a spirit of
+courage and liberty unknown to the same class on the continent of
+Europe, and their love of freedom and restless activity of disposition
+found a reflection in the person of their hero. Supposed to have lived
+in the thirteenth century, his name and achievements have been sung in
+countless rhymes and ballads, and have remained dear to the common
+people down to the present day. The patron of archery, the embodiment
+of the qualities most loved by the people--courage, generosity,
+faithfulness, hardihood,--the places he frequented, the well he drank
+from, have always retained his name, and his bow, with one of his
+arrows, was preserved with veneration as late as the present
+century.[28] The ideal of the yeomanry was similar to that of chivalry
+in the love of blows fairly given and cheerfully taken, in the love of
+fighting for fighting's sake. It was similar in the courtesy which was
+always a characteristic of Robin Hood; in the religious devotion which
+caused the outlaw to hear three masses every morning before setting out
+on his depredations; in the gallantry which restrained him from
+molesting any party which contained a woman.[29] But the tales relating
+to Robin Hood differ from those of the Round Table in their entire
+freedom from affectation and from supernatural machinery. They
+breathe, too, an open-air spirit of liberty and enjoyment which was
+pleasing and comprehensible to the dullest intellect, and which made
+them, in the broadest sense, popular. The good-humored combativeness of
+the yeoman sympathized with every beating which Robin Hood received,
+and with every beating which he gave. In Robin's enmity to the clergy,
+in his injunction to his followers,
+
+     "Thyse byshopppes and thyse archebyshoppes,
+      Ye shall them bete and bynde,"
+
+the people applauded resistance to the extortion of the church. In
+Robin's defiance of the law and its officers, they applauded resistance
+to the tyranny of the higher classes. Waylaying sheriffs and priests,
+or shooting the king's deer in Sherwood Forest, the famous outlaw and
+his merry men, clad all in green, were the popular heroes. On Robin
+Hood's day the whole population turned gaily out to celebrate his
+festival, never weary of singing or hearing the ballads which
+commemorated his exploits. Robin was a robber, but in times of disorder
+highway robbery has always been an honorable occupation, and the
+outlaws of Sherwood Forest were reputed to give to the poor what they
+took from the rich. Diligent enquiries have been made to ascertain
+whether the personage known as Robin Hood had a real existence, but
+without positive results. The story of his life is purely legendary,
+and the theories in regard to him have never advanced beyond
+hypothesis. It is exceedingly probable that such a man lived in the
+twelfth or thirteenth century, and that the exploits of other less
+prominent popular heroes were connected with his name and absorbed in
+his reputation. The noble descent which has often been ascribed to him
+is in all likelihood the result of the mediaeval idea, that the great
+virtues existed only in persons of gentle birth. This very prevalent
+opinion is often apparent in the romances of chivalry, where knights of
+exceptional valor, who had supposed themselves to be basely descended,
+almost invariably turn out to be the long-lost offspring of a famous
+and noble person. Like the tales of chivalry, the narratives of Robin
+Hood's adventures were sung and recited in metrical form long before
+they found their way into prose. The following extract forms a part of
+the first chapter of the story called the "Merry Exploits of Robin
+Hood," which had a considerable circulation in the sixteenth century.
+
+    "Robin Hood's Delights; or, a gallant combate fought between Robin
+    Hood, Little John, and William Scarlock, and three of the keepers
+    of the King's deer, in the forest of Sherwood, in Nottinghamshire."
+
+    "On a midsummer's day, in the morning, Robin Hood, being
+    accompanied with Little John and William Scarlock, did walk forth
+    betimes, and wished that in the way they might meet with some
+    adventures that might be worthy of their valour; they had not
+    walked long by the forrest side, but behold three of the keepers of
+    the king's game appeared, with their forrest-bills in their hands,
+    and well appointed with faucheons and bucklers to defend
+    themselves. Loe here (saith Robin Hood) according to our wish we
+    have met with our mates, and before we part from them we will try
+    what mettle they are made off. What, Robin Hood, said one of the
+    keepers; I the same, reply'd Robin. Then have at you, said the
+    keepers; here are three of us and three of you, we will single out
+    ourselves one to one; and bold Robin, I for my part am resolved to
+    have a bout with thee. Content, with all my heart, said Robin Hood,
+    and Fortune shall determine who shall have the best, the outlaws
+    or the keepers; with that they did lay down their coats, which
+    were all of Lincoln Green, and fell to it for the space of two
+    hours with their brown bills, in which hot exercise Robin Hood,
+    Little John and Scarlock had the better, and giving the rangers
+    leave to breathe, demanded of them how they liked them; Why! good
+    stout blades i'faith, saith the keeper that fought with Robin, we
+    commend you. * * * I see that you are stout men, said Robin Hood,
+    we will fight no more in this place, but come and go with me to
+    Nottingham, (I have silver and gold enough about me) and there we
+    will fight it out at the King's Head tavern with good sack and
+    claret; and after we are weary we will lay down our arms, and
+    become sworn brothers to one another, for I love those men that
+    will stand to it, and scorn to turn their backs for the proudest
+    Tarmagant of them all. With all our hearts, jolly Robin, said the
+    keepers to him; so putting up their swords and on their doublets,
+    they went to Nottingham, where for three days space they followed
+    the pipes of sack, and butts of claret without intermission, and
+    drank themselves good friends."
+
+The story of "George-a-Green," the brave Pindar of Wakefield is very
+similar to that of Robin Hood. George was as fond as his more noted
+friend of giving and taking hard knocks, and it is his skilful and
+judicious use of the quarter-staff in fulfilling the duties of his
+office, which gives rise to the incidents of the story. A curious relic
+of chivalry appears in the passage where Robin Hood the outlaw, and
+George a-Green the pound-keeper, meet to decide with their
+quarter-staves the relative merit of their sweethearts.[30]
+
+Of the stories relating to the yeomanry the most important was the
+"Pleasant Historic of Thomas of Reading; or, The Sixe Worthie Yeomen of
+the West," by Thomas Deloney, a famous ballad-maker of the 16th
+century. It is the narrative of the life and fortunes of a worthy
+clothier of Henry the First's time, telling how he rose to wealth and
+prosperity, and was finally murdered by an innkeeper. There is
+interwoven a relation of the unhappy loves of the "faire Margaret,"
+daughter of the exiled Earl of Shrewsbury, and of Duke Robert, the
+King's brother, which ends in the Duke losing his eyes, and the fair
+Margaret being immured in a convent. The story illustrates some curious
+old customs, and is written in an unaffected and easy style, which
+makes it still very readable. A passage describing the churching feast
+of the wife of one of the "Sixe worthie yeomen," makes a natural and
+humorous picture of contemporary manners.
+
+    Sutton's wife of Salisbury, which had lately bin deliuered of a
+    sonne, against her going to church, prepared great cheare; at what
+    time Simon's wife of Southhampton came thither, and so did diuers
+    others of the clothiers' wiues, onely to make merry at this
+    churching feast: and whilest these dames sate at the table, Crab,
+    Weasell and Wren waited on the board, and as the old Prouerbe
+    speaketh, Many women, many words, so tell it out at that time; for
+    there was such prattling that it passed: some talkt of their
+    husbands' frowardnes, some shewed their maids' sluttishnes,
+    othersome deciphered the costlines of their garments, some told
+    many tales of their neighbours: and to be briefe there was none of
+    them but would have talke for a whole day.
+
+    But when Crab, Weazell and Wren saw this, they concluded betwixt
+    themselves, that as oft as any of the women had a good bit of meate
+    on their trenchers, they offering a cleane one should catch that
+    commodity, and so they did; but the women being busie in talke,
+    marked it not, till at the last one found leisure to misse her
+    meate * * * The women seeing their men so merry, said it was a
+    sign there was good ale in the house.[31]
+
+As the decline of disorder and of martial tastes had given men the
+opportunity to lead other than military lives, so the decline of the
+theological spirit enabled them to attain that diffusion of knowledge
+without which there could be no civilization. The Roman clergy, during
+many centuries, partly from conscientious motives, and partly to
+maintain their own power, had suppressed intellectual and material
+advancement, and had kept men in a state of gross ignorance and
+superstition. In England the church gradually lost her old influence by
+her internal rottenness: she was unable to resist the new growth of
+learning which sprung up in the first half of the sixteenth century;
+and her power for evil was destroyed by the Reformation. The
+superstitions, however, which she had nourished, lingered long after
+her power had passed away, and these have given birth to some curious
+specimens of fiction. The natural tendency of an ignorant and
+superstitious people was to ascribe superior mental ability to
+intercourse with Satan, and to imagine that any unusual learning must
+be connected with the occult sciences. These ideas are illustrated by
+the stories relating to Friar Bacon and to Virgil which were printed
+during the sixteenth century, and which embodied the legends regarding
+these great men which had passed current for two hundred years. The
+same ignorant indifference to useful learning which made Roger Bacon,
+the great philosopher of the thirteenth century, "unheard, forgotten,
+buried," represented him after his death as a conjurer doing tricks for
+the amusement of a king. "The Famous Historie of Frier Bacon," is
+written in a clear and simple style, very similar to that of "Thomas of
+Reading," and recounts: "How Fryer Bacon made a Brazen Head to speake,
+by the which hee would have walled England about with Brasse"; "how
+Fryer Bacon by his arte took a towne, when the king had lyen before it
+three months, without doing to it any hurt"; with much more of the same
+sort. This story would be without interest, were it not for the
+introduction of the Friar's servant, one Miles, whose futile attempts
+at seconding his master's efforts, and sometimes at imitating them,
+occasion some very amusing scenes. Friar Bungay, the famous conjurer of
+Edward the Fourth's time, appears as Bacon's assistant.
+
+Virgil was treated in the same way. The age which turned Hercules into
+a knight-errant, very consistently represented the poet and philosopher
+as a magician. All through the Middle Ages the name of Virgil had been
+connected with necromancy. "The authors," says Naudeus,[32] "who have
+made mention of the magic of Virgil are so many that they cannot be
+examined one after another, without loss of much time." On the title
+page of the "Lyfe of Virgilius," we learn that: "This boke treateth of
+the lyfe of Virgilius, and of his deth, and many mervayles that he dyd
+in hys lyfe tyme by whychcrafte and nygramancye thorowgh the helpe of
+the devyls of Hell." Some of the "mervayles" being: "Howe Virgilius
+made a lampe that at all tymes brenned"; "howe Virgilius put out all
+the fyer of Rome"; "howe Virgilius made in Rome a metall serpente." In
+this story of Virgil occurs a curious instance of the appearance of the
+same incident in very different works of fiction. The poet being
+enamoured of a certain Roman lady, persuaded her to lower a basket from
+her window, in which he should enter and be drawn up to her chamber.
+The lady assented, but when the basket had ascended half way, she left
+her lover to hang there, exposed the next morning to the ridicule of
+the populace, for which treachery Virgil takes terrible revenge. This
+story of the basket became very popular; it was introduced into a well
+known French fabliau[33]; and Bulwer worked it, with slight changes,
+into his novel of "Pelham," where Monsieur Margot experiences the same
+sad reflections concerning the deceitfulness of woman, which had long
+before passed through the mind of Virgil.
+
+The devil himself, or more properly, one of the many devils who
+abounded in the sixteenth century, is the hero of the "Historie of
+Frier Rush."
+
+The imagination of the peasantry had peopled the woods and dells with
+gay and harmless spirits, fairies and imps. These were sometimes
+mischievous, but might always be propitiated, and excited in the rural
+mind curiosity and amusement rather than fear. But the clergy, who
+shared in the popular superstitions, and gave as ready a belief as the
+peasantry to the existence of these supernatural beings, were unable
+from the nature of their creed to admit the possibility that these
+spirits were harmless. To the monks all supernatural creatures were
+either angels or devils, and under their influence the imps and fairies
+whom the peasants believed to be dancing and playing pranks about them
+were turned into demons bent on the destruction of human souls.[34]
+Friar Rush was probably at one time a good natured imp like Robin Good
+Fellow, but under the influence, of Christian superstition he became
+the typical emissary from Satan, who played tricks among men calculated
+to set them by the ears, and who sought by various devices, always
+amusing, to fit them for residence in his master's dominions.
+
+In the history before us, which is probably only one of many which
+circulated concerning the mischievous friar, he obtains admission into
+a convent for the purpose of debauching its inmates. Having received
+employment as under-cook, he soon finds means to throw his master into
+a cauldron of boiling water, and pretending that the cook's death
+resulted from an accident, he obtains the chief position in the kitchen
+himself. He then provides the convent with such delicious food that the
+monks give themselves up entirely to material enjoyment, and finally
+reach a condition of degeneracy from which recovery is almost
+impossible. Rush, however, is exposed in time to prevent absolute ruin,
+and sets out to make up for this failure by good service elsewhere. The
+story is described on the title-page as "being full of pleasant mirth
+and delight for young people."
+
+The tales of the yeomanry were very popular during the sixteenth
+century, and were sold as penny chapbooks for many years. They form an
+interesting link in the history of English prose fiction, representing
+as they do the first appearance of a popular demand for prose stories,
+and the first appearance, except in Chaucer, of other than military or
+clerical heroes. They possess an element of reality which separates the
+chivalric ideal of the Middle Ages from the pastoral-chivalric ideal of
+Elizabeth's time, the latter typified by Sidney's "Arcadia." The tales
+relating to the conjurers are quite mediaeval in character. They are of
+interest only so far as they serve to illustrate the effect of popular
+superstition upon the literature of the time.
+
+The New Learning, growing up in the place of war and theology, meant
+the dawn of material prosperity, of the rule of law, and of a new
+intelligence diffused through the opinions and industries of men. Of
+this there is no better exposition than Sir Thomas More's "Utopia."
+More was a devout Catholic. He wore a hair shirt next his skin; he
+flogged himself; he gave his life for a theological principle. But he
+was also a Christian in a wider sense. He appreciated the importance to
+men of peace and happiness, as well as of orthodoxy. He sought to
+promote, what the clergy sought to destroy, the benefits of
+intellectual and material advancement. More was a lawyer, seeing
+clearly into the temper of his time, and discerning the new tendencies
+which were forming the opinions and influencing the actions of his
+countrymen. It was as a lawyer, too, that he was able to do this. As a
+soldier, or as the inmate of that Carthusian cell his youth had longed
+for, he would have shared the prevailing blindness. For many centuries
+all intellectual activity had been occupied with theological
+disputes,--how barren it is needless to say; all physical activity had
+been occupied in destroying or in protecting life. "There were indeed,"
+says Buckle,[35] "many priests and many warriors, many sermons and many
+battles. But, on the other hand, there was neither trade, nor commerce,
+nor manufactures; there was no science, no literature; the useful arts
+were entirely unknown; and even the highest ranks of society were
+unacquainted, not only with the most ordinary comforts, but with the
+commonest decencies of civilized life." But the New Learning dealt
+with secular subjects, and aimed at material welfare. At Antwerp, says
+More:
+
+    "Vpon a certayne daye, when I hadde herde the diuine seruice in our
+    Ladies Churche, which is the fayrest, the most gorgeous and curious
+    churche of buyldyng in all the Citie, and also the most frequented
+    of people, and the seruice beynge doone, was readye to go home to
+    my lodgynge, I chaunced to espye this foresayde Peter talkynge with
+    a certayne Straunger, a man well stricken in age, with a blacke
+    sonneburned face, a longe bearde, and a cloke cast homly about his
+    shoulders, whome, by his fauoure and apparell furthwith I iudged to
+    bee a mariner."[36]
+
+This was the fictitious personage whose travels had led him to the
+distant island of Utopia, and who described to Sir Thomas the nature of
+its government. Europe for fifteen centuries had been under the control
+of the clergy, and what had been the result? Where was the progress?
+How much had the barbarism of one century differed from that of the
+last? But in Utopia there was no priesthood. Men had a simple faith.
+They "were persuaded that it is not in a man's power to believe what he
+list," and when they met in public worship it was to hold such services
+that all might freely join in them. Religion in Utopia was left to the
+individual conscience. War was considered an unmitigated evil, and
+never undertaken except in the extremest necessity. The people of
+Utopia, therefore, not being exclusively occupied, on the one hand,
+with discussing their religion and enforcing it on others, or, on the
+other hand, with violating all its teachings, were able to think of
+other things. How to make the best laws for the government of the
+commonwealth; how to deal with crime, with labor; how to promote the
+highest condition of general well-being, as regarded the public health,
+public education, the comfort and cleanliness of dwellings;--these were
+the questions which the Utopians considered most important, and these
+were solved by the exercise of human reason. These were questions, too,
+with which the English people found themselves confronted in the
+beginning of the sixteenth century, and before that century had passed
+away, the results even of a very imperfect solution regarding them were
+apparent in every department and in every class of life.
+
+The great mind, the noble character of Sir Thomas More stand out the
+best production of his time. The strong religious bias of the man made
+it inevitable that he should remain considerably under the influence of
+the old theological teachings, but in the intelligent man of the world,
+in the large-hearted philanthropist, in the honest patriot, appear the
+new and beneficent tendencies which were at work. Like all men who have
+been in advance of their time, More was looked upon as a dreamer. A
+dreamer he might naturally seem, who, in the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, looked for peace, for religious toleration, for justice to the
+lower classes. But these dreams were destined to be realized long after
+More's headless body had crumbled to dust, by that learning which he
+himself so seduously cultivated, and by the decay, too, of some of
+those ideas for which he died a martyr's death. The growth of the
+universities, the establishment of grammar schools, the impetus given
+to all useful occupations during the reign of Henry VIII, were
+gradually aiding the advance of that new era in the history of England
+which developed so brilliantly under Elizabeth. In her reign the old
+warlike spirit had decayed, theology had lost its obstructive power,
+and human reason began to bear its legitimate fruits--prosperity and
+civilization.
+
+
+[Footnote 26: Green's "Short History of the English People," p. 203.]
+
+[Footnote 27: "Tom-a-Lincoln" has been reprinted in W.J. Thorn's
+valuable collection of "Early English Prose Romances," where may also
+be found a story similar in nature, called "Helyas, Knight of the
+Swanne." I do not consider these productions worthy of more extended
+notice here, as they possess no interest in themselves, and serve only
+to illustrate the degeneracy of the fictions relating to the knighthood
+during the 16th century. The compilation called "The Seven Champions of
+Christendom", by Richard Johnson, the author of "Tom-a-Lincoln", said
+to contain "all the lyes of Christendom in one lye," obtained
+considerable popularity and circulation during this period. Dunlop
+mentions ("Hist. of Fiction," chap. xiv) the "Ornatus and Artesia", and
+"Parismus, Prince of Bohemia," by Emmanuel Ford, and the "Pheander, or
+Maiden Knight," by Henry Roberts, belonging in the same class of
+composition. An English version of the old tale of Robert the Devil
+belongs to this period, and may be found in W.J. Thom's collection.]
+
+[Footnote 28: Ritson's "Robin Hood."]
+
+[Footnote 29: Hunter's "Robin Hood", p. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 30: "George-a-Green," chap. x, Thom's "Early Eng. Prose
+Romances."]
+
+[Footnote 31: "Thomas of Reading," chap. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 32: Thom's preface to "Vigilius," "Early Eng. Prose
+Romances."]
+
+[Footnote 33: "Lai d'Hippocrate," Le Grand. Thom's Prelude to
+"Virgilius."]
+
+[Footnote 34: Wright's "Essays on the Middle Ages," _Essay x_.]
+
+[Footnote 35: Buckle's "Hist. of Civilization," vol. I, p. 147.
+Appleton's ed.]
+
+[Footnote 36: "_A fruteful and plesaunt worke of the beste state of a
+publyque weale, and of the newe yle called UTOPIA: written in Latin by
+SYR THOMAS MORE KNYGHT, and translated into Englysshe by RAPHE ROBYNSON
+Citisein and Goldsmythe of London at the procurement and earnest
+request of George Tadlowe Citisein and Haberdassher of the same Citie.
+Imprinted at London by Abraham Wele, dwelling in Paul's Churcheyarde at
+the Sygne of the Lambe, Anno, 1551." Arber's reprint._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE AGE OF ELIZABETH: LYLY, GREENE, LODGE, SIDNEY.
+
+
+I.
+
+In the rapidity and scope of intellectual and material progress, the
+age of Elizabeth is unequaled in English history. The nation seemed to
+pass from the darkness of night into a sunshine which would never end.
+Freed from the trammels which had hitherto impeded their way, all
+classes put on a new vigor, a new enterprise, and a new intelligence,
+which brought advancement into every walk of life. The spread of the
+Copernican doctrine of the revolutions of the earth, and the relations
+of our planet to the solar system gradually drove before it the old
+anthropocentric ideas. Men looked into the heavens and saw a new
+universe. In the grand scheme of creation there unfolded before them,
+they read in spite of themselves the comparative insignificance of
+their own world, and an overwhelming blow was dealt at the narrowness
+and superstition which had hitherto characterized their thoughts. A new
+world, too, was fast becoming known. The circumnavigation of the earth
+by Drake, the visits of other Englishmen to the shores of Africa and
+America, even to the Arctic seas, awakened a deep and healthful
+curiosity. There arose a passion for travelling, for seeing and
+studying foreign lands. Those who were forced to remain at home
+devoured with eagerness the books of those who wandered abroad. The
+effects of this widening of the mental and physical horizon are
+observable in the new occupations which absorbed the energies of men,
+and in the new social life which all classes were beginning to lead.
+Improvements in husbandry doubled the productiveness of the soil, and
+greatly enhanced its value. The development of manufactures made
+English woolens in demand throughout Europe. In commerce the new spirit
+of enterprise was strikingly apparent. Tradesmen and nobles, ministers
+of state, Elizabeth herself--all who could, ventured something in the
+ships which sailed for America or Africa in the hope of golden cargoes.
+The Russia company brought home furs and flax, steel, iron, ropes, and
+masts. The Turkey merchants imported the productions of the Levant,
+silks and satins, carpets, velvets, and cloth of gold. By the side of
+these were laid in London markets, the rice, cotton, spices, and
+precious stones of India, and the sugar, rare woods, gold, silver, and
+pearls of the New World.[37]
+
+Under the influence of this new enterprise and prosperity, the picture
+of social life becomes more pleasing. The English noble succeeded to
+the feudal baron, the manor to the fortress. With the coat of mail and
+huge two-handed sword passed away the portcullis and the moat. The new
+homes of the nobility, erected during Elizabeth's reign, were marked by
+a beauty and luxury in keeping with the new ideas of their owners. The
+eye still rests with admiration on the numberless gables, the quaint
+chimneys, the oriel windows, the fretted parapets of the Tudor
+building. Within, the magnificent staircases, the great carved
+chimney-pieces, the massive oaken furniture, the costly cabinets, and
+elaborate tapestries all attested the new wealth and the new taste of
+the occupants. A large chamber of Hardwicke Hall was decorated with a
+frieze representing a stag hunt, and beneath that the story of Ulysses
+wrought in tapestry.[38] Harrington rejoiced in the number of "goodly
+chambers, large gardens and sweet walks" of Elizabeth's palaces. The
+"goodly chambers" were filled with cloths of gold and silver, with
+satin-covered furniture, and silk coverlids lined with ermine. In the
+houses of knights and gentlemen were to be seen a great profusion of
+"Turkic worke, pewter, brasse, fine linen, and thereto costlie cupbords
+of plate worth five or six hundred or a thousand pounds."[39] The lord
+of the manor no longer took his meals with all his retainers in the
+great hall, throwing the bones and scraps from his wooden trencher to
+his dogs. He withdrew into a separate apartment, and dined with a new
+refinement. A hitherto unknown variety of food covered the table,
+served on pewter, china, or silver, instead of the primitive trencher.
+
+The bands of retainers who had hung round the castle, living at the
+expense of its lord, and ready to follow him in his career of violence,
+were gradually being absorbed in useful and industrial pursuits. Among
+the yeomanry the general progress was exceedingly noticeable. The
+character and worth of this important class were commented upon by
+Holinshed.[40] "This sort of people * * * commonlie live wealthilie,
+keepe good houses, and travell to get riches. They are also for the
+most part farmers to gentlemen, or at the leastwise artificers, and
+with grazing, frequenting of markets, and keeping of servants (not
+idle servants as the gentlemen doo, but suche as get bothe their owne
+and part of their master's living), do come to great welth, in so much
+that manie of them are able and doo buie the lands of unthriftie
+gentlemen, and often setting their sonnes to the schooles, to the
+universities, and to the Ins of the Court, or otherwise leaving them
+sufficient lands whereupon they may live without labour, do make them
+by those meanes to become gentlemen: these were they that in times past
+made all France afraid, and albeit they be not called Master, as
+gentlemen are, or Sir, as to knights apperteineth, but only John, and
+Thomas, etc., yet have they beene found to have doone verie good
+service; and the kings of England in foughten battels, were woont to
+remain among them (who were their footmen), as the French kings did
+among their horsemen; the prince thereby showing where his chief
+strength did consist." This middle class were enjoying a luxury and
+comfort undreamt of by their fathers, or indeed by the nobility of
+feudal times. Thatched cottages smeared with mud were fast being
+succeeded by brick or stone houses, finely plastered, with glass
+windows, chairs in place of stools, and tables in place of rough boards
+lying loosely on tressles. "Farmers learned also to garnish their
+cupboards with plate, their joined beds with tapestrie and silken
+hangings, and their tables with carpets and fine naperie, whereby the
+wealth of our countrie * * * doth infinitelie appeare."[41] The new
+comforts, enumerated by Harrison, presented a striking contrast to the
+condition the "old men" had been satisfied with in their "yoong daies,"
+"Our fathers (yea, and we ourselves also) have lien full oft upon
+straw pallets, on rough mats * * * and a good round log under their
+heads instead of a bolster or pillow. If it were so that our fathers,
+or the good man of the house, had within eleven years after his
+marriage purchased a matteras or flockebed, and thereto a sacke of
+chaffe to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged
+as the lord of the towne." The new comforts were the result, not of
+extravagance, but of prosperity. Notwithstanding the rigid economy of
+the old times, men "were scearce able to live and paie their rents at
+their daies without selling of a cow, or an horse or more, although
+they paid but four pounds at the uttermost by the yeare, * * * whereas
+in my time," says Harrison, "although peradventure foure pounds of old
+rent be improved to fourtie, fiftie, or an hundred poundes, yet will
+the farmer as another palme or date tree, thinke his gaines verie small
+toward the end of his terme, if he had not six or seven yeares rent
+lieing by him, therewith to purchase a new lease, beside a faire
+garnish of pewter on his cupboard, with so much in od vessell going
+aboute the house, three or four feather beds, so manie coverlids and
+carpets of tapestrie, a silver salt, a bowle for wine * * * and a
+dozzen of spoones to furnish up the sute."[42] The country gentleman
+sitting in his hall, hawk on hand, with his hounds about him, made a
+profuse hospitality his chief pride, and out-door sports the resource
+of his leisure and conversation. Greek and Latin were gradually making
+their way into his store of knowledge, hitherto limited to the romances
+and chronicles. But as Ascham complained, there was little sweetness to
+flavor his cup of learning. "Masters for the most part so behave
+themselves," said Peacham, "that their very name is hatefull to the
+scholler, who trembleth at their coming in, rejoyceth at their absence,
+and looketh his master (returned) in the face, as his deadly
+enemy."[43]
+
+The amusements of the rural population partook of the character of
+material prosperity and material enjoyment which were so prominent in
+Elizabeth's reign. There is no sign of the prevailing improvement in
+the condition of men more suggestive than the effervescence of spirits
+which broke loose on every holiday and at every festival. On the first
+day of May "the juvenile part of both sexes are wont to rise a little
+after midnight, and walk to some neighboring wood, accompany'd with
+music and the blowing of horns, where they break down branches from the
+trees and adorn them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. When this
+done, they return with their booty homewards about the rising of the
+sun, and make their doors and windows to triumph in the flowery
+spoil."[44] "But their cheefest jewell they bring from thence is their
+Maie poole whiche they bringe home with great veneration, as thus: They
+have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe havyng a sweete
+nosegaie of flowers, tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen
+drawe home this Maie poole."[45] Games, dances, rude dramatic
+performances succeeded each other for hours, interspersed with feasting
+and drinking. An extravagant fancy sought expression in the excitement,
+of grotesque actions and brilliant costumes. The Morris dancers
+executed their curious movements, clad in "gilt leather and silver
+paper, and sometimes in coats of white spangled fustian,"[46] or in
+"greene, yellow, or some other light wanton collour," bedecked with
+"scarfs, ribbons and laces hanged all over with golde ringes, precious
+stones and other jewells," and "aboute either legge twentie or fourtie
+belles."[47] Robin Hood's Day, Christmas, Twelfth Night, Harvest Home,
+Sheepshearing, were all celebrated in turn with a liveliness of spirit,
+a vigor of imagination, and a noisy enjoyment of the good things of
+life which showed that Merry England had at last succeeded to the gloom
+of the Middle Ages.
+
+The prevailing prosperity and activity were naturally even more
+apparent in London than in the rural districts. The city was growing
+rapidly, filling up with warehouses and shops, with palaces and
+dwellings. The people in general were attracted to it by the growing
+trade and industry, and by the theatres, taverns, bear-gardens, and
+other places of amusement, the number of which was constantly
+increasing. The nobility and gentry sought the splendor of Elizabeth's
+court to spend their leisure and their wealth. The middle or commercial
+classes of the city, like the corresponding agricultural classes in the
+country, were enjoying the fruits of their industry and attaining a
+respectable position of their own. The houses and furniture belonging
+to them struck a foreigner with astonishment and pleasure[48]; "The
+neate cleanlinesse, the exquisite finenesse, the plesaunte and
+delightfull furniture in every point for household wonderfully rejoyced
+mee; their chambers and parlours, strawed over with sweet herbes,
+refreshed mee; their nosegayes finelye intermingled wyth sondry sortes
+of fragraunte floures in their bed-chambers and privie roomes, with
+comfortable smell cheered me up and entierlye delighted all my senses."
+The profusion of expenditure, and the love of show resulting from the
+sudden increase of wealth, affected even the apprentices of the city.
+The Lord Mayor and Common Council, in 1582, found it necessary to
+direct apprentices; "to wear no hat with any silk in or about the
+same. To wear no ruffles, cuffs, loose collar, nor other thing than
+a ruff at the collar, and that only a yard and a half long. To wear
+no doublets * * * enriched with any manner of silver or silke. * * * To
+wear no sword, dagger, nor other weapon but a knife; nor a ring, jewel
+of gold, nor silver, nor silke in any part of his apparel."[49]
+
+It was, however, at Elizabeth's court, and among the nobility, that the
+tendencies of the time were most marked. The literature of this
+era--never surpassed in brilliancy and power--was the work of poets and
+dramatists. It was the outcome of a poetical and dramatic life. Even
+the fiction which belongs to the period was colored by the same
+fondness for dramatic incident and poetic treatment. The enthusiasm
+which had animated the nobility in their martial life went with them to
+the court of Elizabeth. There it showed itself in gallantry, in love of
+show, and in a devotion to amusement and to self-cultivation which
+internal peace had at length made possible. Men of whom any age might
+be proud crowded the scene. Cecil and Walsingham among statesmen, Drake
+among discoverers, Bacon and Hooker among thinkers, Raleigh and Sidney
+at once among courtiers, soldiers, and scholars. The prevailing
+extravagance and variety of dress was simply the outward sign of a love
+of whatever was brilliant and new. The fashions of France, of Spain, of
+Turkey, even of the Moors contributed to the wardrobe of the English
+gallant. "And, as these fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a
+world to see the costlinesse and the curiositie: the excesse and the
+vanitie: the pomp and the braverie; the change and the varietie: and
+finallie the ficklenesse and the follie that is in all degrees:
+insomuch that nothing is more constant in England than inconstancie of
+attire."[50] Each one aimed at making the best appearance. The long
+seams of men's hose were set by a plumb line, and beards were cut to
+suit the face, "If a man have a leane and streight face, a Marquess
+Ottons cut will make it broad and large; if it be platter-like, a long,
+slender beard will make it seeme the narrower." "Some lustie courtiers
+also, and gentlemen of courage doo weare either rings of golde, stones,
+or pearle in their eares, whereby they imagine the workmanship of God
+not to be a little amended."[51] All are familiar with the brilliant
+female dress of the time. The enormous starched ruffs of various
+colors, the long stomachers stiffened with wire and studded with
+jewels, the costly stuffs enriched with gold and silver, made up a
+costume which has never been surpassed in extravagance and fanciful
+exaggeration.
+
+The queen herself set the example of brilliancy of costume, and took
+care to be outshone by none. Sir John Harrington relates that "Ladie M.
+Howarde was possessede of a rich border, powdered wyth golde and pearle
+and a velvet suite belonginge thereto, which moved manie to envye; nor
+did it please the queene, who thought it exceeded her owne. One daye
+the queene did sende privately, and got the ladie's rich vesture, which
+she put on herself, and came forthe the chamber amonge the ladies; the
+kirtle and border was far too shorte for her majestie's heigth; and
+she asked everyone, 'How they likede her new fancied suit?' At length
+she askede the owner herself, 'If it was not made too shorte and ill
+becoming?'--which the poor ladie did presentlie consente to. 'Why,
+then, if it become not me, as being too shorte, I am minded it shall
+never become thee, as being too fine; so it fitteth neither well.' This
+sharp rebuke abashed the ladie, and she never adorned her herewith any
+more."[52]
+
+It was the fashion to walk in the aisles of St. Paul's Church, which
+became a general rendezvous for business or pleasure. A facetious
+writer of the time, instructing a young gallant how to procure his
+clothes, and to show them off to the best advantage, gives an amusing
+picture of the prevailing vanity and foppery. "Bend your course
+directly in the middle line, that the whole body of the church may
+appear to be yours; where, in view of all you may publish your suit in
+what manner you affect most * * * and then you must, as 'twere in anger,
+suddenly snatch at the middle of the inside, if it be taffeta at the
+least; and so, by that means, your costly lining is betrayed. * * * But
+one note, by the way, do I especially woo you to, the neglect of
+which makes many of our gallants cheap and ordinary, that by no means
+you be seen above four times; but in the fifth make yourself away,
+either in some of the semsters' shops, the new tobacco office, or among
+the booksellers, where, if you cannot read, exercise your smoke, and
+enquire who has writ against this divine weed. * * * After dinner you
+may appear again, having translated yourself out of you English cloth
+into a light Turkey grogram, if you have that happiness of shifting;
+and then be seen for a turn or two to correct your teeth with some
+quill or silver instrument, and to cleanse your gums with a wrought
+handkerchief; it skills not whether you dined or no; that is best known
+to your stomach; or in what place you dined; though it were with cheese
+of your own mother's making, in your chamber or study. * * * If, by
+chance, you either encounter, or aloof off throw your inquisitive eye
+upon any knight or squire, being your familiar, salute him, not by his
+name, Sir such a one, or so; but call him Ned, or Jack, etc. This will
+set off your estimation with great men; and if, though there be a dozen
+companies between you, 'tis the better, he call aloud to you, for that
+is most genteel, to know where he shall find you at two o'clock; tell
+him at such an ordinary, or such; and be sure to name those that are
+dearest, and whither none but your gallants resort."[53]
+
+With all the luxury of furniture and dress, with all the new elegance
+and ceremony of court life, there naturally remained much disorder,
+violence, and coarseness throughout the social system. Although the
+laws concerning the maintenance of order in the streets were strict,
+forbidding any one even to "blowe any horne in the night, or whistle
+after the hour of nyne of the clock in the night," yet they were not
+effectively enforced. A member of the House of Commons described a
+Justice of the Peace as an animal, who for half a dozen of chickens
+would dispense with a dozen penal laws[54]; and Gilbert Talbot spoke of
+two serious street affrays, which he described in a letter to the Earl
+of Shrewsbury as "trifling matters."[55] The gallows were kept busy in
+town and country. The habits of violence, and the old fondness of the
+nobility for fighting out their own quarrels, lingered in the prevalent
+custom of duelling. Ladies, and even the queen herself, chastised their
+servants with their own hands. On one occasion Elizabeth showed her
+dislike of a courtier's coat by spitting upon it, and her habit of
+administering physical correction to those who displeased her called
+forth the witty remark of Sir John Harrington: "I will not adventure
+her Highnesse choller, leste she should collar me also." The first
+coach appeared in the streets of London in Elizabeth's time and the
+sight of it "put both horse and man into amazement; some said it was a
+great crab-shell brought out of China; and some imagined it to be one
+of the Pagan temples, in which the Cannibals adored the divell." The
+extravagance and luxury of the feasts which were given on great
+occasions by the nobility were not attended by a corresponding advance
+in the refinement of manners at table. In a banquet given by Lord
+Hertford to Elizabeth in the garden of his castle, there were a
+thousand dishes carried out by two hundred gentlemen lighted by a
+hundred torch-bearers and every dish was of china or silver. But forks
+had not yet come into general use, and their place was supplied by
+fingers. Elizabeth had two or three forks, very small, and studded with
+jewels, but they were intended only for ornament. A divine inveighed
+against the impiety of those who objected to touching their meat with
+their fingers, and it was only in the seventeenth century that the
+custom of eating with forks obtained general acceptance, and ceased to
+be considered a mark of foppery.
+
+The co-existence of coarseness and brilliant luxury, so characteristic
+of the time, is curiously apparent in the amusements of the city and
+the court. The whole people, from Elizabeth to the country boor,
+delighted in the savage sports of bull and bear-baiting. In the
+gratification received by these exhibitions, appear the remains of the
+old bloodthirstiness which had once been only satisfied with the sight
+of human suffering. The contrast is striking when we turn to the
+masques, the triumphs, and the pageants which were exhibited on great
+occasions by the court or by the citizens of London. The awakening of
+learning and the new interest in life were expressed in the dramatic
+entertainments which mingled the romantic elements of chivalry with the
+mythology of ancient Greece, in the rejoicings of men over present
+prosperity and welfare. The accounts of the festivities during the
+progresses of Elizabeth, so ably collected by Nichol, read like a tale
+of fairyland. When the queen visited Kenelworth she was met outside the
+gates by sybils reciting a poem of welcome. At the gates the giant
+porter feigned anger at the intrusion, but, overcome by the sight of
+Elizabeth, laid his club and his keys humbly at her feet. On posts
+along the route were placed the offerings of Sylvanus, of Pomona, of
+Ceres, of Bacchus, of Neptune, of Mars, and of Phoebus. From Arthur's
+court tame the Lady of the Lake, begging the queen to deliver her from
+the Knight without Pity. Fawns, satyrs, and nymphs brought their
+greetings, while an Echo replied to the addresses of welcome.
+Amusements of every variety occupied the succeeding days. Hunting, bear
+baiting, fireworks, tilting, Morris dances, a rustic marriage, a fight
+between Danes and English, curious aquatic sports,--all succeeded each
+other, interspersed with brilliant feasts. Poems founded on the legends
+of Arthur, or drawn from the inexhaustible sources of mythology, were
+recited in the pauses of festivity, or sung beneath the windows of the
+queen. The same readiness of invention and luxuriance of fancy
+characterized all the celebrations of the time. The love of the
+dramatic which applauded Pyramus and Thisbe in the rural districts,
+made actors of the courtiers. When the French commissioners came to
+negotiate the marriage of Elizabeth with the Duke of Anjou, they were
+entertained with a triumph, in which the Earl of Arundel, Lord Windsor,
+Master Philip Sidney, and Master Fulk Grevil, impersonating the four
+"foster children of Desire," carried by force of arms the "Fortress of
+Beauty," which represented Elizabeth herself.
+
+The age of Elizabeth, although it had worked itself free from the
+intellectual sloth of the Middle Ages, although it was familiarizing
+itself with an almost unknown world abroad, and creating a new world at
+home, yet had inherited with little qualification the violence, the
+cruelty, and the unbridled passions of the centuries which had gone
+before. All this variety of life was expressed in the drama, which, as
+a reflection of contemporary thought and manners, was to Elizabeth's
+time what the novel is to our own. Before the end of this reign there
+were eighteen theatres in London, all crowded with audiences which
+embraced every class of the people,--from the noble and court gallant
+who played cards on the stage, to the workmen and apprentices who
+fought and bandied coarse jests in the pit. The names of Marlowe, of
+Shakespeare, of Johnson, are sufficient to remind us of the grandeur to
+which the Elizabethan drama attained, under the influence of prosperity
+at home, victory abroad, and the quickening of the national
+intelligence which followed the revival of learning. But while the
+stage reflected all that was most noble, it reflected also all that
+was most base in human nature. Ecclesiastical discipline had been laid
+aside, and the unrestrained passions of men, which in actual life found
+vent in violence and debauchery, were gratified by the dramatic
+representation of the worst crimes and most vitiated tastes. The
+Puritans brought about reformation and self-restraint, by enforcing a
+new code of morals all the more rigid from the looseness which on every
+side they found to combat. In closing the theatres, they were actuated,
+in Mr. Green's words, by the hatred "of God-fearing men against the
+foulest depravity presented in a poetic and attractive form."[56]
+
+While the drama reflected alike the good and the bad, all the finer
+aspirations of the time found expression in poetry. Spenser, Sackville,
+Drayton, Donne, Hall, the two Fletchers, are but leaders in a band of
+more than two hundred, who made this period unrivalled in the annals of
+English poetry. It was a time of unexampled prosperity, of an enlarged
+freedom, of an active intelligence, when men were eagerly seeking for
+whatever was novel and brilliant; when translations without number of
+the classical writers and contemporary foreign works were welcomed
+alike with the "costly attire of the new cut, the Dutch hat, the French
+hose, the Spanish rapier, the Italian hilt." "It is a world to see how
+Englishmen desire to hear finer speech than the language will allow, to
+eat finer bread than is made of wheat, or wear finer cloth than is made
+of wool." Such are the words in which John Lyly, the Euphuist,
+characterized his own time, and they were the words of one who
+expressed in his own writings the tendency to fanciful exaggeration,
+which was so strong among the men about him.
+
+
+[Footnote 37: Froude's "History of England," vol. 8, p. 429.]
+
+[Footnote 38: Stone, "Chronicles of Fashion."]
+
+[Footnote 39: Holinshed, vol. I, p. 315; Drake's "Shakespeare and his
+Times", vol. 1, p. 72.]
+
+[Footnote 40: Holinshed, vol. I, p. 275; Drake's "Shakespeare", vol. 1,
+p. 99.]
+
+[Footnote 41: Harrison's "Description"; Drake's "Shakespeare," vol. 1,
+p. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times," vol. 1, p. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 43: Henry Peacham, "Compleat Gentleman," 1624.]
+
+[Footnote 44: Bourne; Drake's "Shakespeare," vol. 1, p. 153.]
+
+[Footnote 45: Stubbes, "Anatomie of Abuses," p. 168.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Douce, "Illustrations of Shakespeare."]
+
+[Footnote 47: Stubbes; Drake's "Shakespeare," vol. 1, ch. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Laevinius Lemnius; Drake, vol. 2, p. 113.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Nichol's "Progresses of Elizabeth," vol. 2, p. 391.]
+
+[Footnote 50: Harrison: Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times," vol. 2, p.
+87.]
+
+[Footnote 51: Harrison's "Description of England"; Holinshed, vol. I,
+pp. 289-90; Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times" vol. 2, pp. 88, 89.]
+
+[Footnote 52: "Nugae Antique", Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times," vol.
+2, p. 90.]
+
+[Footnote 53: "The Gull's Horn Book"; Drake's "Shakespeare and his
+Times", vol. 2, p. 184.]
+
+[Footnote 54: Lodge's "Illustrations."]
+
+[Footnote 55: _Idem._]
+
+[Footnote 56: Green, "Short History of the English People," p. 429.]
+
+
+
+II.
+
+It is to the drama that we must look for the most complete literary
+expression of the social condition of the period. The student of
+history must regret, indeed, that the realistic novel, with its study
+of human thoughts and motives, with its illustration of manners and
+customs, so valuable in a reconstruction of the past, should have been
+delayed till the end of the seventeenth century. But though there be
+regret, there cannot be surprise. The reigns of Elizabeth and the
+Stuarts cover the period of court life; when men lived in public, and
+sought their intellectual entertainment in crowds at a theatre, as now,
+in a time of citizen-life, they seek it in private, by the
+study-lamp.[57] In a dramatic age the creations of the imagination will
+be placed behind the footlights, and in a period of quiet and
+reflection they will be placed between the covers of a book. In the age
+of Elizabeth the writers of fiction neither studied the characters and
+manners of the men about them, nor aimed at any reflection of actual
+life. But their tales and romances were the natural fruit of their
+intellectual condition, and form an interesting if not a valuable
+portion of English fiction. In them are reflected the happiness, the
+poetry, the love of novelty, and the ideality of the time. The stirring
+incidents of chivalric romance were no longer in vogue, and the subject
+became an idealized love. But the most striking feature of Elizabethan
+fiction is the great importance attached to style. The writer cared
+more to excite admiration by the turn of his phrases and the ornaments
+of his language, than to interest his reader by plot or incident.
+
+In 1579 John Lyly published his curious romance, "Euphues, the Anatomy
+of Wit," a work which attained a great popularity, and made the word
+Euphuism an abstract term in the language to express the ornate and
+antithetical style of which this book is the most marked example. In
+Lyly's own day it was said by Edward Blount that the nation was "in his
+debt for a new English which hee taught them." Since then, the verdict
+of posterity has been that Lyly corrupted the public taste, and
+introduced an affected and overloaded manner of writing which had a
+mischievous influence upon literature. A careful examination of Lyly's
+work, and of the condition of the English language in the last quarter
+of the sixteenth century, will not sustain either of these views. The
+Euphuistic style was not of Lyly's invention. He acquired it from the
+men about him, and merely gave it, through his writings, a distinct
+character and individuality. In a letter of Elizabeth to her brother
+Edward VI, long-before "Euphues" was written, occurs the following
+passage: "Like as a shipman in stormy wether plukes down the sails
+tarrying for bettar winde, so did I, most noble kinge, in my
+unfortunate chanche a Thursday pluk downe the hie sailes of my joy and
+comforte, and do trust one day that as troublesome waves have repulsed
+me backwarde, so a gentil winde will bringe me forwarde to my
+haven."[58] This is a moderate specimen of the ornate and exaggerated
+language which was following the new acquisitions of learning and
+intelligence, just as extravagance in dress and food was following the
+new prosperity and wealth. Men wished to crowd their learning and
+cultivation into every thing they said or wrote. As the language was
+not yet settled by good prose writers, the more affected a style, the
+more numerous its similes, and far-fetched its allusions, the more
+ingenious and admirable it was considered to be. There resulted a
+sacrifice of clearness and simplicity to a strained elegance. Still, in
+the Euphuistic style, tedious and grotesque as it often is, appear the
+first serious efforts, among English prose writers, to attain a better
+mode of expression. The results which followed the absence of a
+standard written language at home were strengthened by the general
+acquaintance with foreign literature. Italy in the sixteenth century
+was the leading intellectual nation, and the example of the refined and
+over-polished manner of writing there prevalent had much to do with the
+growth in England of a fondness for affected mannerisms and fancied
+ornaments of language. The new ideas in regard to poetry and
+versification which Wyat and Surrey had brought from Italy, were but
+the beginning of an extensive Italian influence. It was not without
+reason that Ascham inveighed against "the enchantments of Circe brought
+out of Italy to mar men's manners in England." Italian works were
+translated and circulated in great numbers in England, and among these
+the most popular were the gay and amorous productions of the story
+tellers.[59]
+
+Born in Kent in 1554, John Lyly studied at Magdalen College, Oxford,
+and received the degree of Master of Arts. Not a very diligent
+scholar, he disliked the "crabbed studies" of logic and philosophy,
+"his genie being naturally bent to the pleasant paths of poetry," but
+he was reputed at the University as afterward at Elizabeth's court, "a
+rare poet, witty, comical, and facetious." During his life in London he
+produced a number of plays and poems which have given his name a not
+inconsiderable place in the list of Elizabethan poets and dramatists.
+He is now best known, where known at all, by his prose work "Euphues,"
+which was so much admired at Elizabeth's court, that all the ladies
+knew his phrases by heart, and to "parley Euphuism" was a sign of
+breeding. For many years Lyly lingered about the court waiting for a
+promised position to reward his labors and support his declining years.
+But in vain. "A thousand hopes," he complained, "but all nothing; a
+hundred promises, but yet nothing." Lyly died in 1606, leaving, as he
+said, but three legacies; "Patience to my creditors, Melancholie
+without measure to my friends, and Beggarie without shame to my
+family."
+
+The deeper meaning of Lyly's work, which lies beneath the surface of
+his similes and antitheses, has escaped almost all his critics.[60] It
+is suggested by the title, "Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit." In the
+"Schoolmaster," Ascham explained how Socrates had described the anatomy
+of wit in a child, and the first essential quality mentioned by
+Socrates, and that most fully discussed by Ascham was Euphues which
+may be translated of good natural parts, as well of the body as the
+mind. Euphues, then, as well in the story in which he figures, as
+afterward in the essays or which he is the supposed author, is the
+model of a young man at once attractive in appearance, and possessing
+the mental qualities most calculated to please. While the story is
+meant to attract readers, the essays and digressions introduced into
+the work are intended to inculcate the methods of education which Lyly
+taught in common with Ascham. It was, however, the manner rather than
+the matter which gave to "Euphues" its prominence and popularity. The
+story is but a slender thread. Euphues and Philautus are two young
+gentlemen of Naples, bound together by the closest ties of friendship.
+Philautus is deeply enamored of a lady named Lucilla, to whom in an
+unfortunate moment he presents Euphues. The meeting is at supper, and
+the conversation turns on the question "often disputed, but never
+determined, whether the qualities of the minde, or the composition of
+the man, cause women most to lyke, or whether beautie or wit move men
+most to love." Euphues shows so much ingenuity in the discussion of
+this interesting subject that Lucilla transfers her affections to him.
+Upon this the two friends quarrel and exchange letters of mutual
+recrimination couched in the most elaborate language. Philautus writes:
+
+    Although hereto Euphues, I have shrined thee in my heart for
+    a trustie friende, I will shunne thee hereafter as a trothless
+    foe. * * * Dost thou not know yat a perfect friend should be lyke
+    the Glazeworme, which shineth most bright in the darke? or lyke the
+    pure Frankencense which smelleth most sweet when it is in the fire?
+    or at the leaste not unlike to the damaske Rose which is sweeter in
+    the still than on the stalke? But thou, Euphues, dost rather
+    resemble the Swallow, which in the summer creepeth under the eues
+    of euery house, and in the winter leaveth nothing but durt behinde
+    hir; or the humble Bee, which hauing sucked hunny out of the fayre
+    flower, doth leaue it and loath it; or the Spider which in the
+    finest web doth hang the fayrest Fly.
+
+To these bitter reproaches Euphues replies that "Love knoweth no
+Lawes," and in support of the proposition cites as many cases from
+mythology as he can remember. The faithless Lucilla, however, soon
+treats Euphues as she had before treated Philautus, and marries a third
+lover whom they both despise. The friends are then once more united,
+and lament in each other's arms the folly of Lucilla. A second part of
+the work appeared in the following year, in which Euphues and Philautus
+are represented on a visit to England. Philautus marries, and Euphues,
+after eulogizing the English government, Elizabeth, and all her court,
+retires forever "to the bottom of the mountain Silexedra."
+
+The educational essays dispersed throughout the book display a good
+sense which even Lyly's style cannot conceal. Ascham and Lyly were
+alone in deprecating the excessive use of the rod, and in so doing were
+far in advance of the age. Cruelty seems to have been a common
+characteristic of the school-teacher. "I knew one," said Peacham, "who
+in winter would ordinarily in a cold morning whip his boyes over for no
+other purpose than to get himself a heat; another beat them for
+swearing, and all the time he swears himself with horrible oathes that
+he would forgive any fault save that. * * * Yet these are they that
+oftentimes have our hopefull gentry under their charge and tuition, to
+bring them (up) in science and civility."[61]
+
+The style which proved so attractive to Elizabeth's courtiers had
+three principal characteristics, which the reader will perceive in the
+extracts hereafter to be given--a pedantic exhibition of learning, an
+excess of similes drawn from natural history, usually untrue to nature,
+and a habit of antithesis, which, by constant repetition becomes
+exceedingly wearisome. Euphues, wishing to convince his listeners of
+the inferiority of outward to inward perfection, pursues the following
+argument:
+
+    The foule Toade hath a fayre stone in his head, the fine golde is
+    found in the filthy earth; the sweet kernell lyeth in the hard
+    shell; vertue is harboured in the heart of him that most men
+    esteeme misshappen. Contrarywise, if we respect more the outward
+    shape, then the inward habit, good God, into how many mischiefs do
+    wee fall? into what blindnesse are we ledde? Due we not commonly
+    see that in painted pottes is hidden the deadlyest poyson? that in
+    the greenest grasse is ye greatest serpent? in the cleerest water
+    the vgliest Toade? Doth not experience teach vs, that in the most
+    curious sepulcher are enclosed rotten bones? That the Cypresse tree
+    beareth a faire leafe, but no fruite? That the Estridge carrieth
+    faire feathers, but ranke flesh? How frantick are those louers
+    which are carried away with the gaye glistering of the fine face?
+
+    "In the coldest flint," says Lucilla, "there is hot fire, the Bee
+    that hath hunny in hir mouth, hath a sting in hir tayle; the tree
+    that beareth the sweetest fruite, hath a sower sap; yea, the wordes
+    of men though they seeme smooth as oyle: yet their heartes are as
+    crooked as the stalke of luie."
+
+Lyly's antithetical style is well illustrated by the following passage,
+in which he means to be particularly serious and impressive:
+
+    If I should talke in words of those things which I haue to conferre
+    with thee in writings, certes thou would blush for shame, and I
+    weepe for sorrowe: neither could my tongue vtter yat with patience,
+    which my hand can scarse write with modesty, neither could thy ears
+    heare that without glowing, which thine eyes can hardly vewe
+    without griefe. Ah, Alcius, I cannot tell whether I should most
+    lament in thee thy want of learning, or thy wanton lyvinge, in the
+    on thou art inferiour to all men, in the other superiour to al
+    beasts. Insomuch as who seeth thy dul wit, and marketh thy froward
+    will, may well say that he neuer saw smacke of learning in thy
+    dooings, nor sparke of relygion in thy life. Thou onely vauntest of
+    thy gentry: truely thou wast made a gentleman before thou knewest
+    what honesty meant, and no more hast thou to boast of thy stocke,
+    than he, who being left rich by his father, dyeth a beggar by his
+    folly. Nobilitie began in thine auncestors and endeth in thee, and
+    the generositie that they gayned by vertue, thou hast blotted with
+    vice.[62]
+
+The popularity of "Euphues" excited much imitation, and its influence
+is strongly marked in the works of Robert Greene. Born in Norfolk in
+1560, Greene studied at Cambridge and received the degree of Master of
+Arts. After wasting his property in Italy and Spain, he returned to
+London to earn his bread by the pen. As a pamphleteer, as a poet, and
+especially as a dramatist, Greene achieved a considerable reputation.
+But his improvident habits and a life of constant debauchery brought
+his career to a close, amidst poverty and remorse, at the early age of
+thirty-two. He died in a drunken brawl, leaving in his works the
+evidence of talents and qualities which the degradation of his life had
+failed to destroy.
+
+Greene's "Arcadia" was published in 1587, and bears in its fanciful
+title of "Camilla's Alarum to Slumber Euphues," the evidence of its
+inspiration. Even among pastorals the improbability of this story is
+surpassing. Damocles, king of Arcadia, banished his daughter with her
+husband and son. Sephestia, the daughter, arrived in a part of Arcadia
+entirely inhabited by shepherds. There she becomes a shepherdess under
+the name of Samela, and meets her husband, Maximus, who is already
+tending sheep in the same neighborhood with the name of Melicertus.
+Strange to say, Sephestia fails to recognize her husband, and receives
+his addresses as a favored lover. Soon after, Pleusidippus, Sephestia's
+son, is stolen by pirates, and adopted by the king of Thessaly, in
+whose court he grows up. The fame of Sephestia's beauty reaches her
+father and her son, who, ignorant of the relationship in consequence of
+Sephestia's change of name, both set out to woo the celebrated
+shepherdess. The repulsive scene of the same woman being the object at
+once of the passion of her father and her son is ended by Damocles
+carrying off Sephestia to his own court, where he proposes to execute
+Maximus as his successful rival, and Sephestia for her obstinate
+refusal of his addresses. The Delphian oracle, however, interposes in
+time by declaring the identity of Sephestia, and the story terminates
+as usual in weddings and reconciliations.
+
+The conventional shepherd's life is well described in the "Arcadia,"
+and the pastoral tone is skilfully maintained. The language, however,
+is confessedly euphuistic, as may be seen by the author's comment on a
+speech of Samela:
+
+    Samela made this reply, because she had heard him so superfine, as
+    if Ephebus had learned him to refine his mother's tongue; wherefore
+    though he had done it of an ink horn desire to be eloquent, and
+    Melicertus thinking Samela had learned with Lucilla in Athens to
+    anatomize wit, and speak none but similes, imagined she smoothed
+    her talk to be thought like Sappho, Phaon's paramour.
+
+The following passage could hardly be distinguished from the writings
+of Lyly:
+
+    I had thought, Menaphon, that he which weareth the bay leaf had
+    been free from lightning, and the eagle's pen a preservative
+    against thunder; that labour had been enemy to love, and the
+    eschewing of idleness an antidote against fancy; but I see by
+    proof, there is no adamant so hard, but the blood of a goat will
+    make soft, no fort so well defended, but strong battery will entry,
+    nor any heart so pliant to restless labours, but enchantments of
+    love will overcome.
+
+Melicertus addresses Samela, whom he finds feeding her flocks, in the
+following terms:
+
+    Mistress of all eyes that glance but at the excellence of your
+    perfection, sovereign of all such as Venus hath allowed for lovers,
+    Oenone's over-match, Arcadia's comet, Beauty's second comfort,
+    all hail! Seeing you sit like Juno when she first watched her white
+    heifer on the Lincen downs, as bright as silver Phoebe mounted on
+    the high top of the ruddy element, I was, by a strange attractive
+    force, drawn, as the adamant draws this iron, or the jet the straw,
+    to visit your sweet self in the shade, and afford you such company
+    as a poor swain may yield without offense; which, if you shall
+    vouch to deign of, I shall be as glad of such accepted service, as
+    Paris was first of his best beloved paramour.
+
+Another of Samela's lovers, despairing of success, "became sick for
+anger, and spent whole ecologues in anguish."
+
+Greene's story of "Pandosto," of "Dorastus and Fawnia," which attained
+a great popularity, and went through at least fourteen editions, is
+well known as the foundation of Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale."
+Shakespeare has followed Greene in the material points of the story,
+even so far as to make Bohemia a maritime country. But the genius of
+the dramatist is manifest in the miraculous and happy ending which he
+substitutes for the unlawful love and inconsistent suicide of Pandosto
+in the work of Greene. Shakespeare borrowed from the text, as well as
+from the plot of the novelist. The lines,
+
+                        The gods themselves,
+      Humbling their deities to love, have taken
+      The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter
+      Became a bull, and bellowed: the green Neptune
+      A ram, and bleated; and the fire robed god,
+      Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,
+      As I seem now,
+
+are evidently a reproduction of the soliloquy of Dorastus:
+
+    And yet Dorastus, shame not at thy shepheard's weede: The heavenly
+    Godes have sometime earthly thoughts: Neptune became a ram, Jupiter
+    a bull, Apollo a shepheard; they Gods, and yet in love; and thou a
+    man appointed to love.[63]
+
+The story of "Philomela," "penned to approve women's chastity," is the
+best of Greene's tales, and approaches more closely the modern novel
+than any work of the time. It is related with much less than the usual
+prolixity, and contains two characters of distinct individuality. The
+scene is placed in Venice, partly in consequence of the Italian origin
+of the story, and partly, it would seem, because writers of fiction
+imagined that the further distant they could represent their incidents
+to have occurred, the more interest and probability would attach to
+them. Philippo Medici possessed a wife Philomela, renowned, "not for
+her beauty, though Italy afforded none so fair--not for her dowry,
+though she were the only daughter of the Duke of Milan--but for the
+admirable honours of her mind, which were so many and matchless, that
+virtue seemed to have planted there the paradise of her perfection."
+Philippo was so prone to jealousy, that he suspected even this paragon,
+and worked himself into a belief in her infidelity by such euphuisms as
+these: "The greener the Alisander leaves be, the more bitter is the
+sap, and the salamander is the most warm when he lieth furthest from
+the fire," therefore "women are most heart-hollow, when they are most
+lip-holy." Inflamed by this reasoning, he induced a friend, one
+Lutesio, to attempt his wife's virtue, enjoining him to bring immediate
+information in case of any evidence of success. Lutesio, after some
+misgivings, undertook the task, and under the influence of Philomela's
+beauty, found it a very agreeable one. His most elaborate discourses on
+love in the abstract were met by Philomela with replies fully as long
+and fully as lofty, but when he made the conversation personal, and
+declared his attitude to be that of a lover, he was met with a virtuous
+indignation which fully bore out the reputation of Philomela. Even this
+conclusive test did not satisfy the jealous mind of the wretched
+Philippo. Having hired two slaves to swear in court to his wife's
+infidelity, he procured her banishment to Palermo. By the efforts of
+the Duke of Milan, this infamous proceeding was finally exposed, and
+Philippo, overcome by remorse, set out in search of Philomela. At
+Palermo, he accused himself, in a fit of despair, of a murder which had
+been committed in that city. But while the trial was in progress,
+Philomela, in order to shield her husband, appeared in court and
+proclaimed herself guilty of the crime. The innocence of both was
+discovered. Philippo, as he deserved, died immediately in an "ecstacy,"
+and Philomela "returned home to Venice, and there lived the desolate
+widow of Philippo Medici all her life; which constant chastity made her
+so famous, that in her life she was honoured as the paragon of virtue,
+and after her death, solemnly, and with wonderful honour, entombed in
+St. Mark's Church, and her fame holden canonized until this day in
+Venice."
+
+The character of Philomela possesses strong traits of feminine virtue
+and wifely fidelity. Philippo has little distinctiveness except in his
+extreme susceptibility to jealousy--a fault which was exaggerated by
+the author to set off the opposite qualities of Philomela. The story
+has no little merit in regard to the construction and sequence of the
+narrative, and holds up to admiration a high moral excellence. But its
+interest is seriously impaired by the same defect which marks all the
+fiction of the time. Philomela is almost the only tale which makes any
+pretence to being a description of actual life, or which deals with
+possible incidents. Yet the language, although it has some elegance, is
+so affectedly formal, that all sense of reality is destroyed. When
+Philippo's treachery to his wife is discovered, and he himself is
+plunged in remorse, it is in such words as these that he speaks of his
+exposure: "There is nothing so secret but the date of days will reveal;
+that as oil, though it moist, quencheth not fire, so time, though ever
+so long, is no sure covert for sin; but as a spark raked up in cinders
+will at last begin to glow and manifest a flame, so treachery hidden in
+silence will burst forth and cry for revenge."[64]
+
+A prose idyl is the term which best describes the courtly and pastoral
+character of Lodge's "Rosalynde," the last work of fiction of any
+importance which distinctly bears the impress of euphuism. Published in
+1590, the ten editions through which it passed during the next fifty
+years are sufficient evidence of its popularity. It is probably the
+only work of fiction of Elizabeth's time which could be read through at
+the present day without impatience, and its story and personages are
+well known to all through their reproduction in Shakespeare's "As You
+Like it." The author of "Rosalynde" was a man of very varied talents
+and experience. The son, it is believed, of a Lord Mayor of London, he
+graduated at Trinity College, Oxford, and followed successively the
+professions of an actor, soldier, lawyer, and physician. In the
+intervals of these occupations, he found time to join in two
+privateering expeditions to the Pacific, and to publish a number of
+literary productions, of which the most successful were dramas and
+poems. He is thought to have died of the plague in 1625.
+
+"ROSALYNDE. EUPHUES' GOLDEN LEGACIE: _Found after his death in his
+cell at Silexedra, Bequeathed to Philantus' sonnes nursed up with their
+Father in England. Fetched from the Canaries by T.L., Gent._" Such is
+the fanciful title of the story which Shakespeare transformed into "As
+You Like it." In the comedy, the characters of Touchstone, Audrey, and
+Jacques are added, but otherwise the dramatist has followed his
+original quite closely. He made use, not infrequently, of the language
+as well as the incidents of Lodge, which in itself is sufficient
+praise. "Rosalynde," is, indeed, a charming tale, containing agreeable
+and well drawn characters, dramatic incidents, and written in an
+elevated strain of dignity and purity. Occasionally, the influence of
+"Euphues" is manifest:--"Unhappy Saladyne, whom folly hath led to these
+misfortunes, and wanton desires wrapt within the laborinth of these
+calamities. Are not the heavens doomers of men's deedes? And holdes not
+God a ballance in his fist, to reward with favour and revenge with
+justice? Oh, Saladyne, the faults of thy youth, as they were fond, so
+were they foule; and not onely discovering little nourture, but
+blemishing the excellence of nature."
+
+A more natural and attractive passage is the discussion between
+Rosalynde and Alinda,[65] regarding their escape from court.
+
+    Rosalynde began to comfort her, and after shee had wept a fewe kind
+    teares in the bosome of her Alinda, she gave her heartie thankes,
+    and then they sat them downe to consult how they should travel.
+    Alinda grieved at nothing but they might have no man in their
+    company; saying it would be their greatest prejudice in that two
+    women went wandering without either guide or attendant. "Tush
+    (quoth Rosalynde), art thou a woman and hast not a sodeine shift to
+    prevent a misfortune? I, thou seest, am of a tall stature, and
+    would very wel become the person and apparel of a Page: thou shalt
+    bee my mistresse, and I wil play the man so properly, that (trust
+    me) in what company so ever I come I will not be discovered: I wil
+    buy me a suite, and have my Rapier very handsomely at my side, and
+    if any knave offer wrong, your Page wil shew him the poynt of his
+    weapon."
+
+Shakespeare has followed this scene very closely in "As You Like It."
+
+      _Ros._ Alas, what danger will it be to us,
+      Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
+      Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
+
+      _Cel._ I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,
+      And with a kind of umber smirch my face;
+      The like do you; so shall we pass along
+      And never stir assailants
+
+      _Ros._              Were it not better,
+      Because that I am more than common tall,
+      That I did suit me all points like a man?
+      A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh.
+      A boar spear in my hand; and in my heart,
+      Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will,--
+      We'll have a swashing and a martial outside.
+      As many other mannish cowards have
+      That do outface it with their semblances.[66]
+
+The most brilliant and characteristic work of fiction belonging to the
+Elizabethan era composed by a man who was himself regarded by his
+contemporaries as the embodiment of all the qualities they most loved
+and admired. During the three hundred years which have elapsed since
+the death of Sir Philip Sidney, the same enthusiastic praise has
+accompanied the mention of his name. Sir William Temple, writing in a
+critical time, and when the effect of Sidney's personal character need
+no longer have biassed a literary judgment, pronounced Sir Philip to be
+"the greatest poet and the noblest genius of any that have left
+writings behind them."[67] Such were the words of a man of genius, who
+was acquainted with the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Spenser.
+While all admirers of Sidney must regret a praise of his literary
+abilities so exaggerated and mistaken, the eulogies which have been
+lavished upon his personal character have never been thought to surpass
+the worth of their object. Sir Philip Sidney, in the short life
+allotted to him, had added to his personal beauty and amiable
+disposition all that was most fitted to win the admiration of his time.
+His rare accomplishments, his chivalrous manners and unusual powers of
+conversation made him so great a favorite at court, that it was the
+pride of Elizabeth to call him "her Philip." A considerable knowledge
+of military affairs, and a fearless gallantry in battle, combined, with
+Sidney's genial disposition, to win for him the universal affection of
+the army. The violence of the Middle Ages lingers in Sir Philip's angry
+words to his father's secretary: "Mr. Molyneux, if ever I know you to
+do so much as read any letter I write to my father, without his
+commandment or my consent, I will thrust my dagger into you. And trust
+to it, for I speak it in earnest." But the spirit of generosity and
+self-sacrifice, which we are also accustomed to associate with mediaeval
+knighthood, was realized in the famous scene on the battle-field before
+Zutphen. With good natural talents and an untiring industry, Sir
+Philip acquired a knowledge of science, of languages, and of
+literature, which gave him a reputation abroad as well as at home. The
+learned Languet relinquished his regular duties without prospect of
+pecuniary reward "to be a nurse of knowledge to this hopeful young
+gentleman."[68] The regrets of the universities at Sidney's death
+filled three volumes with academic eulogies. But a better testimony
+than these volumes to the general admiration for Sidney's talents, and
+to his position as a patron of literature, is to be found in the
+beautiful lines in which Spenser lamented his benefactor, and in two
+sentences by poor Tom Nash[69], who knew but too well the value of what
+he and his fellow-laborers had lost: "Gentle Sir Philip Sidney, thou
+knewest what belonged to a scholar; thou knewest what pains, what toil,
+what travel conduct to perfection; well could'st thou give every virtue
+his encouragement, every art his due, every writer his desert, cause
+none more virtuous, witty, or learned than thyself. But thou art dead
+in thy grave, and has left too few successors of thy glory, too few to
+cherish the sons of the Muses, or water those budding hopes with their
+plenty, which thy bounty erst planted." The public manifestations of
+grief at Sidney's death, and the rivalry of two nations for the
+possession of his remains, seem to have proceeded rather from the fame
+of his personal virtues than from the accomplishment of great
+achievements. It was recorded on the tomb of the learned Dr. Thornton
+that he had been "the tutor of Sir Philip Sidney," and Lord Brooke
+caused the inscription to be placed over his own grave: "Fulke
+Greville, servant to Queen Elizabeth, counsellor to King James, and
+friend to Sir Philip Sidney."
+
+The work of a man who belonged so thoroughly to his own time, and who
+united in himself talents and virtues so remarkable could hardly fail
+to be of historical interest. Such is the value now belonging to the
+"Arcadia"--a work unrivalled in its own day, and deserving the
+admiration of the present, but which has been left behind in the great
+advance of English prose fiction. In the courtly pages of the "Arcadia"
+are brilliantly reflected the lofty strain of sentiment characteristic
+of Elizabeth's time, and the chivalry, the refinement, and the
+impetuosity of if its noble author. "Heere have you now," wrote Sir
+Philip to his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, "most deare, and most
+worthy to be most deare Ladie, this idle worke of mine. * * * Youre
+deare self can best witnesse the manner, being done in loose sheetes of
+paper, most of it in your presence, the rest by sheetes sent unto you,
+as fast as they were done." It would be tedious to the reader to
+receive a detailed description of the story which extends through the
+four hundred and eighty pages of Sidney's folio. The plot turns on the
+fulfilment of a Delphian prophecy, in fear of which Basilius, king of
+Arcadia, retires to a forest with his wife and two daughters. One
+daughter, Philoclea, lives with her father Basilius, and the other,
+Pamela, is confided to the care of Dametas, a country fellow, in the
+service of Basilius, who lives close by with his wife. Pyrocles, prince
+of Macedon, and Musidorus, prince of Thessaly, are wrecked on the coast
+of Arcadia, where they soon become enamored of the two daughters of
+Basilius. To the better attainment of their ends, Pyrocles obtains
+admittance to the house of Basilius in the disguise of an Amazon, and
+Musidorus enters the service of Dametas in the character of a shepherd.
+The story which is unrolled in the remainder of the work relates the
+extraordinary occurrences which are necessary to the fulfilment of the
+Delphian prophecy, together with the intrigues and adventures of the
+young lovers. Shipwrecks, attacks by pirates, rescues, journeys through
+Arcadia among poetic shepherds, a war with the Helots, through forests
+and carving sonnets on trees,--such are the scenes which succeed each
+other with unending variety. On the arrival of Pyrocles and Musidorus
+in Arcadia, the reader is introduced to that ideal land, never more
+happily described than by Sidney's pen[70]:
+
+    The third day after, in the time that the Morning did strow roses
+    and violets in the heavenly floore against the comming of the
+    sunne, the Nightingales, (striving one with the other which could
+    in most daintie varietie recount their wrong caused sorrow,) made
+    them put off their sleepe, and rising from under a tree, (which
+    that night had bin their pavillion,) they went on their journey,
+    which by and by welcomed Musidorus eies (wearied with the wasted
+    soile of Laconia) with delightfull prospects. There were hills
+    which garnished their proud heights with stately trees: humble
+    vallies, whose base estate seemed comforted with the refreshing of
+    silver rivers: medowes, enameled with all sorts of eie pleasing
+    flowers; thickets, which being lined with most pleasant shade, were
+    witnessed so too, by the cheerfull disposition of manie well tuned
+    birds: each pasture stored with sheep feeding with sober securitie,
+    while the prettie lambes with bleating oratorie craved the dammes
+    comfort: here a shepheards boy piping, as though he should never be
+    old: there a young shepheardesse knitting, and withall singing, and
+    it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to worke, and her
+    hands kept time to her voice's musick. As for the houses of the
+    country, (for manie houses came under their eye,) they were all
+    scattered, no two being one by th' other, and yet not so farre off
+    as that it barred mutuall succour: a shew, as it were, of an
+    accompanable solitarinesse, and of a civill wildeness.
+
+Amid such scenes dwell Basilius and his wife, whose two daughters are
+described by Sidney in language unsurpassed for delicacy and charm.
+
+    Of these two are brought to the world two daughters, so beyond
+    measure excellent in all the gifts allotted to reasonable
+    creatures, that we may thinke they were borne to shew, that nature
+    is no stepmother to that sexe, how much so ever some men (sharp
+    witted onely in evill speaking) have sought to disgrace them. The
+    elder is named Pamela, by many men not deemed inferiour to her
+    sister: for my part, when I marked them both, me thought there was,
+    (if at least such perfections may receive the word of more,) more
+    sweetness in Philoclea, but more majestie in Pamela: mee thought
+    love plaied in Philoclea's eies, & threatened in Pamela's; me
+    thought Philoclea's beautie only perswaded, but so perswaded that
+    all hearts must yield; Pamela's beautie used violence, and such
+    violence as no heart could resist. And it seems that such
+    proportion is betweene their mindes; Philoclea so bashfull, as
+    though her excellencies had stolne into her before she was aware,
+    so humble, that she will put all pride out of countenance; in
+    summe, such proceeding as will stirre hope, but teach hope good
+    maners. Pamela of high thoughts, who avoids not pride with not
+    knowing her excellencies, but by my making that one of her
+    excellencies to be void of pride: her mother's wisdome, greatnesse,
+    nobilitie, but (if I can guesse aright) knit with a more constant
+    temper.[71]
+
+The description of an envious man in the second book,[72] which
+suggested to Sir Richard Steele his essay in the nineteenth number of
+the _Spectator_, is another good example of Sidney's ability in
+delineating character. The passage in which Musidorus is represented
+showing off the paces of his horse,[73] a subject especially adapted to
+excite the best effort of the author, is a very remarkable effort of
+descriptive power, for the insertion of which, unfortunately, space is
+wanting here. Sidney might have quoted his description of Pamela
+sewing, to justify his belief that "It is not rhyming and versing that
+maketh poesy":
+
+    Pamela, who that day having wearied her selfe with reading, * * * was
+    working upon a purse certaine roses and lillies. * * * The flowers
+    shee had wrought caried such life in them, that the cunningest
+    painter might have learned of her needle: which, with so pretty a
+    manner, made his careers to & fro through the cloth, as if the needle
+    it selfe would haue been loth to haue gone fromward such a mistresse,
+    but that it hoped to returne thitherward very quickly againe; the
+    cloth looking with many eyes vpon her, and louingly embracing the
+    wounds she gaue it: the sheares also were at hand to behead the silke
+    that was growne too short. And if at any time shee put her mouth to
+    bite it off, it seemed, that where she had beene long in making of
+    a rose with her hands, she would in an instant make roses with her
+    lips; as the lillies seemed to haue their whitenesse rather of the
+    hand that made them, than of the matter whereof they were made;
+    & that they grew there by the suns of her eyes, and were refreshed
+    by the most * * * comfortable ayre, which an unawares sigh might
+    bestow upon them.[74]
+
+Charles I. passed many hours of his prison life in reading the
+"Arcadia," and Milton[75] accused him of stealing a prayer of Pamela
+to insert in the "Eikon Basilike": "And that in no serious book, but
+the vain amatorious poem of Sir Philip Sidney's 'Arcadia'; a book in
+that kind, full of worth and wit, but among religious thoughts and
+duties not worthy to be named: nor to be read at any time without good
+caution, much less in time of trouble and affliction to be a
+Christian's prayerbook." This prayer is in itself so beautiful, coming
+from the lips of Pamela, and the greater part of it suits so perfectly
+the unhappy circumstances of King Charles, that at the risk of unduly
+multiplying our extracts from the "Arcadia," it will be inserted
+here:--
+
+    And therewith kneeling downe, euen where shee stood, she thus said:
+    O All-seeing Light, and eternall Life of all things, to whom
+    nothing is either so great, that it may resist; or so small, that
+    it is condemned: looke vpon my misery with thine eye of mercie, and
+    let thine infinite power vouchsafe to limite out some proportion of
+    deliuerance vnto me, as to thee shall seeme most conuenient. Let
+    not injurie, O Lord, triumph ouer me, and let my faults by thy hand
+    bee corrected, and make not mine vnjust enemy the minister of thy
+    justice. But yet, my God, if in thy wisdome this be the aptest
+    chastisement for my vnexcusable folly: if this low bondage be
+    fittest to my ouerhigh desires: if the pride of my not inough
+    humble heart be thus to be broken, O Lord I yeeld vnto thy will,
+    and joyfully embrace what sorrow thou will haue mee suffer. Onely
+    thus much let me craue of thee, (let my crauing, O Lord, be
+    accepted of thee, since euen that proceeds from thee,) let me
+    craue, euen by the noblest title, which in my greatest affliction I
+    may give myself, that I am thy creature, and by thy goodness (which
+    is thyselfe) that thou wilt suffer some beame of thy Majestie so to
+    shine into my minde, that it may still depend confidently on thee.
+    Let calamitie be the exercise, but not the ouerthrow or my vertue;
+    let their power preuaile, but preuaile not to destruction; let my
+    greatnesse be their pray; let my paine bee the sweetnesse of there
+    reuenge: let them, (if so it seeme good vnto thee) vexe me with
+    more and more punishment. But, O Lord, let neuer their wickednesse
+    haue such a hand, but that I may cary a pure minde in a pure body.
+    (And pausing a while.) And O most gracious Lord, (said she) what
+    euer become of me, preserve the vertuous Musidorus.[76]
+
+The "Arcadia" combines the elements of both the chivalric and the
+pastoral romance. Sidney's familiarity with the legends of Arthur,
+together with his own gallantry and love of adventure, peculiarly
+adapted him to describe martial scenes. But the chivalry of Sir Philip
+is not more apparent where he describes the shock of arms than where,
+with such exquisite delicacy, he writes of women. The student of
+English fiction would fain linger long over the pages which describe
+the loves of Pamela and Philoclea. For when these pages are laid aside,
+it is long before he may again meet with the poetry, the manly and
+womanly sentiment, and the pure yet stirring passion which adorn the
+romance of Elizabeth's Philip. Three centuries have passed away since
+the "Arcadia" was written, and we who live at the end of this period
+not unjustly congratulate ourselves on our superior civilization and
+refinement. And yet in all this time we have arrived of no higher
+conception of feminine virtue or chivalrous manhood than is to be found
+in this sixteenth-century romance, and during one half of these three
+hundred years there was to be seen so little trace of such a
+conception, whether in life or in literature, that the word love seemed
+to have lost its nobler meaning and to stand for no more than animal
+desire. There is not in English fiction a more charming picture of
+feminine modesty than that of Pamela hiding her love for Musidorus.
+
+    How delightfull soeuer it was, my delight might well bee in my
+    soule, but it neuer wente to looke out of the window to doe him any
+    comforte. But how much more I found reason to like him, the more I
+    set all the strength of my minde to conceale it. * * * Full often
+    hath my breast swollen with keeping my sighes imprisoned: full
+    often have the teares I draue back from mine eyes turned back to
+    drowne my heart. But, alas, what did that helpe poore Dorus?[77]
+
+Hardly less beautiful is the gradual yielding, through pity, of
+Pamela's maidenly heart.
+
+    This last dayes danger having made Pamela's loue discerne what a
+    losse it should haue suffered if Dorus had beene destroyed, bred
+    such tendernesse of kindnesse in her toward him, that she could no
+    longer keepe loue from looking out through her eyes, and going
+    forth in her words; whom before as a close prisoner, shee had to
+    her heart onely committed: so as finding not onely by his speeches
+    and letters, but by the pitifull oration of a languishing behaviour,
+    and the easily deciphered character of a sorrowfull face, that
+    despaire began now to threaten him destruction, she grew content
+    both to pitie him, and let him see shee pitied him. * * * by making
+    her owne beautifull beames to thaw away the former ycinesse of her
+    behaviour.[78]
+
+That portion of the "Arcadia" which relates to pastoral life owes its
+origin to Spanish and Portuguese works. But there were not wanting to
+Sidney's experience actual examples of that peaceful existence to
+which, in troubled times, men have so often turned as a pleasing
+contrast to their own cares, and dangers. The shepherds of the Sussex
+Downs, pursuing through centuries their simple vocation, unheeded by
+the world, untouched by revolution or civil war, tended their sheep
+with little thought or knowledge of the world beyond the downs, and
+presented to the poet a picture of calm content, in pleasing contrast
+to the active or terrible incidents which more frequently made up the
+sum both of romance and of actual life. The shepherds of the "Arcadia"
+make even less pretence to reality than the martial heroes. They are
+usually poets and musicians; speaking in courtly phrases, and occupied
+with amorous adventures, they serve sometimes to relieve, and sometimes
+to heighten, the more stirring scenes.
+
+A third element in the "Arcadia" is the comic, and with this, as might
+be expected from the rather crude ideas of humor prevalent in the
+sixteenth century, Sidney met with indifferent success. The wit depends
+on the ugliness, the perversity, and the clownish character of Dametas,
+his wife, and their daughter Mopsa. It partakes of the nature of the
+practical joke, and though it no doubt amused the courtiers of
+Elizabeth, is too clumsy for a more cultivated taste. But although
+Sidney's comic scenes may no longer amuse, it must be said that they
+are free from the low coarseness and ribaldry which have furnished
+merriment to times which pretended to a much higher standard of wit and
+education than his own. An interesting contrast may be made between a
+comic passage of the "Arcadia,"[79] representing a fight between two
+cowards, and perhaps the only scene in the "Morte d'Arthur" of
+humorous intent,[80]--that in which King Mark is ignominiously put to
+flight by Arthur's court fool disguised in the armor of a knight.
+
+In the history of English literature, Sir Philip Sidney's romance will
+always have a prominent place as the first specimen of a fine prose
+style. The affectations and mannerisms which are its chief defect were
+due to the unsettled condition of the language, and to the influence of
+foreign works, which the general love of learning had made familiar to
+cultivated Englishmen. The position of the "Arcadia" in fiction is
+established by the exquisite descriptions of nature and the life-like
+sketches of character which will often reward the patient reader. That
+prolixity, which more than any other cause has made the work obsolete,
+and, as a whole, unreadable, was a recommendation rather than an
+objection at the time of publication. The "Arcadia," standing almost
+alone in the department of fiction, and far superior to its few
+competitors, took the place of a small circulating library. A spirit of
+lofty ideality pervades the work of Sir Philip Sidney, which is
+expressive of the aspirations of his time. In the fictions of that age
+is to be seen a constant attempt, not always successful, to dignify
+life, to exalt the beautiful, and to conceal or condemn the base.
+Everyday life was not tempting to the writer, because it contained too
+much that was repulsive. The story teller and the poet painted amid
+unreal scenes that happiness and virtue which they thought more easily
+to be conceived in an ideal land of knights and shepherds, than amidst
+the cares and dangers of their own existence.[81]
+
+
+[Footnote 57: Paine's "History of English Literature," book iii, ch. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 58: Nichol's "Progresses," vol. I, p. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 59: The Italian tales were issued in various collections,
+such as Painter's "Palace of Pleasure," Whetstone's "Heptameron," the
+"Histories" of Goulard and Grimstone. One of the best of these
+collections is "Westward for Smelts," by Kinde Kit of Kingstone, circa
+1603, reprinted by the Percy Society. It is on the same plan as
+Boccaccio's "Decamerone," except that the story-tellers are fish-wives
+going up the Thames in a boat. Imitations of the Italian tales may be
+found in Hazlitt's "Shakespeare's Library," notably "Romeo and
+Julietta." Most of these are modernized versions of old tales. I may
+here add, as undeserving further mention, such stories as "Jacke of
+Dover's Quest of Inquirie," 1601, Percy Soc.; "A Search for Money," by
+William Rowley, dramatist, 1609, Percy Soc.; and "The Man in the Moone,
+or the English Fortune-Teller," 1609, Percy Soc.]
+
+[Footnote 60: The most comprehensive remarks on Lyly and "Euphues" are
+to be found in the _London Quarterly Review_ for April, 1801, and are
+due to Mr. Henry Morley.]
+
+[Footnote 61: Henry Peacham, "Compleat Gentleman." See Drake's
+"Shakespeare and his Times."]
+
+[Footnote 62: Shakespeare ridiculed the affectations of contemporary
+language in "Love's Labour Lost." Among the characters of Ben Jonson
+are some good Euphuists. In "Every Man out of his Humour," Fallace says
+(act v, sc. x), "O, Master Brisk, as 'tis said in Euphues, Hard is the
+choice, when one is compelled, either by silence to die with grief, or
+by speaking to live with shame." In "The Monastery," a novel which the
+author himself considered a failure, Sir Walter Scott represented a
+Euphuist. But the language of Sir Piercie Shafton is entirely devoid of
+the characteristics of Euphuism, and gives a very false impression
+concerning it. (See introduction to "The Monastery.") Compare passages
+quoted in the text with one in chap. xiv ("Monastery") beginning: "Ah,
+that I had with me my Anatomy of Wit." Also _passim_.]
+
+[Footnote 63: The lines quoted from the "Winter's Tale" are in act iv,
+sc. 3. For Greene's words see "Dorastus and Fawnia," in Hazlitt's
+"Shakespeare's Library," part I, vol. 4, p. 62. The resemblance between
+the two passages is pointed out by Dunlop ("History of Fiction," p.
+404). Collier in his introduction to "Dorastus and Fawnia" denied this
+obligation of Shakespeare to Greene. But he was evidently led into this
+error by liking the following passage, instead of the one quoted in the
+text, for the foundation of Shakespeare's lines: "The gods above
+disdaine not to love women beneathe. Phoebus liked Sibilla: Jupiter Io;
+and why not I, then Fawnia?"]
+
+[Footnote 64: Another of Greene's tales, possessing much the same
+merits and the same defects as those already mentioned is "Never too
+Late."]
+
+[Footnote 65: Shakespeare's Celia.]
+
+[Footnote 66: Act I, sc. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 67: "Miscellanea," part ii, essay iv.]
+
+[Footnote 68: Gray's "Life of Sidney," p. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 69: "Pierce Penniless."]
+
+[Footnote 70: Folio, 1622. p. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 71: Folio, 1622, p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 72: Folio, p. 130.]
+
+[Footnote 73: Folio, p. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Folio, p. 260.]
+
+[Footnote 75: See an "Answer in 'Eikon Basilike,'" Milton's Works,
+Symmons' ed., v. 2, p. 408.]
+
+[Footnote 76: Folio, p. 248.]
+
+[Footnote 77: Folio, p. 116.]
+
+[Footnote 78: Folio, p. 231.]
+
+[Footnote 79: Book iii.]
+
+[Footnote 80: "Morte d'Arthur," book x, chap. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 81: A Scotchman named Barclay published a partly political
+and partly heroic volume called "Argenis" in 1621. It was much
+commended by Cowper the poet, but being written in Latin, is hardly to
+be included in English fiction. See Dunlop, chap. x. Francis Godwin
+wrote a curious story about 1602, called "The Man in the Moon," in
+which is described the journey of one Domingo Gonzales to that planet.
+Dunlop ("Hist. of Fiction") thought Domingo to be the real author. See
+chapter xiii. This romance is chiefly remarkable for its scientific
+speculations, and the adoption by the author of the Copernican theory.
+It was translated into French, and imitated by Cyrano de Bergerac, who
+in his turn was imitated by Swift in Brobdignag. See Hallam, "Lit. of
+Europe," vol 3, p. 393.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE PURITANS. BUNYAN'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS."
+
+
+I.
+
+The renaissance of learning, with its delight in a sense of existence,
+its enjoyment of a new life, a newly acquired knowledge, and a
+quickened intelligence, was gradually supplanted by that renaissance of
+religion which followed the general introduction of the Bible among the
+English people. Weary of the oppression of the clergy, weary of giving
+an often ruinous obedience to the tyranny of men whose lives gave them
+no claim to control the conduct of others, the early Puritan found in
+the Bible the knowledge of God and the means of grace which he
+despaired of obtaining from the priest. The Bible became in reality
+_The Book_. It was the one volume possessed and read by the people at
+large. The classical authors, the volumes of translations issued in
+Elizabeth's time, the productions, even, of English genius had been
+familiar only to the upper and best-educated classes. The great body of
+the people were without books, and the Bible became their one literary
+resource, and the sole teacher of the conditions by which salvation
+could be attained. It was seized upon with extraordinary avidity and
+enthusiasm. Old men learned to read, that they might study it for
+themselves. Crowds gathered in churches and private houses to hear it
+read aloud. A good reader became a public benefactor. Alike in manor
+and in cottage, the family gathered at night to listen with awe-struck
+interest to the solemn words whose grandeur was not yet lessened by
+familiarity. As we quote, often unconsciously, from a hundred different
+authors, the Puritans quoted from their one book.[82] Some, like
+Bunyan, at first preferred the historical chapters. But the Bible soon
+came to have a far more powerful and absorbing interest than any of a
+literary nature. There men looked for their sentence of eternal life or
+eternal torment. There they sought the solution of the question: "What
+shall I do to be saved?" And they sought it with all the fervor of
+conscientious men who realized, as we cannot realize, the doctrine of
+eternal damnation. To understand the influence of the Bible, we must
+remember how completely men believed in a personal God, ruling England
+then, as He had ruled Israel of old; and in a devil who stalked through
+the world luring men to their perdition. The Bible was studied with a
+fearful eagerness for the way to please the one and to escape the
+other. Looked upon as the word of God, pointing out the only means of
+salvation, men placed themselves, through the Bible, in direct
+communication with the Deity, and, casting aside the authority of a
+church, acknowledged responsibility to Him alone. The difficulty of
+interpreting obscure portions of the Scriptures drove many to frenzy
+and despair. A hopeful or consoling passage was hailed with joy. "Happy
+are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." "Lo," wrote Tyndale,
+"here God hath made a covenant wyth us, to mercy full unto us, yf we
+wyll be mercy full one to another."
+
+Thus two ideas became paramount: the idea of God, and the idea of
+conscience. God was thought of as a judge who will reward His chosen
+servants by eternal happiness, but who will deliver those who do not
+know Him, or those who sin against His laws, to Satan and everlasting
+fire; a God to please whom is the first object of this life, as no
+pleasure and no pain here can compare with the pleasure or pain to
+come. This conception of the Deity still survives among us, but it is
+not realized with the intensity of men who feel the hand of God in
+every incident of their lives, who fancy that the Devil in person is
+among them, and who distinctly hear his tempting words. Conscience, the
+guide who pointed out the path of rectitude, became strict and
+self-searching, ever looking inwardly, and judging harshly, magnifying,
+through the greatness of its ideal of virtue, every failing into a
+crime. The natural result of these ideas seething in a brain which had
+little other food was Puritanism: the subordination of all other
+interests of life to the attainment of a spiritual condition acceptable
+in the sight of God. Following this aim with feverish intentness, and
+tortured by a conscience of extreme tenderness, the Puritans naturally
+cast aside the pleasures of this life as likely to interfere with the
+attainment of future happiness, and as worthless compared to it. It was
+no time for gaiety and trifling when the horrors of hell were staring
+them in the face.
+
+There is extant a life-like picture of a London housewife, which can
+teach us much regarding the spirit of Puritanism.[83] "She was very
+loving and obedient to her parents, loving and kind to her husband,
+very tender-hearted to her children, loving all that were godly, much
+misliking the wicked and profane. She was a pattern of sobriety unto
+many, very seldom was seen abroad, except at church. When others
+recreated themselves, at holidays and other times, she would take her
+needlework, and say, 'here is my recreation.'"
+
+The self-denial of this virtuous housewife developed into that
+austerity which, when Puritanism had become the ruling power in
+England, closed the theatre and the bear-garden, stopped the dancing on
+the village green, and assumed a dress and manner, the sombreness of
+which was meant to signify a scorn of this world. While we can now
+easily perceive the mistakes of the Puritans, and condemn the folly of
+prohibiting innocent amusements which form a natural outlet for
+exuberant spirits, it will be well if we can do justice to the nobility
+of aim, and the greatness of self-sacrifice, to which their austerity
+was due. We must remember that the aim of the Puritans was a godliness
+far more exacting than that which we seek, and requiring a
+proportionate sacrifice of immediate pleasure. We must remember, too,
+that the amusements of that time were in large part brutal, like the
+bear-gardens; and licentious, like most of the theatres. Puritanism
+could only exist among men filled to an uncommon degree with a love of
+virtue, who were ready to undergo every hardship, and to sacrifice
+every personal inclination to attain it. Growing up among the people at
+large, Puritanism showed a strong national love of religion and
+morality. The resolution with which its devotees pursued their aims,
+the serene content with which the martyrs welcomed the flames which
+were to open the gates of Heaven, were backed by a strength of faith
+not exceeded by that of the early Christians. The self-control and
+self-sacrifice of the Puritans moulded the armies of the Commonwealth,
+and overthrew the tyranny of Charles. But their finer qualities were
+clouded by the fanaticism which a long persecution had engendered. A
+phrase in our description of the London housewife unconsciously tells
+the story: "Loving all that were godly, much misliking the wicked and
+profane." The godly were the sharers of her own faith, the "wicked and
+profane" were all those without its pale. Here lay the weakness of
+Puritanism: its narrowness, its lack of sympathy with the world at
+large, its indifference to the sufferings of those who had no place in
+the ranks of the elect.
+
+Among such men we must look in vain for literary productions having the
+aim of entertainment. The literature of the time was chiefly polemical,
+and commentaries crowded on the book-shelves the volumes of classical
+and Italian writers. To Puritanism, fiction was the invention of the
+Evil One, but still to Puritanism we owe, what is now, and seems
+destined ever to remain, the finest allegory in the English language.
+
+
+[Footnote 82: See Green's "Short History of the English People," chap.
+viii, sec. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 83: John Wallington's description of his mother. Green's
+"Short History of the English People," p. 451.]
+
+
+
+II.
+
+That John Bunyan, a poor, illiterate tinker, was able to take the first
+place among writers of allegory, and to accomplish the extraordinary
+intellectual feat of producing a work which charmed alike the ignorant,
+who could not perceive its literary merits, and cultivated critics, who
+viewed it only from a literary standpoint, depended partly on his own
+natural gifts, and partly on the character of Puritan thought. To write
+a good allegory requires an imagination of unusual power. It requires,
+in addition, a realization of the subject sufficiently strong to give
+to immaterial and shadowy forms a living personality. These conditions
+were combined in Bunyan's case to an unexampled degree. He possessed an
+imagination the activity of which would have unsettled the reason of
+any less powerfully constituted man. His subject, the doctrine of
+salvation by grace, was, by the absorbing interest then attached to it,
+impressed upon his mind with a vividness difficult to conceive. In
+"Grace Abounding in the Chief of Sinners," Bunyan left a description of
+his life, and the workings of his mind on religious subjects, which is
+without a parallel in autobiography. The veil which hides the thoughts
+of one man from another is withdrawn, and the reader is placed in the
+closest communion with the mind of the writer. In "Grace Abounding" is
+easily detected the secret of Bunyan's success in allegory. "My sins
+did so offend the Lord, that even in my childhood He did scare and
+affright me with fearful dreams, and did terrify me with dreadful
+visions. I have been in my bed greatly afflicted, while asleep, with
+apprehensions of devils and wicked spirits, who still, as I then
+thought, labored to draw me away with them, of which I could never be
+rid. I was afflicted with thoughts of the Day of Judgment, night and
+day, trembling at the thoughts of the fearful torments of hell fire."
+One Sunday, "as I was in the midst of a game at cat, and having struck
+it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to strike it the second
+time, a voice did suddenly dart from heaven into my soul, which said,
+'Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to Heaven, or have thy sins and go to
+Hell?' At this I was put to an exceeding maze; wherefore leaving my cat
+on the ground, and looking up to Heaven, saw, as with the eyes of my
+understanding, Jesus Christ looking down upon me very hotly displeased
+with me, and severely threatening me with some grievous punishment for
+my ungodly practices. * * * I cannot express with what longing I cried
+to Christ to call me. I saw such glory in a converted state that I
+could not be contented without a share therein. Had I had a whole world
+it had all gone ten thousand times over for this, that my soul might
+have been in a converted state." After Bunyan's conversion he says of
+his conscience: "As to the act of sinning, I was never more tender than
+now. I durst not take up a pin or a stick, though but so big as a
+straw, for my conscience now was sore, and would smart at every touch.
+I could not tell how to speak my words for fear I should misplace
+them."
+
+A man so sensitive to supernatural impressions could realize them as
+completely as the actual experiences of his daily life. Such, in fact,
+they were. With a conscience so tender, and a longing so intense for
+what he considered a condition of grace, Bunyan described the journey
+of Christian with the minuteness and fidelity of one who had trod the
+same path. The sketch of the pilgrim, which opens the work, stamps
+Christian at once an individual.
+
+    As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a
+    certain place where was a den; and I laid me down in that place to
+    sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I
+    saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his
+    face from his own house, a Book in his hand, and a great burden
+    upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the Book, and read
+    therein; and, as he read, he wept and trembled; and not being able
+    longer to contain, he broke out with a lamentable cry, saying "what
+    shall I do?"
+
+The same impression of reality pervades the whole work. Christian's
+sins take an actual form in the burden on his back. Every personage
+whom he meets on his journey, and every place through which he passes
+appears to the mind of the reader with the vividness of actual
+experience. The child or the laborer reads the "Pilgrim's Progress" as
+a record of adventures undergone by a living man; the scholar forgets
+the art which has raised the picture before his mind, in a sense of
+contact with the subject portrayed. This is the triumph of a great
+genius, and it is a triumph to which no other writer has attained to
+the same degree. Other allegorists have pleased the fancy or gratified
+the understanding, but Bunyan occupies at once the imagination, the
+reason and the heart of his reader. Defoe's power of giving life to
+fictitious scenes and personages has not been surpassed by that of any
+other novelist. But Defoe's scenes and characters were of a nature
+familiar to his readers, and therefore easily realized. In the
+"Pilgrim's Progress," strange and unreal regions become well-known
+places, and moral qualities distinct human beings. Evangelist, who puts
+Christian on the way to the Wicked Gate; Pliable, who deserts him at
+the first difficulty; Help, who pulls him out of the Slough of Despond;
+Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who shows him an easy way to be rid of his burden,
+are all life-like individuals. Timorous, Talkative, Vain Confidence,
+Giant Despair, are not mere personifications, but distinct human beings
+with whom every reader of the "Pilgrim's Progress" feels an intimate
+acquaintance. Not less real is the impression produced by the various
+scenes through which the journey of Christian conducts him. The Slough
+of Despond, the Wicket Gate, the House of the Interpreter, the Hill
+Difficulty, have been familiar localities to many generations of men,
+who have watched Christian's struggle with Apollyon in the Valley of
+Humiliation, and followed his footsteps as they trod the Valley of the
+Shadow of Death, as they passed through the dangers of Vanity Fair,
+and brought him at last to the Celestial City, and the welcome of the
+Shining Ones.
+
+The "Pilgrim's Progress" and the "Holy War" are not as allegories
+entirely perfect, but they probably gain in religious effect, as much
+as they lose from a literary point of view, in those passages where the
+allegorical disguise is not sustained. The simplicity and power of
+their language are alone sufficient to give them an important place in
+English literature. Throughout the "Pilgrim's Progress" are evidences
+of a strong human sympathy, and a kindly indulgence on the part of the
+author for the weak and erring among his fellow-men. Ignorance, to be
+sure, is cast into the bottomless pit; but as the work taught a
+spiritual perfection, it could not afford to encourage the willingly
+ignorant by bestowing a pardon on their representative. Bunyan himself
+was distinguished for a general sympathy with his fellow-men which the
+narrowness of Puritanism had failed to impair. The sad words in which
+he mourned, while in prison, his long separation from his wife and
+children, show the natural tenderness of his disposition, as well as
+the greatness of the sacrifice which he was making for his
+religion:--"The parting with my wife and poor children hath often been
+to me in this place as the pulling the flesh from my bones; and that
+not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great mercies, but
+also because I often brought to mind the many hardships, miseries, and
+wants that my poor family was like to meet with; especially my poor
+blind child, who lay nearer to my heart than all I had beside."
+
+With the allegories of Bunyan, we leave ideality behind us as a
+characteristic feature of English fiction. The knights of the Round
+Table, Robin Hood and his merry men, the princes and princesses of the
+"Arcadia," the pilgrim Christian, were the ideal heroes of the
+particular periods to which they belong. They were placed amid the
+scenes which seemed most attractive, and were endowed with the
+qualities which seemed most admirable to the men whose imaginations
+created them. But, with the exception perhaps of Robin Hood, they were
+purely ideal, without prototypes in nature. The writer of fiction had
+not yet turned his attention to the delineation of character, to the
+study of complex social questions, to the portrayal of actual life.
+With the fall of Puritan power, begins a great intellectual change.
+History shows, since the Restoration, a tendency which has continuously
+grown stronger and wider, to subordinate the imagination to the reason
+of man, to withdraw political and social questions from the influence
+of mere tradition, to subject them instead, to the test of practical
+experience, and to encourage the patient physical investigations which
+have resulted in the triumphs of modern science. This tendency has
+pervaded all the channels of human industry. Its effect upon works of
+fiction has been to introduce into that department of literature, a
+spirit of realism, and a love of investigating the problems of life and
+character, which have resulted in the modern novel. Henceforth we shall
+meet no more ideal beings, but men or women, more or less true to
+nature. In the fiction of the Restoration are first observable the new
+tendencies, which, although but slightly marked at first, have finally
+given to the English novel its present importance. An attempt to trace
+the gradual perfection of this form of literature, its development into
+a work of art, into a natural history of men, into a truthful
+reflection of very varied social conditions, will occupy the remainder
+of this volume.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE RESTORATION. ROGER BOYLE. MRS. MANLEY. MRS. BEHN.
+
+
+I.
+
+The Puritans had overthrown the political tyranny of Charles, but in
+attempting to build up by force a kingdom of the saints on earth, they
+had established a spiritual tyranny, quite as irksome and quite as
+perishable, of their own. Meanwhile they had failed to preserve the
+reputation for sanctity which formed the chief basis of their
+authority. As soon as they had attained power, they were joined by men
+who professed their principles merely for selfish purposes; who vied
+with each other in presenting to the world the outward signs of
+Puritanism, and remained notoriously profligate in life and character.
+The kingdom of the saints, objectionable as a tyranny, and finally
+identified in the popular mind with a hated hypocrisy, came to its
+inevitable end in the reaction of the Restoration. But when the first
+fury of this reaction had passed away, it was evident that Puritanism
+survived it: no longer a political power, but a moral influence which
+controlled the great body of the people, and gave to English habits and
+literature their distinctive tone of serious morality.
+
+But for the time, all sight of this was lost. The entry of Charles II
+into Whitehall was the sign for unlimited indulgence in all that had
+lately been forbidden. "Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop."[84]
+The Puritans had pent up for so long the natural cravings for pleasure
+and gaiety, that, when the barriers were withdrawn, license and
+debauchery were necessary to satisfy appetites which a long-enforced
+abstinence had made abnormal. In Vanburgh's "Provoked Wife," a comedy,
+like so many others of the time, at once very immoral and very
+entertaining, Sir John Brute thus excuses the virtues of his early
+life: "I was afraid of being damned in those days; for I kept sneaking,
+cowardly company, fellows that went to church, said grace to their
+meat, and had not the least tincture of quality about them."
+_Heartfree_: "But I think you have got into a better gang now." _Sir
+John_: "Zoons, sir, my Lord Rake and I are hand in glove."[85] In the
+country, people were generally satisfied with getting back their
+May-poles and Sunday games. But in London, where the rule of Puritanism
+had been the strictest, and above all among the courtiers, the new
+liberty resulted in a license and shamelessness unequalled in English
+history.
+
+In the general proscription of Puritan ideas, the good were involved in
+the same destruction as the bad. Religion was mocked at as a cloak for
+hypocrisy, self-restraint was thrown aside as an obstacle to enjoyment.
+It was thought that emancipation from Puritan tyranny could not be
+attained more effectually than by a life of open licentiousness; by
+gambling and drunkenness. Such, under the Restoration, were the
+occupations most attractive to the gentlemen of fashion. Buckingham,
+Rochester, and the troop of courtiers who looked to them for an
+example, spent their lives in sinking into an ever deeper depravity.
+Their thoughts and mouths were never clean. The verses they wrote are
+too foul to transcribe as an illustration of the taste of their
+composers. The orgies in which they indulged were not scenes of gaiety,
+in which buoyant spirits and lively wit might excuse excess, but were
+serious, bestial, and premeditated. The dealings of these men with the
+female sex were but a succession of low intrigues, which destroyed all
+sentiment and left nothing but disgust behind them. We hear a great
+deal about "love" in the literature of the time, but it is the same
+kind of love that might be found among a herd of cattle. It would be
+difficult to mention any man about the court of Charles II who could
+have appreciated the pure and enduring passion which in the century
+before had breathed through the noble lines of Spenser's
+"Epithalamion," and in the century that followed inspired "John
+Anderson, my jo' John." Charles himself, "the old goat," set an example
+which hardly needed the authority of the Lord's anointed to become
+attractive. Without honor or virtue himself, and denying their
+existence in others, he made a fitting leader of the society about him.
+His mistresses insulted the queen by their splendor and arrogance, and
+insulted him by amours with servants and mountebanks. So destitute of
+dignity or principle as to share the Duchess of Cleveland with the
+world, he coolly asked a courtier who was reputed to be on too intimate
+terms with the queen, how his "mistress" did. While the gaming-tables
+at court were nightly covered with gold, and Lady Castlemaine gambled
+away thousands of pounds at a sitting, the exchequer was closed amid a
+widespread ruin, and the menial servants about the court were in want
+of bread. So openly was the king's coarse licentiousness pursued, that
+"the very sentrys speak of it," that the queen rarely entered her
+dressing-rooms without first being assured that the king was not there
+with one of his women. Such an example had a powerful influence upon
+all the rank and fashion of the time, already predisposed to a similar
+course. The extent of the prevailing reverence for royalty is admirably
+illustrated by the scene in which the Earl of Arlington advised Miss
+Stewart concerning her conduct as mistress of the king, to which
+position "it had pleased God and her virtue to raise her." Thus from
+the popular dislike of Puritanism, and the example of a profligate
+court, began that reign of social and political corruption which for a
+hundred years demoralized the manners and sullied the literature of the
+English people. The vice which became so engrafted on the habits of
+private life as to make decency seem an affectation, invaded religion
+and politics. To religion it brought about a general indifference,
+which in the higher ranks of the clergy took effect in disregard of
+their duties and in a shameless scramble for lucrative posts, and in
+the lower ranks produced poverty and social degradation. In politics
+are to be dated from this reign the gross corruption which enabled
+every public officer, however high or however low, to use his position
+for the purpose of private plunder, and the habit of bribing members of
+Parliament which soon converted them into tools of the crown's
+ministers.
+
+While the men found their greatest enjoyment and most congenial
+occupation in drunkenness, duelling, and seduction, it is not to be
+expected that women should have retained an unappreciated refinement.
+Half-naked and ornamented with a profusion of jewels, they look out
+from the portraits of the time with a sleepy, voluptuous expression,
+which suggests a lack of intelligence and too great a susceptibility to
+physical impressions. Women as we find them in contemporary memoirs,
+and these most often deal with such as are about the court, are not
+unfit companions for the men. We see not a few the willing victims of
+coarse intrigues, and some even assisting in the degradation of others
+of their sex. Many of them swore "good mouth filling oaths," and the
+scandal they talked would have shocked the taste as well as the
+principles of Elizabeth's time. In the eighteenth century much
+coarseness is to be seen in literature and society, but we are
+constantly meeting with the words "delicacy" and "indelicacy" in their
+application to social refinement, and it is evident that the ideas of
+that time on this subject differ from ours only in degree. Under the
+Restoration, these words, or the thoughts they represent, had a very
+insignificant existence. Public taste inclined to the gross and the
+sensual, and welcomed as enjoyable, what the present discards as
+disgusting. Ladies of the highest rank sat through plays of which the
+purpose and effect was to degrade their own womanhood, to remove from
+the minds of the men who sat about and watched their countenances at
+each new obscenity, whatever respect for the sex might have lingered
+there. Some wore masks to hide the blushes which might have been looked
+for as a drama proceeded, which represented every female character on
+the stage as little better than an animal, using such reason as she
+possessed only to further the gratification of her appetites. Under
+such conditions there could be no encouragement for maiden modesty, and
+for old age no crown.
+
+It is usually unfair to judge a community by its theatre, to which an
+exceptional liberty must always be allowed. But the drama of the
+Restoration may be said to reflect with much truth the popular taste.
+For the noblest efforts of dramatic genius the student turns by
+preference to the age of Elizabeth. There he finds art, beauty, and
+poetry; there he finds human nature, with its nobility and its
+littleness, with its virtues and its vices. The time of Charles II was
+as narrow in its way as the Puritans had been in theirs, and was as
+little capable of forming broad and just views of mankind. The
+Puritans, if they had had a stage, would have represented man as an
+embodiment of moral qualities. The dramatists of the Restoration made
+him merely a creature subject to animal desires and brutish instincts,
+which he made no effort to regulate. "It might, not be easy perhaps,"
+says Hallam, "to find a scene in any comedy of Charles II's reign,
+where one character has the behavior of a gentleman, in the sense we
+attach to the word."[86] The stage was in perfect accord with its
+audience. Morality was outraged by a constant association of virtue
+with all that is contemptible and of vice with all that is attractive.
+Taste was outraged by a perpetual choice of degraded subjects and
+disgusting scenes. Nature was outraged by the representation of man,
+not as a complex being, worthy of deep and skilful investigation, but
+as a creature influenced by two or three passions always apparent on
+the surface. Thus the dramatists, notwithstanding their very
+exceptional abilities, produced little of enduring value, and nothing
+which could outlive a change in the popular taste. They did, however,
+produce what was greatly admired by their contemporaries: and the fact
+that the men and the women of the time enjoyed the plays provided for
+them, shows that they preferred to noble and elevating subjects, the
+literary reproduction of their own corrupt lives. The theatre no doubt
+represented men as worse than they were. But the friends of Buckingham
+and Rochester, both male and female, found in its long list of
+unprincipled men, of married women debauched, and of young girls
+anxious to be debauched, the reflection and justification of their own
+careers.
+
+Posterity remembers little of the reign or the theatre of Charles II
+beyond their corruption. Yet there is much that is worthy of
+remembrance, without which any remarks on the social condition of the
+time would be one-sided. There are to be referred to that period many
+legislative enactments in the highest degree conducive to civil and
+religious liberty. The foundation of the Royal Society marked the
+inauguration of a new interest in speculative enquiry, of a great
+activity in scientific research, and of a broader and more liberal
+habit of thought on questions connected with government and education.
+These advantages were attained in spite of a worthless king, of corrupt
+ministers, and a licentious court, and they are due to the earnestness
+and vigor of the great body of the English people, qualities which have
+remained unchanged through every national vicissitude or success. While
+Pepys and Grammont supply full details of the moral degeneration which
+weakened and debased the highest ranks of society, the sound morality,
+steady industry, and progressive nature of the nation are to be seen in
+the journal of the good Evelyn. His character and occupations, as well
+as those of his friends, offset the coarse tastes and worthless lives
+which brought the time into discredit. To the prevailing disregard of
+the marriage tie may well be contrasted the happiness of Evelyn's
+domestic life. His daughter, of whom he has left a beautiful
+description, was endowed with an elevation of character, a charm of
+disposition, and a purity of thought admirable in any age, and it
+cannot be doubted that she had many contemporary parallels.
+
+
+[Footnote 84: Destouches, "Glorieux," v. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 85: Act ii, sc. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 86: "Literature of Europe," vol. 4, chap. 6, sec. 2-47.]
+
+
+
+II
+
+With the pensions and fashions which were sent across the Channel from
+the court of Louis XIV, came a curious species of fiction which had a
+temporary vogue in England. Gomberville, Scuderi, and Calprenede had
+created the school of Heroic Romance by the publication of those
+monumental works which the French not inaptly termed "les romans de
+longue haleine." This was the bulky but enervated descendant of
+chivalric and pastoral romance. The tales of chivalry and of pastoral
+life had their _raison d'etre_. The feudal knighthood found in the
+tournaments, in the adventures of knight-errantry, and in the
+supernatural agencies which filled their volumes of romance, the
+reflection of their own aspirations and beliefs. They admired in the
+ideal characters of Charlemagne and Arthur the qualities most valued
+among themselves. Martial glory was to them the chief object of life;
+love was simply the reward of valor. The pastoral romance followed in
+less warlike times. Its subject was love; and that passion was usually
+described amidst humble and peaceful shepherds, where its strength and
+charm could develop more fully than amidst scenes of war and tumult.
+Both the chivalric and the pastoral romance were the embodiment of
+ideals which in turn represented contemporary tastes. But heroic
+romance, although it shared some of the characteristics of its
+predecessors, had not the same claim to interest. It was unnatural and
+artificial, rather than ideal. It imitated the martial character of the
+tales of chivalry, but subordinated that character to love. It imitated
+the devoted strain of adoration which ran through the fanciful phrases
+of pastoral fiction; but that artificial passion which seemed
+appropriate to ideal shepherds tuning their pipes under a perpetual
+sunshine, became absurd when applied to Greek or Carthaginian soldiers.
+
+Gomberville's "Polexander," complete-in six thousand pages, and
+Calprenede's "Cassandra," "the fam'd romance," are now before me.
+Greeks, Romans, Turks, Parthians, Scythians, Babylonians are mingled
+together in a truly heroic structure of absurdity and anachronism.
+Artaxerxes appears on one page, the queen of the Amazons on the next,
+then the king of Lacedaemon, Alexander the Great, even a prince of
+Mexico, and comparatively private persons beyond computation. This
+crowd of names represent personages who imitate the deeds of chivalry,
+and converse in the affected style of the French court, while their
+ancient bosoms are distracted by a pure, all-absorbing, and never-dying
+love as foreign to their nature as to that of the readers of heroic
+romance. That this species of fiction should have met with any success,
+is largely due to the circumstance, that under the disguise of Greek
+warriors or Parthian princesses, there were really described
+contemporary beauties and courtiers, who fondly believed that they had
+attained, through the genius of Calprenede and Scuderi, an enviable
+immortality. Unhappily for them, the characters of heroic romance have
+found in that endless desert of phraseology at once their birthplace
+and their tomb.
+
+The works of Gomberville, Calprenede, and Scuderi, although little
+adapted to the English taste, shared the favor which was extended to
+every thing French, and were both translated and imitated. The
+"Eliana," published in 1661; although a _bona-fide_ imitation, would
+have served much better as a caricature. To the absurdity of incident
+is added an absurdity of language which gives the book almost a comic
+aspect. The beauty of flowers growing in the fields is disguised under
+the statement that Flora "spreads her fragrant mantle on the
+superficies of the earth, and bespangles the verdant grass with her
+beauteous adornments." A lover "enters a grove free from the
+frequentations of any besides the ranging beasts and pleasing birds,
+whose dulcet notes exulsecrate him out of his melancholy
+contemplations."[87]
+
+Dunlop considered the best work of this description to be the
+"Parthenissa," published in 1664, by Roger Boyle, afterward Earl of
+Orrery. This romance, although marked by the faults of prolixity and
+incongruity characteristic of the heroic style, is not without
+narrative interest or literary merit. The hero is Artabanes, a Median
+prince, as usual "richly attired, and proportionately blessed with all
+the gifts of nature and education." At the Parthian court he becomes
+enamored of the beautiful Parthenissa, and in her honor performs many
+distinguished deeds of arms. Distracted, however, at the suspicion of
+Parthenissa's preference for a rival, he leaves the Parthian court with
+the determination to spend the remainder of his life on the summit of
+the Alps. This intention is frustrated by pirates, who take him
+prisoner and bestow him as a slave upon their chief. Artabanes soon
+escapes from bondage, suddenly turns out to be the historic Spartacus,
+and returns to Asia. There he finds that Parthenissa, to avoid the
+importunities of an objectionable lover, has swallowed a potion which
+gives her the appearance of death. In this dilemma he journeys to "the
+Temple of Hieropolis in Syria, where the Queen of Love had settled an
+oracle as famous as the Deity to whom it was consecrated." The priest
+of this temple, after listening patiently to the long account of
+Artabanes' misfortunes, tells the story of his own remarkable career,
+by which it appears that he is Nicomedes, king of Bythinia, the father
+of Julius Caesar's Nicomedes. While Artabanes is listening to this
+narrative, he sees two persons land upon the shore, and enter a
+neighboring wood. One is a young knight, and the other the exact
+counterpart of Parthenissa. At this apparition Artabanes is thrown into
+the greatest confusion. The lady he has seen presents every outward
+appearance of his mistress, and yet he believes her dead, and is unable
+to conceive that if living, she should so far forget her duty to him
+and the rules of propriety, as to place herself in so suspicions a
+position. Here the romance comes to an abrupt end, leaving Artabanes in
+the condition of painful uncertainty in which he has ever since
+remained.
+
+Heroic romance proved as ephemeral in England as the cloaks and
+feathers with which it had crossed the Channel, and we may pass over
+such trivial literary attempts as those of the Duchess of Newcastle to
+the writings of Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Behn. These two novelists, if such
+they may still be called, represent, in narrative fiction, the period
+which extends from the Restoration to the opening of the eighteenth
+century. They have left us little, and that of very indifferent merit.
+But their stories have a certain importance, inasmuch as with them
+begins the tendency, in English fiction, to deal with the actual,
+instead of the imaginary, to describe characters and scenes meant to
+represent real life.
+
+The daughter of Sir Roger Manley, at one time Governor of Guernsey,
+Mrs. Manley was seduced, when quite a young woman, and passed the
+remainder of her life in a licentiousness which has evidently inspired
+her literary productions. Having picked up a few stories from current
+report, she worked them into what she called "The Power of Love, in
+Seven Novels."[88] The "love" here described is an unregulated animal
+passion, and its "power" is the natural effect of such a passion upon
+men and women who have no idea of self-restraint or refinement. The
+result is a series of licentious scenes, unredeemed by any literary
+merit. Mrs. Manley's most prominent work was the "Secret Memoirs and
+Manners of Several Persons of Quality of Both Sexes. From the New
+Atalantis, an Island in the Mediterranean." This book is a scandalous
+chronicle of crimes reputed to have been committed by persons of high
+rank, and the names are so thinly disguised as to be easily identified.
+Mrs. Manley was arrested and prosecuted for the publication, but
+escaped without serious punishment. The work itself had a wide
+circulation, and Pope adopted the endurance of its fame as a measure of
+time in his shortsighted line, "As long as Atalantis shall be read."
+
+In the beginning of this book a female personage named Astraea resolves
+to revisit the earth, which she had long before abandoned in disgust.
+She alights upon an island in the Mediterranean, named Atalantis, which
+is meant to signify England, and a female form immediately rises up
+before her.
+
+    Her habit _obsolete_ and _torn_, almost degenerated into tatters;
+    But her Native Charms, that needed not the Help of Art, gave to
+    Astraea's returning Remembrance that it could be no other than her
+    beautiful Mother Vertue. But oh! how despicable her Garments! how
+    neglected her flowing Hair! How languid her formally animated Eyes!
+    How pale, how withered the Roses of her lovely Cheeks and Lips! How
+    useless her snowy arms and polished Fingers! they hung in a
+    melancholy Decline, and seemed out of other Employment, but
+    sometimes to support the Head of the dejected Fair One! Her limbs
+    enervated and supine, wanting of that Energy which should bear her
+    from a Solitude so affrighting!
+
+From this very accurate description of the condition of virtue at the
+end of the seventeenth century, it might be supposed that Mrs. Manley
+deplored her neglected state. But such is far from being the case.
+Astraea and Virtue meet with a personage called Intelligence, who
+furnishes them with a detailed account of current scandal calculated to
+still further depress the dejected Virtue. The trio are soon joined by
+Mrs. Nightwork, a midwife, who never breaks an oath of secrecy unless
+it be to her interest, and the character of whose contributions to the
+general fund of gossip may be easily imagined. This semi-allegorical
+method of narration is kept up during the first two volumes; in the
+third and fourth Mrs. Manley tells her story in her own way. In the
+course of these four volumes is unrolled an extraordinary series of
+crimes, some unnatural, and all gross in highest degree. The details
+which Mrs. Manley could not obtain from authentic sources are supplied
+by her vivid and heated imagination. She gloats over each incident with
+a horrible relish, and adds, with no unsparing brush, a heightened
+color to each picture. Only a society whose conduct could afford
+material for this composition could possibly have read it. Mrs. Manley
+no doubt invented and exaggerated without scruple, but the fact that
+her work was widely read and even popular is a sufficient commentary on
+the taste of the time. The reader of to-day is sickened by the
+multiplication of repulsive scenes, and the absence from the book of
+any good qualities or actions whatever. The style in which the
+"Atalantis" is written is so mean, that no person could have derived
+any pleasure from its pages other than the gratification of a depraved
+taste.
+
+A writer of fiction of much greater importance appeared in the person
+of Aphra Johnson, more generally known as Mrs. Behn, or "the divine
+Astraea"; "a gentlewoman by birth, of a good family in the city of
+Canterbury." Her father was appointed to a colonial office in the West
+Indies, where he took his family while Mrs. Behn was yet a young girl.
+There the future authoress began a chequered life by living on a
+plantation among rough and lawless colonists, and there she made the
+acquaintance of the slave Oroonoko, whose sad story she afterward made
+known to the world. On her return to England, she married Behn, a
+merchant of Dutch extraction, and went to live in the Netherlands,
+where she acted as a British spy. By working upon the feelings of her
+lovers, she was able to convey information to the English government of
+the intention of the Dutch to enter the Thames to destroy the English
+fleet. Her warnings were disregarded, and giving up her patriotic
+occupation, she returned to London, and devoted herself to literature.
+She died in 1689, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster
+Abbey:--"Covered only with a marble stone, with two wretched verses on
+it." Although Mrs. Behn is now almost forgotten, her position in her
+own time was not inconsiderable. Besides a number of letters and poems,
+her literary productions include a translation of Fontenelle's
+"Plurality of Worlds," and a paraphrase on Van Dale's "De Oraculis
+Ethnicorum." Her plays met with some success, but were characterized by
+a licentiousness which won for her the title of "the female Wycherley,"
+a fact, which, on account of her sex, called down upon her a general
+and well-deserved condemnation. Two other productions, of which the
+nature is sufficiently indicated by their titles, were "The Lover's
+Watch; or the Art of making Love: being Rules for Courtship for every
+Hour of the Day and Night"; and "The Ladies Looking Glass to dress
+themselves by; or the whole Art of charming all Mankind."
+
+It was on Mrs. Behn's return from the West Indies that, being
+introduced at court, she related to Charles the Second the terrible
+fate of the noble slave Oroonoko. At the solicitation of the king, she
+put her narrative into the form of a novel, which obtained a large
+circulation, and was dramatized by Southern in his tragedy of the same
+name. "Oroonoko" is worthy of notice as one of the earliest attempts on
+the part of an English novelist to deal with characters which had come
+under the writer's observation in actual life. It is still more
+important on account of the presence within it of a didactic purpose; a
+characteristic which for good or for evil has been a prominent feature
+of the English novel. Sir Thomas More had made use of fiction in the
+sixteenth century to urge his ideas of political and social reforms.
+Bunyan, more than a century later, used the same means to promulgate
+his conception of Christian life. While English narrative fiction was
+still in its first youth, Mrs. Behn protested against the evils of the
+slave trade through the medium of a story which may be considered a
+forerunner of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+To interest the public in a distant country or an abstract principle,
+the novel is the most effective literary means. A treatise on the slave
+trade by Mrs. Behn, however strong and truthful, would have met with
+the little attention which is accorded to the sufferings of a distant
+and unknown people. But the novel has the advantage over the treatise,
+that it deals with the particular and not the general, with the
+individual and not the nation. It can place before the reader a limited
+number of persons; it can interest his mind and heart in their
+characters, lives, and fate; and by subjecting them to the horrors of
+the evil to be depicted, excite through commiseration for their
+sufferings a hatred of the cause which inflicted them. To such a use
+the novel has often been put, at too frequent a sacrifice of its
+artistic merit. To excite indignation against the results of the slave
+trade, Mrs. Behn took the special instance of Oroonoko. She endowed the
+African slave with beauty of person and nobility of character. She gave
+him tastes and qualities of a kind to attract the interest of a
+European reader. She added a description of his wife Imoinda, dwelling
+on the details of her beauty and charms. By a passionate relation of
+the amatory scenes which occurred between Oroonoko and his wife, she
+touched a key particularly calculated to excite contemporary English
+sympathy. Finally, by telling the story of the cruel wrongs inflicted
+on the slaves, she aroused a natural indignation against the system
+which could entail such evil results.
+
+The story itself is briefly as follows. Oroonoko was a brave young
+chief, the grandson of a king whose dominions lay on the coast of
+Africa. He had distinguished himself in war, and already commanded all
+the forces of his grandfather's kingdom. Hitherto rather unsusceptible
+to female charms, he became deeply enamored of Imoinda, on returning
+victorious from a great war. Unfortunately the king noticed Imoinda at
+the same time, and had her brought to his palace as his concubine.
+According to the rules of the court, this would separate the lovers
+forever. Oroonoko in desperation made his way to Imoinda's chamber in
+the palace at night, where he was discovered by the king's servants.
+Imoinda was immediately sold as a slave. Oroonoko made his way down to
+the seashore, and was there allured, under false pretenses of
+hospitality, on board an English ship. He was carried to the West
+Indies, and sold to a planter of Surinam, the colony in which Mrs. Behn
+was living, and where by a remarkable chance Imoinda had already been
+sold. The beauty of Imoinda had brought about her a large number of
+suitors, all of whom met with a cold repulse. The tenderness of the
+meeting between Oroonoko and Imoinda prevailed upon their master to
+allow them to live together. But Oroonoko longed for liberty. He
+plotted a revolt among his fellow-slaves, and on its suppression was
+brutally flogged. Enraged by this, he escaped into the woods with
+Imoinda, who was then pregnant. Fearing that she might fall into the
+hands of the whites, and unwilling to be the father of a slave, he
+killed her, and remained by her dead body several days, half insensible
+with grief and without food. Again taken by the colonists, he was tied
+to a post, hacked to pieces and burned. The story, simple in itself,
+becomes striking in the hands of Mrs. Behn. The hut of the old negro
+king is given the brilliancy of an Eastern court, and his harem is
+copied after that of a Turkish potentate. When Oroonoko is induced to
+board the English slaver, it is in no common style, but "the Captain in
+his Boat richly adorned with Carpets and velvet Cushions went to the
+Shore to receive the Prince, with another Long Boat where was placed
+all his Music and Trumpets." Mrs. Behn's methods of adorning her tale
+are best shown by her description of Oroonoko himself, which is a good
+example of the tone in which the story is written.
+
+    I have often seen and conversed with this Great Man, and been a
+    Witness to many of his mighty Actions: and do assure my Reader, the
+    most illustrious Courts could not have produced a braver Man, both
+    for Greatness of Courage and Mind, a Judgment more solid, a Wit
+    more quick, and a Conversation more sweet and diverting. He knew
+    almost as much as if he had read much; he had heard of and admired
+    the Romans; he had heard of the late Civil Wars in England, and the
+    deplorable Death of our great Monarch; and would discourse of it
+    with all the Sense and abhorrence of the Injustice imaginable. He
+    had an extremely good and graceful Mien, and all the civility of a
+    well bred Great Man. He had nothing of Barbarity in his Nature, but
+    in all Points addressed himself as if his Education had been in
+    some European Court.
+
+    This great and just character of Oroonoko gave me an extreme
+    Curiosity to see him, especially when I knew he spoke French and
+    English, and that I could talk with him. But though I had heard so
+    much of him, I was as greatly surprised when I saw him, as if I had
+    heard nothing of him; so beyond all Report I found him. He came
+    into the Room, and addressed himself to me and some other Women
+    with the best Grace in the World. He was pretty tall, but of a
+    Shape the most exact that can be fancyed: The most famous Statuary
+    could not form the figure of a Man more admirably turned from Head
+    to Foot. His face was not of that brown lusty Black which most of
+    that Nation are, but a perfect Ebony or polished Jet. His Eyes were
+    the most aweful that could be seen, and very piercing; the White of
+    'em being like Snow, as were his teeth. His Nose was rising and
+    Roman, instead of African and flat. His Mouth the finest Shape that
+    could be seen; far from those great turn'd Lips which are so
+    natural to the rest of the Negroes. The whole Proportion and Air of
+    his Face was nobly and exactly form'd, that bating his Colour,
+    there would be nothing in Nature more beautiful, agreeable and
+    handsome. There was no one Grace wanting that bears the Standard of
+    true Beauty. His Hair came down to his Shoulders, by the aids of
+    Art, which was by pulling it out with a quill, and keeping it
+    comb'd; of which he took particular care. Nor did the perfections
+    of his Mind come short of those of his Person; for his Discourse
+    was admirable upon almost any Subject; and whoever had heard him
+    speak, would have been convinced of their Errors, that all fine Wit
+    is confined to the white Men, especially to those of Christendom;
+    and would have confessed that Oroonoko was as capable even of
+    reigning well, and of governing as wisely, had as great a Soul, as
+    politick Maxims, and was as sensible of Power, as any Prince
+    civilized in the most refined Schools of Humanity and Learning, or
+    the most illustrious Courts.[89]
+
+"Oroonoko" is the only one of Mrs Behn's stories which has a didactic
+aim or a special interest of any kind. Her other works of fiction are
+short tales, usually founded on fact, which describe in unrestrained
+language the passion and adventures of a pair of very ardent lovers.
+They show the prevailing inclination in narrative fiction toward
+characters and scenes taken from actual life. But they have no interest
+apart from the slender thread of the story itself. They contain no
+studies of character, and no information of importance concerning
+contemporary manners. Their heroes and heroines differ from each other
+only in the intensity or the circumstances of their love. The best in
+narrative interest, and the most attractive in tone, is the "Lucky
+Mistake." It is without the grossness characteristic of Mrs. Behn's
+works, and gives quite a pretty account of the loves of a young French
+nobleman and an unusually modest young woman named Atlante. Mrs. Behn's
+notion of love is contained in the opening lines of the "Fair Jilt,"
+the most licentious of her tales. "As Love is the most noble and divine
+Passion of the Soul, so it is that to which we may justly attribute all
+the real Satisfactions of Life; and without it Man is Unfinished and
+unhappy. There are a thousand Things to be said of the Advantages this
+generous Passion brings to those whose Hearts are capable of receiving
+its soft Impressions; for 'tis not Every one that can be sensible of
+its tender Touches. How many Examples from History and Observation
+could I give of its wondrous Power; nay, even to a degree of
+Transmigration! How many Idiots has it made wise! How many Fools
+eloquent! How many home-bred Squires accomplished! How many cowards
+brave!" There is no doubt that Mrs. Behn was fully alive to the
+strength of the passion she describes, but as Sir Richard Steele said,
+she "understood the practic part of love better than the speculative."
+In accordance with the views general amidst the society of her own
+time, she represented love merely as a physical passion, and made the
+interest of her stories depend on its gratification, and not on the
+ennobling effects or subtle manifestations of which it is capable.
+
+There is a great deal in that well-known anecdote of Sir Walter
+Scott's, in which he relates that he "was acquainted with an old lady
+of family, who assured him that, in her younger days, Mrs. Behn's
+novels were as currently upon the toilette as the works of Miss
+Edgeworth at present; and described with some humor her own surprise,
+when the book falling into her hands after a long interval of years,
+and when its contents were quite forgotten, she found it impossible to
+endure, at the age of fourscore, what at fifteen, she, like all the
+fashionable world of the time, had perused without an idea of
+impropriety." This is a striking illustration of the mere relativeness
+of such words as "morality," "refinement," and their opposites. If this
+old lady could have lived over her early youth embued with the
+refinement of taste which surrounded her declining years, she would
+have been still more shocked at the coarseness of language, and the
+looseness of conduct and morals which prevailed among the highest
+ranks. At the same time she would have observed, that the society which
+appeared to her coarse and corrupt was far from so considering itself.
+What is gross to one age may have been the refinement of the last. A
+young girl considered modest and discreet at the end of the seventeenth
+century, if transferred unchanged to the end of the eighteenth, would
+have shocked the women she met with by talking of subjects unmentioned
+in society with a freedom and broadness unusual among the men. In
+judging a literary work from the point of view of morality or
+refinement, we must compare it with the standard of the age to which it
+belongs, and not with our own. Pope's graphic lines, in which he
+describes Mrs. Behn's position as a dramatist,
+
+     "The stage how loosely doth Astraea tread,
+      Who fairly puts all characters to bed."
+
+apply almost equally well to her novels. But still the contemporary
+reader found nothing in their pages to offend his sense of propriety.
+And Mrs. Behn, who simply put into a literary form ideas and scenes which
+were common in the society about her, cannot with justice be accused of
+an intention to pander to the lowest tastes of her readers. She said
+herself, when reproved for the tone of her plays, which was much inferior
+to that of her novels: "I make challenge to any person of common sense
+and reason, that is not wilfully bent on ill nature, and will, in spite
+of sense, wrest a _double entendre_ from everything * * * but any
+unprejudiced person that knows not the author--to read one of my comedies
+and compare it with others of this age, and if they can find one word
+which can offend the chastest ear, I will submit to all their pevish
+cavills." All this is worthy of note, if we are to follow the course of
+English fiction without prejudice. For it will be shown that the
+nineteenth century, with all its well-deserved pride in an advanced
+refinement and morality, has produced a large number of novelists, both
+male and female, whose works are as immoral as those of Mrs. Behn,
+without her excuse. Who, with all the advantages accruing from life
+in a refined age, with every encouragement to pursue a better course,
+have deliberately chosen to court an infamous notoriety by making vice
+familiar and attractive. And this too, at a time when a general
+confidence in the purity of contemporary literary works has practically
+done away with parental censorship; when books of evil tendency are as
+likely to fall into the hands of the young and susceptible as those of
+elevating tendency--a circumstance which adds a new responsibility to
+the duties of the conscientious writer.
+
+
+[Footnote 87: Dunlop's "History of Fiction," chap. iv.]
+
+[Footnote 88: "The Fair Hypocrite," "The Physician's Stratagem," "The
+Wife's Resentment," "The Husband's Resentment," in two parts; "The
+Happy Fugitive," "The Perjured Beauty."]
+
+[Footnote 89: "History of Oroonoko," Mrs. Behn's "Collected plays and
+novels."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
+  I.--ENGLAND UNDER ANNE AND THE FIRST TWO GEORGES.
+ II.--SWIFT, ADDISON, DEFOE.
+III.--RICHARDSON, FIELDING, SMOLLETT.
+
+
+I.
+
+The advance of a nation in numbers and civilization is accompanied by
+so great a complexity of social conditions that in this volume it is
+possible only to attempt to seize such salient characteristics of the
+eighteenth century as may serve to throw light on the course of English
+fiction. No age presents a more prosaic aspect. If we consider the
+condition of England at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the
+prevalence of abuses and corruption left by the ignorance or vice of
+preceding years, and reflect at the same time upon the progressive
+nature of the people, the practical habit of their minds, and the moral
+earnestness which they never wholly lost, it is not surprising to find
+that the century is one of reforms. Population and wealth had outgrown
+the laws and customs which had hitherto served for their control, and
+though in the earlier part of the period we find corruption in public
+and private life, indifference in religion, inadequate provision for
+the education of the young, gross abuses in jurisprudence, and
+coarseness of action and taste throughout the social system, there is
+also perceptible a solid foundation of good-sense and an earnest
+desire for improvement, which gradually, as the century wore on,
+introduced one reform after another, until many of those benefits were
+attained or made possible which the present century almost
+unconsciously enjoys. We should lose one of the most instructive
+lessons which history can afford, if, with Carlyle, we should allow the
+eighteenth century to lie "massed up in our minds as a disastrous,
+wrecked inanity, not useful to dwell upon,"[90] The England of that
+century was modern England, but modern England, burdened with a
+heritage of corruption and ignorance which it is the glory of the time
+to have in large part discarded. It was a time of social and material
+progress, and it was also the period of the growth and perfection of
+English fiction. To thoroughly understand the one, we must be
+acquainted with the other, and it will be the object of the two
+following chapters to trace the development of the English novel in
+connection with that national development of which it will be shown to
+be in great measure the exponent.
+
+That subordination of the imagination to reason, which, after the
+Restoration, became so marked in English thought on intellectual,
+political, and religious subjects, was continued in the eighteenth
+century with results which affected the whole current of national life.
+Before the light of physical science, silent but irresistible in its
+advances, faded away the remains of dogmatism and superstition.
+Astrology was forgotten in astronomy; belief in modern miracles and
+witchcraft ceased to take root in minds conscious of a universe too
+vast for realization, and governed by laws so regular, that probability
+could not attach to arbitrary interference by God or the devil. From
+the broadening of the intellectual horizon finally resulted
+inestimable benefits; but these benefits were purchased at the price of
+much temporary evil. If in religion, the rational tendencies prepared
+the way for the liberal and undogmatic Christianity to come, their
+effect for many years was to be seen only in scepticism, in a mocking
+indifference to religion itself, in a contempt of high moral
+aspirations and sentiments. If in politics, the final effect of these
+tendencies was to introduce new wisdom into government, they showed for
+long no other result than the suppression of all the higher qualities
+of a statesman, the disappearance of every sign of patriotism other
+than an ignorant hatred of foreign countries, the complete subversion
+of public spirit by private rapacity.
+
+The prevailing intellectual characteristics are marked, in literature,
+by the great predominance of prose over poetry. It will be no
+disparagement to Pope, Prior, Gray, Collins, Akenside, Goldsmith, or
+Young, to say that they did not attain in poetry what in prose was
+attained by Swift, Defoe, Steele, Addison, Bolingbroke, Richardson,
+Fielding, Smollet, Hume, Gibbon, Junius, and Burke; while Goldsmith is
+as much valued for his prose as for his verse, Addison, Swift, and
+Johnson more so. It is to these men, and to contemporaries of lesser
+note, that English literature is indebted for the invention or
+perfection of prose forms of the highest importance and beauty. Defoe
+stands pre-eminent among the founders of the newspaper, destined to
+attain so high a degree of power and utility. Addison, Steele, and
+Johnson made the essay one of the most attractive and popular forms of
+literature. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Horace Walpole, Chesterfield,
+and Junius brought letter-writing to perfection. Defoe, Addison,
+Richardson, and Fielding developed the realistic novel. A prosaic and
+conventional tone pervaded even the poetry of the period. Appreciation
+of poetry was almost extinguished, Addison, writing of the poets of the
+past, made no mention of Shakespeare, and found it possible to say of
+Chaucer:
+
+      In vain he jests in his unpolish'd strain,
+      And tries to make his readers laugh, in vain.
+
+And of Spenser:
+
+      Old Spenser next, warm'd with poetick rage,
+      In ancient tales amus'd a barb'rous age.
+      But now the mystick tale that pleas'd of yore
+      Can charm an understanding age no more.[91]
+
+"If you did amuse yourself with writing any thing in poetry," wrote
+Horace Walpole to Sir H. Mann, in 1742, "you know how pleased I should
+be to see it; but for encouraging you to it, d'ye see, 'tis an age most
+unpoetical! 'Tis even a test of wit to dislike poetry; and though Pope
+has half a dozen old friends that he has preserved from the taste of
+last century, yet, I assure you the generality of readers are more
+diverted with any paltry prose answer to old Marlborough's secret
+history of Queen Mary's robes. I do not think an author would be
+universally commended for any production in verse, unless it were an
+ode to the Secret Committee, with rhymes of liberty and property,
+nation and administration."
+
+During the brilliant era of literary activity, known by the name of
+Queen Anne, men of letters were encouraged by the government by means
+of employment or rewards. They were supported also by the public
+through the high social consideration which was freely accorded to men
+of talent. Literary success was a passport to the houses and the
+intimacy of the great. But under the first two Georges and the
+administration of Walpole the government was seconded by the public in
+its neglect of authors and their works. In those days the circle of
+readers was too small to afford remuneration to authorship. Employment
+or help from the government was almost a _sine qua non_ for the
+production of works which required time and research. While under Anne,
+Swift received a deanery, Addison was Secretary of State, Steele a
+prominent member of Parliament, and Newton, Locke, Prior, Gay, Rowe,
+Congreve, Tickell, Parnell, and Pope all received direct or indirect
+aid from the government, in the reigns of George I and George II,
+Steele died in poverty, Savage walked the streets for want of a
+lodging, Johnson lived in penury and drudgery. Thomson was deprived of
+a small office which formed his sole dependence.[92] This neglect of
+authors and of literature was only partially due to an unappreciative
+government. It was supported by the indifference of a public in a high
+degree material and unintellectual. Conversation in France, said
+Chesterfield, "turns at least upon some subject, something of taste,
+some point of history, criticism, and even philosophy; which, though
+probably not quite so solid as Mr. Locke's, is, however, better and
+more becoming rational beings than our frivolous dissertations upon the
+weather or upon whist."
+
+In keeping with the unimpassioned and prosaic tone of the time, was the
+low state of religious feeling, and the degeneration of the church,
+both in its own organization and in public esteem. The upper classes of
+society, as a rule, were lukewarm and insincere in any form of belief.
+Statesman and nobles in the most prominent positions combined professed
+irreligion with open profligacy, while the lower classes were left,
+through the indolence and selfishness of the clergy, almost without
+religious teaching. Montesquieu found that people laughed when religion
+was mentioned in London drawing-rooms. Sir Robert Walpole put the
+general feeling in his own coarse way. "Pray, madam," said he to the
+Princess Emily, when it was suggested that the archbishop should be
+called to the death-bed of Queen Caroline, "let this farce be played;
+the archbishop will act it very well. You may bid him be as short as
+you will. It will do the queen no hurt, no more than any good; and it
+will satisfy all the wise and good fools, who will call us all atheists
+if we don't pretend to be as great fools as they are."[93] This low
+state of religious sentiment was brought about by much the same causes
+which, at a later time, substituted a moral and liberal for the old
+dogmatic Christianity. The dislike of theological controversy left by
+the civil wars was aided by the Act of Toleration in giving the nation
+a religious peace, and in diverting human energy from religious
+speculations or emotions. The rational character of the national
+intellect was inclined to what was material and tangible, to physical
+study or industry. The general desire to submit all questions to the
+test of a critical reason, induced the clergy to apply the same test to
+theology. But while these tendencies, in their final result, were on
+the whole beneficial to religion, their temporary effect was injurious
+to it in a high degree. With a few exceptions, such as Butler,
+Berkeley, and Wilson, the clergy shared the indifference of their
+flocks. The upper ranks were indolent, selfish, often immoral; the
+lower, poor, ignorant, and degraded in social position. Bishops and
+prominent clergymen, under the system of pluralities, left their
+congregations to the care of hungry curates, and sought promotion by
+assiduous attendance at ministers' levees, or by paying court to the
+king's mistresses. It is not surprising that public respect for them
+and for their calling almost died away. Pope wrote sneeringly:[94]
+
+      EVEN _in a_ BISHOP _I can spy desert_;
+      _Seeker is decent, Rundle has a heart_.
+
+A naked Venus hung in the room where prayers were read while Queen
+Caroline dressed, which Dr. Madox sarcastically termed "a very proper
+altar-piece."[95] Of the High Churchmen Defoe declared that "the spirit
+of Christianity is fled from among them." When the Prince of Wales
+died, George the Second appointed governors and preceptors for the
+prince's children. Horace Walpole's description[96] of one of these is
+significant. "The other Preceptor was Hayter, Bishop of Norwich, a
+sensible well-bred man, natural son of Blackbourn, the jolly old
+Archbishop of York, who had all the manners of a man of quality, though
+he had been a Buccaneer and was a Clergyman; but he retained nothing of
+his first profession except his seraglio."
+
+While the attention of the upper clergy was largely absorbed by
+thoughts of private profit and by the pursuit of worldly advancement,
+the lower ranks were left in a position degrading alike to themselves
+and to religion. In the country a clergyman was little above a peasant
+in social consideration, and seldom equal to him in the comforts of
+life. To eke out the sustenance of himself and family, hard labor in
+his own garden was by no means the most menial of the services he was
+obliged to perform. His wife was usually a servant-maid taken from a
+neighboring country house, and the kitchen was his most common resort
+when he visited the home of a squire. A private chaplain was little
+above a servant. In London, many clergymen fell into the prisons
+through debt or crime. From the ranks of the lower clergy were
+recruited the "buck-parsons," so long a scandal to the church and to
+public morality; and the large body of "Fleet parsons," of infamous
+character, in the pay of gin shops and taverns, who, for a trifling
+sum, performed what were legal marriages between boys and girls,
+drunkards and runaways.
+
+The corruption in political life, begun under the Restoration and
+increased during the Revolution, was amplified and reduced to a system
+under Walpole until government seemed to be based on bribery.
+Ridiculing public spirit and disinterested motives in others, he bribed
+George the Second with the promise of a large civil list, bribed Queen
+Caroline with a large allowance, bribed members of Parliament with
+sinecures, pensions, or with direct payment of money, and paid himself
+with wealth and a peerage. Corruption was so firmly rooted as an engine
+of power, that no serious discredit attached to it. So low had fallen
+the standard of political honor, so widespread had become the spirit of
+self-seeking and corruption among the ministers and in Parliament, that
+"Love of our country," wrote Browne, "is no longer felt; and except in
+a few minds of uncommon greatness, the principle of public spirit
+exists not."[97] The dominating idea of political life was well put in
+the words of the Marquis of Halifax: "Parties in a state, generally,
+like freebooters, hang out false colors; the pretence is public good,
+the real business is to catch prizes." Lord Hervey divided the Whig
+party in 1727 into "Patriots and Courtiers, which was in plain English,
+'Whigs in place,' and 'Whigs out of place.'"[98] The assertion of
+disinterestedness met only with ridicule. In an interview with Queen
+Caroline, "when Lord Stair talked of his conscience with great
+solemnity, the queen (the whole conversation being in French) cried
+out: Ah, my Lord, ne me parlez point de conscience, vous me faites
+evanouir."[99] As personal advancement, and not the public service, was
+the ruling aim of statesmen, it is not surprising that for this
+advancement no means were regarded as too low. The king's mistresses
+were the object of ceaseless attentions from aspirants for office, and
+sometimes were the recipients of their bribes. Treachery was the order
+of the day. Bolingbroke said to Sir Robert Walpole, "that the very air
+he breathed was the gift of his bounty," and then left Sir Robert to
+tell the king that Walpole "was the weakest minister any prince ever
+employed abroad, and the wickedest that ever had the direction of
+affairs at home."[100] The Duke of Newcastle, that "living, moving,
+talking caricature," stands out an exaggerated type of the common
+statesmen of the time; "hereditary possessors of ennobled folly,"[101]
+maintained in offices which they had no capacity to fill by corruption,
+the abuse of patronage, and the control of rotten boroughs. Speaking of
+the Dukes of Devonshire, Grafton, and Newcastle, Lord Hervey says[102]:
+"The two first were mutes, and the last often wished so by those he
+spoke for, and always by those he spoke to." George the Second
+appreciated the character and objects of his advisers. He had, also, a
+frank and pointed way of describing them. In his opinion Sir Robert
+Walpole was "a great rogue"; Mr. Horace Walpole, ambassador to France,
+was a "dirty buffoon"; Newcastle, an "impertinent fool"; Lord
+Townshend, a "choleric blockhead";[103] while Lord Chesterfield was
+disposed of as a "tea-table scoundrel."[104] He complained that he was
+"obliged to enrich people for being rascals, and buy them not to cut
+his throat."[105] "The king and queen," wrote Hervey, "looked upon
+human kind as so many commodities in a market, which, without favor or
+affection, they considered only in the degree they were useful, and
+paid for them in that proportion--Sir Robert Walpole being sworn
+appraiser to their Majesties at all these sales."[106]
+
+The cringing subserviency of political men was equal to their
+corruption. When George I died, and it was believed that Sir Spencer
+Compton would succeed to the power of Sir Robert Walpole, at the king's
+reception "Sir Robert walked through these rooms as if they had been
+still empty; his presence, that used to make a crowd wherever he
+appeared, now emptied every corner he turned to, and the same people
+who were officiously a week ago clearing the way to flatter his
+prosperity, were now getting out of it to avoid sharing his disgrace.
+Everybody looked upon it as sure, and whatever profession of adherence
+and gratitude for former favors were made him in private, there were
+none among the many his power had obliged (excepting General Churchill
+and Lord Hervey) who did not in public as notoriously decline and fear
+his notice, as they used industriously to seek and covet it."[107] On
+the same occasion, Horace Walpole tells us, "my mother * * * could not
+make her way (to pay her respects to the king and queen) between the
+scornful backs and elbows of her late devotees, nor could approach
+nearer to the queen than the third or fourth row; but no sooner was she
+descried by her Majesty, than the queen cried aloud, '_There I am sure
+I see a friend!_' The torrent divided and shrunk to either side: 'and
+as I came away,' said my mother, 'I might have walked over their heads
+if I had pleased.'"[108] The general corruption and wickedness produced
+a remarkable misanthropy in the minds of men, which is reflected in the
+savage satire of Swift, in the bitter invective of Junius, in the
+cynicism of Lord Hervey. Sir Robert Walpole, said the latter, "had more
+warmth of affection and friendship for some particular people than one
+could have believed it possible for any one who had been so long raking
+in the dirt of mankind to be capable of feeling for so worthless a
+species of animals. One should naturally have imagined that the
+contempt and distrust he must have had for the species in gross, would
+have given him at least an indifference and distrust toward every
+particular."[109]
+
+The mercenary character of Parliament allowed the first two Georges to
+have much their own way as long as the money held out. Liberty of the
+subject, if not in great danger, had certainly lost its natural
+guardian. Few seats depended on a direct and popular vote. Most of them
+were in the gift of noblemen or rich commoners, "rotten boroughs,"
+having only "the bare name of a town, of which there remains not so
+much as the ruins."[110] Defoe tells us that the market price of a seat
+was a thousand guineas. The object of the purchaser was less often the
+service of his country, or even an honorable ambition, than the profit
+to be made from the sale of his vote. Members not infrequently had
+regular salaries from the government. "Sir Robert Walpole and the queen
+both told me separately," wrote Lord Hervey, "that it (the victory of
+the court) cost the king but 900_l_.--500_l_. to one man, and 400_l_.
+to another; and that even those two sums were advanced to two men who
+were to have received them at the end of the session had this question
+never been moved, and who only took this opportunity to solicit prompt
+payment."[111] Lord Chesterfield, in the same letter in which he spoke
+of the corrupt influencing of elections as a high crime and
+misdemeanor, recommends the Earl of Marchmont to _bribe_ "some of your
+venal peers" to confess that they took money to vote for the
+court.[112] "Ever since Lord Granville went out," wrote Horace Walpole
+in 1744, "all has been in suspense. The leaders of the Opposition
+immediately imposed silence upon their party; everything passed without
+the least debate, in short, _all were making their bargains_. One has
+heard of the corruption of courtiers, but, believe me the impudent
+prostitution of patriots, going to market with their honesty, beats it
+to nothing. Do but think of two hundred men _of the most consummate
+virtue_, setting themselves to sale for three weeks!"[113] The
+corruption of Parliament and the indifference, of members to any
+interests other than their own, were pointedly expressed by Queen
+Caroline in her reply to an address by Lord Stair[114]:--"I must,
+therefore, once more ask you, my Lord, how you can have the assurance
+to talk to me of your thinking the sense of constituents, their
+interests, or their instructions any measure or rule for the conduct of
+their representatives in Parliament. * * * To talk, therefore, in the
+patriot strain you have done to me on this occasion, can move me, my
+Lord, to nothing but laughter."
+
+In the words of Mr. Lecky,[115] the government was "corrupt,
+inefficient, and unheroic, but it was free from the gross vices of
+continental administrations; it was moderate tolerant, and economical;
+it was, with all its faults, a free government, and it contained in
+itself the elements of reformation." The national industry and
+resolution, particularly in the middle classes, brought about a great
+increase of wealth, a remarkable development of manufactures and
+commerce, which gave the country the extraordinary prosperity which it
+has since, almost without a check, enjoyed. The external appearance of
+England presented a new aspect. A fourth part of the whole land was
+redeemed from waste and put under cultivation.[116] The advance in
+agriculture and manufactures, making necessary better means of
+communication, introduced canals and substituted fine highways for the
+old muddy, robber-infested roads. The condition of these as late as
+1736 may be inferred from that of the road between Kensington and
+London: "The road between this place and London is grown so infamously
+bad, that we live here in the same solitude as we should do if cast on
+a rock in the middle of the ocean, and all the Londoners tell us there
+is between them and us a great, impassable gulf of mud. There are two
+roads through the Park, but the new one is so convex and the old one so
+concave, that by this extreme of faults they agree in the common one of
+being, like the high-road, impassable."[117]
+
+Social life was marked by the same corruption, by the same absence of
+high aspirations and standards which we have seen in politics. The
+nation, especially the higher ranks, had not recovered from the license
+of the Restoration, while the agencies which can preserve virtue and
+refinement in a society were almost inactive. Religion, partly in
+consequence of the reaction which followed the civil wars, and partly
+in consequence of the spread of rational tendencies, had lost its hold
+on society, and no longer sufficed to keep it in check. Theological
+controversy, although it issue in narrowness and persecution, yet has
+the merit of keeping alive an appreciation of high moral qualities and
+aims. In the absence of strong religious feeling, there is yet in the
+human mind a natural preference for what is beautiful and honorable,
+usually taking the form of ideals, which may keep up a social tone.
+This may be seen in the age of Elizabeth, not a very religious period,
+but one in which poetry and elevation of thought overshadow coarseness
+and immorality. The nineteenth century, again, is neither marked by
+strong religious feelings nor by any great tendency to idealization.
+And yet the nineteenth century has its standard, firmly based on public
+opinion, made up of a respect for decency and justice, a love of
+refinement, and an appreciation of the expediency as well as the
+attractiveness of virtue; a standard which influences many minds over
+which religion has little control. But in the earlier part of the
+eighteenth century, religion had ceased to govern, and had not yet
+attained that moral influence which, even in the absence of strong
+faith, establishes rectitude of conduct, philanthropy, and purity of
+thought in the minds of men. The ideals and aspirations of preceding
+centuries had no meaning for what Addison called an "understanding
+age," and the standard of order, refinement and taste of the present
+had yet to come. The low state of society was realized and revolted
+against by the best minds of the time. Gay lampooned it in the
+"Beggars' Opera," Swift satirized it in "Gulliver's Travels," Defoe
+became by force of circumstances a moral teacher; Addison, Steele, all
+the essayists preached lay sermons; the novelists set out with the
+object, less to amuse than to instruct, to improve their readers. This
+tendency, so marked in the literature of the time, is the evidence of
+the reforming influences at work. But many years passed before their
+effect was perceptible.
+
+There is nothing attractive about George the First and his two ugly old
+mistresses, the "Elephant" and the "Maypole"; nor about his court of
+Germans, utilizing their time in England by accumulating money to carry
+back to Hanover when the harvest time had passed. George the Second,
+brave, but narrow and ill-tempered, embodied in himself the coarseness
+of the time. He loved his wife, who was faithful to him through every
+outrage and every neglect. He caused one side to be taken out of her
+coffin, so that when he should be laid beside her his dust might mingle
+with hers. He esteemed her so highly, that in his grief at losing her,
+he went so far as to say that if she had not been his wife, he would
+have wished her for a mistress. To this wife, whom, in his own way, he
+sincerely loved and sincerely mourned, he confided all the details of
+his amours with other women. From Hanover, where he was acquiring
+Madame Walmoden as his mistress, "he acquainted the queen by letter of
+every step he took--of the growth of his passion, the progress of his
+applications, and their success, of every word as well as every action
+that passed--so minute a description of her person that, had the queen
+been a painter, she might have drawn her rival's picture at six hundred
+miles' distance. He added, too, the account of his buying her, and what
+he gave her, which, considering the rank of the purchaser, and the
+merits of the purchase as he set them forth, I think he had no great
+reason to brag of, when the first price, according to his report, was
+only one thousand ducats--a much greater proof of his economy than his
+passion."[118] Among many extraordinary relations and expressions his
+letters contained, "there was one in which he desired the queen to
+contrive, if she could, that the Prince of Modena, who was to come the
+latter end of the year to England, might bring his wife with him; and
+the reason he gave for it was, that he heard her Highness was pretty
+free of her person, and that he had the greatest inclination imaginable
+to pay his addresses to a daughter of the late Regent of France, the
+Duke of Orleans--'un plaisir' (for he always wrote in French), 'que je
+suis sur, ma chere Caroline, vous serez bien aise de me procurer, quand
+je vous dis combien je le souhaite.' Such a request to his wife
+respecting a woman he never saw, and during his connection with Madame
+Walmoden, speaks much stronger in a bare narrative of the fact, than by
+any comment or reflections; and is as incapable of being heightened as
+difficult to be credited."[119]
+
+Queen Caroline bore all this without a murmur in order to retain her
+political influence with the king. To the power of the queen she
+sacrificed the feelings of the woman. With many good qualities and
+considerable ability, she shared in the prevailing coarseness. Her son,
+the Prince of Wales, was a very disagreeable person. Neither the queen
+nor the Princess Caroline "made much ceremony of wishing a hundred
+times a day that the prince might drop down dead of an apoplexy--the
+queen cursing the hour of his birth, and the Princess Caroline
+declaring she grudged him every hour he continued to breathe; and
+reproaching Lord Hervey" for ever having believed "the nauseous beast
+(those were her words) cared for anybody but his own nauseous
+self."[120] The morning after the prince had been ordered to leave the
+palace, "the queen, at breakfast, every now and then repeated, 'I hope,
+in God, I shall never see him again'; and the king, among many other
+paternal _douceurs_ in his valediction to his son, said,'Thank-God,
+to-morrow night the puppy will be out of my house.'"[121] "My dear
+Lord" said the queen to Hervey, "I will give it to you under my own
+hand, if you are in any fear of my relapsing, that my dear first-born
+is the greatest ass and the greatest liar and the greatest _canaille_,
+and the greatest beast in the whole world, and that I most heartily
+wish he was out of it."[122] After the royal family, Sir Robert Walpole
+was the most prominent person in the country. He went about publicly
+with his mistress, and entertained his friends at his country-seat with
+orgies which disturbed the whole neighborhood. When the queen died he
+urged the princesses to get their father some new mistress to distract
+him. Lord Hervey says that Lady Sundon "had sense enough to perceive
+what black and dirty company, by living in a court, she was forced to
+keep."[123] Lady Deloraine, who was suspected of being the king's
+mistress, "when she spoke seriously to Sir Robert Walpole, pretended
+not to have yet yielded; and said 'she was not of an age like a vain or
+a loving fool, but that if she did consent, that she would be well
+paid.'"[124] "She told Lady Sundon, with whom she was very little
+acquainted, that the king had been very importunate these two years;
+and had often told her how unkind she was to refuse him; that it was
+mere crossness, for that he was sure her husband would not take it at
+all ill."[125] The looseness of the marriage tie had been a prevailing
+evil ever since the Restoration. Steele wrote in the _Tatler_ in 1710:
+"The wits of this island for above fifty years past, instead of
+correcting the vices of the age, have done all they could to inflame
+them. Marriage has been one of the common topics of ridicule that every
+stage scribbler hath found his account in; for whenever there is an
+occasion for a clap, an impertinent jest upon matrimony is sure to
+raise it. This hath been attended with very pernicious consequences.
+Many a country squire, upon his setting up for a man of the town, has
+gone home in the gaiety of his heart and beat his wife. A kind husband
+hath been looked upon as a clown, and a good wife as a domestic annual
+unfit for the company or conversation of the _beau monde_. In short,
+separate beds, silent tables, and solitary homes have been introduced
+by your men of wit and pleasure of the age."[126]
+
+The prevailing immorality and coarseness were in keeping with the
+absence of sympathy with all elevation of thought and sentiment. "If a
+man of any delicacy were to attend the discourses of the young fellows
+of this age," wrote Steele, "he would believe that there were none but
+prostitutes to make the objects of passion."[127] "Every woman is at
+heart a rake," thought Pope. Women were generally treated with
+disrespect, and distinctively female virtues were almost without
+appreciation. It is instructive to contrast the deeds of arms done in
+honor of a mistress in the Middle Ages, and the elevated sentiments
+held regarding women in what Addison called a "barbarous age," with the
+actions by which young men sometimes showed their devotion in the
+earlier part of the eighteenth century. The latter were as extravagant
+as the former, but extravagant after how different a manner. One young
+fellow, distinguished himself by drinking wine strained through his
+mistress' chemise; another, by drinking out of her shoe; another, by
+having her slipper torn to shreds, cooked, and served up as a dish.
+Coarseness of thought naturally brought on coarseness of action. Horace
+Walpole wrote in 1737, "'Tis no little inducement, to make me wish
+myself in France, that I hear gallantry is not left off there; that you
+may be polite, and not be thought awkward for it. You know the pretty
+men of the age in England use the women with no more deference than
+they do their coach horses, and have not half the regard for them that
+they have for themselves."[128]
+
+Against the grosser faults of immorality and indecency Steele and
+Addison preached. But even they were insensible to an elevated view of
+the relations between men and women. Such a view was, however, taken by
+Defoe; a man whom Steele and Addison, as well as the polite world in
+general, looked upon as an adventurer, and one whose opinions on social
+subjects they disdained. "We reproach the sex every day," wrote Defoe,
+"with folly and impertinence, while I am confident, had they the
+advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than
+ourselves. * * * I cannot think that God ever made them so delicate, so
+glorious creatures, and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable
+and so delightful to mankind, with souls capable of the same enjoyments
+as men, and all to be only stewards of our houses, cooks, and
+slaves."[129] Defoe stands almost alone in his remonstrance against the
+neglect of female education. But he stands more isolated still in his
+appreciation of womanly virtues, and in the enthusiasm with which he
+could speak of them. "A woman well-bred and well-taught, furnished with
+the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behavior, is a creature
+without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments;
+she is all softness and sweetness, love, wit, and delight; she is every
+way suitable to the sublimest wish; and the man that has such a one to
+his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her and be
+thankful."[130]
+
+Love was hardly distinguished from mere animal desire. The poets wrote
+of it coldly and conventionally, as of a thing which existed only in
+name. The lover could only beg his mistress "to ease his pain." But the
+conventionality which extended through all thoughts and expressions
+relating to the higher emotions of the human soul, had no effect in
+diminishing the coarseness of thought and conversation. Men were
+conventional as regards the nobler sentiments of life, but they were
+not conventional in the spirit which excludes from conversation and
+literature the gross and the immoral. Chesterfield wrote to his son of
+honor, justice, and so forth, as qualities of which he should know the
+names, but of no consequence compared to "manners, good-breeding, and
+the graces." If a man blushed, it was not at his own indecency, nor at
+his own vice, but at the supposition that he could be so weak as to be
+influenced by sentiments of delicacy. Coarseness is, of course, quite
+separate from immorality, although the two are usually found together.
+In the earlier part of the eighteenth century there was a marked
+distinction between them. Swift's Stella, a woman of refinement, was
+highly indignant at remarks being made before her of a licentious
+character, but she herself used expressions of the grossest description
+without a thought of impropriety. The same distinction is seen in the
+essays and novels of the time. Swift, Defoe, Fielding, Richardson, all
+had a moral object in their fictions--the exposure and condemnation of
+vice, the encouragement of virtue. And yet most of these novels,
+especially intended to exert a good influence, are of so coarse a
+nature, and describe scenes so licentious that no parent would now
+allow them in their children's hands. The essayists wrote principally
+what we should now look upon as sermons, or moral teachings, and yet
+very many of their papers are unfit to be read in a mixed society. Men
+and women were made then of coarser stuff than we. Their eyes and ears
+were less sensitive. They were, at best, accustomed to think and speak
+of things which to us seem disgusting, and of which, therefore, we
+think and speak as little as possible. In view of the circumstances
+which influenced society in the last century, this condition was a
+perfectly natural one. We must bear it in mind in reading contemporary
+literature, that we may not mistake an author's intention. But we must
+be careful in censuring what was, after all, only one necessary stage
+in the development of our own civilization. It must be said, also, that
+the coarseness of the eighteenth century was a healthy coarseness, bred
+of energetic natures and animal spirits. In our time, and in the midst
+of our advanced refinement there lurks a sickly sentimentality, a false
+modesty, and an unhealthy delicacy which are in a degree inimical to
+morality. We have novels in great numbers, not broadly coarse, as those
+of Fielding or Smollett, but insidiously immoral, painting vice and
+unbridled passions in an attractive light.
+
+The same rude and physical coarseness controlled the standard of taste,
+and introduced boisterousness and violence even into amusements. "The
+present grandeur of the British nation might make us expect," wrote
+Steele, "that we should rise in our public diversions and manner of
+enjoying life, in proportion to our advancement in glory and power.
+Instead of that, survey this town, and you will find rakes and
+debauchees are your men of pleasure; thoughtless atheists and
+illiterate drunkards call themselves free-thinkers; and gamesters,
+banterers, biters, swearers, and twenty new-born insects more, are, in
+their several species, the modern men of wit."[131] Walpole[132] wrote
+in 1744: "The town has been trying all this winter to drive pantomimes
+off the stage, very boisterously; for it is the way here to make even
+an affair of taste and sense a matter of riot and arms. Fleetwood, the
+master of Drury Lane, has omitted nothing to support them, as they
+supported his house. About ten days ago he let into the pit great
+numbers of bear-garden _bruisers_ (that is the term), to knock down
+everybody that hissed. The pit rallied their forces and drove them out.
+I was sitting very quietly in the boxes contemplating all this. On a
+sudden the curtain flew up, and discovered the whole stage filled with
+blackguards armed with bludgeons and clubs, to menace the audience.
+This raised the greatest uproar."
+
+Mrs. Delany, whose character has excited so much admiration in her own
+and in succeeding generations, left, in her autobiography and letters,
+a picture of the society about her as seen by one of the most refined
+and cultivated women of the time. Like many others, she was struck with
+disgust at the coarseness and immorality which surrounded her. "It is
+enough to make one a cynic, to shun the world, and shut oneself up in a
+tub as Diogenes did; but I must acknowledge, though the age is very
+degenerate, that it is not quite void of perfection. I know some
+persons that still reconcile me to the world, and that convince me that
+virtue is not fled, though it is confined to a few."[133] "The men have
+so despicable an opinion of women, and treat them by their words and
+actions so ungenerously and inhumanly."[134] "The women were never so
+audacious as now; this may well be called the brazen age."[135] The
+material tone of society and its lack of sentiment were largely
+responsible for the low estimation in which women were held. Marriages
+were almost universally arranged on the simple basis of money, a
+circumstance which explains much of the conjugal infidelity and
+unhappiness which prevailed. "My Lady A.'s behaviour," wrote Mrs.
+Delany,[136] "and some more wives' behaviour of the same stamp, has so
+disgraced matrimony that I am not surprised the men are afraid of it;
+and if we consider the loose morals of the men, it is strange the women
+are so easily won to their own undoing." Mrs. Delany, while a young
+married woman, although she was known to be of a virtuous character,
+was subjected to licentious attacks which fell little short of
+violence. It is hardly necessary to comment on the hard drinking and
+the hard swearing which were almost universal characteristics of
+gentlemen of fashion. Duelling was still a custom, and gambling was the
+favorite amusement at court, at the clubs, and in ladies'
+drawing-rooms. The title of gentleman depended on birth, and had
+nothing to do with personal conduct. Caste feeling was very strong.
+Gentlemen looked upon professional men or men of letters as beneath
+them, however superior they might be in manners, morals, or education.
+A curious instance of this caste feeling occurred in the case of
+Captain Vratz, who said of himself and companions on their way to the
+gallows for murder, that "God would show them some respect as they were
+gentlemen." When Gay's "Beggar's Opera" was put on the stage, the
+fashionable world crowded to see their own coarseness and immorality
+exhibited in the persons of thieves and highwaymen, and to laugh at the
+truth of the Beggar's words: "Through the whole piece you may observe
+such a similitude of manners in high and low life, that it is difficult
+to determine whether (in the fashionable vices) the fine gentlemen
+imitate the gentlemen of the road, or the gentlemen of the road the
+fine gentlemen."
+
+The lower classes of society were as ignorant and brutal as the higher
+were coarse and corrupt. Among the other qualities in which the times
+were deficient, was philanthropy. The measures which the wisdom and
+charity of the present have exerted to diminish crime, and to improve
+the condition of the poor, were then represented only by a harsh and
+cruel penal code, which had a powerful, though an indirect tendency to
+promote pauperism and to multiply criminals. Although population had
+greatly increased, no new provision had been made for religious
+teaching, and there were no schools but those of Edward and
+Elizabeth.[137] Defective poor-laws, which forbade laborers to move
+from one parish to another in search of work, made pauperism in many
+cases the inevitable fate of the industrious. In the cities there was
+no adequate police regulation of the criminal classes; and this, too,
+at a time when peaceful habits were fast growing among the people at
+large, and police protection was more needed than ever before. At the
+same time there came upon the lower classes, the terrible scourge of
+gin. Violent and ignorant as these classes were, the effects upon them
+of so cheap and maddening a drink were incalculably debasing. "The
+drunkenness of the common people," says an eye-witness, "was so
+universal by the retailing of a liquor called _gin_, with which they
+could get drunk for a groat, that the whole town of London, and many
+towns in the country swarmed with drunken people of both sexes from
+morning to night, and were more like a scene from a Bacchanal than the
+residence of a civil society."[138] The sign which hangs over the
+inn-door in Hogarth's picture of Gin Lane, and announces that the
+customer can get drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, and have
+straw for nothing, was a copy, not an invention. Attempts to limit the
+traffic in gin were met by riots so fierce that the government was
+obliged to withdraw its measures. The violent natures of the common
+people appeared in their amusements as well as in their crimes. Their
+sports were of the most brutal kind, and almost all involved the
+sufferings of men or animals. Among other entertainments advertised to
+take place in London in 1729 and 1730, were "a mad bull to be dressed
+up with fireworks and turned loose in the game place, a dog to be
+dressed up with fireworks over him, a bear to be let loose at the same
+time, and a cat to be tied to the bull's tail, a mad bull dressed up
+with fireworks to be baited."[139] Such amusements were interspersed
+with cock-fighting, prize fights, and boxing matches between women. The
+same brutality characterised the crimes of the period. Violent riots,
+aggravated by the plunder of gin-shops, attended the preaching of the
+Methodists, the Gin Act, and even the employment by Garrick of a few
+French dancers at Drury Lane Theatre. Piracy and smuggling were
+systematically carried on, accompanied by atrocious cruelties and
+murders. It was no uncommon practice for the inhabitants of the
+sea-coast to lure vessels on shore by false signals in order to plunder
+them.
+
+Other causes, as well as the ignorance and brutality in which the lower
+classes almost necessarily lived, contributed to the number and
+impunity of criminals. It was only in 1736 that the streets of London,
+hitherto plunged at night in total darkness, began to be lighted for a
+few hours by lamps. The right of sanctuary, which still practically
+existed in such quarters as Whitefriars and the Mint afforded to
+criminals an easy and safe retreat beyond the reach of the law. The
+rougher elements of the upper as well as of the lower classes, made the
+streets impassable at night without great danger. They organized
+themselves into bands, and committed atrocious and wanton brutalities
+on inoffensive passers-by. One band, called the Modocs, indulged in the
+amusement called "tipping the lion" which consisted in flattening the
+nose of the victim on his face and boring out his eyes with the
+fingers. There were also the "dancing masters," who made people dance
+by pricking them with swords, the "sweaters," who pricked their victims
+with swords till they fell exhausted, and the "tumblers," who set women
+on their heads and mutilated their limbs.[140] Others rolled women down
+hill in barrels, cut the faces of maid-servants, and slit the noses of
+watchmen. The criminal classes became so daring and numerous that the
+streets were insecure even in the day-time, "It is shocking to think
+what a shambles this country is grown!" wrote Walpole. "Seventeen were
+executed this morning, after having murdered the turnkey on Friday
+night, and almost forced open Newgate. One is forced to travel even at
+noon, as if one were going to battle."[141] It was the custom to go
+out at night accompanied by armed servants. Addison gave an amusing
+description of the precautions observed when Sir Roger de Coverley was
+taken to the theatre. "The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there
+at the appointed Hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put
+on the same Sword which he made use of at the Battle of _Steenkirk_.
+Sir Roger's Servants, and among the rest my old Friend the Butler, had,
+I found, provided themselves with good oaken Plants to attend their
+Master upon this occasion. When we had placed him in his Coach, with
+myself at his left hand, the Captain before him, and his Butler at the
+Head of his Footmen in the Rear, we convoyed him in safety to the
+Playhouse."[142] "One night, in the beginning of November, 1749," wrote
+Walpole, "as I was returning from Holland House by moonlight, about ten
+at night, I was attacked by two highwaymen in Hyde Park, and the pistol
+of one of them going off accidentally, razed the skin under my left eye,
+left some marks of shot on my face, and stunned me."[143] These men were
+taken about a year later. "I have been in town for a day or two, and
+heard no conversation but about M'Lean, a fashionable highwayman, who
+is just taken, and who robbed me among others. * * * His father was an
+Irish Dean; his brother is a Calvinist minister in great esteem at the
+Hague. * * * He took to the road with only one companion, Plunkett, a
+journeyman apothecary, my other friend. * * * M'Lean had a lodging in
+St. James Street, over against White's, and another at Chelsea; Plunkett
+one in Jermyn St., and their faces are as well known about St. James' as
+any gentleman who lives in that quarter, and who, perhaps, goes upon the
+road too. M'Lean had a quarrel at Putney Bowling Green two months ago
+with an officer whom he challenged for disputing his rank; but the
+captain declined, till M'Lean should produce a certificate of his
+nobility, which he has just received. * * * As I conclude he will suffer,
+and wish him no ill, I don't care to have his idea, and am almost single
+in not having been to see him. Lord Mountford at the head of half White's
+went the first day: his aunt was crying over him: as soon as they were
+withdrawn she said to him, knowing they were of White's, 'My dear, what
+did the lords say to you? Have you ever been concerned with any of
+them?'--was not it admirable? What a favorable idea people must have
+of White's! and what if White's should not deserve a much better! But
+the chief personages who have been to comfort and weep over this fallen
+hero are Lady Caroline Petersham and Miss Asche: I call them Polly and
+Lucy."[144]
+
+The fact that death was the penalty for almost all serious violations
+of the law gave an additional zest to crime. The criminal looked upon
+himself, and was looked upon by others, as a brave man, and even those
+who abhorred the crime retained a certain admiration for the courage
+which they thought involved in its commission. Felons sat erect and
+proud in the cart which carried them to execution. Their great ambition
+was to die like "gentlemen," and they saw no disgrace in death by "the
+ladder and the cord," so long as it was borne with bravado. Criminals
+are frequent and prominent characters in contemporary fiction. The
+period contributed more than any other to the romance of crime, and a
+glamour has been cast over the most infamous careers which has made
+them celebrated to the present day. The famous highwayman Dick Turpin,
+and one Parsons, the son of a baronet, educated at Eton, attained a
+public interest and admiration, in which the greatness of their crimes
+was forgotten in the dangers they incurred and the boldness with which
+they defied justice. When Jack Sheppard, the burglar, was finally
+captured after two remarkable escapes from Newgate,[145] he became a
+popular hero. Great numbers of people visited him in prison and gave
+him presents of money. Several lives were written of him.
+
+But the most remarkable criminal career, and that which best
+illustrates the inefficiency of the law and the impunity and ferocity
+of criminals, is that of Johnathan Wild, surnamed the Great.[146] This
+man spent some time in Newgate, and having become acquainted with the
+secrets and methods of its inhabitants, married a notorious woman who
+was well versed in similar knowledge. He then set up an establishment
+for receiving stolen goods, and organized thieves into regular bands.
+Some were to rob churches, others to pick pockets at theatres and
+fairs, others to rob on the streets and highways. He even divided the
+country into districts, and appointed a special gang to work in each.
+All these thieves were obliged to account to him for what they stole,
+and he disposed of it in London, or if that seemed too dangerous, he
+sent it abroad in a ship of his own. He attained over lesser criminals
+the most rigid authority and absolute power. His lieutenants were
+chosen among transported convicts who had returned before the
+expiration of their terms. These were legally incapable of giving
+evidence against Wild, but he could send them to the gallows at a
+moment's notice, if suspicious of their fidelity, by information to the
+authorities. Over the common thieves he had nearly the same power.
+Those whom he suspected of retaining part of their booty, or whom he
+feared as witnesses against himself, were at once sent to the gallows
+by private information to the magistrates. On the other hand, a thief
+who was in danger of arrest, if useful and faithful, was taken into
+Wild's own house, protected, fed, and employed in counterfeiting or
+other in-door occupation. When a law was passed making it criminal to
+receive stolen goods, Wild opened an intelligence office for the
+discovery of missing articles. To that office came the thieves, like so
+many workmen, to deliver their booty and receive their wages, and
+there, too, came the robbed to describe their losses and name their
+rewards. If the reward were sufficient to satisfy Wild, he returned the
+article; otherwise he had it made unrecognizable by skilled workmen
+whom he employed for the purpose, and presented it to a faithful
+follower, or disposed of it in the regular course of business. It is
+impossible not to notice a certain resemblance between Johnathan Wild
+and Defoe's English Tradesman. The practical turn of mind, the absence
+of sentiment so characteristic of the times, are to be seen alike in
+the thief, the tradesman, and the gentleman. Conducted on purely
+business principles, like a mercer's shop or a marriage between noble
+families, without hatred or affection, anger or generosity, the work
+went on. Wild dealt in human lives with the same cold, money-making
+calculation which directed the disposal of a stolen watch. When public
+complaints were made, that although many robberies were committed few
+thieves were apprehended, Wild supplied the gallows with thieves who
+were useless to him or lukewarm in his interest. When a large reward
+was offered for the apprehension of a criminal, Wild was usually able
+to deliver the man. If he was unable to do so, or was friendly to the
+criminal, he still secured the reward by giving false information
+against an innocent person, and supported his assertions by the perjury
+of his subordinates. By these methods he soon grew rich. He carried a
+silver wand which he asserted to be a badge of office given him by the
+government, and entered into secret leagues with corrupt magistrates.
+After a time he called himself a gentleman, and wore a sword, the first
+use of which was to cut off his wife's ear. At last he was detected in
+aiding the escape of a highwayman confined in Newgate, and being
+deprived of his power, he was easily convicted. He was hung in 1725,
+and on his way to the scaffold was almost pelted to death by the mob.
+
+The impunity with which Wild followed his long career of crime was not
+unusual. The authorities were inefficient and corrupt. Fielding,
+himself a police justice, makes a magistrate say in "Amelia": "And to
+speak my opinion plainly, such are the laws and such the method of
+proceeding that one would almost think our laws were made for the
+protection of rogues, rather than for the punishment of them." The laws
+bore hardly upon the poor and spared the rich. "The parson," complained
+Defoe in the "Poor Man's Plea," "preaches a thundering sermon against
+drunkenness, and the justice of the peace sets my poor neighbor in the
+stocks, and I am like to be much the better for either, when I know
+perhaps that this same parson and this same justice were both drunk
+together but the night before." The magistrates and constables were as
+much in need of reform as the laws. "The greatest criminals in this
+town," said Walpole,[147] "are the officers of justice; there is no
+tyranny they do not exercise, no villany of which they do not partake."
+Many of the magistrates were never impartial, except, as Fielding said:
+"when they could get nothing on either side." One class of constables
+was described by Fielding in "Amelia."[148] The watchmen intended "to
+guard our streets by night from thieves and robbers, an office which at
+least requires strength of body, are chosen out of those poor old
+decrepit people, who are from their want of bodily strength rendered
+incapable of getting a livelihood by work. These men, armed only with a
+pole, which some of them are scarce able to lift, are to secure the
+persons and houses of his Majesty's subjects from the attacks of young,
+bold, stout, desperate, and well-armed villains. If the poor old
+fellows should run away from such enemies, no one, I think, can wonder,
+unless it be that they were able to make their escape." Defoe's
+pickpockets are always more afraid of being mobbed on the spot, than of
+being detected and punished by the police. Well known highwaymen not
+infrequently rode through the streets of London with armed companions,
+although large rewards were offered for their capture. Many of the
+constables were of the most villanous character. The following
+incident, recorded by Walpole, is only one of many instances of their
+brutality which might be mentioned.[149] "There has lately been the
+most shocking scene of murder imaginable; a parcel of _drunken_
+constables took it into their heads to put the laws in execution
+against _disorderly_ persons, and so took up every woman they met till
+they had collected five or six and twenty, all of whom they thrust into
+St. Martin's round house, where they kept them all night, with doors
+and windows closed. The poor creatures, who could not stir or breathe,
+screamed as long as they had any breath left, begging at least for
+water; one poor wretch said she was worth eighteen-pence, and would
+gladly give it for a draught of water, but in vain! So well did they
+keep them there, that in the morning four were found stifled to death;
+two died soon after, and a dozen more are in a shocking way. In short,
+it is horrid to think what the poor creatures suffered. Several of them
+were beggars, who, from having no lodging, were necessarily found in
+the street, and others honest labouring women. One of the dead was a
+poor washer-woman, big with child, who was returning home late from
+washing. * * * These same men, the same night, broke into a bagnio in
+Covent Garden, and took up Jack Spencer, Mr. Stewart, and Lord George
+Graham, and would have thrust them into the round-house with the poor
+women if they had not been worth more than eighteen-pence!"
+
+Keepers of prisons bought their places with the distinct purpose of
+making money by extortions from the prisoners. The following is an
+account of the means pursued by Bainbridge, Warden of the Fleet, to
+extort money from one Solas, a poor man, imprisoned for debt[150]:
+"Bainbridge caused him to be turned into the dungeon, called the Strong
+Room of the Master's side. This place is a vault, like those in which
+the dead are interred, and wherein the bodies of persons dying in the
+said prison are usually deposited till the coroner's inquest hath
+passed upon them; it has no chimney nor fireplace, nor any light but
+what comes over the door, or through a hole of about eight inches
+square. It is neither paved nor boarded; and the rough bricks appear
+both on the sides and top, being neither wainscotted nor plastered;
+what adds to the dampness and stench of the place, is its being built
+over the common sewer, and adjoining to the sink and dunghill where all
+the nastiness of the prison is cast. In this miserable place the poor
+wretch was kept by the said Bainbridge manacled and shackled for near
+two months. At length on receiving five guineas from Mr. Kemp, a friend
+of Solas's, Bainbridge released the prisoner from his cruel
+confinement. But though his chains were taken off, his terror still
+remained, and the unhappy man was prevailed upon by that terror, not
+only to labor _gratis_ for the said Bainbridge, but to swear also at
+random all that he hath required of him; and the committee themselves
+saw an instance of the deep impression his sufferings had made upon
+him; for on his surmising from something said, that Bainbridge was to
+return again as Warden of the Fleet, he fainted, and the blood started
+out of his mouth and nose." This example is by no means an exceptional
+one. It is impossible, within the limits of this volume, to give an
+adequate idea of the disease, the squalor, the cruelties and abuses
+which existed in the prisons. Their interiors are often described by
+the novelists, who were unable to exaggerate the actual circumstances.
+Poor prisoners, when acquitted, were dragged back to prison and kept
+there till their dues were paid or they were released by death. Richer
+men were subjected to all sorts of indignity and danger, even to that
+of small-pox, to force them to enrich their jailers.
+
+The social condition of England in the first half of the eighteenth
+century presents a material and unattractive aspect. Its most prominent
+characteristics are the corruption and coarseness of the upper classes,
+and the ignorant brutality of the lower. Still there existed beneath
+this exterior, qualities and habits in the highest degree favorable to
+civilization and social order. At a later time these qualities brought
+about reforms which did away with many of the worst abuses. Among the
+middle classes, fast rising to political and social prominence, lived
+an earnest morality, which at a later time took form in the great
+Methodist revival, and the rise of philanthropy. This persevering
+industry of the same classes added enormously to the wealth of the
+nation. When reform came, it came as a revolt against existing
+conditions, showing at once how bad those conditions were, and how
+strongly the popular mind inclined to a better state. A general feeling
+of disgust prevailed which left deep traces on contemporary literature,
+and produced a widespread misanthropy. The first half of the eighteenth
+century was to the period of the Restoration like the morning after a
+debauch. Rochester, in the time of Charles II, and Hervey, in the time
+of George II were representative men. The difference in the feelings
+with which these men looked upon life is significant. Rochester, in the
+full tide of dissipation, glories in his sensuality, and writes the
+"Maimed Debauchee."
+
+      Should some brave youth (worth being drunk) prove nice,
+      And from his fair inviter meanly shrink,
+      'T would please the ghost of my departed vice,
+      If, at my council, he repent and drink.
+
+But Hervey represents the time when dissipation had run a long course,
+and disgust, sanctity, and misanthropy were succeeding. To him, as to
+Swift, men were "a worthless species of animals," their vices, natural;
+their virtues, affectation:
+
+      Mankind I know, their nature and their art,
+      Their vice their own, their virtue but a part
+      Ill played so oft, that all the cheat can tell,
+      And dangerous only when 't is acted well,
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+      To such reflections when I turn my mind
+      _I loathe my being, and abhor mankind._
+
+
+[Footnote 90: Carlyle, "Frederick the Great," p. 13. vol. i.]
+
+[Footnote 91: Addison, "An Account of the Greatest English Poets."
+Quoted by Henry Morley, LL.D., "English Literature in the Reign of
+Victoria."]
+
+[Footnote 92: Lecky's "History of England in the 18th Century," vol. i,
+p. 502.]
+
+[Footnote 93: Lord Hervey, "Memoirs of George II," v. 3, p. 527.]
+
+[Footnote 94: Hervey's "Mem. of George II," vol. 1, p. 147, note.]
+
+[Footnote 95: Walpole's "Reminiscences"; Hervey's "Mem.," v. 2, p. 103,
+note.]
+
+[Footnote 96: Walpole's "Mem. of George II," vol. 1, p. 87.]
+
+[Footnote 97: Browne's "Estimate of the Times"; Lecky, "Hist. of 18th
+Century," vol. 1, p. 509.]
+
+[Footnote 98: Lord Hervey, "Mem. of Geo. II," vol. i, p. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 99: _Idem_, vol. i, p. 170.]
+
+[Footnote 100: _Idem_, vol. i, p. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 101: Hervey's "Mem.," i, 20.]
+
+[Footnote 102: _Idem_, vol. 1, p. 208.]
+
+[Footnote 103: Hervey's "Memoirs," 1, 39.]
+
+[Footnote 104: _Idem_, ii, 360.]
+
+[Footnote 105: _Idem_, ii, 31.]
+
+[Footnote 106: _Idem_, vol. i, p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 107: Hervey's "Memoirs," vol. 1, p. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 108: Hervey, 1, 22-25.]
+
+[Footnote 109: Horace Walpole, "Reminiscences."]
+
+[Footnote 110: Locke "On Civil Government," b. ii, ch. 13; Lecky's
+"History of the 18th Century," vol. I, p. 471.]
+
+[Footnote 111: Hervey's "Memoirs," ii, 280.]
+
+[Footnote 112: Chesterfield, "Correspondence," iii, 94.]
+
+[Footnote 113: Walpole to Mann, Dec. 24, 1741.]
+
+[Footnote 114: Hervey's "Memoirs," i, 172.]
+
+[Footnote 115: "History of the Eighteenth Century," vol. 1, p. 512.]
+
+[Footnote 116: Green's "Short History of the English People," pp. 768-9.]
+
+[Footnote 117: Hervey, ii, 189, note.]
+
+[Footnote 118: Hervey's "Memoirs," vol. i, p. 500.]
+
+[Footnote 119: Hervey's "Memoirs," vol. i, p. 502.]
+
+[Footnote 120: Lord Hervey's "Memoirs", ii, 255.]
+
+[Footnote 121: _Idem_, ii, 434.]
+
+[Footnote 122: Hervey's "Memoirs," ii, 472.]
+
+[Footnote 123: Hervey's "Memoirs," ii, 350.]
+
+[Footnote 124: _Idem_, i, 90.]
+
+[Footnote 125: _Idem_, ii, 349.]
+
+[Footnote 126: _Tatler_, No. 159, Saturday, April 15, 1710.]
+
+[Footnote 127: Steele, _Tatler_, No. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 128: Walpole to Montague, March 20, 1737.]
+
+[Footnote 129: Wilson's "Memoirs of Defoe," vol. i, p. 265.]
+
+[Footnote 130: Wilson's "Memoirs of Defoe," vol. i, p. 206.]
+
+[Footnote 131: Steele, _Tatler_, No. 12 May 7, 1709.]
+
+[Footnote 132: Walpole to Mann, Nov. 26, 1711.]
+
+[Footnote 133: Letter to Mrs. Ann Granville, Dec. 5, 1739.]
+
+[Footnote 134: Letter to Mrs. Ann Granville, Jan. 17, 1731-32.]
+
+[Footnote 135: Letter to Mrs. Ann Granville, Nov. 18, 1729.]
+
+[Footnote 136: Letter to Mrs. Ann Granville, Christmas-day, 1729.]
+
+[Footnote 137: Green, "Short History of the English People," p. 717.]
+
+[Footnote 138: Lord Hervey's "Memoirs of George II," vol. ii, p. 139.]
+
+[Footnote 139: Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," p. 259; Lecky, "History
+of England in the 18th Century," vol. i, chap. iv.]
+
+[Footnote 140: Lecky, "History of England in the 18th Century," vol. i,
+p. 522.]
+
+[Footnote 141: Walpole to Sir H. Mann, March 23, 1752.]
+
+[Footnote 142: The _Spectator_, "Sir Roger at the Playhouse."]
+
+[Footnote 143: Horace Walpole, "Short Notes of My Life."]
+
+[Footnote 144: Horace Walpole to Sir H. Mann, Aug. 2, 1750.]
+
+[Footnote 145: See the "Newgate Calendar."]
+
+[Footnote 146: See the "Newgate Calendar" and Pike's "History of
+Crime," vol. 2, chap. x.]
+
+[Footnote 147: Walpole to Mann, bet. July 14 and 29, 1742.]
+
+[Footnote 148: "Amelia," book i, chap. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 149: Walpole to Mann, bet. July 14 and 29, 1742.]
+
+[Footnote 150: "State Trials;" vol. xvii, p. 298. _Proceedings against
+John Higgins, Esq., Warden of the Fleet, Thomas Bainbridge, Esq., Warden of
+the Fleet, Richard Corbett, one of the Tipstaffs of the Fleet, and
+William Acton, Keeper of the Marshalsea Prison: 3 George II, A.D. 1729.
+Report of the Com. of the House of Commons_.]
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Lord Hervey's bitter lines introduce us to Jonathan Swift. Nature,
+together with the character of his time, made the great Dean a
+misanthropist. Physical infirmity, disappointed hopes, and a long
+series of humiliations destroyed the happiness which should have
+belonged to his rare union of noble gifts,--his tall, commanding
+figure, his awe-inspiring countenance, his acute wit, and magnificent
+intellect. Naturally proud and sensitive to an abnormal degree, he was
+obliged to suffer the most galling slights. From his earliest years he
+hated dependence, and yet, until middle life he was forced to be a
+dependent. His education was furnished by the charity of relatives,
+between whom and himself there was no affection. His college degree was
+conferred in a manner which made it a disgrace rather than an honor.
+The long years which he passed in the household of Sir William Temple,
+subject to the humors and caprices of his master, embittered his temper
+at the time of life when it should have been most buoyant and hopeful.
+Thus began the melancholy and misanthropy which marred his whole life,
+darkening his triumphs, turning such love as he had to give into a
+curse to those who received it, producing an eccentricity which often
+gave him the appearance of a madman, and finally bringing him to a
+terrible end--to die, as he himself foretold, like a blasted elm, first
+at the top. He kept his birthday as a day of mourning. He solemnly
+regretted his escape when nearly killed by an accident. He habitually
+parted from a friend with the wish that they might never meet again.
+Caesar's description of Cassius is wonderfully applicable to Swift:[151]
+
+                      ----He reads much;
+      He is a great observer, and he looks
+      Quite through the deeds of men ----
+      Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort
+      As if he mocked himself, and scorn'd his spirit
+      That could be amused to smile at any thing.
+
+The character of Swift presents great apparent contradictions. Although
+full of good-will and appreciation for individuals, although exercising
+out of a small income the most discriminating and open handed
+generosity, there has never lived a man more bitter in his misanthropy,
+more fierce in his denunciation of mankind. Although capable of great
+and disinterested affection, he was unable to make his affection a
+source of happiness to himself or to others. Although he always chose
+for companionship the most refined and cultivated women, the wisest and
+most honored men, his mind dwelt by preference on the most terrible
+examples of human depravity, and he gave permanent form, in his
+literary productions, to ideas from which a healthy mind must always
+turn with horror and disgust. His misanthropy was founded partly on
+observation of the evil and corruption which he saw about him, and
+partly on the suspicions and exaggerations of his own imagination. He
+gave up writing a history of England, because, in his own words, he
+found the characters of history such a pack of rascals that he would
+have no more to say to them. He made a "List of Friends," which he
+classified as Grateful, Ungrateful, Indifferent, and Doubtful. Of these
+friends, forty-four in number, only seventeen were marked with the _g_
+which signified that their friendship was trusted. We cannot
+disassociate Swift from his own time, nor can we attribute simply to a
+melancholy life or to mental aberration the revolting conceptions which
+his works contain. The coarseness and corruption which marked the
+private and public life of Swift's day had their share in the
+production of such poems as The "Lady's Dressing-Room," and such
+degrading views of human nature as are expressed in the "Voyage to the
+Houyhnhnms."
+
+It is a significant sign of the times that Hogarth, the greatest
+English painter, and Swift, the greatest English writer, should have
+employed their talents in caricature and in satire. In the wonderful
+allegory of the "Tale of a Tub," in which the corruptions and failings
+of the English, Roman, and Presbyterian churches were ridiculed in the
+persons of Jack, Peter, and Martin, Swift displayed at an early age his
+exuberant wit and surpassing satirical power. The "Tale of a Tub" was
+succeeded by the "Battle of the Books," an imaginary conflict between
+volumes in a library, which exposed the absurdity of the controversy
+over the relative merits of the ancients and the moderns. But Swift's
+satire became most fierce and brilliant when it was turned from rival
+creeds and rival literatures, and directed toward mankind itself.
+
+The "Travels of Lemuel Gulliver" were dropped, said the publisher, at
+his house, in the dark, from a hackney-coach. In regard to this work,
+the Dean followed his custom of sending out his writings to the world
+to make their way on their own merits, without the assistance of his
+name. But the authorship of the book could not long remain unknown
+before the storm of applause and curiosity which it immediately
+excited. It was a production, said Johnson,[152] "so new and strange
+that it filled the reader with a mingled emotion of merriment and
+amazement. It was received with such avidity, that the price of the
+first edition was raised before the second could be made; it was read
+by the high and the low, the learned and illiterate. Criticism was for
+a while lost in wonder; no rules of judgment were applied to a book
+written in open defiance of truth and regularity." Whether read for the
+satire or the story, the adventures of Gulliver proved equally
+fascinating. They "offered personal and political satire to the readers
+in high life, low and coarse incidents to the vulgar, marvels to the
+romantic, wit to the young and lively, lessons of morality and policy
+to the grave, and maxims of deep and bitter misanthropy to neglected
+age and disappointed ambition."[153]
+
+The early part of the eighteenth century offered rich material to the
+satirist, and Swift brought to his work unparalleled fierceness and
+power. He attacked the corruption of the politician and the minister,
+the vanity and vice of the courtier, the folly and extravagance of the
+fashionable world, and gathering venom in his course, made his satire
+universal and painted the pettiness and deformity of the human race.
+But among the follies and vices of mankind, vanity was the fault most
+offensive to Swift, and that which he lashed with his most bitter
+invective. To ridicule human pride, and to expose its inconsistency
+with the imperfection of man, is the ruling object of his great
+satirical romance. On Gulliver's return to England from the land of the
+Houyhnhnms, where, under the degraded form of Yahoos, he had studied
+mankind as they appeared when influenced by all human vices and brutal
+instincts unveiled by hypocrisy or civilization, he describes his
+horror at observing the existence of vanity among his countrymen who
+resembled Yahoos so closely;--
+
+    My reconcilement to the Yahoo kind in general might not be so
+    difficult, if they would be content with those vices and follies
+    only which nature has entitled them to. I am not in the least
+    provoked at the sight of a lawyer, a pickpocket, a colonel, a fool,
+    a lord, a gamester, a politician, a whoremonger, a physician, an
+    evidence, a suborner, an attorney, a traitor, or the like; this is
+    all according to the due course of things: but when I behold a lump
+    of deformity and diseases, both in body and mind, smitten with
+    pride, it immediately breaks all the measures of my patience;
+    neither shall I ever be able to comprehend how such an animal, and
+    such a vice, could tally together.
+
+In the "Voyage to Lilliput" the follies and vanities of individuals and
+of parties are ridiculed by the representation of their practice among
+diminutive beings. Sir Robert Walpole suffered in the person of Flimnap
+the Lilliputian Premier, Tories and Whigs in the High-Heels and
+Low-Heels, Catholics and Protestants in the Big-endians and
+Small-endians. In the "Voyage to Brobdingnag," where Gulliver finds
+himself a pigmy among giants, the general object of the satire is the
+same, but its application becomes more bitter and universal.
+Characteristics of the human race hardly perceptible in their ordinary
+proportions, attain a disgusting and monstrous prominence when seen in
+the huge persons of the Brobdingnagians. The king of this gigantic
+people is represented as a beneficent monarch, who directs all his
+energies toward the peace, prosperity, and material advancement of his
+subjects; who seeks with a cold, calculating mind, undisturbed by
+passion or prejudice, the greatest good of the greatest number. To this
+monarch Gulliver gave a description of his native country: "I artfully
+eluded many of his questions, and gave to every point a more favorable
+turn, by many degrees, than the strictness of truth would allow; for I
+have always borne that laudable partiality to my own country, which
+Dionysius Halicarnasseusis, with so much justice, recommends to a
+historian; I would hide the frailties and deformities of my political
+mother, and place her virtues and beauties in the most advantageous
+light." But the impression produced upon the King of Brobdingnag by
+Gulliver's relation expressed the widespread sense of evil which
+existed in Swift's day, which tinctured literature with misanthropy,
+and made Rousseau at a later time argue the superiority of the savage
+man over his civilized, but corrupt and hypocritical brother.
+
+    He was perfectly astonished with the historical account I gave him
+    of our affairs during the last century; protesting: "It was only a
+    heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions,
+    banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction,
+    hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy,
+    lust, malice, and ambition could produce."
+
+    His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate
+    the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with
+    the answers I had given; then, taking me into his hands, and
+    stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall
+    never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: "My little friend,
+    Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your
+    country; you have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice
+    are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws
+    are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose
+    interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding
+    them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which in
+    its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and
+    the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not
+    appear from all you have said, how any one perfection is required
+    toward the procurement of any one station among you; much less,
+    that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are
+    advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers for their conduct or
+    valor; judges for their integrity; senators for the love of their
+    country; or counsellors for their wisdom. * * * I cannot but
+    conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of
+    little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the
+    surface of the earth!"
+
+In the voyage to Laputa the satire is directed against the vanity of
+human wisdom, and the folly of abandoning useful occupations for the
+empty schemes of visionaries. The philosophers of Laputa had allowed
+their land to run to waste, and their people to fall into poverty in
+their attempts to "soften marble for pillows and pin-cushions," to
+"petrify the hoofs of a living horse to prevent them from foundering,"
+to "sow land with chaff," and to "extract sunbeams from cucumbers,
+which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm
+the air in raw, inclement summers." The satire cannot be considered
+too broad when we consider the folly and credulity which, at the time
+of the South Sea mania, led many persons into sinking their whole
+fortunes in such enterprises as the company "To Fish up Wrecks on the
+Irish Coast," to "Make Salt-Water Fresh," to "Extract Silver from
+Lead," and to "Import Jackasses from Spain."
+
+It is impossible within the limits of this volume to comment with any
+completeness on the application of Gulliver's Travels. The satire
+gathered strength and bitterness in its progress, until the limits of
+horror were reached in the voyage to the Houyhnhnms. This portion of
+the work cannot be considered to apply universally. Man does not here
+perceive a truthful reflection of himself. The Houyhnhnms, beings
+endowed with reason, but undisturbed and untempted by the passions or
+struggles of earthly existence, are not brutes, and are not to be
+compared with men. The Yahoos, in their total depravity, are not human;
+they represent, and that with a terrible truthfulness, the condition
+into which men may fall when their animal instincts and baser passions
+are allowed to subvert their reason and their noble qualities. The more
+a man suffers his better nature to yield to his lower, the more he
+resembles the detestable Yahoo. In this sense alone, the satire applies
+generally to mankind; but it applies with peculiar point to some
+characteristics of Swift's time. In reading the following passage, it
+is impossible not to be reminded of the treatment of Sir Robert Walpole
+by his former flatterers and sycophants when his power seemed at an
+end:
+
+    Some curious _Houyhnhnms_ observe that in most herds there was a
+    sort of ruling _Yahoo_, * * * who was always more deformed in body
+    and mischievous in disposition than any of the rest; that this
+    leader had usually a favorite as like himself as he could get,
+    whose employment was to lick his master's feet * * * and drive the
+    female Yahoos to his kennel; for which he was now and then rewarded
+    with a piece of ass's flesh. This favorite is hated by the whole
+    herd, and, therefore, to protect himself, keeps always near the
+    person of his leader. He usually continues in office till a worse
+    can be found; but the very moment he is discarded, his successor,
+    at the head of all the _Yahoos_ in that district, young and old,
+    male and female, come in a body, and * * * (defile) him from head
+    to foot.
+
+But Swift, in his denunciation of men under the form of the Yahoos,
+disclosed the narrowness of his own misanthropy. When Gulliver has
+returned from his last voyage, with a mind which had dwelt on the
+beastliness and vice of the human race as it existed in the land of the
+Houyhnhnms, his warped judgment is unable to discern in his countrymen
+any attributes but those which they seem to share with the Yahoos:--
+
+    My wife and family received me with great surprise and joy, because
+    they concluded me certainly dead; but I must freely confess the sight
+    of them filled me only with hatred, disgust, and contempt; and the
+    more, by reflecting on the near alliance I had to them. * * * As soon
+    as I entered the house, my wife took me in her arms and kissed me;
+    at which, having not been used to the touch of that odious animal
+    for so many years, I fell into a swoon for almost an hour. At the
+    time I am writing, it is five years since my last return to England:
+    during the first year, I could not endure my wife or children in my
+    presence; the very smell of them was intolerable, much less could I
+    suffer them to eat in the same room. To this hour they dare not
+    presume to touch my bread, or drink out of the same cup; neither
+    was I ever able to let one of them take me by the hand.
+
+Thus Swift himself, from the vividness with which he realized, and the
+intensity with which he hated, the vices and failings of humanity, was
+unable to duly appreciate the good, which, in some measure, always
+accompanies the evil.
+
+It was the habit of the great Dean to utter the witticisms which caused
+the continual delight or terror of all who approached him with the most
+stern composure. Such was the manner of the "Travels." The solemn and
+circumstantial narrative style, imitated from the old English explorers
+added verisimilitude to the incidents and point to the sarcasm.
+Trifles, personal to the traveller and of no consequence to the course
+of the story, gave an appearance of truth to the whole work. Thus
+Gulliver keeps the reader informed of the most minute details
+interesting to himself. "I took part of a small house in the Old Jewry;
+and being advised to alter my condition, I married Mrs. Mary Burton,
+second daughter to Mr. Edmund Burton, hosier, in Newgate Street, with
+whom I received four hundred pounds for a portion." In the same way he
+informs us carefully that the date of his sailing on the first voyage
+was May 4, 1699, from Bristol, and the storm which destroyed the ship
+arose when in the latitude of 30 degrees 2 minutes south. In a work of
+fiction only such events are expected as have a direct bearing upon the
+development of the plot, and when immaterial details are introduced,
+the reader is likely to be impressed with their truth. In this way the
+personality of Gulliver is kept up, and he remains, through whatever
+strange scenes he passes, the same honest, blunt English sailor.
+
+Yet more remarkable is the skill of the author in maintaining the
+probability of the allegory. When living among the Lilliputians,
+Gulliver insensibly adopts their ideas of size. He admires as much as
+they the prowess of the horseman who clears his shoe at a single leap.
+When the committee of the Lilliputian king examine Gulliver's pockets,
+they describe his handkerchief as a "great piece of coarse cloth, large
+enough to be a foot-cloth to your majesty's chief room of state"; his
+purse is "a net, almost large enough for a fisherman," containing
+"several massy pieces of yellow metal, which, if they be real gold,
+must be of immense value." The same almost mathematical accuracy of
+proportion is kept up in the visit to Brobdingnag, and on Gulliver's
+return to his native country he experiences as much trouble in
+reaccustoming his mind to the ordinary standard as he had met with in
+adopting that of pigmies or giants. There was a country clergyman
+living in Ireland, who declared there were some things in Gulliver's
+Travels he could not quite believe. His difficulty probably occurred in
+the "Voyage to the Houyhnhnms." In the latter part of the work Swift
+allowed the fiction to yield to the exigencies of the satire. So long
+as we can imagine the existence of giants and pigmies, it is easy to
+realize all the circumstances connected with Gulliver's existence among
+them, but it is impossible to feel the same sense of reality in regard
+to horses who live in houses they could not build, and who eat oats
+they could not harvest.[154]
+
+The general desire for reform is not more clearly to be seen in Acts of
+Parliament than in the works of Swift and Addison. The earlier part of
+the century was marked by a strong realization of evil, and by a
+constantly growing inclination to suppress it. The first condition is
+illustrated by the fierce satire of "Gulliver's Travels," the second
+by the earnest admonitions of the _Spectator_. The two great authors
+make a striking contrast. Swift, misanthropic, miserable, bitter;
+Addison, happy, loving mankind, admired alike by ally and opponent,
+Swift, dying mad; Addison, calm, conscious, employing his last moments
+to ask pardon of one he had offended. The same contrast is in their
+works. Swift dwelt and gloated on the evil about him, exposed it in
+more than its own deformity, and left his reader to reflect on his own
+degradation. Addison, to whom that evil was almost equally apparent,
+but who turned from its contemplation with horror, exerted all his
+talents to correct it. "The great and only end of these speculations,"
+he tells the reader of the _Spectator_, "is to banish vice and
+ignorance out of the territories of Great Britain."
+
+With solemn reproof and delicate raillery, Addison urged women to lay
+aside coarseness and folly, and preached against the licentiousness,
+swearing, gambling, duelling, and drunkenness of the men. He attacked
+with both argument and ridicule the idea so prevalent since the
+Restoration, that vice was necessarily associated with pleasure and
+elegance, virtue with Puritanism and vulgarity. To teach people to be
+witty without being indecent, gay without being vicious, such was the
+object of Addison. As M. Taine says, he made morality fashionable. To
+do this he exposed the folly and ugliness of vice. But he did more. He
+held up to the public view characters who exemplified his teachings,
+and were calculated to attract imitation. In the creation and
+delineation of these characters he unconsciously began the English
+novel.
+
+We should look in vain in the pages of Fielding, of Scott, or of George
+Eliot, for a more perfect sketch of character than that of Sir Roger
+de Coverley. And the minor personages are little less delicately and
+naturally drawn. There is the Bachelor of the Inner-Temple, "an
+excellent critick," to whom "the time of the play is his hour of
+business"; Sir Andrew Freeport, the typical merchant; Captain Sentry,
+"a gentleman of great courage, good understanding, but invincible
+modesty"; Will Honeycomb, "an honest, worthy man where women are not
+concerned"; the clergyman, who has ceased to have "interests in this
+world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and
+conceives hope from his decays and infirmities." "These are my ordinary
+companions," says the _Spectator_, whom we soon learn to know very well
+too.
+
+Addison's knowledge of human nature, and his skill in delineating it in
+single touches, place him in the front rank of writers of fiction,
+notwithstanding the limit of his contributions to this department of
+literature. In a few words we are made to see and know the Quaker who
+reproves the insolent captain on the stage-coach: "Thy mirth, friend,
+savoureth of folly; thou art a person of a light mind; thy drum is a
+type of thee, it soundeth because it is empty." There is nothing
+wanting to the reader's perfect acquaintance with Will Wimble, the poor
+relation. All who know Worcestershire, says the _Spectator_, "are very
+well acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir Roger." His fame has
+spread from Worcestershire throughout the English-speaking world, where
+he has been loved and admired for more than a hundred and fifty years.
+Sir Roger de Coverley is not to be described by any pen but that of
+Addison. He exhibits, joined to a perfect simplicity, the qualities of
+a just, honest, useful man, and delightful companion. Our acquaintance
+with him is a personal one. We know how he appears at his
+country-house, surrounded by admiring tenants and servants, and how he
+occupies himself in London, and whom he meets there. We know his
+ancestry, the extent and management of his estate, his long standing
+love affair with the beautiful widow, all his thoughts, opinions, and
+surroundings. All who read about Sir Roger remember him with affection.
+Addison dwelt with tenderness on every detail regarding him, and
+finally described Sir Roger's death to prevent any less reverential pen
+from trifling with his hero.
+
+Previous to the publication of the papers of the _Spectator_ relating
+to Sir Roger de Coverley, there had been no attempt at what is a
+necessary constituent of the modern novel--the study of character.
+There had been the romance and the allegory. There had been the short
+love story. But with Addison, nature becomes the subject of fiction,
+and the novel is begun.
+
+In a review of the remarkable life of Daniel Defoe, he appears to us
+under the varied aspects of a tradesman, a pamphleteer, a politician, a
+novelist, and, through it all, a reformer. It is in his character as a
+novelist that he is now known, and that he is to be considered here.
+But there are few among the millions to whom "Robinson Crusoe" has
+brought pleasure, who know that the composition of that work was only
+one event in a long life of ceaseless labor, political and literary,
+and that its author's fame among his contemporaries was assured
+independently of it. Defoe's career was so full that both his chief
+biographers[155] have found three large volumes to be necessary to do
+it justice. And yet it was not until near the end of that busy life,
+when the author was fifty-eight years old, feeling the approach of age
+and infirmity, and looking about for means to provide for a large
+family, that he added the writing of novels to his multifarious
+occupations.
+
+There is probably no writer with whose works his life and personality
+are more intimately connected. It is impossible to consider the one
+separate from the other. Defoe began to write novels as a tradesman, as
+a literary hack, and as a reformer. Being dependent on his pen for his
+bread, he wrote what was likely to bring in the most immediate return.
+He calculated exactly the value and quality of his wares. He gave to
+his fictions the same moral object which inspired his own life. His
+novels followed naturally on his other labors, and partook of their
+character. It was his custom, on the death of any celebrated person, to
+write his life immediately, and to send it to the world while public
+interest was still fresh. But being often unable to obtain complete or
+authentic information concerning the subject of his biography, he
+supplemented facts and rumors by plausible inventions. Fiction entered
+into his biographies, just as biography afterward entered into his
+novels. But in writing the lives of real individuals Defoe recognized
+the necessity of impressing his reader with a sense of the truth and
+exactitude of the narrative. This effect he attained by the use of a
+literary faculty which he possessed in a degree unequalled by any other
+writer--that of circumstantial invention. By the multiplication of
+small, unimportant details, each one of which is carefully dwelt upon,
+and by the insertion of uninteresting personal incidents and moral
+reflections, seeming true from their very dulness, he gave to his work
+a remarkable verisimilitude. He did not even issue the book under his
+own name, but invented an authorship which would attract attention and
+credibility. Thus the "History of Charles XII" was announced on the
+title-page as "written by a Scot's gentleman in the Swedish service";
+and the "Life of Count Patkul" was "written by a Lutheran minister who
+assisted him in his last home, and faithfully translated out of a High
+Dutch manuscript."[156] The same characteristics appear in all Defoe's
+works. He invents freely, giving the most elaborate details to support
+his assertions, and attains to an extraordinary degree the art of
+"lying like truth." In the "Journal of the Plague Year," Defoe assumed
+with his accustomed ease and skill the character of a plain, blunt
+London shopkeeper. He described with such apparent accuracy the
+observations of a man who had lived in the scene of that terrible
+calamity, giving curious incidents, anecdotes, statistics, after so
+methodical a manner, that it was long before any doubts were cast on
+the authenticity of the journal. It was a work of imagination, but so
+matter-of-fact, that it is difficult to believe the author had any
+imagination, and that he had not actually witnessed every occurrence he
+so calmly related. It is the same with the "Memoirs of a Cavalier." The
+civil wars are described by a young officer who took part in them, who
+gives a detailed account of his own opinions, his wardrobe, his horse,
+his lodgings. Lord Chatham quoted these memoirs as the true account of
+an eye-witness. From writing the life of a well known individual, Defoe
+had advanced to writing the life of a fictitious person placed amidst
+historical scenes. His next step was to write the life of a fictitious
+person amidst fictitious scenes.[157]
+
+The "Journal of the Plague Year" had been issued to satisfy a popular
+interest excited by the appearance of the plague in France and the
+consequent fear of it in England. A similar public demand occasioned
+the composition of "Robinson Crusoe." A sailor named Alexander Selkirk
+had been "marooned" on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez, and
+after living there alone for more than four years, had been taken off
+by the same captain who had abandoned him. The interest taken in
+England in the narrative of this event revealed to Defoe's acute mind a
+great literary opportunity. But if he was indebted to the adventure of
+Selkirk for the fundamental idea of his novel, he was not the less
+original. Never has a greater individuality been given to a fictitious
+character, or a more vivid impression of life and reality to the
+circumstances surrounding him. The combination of ingenuity and
+simplicity which distinguishes the work, has, for a century and a half,
+had a peculiar fascination for children, and has awakened the wonder
+and admiration of men. There are three works of English fiction of
+imperishable interest, all of which have attained in a high degree the
+quality of reality, and have charmed alike all classes and ages. In the
+allegory of "The Pilgrim's Progress," the sense of reality was produced
+by the intense realization of the subject by the author, unassisted by
+any literary device. In "Gulliver's Travels" the effect was attained by
+a skilful observation of exact proportions, added to a circumstantial
+and personal method of narration, which Swift probably owed in some
+measure to Defoe. If the reader can accept the possible existence of
+pigmies and giants, his credulity is put to no further strain. Defoe
+had no difficulty of the supernatural to overcome. He had a power
+almost as great as that of Bunyan of identifying himself with his hero;
+and he surpassed Swift in the power of circumstantial invention.
+
+The story of "Robinson Crusoe" is too intimately known to require
+comment. His over-mastering desire to go to sea, his being cast up by
+the breakers on the island, his endless labors, and the resolute
+determination which overcame them, his dangers, fears, and the
+consolation of religion, the foot-print on the sand, the companionship
+with Friday, and the final release, are recollections of our childhood
+too familiar to be dwelt upon. But in this very familiarity with
+Robinson himself, in the brightness and endurance of our idea of him,
+in our acquaintance with the inmost workings of his mind and heart, is
+contained the evidence that Defoe not only wrote a novel of adventure,
+as he had intended, but that he wrote also a novel of character.
+
+If the author of "Robinson Crusoe" could realize so thoroughly the
+difficulties and expedients of a man living on a desert island, he
+could deal yet more easily with the adventures and shifts of thieves
+and abandoned women which formed the subject of his other tales. In
+these minor works, now little known, Defoe displayed equal talents, but
+did not attain equal results. The enduring interest which must ever
+attach to the central idea of "Robinson Crusoe" the complete isolation
+of the man--gave that work a very exceptional claim to the attention of
+posterity. But it had other merits, which are not apparent in the same
+perfection in Defoe's lesser novels. Its design was single and
+concentrated, its chief character natural and strongly marked, its
+plot coherent and complete. Moll Flanders and Colonel Jack are indeed
+well-drawn and real persons, and the design of the works which bear
+their names is clear, but in both cases the plot is merely a series of
+independent adventures, and the characters themselves could not, from
+their nature, long attract the attention of readers. "Colonel Jack,"
+"Captain Singleton," "Moll Flanders," and "Roxana," have been
+surpassed, and are neglected. "Robinson Crusoe" is, of its kind,
+perfect, and therefore enduring.
+
+But the works of Defoe have a historical, almost equal to their
+literary, interest. Whoever would attain a correct idea of the
+condition of the lower classes in the earlier part of the eighteenth
+century, should consult "Moll Flanders" and "Colonel Jack," as much as
+the "Newgate Calendar," and histories of crime and labor. What the
+author has described, he had seen.
+
+Defoe was throughout his life a reformer; a large proportion of the
+many pamphlets and occasional writings which fell from his pen have for
+their object the reformation or exposure of some abuse. Yet a large
+number of his fictitious characters are thieves and harlots. The
+criminal classes occupied the public mind in the first half of the
+eighteenth century to a remarkable degree, and Defoe was not mistaken
+in thinking that novels concerning those classes would interest and
+sell. He knew that the public taste was low, and his business was to
+cater to public taste. He said, in "More Reformation":[158]
+
+      Let this describe the nation's character.
+      One man reads Milton, forty Rochester;
+      The cause is plain, the temper of the time.
+      One wrote the lewd, the other the sublime.
+
+To satisfy the forty who read Rochester, Defoe described the lives and
+occupations of pirates, pickpockets, highwaymen, and women of abandoned
+character. The title-pages of some of these novels cannot with decency
+be quoted, and the novels themselves are filled with criminal and
+licentious scenes. But the reforming inclination of Defoe himself, and
+that which we find in the general literature of the time, induced him
+to turn these scenes into a moral account. Moll Flanders is a low,
+cunning, thoroughly bad woman, and her life is placed quite bare before
+the reader. Yet Defoe asserts that the book is designed to teach a good
+lesson.[159] "There is not a superlative villain brought upon the
+stage, but either he is brought to an unhappy end, or brought to be a
+penitent. There is not an ill thing mentioned, but it is condemned even
+in the relation; nor a virtuous, just thing, but it carries its praise
+along with it. * * * Upon this foundation the book is recommended to
+the reader, as a work from every part of which something may be
+learned, and some just and religious inference is drawn." Defoe,
+thoroughly a man of his time, thought he could put the coarsest and
+most vicious matter before his reader, and reasonably expect him to
+profit by the moral, without being hurt by contact with the vice. "All
+possible care," he says, "has been taken to give no lewd ideas, no
+immodest turns in the dressing up of this story. * * * To this purpose
+some of the vicious part of her life, which could not be modestly told,
+is quite left out, and several other parts very much shortened. What is
+left, 'tis hoped will not offend the chastest reader, or the modestest
+hearer." To any one acquainted with "Moll Flanders" this seems a
+strange statement. It exhibits the standard of the age. Mrs. Behn said
+almost the same thing about her novels and plays. To make up for the
+low, vicious life unrolled before us, it is not enough that Moll at
+last "grew rich, lived honest, and died penitent."
+
+The aim of "Roxana, or the Fortunate Mistress," like that of "Moll
+Flanders," is to describe the gradual corruption of a woman, who is
+influenced by some conscientious scruples and misgivings, but the
+heroine is placed in a higher station of life. We have a curious
+commentary on the times in comparing the body of the work with the
+preface. "Roxana" is among the coarsest records of vice in English
+fiction. But yet it is to impart moral instruction. "In the manner she
+has told the story it is evident she does not insist upon her
+justification in any part of it; much less does she recommend her
+conduct, or, indeed, any part of it, except her repentance, to our
+imitation. On the contrary, she makes frequent excursions, in a just
+censuring and condemning her own practice. How often does she reproach
+herself in the most passionate manner, and guide us to make just
+reflections in the like cases?" The modern reader is astonished to find
+"that all imaginable care has been taken to keep clear of indecencies
+and immodest expressions; and, it is hoped, you will find nothing to
+prompt a vicious mind, but everywhere much to discourage and expose
+it."
+
+Defoe is much more successful in teaching a moral lesson in "Colonel
+Jack." The aim of this novel is to describe the course of a street-boy
+who takes to thieving before he knows that it is not a legitimate
+business, and who being possessed naturally of a good character is
+brought to repentance and reform when subjected to better influences.
+Defoe's preface has great significance when we consider the deplorable
+condition of the lower classes and no better idea can be gained of the
+usual fate of the children of the poor than is afforded by this novel.
+
+    Here is room for just and copious observations on the blessings and
+    advantages of a sober and well-governed education, and the ruin of
+    so many thousands of all ranks in this Nation for want of it; here
+    also we may see how much public schools and charities might be
+    improved, to prevent the destruction of so many unhappy children,
+    as, in this town, are every year bred up for the executioner.
+
+    The miserable condition of multitudes of youth, many of whose
+    natural tempers are docible, and would lead them to learn the best
+    things, rather than the worst, is truly deplorable, and is
+    abundantly seen in the history of this man's childhood; where,
+    though circumstances formed him by necessity to be a thief,
+    surprising rectitude of principles remained with him, and made him
+    early abhor the worst part of his trade, and at length to forsake
+    the whole of it. Had he come into the world with the advantage of a
+    virtuous education, and been instructed how to improve the generous
+    principles he had in him, what a figure might he not have made,
+    either as a man or a Christian.
+
+The promise of the preface is fulfilled. The whole work is a protest
+against the neglect of the education and training of the youth of the
+lower classes; and the life of Colonel Jack would be apt to have a good
+effect on youthful readers of the time. In Chapter X, when Jack has
+risen by his industry and humanity from being a slave on a Virginia
+plantation to the rank of an overseer, and finally to that of an
+independent planter, he makes a long digression to rejoice in his
+change of condition and character:
+
+    It was an inexpressible joy to me, that I was now like to be not
+    only a man, but an honest man; and it yielded me a greater
+    pleasure, that I was ransomed from being a vagabond, a thief, and a
+    criminal, as I had been from a child, than that I was delivered
+    from slavery, and the wretched state of a Virginia sold servant; I
+    had notion enough in my mind of the hardship of the servant or
+    slave, because I had felt it, and worked through it; I remembered
+    it as a state of labour and servitude, hardship and suffering. But
+    the other shocked my very nature, chilled my blood, and turned the
+    very soul within me; the thought of it was like reflections upon
+    hell and the damned spirits; it struck me with horror, it was
+    odious and frightful to look back on, and it gave me a kind of fit,
+    a convulsion or nervous disorder, that was very uneasy to me.
+
+These reflections remind us of the self-communings of Bunyan in "Grace
+Abounding in the Chief of Sinners." They express the feelings of
+remorse and the longings for a better state arising in the mind of a
+rough but conscientious man. They are the promptings of a strong moral
+nature, and illustrate those national qualities which brought about the
+reforms which distinguish the latter half of the eighteenth century.
+Colonel Jack took advantage of every opportunity for improvement. When
+a vagabond in Scotland, he learned with infinite pains to read and
+write. When a planter in Virginia, he took for his schoolmaster a
+transported felon, who knew Latin. This spirit of self-advancement by
+patient labor, by invincible resolution, is the spirit of Defoe's
+writings; it is the English characteristic which has raised the nation
+to all its prosperity and greatness.
+
+When "Robinson Crusoe" had attained celebrity, Defoe claimed that it
+was an allegory of his own life. A parallel might easily be drawn
+between the isolation of the solitary sailor on his island, and that
+of the persecuted author in the heart of a great city. All the world,
+and particularly his literary brethren, had been against Defoe. Pope
+had put him into the "Dunciad," Swift had spoken of him as "the fellow
+who was pilloried, I forget his name," He had known oppression and
+poverty, the pillory and the prison. He has left us his own view of the
+aim of "Robinson Crusoe."[160] "Here is invincible patience recommended
+under the worst of misery; indefatigable application and undaunted
+resolution under the greatest and most discouraging circumstances." And
+such is the moral of Defoe's own life.
+
+Mrs. Heywood had written a number of stories[161] resembling, in the
+licentiousness of their character and the flimsiness of their
+construction, the novels of Mrs. Behn. Toward the end of her life she
+wrote "Miss Betsey Thoughtless," which is believed to have suggested to
+Miss Burney some of the incidents in "Evelina." This novel was
+exceedingly popular, and had some merit, considering the period of its
+composition. It is among the earliest specimens of a domestic novel;
+the plot has interest, and the characters are life-like. It
+illustrates, if any illustration were needed, the prevailing absence of
+any elevated view, either of love, or of the relations between men and
+women. The book is made up of easy seductions and licentious talk, and
+represents its youthful characters as very familiar with dissolute
+scenes and thoughts.
+
+
+[Footnote 151: "Julius Caesar," Act. I, sc. 2. Quoted in Scott's "Life
+of Swift." For Swift, see also "Life" by Sheridan, by Roscoe, and by
+Forster.]
+
+[Footnote 152: "Life of Swift."]
+
+[Footnote 153: Sir W. Scott. "Life of Swift."]
+
+[Footnote 154: See "Life of Swift," by Scott.]
+
+[Footnote 155: Wilson "Life of Defoe." Lee, "Life of Defoe."]
+
+[Footnote 156: See "Daniel Defoe," by William Minto, p. 135. American
+edition.]
+
+[Footnote 157: William Minto, "Life of Defoe," p. 134:--"From writing
+biographies with real names attached to them, it was but a short step
+to writing biographies with fictitious names."]
+
+[Footnote 158: "Memoir of Defoe," William Hazlitt, p. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 159: See the preface to "Moll Flanders."]
+
+[Footnote 160: Preface to the "Serious Reflections of Robinson
+Crusoe."]
+
+[Footnote 161: "Love in Excess," "The British Recluse," "The Injured
+Husband," "Jenny and Jemmy Bessamy," "The Fortunate Foundling."]
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Samuel Richardson might have stood for Hogarth's "Industrious
+Apprentice." When a printer's boy, young Samuel stole from his hours
+of rest and relaxation the time to improve his mind. He was careful not
+to tire himself by sitting up too late at night over his books, and
+purchased his own candles, so that his master, who called him the
+"pillar of his house," might suffer no injury from his servant's
+improvement.[162] Thus Richardson persevered in the path of virtue,
+until, like the "Industrious Apprentice," himself, he married his
+master's daughter, succeeded to his business, and lived happy and
+respected, surrounded by all the blessings which should fall to the lot
+of the truly good.
+
+"I was not fond of play, as other boys," says the author of "Pamela";
+"my school-fellows used to call me _Serious_ and _Gravity_; and five of
+them particularly, delighted to single me out, either for a walk, or at
+their fathers' houses, or at mine, to tell them stories, as they
+phrased it. Some I told them from my reading, as true; others from my
+head, as mere invention; of which they would be most fond. * * * _All
+my stories carried with them, I am bold to say, an useful moral._"[163]
+In such a manner, and with such an intention, Richardson began his
+career as a novelist.
+
+The life of the stout, vain little printer was already well advanced,
+his fortune was assured, and he was surrounded by a group of
+affectionate relatives and admiring female friends, when he was asked
+by a publisher to write "a little book of familiar letters on the
+useful concerns in common life." While thinking over this proposal, be
+recollected a story once told him of a young servant-girl, whose honor
+was long attempted by a dissolute master, and who, by her resolute
+chastity, finally conquered his vicious intentions, and was rewarded
+by honorable marriage with her thwarted seducer. And then it occurred
+to Richardson, that this story, "if written in an easy and natural
+manner, suitable to the simplicity of it, might possibly introduce a
+new species of writing, that might possibly turn young people into a
+course of reading different from the pomp and parade of romance
+writing, and, dismissing the improbable and marvellous, with which
+novels generally abound, might tend to promote the cause of religion
+and virtue." Such was the origin of a novel destined to make a new era
+in English fiction. It is evident that Richardson placed before himself
+two aims: to promote the cause of religion and virtue, and to introduce
+a new species of writing, and in both he succeeded.
+
+The name, "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded," sounds like a tract, and
+"Pamela" is, indeed, a very long tract. The contrast is curious between
+the moral object of the work and its contents. In the preface we are
+told that "Pamela" is to inculcate religion and morality in an easy and
+agreeable manner; it is to make vice odious, to make virtue truly
+lovely, and to give practical examples, "worthy to be followed, in the
+most critical cases, by the modest virgin, the chaste bride, and the
+obliging wife." Moreover, all this is to be done, "without raising a
+single idea throughout the whole, that shall shock the exactest
+purity." Yet, "Pamela" contains not a few scenes likely to inflame the
+imagination, and its subject, kept continually before the reader's
+mind, is the licentious pursuit of a young girl. This story would not
+now do for a tract. But it answered the purpose very well in the
+eighteenth century. Richardson had no fear his book would give the
+youthful reader any new knowledge of evil, or that the long account of
+Pamela's attempted seduction would shock the "exactest purity" of his
+time. He simply described the dangers to which every attractive young
+woman was more or less subject by the prevailing looseness of morals,
+while, by the pathetic and resolute resistance of Pamela's chastity, he
+undoubtedly enlisted the sympathies of his reader on the side of
+virtue. The perusal of the book was recommended by Dr. Sherlock from
+the pulpit. One critic declared that it would do more good than twenty
+volumes of sermons; another, that if all other books were to be burnt,
+"Pamela" and the Bible should be preserved. A gentleman said that he
+would give it to his son as soon as he could read, that he might have
+an early impression of virtue.[164]
+
+The moral of "Pamela" was virtue rewarded. That of "Clarissa,"
+Richardson's second novel, was virtue triumphant, even in disgrace and
+ruin. The heroine, to escape the tyranny of her parents who wished to
+force her into a marriage she abhors, throws herself on the protection
+of a lover, the famous Lovelace, who, failing to seduce her by any
+other means, lures her into a brothel, and there violates her person
+while she is rendered insensible by opiates. Lovelace offers to make
+reparation for his crime by marriage, but in refusing this offer, and
+in dying of a broken heart, Clarissa carries out the moral of the
+story.
+
+Richardson was blamed for making the libertine hero, Lovelace, more
+attractive than was consistent with moral effect. And to remedy this
+mistake, he undertook in "Sir Charles Grandison," his last novel, to
+draw the portrait of a man of _true honor_; "acting uniformly well
+through a variety of trying scenes, because all his actions are
+regulated by one steady principle: a man of religion and virtue; of
+liveliness and spirit; accomplished and agreeable; happy in himself,
+and a blessing to others." Sir Charles then is not a man, but a model.
+"Pamela" and "Clarissa" remained virtuous through temptation and trial.
+But Grandison is a good man because he has no inducement to be
+otherwise. He can afford to be generous, because he is rich; he can
+afford to decline a duel, his reputation for skill in swordsmanship is
+so well established that he runs no danger of being called a coward; he
+is free from licentiousness, because his passions are under perfect
+control. The name of Sir Charles Grandison has passed into a proverb,
+and its mention calls up to the mind a man of the most dignified
+deportment, of the most delicate consideration for women, and of the
+most elaborate manners. But it must be remembered that in Sir Charles,
+our author drew the portrait of what a gentleman should be, and not of
+what a gentleman was. Even the most punctilious men of the time did
+not, like Grandison, hesitate to visit a sick person, because it would
+involve travelling on Sunday; nor did they, as he, refuse to have their
+horses' tails docked, because nature had humanely given those tails as
+a protection against flies. The Grandisonian manners are not to be
+taken as a picture of contemporary fashion. Richardson was unacquainted
+with aristocratic habits, and his high-flown love scenes were purely
+ideal. When he goes into high life, said Chesterfield, "he mistakes the
+modes." Not long before Sir Charles was making his formal and courtly
+addresses to Miss Byron, Walpole had written to George Montagu: "'Tis
+no little inducement to wish myself in France, that I hear gallantry is
+not left off there; that you may be polite, and not be thought awkward
+for it. You know the pretty men of the age in England use the women
+with no more deference than they do their coach horses." Such was the
+state of things which the example of Sir Charles Grandison was intended
+to remedy.
+
+The moral design is an important element in Richardson's novels, but
+the extraordinary popularity of these works was owing to other causes.
+Richardson had known how to move his reader's heart, and how to give to
+his characters a deep personal interest. He had attempted to introduce
+"a new species of writing," and public enthusiasm testified to his
+success. Colly Cibber read "Clarissa" before its publication, and was
+wrought up into a high state of excitement by the story. "What a
+piteous, d----d, disgraceful pickle you have placed her in!" he wrote
+to Richardson. "For God's sake, send me the sequel, or--I don't know
+what to say! * * * My girls are all on fire and fright to know what can
+possibly have become of her." And when he heard that Clarissa was to
+have a miserable end, he wrote the author: "God d----n him, if she
+should."[165] Mrs. Pilkington was not less distressed: "Spare her
+virgin purity, dear sir, spare it! Consider if this wounds both Mr.
+Cibber and me (_who neither of us set up for immaculate chastity_),
+what must it do with those who possess that inestimable treasure?"[166]
+Miss Fielding, the sister of the novelist of that name, thus described,
+in a letter to its author, her feelings on reading "Clarissa": "When I
+read of her, I am all sensation; my heart glows. I am overwhelmed; my
+only vent is tears." One Thomas Turner, who kept a village shop in
+Sussex, thus recorded in his diary the impression produced upon him by
+the death of Clarissa: "Oh, may the Supreme Being give me grace to
+lead my life in such a manner as my exit may in some measure be like
+that divine creature's."[167] Johnson was an enthusiastic admirer of
+Richardson. Dr. Young looked upon him as an "instrument of Providence."
+Ladies at Ranelagh held up "Pamela," to show that they had the famous
+book.[168] Nor was this interest confined to the last century. "When I
+was in India," said Macaulay to Thackeray, "I passed one hot season at
+the hills, and there were the governor-general, and the secretary of
+government, and the commander-in-chief, and their wives. I had "Clarissa"
+with me, and as soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a
+passion of excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her
+scoundrelly Lovelace. The governor's wife seized the book, and the
+secretary waited for it, and the chief justice could not read it for
+tears!" Macaulay "acted the whole scene," adds Thackeray; "he paced up
+and down the Athenaeum library; I dare say he could have spoken pages
+of the book."[169] But admiration of Richardson was still greater among
+foreigners. The novels were translated into French, Dutch, and German,
+and the enthusiasm they excited may be imagined from the warmth of
+Diderot's eulogy: "I yet remember with delight the first time ('Clarissa')
+came into my hands. I was in the country. How deliciously was I affected!
+At every moment I saw my happiness abridged by a page. I then experienced
+the same sensations those feel who have long lived with one they love,
+and are on the point of separation. At the close of the work I seemed to
+remain deserted. * * * Oh, Richardson! thou singular genius in my eyes!
+thou shalt form my reading at all times. If, forced by sharp necessity,
+my friend falls into indigence; if the mediocrity of my fortune is not
+sufficient to bestow on my children the necessary cares for their
+education, I will sell my books,--but thou shalt remain! Yes, thou shalt
+rest in the _same class_ with Moses, Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles, to
+be read alternately."[170]
+
+What was the secret by which the stout little printer excited such
+enthusiasm and won such eulogy? How did he appeal to natures so
+different as the worldly Lord Chesterfield, the country shopkeeper, and
+the impassioned Diderot? Richardson was the first novelist to stir the
+heart and to move the passions, and his power was the more striking
+that it was new. His study of human nature had begun early in life. "I
+was not more than thirteen," he says, "when three young women, unknown
+to each other, having an high opinion of my taciturnity, revealed to me
+their love secrets, in order to induce me to give them copies to write
+after, or correct, for answers to their lovers' letters. * * * I have
+been directed to chide, and even repulse, when an offence was either
+taken or given, at the very time when the heart of the chider or
+repulser was open before me, overflowing with esteem and affection; and
+the fair repulser, dreading to be taken at her word, directed _this_
+word, or _that_ expression, to be softened or changed. One, highly
+gratified with her lover's fervor and vows of everlasting love, has
+said, when I have asked her direction, _I cannot tell you what to
+write; but_ (her heart on her lips) _you cannot write too
+kindly_."[171] With such an apprenticeship, Richardson had come to
+possess a very delicate perception of character, and especially of
+female character. There was a certain effeminacy in his own nature
+which made him understand women better than men. His best creations are
+Pamela and Clarissa. Lovelace and Grandison are drawn from the outside;
+they are less real and natural. But Richardson leads his reader into
+the inmost recesses of his heroines' hearts. He is at home in
+describing the fears, the trials, and the final childlike rejoicings of
+Pamela. He attains to a high tragic effect in the death of Clarissa, a
+scene which Sir James Mackintosh ranked with Hume's description of the
+death of Mary Stuart. In this power to touch the heart and to move the
+passions of his reader lay the charm of Richardson's writing. But to
+paint perfection, rather than to study nature, was his object in "Sir
+Charles Grandison," and therefore that novel was less powerful in the
+author's day, and is less interesting in ours than "Pamela" and
+"Clarissa." We no longer need the example of the pompous Sir Charles to
+dissuade us from indecent language and drunkenness in a lady's
+drawing-room, and we can only laugh at the studied propriety of his
+faultless intercourse with Miss Byron:
+
+    He kissed my hand with fervor, dropped down on one knee; again
+    kissed it--You have laid me, madam, under everlasting obligation;
+    and will you permit me before I rise--loveliest of women, will you
+    permit me to beg an early day?--
+
+    He clasped me in his; arms with an ardor--that displeased me not on
+    reflection. But at the time startled me. He then thanked me again
+    on one knee. I held out the hand he had not in his, with intent to
+    raise him; for I could not speak. He received it as a token of
+    favor; kissed it with ardor; arose; _again_ pressed my cheeks with
+    his lips. I was too much surprised to repulse him with anger; but
+    was he not too free? Am I a prude, my dear?
+
+    Restrain, check me, madam, whenever I seem to trespass on your
+    goodness. Yet how shall I forbear to wish you to hasten the day
+    that shall make you wholly mine? You will the rather allow me to
+    wish it, as you will then be more than ever your own mistress;
+    though you have always been generously left to a discretion that
+    never was more deservedly trusted to. Your will, madam, will ever
+    comprehend mine.
+
+The verisimilitude of Richardson's novels, which is made so striking by
+his feminine attention to detail, may seem destroyed to modern readers
+by the apparent improbability of the narrative itself. It appears
+strange that young girls like Pamela or Clarissa should be so entirely
+in the power of their seducers, that incidents should be repeated with
+impunity which the existence of a police force would seem to make
+impossible. But the reader whose sense of probability is shocked by the
+unpunished and uninterrupted villanies of Mr. B. and of Lovelace, can
+find evidence of the security with which such crimes could be committed
+by the rich and influential in the Newgate calendar. The forcible
+detention in his own house, by Lord Baltimore, of a young girl, his
+atrocious treatment of her, and his escape from punishment, are
+incidents in real life not more remarkable than the fictions of the
+novelist.
+
+Sir Walter Scott lamented, early in the present century, the neglect
+into which the works of Richardson had fallen. That neglect has not
+since been diminished, for obvious reasons. "Surely, sir," said Erskine
+to Johnson, "Richardson is very tedious." "Why, sir," was the
+lexicographer's reply, "if you were to read Richardson for the story,
+your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself,
+but you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only
+giving occasion to the sentiment." But the reader of today will agree
+with Erskine in thinking that Richardson is tedious. We have so many
+good novels which do not require the attention and labor exacted by
+him. We live so fast that we cannot spare the time for so much
+sentiment. These novels, like the elaborate embroideries of the last
+century, belong to a period when life was less full, and books less
+abundant. Samuel Richardson will take his place among the great authors
+who are much admired and little read, whose works every educated person
+should have heard of, but upon which very few would like to be
+examined.
+
+With Richardson's novels English fiction took a long step forward; but
+it made a still greater advance in the hands of Henry Fielding. The
+latter was peculiarly well fitted by his talents and experience to
+carry the novel to a high position of importance and artistic merit. He
+united a considerable dramatic, and a great narrative power with an
+exuberant wit and an extensive knowledge of men. Allied to a noble
+family, but oppressed by poverty, Fielding mingled during his life with
+all classes of society. The Hon. George Lyttleton was his friend and
+protector, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was his cousin. On the other hand,
+his poverty and improvidence constantly kept him, as Lady Mary put it,
+"raking in the lowest rinks of vice and misery." Richardson, who always
+denounced Fielding's works as "wretchedly low and dirty," said
+sneeringly: "his brawls, his jars, his jails, his spunging-houses are
+all drawn from what he has seen and known." But in this ungenerous
+sneer lay a substantial compliment. Fielding did describe what he had
+seen and known, and the variety of his experience gave him a breadth
+and power in describing human nature which the confined life of
+Richardson could not afford. The two novelists cannot be fairly
+compared, nor should they be considered as rivals. They pursued
+different methods, and aimed at opposite effects. Each has a high place
+in English literature, which the greatness of the other cannot depress.
+Richardson is best able to make his reader weep, and Fielding to make
+him laugh.
+
+Fielding was a tall, handsome fellow, so full of life and spirits that
+"his happy disposition," to quote Lady Mary, "made him forget every
+evil when he was before a venison-pastry, or over a flask of
+champagne." This rollicking, careless joyousness is the tone of his
+books. Whether taken to a prison, an inn, or a lady's boudoir, whether
+watching the breaking of heads, the blackening of eyes, or the making
+of love, the reader is always kept smiling.
+
+Fielding is often censured by moralists for the coarseness of his
+novels. But had he not been coarse he would not have been true. He
+described life as it was in the eighteenth century, as he had seen it
+in the ups and downs of a checkered career. His characters were taken
+from the higher ranks and the lower. He placed the house, the
+amusements, the habits of a country gentleman before the reader with
+the faithfulness of a man who had hunted, feasted, and got drunk with
+country-gentlemen. He described the miserable prisons of his time as he
+only could who had mingled with their degraded inmates, and had exerted
+his power as a police magistrate to break up the gangs of ruffians who
+infested the streets. Thus Fielding's novels have a high historical, as
+well as a literary value. Mr. Lecky has testified to their importance
+in a reconstruction of the past by placing "Amelia" among his
+authorities. Squire Allworthy, Squire Western, Tom Jones, Parson Adams,
+are characters to be studied by whoever would understand social life in
+the eighteenth century. The lovely Sophia, the modest Fanny, and above
+all Amelia, whom Thackeray considered "the most charming character in
+English fiction," are portraits in the gallery of history.[172]
+
+As Fielding set out to describe truth and nature as he saw them, the
+reader must put away his notions of refinement and delicacy. He must be
+prepared to be entertained by blows, licentious assaults, a tub of
+hog's blood thrown by a clergyman, coarse practical jokes, foul talk,
+all put before him without disguise or circumlocution. As he follows
+Parson Adams, Joseph, and Fanny in their journey, he must always be
+ready for a fight. Here is a specimen:
+
+    "The captain * * * drew forth his hanger as Adams approached him,
+    and was levelling a blow at his head which would probably have
+    silenced the preacher forever, had not Joseph in that instant
+    lifted up a certain huge stone pot of the chamber with one hand,
+    which six beaux could not have lifted with both, and discharged it,
+    together with the contents, full in the captain's face. The
+    uplifted hanger dropped from his hand, and he fell prostrate on the
+    floor with a lumpish noise, and his half-pence rattled in his
+    pocket: the red liquor which his veins contained, and the white
+    liquor which the pot contained, ran in one stream down his face and
+    his clothes. Nor had Adams quite escaped, some of the water having
+    in its passage shed its honors on his head, and begun to trickle
+    down the wrinkles, or rather furrows, of his cheeks; when one of
+    the servants snatching a mop out of a pail of water, which had
+    already done its duty in washing the house, pushed it in the
+    parson's face; yet could he not bear him down; for the parson
+    wresting the mop from the fellow with one hand, with the other
+    brought his enemy as low as the earth."[173]
+
+To obtain any adequate idea of the range of Fielding's pictures of
+human nature, the reader must consult the novels themselves. Propriety
+forbids the insertion here of quotations which could convey an
+impression of the happy dissoluteness of Tom Jones, the brutal
+coarseness of Squire Western, or the scenes of unblushing license which
+pervade the novels of Henry Fielding. But a sample of the witty, jovial
+tone which has made these novels so popular may be of interest to
+readers who are not inclined to open "Tom Jones" itself. The following
+scene was occasioned by the appearance of Molly Seagrim in church, in
+unaccustomed and ostentatious finery, and is described in the Homeric
+style, which Fielding sometimes adopted with such humorous effect.
+
+    As a vast herd of cows in a rich farmer's yard, if, while they are
+    milked, they hear their calves at a distance, lamenting the robbery
+    which is then committing, roar and bellow: so roared forth the
+    Somersetshire mob an halloloo, made up of almost as many squalls,
+    screams, and other different sounds, as there were persons, or
+    indeed passions, among them. Some were inspired by rage, others
+    alarmed by fear, and others had nothing in theirs heads but the
+    love of fun; but chiefly Envy, the sister of Satan and his constant
+    companion, rushed among the crowd and blew up the fury of the
+    women; who no sooner came up to Molly than they pelted her with
+    dirt and rubbish.
+
+    Molly, having endeavored in vain to make a handsome retreat, faced
+    about; and laying hold of ragged Bess, who advanced in the front
+    of the enemy, she at one blow felled her to the ground. The whole
+    army of the enemy (though near a hundred in number), seeing the
+    fate of their general, gave back many paces, and retired beyond a
+    new dug grave; for the church-yard was the field of battle, where
+    there was to be a funeral that very evening. Molly pursued her
+    victory, and catching up a skull which lay on the side of the
+    grave, discharged it with such fury, that having hit a tailor on
+    the head, the two skulls sent equally forth a hollow sound at their
+    meeting, and the tailor took presently measure of his length on the
+    ground, where the skulls lay side by side, and it was doubtful
+    which was the more valuable of the two. Molly, then taking a thigh
+    bone in her hand, fell in among the flying ranks, and dealing her
+    blows with great liberality on either side, overthrew the carcass
+    of many a mighty hero and heroine. Recount, O muse, the names of
+    those who fell on this fatal day. First Jemmy Tweedle felt on his
+    hinder head the direful bone. Him the pleasant banks of sweetly
+    winding Stour had nourished, where he first learnt the vocal art,
+    with which, wandering up and down at wakes and fairs, he cheered
+    the rural nymphs and swains, when upon the green they interweaved
+    the sprightly dance; while he himself stood fiddling and jumping to
+    his own music. How little now avails his fiddle! He thumps the
+    verdant floor with his carcass. Next old Echepole, the sow-gelder,
+    received a blow in his forehead from our Amazonian heroine, and
+    immediately fell to the ground. He was a swinging fat fellow, and
+    fell with almost as much noise as a house. His tobacco-box dropt at
+    the same time from his pocket, which Molly took up as lawful
+    spoils. Then Kate of the Mill tumbled unfortunately over a
+    tombstone, which catching hold of her ungartered stocking, inverted
+    the order of nature, and gave her heels the superiority to her
+    head. Betty Pippin, with young Roger her lover, fell both to the
+    ground; where, O Perverse Fate! she salutes the earth, and he the
+    sky.[174]
+
+Fielding had shown more than any predecessor the possibilities of
+fiction in the study of character and the illustration of manners, and
+to the art of the narrator, he had added that of the dramatist. The
+falling of the rug in Molly Seagrim's bedroom[175] is one of the
+happiest incidents ever devised, and no doubt suggested to Sheridan the
+falling of the screen in the "School for Scandal." But the chief
+distinction of Fielding lies in his having carried the novel to a high
+point as a work of art. It was the opinion of Coleridge that the
+"Oedipus Tyrannus," "The Alchemist," and "Tom Jones," were the three
+most perfect plots ever planned.[176] It is to this excellence of
+plot--the subordination of each minor circumstance to the general aim,
+the skill with which all events are made to lead up to the final
+denouement--that Fielding, if any one, deserves the title of the
+founder of the English novel. But to give this title to any individual
+is a manifest injustice. The novel was developed, not created; and in
+that development many minds took part. Short love stories had been made
+familiar in England by the Italian writers. Such, also, had been
+produced by Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley, and Mrs. Heywood. Defoe had written
+novels of adventure, in one of which, at least, is found the
+combination of a character well drawn and a plot well executed. In the
+number of his characters and the complication of his plot, Richardson
+had surpassed Defoe. It is the merit of Fielding to have combined in a
+far greater degree than those who had gone before the characteristic
+qualities of the novel. In others we see the promise, in him the
+fulfilment.
+
+And this was in no respect the result of an accident. Fielding looked
+upon his first work as a new attempt in English literature. "Joseph
+Andrews" was first intended to be merely a satire on "Pamela." But study
+and reflection on the nature of his work determined Fielding to produce
+a "prose epic." "The epic as well as the drama," he said in the preface,
+"is divided into tragedy and comedy." Now, he continued, "when any kind
+of writing contains all the other parts (of the epic), such as fable,
+action, characters, sentiments, and diction, and is deficient in metre
+only; it seems, I think, reasonable to refer it to the epic." Such, too,
+was the opinion of the Chevalier Bunsen. "The romance of modern times,"
+he says in his preface to "Soll und Haben" * * * "represents the latest
+_stadium_ of the epic. Every romance is intended, or ought to be, a new
+Iliad or Odyssey; in other words, a poetic representation of a course of
+events consistent with the highest laws of moral government, whether it
+delineate the general history of a people, or narrate the fortunes of a
+chosen hero. * * * The excellence of a romance, like that of an epic or
+a drama, lies in the apprehension and truthful exhibition of the course
+of human things."[177] Lord Byron expressed his opinion that Fielding
+had realized this view of the nature of the novel by calling him the
+prose Homer of human nature.
+
+Fielding's novels are now considered unfit for general perusal. In
+considering the coarseness and immorality of a writer, the intention and
+the result must be separated. That Fielding's works are coarse, and that
+they contain scenes and characters of a dissolute nature, is neither to
+be denied nor to be regretted. If they were more pure, they would be
+less valuable from a historical point of view; less true to nature, and
+therefore less artistic. That the author's intention was far from the
+production of works with an evil tendency, is evident. He was careful
+to say in the preface to "Joseph Andrews": "It may be objected to me
+that I have against my own rules introduced vices, and of a very black
+kind, in this work. To which I shall answer first, that it is very
+difficult to pursue a series of human actions, and keep clear from them.
+Secondly, that the vices to be found here are rather the accidental
+consequences of some human frailty or foible, than causes habitually
+existing in the mind. Thirdly, that they are never set forth as the
+objects of ridicule, but detestation. Fourthly, that they are never
+the principal figure at that time on the scene; and lastly, they never
+produce the intended evil." And again, still more strongly, Fielding
+claims the merit of purity and moral effect for "Tom Jones," "I hope
+my reader will be convinced, at his very entrance on this work, that
+he will find, in the whole course of it, nothing prejudicial to the
+cause of religion and virtue; nothing inconsistent with the strictest
+rules of decency, nor which can offend the chastest eye in the perusal.
+On the contrary, I declare, that to recommend goodness and innocence
+hath been my sincere endeavor in this history. * * * Besides displaying
+that beauty of virtue which may attract the admiration of mankind, I have
+attempted to engage a stronger motive to human action in her favor, by
+convincing men that their true interest directs them to a pursuit of her.
+For this purpose I have shown, that no acquisitions of guilt can
+compensate the loss of that solid inward comfort of mind, which is the
+sure companion of innocence and virtue; nor can in the least balance the
+evil of that horror and anxiety which, in their room, guilt introduced
+into our bosoms."
+
+Thus, it is evident, that Fielding had no desire to write what might be
+harmful. The contrast between his promise and his fulfilment is simply
+an illustration of the standard of his time. His novels are coarse to a
+degree which may nullify their merits in the eyes of some readers of
+the present day, and may unfit them for the perusal of very young
+people. But this is simply because the standard in such matters has
+changed, and not because the novels were purposely made dissolute.
+Their coarseness was adapted to the lack of refinement in thought and
+speech characteristic of that time. Fielding wished to "laugh mankind
+out of their follies and vices." In his coarseness there is always an
+open, frank laughter. There is none of that veiled pruriency which
+lurks underneath the more conventionally expressed, but really vicious
+sentiments that are to be found in too many novels of our own day.
+
+The novel was well defined in character and well established in
+popularity when Smollett entered the field so well occupied by
+Richardson and Fielding. On this account his works have a less
+important place in the history of fiction than those of his
+predecessors. While he added greatly to the store of fictitious
+writing, he developed no new ideas concerning it. Fielding had
+announced at the outset of his career as a novelist that he had taken
+Cervantes as a prototype, and the influence of the great Spanish writer
+is plainly visible in "Joseph Andrews." But in the literary workmanship
+of his two later novels, Fielding's entire originality is undeniable.
+Smollett, however, is plainly an imitator of Le Sage. He did not aim at
+that artistic construction of plot, which is Fielding's chief merit.
+The novel, in his hands, became rather a series of adventures, linked
+together by their occurrence to the same individuals. "A novel," he
+said, "is a large, diffused picture, comprehending the characters of
+life, disposed in different groups, and exhibited in various attitudes,
+for the purposes of a uniform plan and general occurrence, to which
+every individual figure is subservient. But this plan cannot be
+executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a principal
+personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the
+clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene by virtue of his
+importance."[178] But Smollett presents the "different groups" and
+"various attitudes" of his "diffused picture" with a luxuriance of
+imagination, a fidelity to nature, and an exuberance of broad humor
+which inspire interest even when they occasion disgust. If he added
+nothing new to the novel from a purely literary point of view, his
+works have an exceptional historical value.
+
+His life was well adapted to educate him as an observer and student of
+human nature. Of a good Scotch family, but obliged by poverty to rely
+on his own efforts for a living, he mixed familiarly with varied
+classes of men. As a surgeon in London, he came in contact with the
+middle and lower ranks of the city, from which many of his best
+characters are taken. As surgeon's mate on board a man-of-war, he
+obtained that acquaintance with a seafaring life which was afterward
+turned to such excellent account.
+
+Of Smollett's works, "Humphrey Clinker" is the most humorous, "Roderick
+Random" the simplest and most natural, "Perigrine Pickle," the most
+elaborate and brilliant. The reader is conducted from adventure to
+adventure with an unfailing interest, sustained by the distinctness of
+the picture and the brightness of the coloring. The characters met with
+are natural and well studied. Trunnion, Hatchway, Pipes, Lieutenant
+Bowling, and Jack Rattlin are all distinctly seamen, and yet each has a
+marked individuality of his own. Matthew Bramble and Winifred Jenkins
+are among the best-drawn and most entertaining of fictitious
+personages. Smollett's humor is usually of the broadest and most
+elementary kind. It consists largely of hard blows, _a-propos_
+knockdowns, and practical jokes. More than any novelist, he illustrates
+the coarseness of his time. His pages are filled with cruelties and
+blackguardism. Many of his principal characters are dissolute without
+enjoyment, and brutal without good nature. Modern taste is shocked by
+the succession of repulsive scenes and degrading representations of
+vice which are often intended to amuse, and always to entertain. But it
+is because life in the eighteenth century had so many repulsive
+features, that the novels of the time often repel the modern reader,
+There is nothing strained or uncommon in the experiences of Miss
+Williams while in prison:
+
+    There I saw nothing but rage, anguish, and impiety; and heard
+    nothing but groans, curses, and blasphemy. In the midst of this
+    hellish crew, I was subjected in the tyranny of a barbarian, who
+    imposed upon me tasks that I could not possibly perform, and then
+    punished my incapacity with the utmost rigor and inhumanity. I was
+    often whipped into a swoon, and lashed out of it, during which
+    miserable intervals I was robbed by my fellow-prisoners of every
+    thing about me, even to my cap, shoes, and stockings; I was not
+    only destitute of necessaries, but even of food, so that my
+    wretchedness was extreme. Not one of my acquaintance, to whom I
+    imparted my situation, would grant me the least succor or regard,
+    on pretence of my being committed for theft; and my landlord
+    refused to part with some of my own clothes, which I sent for,
+    because I was indebted to him for a week's lodging. Overwhelmed
+    with calamity, I grew desperate, and resolved to put an end to my
+    grievances and life together; for this purpose I got up in the
+    middle of the night, when I thought everybody around me asleep, and
+    fixing one end of my handkerchief to a large hook in the ceiling
+    that supported the scales on which the hemp is weighed, I stood
+    upon a chair, and making a noose on the other end, put my neck into
+    it with an intention to hang myself; but before I could adjust the
+    knot, I was surprised and prevented by two women who had been awake
+    all the while, and suspected my design. In the morning my attempt
+    was published among the prisoners, and punished with thirty
+    stripes, the pain of which co-operating with my disappointment and
+    disgrace, bereft me of my senses, and threw me into an ecstasy of
+    madness, during which I tore the flesh from my bones with my teeth,
+    and dashed my head against the pavement.[179]
+
+While Smollett mingled such scenes of misery with coarse adventures and
+coarse humor, he is yet always true to nature and always picturesque.
+He keeps the reader's attention even when he offends his taste. He
+impaired the literary merit of "Perigrine Pickle," but at the same time
+added to its dissolute character and its immediate popularity by the
+forced insertion of the licentious "Memoirs of a Lady of Quality." Now
+a serious blemish, these memoirs formed at the time an added attraction
+to the book. They were eagerly read as the authentic account of Lady
+Vane, a notorious woman of rank, and were furnished to Smollett by
+herself, in the hope, fully gratified, that her infamous career might
+be known to future generations.[180]
+
+That the standard of public taste was rising, would appear from the
+fact that in the second edition of "Perigrine Pickle," Smollett found
+it advisable to "reform the manners and correct the expression" of the
+first; but when "he flatters himself that he has expunged every
+adventure, phrase, and insinuation that could be construed by the most
+delicate reader into a trespass upon the rules of decorum," he does not
+give a high idea of the standard of the "most delicate reader." But
+Smollett has left an account of his own views regarding the moral
+effect of the pictures of vice and degradation which his works contain,
+and that account is a striking statement of contemporary feeling upon
+the subject:
+
+    The same principle by which we rejoice at the remuneration of
+    merit, will teach us to relish the disgrace and discomfiture of
+    vice, which is always an example of extensive use and influence,
+    because it leaves a deep impression of terror upon the minds of
+    those who were not confirmed in the pursuit of morality and virtue,
+    and, while the balance wavers, enables the right scale to
+    preponderate. * * * The impulses of fear, which is the most violent
+    and interesting of all the passions, remain longer than any other
+    upon the memory; and for one that is allured to virtue by the
+    contemplation of that peace and happiness which it bestows, an
+    hundred are deterred from the practice of vice, by the infamy and
+    punishment to which it is liable from the laws and regulations of
+    mankind. Let me not, therefore, be condemned for having chosen my
+    principal character from the purlieus of treachery and fraud, when
+    I declare that my purpose is to set him up as a beacon for the
+    benefit of the inexperienced and the unwary, who, from the perusal
+    of these memoirs, may learn to avoid the manifold snares with which
+    they are continually surrounded in the paths of life; while those
+    who hesitate on the brink of iniquity may he terrified from
+    plunging into that irremediable gulph, by surveying the deplorable
+    fate of Ferdinand Count Fathom.[181]
+
+This passage illustrates with remarkable fidelity the attitude, not
+only of Smollett, but of the other novelists and the general public of
+the first half of the eighteenth century, toward vice and crime. The
+consciousness of evil and the desire for reformation were prominent
+features of the time. But to deter men from wrong-doing, fear was the
+only recognized agent. There was absolutely no feeling of philanthropy.
+There was no effort to prevent crime through the education or
+regulation of the lower classes; there was no attempt to reform the
+criminal when convicted. The public fear of the criminal classes was
+expressed in the cruel and ineffective code which punished almost every
+offense with death. The corruptions which pervaded the administration
+of justice made it almost impossible to punish the wealthy and
+influential. When Smollett declared that the miserable fate of Count
+Fathom would deter his reader from similar courses by a fear of similar
+punishment, when Defoe urged the moral usefulness of "Moll Flanders"
+and "Roxana," the two novelists simply expressed the general feeling
+that the sight of a malefactor hanging on the gallows was the most
+effective recommendation to virtue. In the same spirit in which justice
+exposed the offender in the stocks to public view, the novelist
+described his careers of vice ending in misery, and Hogarth conducted
+his Idle Apprentice from stage to stage till Tyburn Hill is reached.
+The same moral end is always in view, but the lesson is illustrated by
+the ugliness of vice, and not by the beauty of virtue. In our time we
+have reason to be thankful for a criminal legislation tempered by mercy
+and philanthropy. We have attained, too, a standard of taste and of
+humanity which has banished the degrading exhibitions of public
+punishments, which has largely done away with coarseness and brutality,
+and has added much to the happiness of life. In fiction, the writer who
+wishes to serve a moral purpose attains his end by the more agreeable
+method of holding up examples of merit to be imitated, rather than of
+vice to be shunned.
+
+But when the great novelists of the eighteenth century were writing,
+the standard of taste was extremely low. The author knew that he was
+keeping his reader in bad company, and was supplying his mind with
+coarse ideas, but he believed that he might do this without offense.
+Defoe thought that "Moll Flanders" would not "offend the chastest
+reader or the modestest hearer"; Richardson, that the prolonged effort
+to seduce Pamela could be described "without raising a single idea
+throughout the whole that shall shock the exactest purity"; Fielding,
+that there was nothing in "Tom Jones" which "could offend the chastest
+eye in the perusal." Nor, as concerned their own time, were they
+mistaken. They clearly understood the distinction between coarseness
+and immorality. The young women who read "Tom Jones" with enthusiasm
+were not less moral than the women who now avoid it, they were only
+less refined. They did not think vice less reprehensible, but were more
+accustomed to the sight of it, and therefore less easily offended by
+its description.
+
+While the novels of which we have been speaking were making their first
+appearance, there lived in Kent a charming young lady who went by the
+name of "the celebrated Miss Talbot." She had attained this distinction
+by her great cultivation. She had studied astronomy and geography, was
+"mistress of French and Italian," and knew a little Latin. When she was
+only twenty years of age, the Dean of Canterbury spoke of her with high
+admiration. Her acquaintance was eagerly sought by accomplished young
+ladies, and by none more successfully than "the learned" Miss Carter.
+Both of these girls read the novels of the day, and fortunately
+recorded some of their opinions in the letters which passed between
+them.[182] "I want much to know," wrote Miss Talbot, "whether you have
+yet condescended to read 'Joseph Andrews.'" "I must thank you," replied
+Miss Carter, "for the perfectly agreeable entertainment I have met in
+reading 'Joseph Andrews.' It contains such a surprising variety of
+nature, wit, morality, and good sense, as is scarcely to be met with in
+any one composition, and there is such a spirit of benevolence through
+the whole, as, I think renders it peculiarly charming," Some years
+later the Bishop of Gloucester came to visit Miss Talbot's family, and
+read "Amelia," the young lady wrote, while he was nursing his cold by
+the fireside. Miss Carter replied that "in favor of the bishop's cold,
+his reading 'Amelia' in silence may be tolerated, but I am somewhat
+scandalized that, since he did not read it to you, you did not read it
+yourself." "The more I read 'Tom Jones,'" wrote Miss Talbot, "the more
+I detest him, and admire Clarissa Harlowe,--yet there are in it things
+that must touch and please every good heart, and probe to the quick
+many a bad one, and humor that it is impossible not to laugh at." "I am
+sorry," replied Miss Carter, "to find you so outrageous about poor Tom
+Jones; he is no doubt an imperfect, but not a detestable character,
+with all that honesty, good-nature, and generosity." Miss Talbot, in a
+later letter, said that she had once heard a lady piously say to her
+son that she wished with all her heart he was like Tom Jones.[183] In
+1747 "Clarissa" was read aloud at the palace of the Bishop of Oxford,
+Miss Talbot's uncle. "As for us," she wrote, "we lived quite happy the
+whole time we were reading it, and we made that time as long as we
+could, too, for we only read it _en famille_, at set hours, and all the
+rest of the day we talked of it. One can scarcely persuade one's self
+that they are not real characters and living people." Even "Roderick
+Random" made part of the young ladies' reading. "It is a very strange
+and a very low book," commented the Bishop's celebrated niece, "though
+not without some characters in it, and, I believe, some very just,
+though very wretched descriptions."
+
+
+[Footnote 162: Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson," vol. 1, p. 42.
+Scott's "Life of Richardson."]
+
+[Footnote 163: Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson," vol. 1, p. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 164: _Edinburgh Review._ Oct., 1804. Scott's "Life of
+Richardson," note.]
+
+[Footnote 165: Richardson's correspondence, 1748.]
+
+[Footnote 166: Richardson's correspondence. Forsyth's "Novels and
+Novelists," p. 251.]
+
+[Footnote 167: See the interesting "Glimpses of Our Ancestors," by
+Charles Fleet, p. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 168: Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson."]
+
+[Footnote 169: W.M. Thackeray, "Nil Nisi Bonum", _Cornhill Mag._, No. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 170: D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," art.
+"Richardson."]
+
+[Footnote 171: Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson," vol. I, p. 40.
+Scott's "Life of Richardson."]
+
+[Footnote 172: The reader may find some curious examples of the
+fidelity with which Fielding portrayed contemporary character and
+manners in comparing passages in "Tom Jones," with "Glimpses of our
+Ancestors," by Charles Fleet, pp. 38, 39, _et passim_.]
+
+[Footnote 173: "Joseph Andrews," book III, chap. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 174: "Tom Jones," book iv, ch. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 175: Samuel Rogers, "Table Talk," p. 227.]
+
+[Footnote 176: Coleridge, "Table Talk," p. 339, vol. 2, London, 1835.]
+
+[Footnote 177: Preface to "Debit and Credit" ("Soll und Haben"), by
+Gustav Freitag.]
+
+[Footnote 178: "Adventures of Count Fathom," letter of dedication.]
+
+[Footnote 179: "Roderick Random," chap. xxiii.]
+
+[Footnote 180: 'The wife of William, second Viscount Vane, "was the too
+celebrated Lady Vane; first married to Lord William Hamilton, and
+secondly to Lord Vane; who has given her own extraordinary and
+disreputable adventures to the world in Smollett's novel of 'Perigrine
+Pickle,' under the title of 'Memoirs of a Lady of Quality.'"--Walpole
+to Mann, Nov 23, 1743. "The troops continue going to Flanders, but
+slowly enough. Lady Vane has taken a trip thither after a cousin of
+Lord Berkeley, who is as simple about her as her own husband is, and
+has written to Mr. Knight at Paris to furnish her with what money she
+wants. He says she is vastly to blame, for he was trying to get her a
+divorce from Lord Vane, and then would have married her himself. Her
+adventures are worthy to be bound up with those of my good
+sister-in-law, the German Princess, and Moll Flanders."--Walpole to
+Mann, June 14, 1742.]
+
+[Footnote 181: "Adventures of Count Fathom," letter of dedication.]
+
+[Footnote 182: "The Carter and Talbot Correspondence," Ed. by Rev.
+Montagu Pennington, 1809.]
+
+[Footnote 183: See "The Carter and Talbot Correspondences."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CONTINUED.
+  I.--THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL.
+ II.--STERNE, JOHNSON, GOLDSMITH, AND OTHERS.
+III.--MISS BURNEY, AND THE FEMALE NOVELISTS.
+ IV.--THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL.
+
+
+I.
+
+We have observed in the earlier works of fiction of the eighteenth
+century, together with great coarseness of thought and manners, the
+reflection of a strong moral and reforming tendency. As early as the
+reign of William III, Parliament had requested the king to issue
+proclamations to justices of the peace, instructing them to put in
+execution the neglected laws against open licentiousness.[184] In 1698,
+Collier published his "Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of
+the English Stage," a powerful and effective protest against the
+depravity of the drama. At about the same time had been formed the
+Societies for the Reformation of Manners, which energetically attacked
+the more flagrant forms of crime. "England, bad as she is," wrote Defoe
+in 1706, "is yet a reforming nation; and the work has made more
+progress from the court even to the street, than, I believe, any nation
+in the world can parallel in such a time and in such circumstances."
+Toward the middle of the century, these tendencies took effect in the
+Methodist Revival, a movement destined to exert a profound influence
+on society. Accompanying this revival, or resulting from it, were many
+important reforms. The corruption of political life gradually
+diminished. A new patriotism and unselfishness began to appear in
+public men. A spirit of philanthropy arose which corrected some of the
+worst social abuses. Under the leadership of the noble John Howard, the
+prisons, so long the abandoned haunts of squalor, oppression, and
+misery, were considerably redeemed from their shameful condition. Beau
+Nash marked the progress of peaceful and law-abiding habits by formally
+forbidding the wearing of swords wherever his fashionable authority was
+recognized. In the fiction of the latter half of the eighteenth century
+is illustrated a gradual transition of morals and taste from the
+unbridled coarseness of the century's earlier years to the comparative
+refinement of our own times.
+
+There lived in Sussex about the time of the Methodist revival, a
+thriving shopkeeper named Thomas Turner. He had received a good
+education, and in early life had been a schoolmaster. On reading
+"Clarissa" he had exclaimed, what would have gladdened the heart of
+Richardson: "Oh, may the Supreme Being give me grace to lead my life in
+such a manner as my exit may in some measure be like that divine
+creature's!" His literary tastes were so pronounced and varied that in
+the space of six weeks he had read Gray's "Poems," Stewart "On the
+Supreme Being," the "Whole Duty of Man," "Paradise Lost and Regained,"
+"Othello," the "Universal Magazine," Thomson's "Seasons," Young's
+"Night Thoughts," Tournefort's "Voyage to the Levant," and "Perigrine
+Pickle." This scholarly tradesman kept a diary, in which he recorded
+his thoughts, his studies, and his amusements with a frankness which
+deserves the thanks of posterity. Some passages of his diary, in their
+illustration of the combination of licence, coarseness, and moral
+earnestness characteristic of the writer's time may greatly assist us
+in appreciating the power and influence of the religious revival.[185]
+
+"I went to the audit and came home drunk. But I think never to exceed
+the bounds of moderation more. * * * "Sunday, 28th, went down to Jones',
+where we drank one bowl of punch and two muggs of bumboo; and I came
+home again in liquor. Oh, with what horrors does it fill my heart, to
+think I should be guilty of doing so, and on a Sunday, too! Let me once
+more endeavour, never, no never, to be guilty of the same again. * * * I
+read part of the fourth volume of the _Tatler_; the oftener I read it,
+the better I like it. I think I never found the vice of drinking so well
+exploded in my life, as in one of the numbers." In January, 1751,
+"Mr. Elless (the schoolmaster), Marchant, myself, and wife sat down to
+whist about seven o'clock, and played all night; very pleasant, and I
+think I may say innocent mirth, there being no oaths nor imprecations
+sounding from side to side, as is too often the case at cards."
+February 2, "we supped at Mr. Fuller's, and spent the evening with a
+great deal of mirth, till between one and two. Tho, Fuller brought my
+wife home on his back, I cannot say I came home sober, though I was far
+from being bad company. I think we spent the evening with a great deal
+of pleasure." March 7th, a party met at Mr. Joseph Fuller's,
+"drinking," records our diarist, "like horses, as the vulgar phrase
+is, and singing, till many of us were very drunk, and then we went to
+dancing, and pulling of wigs, caps, and hats; and thus we continued in
+this frantic manner, behaving more like mad people than they that
+profess the name of Christians." Three days after, the same amusements
+are enjoyed at the house of Mr. Porter, the clergyman of the parish,
+except "there was no swearing and ill words, by reason of which Mr.
+Porter calls it innocent mirth, but I in opinion differ much
+therefrom." Mr. Turner had no great reason to respect the opinion of
+clergymen on such matters. Soon after, "Mr. ----, the curate of
+Laughton, came to the shop in the forenoon, and he having bought some
+things of me (and I could wish he had paid for them), dined with me,
+and also staid in the afternoon till he got in liquor, and being so
+complaisant as to keep him company, I was quite drunk. How do I detest
+myself for being so foolish!" A little later, Mr, Turner attended a
+vestry meeting, at which "we had several warm arguments, and several
+vollies of execrable oaths oftentime redounded from almost all parts of
+the room.
+
+"About 4 P.M. I walked down to Whyly. We played at bragg the first part
+of the even. After ten we went to supper, on four broiled chicken, four
+boiled ducks, minced veal, cold roast goose, chicken pastry, and ham.
+Our company, Mr. and Mrs. Porter, Mr. and Mrs. Coates, Mrs. Atkins,
+Mrs. Hicks, Mr. Piper and wife, Joseph Fuller and wife, Tho. Fuller and
+wife, Dame Durrant, myself and wife, and Mr. French's family. After
+supper our behaviour was far from that of serious, harmless mirth; it
+was downright obstreperious, mixed with a great deal of folly and
+stupidity. Our diversion was dancing or jumping about, without a violin
+or any musick, singing of foolish healths, and drinking all the time
+as fast as it could be well poured down; and the parson of the parish
+was one among the mixed multitude. If conscience dictates right from
+wrong, as doubtless it sometimes does, mine is one that I may say is
+soon offended: for, I must say, I am always very uneasy at such
+behavior, thinking it not like the behaviour of the primitive
+Christians, which, I imagine, was most in conformity to our Saviour's
+gospel.
+
+"Thursday, Feb, 25th. This morning, about six o'clock, just as my wife
+was got to bed, we was awaked by Mrs. Porter, who pretended she wanted
+some cream of tartar; but as soon as my wife got out of bed, she vowed
+she should come down. She found Mr. Porter (the clergyman), Mr. Fuller,
+and his wife, with a lighted candle, and part of a bottle of port wine
+and a glass. The next thing was to have me down stairs, which being
+apprised of, I fastened my door. Up stairs they came, and threatened to
+break it open; so I ordered the boys to open it, when they poured into
+my room; and as modesty forbid me to get out of bed, so I refrained;
+but their immodesty permitted them to draw me out of bed, as the phrase
+is, topsy-turvey; but, however, at the intercession of Mr. Porter, they
+permitted me to put on * * * my wife's petticoats; and in this manner
+they made me dance, without shoes and stockings, until they had emptied
+a bottle of wine, and also a bottle of my beer. * * * About three
+o'clock in the afternoon, they found their way to their respective
+homes, beginning to be a little serious, and, in my opinion, ashamed of
+their stupid enterprise and drunken perambulation. Now let any one call
+in reason to his assistance, and reflect seriously on what I have
+before recited, and they will join me in thinking that the precepts
+delivered from the pulpit on Sunday, though delivered with the greatest
+ardour, must lose a great deal of there efficacy by such examples."
+
+Such were the amusements and such the moral reflections of a country
+tradesman in the middle of the last century, Fielding, Smollett, and
+the other novelists described the same kind of life: the same
+succession of brawls, drunken sprees, cock-fights, boxing matches, and
+bull-baitings. It would be difficult to imagine a state of society more
+ripe for a revival. Mr. Thomas Turner had moral and religious
+aspirations, but these could not be satisfied by the clergyman of his
+parish or the curate of Laughton, the companions of his debauches but
+not the sharers of his remorse. When the clergy were sincere and moral,
+they were still too cold and commonplace to seriously influence their
+flocks. The sermons of the time were at best, moral essays, teaching
+little, as Mr. Lecky says, "that might not have been taught by
+disciples of Socrates and Confucius." They might encourage honesty and
+temperance where those virtues already existed, but they had no spell
+to arouse religious feelings, nor to reclaim the vicious. How great,
+then, must have been the effect of the impassioned eloquence of a
+Whitefield, which could draw tears from thousands of hardened colliers,
+upon such a society as that of Mr. Turner and his friends, accustomed
+only to the discourses of their boon companion, the Rev. Mr. Porter.
+The prevailing licence and the prevailing moral consciousness were
+elements especially adapted to the work of the religious revivalist.
+The effect of the sermons of Berridge is thus described by an
+eye-witness[186]:
+
+    I heard many cry out, especially children, whose agonies were
+    amazing. One of the eldest, a girl of ten or twelve years old, was
+    full in my view, in violent contortions of body, and weeping aloud,
+    I think incessantly, during the whole service. * * * While poor
+    sinners felt the sentence of death in their souls, what sounds of
+    distress did I hear! Some shrieking, some roaring aloud. The most
+    general was a loud breathing, like that of people half strangled
+    and gasping for life. And indeed, almost all the cries were like
+    those of human creatures dying in bitter anguish. Great numbers
+    wept without any noise; others fell down as dead; some sinking in
+    silence; some with extreme noise and violent agitation. I stood on
+    the pew seat, as did a young man in an opposite pew--an
+    able-bodied, fresh, healthy countryman. But in a moment, when he
+    seemed to think of nothing less, down he dropped with a violence
+    inconceivable. The adjoining pews seemed shook with his fall. I
+    heard afterward the stamping of his feet, ready to break the boards
+    as he lay in strong convulsions at the bottom of the pew. * * *
+    Among the children who felt the arrows of the Almighty I saw a
+    sturdy boy about eight years old, who roared above his fellows, and
+    seemed, in his agony, in struggle with the strength of a grown man.
+    His face was red as scarlet; and almost all on whom God laid his
+    hand turned either red or almost black. * * * A stranger, well
+    dressed, who stood facing me, fell backward to the wall; then
+    forward on his knees, wringing his hands and roaring like a bull.
+    His face at first turned quite red, then almost black. He rose and
+    ran against the wall till Mr. Keeling and another held him. He
+    screamed out "Oh! what shall I do? what shall I do? Oh, for one
+    drop of the blood of Christ!"
+
+These were violent remedies, but they were applied to a powerful
+disease. If the revivalists did harm by the religious terrorism which
+they excited, they yet had a powerful and wide-spread influence for
+good. They awakened religious feelings among the people, and diffused
+a new earnestness among the clergy. A spirit of philanthropy was born
+with their teachings which has gone on growing until it now extends a
+protecting arm even to brutes. The societies for the prevention of
+cruelty to children and to animals are part of a great philanthropic
+movement which began at the end of the eighteenth century, which has
+carried into practical, every-day life the spirit of Christianity, and
+has given to the words mercy and charity, the signification of real and
+existing virtues. Horses, dogs, even rats, are now more safe from
+wanton brutality than great numbers of men and women in the eighteenth
+century. To any one who studies that period, the stocks, the whipping
+post, the gibbet, cock fights, prize-fights, bull-baitings, accounts of
+rapes, are simply the outward signs of an all-pervading cruelty. If he
+opens a novel, he finds that the story turns on brutality in one form
+or other. It is not only in such novels as those of Fielding and
+Smollett, which are intended to describe the lower classes of society,
+and in which blackened eyes and broken heads are relished forms of wit,
+that the modern reader is offended by the continual infliction of pain.
+Goldsmith gives Squire Thornhill perfect impunity from the law and from
+public opinion in his crimes. Mackenzie does not think of visiting any
+legal retribution on his "Man of the World." Godwin wrote "Caleb
+Williams" to show with what impunity man preyed on man, how powerless
+the tenant and the dependent woman lay before the violence or the
+intrigue of the rich. And it is not only that a crime should be
+committed with perfect security which would now receive a severe
+sentence at the hands of an ordinary judge and jury which surprises the
+reader of to-day, but that scenes which would now shock any person of
+common humanity or taste, were, in the last century, especially
+intended to amuse. In Miss Burney's "Evelina," Captain Mirvan
+continually insults and maltreats Mme. Duval, the grandmother of the
+heroine, in a manner which would not only be inconceivable in a
+gentleman tolerated in society, but in a blackguard, not entirely
+bereft of feelings of decency or good-nature. While she is a guest in
+his own house, he torments her with false accounts of the sufferings of
+a friend; sends her on a futile errand to relieve those sufferings in a
+carriage of his own, and then, disguised as a highwayman, he assaults
+her with the collusion of his servants, tears her clothes, and leaves
+her half dead with terror, tied with ropes, at the bottom of a ditch.
+When Mme. Duval relates her ill-treatment to her granddaughter, Evelina
+could only find occasion to say: "Though this narrative almost
+compelled me to laugh, yet I was really irritated with the captain, for
+carrying his love of tormenting--sport, he calls it to such harshness
+and unjustifiable extremes." And Miss Burney expected, no doubt with
+reason, that her reader would be amused by all this.
+
+In the same work a nobleman and a fashionable commoner are described
+as settling a bet by a race between two decrepit women over eighty
+years of age. "When the signal was given for them to set off, the
+poor creatures, feeble and frightened, ran against each other: and
+neither of them being able to support the shock, they both fell on
+the ground. * * * Again they set off, and hobbled along, nearly even
+with each other, for some time, yet frequently, to the inexpressible
+diversion of the company, they stumbled and tottered. * * * Not long
+after, a foot of one of the poor women slipped, and with great force
+she came again to the ground. * * * Mr. Coverley went himself to help
+her, and insisted that the other should stop. A debate ensued, but the
+poor creature was too much hurt to move, and declared her utter
+inability to make another attempt. Mr. Coverley was quite brutal; he
+swore at her with unmanly rage, and seemed scarce able to refrain even
+from striking her." It would be impossible perhaps to find a party of
+the upper ranks gathered at a country house at the present time,
+composed of persons who could have endured, without remonstrance, such
+treatment of a pair of superannuated horses; yet Miss Burney describes
+the efforts and sufferings of these old women as affording
+inexpressible diversion to the ladies and gentlemen who figure in her
+novel, and she evidently expects the reader to be equally entertained.
+"Evelina" was written by a young woman who saw the best society, who
+was maid of honor to Queen Charlotte, who was universally admired for
+her delicacy and her talents, and whose novels are among the most
+refined of the time.
+
+The higher ranks were much less influenced by the religious revival
+than the lower. Although certainly not less in need of reformation,
+they were far less inclined to welcome it. The fashionable indifference
+to religion was an obstacle which Wesley found much more difficult to
+overcome than the brutal ignorance of the inmates of Newgate. After
+listening to a sermon by Whitefield, Bolingbroke complimented the
+preacher by saying that he had "done great justice to the divine
+attributes." The Duchess of Buckingham's remarks on the preaching of
+the Methodists, in a letter to Lady Huntingdon, are an amusing
+commentary on the times. "I thank your ladyship for the information
+concerning the Methodist preachers. Their doctrines are most
+repulsive, and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect
+toward their superiors, in perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks
+and do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told that you
+have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl the earth.
+This is highly offensive and insulting, and I cannot but wonder that
+your ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with
+high rank and good-breeding."[187] High rank and good-breeding,
+however, in the society of which the Duchess of Buckingham was so
+proud, were not considered inconsistent with habitual drunkenness,
+indecency, and profanity. The vices which "the common wretches that
+crawl the earth" practised in addition to these, her Grace would have
+had difficulty in mentioning.
+
+Still, in the latter half of the eighteenth century is to be traced a
+continual improvement, which is reflected in contemporary fiction. As a
+remarkable example of the change which took place may be mentioned the
+instance of the Earl of March. "As Duke of Queensberry, at nearer
+ninety than eighty years of age, he was still rolling in wealth, still
+wallowing in sin, and regarded by his countrymen as one whom it was
+hardly decent to name, because he did not choose, out of respect for
+the public opinion of 1808, to discontinue a mode of existence which in
+1768 was almost a thing of course" among the higher ranks.[188]
+
+
+[Footnote 184: Wilson's "Memoirs of Daniel Defoe."]
+
+[Footnote 185: For the diary of Thomas Turner, see "Glimpses of our
+Ancestors," by Charles Fleet, pp. 31-52.]
+
+[Footnote 186: For these manifestations, see Wesley's "Journal," and
+Lecky's "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," vol. II, chap.
+ix.]
+
+[Footnote 187: Lecky, "Hist. of England in the 18th Century," vol. ii,
+chap. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 188: See Trevelyan's "Early History of Charles James Fox,"
+Harper's ed., p. 75.]
+
+
+
+II.
+
+In 1759, were published the first two volumes of "Tristram Shandy," a
+singular and brilliant medley of wit, sentiment, indecency, and study
+of character. Laurence Sterne was a profligate clergyman, a dishonest
+author, and an unfaithful husband. He wrote "Tristram Shandy," and he
+wrote a great many sermons. He descended to the indulgence of low
+tastes, and rose to an elevated strain of thought, with equal facility.
+He was a man who knew the better and followed the worse. His talents
+made him a welcome guest at great men's tables, where he paid for his
+dinner by amusing the company with a brilliant succession of witticisms
+and indecent anecdotes, which, to his hearers, derived an additional
+piquancy from the fact that they proceeded from the mouth of a divine.
+But although the man was in many respects contemptible, although he
+disgraced his priestly character by his profligacy, and his literary
+character by a shameless plagiarism,[189] he possessed in a high degree
+a quality which must give him a distinguished place in English fiction.
+His borrowed plumage and his imitation of Rabelais' style apart, Sterne
+had originality, a gift at all times rare, and always, perhaps,
+becoming rarer. As a humorist, he is to be classed with Fielding and
+Smollett, but as a novelist, his position in the history of fiction is
+separate and unique.
+
+"Tristram Shandy" has all the elements of a novel except the plot. The
+author has no story to tell. His aim is to amuse the reader by odd and
+whimsical remarks on every subject and on every personage whose
+peculiarities promise material for humor and satire. Sterne is
+perpetually digressing, moralizing commenting on every trivial topic
+which enters into his story, until the story itself is completely lost,
+if, indeed, it can be said ever to have been begun. The absence of
+arrangement is so marked that it is very difficult to turn to a passage
+which in a previous perusal has struck the eye. The eccentricity and
+whimsicality of the book contributed greatly to its immediate
+popularity. But the same characteristics which seem brilliant when
+novel, soon become dull when familiar, and although "Tristram Shandy"
+will always afford single passages of lasting interest to the lover of
+literature, the work as a whole is not a little tedious when read
+continuously from cover to cover.
+
+In the course of his literary medley, Sterne introduces his reader to a
+group of characters amongst the most odd and original in fiction. Mr.
+Shandy, with his syllogisms and his hypotheses, his "close reasoning
+upon the smallest matters"; Yorick, the witty parson, whose epitaph,
+_Alas! Poor Yorick!_ expresses so tenderly the amiable faults for which
+he suffered; Captain Shandy, that combination of simplicity,
+gentleness, humanity, and modesty, are all creations which deserve to
+rank with the most individual and happily conceived of fictitious
+personages. Sterne makes a character known to the reader by a
+succession of delicate touches rather than by description. He seems to
+enter into an individual, and make him betray his peculiarities by
+significant actions and phrases. Thus Mr. Shandy exposes at once the
+nature of his mind and the vigor of his "hobby-horse," when he
+exclaims to his brother Toby: "What is the character of a family to an
+hypothesis?"
+
+The combination of sentiment, pathos, and humor which Sterne sometimes
+reached with remarkable success, is particularly apparent in every
+incident which concerns the celebrated Captain Toby Shandy, for the
+creation of which character this author may most easily be forgiven his
+indecencies and his literary thefts. Uncle Toby's sympathy with
+Lefevre, a poor army officer, on his way to join his regiment, who died
+in an inn near Shandy's house, is exquisitely painted throughout, and
+the colloquy between the captain and his faithful servant, Corporal
+Trim, when the death of the officer is imminent, is probably the finest
+passage which ever fell from the skilful pen of Laurence Sterne:
+
+    A sick brother-officer should have the best quarters, Trim; and if
+    we had him with us,--we could tend and look to him.--Thou art an
+    excellent nurse thyself, Trim: and what with thy care of him, and
+    the old woman's, and his boy's, and mine together, we might recruit
+    him again at once, and set him upon his legs.
+
+    --In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, smiling, he
+    might march.--He will never march, an' please your Honour, in this
+    world, said the Corporal.--He _will_ march, said my uncle Toby,
+    rising up from the side of the bed with one shoe off.--An' please
+    your Honour, said the Corporal, he will never march but to his
+    grave. He _shall_ march, cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot
+    which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch,--he _shall_
+    march to his regiment.--He cannot stand it, said the Corporal.--He
+    shall be supported, said my uncle Toby.--He'll drop at last, said
+    the Corporal, and what will become of his boy? He _shall not_ drop
+    said my uncle Toby, firmly,--Ah, well-a-day!--do what we can for
+    him, said Trim, maintaining his point,--the poor soul will
+    die.--_He shall not die, by G--_, cried my uncle Toby.
+
+    --The _accusing spirit_, which flew up to Heaven's chancery with
+    the oath, blushed as he gave it in;--and the _recording angel_, as
+    he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it out
+    for ever.[190]
+
+"Ye, who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue
+with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform
+the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day
+will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas,
+Prince of Abyssinia." Thus begins the famous tale which Dr. Johnson
+made the repository of so much of his wisdom, and so beautiful an
+example of English style. Rasselas and his royal brothers and sisters
+live in a secluded portion of the earth known as the Happy Valley,
+where, completely isolated from the world, they await their succession
+to the crown of the imaginary land of Abyssinia, surrounded by every
+luxury which can make life agreeable, and shut off from all knowledge
+of those evils which can make it painful. The aim of the story is to
+show the vanity of expecting perfect happiness, and the folly of
+sacrificing present advantages for the delusive promises of the future.
+
+The scene opens in the Happy Valley, where there is all that labor or
+danger can procure or purchase, without either labor to be endured or
+danger to be dreaded. Rasselas illustrates the habitual discontent of
+man by wearying of the monotonous happiness of his royal home, and,
+together with his sister Nekayah, who shares his ennui, and Imlac, a
+man of learning, he escapes from the abode of changeless joys and
+perpetual merriment.
+
+Once beyond the barriers of the Happy Valley, Rasselas and Nekayah
+seek in the various ranks and conditions of men the abode of true
+happiness. It is sought in vain amidst the hollow and noisy pleasures
+of the young and thoughtless; in vain among philosophers, whose
+theories so ill accord with their practice; in vain among shepherds,
+whose actual life contrasts so painfully with the descriptions of the
+poet; in vain in crowds, where sorrow lurks beneath the outward smile;
+in vain in the cell of the hermit, who counts the days till he shall
+once more mix with the world. The task becomes more hopeless with each
+new disappointment. Rasselas pursues his investigation among the higher
+ranks, in courts and cities; Nekayah, hers among the poor and humble,
+in the shop and the hamlet. But when the brother and sister meet to
+share their experiences, they both have the same tale to tell of human
+discontent. Finally, in returning disappointed to Abyssinia, they
+illustrate the tendency among men to look back with regret on the early
+pleasures of life, abandoned for the impossible happiness which
+discontent had taught them to seek.
+
+On this slight thread of narrative, Johnson strung his thoughts with
+great felicity. The characters, by the different view which they
+entertain of life, are distinct and individual. The book is filled with
+pregnant and beautiful passages, which leave a deep impression on the
+reader. The words in which Imlac describes to the Prince and Princess
+the dangers of an unrestrained imagination, might, with equal
+propriety, find a place in a scientific treatise on the causes of
+insanity, and in a collection of beautiful literary extracts:
+
+    To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination out upon the
+    wing, is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent
+    speculation. When we are alone, we are not always busy; the labour
+    of excogitation is too violent to last long; the ardour of inquiry
+    will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing
+    external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own
+    thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is
+    pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity,
+    and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present
+    moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible
+    enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The
+    mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all
+    combinations, and riots in delights which nature and fortune, with
+    all their bounty, cannot bestow.
+
+    In time, some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all
+    other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in
+    weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favorite conception,
+    and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended with
+    the bitterness of truth. By degrees, the reign of fancy is
+    confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time, despotic. Then
+    fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon
+    the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish.[191]
+
+The resemblance between Johnson's "Rasselas" and Voltaire's "Candide"
+is so marked, that had either author seen the other's work, he must
+have been suspected of imitation. But while both these great minds were
+writing at nearly the same time on the same theme of human misery, the
+lessons they taught differed in a manner which is strongly illustrative
+of the differences between the two men and their respective
+surroundings. French scepticism and distrust of divine power led
+Voltaire to impute human griefs to the incapacity of the Creator. But
+Johnson, writing "Rasselas" in an hour of sorrow, to obtain means to
+pay for his mother's funeral, taught that that happiness, which this
+world can not afford, should be sought in the prospect of another and a
+better.[192]
+
+All readers of Boswell know how the "Vicar of Wakefield" found a
+publisher. How Goldsmith's landlady arrested him for his rent, and how
+he wrote to Johnson in his distress. How the kind lexicographer sent a
+guinea at once, and followed to find the guinea already changed, and a
+bottle of Madeira before the persecuted but philosophical author. How
+Johnson put the cork in the bottle, and after a hasty glance at the MS.
+of the "Vicar of Wakefield," went out and sold it for sixty pounds. And
+how triumphantly Goldsmith rated his landlady.
+
+In the hands of that bookseller, who purchased the novel as much out of
+charity as in hope of profit, the "Vicar of Wakefield" remained
+neglected, until the publication of "The Traveler" had made the author
+famous. This interval would have afforded Goldsmith ample time to
+correct the obvious inconsistencies and faults which his work
+contained. But in the spirit of a man who depended on his pen for his
+bread, he made no effort to improve what had already brought him all
+this remuneration for which he could hope. This is the more to be
+regretted, that very little revision would have been sufficient, to
+make the "Vicar of Wakefield" as perfect in its construction as in its
+style and spirit. "There are a hundred faults in this thing," says the
+preface, "and a hundred things might be said to prove them beauties.
+But it is needless. A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it
+may be very dull without a single absurdity. The hero of this piece
+unites in himself the three greatest characters upon earth;--he is a
+priest, a husbandman, and the father of a family. He is drawn as ready
+to teach, and ready to obey--as simple in affluence, and majestic in
+adversity."
+
+These few words are not an inaccurate statement of the merits and
+demerits of the "Vicar of Wakefield." Faults there are, certainly. The
+improbability of Sir William Thornhill's being able to go about among
+his own tenantry _incognito_, without other disguise than a change of
+dress; the inconsistency of the philanthropist's allowing his
+villainous nephew to retain possession of the wealth which he used only
+to assist him in his crimes; and, finally, the impossibility of that
+nephew's being so nearly of an age with Sir William himself, when he
+must have been the son of a younger brother, are all blemishes which
+Goldsmith might easily have removed, had he not relied on the opinion
+which he expressed in Chapter xv, "the reputation of books is raised,
+not by their freedom from defect, but by the greatness of their
+beauties."
+
+Such a rule would be an obviously dangerous one for an author to
+follow. But Goldsmith's confidence in the beauties of his novel was
+fully justified by the verdict of the world. No novelist has more
+deeply imbued his work with his own genius and spirit, and none have
+had a more beneficent genius, nor a more beautiful spirit to impart
+than the author of "The Deserted Village." The exquisite style, the
+delicate choice of words, the amiability of sentiment, so peculiarly
+his own, and so well suited to express the simple beauty of his
+thoughts, give a charm to the work which familiarity can only endear.
+Dr. Primrose, preserving his simplicity, his modesty, and his nobility
+of character alike when surrounded by the pleasures of his early and
+prosperous home, when struggling with the hardships of his ruined
+fortune, and when rewarded at last by the surfeit of good-fortune which
+follows his trial, stands high among the most noble conceptions of
+English fiction. "We read the 'Vicar of Wakefield,'" said the great Sir
+Walter, "in youth and in age. We return to it again and again, and
+bless the memory of an author who contrives so well to reconcile us to
+human nature."
+
+Goethe, when in his eighty-first year, declared that Goldsmith's novel
+"was his delight at the age of twenty, that it had in a manner formed a
+part of his education, influencing his tastes and feelings throughout
+life, and that he had recently read it again from beginning to end,
+with renewed delight, and with a grateful sense of the early benefit
+derived from it." "Rogers, the Nestor of British literature, whose
+refined purity of taste and exquisite mental organization rendered him
+eminently calculated to appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of
+all the books, which, through the fitful changes of three generations
+he had seen rise and fall, the charm of the 'Vicar of Wakefield' had
+alone continued as at first; and could he revisit the world after an
+interval of many more generations, he should as surely look to find it
+undiminished." So wrote Washington Irving; and if the reader is
+inclined to look for the causes of the extraordinary endurance of
+Goldsmith's work, he can find them nowhere better stated than in the
+words of John Forster: "Not in those graces of style, nor even in that
+home-cherished gallery of familiar faces can the secret of its
+extraordinary fascination be said to consist. It lies nearer the heart.
+A something which has found its way _there_; which, while it amused,
+has made us happier; which, gently interweaving itself with our habits
+of thought, has increased our good-humour and charity; which,
+insensibly it may be, has corrected wilful impatiences of temper, and
+made the world's daily accidents easier and kinder to us all; somewhat
+thus should be expressed, I think, the charm of the 'Vicar of
+Wakefield.'"
+
+In 1760 was published "Chrysal, the Adventures of a Guinea," by Charles
+Johnstone, the author of several deservedly forgotten novels.[193] The
+first volume was sent to Dr. Johnson for his opinion, who thought, as
+Boswell tells us, that it should be published--an estimate justified by
+the considerable circulation which the book enjoyed.
+
+Chrysal is an elementary spirit, whose abode is in a piece of gold
+converted into a guinea. In that form the spirit passes from man to
+man, and takes accurate note of the different scenes of which it
+becomes a witness. This is a natural and favorable medium for a satire,
+which Johnstone probably owed, in some measure, both to the "Diable
+Boiteux" of Gil Blas, and the "Adventures of a Halfpenny" of Dr.
+Bathurst. The circulation of the guinea enables the author to describe
+the characteristics of its possessors as seen by a truthful witness,
+and he has taken advantage of his opportunity to produce one of the
+most disgusting records of vice in literature. A depraved mind only
+could find any pleasure in reading "Chrysal," and whoever is obliged to
+read it from cover to cover for the purpose of describing it to others,
+must find himself, at the end of his task, in sore vexation of spirit.
+Human depravity is never an agreeable subject for a work of
+entertainment, and while Swift's genius holds the reader fascinated
+with the horror of his Yahoos, the ability of a Manley or a Johnstone
+is not sufficient to aid the reader in wading through their vicious
+expositions of corruption. It must be said that Johnstone had some
+excuse. If he were to satirize society at all, it was better that he
+should do it thoroughly; that he should expose official greed and
+dishonesty, the orgies of Medenham Abbey, the infamous extortions of
+trading justices, in all their native ugliness. It must be said that
+the time in which he lived presented many features to the painter of
+manners which could not look otherwise than repulsive on his canvas.
+But his zeal to expose the vices of his age led him into doing great
+injustice to some persons, and into grossly libelling others. He
+imputed crimes to individuals of which he could have had no knowledge;
+and he shamefully misrepresented the Methodists and the Jews. If
+Johnstone had wished to see how offensive a book he might write, and
+how disgusting and indecent a book the public of his day would read and
+applaud, he might well have brought "Chrysal" into the world. If he had
+intended, by exposing crime, to check it, he had better have burned his
+manuscript. He has added one other corruption to those he exposed, and
+one other evidence of the lack of taste and decency which characterized
+his time. No man can plead the intention of a reformer as an excuse for
+placing before the world the scenes and suggestions of unnatural crime
+which sully the pages of "Chrysal," and if men do, in single instances,
+fall below the level of brutes, he who gloats over their infamy and
+publishes their contagious guilt deserves some share of their odium.
+
+The novels of Henry Mackenzie have a charm of their own, which may be
+largely attributed to the fact that their author was a gentleman.
+Whoever has read, to any extent, the works of fiction of the eighteenth
+century, must have observed how perpetually he was kept in low company,
+how rarely he met with a character who had the instincts as well as the
+social position of a gentleman. A tone of refined sentiment and dignity
+pervades "The Man of Feeling," which recalls the "Vicar of Wakefield,"
+and introduces the reader to better company and more elevated thoughts
+than the novels of the time usually afford. "The Man of Feeling" is
+hardly a narrative. Harley, the chief character, is a sensitive,
+retiring man, with feelings too fine for his surroundings. The author
+places him in various scenes, and traces the effect which each produces
+upon his character. The effect of the work is agreeable, though
+melancholy, and the early death of Harley completes the delineation of
+a man too gentle and too sensitive to battle with life.
+
+In his next novel Mackenzie described the counterpart of Harley, "The
+Man of the World." Almost any writer of the present day who took a man
+of the world for his hero, would draw him as a calm, philosophical
+person, neither very good nor very bad,--one who took the pleasures and
+troubles of life as they came, without quarrelling with either. But the
+man of the world as Mackenzie paints him, and as the eighteenth century
+made him, was quite another individual. Sir Thomas Sindall is a villain
+of the heroic type. Not one, simply, who does all the injury and
+commits all the crimes which chance brings in his way. He labors with a
+ceaseless persistency, and a resolution which years do not diminish, to
+seduce a single woman. Without any apparent passion, he finally
+accomplishes his object by force, after having spent several years in
+ruining her brother to prevent his interference. The long periods of
+time, the great expenditure of vital energy, and the exhaustless fund
+of brutality which are consumed by the fictitious villains of the
+eighteenth century in gratifying what would seem merely a passing
+inclination, astonish the reader of to-day. The crime of rape, rarely
+now introduced into fiction, and rarely figuring even in criminal
+courts, is a common incident in old novels, and as commonly, remains
+unpunished. In Sir Thomas Sindall, Mackenzie meant to present a
+contrast to the delicate and benevolent character of Harley. Both are
+extremes, the one of sensibility, the other of brutality. Harley was a
+new creation, but Sindall quite a familiar person, with whom all
+readers of the novels of the last century have often associated.
+
+It was suggested very sensibly to Mackenzie, that the interest of most
+works of fiction depended on the _designing_ villainy of one or more
+characters, and that in actual life calamities were more often brought
+about by the innocent errors of the sufferers. To place this view
+before his readers, Mackenzie wrote "Julia de Roubigne," in which a
+wife brings death upon herself and her husband by indiscreetly, though
+innocently, arousing his jealousy. Sir Walter Scott ranked this novel
+among the "most heart-wringing histories" that ever were written--a
+description which justly becomes it. Mackenzie's aim was less to weave
+a complicated plot, than to study and move the heart; and to the lover
+of sentiment his novels may still be attractive.
+
+The "Fool of Quality," by Henry Brooke, has had a singular history. The
+author was a young Irishman of a fine figure, a well-stored mind, and a
+disposition of particular gentleness. He was loved by Pope and
+Lyttleton, caressed by the Prince of Wales, and honored by the friendly
+interest of Jonathan Swift. Married before he was twenty-one to a young
+girl who presented him with three children before she was eighteen, his
+life was a constant struggle to provide for a family which increased
+with every year. After a long period of active life, passed in literary
+occupations, he retired to an obscure part of Ireland, and there died,
+attended by a daughter, the only survivor of twenty-two children, who
+remembered nothing of her father "previous to his retirement from the
+world; and knew little of him, save that he bore the infirmities and
+misfortunes of his declining years with the heroism of true
+Christianity, and that he was possessed of virtues and feelings which
+shone forth to the last moment of his life, unimpaired by the
+distractions of pain, and unshaken amid the ruins of genius."[194]
+
+The "Fool of Quality" was first published in 1766, and received a
+moderate share of public attention. Its narrative was extremely slight.
+Harry, the future Earl of Moreland, was stolen from his parents by an
+uncle in disguise; and the five volumes of the work consist almost
+entirely of an account of the education of the child, and the various
+incidents which affected or illustrated his mental growth. One day John
+Wesley chanced to meet with it, and although he required his followers
+"to read only such books as tend to the knowledge and love of God," he
+was tempted to look into this particular novel. The "whimsical title"
+at first offended him, but as he proceeded, he became so enthusiastic
+over the moral excellence of the work, that he expunged some offensive
+passages it contained, and republished it for the benefit of the
+Methodists. "I now venture to recommend the following treatise," said
+Wesley to his people, "as the most excellent in its kind that I have
+seen either in the English or any other language. * * * It perpetually
+aims at inspiring and increasing every right affection; at the
+instilling gratitude to God and benevolence to man. And it does this
+not by dry, dull, tedious, precepts, but by the liveliest examples that
+can be conceived; by setting before your eyes one of the most beautiful
+pictures that ever was drawn in the world. The strokes of this are so
+delicately fine, the touches so easy, natural, and affecting, that I
+know not who can survey it with tearless eyes, unless he has a heart of
+stone. I recommend it, therefore, to all those who are already, or who
+desire to be, lovers of God and man." It was not as a good novel that
+Wesley either enjoyed or republished the "Fool of Quality." He
+recommended it for the excellence of its moral, and the "Fool of
+Quality" would have been allowed to slumber forever on Methodist
+book-shelves, had it not been revived by a man who was an equally good
+judge of a moral and a work of fiction.
+
+But, in regard to this novel, it must be admitted that Charles
+Kingsley's judgment was seriously at fault. He saw both its qualities
+and its faults, but he did not realize that a good purpose will not
+make up for a poor execution. The causes of the neglect of the book,
+said the Canon in his preface, are to be found "in its deep and grand
+ethics, in its broad and genial humanity, in the divine value which it
+attaches to the relations of husband and wife, father and child, and to
+the utter absence, both of that sentimentalism and that superstition
+which have been alternately debauching of late years the minds of the
+young. And if he shall have arrived at this discovery, he will be able
+possibly to regard at least with patience those who are rash enough to
+affirm that they have learnt from this book more which is pure, sacred,
+and eternal, than from any which has been published since Spenser's
+'Fairy Queen.'"[195] On the testimony of Wesley and of Kingsley, all
+the merits of a moral nature which they claim for the "Fool of Quality"
+will readily be accorded to it. But it is very doubtful that such
+qualities would necessarily interfere with the success of a work of
+fiction. The real reason why very few who can help it will read this
+novel, lies in those characteristics which Kingsley himself admitted
+would appear to the average reader. "The plot is extravagant as well as
+ill-woven, and broken, besides, by episodes as extravagant as itself.
+The morality is quixotic, and practically impossible. The sermonizing,
+whether theological or social, is equally clumsy and obtrusive. Without
+artistic method, without knowledge of human nature and the real world,
+the book can never have touched many hearts and can touch none
+now."[196]
+
+It is singular that Kingsley should have expected that a book with so
+many and so evident faults could have remained popular simply because
+its moral was a good one. If he had sat down to warn the world against
+Henry Brooke's novel, he could hardly have expressed himself with more
+effect. Whatever merit it may have is buried under a mass of dulness
+almost impossible to penetrate, and a silliness pervades the characters
+and the conversations which makes even the lighter portions unreadable.
+The "Fool of Quality" has all the drawbacks of a novel of purpose in an
+exaggerated form. The improvement of his reader is a laudable object
+for a novelist. But it is an object which can be successfully carried
+out in a work of art, only very indirectly. An author may have a great
+influence for good, but that influence can be obtained, not by
+deliberate sermonizing, but only by tone of healthy sentiment which
+insensibly elevates the reader's mind.
+
+Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the number and variety of
+works of fiction rapidly increased. William Beckford, whom Byron calls
+in "Childe Harold," "Vathek, England's wealthiest son," wrote in his
+twentieth year the oriental romance "Vathek," which excited great
+attention at the time. It was composed in three days and two nights,
+during which the author never took off his clothes. Byron considered
+this tale superior to "Rasselas." It represented the downward career of
+an oriental prince, who had given himself up to sensual indulgence, and
+who is allured by a Giaour into the commission of crimes which lead him
+to everlasting and horrible punishments. "Vathek" gives evidence of a
+familiarity with oriental customs, and a vividness of imagination which
+are remarkable in so youthful an author. The descriptions of the Caliph
+and of the Hall of Eblis are full of power. But in depth of meaning,
+and in that intrinsic worth which gives endurance to a literary work,
+it bears no comparison to "Rasselas." The one affords an hour's
+amusement; the other retains its place among those volumes which are
+read and re-read with constant pleasure and satisfaction.
+
+The novels of Richard Cumberland, "Henry," "Arundel," and "John de
+Lancaster," contain some well-drawn characters and readable sketches of
+life. But Cumberland had little originality. He aimed without success
+at Fielding's constructive excellence, and imitated that great master's
+humor, only to reproduce his coarseness. The character of Ezekiel Daw,
+the Methodist, in "Henry," is fair and just, and contrasts very
+favorably with the libellous representations of the Methodist preachers
+in Graves' "Spiritual Quixote," and other contemporary novels. Another
+writer of fiction of considerable prominence in his day, but of none in
+ours, was Dr. Moore, whose "Zeluco" contained some very lively "Views
+of human nature, taken from life and manners, foreign and domestic,"
+but also some very disagreeable exhibitions of human degradation and
+vice.
+
+The influence of the French Revolution in England is apparent in the
+works of several novelists who wrote at the end of the eighteenth
+century. Thomas Holcroft embodied radical views in novels now quite
+forgotten.[197] Robert Bage has left four works containing opinions of
+a revolutionary character--"Barham Downs," "James Wallace," "The Fair
+Syrian," and "Mount Henneth." These novels are written in the form of a
+series of letters and have little narrative interest. The author has
+striven, sometimes successfully, at a powerful delineation of
+character, but his works are too evidently a vehicle for his political
+and philosophical opinions. He represents with unnatural consistency
+the upper classes as invariably corrupt and tyrannical, and the lower
+as invariably honest and deserving. His theories are not only
+inartistically prominent, but are worthless and immoral. He looks upon
+a tax-gatherer as a thief, and condones feminine unchastity as a
+trivial and unimportant offence.
+
+The novelist most deeply embued with the doctrines of the French
+Revolution was William Godwin--a man of great literary ambition, and
+less literary capacity. His "Life of Chaucer" has the merits of a
+compilation, but not those of an original literary work. His political
+and social writings were merely reproductions of French revolutionary
+views, and were entirely discredited by Malthus' attacks upon them. The
+same lack of originality and of independent power characterized
+Godwin's novels. They all have a patch-work effect, and in all may be
+found the traces of imitation. "St. Leon" and "Mandeville"[198] are
+dull attempts in the direction of the historical novel. "Fleetwood, or
+the New Man of Feeling" embodies some of the author's social views, and
+contains evidence of an imitation of Fielding and Smollett, in which
+only their coarseness is successfully copied.
+
+But Godwin gave one book to the world which has acquired a notoriety
+which entitles it to a more extended notice than its intrinsic merits
+would otherwise justify. "Caleb Williams" was first published in 1794,
+and was widely read. Lord Byron is said to have threatened his wife
+that he would treat her as Falkland had treated Caleb Williams, and
+this fact brought the novel into prominence with the Byron controversy,
+and occasioned its republication in the present century. The author
+tells us that his object was "to comprehend a general review of the
+modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism by which man becomes the
+destroyer of man." And this was to be done "without subtracting from
+the interest and passion by which a performance of this sort (a novel)
+ought to be characterized." In both his didactic and his artistic
+purpose the author must be said to have failed. The story is briefly as
+follows: Falkland, who is represented as a man whose chief thought and
+consideration consist in guarding his honor from stain, stabs Tyrrel,
+his enemy, in the back, at night. He then allows two innocent men to
+suffer for the murder on the gallows. His aim, during the remainder of
+his life, is to prevent the discovery of his crime and the consequent
+disgrace to his name. Caleb Williams enters his employment as a
+secretary, discovers the secret with the greatest ease, and promises
+never to betray his patron. Williams soon becomes weary of his
+position, and attempts to escape. He is accused by Falkland of robbery
+and is imprisoned. He escapes from prison, and wanders about the
+country, always pursued by the hirelings of his master who use every
+means to render his life miserable. Finally he openly accuses Falkland
+of his crime, who confesses it and dies. The story is full of the most
+evident inconsistencies. There is no adequate reason for Tyrrel's
+hatred of Falkland, which leads to the murder. It is inconceivable that
+a man of Falkland's worship of honor should commit so dastardly a
+crime, and should suffer two innocent men to pay its penalty. The
+facility with which Falkland allows his secretary to discover a secret
+which would bring him to the gallows is entirely inconsistent with the
+strength of mind which the author imputes to his hero. Finally, the
+confession of crime, after so many years of secrecy, and when
+conscience must have been blunted by time and habit, is without
+adequate cause. The characters are very slightly sketched, and excite
+neither interest nor sympathy. Emily Melville resembles Pamela too
+closely, and Tyrrel is a poor reproduction of Squire Western.
+
+Godwin tells us that, when thinking over "Caleb Williams," he said to
+himself a thousand times: "I will write a tale, that shall constitute
+an epoch in the mind of the reader, that no one, after he has read it,
+shall ever be exactly the same man that he was before." The effort, and
+straining after effect which this confession implies, are evident
+throughout the work. The reader's curiosity is continually excited by
+the promise of new interest and new developments, but he is as
+continually disappointed. The main idea of the story is certainly a
+striking one, but it is feebly carried out. The constitution of society
+cannot be effectively attacked by so improbable and exceptional an
+illustration of tyranny as the persecution of Caleb Williams.
+
+
+[Footnote 189: It would be difficult to find a more bare-faced and
+impudent literary theft than the case in which Sterne appropriated to
+himself the remonstrance of Burton ("Anatomy of Melancholy"), against
+that very plagiarism which he (Sterne) was then committing. Burton
+said: "As apothecaries, we make new mixtures, every day pour out of one
+vessel into another * * * We weave the same web, still twist the same
+rope again and again." Sterne says, with an effrontery all his own:
+"Shall we forever make new books, as apothecaries make new medicines,
+by pouring only out of one vessel into another? Are we forever to be
+twisting and untwisting the same rope--forever in the same track?
+forever at the same pace?" For Sterne's plagiarism, see Dr. Ferriar's
+"Essay and Illustrations," also Scott's "Life of Sterne."]
+
+[Footnote 190: "Tristram Shandy," orig. ed., vol. viii, chap. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 191: "Rasselas," chap. xliv. Contrast with Porter on "The
+Human Intellect," pp. 371-2.]
+
+[Footnote 192: See Scott's "Memoir of Johnson."]
+
+[Footnote 193: "The Reverie," "The History of Arbaces," "The Pilgrim,"
+"The History of John Juniper."]
+
+[Footnote 194: The facts of Brooke's life are taken from the
+introduction to the "Fool of Quality," by Rev. Charles Kingsley, New
+York, 1860.]
+
+[Footnote 195: Charles Kingsley, preface to the "Fool of Quality."]
+
+[Footnote 196: Kingsley's preface to "Fool of Quality."]
+
+[Footnote 197: "Alwyn," "Anna St. Ives," "Hugh Trevor," "Bryan
+Perdue."]
+
+[Footnote 198: Published in 1817, when the author was far advanced in
+years.]
+
+
+
+III.
+
+The publication of "Evelina," in 1778, made a sensation which the
+merits of the work fully justified. The story of Miss Burney's[199]
+early life, her furtive attempts at fictitious composition, the great
+variety of artistic and political characters who passed in review
+before her observant eyes at Dr. Burney's house have been made familiar
+by her own diary and letters. Petted and admired by Johnson, Mrs.
+Thrale, and the brilliant literary society of which they formed the
+centre, she lived sufficiently far into the present century to see the
+works of her early friends enrolled among the classics or consigned to
+oblivion, and to recognize that the approval of posterity had been
+added to the early fame of her own writings. As a very young girl,
+unnoticed by the distinguished persons who frequented her father's
+house, she had studied with careful attention the characters and
+manners of those who talked and moved about her. A strong desire to
+reproduce the impressions which filled her mind induced Miss Burney in
+her sixteenth year to devote her stolen hours of seclusion to
+fictitious composition. Discouraged in her early efforts by her
+stepmother, her habits of observation remained active, and took form,
+when the authoress was twenty five years old, in the famous novel of
+"Evelina." The book was issued secretly and anonymously, the publisher
+even being ignorant of the writer's true name. But the immediate
+popularity and admiration which greeted the work soon led to its open
+acknowledgment by the happy young authoress.
+
+And "Evelina" fully deserved the praise and interest which it obtained
+and still excites. The aim was to describe the difficulties and
+sensations of a young girl just entering life. The heroine chosen by
+Miss Burney was one whose circumstances particularly well suited her to
+form the centre of a varied collection of characters and of a
+comprehensive picture of contemporary society. Well connected on her
+father's side, Evelina moved in fashionable circles with the Mirvan
+family. On account of the origin of her mother she was brought into
+close contact with humbler personages, with Madame Duval and the
+Brangtons. Hence this novel presents to the reader a variety of social
+scenes which gives it a value possessed by no other work of fiction of
+the eighteenth century. No novelist has described so well or so fully
+the aspect of the theatres, of Vauxhall and Ranelagh, of Bath in the
+season, of the ridottos and assemblies of the London fashionable world.
+The shops, the amusements and the manners of the middle classes are
+made familiar to Evelina by her association with the Brangtons, and add
+greatly to the breadth of this valuable picture of metropolitan life.
+With a feminine attention to detail, and a quick perception of salient
+characteristics, Miss Burney described the world about her so
+faithfully and picturesquely as to deserve the thanks of every student
+of social history. The novel of "Evelina," the letters of Horace
+Walpole and Mrs. Delany corroborate each other, and may be
+appropriately placed on the same shelf in a well-ordered library.
+
+In the painting of manners Miss Burney was eminently successful. But
+she was hardly less so in a point in which excellence could not have
+been expected in so youthful a writer. The plot of "Evelina" is
+constructed with a skill worthy of a veteran. Fielding alone, of the
+eighteenth century novelists, can be said to surpass Miss Burney in
+this respect. The whole story of the mischances and misunderstanding of
+Evelina's intercourse with Lord Orville, the skill with which the
+various personages are brought into contact with each other and made to
+contribute to the final _denoument_, compose a truly artistic success.
+The introduction of Macartney and his marriage to the supposed daughter
+of Sir John Belmont form a very happy and effective invention.
+
+In regard to her sketches of character, it may be objected that Miss
+Burney lacked breadth of treatment, that she dwelt on one distinctive
+characteristic at the expense of the others. But still, Lord Orville,
+though somewhat too much of a model, and Mrs. Selwyn, though somewhat
+too habitually a wit, are vivid and life-like characters. The Brangtons
+and Sir Clement Willougby are nature itself, and the girlish nature of
+Evelina is betrayed in her letters with great felicity.
+
+It is no small triumph for Miss Burney, who has had so many and so
+deserving competitors in the department of literature to which she
+contributed, that her novels should have remained in active
+circulation for more than a century after their publication. "Cecilia"
+has much the same merits which distinguished "Evelina," and the two
+novels bid fair to hold their own as long as English fiction retains
+its popularity. Johnson considered Miss Burney equal to Fielding. But
+although she possessed qualities similar to his--constructive power and
+picturesqueness--she possessed them in a lesser degree. In the
+management of the difficulties of the epistolary form of novel-writing,
+she surpassed Richardson in verisimilitude and concentration.
+
+Some readers of the present day object to Miss Burney's novels that
+they contain so many references to "delicacy" and "propriety" that an
+air of affectation is produced. But at the time when "Evelina" was
+written, a perpetual discretion in actions and words was absolutely
+necessary to a young woman who did not wish to be subjected to
+libertine advances. Society is now so much more generally refined that
+there is far less danger of such misconstruction, and far less need for
+a young girl to be always on her guard. A sound objection, on the
+ground of taste, may be made against the excessively prolonged account
+of Captain Mirvan's brutalities. The effect might have been as well
+produced in a much shorter space, and the reader spared the
+uninteresting scenes which now fill so many repulsive pages. For this
+defect, however, we must blame the times more than the author.
+
+Charlotte Lennox was the daughter of Sir James Ramsay, Lieutenant
+governor of New York, where she was born in 1720. When fifteen years of
+age she was sent to London, and there supported herself by her pen.
+Johnson said that he had "dined at Mrs. Garrick's with Mrs. Carter,
+Miss Hannah More, and Miss Fanny Burney: three such women are not to be
+found. I know not where I could find a fourth, except Mrs. Lennox, who
+is superior to them all." Such high praise was not called forth by Mrs.
+Lennox's novels, which have little originality or power. "The Female
+Quixote" is an entertaining satire on the old French romances, but
+"Sophia," and "Euphemia" are without any special interest.
+
+A writer of more ability, whose name is still remembered by
+novel-readers, is Mrs. Inchbald. She was overcome in early life by an
+enthusiasm for the stage; ran away from home to find theatrical
+employment, and remained for many years a popular London actress.
+Although possessed of great and durable beauty, and the object of
+constant attention from aristocratic admirers, it is believed that her
+reputation continued unsullied. Her poverty, largely caused by a
+worthless husband, obliged her to perform the most menial labors. She
+rejoiced on one occasion that the approach of warmer weather released
+her from the duty of making fires, scouring the grate, sifting the
+cinders, and of going up and down three pair of long stairs with water
+or dirt. All this Mrs. Inchbald thought that she could cheerfully bear,
+but the labor of being a fine lady the remainder of the day was almost
+too much for her. "Last Thursday," she wrote to a friend, "I finished
+scouring my bed-chamber, while a coach with a coronet and two footmen
+waited at the door to take me an airing."
+
+The same courage and industry were carried by Mrs. Inchbald into her
+literary labors, the profits of which enabled her to live with
+considerable comfort toward the end of her life. She left a large
+number of plays, many of which had been acted with success, and two
+novels, "A Simple Story," published in 1791, and "Nature and Art,"
+published five years later. Neither of these works has much merit from
+a critical point of view. They are faulty in construction, and give
+frequent evidence of the authoress' lack of education.
+
+Yet, in her ability to excite the interest and to move the feelings of
+her reader, Mrs. Inchbald met with great success. Her novels are of the
+pathetic order, and appeal to the sympathies with a sometimes powerful
+effect. Maria Edgeworth was deeply moved by the "Simple Story." "Its
+effect upon my feelings," she said after reading it for the fourth
+time, "was as powerful as at the first reading; I never read _any_
+novel--I except none,--I never read any novel that affected me so
+strongly, or that so completely possessed me with the belief in the
+real existence, of all the persons it represents. I never once
+recollected the author whilst I was reading it; never said or thought,
+_that's a fine sentiment_,--or, _that is well expressed_--or, _that is
+well invented_; I believed all to be real, and was affected as I should
+be by the real scenes, if they had passed before my eyes; it is truly
+and deeply pathetic."
+
+The sisters, Harriet and Sophia Lee, wrote a number of stories gathered
+together under the rather unfortunate title of "The Canterbury Tales,"
+which had a long-continued popularity. "The Young Lady's Tale," and
+"The Clergyman's Tale" were written by Sophia; all the others, together
+with the novel "Errors of Innocence," belonged to Harriet. These
+stories have great narrative interest, and contain some powerfully
+drawn characters. Byron was deeply affected by some of them. Of the
+"German's Tale," he confessed: "It made a deep impression on me, and
+may be said to contain the germ of much that I have since written." It
+not only contained the germ of "Werner," but supplied the whole
+material for that tragedy. All the characters of the novel are
+reproduced by Byron except "Ida," whom he added. The plan of Miss Lee's
+work is exactly followed, as the poet admitted, and even the language
+is frequently adopted without essential change.
+
+Charlotte Smith was a woman of talent and imagination who was driven to
+literature for aid in supporting a large family abandoned by their
+spendthrift father. She was among the most prolific novelists of her
+time, but only one work, "The Old Manor House," enjoyed more than a
+passing reputation, or has any claim to particular mention here. The
+chief merit of Charlotte Smith's novels lies in their descriptions of
+scenery, an element only just entering into the work of the novelist.
+
+Clara Reeve and the celebrated Mrs. Radcliffe did much to sustain the
+prominent position which women were taking in fictitious composition,
+and their works will be commented upon in connection with the romantic
+revival, to which movement they were eminent contributors.
+
+Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the number and variety of
+works of fiction increased with remarkable rapidity. The female sex
+supplied its full share, both in amount and in excellence of work. But
+those who desire to see the advent of women into new walks of active
+life on the ground that their presence and participation add to the
+purity of every occupation they adopt, can find no illustration of the
+theory in the connection of women with fictitious composition. Mrs.
+Behn, Mrs. Manley, and Mrs. Heywood, the earliest female novelists,
+produced the most inflammatory and licentious novels of their time. At
+a later period, during the eighteenth century, although some female
+writers exhibited a very exceptional refinement, the majority showed in
+this respect no marked superiority to their masculine contemporaries.
+In our own time, whoever would make a list of those novels which are
+most evidently immoral in their teachings and licentious in their tone,
+would be obliged to seek them almost quite as much among the works of
+female writers, as among those of the rougher sex.
+
+To write a really excellent novel, is among the most difficult of
+literary feats. But to write a poor one has often been found an easy
+undertaking. The apparent facility of fictitious composition has
+deceived great numbers of literary aspirants, and has filled the
+circulating libraries with a vast collection of thoroughly worthless
+productions. This unfortunate fecundity, to which the department of
+fiction is subject, began to be conspicuous at the end of the
+eighteenth century,[200] and excited much opposition to novels of all
+kinds. Hannah More, in her essays on female education, inveighed
+against the evil in terms which are quite as applicable at the present
+day. "Who are those ever multiplying authors, that with unparalleled
+fecundity are overstocking the world with their quick-succeeding
+progeny? They are _novel-writers_; the easiness of whose productions is
+at once the cause of their own fruitfulness, and of the almost
+infinitely numerous race of imitators to whom they give birth. Such is
+the frightful facility of this species of composition, that every raw
+girl, while she reads, is tempted to fancy that she can also write. And
+as Alexander, on perusing the Iliad, found by congenial sympathy the
+image of Achilles stamped on his own ardent soul, and felt himself the
+hero he was studying; and as Correggio, on first beholding a picture
+which exhibited the perfection of the graphic art, prophetically felt
+all his own future greatness, and cried out in rapture: 'And I, too, am
+a painter!' So a thorough-paced novel-reading miss, at the close of
+every tissue of hackneyed adventures, feels within herself the stirring
+impulse of corresponding genius, and triumphantly exclaims: 'And I,
+too, am an author!' The glutted imagination soon overflows with the
+redundance of cheap sentiment and plentiful incident, and, by a sort of
+arithmetical proportion, is enabled by the perusal of any three novels,
+to produce a fourth; till every fresh production, like the prolific
+progeny of Banquo, is followed by
+
+    'Another, and another, and another!'"
+
+
+[Footnote 199: Afterward Madame D'Arblay.]
+
+[Footnote 200: See the "Progress of Romance," by Clara Reeve, for the
+names of many now forgotten novels, for which room cannot be spared
+here.]
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+The writers who took the chief part in originating and sustaining the
+romantic revival in English fiction were Horace Walpole, Clara Reeve,
+and Mrs. Radcliffe. As we have called upon the testimony of Walpole so
+often in this work, and as we are now to consider him as an author,
+some account of his personal appearance may be of interest. "His
+figure," says Miss Hawkins, "was not merely tall, but long and slender
+to excess; his complexion, and particularly his hands, of a most
+unhealthy paleness. His eyes were remarkably bright and penetrating,
+very dark and lively:--his voice was not strong, but his tones were
+extremely pleasant, and, if I may so say, highly gentlemanly. I do not
+remember his common gait; he always entered a room in that style of
+affected delicacy which fashion had then made almost natural; _chapeau
+bras_ between his hands as if he wished to compress it, or under his
+arm; knees bent, and feet on tiptoe, as if afraid of a wet floor. His
+dress in visiting was most usually, in summer, when I most saw him, a
+lavender suit, the waistcoat embroidered with a little silver, or of
+white silk worked in the tambour, partridge silk stockings, and gold
+buckles, ruffles and frill generally lace. I remember, when a child,
+thinking him very much under-dressed, if at any time, except in
+mourning, he wore hemmed cambric. In summer, no powder, but his wig
+combed straight, and showing his very smooth, pale forehead, and queued
+behind; in winter, powder."
+
+Posterity has cause to regret that Horace Walpole, of all men best
+fitted by personal knowledge and ability to draw a picture of the
+brilliant society of his time, should have contributed no work in the
+department of realistic fiction. Had the keen observation and
+experience of the world so conspicuous in his letters been brought to
+bear on a narrative of real life not less ably constructed than that of
+"The Castle of Otranto," an addition of no little value to the social
+history of the eighteenth century must have been the result. But
+although Walpole attempted no novel in which he might have depicted the
+fashionable life of which he was so faithful a chronicler, he yet tried
+an experiment in fiction for which he was peculiarly qualified by his
+antiquarian studies and his fondness for the arts and customs of feudal
+times.
+
+The object of "The Castle of Otranto" was to unite the characteristic
+elements of the ancient romance with those of the modern novel. It was
+attempted to introduce into a narrative constructed with modern order
+and sequence, such supernatural events as controlled the incidents of
+romantic fiction. To accomplish this result, it was necessary that the
+_mise en scene_ should be impressive and awe-inspiring, that the
+reader's mind should be insensibly prepared by strange surroundings for
+extraordinary incidents. In his selection of age and scene, Walpole was
+highly judicious. He chose the feudal period, when superstition
+accorded the most ready belief to supernatural agencies. He introduced
+his reader to a huge, gloomy castle, furnished with towers, donjons,
+subterranean passages, and trapdoors. He took for his hero, Manfred, a
+fierce and cruel knight, who had obtained his lands by duplicity and
+blood; whose chief aim in life was to continue his posterity in
+possession of wrongfully acquired power. He added subordinate
+characters of a kind to aid the effect of supernatural phenomena: a
+monk in a neighboring convent, who threatened Manfred with divine
+visitation for his crimes; superstitious servants, whose easy fears
+exaggerated every unusual sound or foot-fall. He gave an interest to
+his narrative by the love passages of Manfred's daughters which were
+perpetually at the mercy of the fate which hung over the castle. He
+introduced his supernatural effects in the form of a gigantic gauntlet
+seen on the stair-rail; a gigantic helmet which crushed the son and
+heir of the house as he was about to be married and to carry out his
+father's hopes; a skeleton monk who urged the rightful owner of the
+castle to take his own from the usurper's hands.
+
+In attempting to make a regularly constructed narrative depend on
+supernatural agencies, Walpole undoubtedly succeeded as far as success
+was possible. But it may be said without hesitation that real success
+was unattainable. The very merits of "The Castle of Otranto" sustain
+this decision. The experiment had a fair trial. The narrative of
+Manfred's crimes and the punishments visited upon them, the characters
+and actions of subordinate personages are all managed with skill; while
+the supernatural agencies are introduced at the proper times and have
+the expected effects. But the real test of success in such an attempt
+must lie in the impression made on the reader's mind. And this
+impression may be of two kinds. Let us imagine a group of young people
+sitting about the dying embers of a fire on a winter's evening,
+listening to a ghost story. The black darkness, the sound of the wind
+howling without, accord with the low tones, the dim light, and the tale
+of horror within. The minds of the listeners insensibly cast off their
+ordinary trains of thought, and give themselves up to the unreal
+impressions of the moment. The incredible circumstances of the
+apparition are accepted without question or criticism; the impression
+of the supernatural occurrences is alone thought of and enjoyed. But
+now, let the same tale be read aloud after breakfast, from a newspaper,
+with the affidavits of the witnesses of the apparition duly attached,
+and only laughter can be the result.
+
+Now let us apply the same test to romance. We open the "Morte d'Arthur";
+we find ourselves at once in an unreal, almost nameless land; we meet
+with knights whom we only know apart by their armor, and queens ambling
+through pathless forests on white palfreys; we attend brilliant
+tournaments and witness superhuman deeds of arms. Our minds, untroubled
+by scepticism and thoughtless of unreality, yield themselves to the
+poetical illusion. Who stops to think of the incredible when Sir
+Bedivere hurls into the lake the dying Arthur's sword Excalibur?
+
+    Then Sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly took
+    it up, and went to the water side, and there he bound the girdle
+    about the hilts, and then he threw the sword as far into the water
+    as he might, and there came an arm and an hand above the water, and
+    met it, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and
+    then vanished away the hand with the sword in the water.
+
+But when we are introduced to the castle of Otranto, when we know its
+dimensions and appearance, when we have become acquainted with its
+inmates, and have been made to realize that they are flesh and blood
+like ourselves, we cannot receive without a shock the account of the
+supernatural occurrences by which they are affected. It is as if we
+listened to a ghost story in the glare of daylight, and in the full
+activity of our critical faculties.
+
+    "Thou art no lawful prince," said Jerome; "thou art no prince--go,
+    discuss thy claim with Frederic; and when that is done----" "It is
+    done," replied Manfred; "Frederic accepts Matilda's hand, and is
+    content to waive his claim, unless I have no male issue." As he
+    spoke these words three drops of blood fell from the nose of
+    Alfonso's statue.
+
+"The Castle of Otranto" is an entertaining, well-constructed romance
+which may absorb the attention of young people, and indeed of all
+readers who delight in tales of superstitious horror. But looked upon
+as a work of art, it contains discordant elements. The realistic manner
+in which the scene and characters are made known, the exactitude with
+which the incidents are combined, are in constant opposition to that
+poetical ideality without which the supernatural cannot take possession
+of the mind. In reading the "Morte d'Arthur" we are insensibly
+penetrated by an atmosphere of the marvellous which makes a giant a
+natural companion, and a magic sword a necessary part of a warrior's
+outfit. But Manfred and his family are so essentially human, and their
+surroundings are so realistic, that the reader's sense of congruity is
+shocked by the introduction of a bleeding statue or a skeleton monk.
+
+This was evident to Miss Clara Reeve, who hoped to attain success in
+the attempt to unite the romance and the novel by limiting all
+supernatural occurrences to the verge of probability. It is obvious
+that the line would be difficult to draw. Miss Reeve drew it at ghosts.
+In the "Old English Baron," she took a story similar to that of
+Walpole. She presented to the reader a castle whose real owner had been
+murdered, and of which the rightful heir, ignorant of his birth, lived
+as a dependent on the wrongful possessor. The story turned on the
+revelation of the secret by the ghost of the murdered knight.
+
+    "God defend us!" said Edmund; "but I verily believe that the person
+    that owned this armor lies buried under us." Upon this a dismal,
+    hollow groan was heard, as if from underneath. A solemn silence
+    ensued, and marks of fear were visible upon all three; the groan
+    was thrice heard.
+
+To the average mind of the present day Clara Reeve's ghost is not less
+improbable and incredible than Walpole's gigantic helmet. If the reader
+is prepared by the poetic nature of a narrative for the influence of
+the supernatural, he will receive all marvels with equal ease; but if
+he be not prepared, if his mind be occupied during the greater part of
+the work with actual and ordinary occurrences, any supernatural event
+is rejected. Miss Reeve introduced far less of the incredible than her
+predecessor, but she did not approach Walpole in the adaptation of her
+scenes to supernatural effects. It requires less imagination to see a
+figure walk out of a portrait in the gloomy castle of Otranto, than to
+hear the groan of Miss Reeve's spectre.
+
+The incompatibility of the real and the unreal in the same work is
+sufficiently shown by the course pursued by the different writers who
+took part in the romantic revival. Walpole had boldly introduced a
+skeleton monk, and had crushed one of his characters by a gigantic
+helmet which fell from the sky. Clara Reeve's sense of congruity was
+shocked by so strong a contrast between the usual and the
+extraordinary, and therefore limited herself to a single supernatural
+effect, which might inspire fear while yet remaining within the bounds
+of superstitious credulity. The next and greatest contributor to the
+romantic revival still further modified the methods of her
+predecessors, and in so modifying them, testified her doubts of their
+efficacy. Mrs. Radcliffe's plan was not to summon a spectre from his
+resting-place and to make him move among flesh and blood personages.
+She simply described the superstitious fears of her heroes and
+heroines, and sought to make her reader share in them. She excited the
+imagination by highly wrought scenes of horror, but instead of
+ascribing those scenes to the intervention of supernatural beings, she
+showed them to proceed from natural causes. The terror felt, by her
+fictitious characters and shared by the reader, was not so much
+inspired by real dangers from without, as by superstitious fear within.
+The following passage will illustrate Mrs. Radcliffe's method of
+dealing with the supernatural:
+
+    From the disturbed slumber into which she then sunk, she was soon
+    awakened by a noise, which seemed to arise within her chamber; but
+    the silence that prevailed, as she tearfully listened, inclined her
+    to believe that she had been alarmed by such sounds as sometimes
+    occur in dreams, and she laid her head again upon the pillow.
+
+    A return of the noise again disturbed her, it seemed to come from
+    that part of the room which communicated with the private
+    staircase, and she instantly remembered the odd circumstance of the
+    door having been fastened during the preceding night by some
+    unknown hand. The late alarming suspicion concerning its
+    communication also occurred to her. Her heart became faint with
+    terror. Half raising herself from the bed, and gently drawing aside
+    the curtain, she looked toward the door of the staircase, but the
+    lamp that burnt on the hearth spread so feeble a light through the
+    apartment, that the remote parts of it were lost in shadow. The
+    noise, however, which she was convinced came from the door,
+    continued. It seemed like that made by the undrawing of rusty
+    bolts, and often ceased, and was then renewed more gently, as if
+    the hand that occasioned it was restrained by a fear of discovery.
+    While Emily kept her eyes fixed on the spot, she saw the door move,
+    and then slowly open, and perceived something enter the room, but
+    the extreme duskiness prevented her perceiving what it was. Almost
+    fainting with terror, she had yet sufficient command over herself
+    to check the shriek that was escaping from her lips, and, letting
+    the curtain drop from her hand, continued to observe in silence the
+    motions of the mysterious figure she saw. It seemed to glide along
+    the remote obscurity of the apartment, then paused, and, as it
+    approached the hearth, she perceived, in the stronger light, what
+    appeared to be a human figure. Certain remembrances now struck upon
+    her heart, and almost subdued the feeble remains of her spirit. She
+    continued, however, to watch the figure, which remained for some
+    time motionless, but then, advancing slowly toward the bed, stood
+    silently at the feet, where the curtains, being a little open,
+    allowed her still to see it; terror, however, had now deprived her
+    of the power of discrimination, as well as that of utterance.[201]
+
+This scene is an excellent example of Mrs. Radcliffe's power of
+depicting and exciting fear. The loneliness of Emily in the castle, her
+dread of real dangers inclining her mind to expect the unreal, are
+shown with an art of which neither Walpole nor Reeve were capable. But,
+while these writers would have introduced a real spectre as the
+disturber of Emily's slumber, Mrs. Radcliffe is contented with the
+terror she has aroused, and hastens to explain its cause.
+
+    Having continued there a moment, the form retreated towards the
+    hearth, when it took the lamp, held it up, surveyed the chamber for
+    a few moments, and then again advanced towards the bed. The light
+    at that instant awakening the dog that had slept at Emily's feet,
+    he barked loudly, and, jumping to the floor, flew at the stranger,
+    who struck the animal smartly with a sheathed sword, and springing
+    towards the bed, Emily discovered--Count Morano.
+
+These passages afford evidence of both the strength and the weakness of
+Mrs. Radcliffe's work. She chose a scene calculated to inspire horror,
+she subjected to its influence a lonely female, and she then described
+with blood-curdling minuteness each detail which could enhance the
+sense of hidden danger which it was her purpose to excite. While the
+reader follows such portions of her writings, he is carried by the
+force and picturesqueness of Mrs. Radcliffe's language into a condition
+of sympathy with the fears of the fictitious personage. But the moment
+that the scene of horror is past, that the hidden danger is revealed,
+that, it turns out to be no ghost but only a Count Morano, all Mrs.
+Radcliffe's power is required to prevent an anti-climax. This weakness
+is very different from that of Walpole or Reeve. They failed to excite
+the feeling of superstitious fear. Mrs. Radcliffe excited it, but she
+destroyed its effect by revealing the inadequacy of its cause. The
+works of Walpole, Clara Reeve, and particularly of Mrs. Radcliffe,
+contain very decided merits. They made a school which has found many
+admirers and has given a vast deal of pleasure. But the school was
+founded on wrong principles and could not endure. It is impossible for
+the mind to enjoy the supernatural while it is chained down to
+every-day life by realistic descriptions of scenes and persons. And it
+is equally impossible to permanently please by fear-inspiring
+narratives, when the reader is aware that all the while there is no
+sufficient cause for the hero's terror.
+
+But what Mrs. Radcliffe attempted, she carried out with a very great
+skill. She placed the scenes of her narratives in Sicily, in Italy, or
+the south of France, and made good use of the warm natures and vivid
+imaginations which are born of southern climates. Every aid which an
+effective _mise en scene_ could supply to her supernatural effects was
+most skilfully brought into play. Lonely castles, secret passages,
+gloomy churches, and monkish superstitions,--all were adapted to the
+tale of unknown dangers and fearful predicaments which Mrs. Radcliffe
+had to tell. She kept up with remarkable strength a supernatural tone
+which insensibly aids the imagination. In her descriptions of scenery,
+she chose nature in its most awe-inspiring forms, and instilled into
+the reader's mind the same sense of the insignificance of man, under
+the influence of which her heroes and heroines so continually remain.
+We are reminded of Buckle's description of the effect of nature upon
+human imagination and credulity when we notice the striking manner in
+which Mrs. Radcliffe moulded the surroundings of her heroes and
+heroines, and made their minds susceptible to superstitious terror.
+
+    From Beaujeu the road had constantly ascended, conducting the
+    travellers into the higher regions of the air, where immense
+    glaciers exhibited their frozen horrors, and eternal snow whitened
+    the summits of the mountains. They often paused to contemplate
+    these stupendous scenes, and, seated on some wild cliff, where only
+    the ilex or the larch could flourish, looked over dark forests of
+    fir, and precipices where human foot had never wandered, into the
+    glen--so deep that the thunder of the torrent, which was seen to
+    foam along the bottom was scarcely heard to murmur. Over these
+    crags rose others of stupendous height and fantastic shape; some
+    shooting into cones; others impending far over their base, in huge
+    masses of granite, along whose broken ridges was often lodged a
+    weight of snow, that, trembling even to the vibration of a sound,
+    threatened to bear destruction in its course to the vale. Around on
+    every side, far as the eye could penetrate, were seen only forms of
+    grandeur the long perspective of mountain tops, tinged with
+    ethereal blue, or white with snow; valleys of ice, and forests of
+    gloomy fir. * * * The deep silence of these solitudes was broken
+    only at intervals by the scream of the vultures, seen cowering
+    round some cliff below, or by the cry of the eagle sailing high in
+    the air; except when the travellers listened to the hollow thunder
+    that sometimes muttered at their feet.[202]
+
+Lewis in "The Monk," and Maturin in "The Family of Montorio," carried
+the principles of the Radcliffe school beyond the verge of absurdity.
+Their novels are wild melodramas, the product of distorted
+imaginations, in which endless horrors are mingled with gross
+violations of decency. "The Monk" and "The Family of Montorio" had a
+great reputation in their day, and in contemporary criticism we find
+their praise sung and their immortality predicted. But, while they
+illustrate, on the one hand, the temporary vogue an author may acquire
+by highly-wrought clap-trap and flashy flights of imagination, they
+show very plainly, in the oblivion which has overtaken them, how little
+such characteristics avail in the race for enduring fame.
+
+
+[Footnote 201: "The Mysteries of Udolpho," chap. xix.]
+
+[Footnote 202: "The Mysteries of Udolpho," ch. iv.]
+
+
+
+V.
+
+At the end of the eighteenth century, the novel had become established
+as a popular form of literature, and the number of its votaries had
+begun to assume the proportions which have since made novelists by far
+the most numerous literary body. Some writers, perhaps, have been
+omitted who deserved mention as much as some who have been commented
+upon. But all have been spoken of, it is believed, who contributed any
+new ideas or methods to the art of fictitious composition.
+
+The novel had, indeed, taken the place of the stage to a very great
+extent. If we compare the productions of the dramatist with those of
+the novelist, as regards both quantity and merit, during the last
+hundred and fifty years, we shall perceive a great preponderance in
+favor of the writer of fiction. Although there are some respects in
+which the novel cannot compete with the drama, there are obvious
+reasons why the former should be much better adapted than the latter to
+modern requirements. Great changes have come over the audience. With
+the progress of civilization, life has become less and less dramatic,
+and affords fewer striking scenes and violent ebullitions of passion.
+It not only furnishes far less material for stage effects, but also
+supplies little of that sympathy which the dramatist must find in the
+minds of his audience. While life has become less dramatic, it has
+become far more complex, and requires a broader treatment in its
+delineation than the restrictions of the stage can allow.
+
+As we look back upon the fiction of the eighteenth century it is
+evident that the novel, like the play, is capable of great uses and of
+great abuses, according to the spirit in which it is written. In the
+hands of Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Goldsmith, and Miss Burney, it
+reached a high position as a work of art. It retained, indeed, much of
+the manner of the story of adventure, inasmuch as the interest was more
+commonly made to depend on the fortunes of a chosen hero than on the
+development of a well constructed plot. But "Robinson Crusoe," "Tom
+Jones," "The Vicar of Wakefield," and "Evelina," are works which
+deserve and possess the interest of the present time. Such books as
+these are to be cherished as precious legacies from the years that have
+gone before. They have given, in the course of their long active
+circulation, an incalculable amount of pleasure. They have supplied
+posterity with a picturesque view of the life and manners of their
+ancestors which could not be acquired from any other source. But while
+the fiction of the eighteenth century includes much that is valuable
+from a literary and from a historical point of view, it includes also a
+great quantity of worthless and injurious writing. By far the larger
+number of novels published were of a kind likely to exert an evil
+influence on their readers. Their coarseness and licentiousness had a
+strong tendency to disseminate the morbid thoughts and unregulated
+passions which dictated their production. So general was the feeling
+that a work of fiction would probably contain immoral and debasing
+views of life, that the novel and the novelist, were both looked upon
+askance. "In the republic of letters," said Miss Burney, "there is no
+member of such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his
+brethren of the quill, as the humble novelist; nor is his fate less
+hard in the world at large, since, among the whole class of writers
+perhaps not one can be named of which the votaries are more numerous
+but less respectable." Miss Edgeworth, in the beginning of the present
+century, felt it necessary to call her first novel "a moral tale,"
+because so much folly, error, and vice are disseminated in books
+classed "under the denomination of novels." A great part of the fiction
+of the last century, as indeed of our own time, possesses neither the
+value of a work of art nor that belonging to the description and
+preservation of contemporary manners. Nor could the excuse of the
+amusement they afforded be called up in their favor. No amusement is
+worth having which is not healthy and innocent. The general prejudice
+which formerly existed against novels very much lessened their
+circulation, and lessened the evil done by licentious productions.
+Careful parents did not allow a novel in their children's hands which
+had not passed an examination--a precaution now too generally
+neglected.
+
+But notwithstanding all the trash, and worse than trash, which has gone
+into circulation under the broad and attractive term of novel, it is
+evident that the English speaking public on both sides of the Atlantic
+demand purity in the works of fiction which are submitted to its
+judgment. While no literary work can present a greater claim to
+permanent favor than a really good novel, none is more certain to be
+quite ephemeral than a bad one, whether its badness consist in the
+manner or the matter. For more than a hundred years "The Vicar of
+Wakefield" has held its own, while hundreds of novels which created
+more sensation at the time of their appearance have fallen into
+everlasting oblivion. And this triumph is not only due to literary
+excellence, but to the human excellence of the conception which
+Goldsmith gave to the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+   I.--THE NOVEL IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
+  II.--THE NOVEL OF LIFE AND MANNERS.
+ III.--OF SCOTCH LIFE.
+  IV.--OF IRISH LIFE.
+   V.--OF ENGLISH LIFE.
+  VI.--OF AMERICAN LIFE.
+ VII.--THE HISTORICAL NOVEL.
+VIII.--THE NOVEL OF PURPOSE.
+  IX.--THE NOVEL OF FANCY.
+   X.--USE AND ABUSE OF FICTION.
+
+
+I.
+
+Fiction has absorbed so much of the literary talent of the present
+century, and has attained so important a place in the lives and
+thoughts of the reading public, that, in this chapter, we will attempt
+a description of its varied forms, and an inquiry into its uses and
+abuses, rather than an extended criticism of individual writers.
+Allibone's "Dictionary of Authors" contains two thousand two hundred
+and fifty-seven names of writers of fiction, by far the greater number
+of which belong to the nineteenth century, and every year adds to the
+list.
+
+There is no better example of the closeness of the connection between
+society and its literature than is supplied by the novel. Every change
+in the public taste has been followed by a corresponding variety of
+fiction, until it is difficult to enumerate all the schools into which
+novelists have divided themselves. During the present century, life has
+become far more complex and the reading public far more exacting,
+varied, and extended than ever before. Steam and electricity have
+brought distant countries into close communion, and have awakened a
+feeling of fellowship among the different nations of the civilised
+world which has greatly widened the horizon of human interests. The
+spread of education, the increase and distribution of wealth, together
+with the cheapness of printing, have largely increased the number and
+variety of those who seek entertainment from works of fiction. The
+novel-reader is no longer content with the description of scenes and
+characters among which his own life is passed. He wishes to be
+introduced to foreign countries, to past ages, and to societies and
+ranks apart from his own. He wishes also to find in fiction the
+reflection of his own tastes and the discussion of his own interests.
+He seeks psychology, or study of character, or the excitement of a
+complicated plot, or the details and events of sea-faring, criminal, or
+fashionable life. All of these different tastes the novelist has
+undertaken to gratify.
+
+Under the extensive head of the novel of life and manners, the habits,
+modes of thought, and peculiarities of language of Scotland, Ireland,
+England, and the United States, with many sub-divisions of provinces
+and cities, have been studied and described. The novelist has extended
+his investigations into Eastern countries, and has portrayed the
+customs and institutions of Oriental life. He has taken his characters
+from historic times, and has recommended the past for the instruction
+or amusement of the present. The experience of the soldier and the
+sailor have taken their place among the incidents of fiction; the
+adventures and crimes of blacklegs and convicts have been drawn upon to
+gratify palates sated with the weak _pabulum_ of the fashionable novel.
+
+
+Fiction has not been confined to the study of manners and character,
+but has been extensively used to propagate opinions and to argue
+causes. Novels have been written in support of religious views,
+Catholic, High-Church, and Low-Church; political novels have supported
+the interests of Tory, Whig, anti-slavery, and civil service;
+philosophical novels have exposed the evils of society as at present
+constituted, and have built up impossible utopias. Besides the novel of
+purpose, there has been the novel of fancy, in which the imagination
+has been allowed to soar unchecked in the regions of the unreal and the
+supernatural.
+
+With so great a variety of works of fiction, it is not surprising to
+find a corresponding variety of authorship. Lords and ladies, generals
+and colonels have entered the lists against police court reporters and
+female adventurers. The novel is no longer the exclusive work of a
+professional author. Amateurs have attempted it to pass the time which
+hung heavily on their hands; to put into form their dreams or
+experiences; to gratify a mere literary vanity. The needy nobleman has
+made profitable use of his name on the title-page of a novel purporting
+to give information concerning fashionable life. But the most
+remarkable characteristic of novel-writing has been the important part
+taken by women. They have adopted fiction as their special department
+of literature, and have shown their capacity for it by the production
+of novels which fully equal in number and almost equal in merit the
+works of their masculine rivals. On her own ground, George Eliot has no
+superior, while the writings of Miss Austen, of Miss Edgeworth, of Miss
+Ferrier, of Mrs. Stowe, not to mention many others, are to be ranked
+among the best works of fiction in any language. But while women have
+contributed their full share of novels, both as regards quantity and
+merit, they have also contributed much more than what we think their
+full share of worthless and immoral writing. Bad women will have
+literary capacity as well as bad men, but it is doubly shocking to find
+that the prurient thoughts, the indecent allusions, and immoral
+opinions which are often met with in the novels of the day proceed from
+that sex which ought to be the stronghold of modesty and virtue.
+
+And this matter becomes very important when we consider the position
+which works of fiction have attained in the present century. In the
+days of Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Heywood, Fielding, or Smollett, coarseness of
+thought and language was so general that it naturally had a prominent
+place in novels. All persons who objected to licentious scenes and
+gross expressions in the reading of themselves or their children
+excluded works of fiction. As Miss Edgeworth said, most novels were
+filled with vice or folly, and as Miss Burney complained, no body of
+literary men were so numerous, or so little respectable as novelists.
+But, in the hands of such writers as Sir Walter Scott, as Miss Ferrier,
+as Miss Austen, as Dickens, as Thackeray, as Charles Kingsley, as Mr.
+Anthony Trollope, the novel has achieved for itself a position of
+respectability and dignity which seems to remain unimpaired,
+notwithstanding the efforts of many authors to destroy it. Works of
+fiction are to be found in every home, in the hands of parents, in the
+hands of young boys and girls. The word novel has been given so high a
+signification by the great names which are associated with it, that
+parental censorship has almost ceased. It is impossible that a form of
+literature to which so many and so great minds have been devoted, and
+which takes so prominent a place in the favor of the reading public,
+should not be without a powerful influence. Let us look more closely at
+the works of fiction of the nineteenth century, and then endeavor to
+determine how far their influence has been for good, and how far for
+evil.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+It is the especial province of the novel of life and manners to be as
+far as possible a truthful reflection of nature. And the more it
+approaches to this condition, the more realistic it is said to be. But
+the word realism is a vague term, and is constantly employed to express
+different ideas. As far as it applies to the novel, it usually
+signifies an author's fidelity to nature. But even with this
+definition, the term realism has no very definite meaning unless all
+persons agree as to what constitutes nature. There is a great
+difference in men according as they are looked at with the eye of a
+Raphael or of a Rembrandt. There has been a strong tendency among
+novelists of the present century who have written since Scott, to
+devote themselves more to the common characters and incidents of
+every-day life; to describe the world as it appears to the ordinary
+observer, who rarely associates with either heroes or villains, and has
+little experience of either the sublime or the marvellous. Such was the
+expressed object of Thackeray, and such is the general character of the
+works of George Eliot and of Mr. Anthony Trollope. This tendency has
+been carried to an extreme by some English novelists, and above all by
+the Frenchman, Emile Zola, who have not only thrown aside entirely the
+romantic element in their fictions, but have shown their ideas of
+realism to consist in the base and the ignoble, and have confined their
+studies to the vices and degradation of the human species.
+
+An admirer of Thackeray and an admirer of Zola would consider the works
+of his favorite author to be realistic, and yet nature appears under
+very different aspects in the pages of the two novelists. But the
+partisans of Thackeray and those of Zola would probably unite in the
+opinion that Sir Walter Scott was not realistic; they would call him
+romantic, and claim that he painted ideal scenes and ideal characters.
+But among those who read and re-read the novels of Scott, by far the
+greater number believe that "The Wizard of the North" was true to
+nature, that Jeanie Deans and Rob Roy and Meg Merrilies were not
+impossible characters. There are many who enter into the scenes
+described by Scott with as much feeling of reality as is experienced by
+those who follow the career of a Pendennis, of a Duke of Omnium, or of
+a Nana. A novelist, then, is realistic or not realistic according to
+the views which he and his reader entertain of nature. To the optimist,
+to the youthful and romantic, "The Heart of Midlothian" and "Guy
+Mannering" will seem a truthful representation of life. The more
+worldly and practical will find their idea of reality in "The Mill on
+the Floss," in "Vanity Fair," in "The Prime Minister." And finally
+those whose taste or lot has kept them "raking in the dirt of mankind"
+will think their view of truth best expressed by "L'Assommoir" or
+"Nana."
+
+But we would not be understood to mean that a novelist or a painter is
+realistic, because he represents nature as it appears to him, whether
+he look at it through a glass _couleur de rose_, or with the distorted
+eye of a cynic. He may describe the sublime, the ordinary, or the vile,
+as nature supplies examples of all three, and yet be realistic, so long
+as he presents any one of these conditions without exaggeration, and
+without too extended an application.
+
+The writers who have devoted themselves to the novel of life and
+manners have all sought to be realistic, and the value of their work
+largely depends on the success which has attended their efforts in this
+direction. The enduring vitality of "Tom Jones" is due to Fielding's
+fidelity to nature, and it is safe to predict that no novel which fails
+in this respect can have more than an ephemeral reputation. Nothing
+could be more false than the views of contemporary life contained in a
+large part of the fiction of the present day, and the future historian
+who looks to the novel of the nineteenth century for information
+concerning morals and social habits will have to exercise a constant
+discrimination.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Scottish life and manners have been made familiar to the world by a
+series of brilliant novelists, first among whom stands the greatest
+figure in the history of English fiction. Sir Walter Scott was
+qualified to an extraordinary degree for the great work he was destined
+to perform for his country and for the novel. His ancestry, the
+traditions among which he grew up, his in-born love of legendary lore,
+his vivid imagination and keenness of sympathy all fitted him to
+appreciate and to put into enduring form the latent romance which
+pervaded his beloved Scotland. His practical experience as a lawyer and
+as a sheriff, gave him a clear insight into the institutions of his
+country. Previous to the publication of "Waverley," Scotland was a
+comparatively unknown land. Even Englishmen had little knowledge of its
+national habits, of its traditions, or its scenery. To Scotchmen, the
+history of their country was little more than a skeleton, till the
+magic wand of Scott it filled it with flesh and blood, and gave it new
+life and animation. "Up to the era of Sir Walter," says an eminent
+Scotchman, "living people had some vague, general, indistinct notions
+about dead people mouldering away to nothing, centuries ago, in regular
+kirk-yards and chance burial-places, 'mang muirs and mosses many O,'
+somewhere or other in that difficultly distinguished and very debatable
+district called the Borders. All at once he touched their tombs with a
+divining-rod, and the turf streamed out ghosts, some in woodmen's
+dresses, most in warriors' mail; queer archers leapt forth, with yew
+bows and quivers, and giants stalked shaking spears! The gray
+chronicler smiled, and taking up his pen, wrote in lines of light the
+annals of the chivalrous and heroic days of auld feudal Scotland. The
+nation then, for the first time, knew the character of its ancestors;
+for these were not spectres--not they, indeed,--nor phantoms of the
+brain, but gaunt flesh and blood, or glad and glorious;--base-born
+cottage churls of the olden time, because Scottish, became familiar to
+the love of the nation's heart, and so to its pride did the high born
+lineage of palace kings. * * * We know now the character of our own
+people as it showed itself in war and peace--in palace, castle, hall,
+hut, hovel, and shieling--through centuries of advancing civilization."
+
+And it was not only to his countrymen that Scott made vivid and
+familiar the history of his native land. Since his genius described the
+Highland fastnesses, and peopled them with the chiefs and maidens of
+old, all the world feels at home in that land at once so small and so
+great. In Italy, in France in Germany, in America, Jeanie Deans and the
+Master of Ravenswood are household friends, and Scottish life and
+habits are known to tens of thousands who never leave their native
+town.
+
+Besides making his country celebrated by his writings, Scott placed the
+novel on the firm foundation in public estimation which it has since
+retained. He redeemed its character from the disrepute into which it
+had fallen. He used it not only as a means of giving acute and
+healthful pleasure, but he made it the medium for moral and
+intellectual advancement. The purity of thought which pervades all his
+writings, the never-failing nobility of the views of life which he
+placed before his readers can have no other than an elevating
+influence.
+
+Scott's literary success was due both to genius and to industry. Of his
+early precocity Mrs. Cockburn has left a remarkable instance.[203] "I
+last night supped in Mr. Walter Scott's. He has the most extraordinary
+genius of a boy I ever saw. He was reading a poem to his mother when I
+went in. I made him read on; it was the description of a shipwreck. His
+passion rose with the storm. He lifted his eyes and hands: 'There's the
+mast gone!' says he. 'Crash it goes! They will all perish!' After his
+agitation he turns to me: 'That is too melancholy,' says he. 'I had
+better read you something more amusing.' I preferred a little chat, and
+asked his opinion of Milton and other books he was reading, which he
+gave me wonderfully. One of his observations was: 'How strange it is
+that Adam, just new come into the world, should know every thing! That
+must be the poet's fancy,' says he. But when told he was created
+perfect by God, he instantly yielded. When taken to bed last night, he
+told his aunt he liked that lady. 'What lady?' says she. 'Why, Mrs.
+Cockburn, for I think she is a virtuoso,--like myself.' 'Dear Walter,'
+says Aunt Jenny, 'what is a virtuoso?' 'Don't ye know? Why, it's one
+who wishes and will know every thing.' Now, sir, you will think this a
+very silly story. Pray, what age do you suppose this boy to be? Name
+it, now, before I tell you. 'Why, twelve or fourteen.' No such thing;
+he is not quite six years old. He has a lame leg, for which he was a
+year at Bath, and has acquired the perfect English accent, which he has
+not lost since he came, and he reads like a Garrick. You will allow
+this an uncommon exotic."
+
+The vivid imagination and love of knowledge which Scott displayed from
+his earliest years were supplemented throughout his life by an
+assiduous self-cultivation. The great and varied body of legendary lore
+which he accumulated, together with his ever active and universal
+sympathy with mankind, made the chief elements in his fictions. There
+is no one respect in which the Waverley novels are pre-eminent. As
+regards plot, Scott has been frequently surpassed. While "Kenilworth,"
+the "Bride of Lammermoor," and "Ivanhoe," are well constructed, the
+plan of "Rob Roy" and "The Monastery" are lacking in sequence. Other
+novelists, too, have drawn character with quite as much power. But the
+Waverly novels have attained their supreme position in public
+estimation by a rare and well balanced union of different qualities.
+They contain beautiful examples of the sublime, and amusing examples of
+the ludicrous. They reflect nature in various phases, and always with
+picturesqueness, power, and truth. Of Scott's historical novels we
+shall speak elsewhere. Of those which relate especially to his own
+country, the most remarkable merit consists in the fidelity with which
+they have reflected the Scotch nationality. On this account they will
+always possess a value for the student of social history.
+
+Of the estimation in which these novels have been held by the world,
+and the immense area over which their influence has extended, some idea
+may be formed from the fact that the actual profits which accrued from
+them to the author or to his estate shortly after his death, exceeded
+two millions of dollars. When we add to this sum the profits of the
+publishers, and when we consider the number of translations issued in
+Europe and the editions printed since Scott's death in Great Britain
+and America, we can realize how vast a sum the world has been glad to
+pay for the possession of these invaluable works.
+
+Following the great Sir Walter in the description of Scottish life and
+manners, are many well-known writers. John Galt, in the "Annals of the
+Parish," gave many humorous descriptions of national character. In
+Wilson's "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," in "The Ettrick
+Shepherd," in the works of Scott's son-in-law, Lockhart, are scenes and
+characters still very familiar to novel readers. Jane Porter embodied
+rather ideal views of history in "Thaddeus of Warsaw," and "The
+Scottish Chiefs." The talents of Miss Ferrier, of Mrs. Oliphant, and of
+Mr. William Black have kept up the interest which the world has learned
+to take in every thing appertaining to the land which Sir Walter Scott
+taught it to know and love so well.[204]
+
+
+[Footnote 203: Mrs. Cockburn to Rev. Dr. Douglas, 1777; Lockhart's
+"Life of Scott."]
+
+[Footnote 204: Other novelists belonging especially in Scotland and of
+considerable reputation, are Maria Porter, Elizabeth Hamilton, A.
+Cunningham, Mrs. Johnstone, Hogg, Picken, Moir, Sir T.D. Lauder, Hugh
+Miller, George MacDonald.]
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+First among the contributors to the novel of Irish life and manners may
+be mentioned Maria Edgeworth, by whose successful labors Scott was
+first inspired to undertake his own. In Miss Edgeworth's works, Ireland
+found a true exposition of her wrongs and her virtues; and also of her
+follies and errors. The evils of absenteeism were powerfully
+illustrated in the novel of the same name. In "Castle Rackrent," the
+trials and difficulties of landlord and tenant were described with
+genuine sympathy and dramatic force. The peculiarities of Irish temper
+and character have been studied by Miss Edgeworth with a fidelity which
+has given her novels the same national stamp and value which belong to
+those of Scott. Like him, too, she did much to raise fiction in
+character, scope, and influence. Whether describing Irish, English, or
+fashionable life, she is always true to nature, always pure and
+elevated in tone. Her works are neither marred by the coarseness of the
+past, nor by the false delicacy of the present. She studiously avoids
+error and exaggeration in every form. Sentimentality and mock heroism
+have no place in her pages. While she is wanting in poetry, she is
+singularly rich in the scenes and characters of every-day life, and her
+novels are marked by a common-sense knowledge of the world which never
+degenerates into commonplace.
+
+Miss Edgeworth has been ably followed by several students of Irish
+life. William Carleton's "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry,"
+the novels of Samuel Lover and of John Banim are still well known.
+Thomas Crofton Croker, with whose amusing description of the "Last of
+the Irish Sarpints," the reader is probably familiar, has studied his
+countrymen's superstitions and peculiarities with great success.
+Charles James Lever has long retained a well-deserved popularity by the
+production of about thirty jovial dashing novels, among which the most
+celebrated is "Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon."[205]
+
+
+[Footnote 205: Among other novelists of Irish life and manners may be
+mentioned Lady Morgan, Mrs. S.C. Hall, Gerald Griffin, T.C. Grattan,
+Justin MacCarthy, and others.]
+
+
+
+V.
+
+Novels relating particularly to English life and manners have been
+greater in number and more varied in character than those of any other
+country. A large volume would be necessary to do any critical justice
+to the many distinguished writers whom we can only briefly notice here.
+The most considerable subdivision of the English novel has been that
+occupied with the study of domestic life,--a department for which women
+are particularly fitted, and in which they have been eminently
+successful.
+
+Mrs. Opie's "Simple Tales," "Tales of Real Life," and "Tales of the
+Heart," although displaying no great talent in construction or style,
+excel in a natural pathos and a delicacy of sentiment which have made
+them popular for many years. Miss Edgeworth brought to the study of
+English life the same practical views and library talents which we have
+seen in her Irish novels. Her children's stories, "Frank," "Harry and
+Lucy," and "Rosamund" were among the first contributions to juvenile
+fiction. "Helen," in which she exposed the evils of untruthfulness, is
+a good example of the success with which this admirable woman could
+combine entertainment and moral elevation. Jane Austen's name has long
+been linked with that of Miss Edgeworth, as the two most powerful
+female novelists of the earlier part of the century. In "Pride and
+Prejudice," "Emma," "Mansfield Park," "Sense and Sensibility," she
+described the country gentry and middle classes of society. She
+depended neither on exciting scenes, nor on highly wrought effects of
+human passion for the interest of her stories, but studied every-day
+life and ordinary people with a sympathy and power of observation which
+imparted a deep interest to all her works. Miss Ferrier's novels,
+"Inheritance" and "Marriage," were greatly admired by Scott, and now,
+some sixty years later, are still widely read, and receive the honor of
+both cheap and expensive editions. Miss Ferrier's skill in the
+construction of a plot, her natural studies of character and the
+liveliness of her descriptions have kept her works popular,
+notwithstanding great changes in the public taste. Mrs. Trollope, the
+mother of a more celebrated son, contributed largely to the English
+domestic novel. The pathetic story of the lives of the Bronte sisters,
+supplied by Mrs. Gaskell, has deepened the interest excited by the
+early popularity of "Jane Eyre." Charlotte was the most talented of the
+family, and won a widespread admiration by her knowledge of life, her
+freshness, her vigor, and her innocent disregard of conventionality.
+Mrs. Gaskell described the life and trials of the manufacturing classes
+with great ability in "Mary Barton" and other novels. Miss Yonge,
+author of the "Heir of Redclyffe," Mrs. Henry Wood, author of "East
+Lynne," and Mrs. Lynn Linton have added largely to this department of
+fiction. The Baroness Tautphoeus described English and German life in
+the particularly fascinating novels, "Quits," "At Odds," and "The
+Initials." Miss Thackeray has made good use of talents inherited from
+her father. Mary R. Mitford and Mrs. Alexander have written many
+entertaining and popular novels. Miss Mulock began a long list of
+successful works with "The Ogilvies" and "John Halifax."
+
+But by far the greatest female novelist who has devoted her talents to
+the English domestic novel, and by far the greatest female writer in
+the language is undeniably George Eliot. Women almost invariably leave
+the stamp of their sex upon their work. But George Eliot took and held
+a man's position in literature from the outset of her career. It was
+not that she was unfeminine. She brought to her work a woman's sympathy
+and a woman's attention to detail. But in breadth of conception, in
+comprehensiveness of thought, her mind was essentially masculine. Her
+appreciation of varieties and shades of character was almost
+Shakespearian. She could describe the self-indulgence of a Hetty Sorrel
+leading to cruelty, and that of a Tito leading to treachery, with
+perfect distinctness. She could enter into the generous aspirations of
+a Savonarola, and the selfish desires of a Grandcourt, with equal
+perspicuity. Her readers do not feel less familiar with the dull
+barrenness of Casaubon than with the pregnant vivacity of Mrs. Poyser.
+In the study of the inward workings of the human mind, George Eliot is
+unsurpassed by any novelist. Thackeray alone can dispute her
+pre-eminence in this respect. However much the reader may recoil from
+the horror of Little Hetty's crime, he cannot deny that it follows as a
+natural consequence. Although Dorothea's marriages are extremely
+disappointing, the train of thought which led her to enter into them is
+traced with unerring clearness.
+
+An obstacle to the popularity of George Eliot's novels lies in the
+slowness of their movement. The author's soliloquies, comments, and
+reflections, which are so much valued by her especial admirers,
+constantly interrupt the course of the narrative, and prove cumbersome
+to such readers as enjoy a rapid, flowing story. But without these
+interruptions, how much of George Eliot's best wisdom would be lost!
+How many significant phrases would be lost from familiar language! The
+commentaries of the authoress herself on the incidents of her tale give
+her works a value which inclines us to take up her volumes again and
+again, long after the stories themselves have become familiar. We never
+weary of such sentences as the following from "Adam Bede": "There is no
+despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our
+first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have
+suffered and be healed, to have despaired and to have recovered hope."
+Not less beautiful and concentrated are those few words on woman's love
+in "Middlemarch":--"Those childlike caresses which are the bent of
+every sweet woman, who has begun by showering kisses on the hard pate
+of her bald doll, creating a happy soul within that woodenness from the
+wealth of her own love."
+
+A faculty which George Eliot possessed in common with Dickens and
+Thackeray was that of making very ordinary people interesting. And this
+is a talent characteristic of the best minds which have contributed to
+fiction or the drama. Shakespeare possessed it in a high degree, and
+the best creations of Scott are ordinary, unheroic persons. The faculty
+arises from superior powers of observation. Some people will take a
+walk through a picturesque country or a crowded city without having
+seen any thing worthy of remark. Others will pass over the same
+ground, and return overflowing with description. In the same manner,
+the great number of men and women pass through life finding every thing
+commonplace, and the observing sympathy of a Thackeray, a Miss Austen,
+or a George Eliot is necessary to light up the unnoticed figures which
+throng the path. George Eliot is particularly happy in drawing a really
+ordinary person, especially when a little pretension is added. She must
+have written Mr. Brooke's opinion of women with true enjoyment: "There
+is a lightness about the feminine mind--a touch and go--music, the fine
+arts, that kind of thing--they should study those up to a certain
+point, women should; but in a light way, you know." But though Mrs.
+Poyser be humble, she is far from ordinary. "Some folks' tongues," she
+says, "are like the clocks as run on strikin', not to tell you the time
+o' the day, but because there's summat wrong i' their own inside."
+
+So long as George Eliot confined herself to her own sphere of action,
+she exhibited the same remarkable powers. But even her great name could
+not command admiration for "The Spanish Gypsy." Her limitations clearly
+appeared in "Daniel Deronda." When describing the characters and
+intercourse of Grandcourt and Gwendolen, when dealing with every thing
+English in that variously estimated work, she remained the great author
+of "Adam Bede" and "Silas Marner." But in undertaking the discussion of
+the religion and social position of the Jews, she mistook her own
+talents, and created in Daniel Deronda, an indefinite combination of
+virtues unworthy of her genius.
+
+We have now noticed fifteen women, from Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen
+to George Eliot, who have contributed to the single department of
+fiction concerned with English domestic life. Many other names almost
+equally deserving and equally celebrated might be added to the list.
+The enduring popularity of their works is sufficient commentary on the
+success with which woman's talent has been directed toward fiction. Not
+only have the productions of these writers a high literary value, but
+their widespread circulation has afforded a really healthful amusement
+to tens of thousands, and their influence has been uniformly for
+good.[206]
+
+The novels of English domestic life written by men have been little
+more numerous or able, but much more extended in scope. "Tremaine" and
+"De Vere," of R. Plumer Ward, contain clever sketches of character, but
+the narrative is loaded down with political and philosophical
+disquisitions. Theodore Hook's stories were as unequal as his life.
+Almost all bear the marks of haste and carelessness, and yet very few
+are without some portion of that pointed wit and delicate humor which
+delineated Jack Brag, or described Mr. Abberley's dinner party in the
+"Man of Many Friends." Richard Harris Barham is well known as the
+author of the witty "Ingoldsby Legends," and Samuel Warren as the
+author of "Ten Thousand a Year." Charles Kingsley described the life
+and grievances of mechanics in "Alton Locke." Charles Reade began a
+long series of popular novels with "Peg Woffington" and "Christie
+Johnstone." His best work is "Never Too Late to Mend," in which he
+criticized prison discipline, and described the striking scenes of the
+Australian gold-fields. Few novels of the present day contain a more
+interesting story or more lifelike delineations of character. Wilkie
+Collins' greatest power lies in the construction of his plot; the
+"Moonstone" and the "Woman in White," are among the most absorbing
+narratives in the whole range of fiction. His studies of the morbid
+workings of the mind are often striking, but with the exception of
+Count Fosco and a few others, his characters are not strongly marked.
+Thomas Hughes accomplished a truly noble work in the composition of
+"Tom Brown's School Days" and "Tom Brown at Oxford,"--books which have
+found their way to every boy's heart, and have appealed to all that was
+most healthful and manly there. The novels of Benjamin d'Israeli are
+chiefly interesting in their relation to the character of their
+illustrious author. As works of art they are faulty in construction,
+exaggerated in description, and unnatural in effect. "Vivian Gray" and
+"Lothair" cannot pretend to be truthful studies of English life, nor
+would their author, probably, have represented them as such. But so
+much of the great statesman's power was instilled into his novels that
+they have a certain interest even for those who are most alive to their
+faults. They are the conceptions of a very rich imagination, and
+contain many pictures which, if untrue to nature, are still extremely
+vivid. D'Israeli's chief literary, and perhaps also his chief political
+characteristic, was a constant endeavor to make striking effects. The
+reader may be sure to find nothing commonplace in his writings. Every
+scene and every character is painted in the brightest of colors. If the
+background be sombre, it will simply throw out more brilliantly the
+figures in the foreground. It is said that most men have a favorite
+word. That of d'Israeli was "wondrous." He took his reader into
+wondrous baronial halls, filled with wondrous gems, with wondrous
+tapestries, with wondrous paintings, and introduced him to wondrous
+dukes and duchesses, looking out from wondrous dark orbs, and breathing
+through almond-shaped nostrils. He loved to bring the royal family on
+the scene, and to trace the awe-inspiring effect of their august
+presence. When we open a novel of d'Israeli's we are certain of moving
+in a brilliant society, although one belonging to a yet undiscovered
+world. Women whose political influence changes the map of Europe,
+irresistible Catholic priests are mingled with impudent adventurers and
+professional toad-eaters. And over every thing is cast, by d'Israeli's
+Eastern imagination, a glamour of unlimited wealth, of numberless
+coronets, and of soaring ambitions. The political career of the Earl of
+Beaconsfield is one of the most remarkable in history, and even his
+opponents cannot withhold admiration from the great abilities and
+undaunted resolution which brought that career to its triumphant close.
+But the novels of the Earl of Beaconsfield have little value beyond
+their reflection of his dreams and his ambition.
+
+Among the most famous writers of fiction of the nineteenth century will
+always be mentioned the name of Sir Bulwer Lytton. More than any other
+writer, he studied and developed the novel as a form of literature.
+Almost every novelist has taken some special field and has confined
+himself to that. Dickens, George Eliot, Thackeray made occasional
+incursions on historic ground, but still their chief work was expended
+upon the novel of life and manners. Lytton attempted, and successfully,
+every department of fiction. In "Zanoni," he gave to the world a novel
+of fancy; in "Pelham" and "The Disowned," fashionable novels: in "Paul
+Clifford," a criminal novel; in "Rienzi," "Harold," "The Last of the
+Barons," historical novels; in "What Will He Do With It?" a novel of
+familiar life. And he brought to each variety of fiction the same
+artistic sense, the same knowledge of the world, and keen observation.
+To describe English life in all its phases, he was particularly fitted.
+Born in a high rank, he was perfectly at home in his descriptions of
+the upper classes, and never slow in exposing their vices. His studies
+of men took so universal a form that he became familiar even with the
+slang terms of pickpockets and house-breakers. "What Will He Do With
+It?" combines examples of the heroic, the humorous, the pathetic, and
+the villainous, and affords, perhaps, the best general view of the
+author's varied talents. Sir Bulwer Lytton is one of the most
+voluminous writers of a very prolific class, and yet he has never
+repeated himself. Mr. Anthony Trollope and several other novelists have
+shown how fallacious is the idea that the imagination is a fickle
+mistress to be courted and waited for. They have proved that she can be
+made to settle down and accustomed by habit to working at stated hours
+and for regular periods. But Bulwer Lytton not only forced his
+imagination to continuous labor, but he was able to insure an unending
+novelty of conception. In each one of his novels we are introduced to
+an entirely new set of characters inhabiting quite unfamiliar scenes.
+
+With a few exceptions, Mr. Anthony Trollope has confined himself to the
+novel of English social life, but that mine he has worked with
+wonderful assiduity and success. In "The Warden," in "Barchester
+Towers," are studies of clerical character for which this writer has
+won a special reputation. "The Small House at Allington" is a love
+story of particular fascination. Few writers have described the
+manifestations of love in the acts and thoughts of a modest, sweet girl
+as delicately as Mr. Trollope has done in the case of the deserted
+Lily. Her rejection of a second suitor is felt by the reader to be the
+inevitable consequence of so pure a passion, and the treachery of
+Crosbie is traced through its various gradations with true fidelity to
+nature. "Phineas Finn" is an excellent example of a parliamentary
+novel. That work and its companions, "Phineas Redux," "The Prime
+Minister," and "The Duke's Children," keep up our acquaintance with the
+family and connections of Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, than
+which few groups of fictitious characters are more continuously
+interesting. Mr. Trollope's novels will have a special value for the
+future student of English social life in the nineteenth century. The
+race-course, the hunting field, the country seat, Piccadilly, Hyde
+Park, the life of clubs and parliament, are described by him with
+photographic minuteness. And the novel-reader of to-day derives a
+constant pleasure from his books, notwithstanding the fact that the
+monotony of modern life is somewhat too closely reflected in them.
+
+The works of no writer in the English language, except those of Scott,
+have attained so immediate a reputation and have won so wide-spread a
+popularity as the novels of Charles Dickens. "In less than six months
+from the appearance of the first number of the 'Pickwick Papers,'" said
+the _London Quarterly Review_ in 1837, "the whole reading public were
+talking about them, the names of Winkle, Warden, Weller, Snodgrass,
+Dodson and Fogg, had become familiar in our mouths as household terms;
+and Mr. Dickens was the grand object of interest to the whole tribe of
+'Leo-hunters,' male and female, of the metropolis. Nay, Pickwick
+chintzes figured in linen-drapers' windows, and Weller corduroys in
+breeches-makers' advertisements; Boz cabs might be seen rattling
+through the streets; and the portrait of the author of 'Pelham' or
+'Crichton' was scraped down or pasted over to make room for that of the
+new popular favourite in the omnibuses." For forty years the writings
+of this great novelist have held their place in the public esteem
+without any sensible diminution. Hundreds of thousands, old and young,
+in Great Britain, in America, in every country of Europe, have followed
+the fortunes of Nicholas Nickleby, of David Copperfield, of Oliver
+Twist, and of numberless other celebrated characters with unflagging
+interest. Perhaps Dickens' most remarkable achievement lay in the
+number of his creations, and in the distinctness with which he could
+impress them on the memory of his readers. Of the great host of figures
+who throng his scenes, how many we remember! Their names remain stamped
+on our minds, and some of their characteristic phrases, like Micawber's
+"Something will turn up," or Tapley's "There's some credit in being
+jolly here," have passed into current phrases. Dickens' great object
+was to celebrate the virtues of the humbler ranks of life, and to
+expose the acts of injustice or tyranny to which they are subjected.
+This he did in a spirit of the truest philanthropy and most universal
+benevolence. The helpless victims of oppression, like little Oliver
+Twist, or the inmates of Dotheboys Hall, found in him an effective
+champion. Never has hypocrisy, the besetting vice of this age, been so
+mercilessly exposed as in the works of Dickens. It is not only in such
+a character as Pecksniff that its ugliness is revealed, but wherever
+pretence hides guilt behind a sanctimonious countenance, the mask is
+surely torn off. Dickens hated hypocrisy as Thackeray hated snobbism.
+And both, in their zeal, occasionally saw the hypocrite or the snob
+where he did not exist. Dealing, as Dickens did, so exclusively with
+common and low-born characters, it is remarkable that his books so
+rarely leave any impression of vulgarity behind them. And this result
+is due to the author's love of truth and detestation of all pretence.
+There can be no vulgarity without pretension. A great many novels of
+the day are extremely vulgar, because they describe ill-bred people and
+represent them to the reader as ladies and gentlemen. But Dickens'
+shopkeeper or street-sweeper makes no pretence to gentility, and
+therefore is as far from being vulgar as the man who has never known
+what it was to be any thing but a gentleman. The faults, like the
+merits, of Dickens' work resulted from the exuberance and power of his
+imagination. The same vividness of conception which gives such life to
+his description of a thunderstorm or of a quiet family scene, sometimes
+betrayed him into exaggeration and caricature. And yet when we consider
+the number and variety of the figures conjured up by his creative mind,
+from Paul Dombey to the Jew, Fagin, it is extraordinary that to so few
+this criticism will apply.
+
+Dickens' vast popularity resulted only in part from the artistic merit
+of his works. The breadth of his canvas, his intense realization of
+fictitious scenes, and his extraordinary descriptive power are
+qualities enough to win for him his eminent position in fiction. But
+the affection felt for Dickens as a man, which has made him occupy so
+much the hearts as well as the minds of the reading public, was
+attracted by qualities apart from those which excited admiration for
+the author. Dickens was essentially a national writer in the variety of
+the characters with whom he brought his readers into communion. He was
+essentially popular, from the fact that he dealt with the masses and
+not with any particular class. He was essentially English, in that he
+was the apostle of home. No novelist who has treated domestic life has
+so thoroughly caught its spirit, and has so sympathetically traced its
+joys and sorrows, its trials and recompenses. Family life has been for
+more than two centuries gradually supplanting the life of the camp and
+the court. It is in the domestic circle that men now find the interest
+which was formerly sought in adventure or publicity. Not only in the
+Christmas stories, especially devoted to the celebration of home, but
+through all his great fictions Dickens made domestic life his chief
+study. And he is, above all others, the favorite household novelist.
+While he lived, each new work of his was welcomed alike by parent and
+child, and when he died, there were few homes where books ever came
+that the loss of a friend was not felt.
+
+Scott, Dickens, almost all the great English novelists described heroes
+and heroines. They made their chief character an embodiment of virtue
+or strength, and strove to win for him the admiration of the reader.
+Even Tom Jones was a hero to Fielding, and Roderick Random to Smollett.
+But Thackeray said to himself as he looked out on the world, that
+humanity was not made up of heroes and villains. He had never met with
+the truly heroic, nor with the utterly depraved. It seemed to him that
+human nature lay between the two extremes. In "Vanity Fair," in
+"Pendennis" and in "The Newcomes" he resolved to describe man as he
+was, with virtues and failings, with occasional glimpses of the noble,
+and more common exhibitions of the mean and the little. Young men were
+to appear in his pages with their weakness and selfishness; young girls
+with their silliness and affectation. Thackeray, in a word, was to be
+more realistic than his predecessors in fiction had dared to be. He was
+to show his readers what they really were, and not what they would wish
+to be.
+
+But in Thackeray's novels is evident the difficulty of establishing any
+generally accepted standard of realism. If this quality consists in
+representing a character as speaking and acting just as we should
+expect such a character to speak and act, Thackeray succeeded as
+perhaps no novelist, except Fielding, had done before him. Becky Sharp,
+Sir Pitt Crawley, Pendennis, Clive Newcome, all use such words as the
+reader would expect from them. Their actions are the natural results of
+the trains of thought into which the author has given us an insight.
+When the old reprobate, Lord Steyne, discovers that Becky Sharp had
+appropriated to herself the money which he had given her to restore
+poor Miss Briggs' stolen property, he is not indignant at the
+deception. The admiration of the noble rogue is only increased for the
+woman who has shown herself to be possessed of a more astute roguery
+than his own:--
+
+    "What an accomplished little devil it is!" thought he. "What a
+    splendid actress and manager! She had almost got a second supply
+    out of me the other day with her coaxing ways. She beats all the
+    women I have ever seen in the course of all my well-spent life!
+    They are babies compared to her. I am a green-horn myself and a
+    fool in her hands--an old fool. She is unsurpassable in lies." His
+    lordship's admiration for Becky rose immeasurably at this proof of
+    her cleverness. Getting the money was nothing--but getting double
+    the sum she wanted and paying nobody--it was a magnificent stroke.
+
+In his delineation of character, in the perfect naturalness with which
+all his personages act out their respective parts, no novelist is more
+realistic than Thackeray. But realism has a broader application. A
+novelist who takes every-day life for his subject has not only to give
+the stamp of nature to all his scenes and individuals, but he must so
+write, that at the end of his book the reader will have the impression
+that real life, with its due apportionment of good and evil, of
+happiness and grief, has been placed before him. Some readers will
+receive that impression from Thackeray's novels; but they will be those
+who think that the evil and the unhappiness predominate. So thought the
+author himself. But the world in general think differently, and agree
+to look upon Thackeray as a satirist.
+
+As such, he ranks in English literature second only to Swift. To the
+great Dean, man was a lump of deformity and disease. He saw in humanity
+little besides its vice, and painted his species in colors under which
+few men have been willing to recognize a portrait. Thackeray's genial
+disposition naturally made him far less bitter than Swift. He neither
+saw nor portrayed the monstrous vice which excited the hatred of the
+satirist of the eighteenth century. To Thackeray, men were weak rather
+than bad, selfish rather than vicious. George Osborne braves the
+consequences of marrying poor Amelia Sedley, and yet prefers his own
+pleasure to that of his wife. Rawdon Crawley is ignorant, rude, and
+unprincipled, but yet is loving and faithful to Rebecca. Weakness,
+pettiness, self-deception were the main objects of Thackeray's satire.
+Where are the absurdities of youthful woman-worship held up to such
+derision as in Pendennis' love for Miss Costigan!
+
+    Pen tried to engage her in conversation about poetry and about her
+    profession. He asked her what she thought about Ophelia's madness,
+    and whether she was in love with Hamlet or not? "In love with such
+    a little ojus creature as that stunted manager of a Bingley?" She
+    bristled with indignation at the thought. Pen explained that it was
+    not of her he spoke, but of Ophelia of the play. "Oh, indeed, if no
+    offense was meant none was taken: but as for Bingley, indeed, she
+    did not value him--not that glass of punch." Pen next tried her on
+    Kotzebue. "Kotzebue? who was he?" "The author of the play in which
+    she had been performing so admirably." "She did not know that, the
+    man's name at the beginning of the book was Thompson," she said.
+    Pen laughed at her adorable simplicity.... "How beautiful she is,"
+    thought Pen, cantering homewards. "How simple and how tender! How
+    charming it is to see a woman of her genius busying herself with
+    the humble affairs of domestic life, cooking dishes to make her old
+    father comfortable, and brewing him drink! How rude it was of me to
+    begin to talk of professional matters, and how well she turned the
+    conversation! ... Pendennis, Pendennis,--how she spoke the word!
+    Emily! Emily! how good, how noble, how beautiful, how perfect she
+    is!"[207]
+
+Thackeray's satire is all the more powerful in that it is directed
+against foibles more than against vices. Many a reader who will reject
+Swift's portrait of man as a libel, cannot but feel a twinge at
+Thackeray's delicate pencillings. After dwelling on the worldliness,
+the hypocrisy, the self-seeking of the inmates of Queen's Crawley, how
+softly but how terribly he scourges them! "These honest folks at the
+Hall, whose simplicity and sweet rural purity surely show the advantage
+of a country life over a town one." His praise is the severest cut of
+all. "Dear Rebecca," "the dear creature," and we wince for Becky. "What
+a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the banker's! How
+tenderly we look at her faults, if she be a relative." "These money
+transactions, these speculations in life and death--these silent
+battles for reversionary spoil--make brothers very loving toward each
+other in Vanity Fair."
+
+Thackeray is the novelist whose works depend in the least degree on
+narrative interest. The characters are so clearly drawn and so
+interesting, the manner of Thackeray's writing is so uniformly
+entertaining, that his books can always be opened at random and read
+with pleasure. "Henry Esmond" is the only novel in which the plot is
+carefully constructed. The others are a string of consecutive chapters,
+each one of which possesses its individual interest.[208]
+
+The novel of English life and manners includes many subdivisions. Among
+the writings of Miss Edgeworth, Miss Ferrier, Bulwer Lytton, Mr.
+Anthony Trollope, and others, are novels which deal to a greater or
+less extent with fashionable life. A number of novelists, principally
+female, have confined their studies to the aristocratic classes.[209]
+But the so called fashionable novel is most often the composition of
+adventurers whose catch-penny productions aim at affording, to the
+middle or lower ranks, information concerning the habits of the
+aristocracy. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that
+fashionable life in these novels is such as it might appear to an
+imaginative kitchen-maid whose idea of up-stairs existence is founded
+on the gossip of servants. When written by persons conversant with
+their subject, the fashionable novel forms a legitimate subdivision of
+the novel of life and manners. But it is most often a noxious weed. Its
+cultivators constantly make up for lack of talent by the excitement of
+immoral scenes, and give to their audience of sempstresses and grooms a
+most degraded view of aristocratic life. Even when harmless in matter,
+its rank luxuriance fills up space much better occupied by the flowers
+of literature.
+
+The eminent criminal novel is taken as a tonic by minds satiated with
+the vapidity of fashionable fiction. From Lytton's "Paul Clifford," and
+Ainsworth's "Jack Sheppard," down to "Merciless Ben, the Hair-Lifter,"
+criminal narrative has been occupied with endowing burglars and
+murderers with the graces of gentlemen and the moral worth of Christian
+missionaries. In its celebration of successful crime, and its
+representation under a heroic aspect of villains and blacklegs, no
+species of fiction is more false to nature or more injurious to
+youthful readers.
+
+To such writers as George A. Lawrence and "Ouida" the world is indebted
+for the "Muscular Novel," which combines all the worst elements of both
+fashionable and criminal narrative. In "Guy Livingstone," "Strathmore,"
+and a hundred similar fictions, the reader is introduced to men of
+extraordinary physical development, whose strength is proof against
+the wildest dissipation; to women of extraordinary beauty, whose charms
+are enhanced in proportion to their coarseness and lack of modesty.
+Jack Sheppard, reposing on a velvet couch, smoking a perfumed
+cigarette, and worshipped by two or three ornaments of the demi-monde,
+is the type most admired by the muscular novelist. Lawrence and "Ouida"
+have brought to their work a literary power which has given them
+considerable notoriety; and has placed them at the head of their
+particular school; but it is a school whose distinctive characteristics
+consist in extravagance, unhealthiness of tone, and falseness to
+nature.
+
+English military life has been ably described by such writers as E.
+Napier, G.R. Gleig, W.H. Maxwell, and James Grant. But as a maritime
+nation, England has been much more prolific of naval novelists. At the
+head of these stands Captain Marryat, who has celebrated the pleasures
+and described the incidents of sea-faring life in about thirty jovial,
+dashing books. Among the great number of odd and entertaining
+characters sketched by his hand, "Peter Simple" and "Midshipman Easy"
+are perhaps the most interesting. Marryat's narratives are not
+carefully constructed, but flow on gracefully and easily, enlivened by
+an inexhaustible fund of humor, and enriched by an endless succession
+of bright or exciting scenes. The names of Captain Glassock, Howard,
+Trelawney, Captain Chamier, Michael Scott, and the author of the "Wreck
+of the Grosvenor," are among those most prominently associated with the
+marine novel. These writers have not only dealt with the adventures of
+a sailor's life and the peculiarities of a sailor's character, but have
+studied the influence of the sea on the human mind.
+
+Through the great interest felt by Englishmen in the manners and
+customs of Eastern nations, Oriental novels have become a recognized
+department of English fiction. In the eighteenth century, Johnson, in
+"Rasselas," and Beckford, in "Vathek," had drawn on the romantic
+features of Eastern life. In the present century successful attempts
+have been made to study Oriental character through the medium of the
+realistic novel. Hope, in "Anastasius," described the vices and
+degradation of Turkey and Greece in the person of his hero. In James
+Morier's "Hajji Baba of Ispahan" and "Ayesha," are vivid delineations
+of Eastern character and highly humorous sketches of Persian life.
+James Baillie Fraser, in "The Kuzzilbash," and Miss Pardoe in a number
+of tales, have still further enriched the department of Oriental
+fiction.
+
+
+[Footnote 206: Other women who have contributed to the English domestic
+novel--. Mary K. Mitford, Mrs. Crowe, Mrs. Marsh, Lady Georgiana
+Fullerton, Miss Kavanaugh, Geraldine Jewsbury, Mrs. Alexander, S.
+Bunbury, C. Sinclair, A. Strickland, M.C. Clarke, L.S. Costello, C.
+Crowe, A.H. Drury, G. Ellis, M. Howitt, Mrs. Hubback, Hon. Mrs. Norton,
+M.A. Power, E. Sewell, Mrs. Marquoid, Hesba Stretton, Florence Marryat,
+Elizabeth Wetherell, Sarah Tytler, C.C. Fraser-Tytler, C. Craik, Hon.
+Mrs. Chetwind, M.M. Grant, A.E. Bray, and others.]
+
+[Footnote 207: "Pendennis," Chap. v.]
+
+[Footnote 208: Many other well-known writers have contributed to the
+English domestic novel: Thomas Love Peacock, H. Coke, Samuel Philips,
+Angus B. Reach, Albert Smith, R. Cobbold, Edmund Yates, Thomas A.
+Trollope, Thomas Hardy, James Payn, George Augustus Sala, William
+Thornbury, the author of "The Bachelor of the Albany," Mortimer
+Collins, G.H. Lewes, Shirley Brooks, Douglas Jerrold, C. Crowley, T. de
+Quincey, S.W. Fullom, J. Hannay, W. Howitt, C. Mackay, G.J.
+Whyte-Melville, T. Miller, L. Ritchie, F.E. Smedley, J.A. St. John, M.F.
+Tupper, F.M. Whitly, F. Williams, C.L. Wraxall, and others.]
+
+[Footnote 209: T.H. Lister, Marquis of Normanby, Lady Caroline Lamb,
+Countess of Morley, Lady Charlotte Bury, Lady Dacre, Mrs. Gore, Lady
+Blessington.]
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+James Fenimore Cooper said in regard to the materials for American
+fiction: "There is a familiarity of the subject, a scarcity of events,
+and a poverty in the accompaniments that drive an author from the
+undertaking in despair." But the truth of this statement has been
+greatly modified, if not quite refuted, by the work of that great
+novelist and of several others who have succeeded him. It is true that
+American life presents less salient characteristics than that of
+Europe; that class distinctions are less marked; and that the energies
+of the nation are still so much confined to strictly utilitarian
+objects, that life moves along with unpicturesque sameness and
+evenness. But mankind remains equally complicated and equally
+interesting under whatever circumstances it may be placed. The vast
+extent of American territory and the infinite variety of its
+inhabitants afford material to the novelist which yet remains almost
+untouched. New England, New York, the Southern States, and, above all,
+the Great West, are rich in special customs, traditions, and habits of
+thought with which fiction has only begun to concern itself. The
+visitor to Washington cannot fail to be struck by the variety of men
+who jostle each other in that cosmopolitan city. The New England
+farmer, the New York banker, the Southern planter, the Western herder
+or grain merchant, the California mine-owner, the negro, and perhaps a
+stray visiting Indian chief, represent widely differing and highly
+interesting forms of life and opinion. Whenever native genius has cast
+aside foreign influence and has found inspiration in American
+traditions and institutions, the extent and richness of its literary
+material have been made manifest.
+
+The earliest examples of fiction in the United States were tentative
+and lacking in originality. At the close of the eighteenth century,
+Charles Brockden Brown began the career of the first American novelist
+with "Wieland." His pecuniary necessities and the slight encouragement
+offered at that time to American authors made it impossible for him to
+afford the time and care essential to artistic finish. His novels are
+of an imaginative and psychological character, often interesting in
+parts from the intense mental excitement which they describe. They were
+much admired by the English novelist Godwin, whose works they resemble
+in intensity of conception and faultiness of execution. A novel called
+"Charlotte Temple," by Susanna Rowson, obtained a wide circulation in
+the beginning of the present century, due much more to its foundation
+on a notorious scandal than to its own literary merit. "Modern
+Chivalry; or the Adventures of Captain Farrago and Teague O'Reagan,
+his Servant"--a poor imitation of "Don Quixote"--as a satire directed
+against the Democratic party by H.H. Brackenridge. R.H. Dana's "Tom
+Thornton" and "Paul Felton" have little claim to attention beyond the
+excitement of their rather sensational stories.
+
+But with the publication of "The Spy," Cooper opened a thoroughly
+national vein, and began a literary career which showed how little
+native genius need rely on foreign influence or on foreign subjects. He
+described the stirring events and the moral heroism of the American
+Revolution with patriotic sympathy and original literary power. He
+touched the romantic chords of that great struggle with a delicacy
+which met with a world-wide response. Not only did Americans feel that
+in Cooper's novels the picturesque and characteristic features of their
+country were delineated by a master-hand, but in almost every European
+land, translations of "The Spy," "The Pioneers," or "The Pathfinder,"
+testified to the universal interest excited by the examples of
+simplicity, endurance, and sagacity which formed the subjects of
+Cooper's pen. In "The Pioneers," "The Last of the Mohicans," "The
+Prairie," "The Pathfinder," and "The Deer-slayer" figures the character
+of Leatherstocking, than whom no fictitious personage has a greater
+claim to interest. His bravery, resolution, and woodland skill make him
+a type of the hardy race who pushed westward the reign of civilization.
+The scenes among which he lived, the primeval forest, the great inland
+lakes, the hunter's camp, and Indian wigwam were described by Cooper
+with a fidelity and picturesqueness which will always give to his works
+a national value. Now that farms and manufacturing towns cover what a
+century ago was a trackless wilderness, where backwoodsmen and Indians
+shot bear and deer, it would be almost impossible for us to realize the
+previous condition of our now populous country were it not for the
+novels of Cooper. And this great writer not only described the wild
+aspect of American scenery and the hardly less wild features of pioneer
+character. He painted with equal skill the life of the American sailor,
+at a time when that life had an interest and excitement it no longer
+possesses. Long Tom Coffin, Tom Tiller, Bob Yarn, belonged to a period
+when the United Stales was a maritime country, before American
+enterprise and industry were shut off from the sea by legislative
+imbecility. No marine novelist has given a more life-like impression of
+a ship than Cooper, and none have excelled him in descriptions of the
+sea and in studies of those peculiar forms of human nature produced by
+life on the ocean. So long as Cooper confined himself to purely
+national subjects, his success was brilliant and continuous; but many
+of his works show the effect of misdirected talent, and have fallen
+into neglect.
+
+The "Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and "Rip Van Winkle" are the specimens
+of American fiction most intimately associated with New York. In these
+stories the traditions and scenery of the Hudson River were treated by
+Washington Irving with all the richness of imagination and delicacy of
+expression of which he had so great a store. Some part of that romantic
+interest afforded to the traveller by the castles of the Rhine, has
+been imparted to the Hudson by the exquisite pages of the "Sketch
+Book." The stories of Nathaniel P. Willis and some of the novels of
+Bayard Taylor and of J.G. Holland also belong especially to New York.
+
+At the head of New England, and, indeed, of American writers of
+fiction, stands Nathaniel Hawthorne. His three great works, "The
+Scarlet Letter," "The House of the Seven Gables," and "The Blithedale
+Romance," are the finest specimens of imaginative writing which
+American genius has yet produced. The interest of Hawthorne's novels
+lies almost entirely in their subtle and astute studies of the hidden
+workings of the human mind. His fictions are remarkable for their want
+of action. "The Scarlet Letter" can hardly be said to have a plot. The
+series of chapters which intervene between the exhibition of Hester
+Prynne on the scaffold and the voluntary self-exposure there of the
+Puritan minister, simply represent gradual changes from the first to
+the last situation of the principal characters. But narrative
+excitement was never Hawthorne's object, and the want of it is never
+felt by his reader. Each scene is an appropriate sequel to the last,
+and a natural introduction to the next. Each chapter has its special
+interest,--the analysis of a condition of mind, a dramatic situation,
+or a highly finished domestic picture. It is in the delineation of
+character and the study of human motives that Hawthorne's chief
+excellence as a novelist consists. Nothing can exceed the penetration
+and vividness with which such persons as Zenobia, in "The Blithedale
+Romance," and Holgrave, in "The House of the Seven Gables," are
+described. The homeward walk of the fallen young minister, in "The
+Scarlet Letter," when he had resolved to desert his flock and to
+connect himself again with Hester Prynne, is an unsurpassed delineation
+of sudden moral degeneration. There is nothing of modern realism in
+Hawthorne's novels, and yet they leave a realistic impression behind
+them. The greater number of his characters appear to us rather as
+representatives of certain mental conditions then as real flesh and
+blood. Neither in the dialogue, nor in what may be called the
+"properties" of his writing did Hawthorne strive at realistic effects.
+Still, when the reader lays down "The Scarlet Letter," or "The House of
+the Seven Gables," he insensibly feels himself embued with the spirit
+and atmosphere of Puritan New England. Hawthorne was so intensely a New
+Englander in his sympathies, prejudices, and habits of mind, that his
+writings were always colored by the thought and sentiment of his native
+land. In "The Scarlet Letter," there is little evidence of the use of
+historical researches, and yet in that volume, colonial life has been
+made real and actual to us by the very intensity of the author's
+national feeling.
+
+New England fiction includes a number of other celebrated and honored
+names. Catherine M. Sedgwick began her literary career with "Hope
+Leslie," a story founded on the early history of Massachusetts, which
+was followed by "Redwood" and "The Linwoods, or Sixty Years Since in
+America." Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes studied New England village life in
+"Elsie Venner," and Sylvester Judd that of the Maine backwoods in
+"Margaret." Mr. T.W. Higginson has written "Malbone." Mr. W.D. Howells,
+Rev. Edward Everett Hale, and Miss E.S. Phelps are still adding to
+their reputations.
+
+Among the novels relating to life in the Southern States, "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin" is the most prominent. The circulation and fame of this book
+have been the most remarkable phenomenon in the annals of literature.
+Within a year, more than two hundred thousand copies were sold in the
+United States, and fully a million in England. Thirteen different
+translations were issued in Germany, four in France, and two in Russia;
+the Magyar language boasted three separate versions; the Wallachian,
+two; the Welsh, two; and the Dutch, two; while the Armenian, Arabic,
+Romaic, and all the European languages had at least one version. The
+book was dramatized in not less than twenty different forms, and was
+acted all over Europe. In France, and still more in England, all other
+books and all other subjects became, for the time, secondary to "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin." This extraordinary popularity was chiefly due to the
+importance and novelty of the subject treated. Mrs. Stowe imparted a
+considerable narrative interest to her work, and gave to her characters
+a very life-like effect. Her pathetic and humorous scenes are natural
+and well arranged. The peculiarities of negro life and habits of
+thought are placed before the reader with genuine sympathy and truth.
+Uncle Tom and Topsy are fine and original creations. But taken simply
+as a novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is not more remarkable than a hundred
+others, and cannot compete with such works as "Tom Jones," "Adam Bede,"
+or "David Copperfield." Mrs. Stowe's extraordinary success was fully
+deserved, but it resulted less from the literary excellence of her
+work, than from the fact that when one great subject rose pre-eminent
+in the public mind, she was able to embody it in a popular and easily
+comprehended form. Gilmore Simms and John P. Kennedy have contributed
+largely to the novel of Southern life. Mr. G.W. Cable is now studying
+Louisiana characters, and Judge Tourgee the general condition of the
+South since the war.
+
+Novels descriptive of Western life have been written by Charles Fenno
+Hoffman, James Hall, Timothy Flint, Thomas, and O'Connell. But none of
+these writers have given such original sketches of character, or have
+so graphically portrayed the spirit of life in the far West as Mr.
+Bret Harte. "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and the other stories of this
+talented writer have opened a vein of romance where it was least
+expected.
+
+American fiction has been exceptionally rich in stories adapted to the
+juvenile mind, among which the most prominent are Mrs. Whitney's "Faith
+Gartney's Girlhood," Miss Alcott's "Little Women," and Mr. T.B.
+Aldrich's "Story of a Bad Boy." Edgar Allan Poe's "Tales of the
+Grotesque and the Arabesque," are remarkable for intensity and
+vividness of conception, combined with a circumstantial invention
+almost equal to that of Defoe. Mrs. Burnett and Mr. J.W. De Forest are
+still writing excellent novels of American life; and Mr. Henry James,
+Jr., is studying that peculiar form of human nature known as the
+American in Europe.[210]
+
+
+[Footnote 210: Other American writers of fiction:--R.B. Kimball, Herman
+Melville, Dr. R. Bird, John Neal, H.W. Longfellow, Washington Allston,
+Maria S. Cummins, W.G. Simms, Theodore Winthrop, Mary J. Holmes, Mrs.
+Terhune, Augusta Evans Wilson, Catherine Sedgwick Valerio.]
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+The historical novel is obviously a subdivision of the novel of life
+and manners. But, dealing as it does with remote ages, with forgotten
+opinions and long-disused customs, it has to reconstruct where the
+novel of contemporary life has only to illustrate. Strict historical
+accuracy can hardly be expected in fiction concerned with the past. The
+details of life, always difficult to seize, are almost beyond the reach
+of the novelist who deals with a subject with which he has had no
+personal experience. A certain amount of accuracy concerning dress,
+customs, peculiarities of opinion and language are necessary to give to
+a historical novel the effect of verisimilitude. But what is chiefly
+requisite in such a work is that the general spirit of the period
+treated should be successfully caught; that the reader should find
+himself occupied with a train of associations and sympathies which
+insensibly withdraws his thoughts from their ordinary channels, and
+occupies them with the beliefs, opinions, and aspirations of a totally
+different state of society.
+
+Such is the special merit of Scott's historical novels. Many
+inaccuracies of fact might be pointed out in them. His study of the
+character of James I, in "The Fortunes of Nigel," is in several
+respects entirely mistaken. His description of a euphuist in "The
+Monastery" bears no resemblance whatever to the followers of John Lyly.
+In "The Talisman" and in "Ivanhoe," of which the scenes are laid in the
+time of Richard Coeur de Lion, the reader recognises little realism
+of language. But as Scott's historical novels deal with periods
+extending from that of the crusades down to the Pretender's attempt in
+1745, an intimate knowledge of the innumerable social changes and
+peculiarities is not to be expected.
+
+It is, indeed, to be doubted that a novelist can so reproduce a distant
+epoch as to satisfy the ideas of careful historical students. He can,
+however, make familiar to his readers the general spirit of a time.
+And, in this, Scott was eminently successful. "Kenilworth" gives a
+vivid picture of the gay picturesqueness of Elizabeth's age.
+"Woodstock" contains a fine contrast between the Cavalier and the
+Puritan character. "Quentin Durward" affords a lasting impression of
+the times of Louis XI and Charles the Bold. Scott's strong national
+feeling and his intense sympathy with the traditions of his native land
+naturally gave to his Scotch fictions a particular historical value.
+"The Legend of Montrose," describing the civil war in the sixteenth
+century; "Old Mortality," dealing with the rebellion of the
+Covenanters; and "Waverley," occupied with the Pretender's troubles in
+the middle of the eighteenth century, threw into bold relief widely
+differing periods of Scotch history. Its is, indeed, extraordinary that
+one mind should have been able to seize so many and so varied
+historical conditions as are treated in the Waverley novels. Of these
+works, about fourteen deal with entirely distinct epochs, each one of
+which is given its individual character and obtains its appropriate
+treatment.[211]
+
+Bulwer Lytton's "Last Days of Pompeii," and "Harold, the Last of the
+Saxon Kings," are both powerful, ingenious, and interesting narratives,
+and they give as definite an idea, perhaps, of the times of which they
+treat as is possible after so long a lapse of time. "Rienzi" leaves a
+greater impression of verisimilitude. "The Last of the Barons" is
+somewhat clogged by its superabundance of historic incident, but still
+affords a striking view of declining feudalism. In the "Tale of Two
+Cities" and "Barnaby Rudge," Dickens described the sanguinary scenes of
+the French Revolution and the Lord Gordon Riots with his never-failing
+power. Since the Waverley novels, the most perfect specimen of English
+historical fiction has been "Henry Esmond." The artistic construction
+of its plot, and the life-like reality of its characters, place it
+first among Thackeray's works. But its pre-eminence among historical
+novels is due to the fact that it reproduces so vividly the spirit and
+atmosphere of a past age. All the thoughts, opinions, and actions of
+the characters in "Henry Esmond" are such as we should expect from
+persons living in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Whoever is
+familiar with the pages of the "Spectator" will notice how faithfully
+Thackeray adopted the language of Steele and Addison. It is true that
+he had a far less difficult task before him in describing the age of
+Queen Anne than fell to the lot of Bulwer Lytton in "The Last Days of
+Pompeii." The latter work required far more historical research and a
+far greater effort of the imagination. But while in Lytton's novel the
+reader cannot divest himself of a certain sense of unreality, he feels
+that "Henry Esmond" really carries him back to the period it portrays.
+
+George Eliot's "Romola" must always retain a high place in historical
+fiction. But its author's great creative power led her to bestow more
+pains on such of the characters as proceeded from her own imagination,
+than on those whom history provided ready-made. The reader's memory
+retains a more vivid impression of Tito than it does of Savonarola.
+Charles Kingsley's "Hypatia" and "Westward Ho!" are among the most
+prominent of recent historical novels. The latter aimed at describing
+the time of Elizabeth, but resembles more closely that of Cromwell.
+John Gibson Lockhart, in "Valerius," and Mr. Wilkie Collins in
+"Antonina," have studied the life of ancient Rome. James Fenimore
+Cooper in "The Spy" and "The Pioneers" threw into bold relief the
+stirring incidents of American colonial and revolutionary times.
+Nathaniel Hawthorne reproduced the spirit of Puritan New England in
+"The Scarlet Letter," of which mention has already been made.
+
+
+[Footnote 211: Horace Smith, Sir T.D. Lauder, and G.P.R. James are
+well-known historical novelists who have written under the influence of
+Scott. W. Harrison Ainsworth has made use of historical material in
+"The Tower of London," and similar writings.]
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+The novel of purpose may be defined as a work of fiction of which the
+main object is to teach a lesson or to advocate a principle. Strictly
+speaking, every good novel has a purpose, or some well-defined aim, if
+it be only that of affording entertainment. But the novel of purpose
+distinctly subordinates the amusement of the reader to his improvement
+or information. With a few exceptions, such as "The Fool of Quality,"
+this species of fiction is the product of the nineteenth century. It
+has special difficulties to contend against. To combine a didactic aim
+with artistic excellence is among the most difficult of literary
+experiments. If the lesson or principle to be inculcated be given too
+much prominence, the reader who opens the book for entertainment will
+shut it very soon in spite of any prospective self-improvement. If
+narrative interest or artistic beauty be the most striking feature of
+the work, its serious aim will be unnoticed. The safest plan for the
+writer of the novel of purpose to pursue, is to openly acknowledge his
+object, and to place that object before the reader in as attractive a
+manner as possible. But he cannot expect to attain success unless the
+principle he advocates be one of general interest and importance. Nor
+can he expect, when that principle has obtained acceptance, that the
+work in which it is urged can have any further prominence. He must be
+content that his object is attained, and that his book, having served
+its purpose, falls into obscurity.
+
+Some of Miss Edgeworth's tales, and such novels as Miss Brunton's
+"Self-Control" and "Discipline," were among the earliest specimens of
+fiction having the professed object of moral improvement. These books
+were very popular at a time when a well-justified prejudice against
+novels prevailed. But since the character of fiction has been raised to
+its present standard of purity, professedly moral novels have become
+unnecessary for general reading. The successors of Miss Edgeworth's and
+Miss Brunton's works now appear in the form of temperance novels and
+Sunday-school books. A curious form of the novel of purpose is that
+written in the interest of religious sects or special tenets, of which
+specimens may be found in the writings of Elizabeth M. Sewell, who
+advocated High Church doctrines. Harriet Martineau made very successful
+use of fiction in conveying her ideas on political economy. In "Ginx's
+Baby," by Mr. Edward Jenkins, the popularity and interest of a
+political pamphlet had been greatly increased by the assistance of a
+narrative form.
+
+The most important specimens of the novel of purpose are those written
+in the interest of some injured or suffering class. A mere recital of
+general grievances is not likely to have much effect on the public
+mind. But a novelist who can interest a considerable body of readers in
+a few well-chosen characters, who can subject his fictitious personages
+to the evils which he means to expose, and thus arouse the sympathy and
+indignation of a large number of people, can make a novel of purpose a
+very effective weapon of reform. Individuals are much more interesting
+than bodies of men, and the sufferings of little Oliver Twist or of the
+inmates of Dotheboys Hall, as related by Dickens, will arouse public
+attention far more actively than the report of an examining committee.
+But although a novelist may accomplish great results by such devotion
+to a philanthrophic object, he can hardly avoid injury to the artistic
+effect and permanent value of his work. Many passages in Dickens'
+novels which have had a great influence in the cause of reform, cannot
+fail, in the future, when the evil exposed is no longer felt, to be a
+drag on the works which contain them.
+
+Charles Kingsley described the grievances of mechanics in "Alton
+Locke," a work in which the artistic elements are much subordinated to
+the didactic. A more powerful novel of purpose is Mrs. Gaskell's "Mary
+Barton," which enlists the sympathies of the reader very strongly with
+the trials of the manufacturing classes. Not of more literary
+excellence, but dealing with a subject of far wider interest than that
+of "Mary Barton," was the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" of Mrs. Stowe. This work
+is a wonderful example of the capacities of fiction for moving the
+public mind. Before its publication, great numbers of ordinarily humane
+people had a general, ill defined horror of slavery. It was felt to be
+a barbarous institution, a blot on American civilization. But to most
+people it was a distant abuse, with which they seldom or never came in
+contact, and of which they only heard the evil effects in a general
+way. But with the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" the whole Northern
+public were brought face to face with the question of slavery. Here
+were individuals, made real and interesting by the power of the
+novelist, subjected to tyranny and suffering from which every generous
+nature recoiled. Slavery then assumed a new and more personal aspect,
+and thousands who were indifferent to the rights of the negroes in
+general felt a sympathy with the fate of Uncle Tom which easily
+extended to the sufferings of the whole race. But the extraordinary
+reputation and circulation given to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by the
+world-wide interest in its subject, could not be sustained when public
+interest in that subject declined; and the volume which at one time
+occupied the attention of the whole civilized world, fell into
+comparative obscurity when its mission was accomplished.
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+Works of fiction occupied with purely imaginary or supernatural
+subjects have been comparatively rare. While Byron, Shelley and his
+wife were living at the Lake of Geneva, a rainy week kept them indoors,
+and all three occupied themselves with reading or inventing ghost
+stories. Mrs. Shelley, who was the daughter of Godwin the novelist, and
+who inherited his intensity of imagination, reproduced the impressions
+then made upon her mind in the remarkable but disagreeable romance of
+"Frankenstein." The story is related by a young student, who creates a
+monstrous being from materials gathered in the tomb and the
+dissecting-room. When the creature is made complete with bones,
+muscles, and skin, it acquires life and commits atrocious crimes. It
+murders a friend of the student, strangles his bride, and finally comes
+to an end in the Northern seas. While some parts of the story are
+written with considerable power, the general effect is exceedingly
+unpleasant. Bulwer Lytton's "Zanoni," a peculiarly fanciful work,
+unfolds the mysteries of the Rosicrucians. In "Alice's Adventures in
+Wonderland," the freaks and vagaries of the imagination in sleep are
+vividly traced. The curious mixture of the actual and the unreal, the
+merging of wholly different ideas in one conception, so frequent in
+dreams, are described with extraordinary skill and delicacy. The
+childlike simplicity of Alice's mind is charmingly maintained, and the
+exquisite vein of humor which runs through the whole book makes it one
+of the most delightful as well as one of the most remarkable of
+fictions.
+
+
+
+X.
+
+In an article published in _The Ninteenth Century_, Mr. Anthony
+Trollope expressed his views on the good and evil influences exerted by
+works of fiction, and he has repeated very much the same opinions in
+his interesting book on Thackeray.[212] "However poor your matter may
+be," he says, "however near you may come to that 'foolishest of
+existing mortals,' as Carlyle presumes some unfortunate novelist to be,
+still, if there be those who read your works, they will undoubtedly be
+more or less influenced by what they find there. And it is because the
+novelist amuses that he is thus influential. The sermon too often has
+no such effect, because it is applied with the declared intention of
+having it. The palpable and overt dose the child rejects; but that
+which is cunningly insinuated by the aid of jam or honey is accepted
+unconsciously, and goes on its curative mission. So it is with the
+novel. It is taken because of its jam and honey. But, unlike the
+honest, simple jam and honey of the household cupboard, it is never
+unmixed with physic. There will be the dose within it, either curative
+or poisonous. The girl will be taught modesty or immodesty, truth or
+falsehood; the lad will be taught honor or dishonor, simplicity or
+affectation. Without the lesson the amusement will not be there. There
+are novels which certainly teach nothing; but then neither can they
+amuse any one. I should be said to insist absurdly on the power of my
+own confraternity if I were to declare that the bulk of the young
+people in the upper and middle classes receive their moral teaching
+chiefly from the novels they read. Mothers would no doubt think of
+their own sweet teaching: fathers of the examples which they set: and
+schoolmasters of the influence of their instructions. Happy is the
+country that has such mothers, fathers, schoolmasters! But the novelist
+creeps in closer than the schoolmaster, closer than the father, closer
+almost than the mother. He is the chosen guide, the tutor whom the
+young pupil chooses for herself. She retires with him, suspecting no
+lesson, safe against rebuke, throwing herself head and heart into the
+narration as she can hardly do into her task-work; and there she is
+taught how she shall learn to love; how she shall receive the lover
+when he comes; how far she should advance to meet the joy; why she
+should be reticent, and not throw herself at once into this new
+delight. It is the same with the young man, though he would be more
+prone even than she to reject the suspicion of such tutorship. But he,
+too, will there learn either to speak the truth, or to lie; and will
+receive from his novel lessons either of real manliness, or of that
+affected apishness and tailor-begotten demeanor which too many
+professors of the craft give out as their dearest precepts."
+
+Such are the views of a close observer of human nature, whose works
+have had an exceedingly wide and an always excellent influence. While
+Mr. Trollope has probably exaggerated the educational power of the
+novel, it cannot be denied that this form of literature takes a
+considerable part in moulding the opinions and standards of the young.
+The impressions of life derived from novels are almost as strong as
+those we receive from what is passing in the world about us. If a work
+of fiction form a truthful reflection of nature, it must hold up to
+the reader's view examples of evil as well as examples of good; it must
+deal with depravity as well as with virtue. And, therefore, all that
+can be expected from the novelist is that he should endeavor to
+represent life as it is, with its due apportionment of beauty and of
+ugliness. And so much is demanded not only by the moralist, but by the
+critic. Many writers who have described the life of criminals, who have
+endeavored to make infamous careers attractive, and have pandered to
+the lower tastes of the reading public, would urge in their own
+defence: that they have nothing to do with morality; that their object
+is to produce a work of art; that no question of the good or evil
+effect of their writing should be allowed to trammel their imagination.
+But the critic would rightly reply, that truth at least must be
+respected in a work of art; that the imagination must not be allowed
+the liberty of misrepresentation; and that the novelist in whose pages
+vice predominates, or is given an alluring aspect, is no more artistic
+than the writer of Sunday-school books. In judging the influence
+exerted by the great body of writers of fiction whose names have been
+mentioned in this chapter, I shall therefore proceed on the
+understanding that that novelist who writes almost exclusively of good
+people is not necessarily the one whose influence has been the best,
+nor that he who has drawn many weak or evil-doing characters has
+necessarily taught the worst lessons. The standard by which we must
+judge an author, as well from an artistic as from a moral point of
+view, must be founded on the recognition that both good and evil
+prevail in the world, and that whoever undertakes to give a picture of
+life must paint both the evil and the good in their true colors.
+
+In commenting on the fiction of the eighteenth century, its prevailing
+coarseness was reprehended. But this characteristic was objected to on
+the score of taste, but not at all on that of truth or morality. The
+novelist of that time would not have faithfully represented the society
+about him had he not allowed himself that license which universally
+prevailed. Nor could the coarseness of the eighteenth-century writer be
+objected to on moral grounds. Morality is concerned with thoughts, not
+with expression. Whether we speak plainly the ideas in our mind,
+whether we communicate them by means of some, circumlocution, or
+whether we keep them wholly to ourselves, is a matter of fashion, not
+of morality.[213] Our great-grandmothers were not less chaste because
+they spoke of things regarding which we remain silent in a mixed
+society: they were simply less squeamish. Mrs. Behn in her day, and
+Fielding in his, described a licentious scene openly and honestly
+without a suspicion of evil.
+
+But a great change has come over public taste, and I may even say over
+public morality, during the present century. Licentious conduct is no
+longer a venial offence; gross and immodest expressions are no longer
+allowed in respectable society. The improvement has certainly been
+great, although not as great as it seems. Out of our higher morality,
+out of our new and boasted refinement, has sprung a vice more ugly than
+coarseness, more degrading than sensuality, and that vice is hypocrisy,
+which shelters all others behind its deceptive mask. Many a parent now
+winks at the hidden vice of a son, the exposure of which would fill him
+with shame and indignation. Thousands of young men feel that they can
+privately lead a life of dissipation, so long as they keep a
+respectable face to the world. It is not the vice that society
+punishes, it is the being found out. So when we think of our improved
+morality and refinement, we must temper our pride with the reflection
+that we may be simply more hypocritical, and not more virtuous than our
+ancestors. Still, the fact that licentiousness must now wear a mask of
+respectability, that social status is now greatly affected by moral
+worth, shows that a real advance has been made. This advance has left
+plainly marked traces on the fiction of our time, where, too, we shall
+find plentiful evidence of that hypocrisy which has become our
+besetting sin.
+
+As we look back upon the list of the great authors who have written in
+the present century, it must be with a feeling of gratitude for the
+benefits they have conferred. They have devoted their lives to the
+production of literary works, the beauty and excellence of which have
+incalculably elevated the public taste. They have held up ideals and
+noble conceptions which insensibly impart a dignity to life, and an
+encouragement to youthful aspiration. They have described so truthfully
+and sympathetically the character and aims of different classes and
+different peoples, that whoever reads their works cannot but feel
+himself drawn nearer to great divisions of the human race, which he had
+hitherto regarded with an indifferent or a prejudiced eye. The novels
+of Scott, of Dickens, of Thackeray, of George Eliot, of Miss Austen, of
+Miss Ferrier, of very many others, have afforded to hundreds of
+thousands, young and old, a never failing source of healthful
+entertainment. Domestic life, as well in the cottage as the castle, has
+been cheered and enlivened by their presence. Their examples of
+heroism, of patience, of generosity, have excited the emulation of the
+young, while their pictures of selfishness and vice have stifled many
+an evil inclination and have given birth to many a good resolution.
+
+Such writers as these have expressed the best tendencies of the age.
+And they have been able to do so because they themselves are among the
+best men and women of their time. But, unfortunately, as the nineteenth
+century has many evil characteristics, and as depraved and weak-minded
+persons are often endowed with some literary capacity, a great deal of
+poisonous matter has unavoidably come to the surface in English
+fiction. The writers who have prostituted their talents in pandering to
+the low tastes of their readers, have carefully avoided any such open
+representation of vice as was permissible in the last century. But they
+have hidden under an outward respectability of words the most immoral
+and degrading thoughts. They have recognized the fact that a not
+inconsiderable number of persons would be be glad to find in a work of
+fiction the same gross ideas which occupy their own minds. And thus a
+more dangerous, because a more insidious, species of literature has
+sprung up. The absence of parental censorship, the general freedom with
+which works of fiction are allowed to enter almost every household,
+permit these novels to fall into the hands of the youngest and most
+susceptible. The young girl or boy whose parents carefully put away the
+newspaper which contains an account of a divorce trial or a rape, is
+very possibly reading a novel of which the main interest lies in a
+detailed description of a seduction. It is not of the so-called "dime
+novels" or of the stories published in a police gazette to which
+reference is made, but to books issued by respectable publishers and
+often written by women. Of these novels, the subject is the unlawful
+gratification of the passions. Bigamy, seduction, adultery, are the
+incidents on which the story turns, and an effort is always made by the
+novelist to give to the sinners as attractive and interesting an aspect
+as possible, and to hold up any respectable people who may appear in
+the book to the contempt and derision of the reader. Perhaps we would
+be wrong in blaming a writer for his or her vulgarity. This is a fault
+into which some authors fall unconsciously, and is a part of their
+nature which they cannot shake off. If Rhoda Broughton or "Ouida" were
+to cease being vulgar in print, they would be obliged to stop writing
+altogether, a public benefit which we can hardly expect them to confer.
+But we have a right to severely call an author to task for representing
+vice in an attractive aspect, for condoning offences against morality,
+for depicting licentiousness as unattended by retributive consequences.
+In so doing, a writer is false to art and to nature, as well as to
+morality.
+
+Critics have done their utmost to discourage and expose this kind of
+literature. The pages of _The Spectator_, of _The Saturday Review_, of
+_The Athenaeum_, of _The London Examiner_, of _The Nation_, are full of
+reviews which denounce in unmeasured terms the vulgarity and pruriency
+of much of the fiction of the present day. But their censure can have
+little practical effect. So long as a class of corrupt readers exists,
+so long will evil-minded men and women find a sale for the low
+conceptions of their depraved minds. Parents alone, by supervising the
+reading of their children, can prevent the evil effects of immoral
+novels. Some may think that I have exaggerated the bad characteristics
+of modern fiction. A few examples of objectionable works will be found
+at the foot of this page,[214] an acquaintance with which will sustain
+my remarks.
+
+The reader may possibly object that these are obscure names in
+literature, and that they represent writers whose works are ephemeral.
+The names chosen are the most prominent in the class to which they
+belong. Their obscurity is a redeeming feature of the society which can
+tolerate their existence. Although writers are able to find a sale for
+the most disgusting productions; although the critic is continually
+obliged, in reviewing current literature, to wade through the nastiest
+mire, it yet remains certain that public taste is not pleased with the
+vile. A limited circulation will be found for immoral novels among a
+depraved class, but it is to be said, for the credit of the nineteenth
+century, that talents prostituted can never bring fame. The conceptions
+of a Goldsmith, a Scott, a Dickens, a Thackeray, a George Eliot, remain
+among the dearest possessions of all English-speaking people. But the
+unhealthy, unnatural, and hideous pictures given to the world by
+vicious men and women receive the same wages as the sin they portray.
+
+
+[Footnote 212: In Mr. John Morley's edition of "English Men of
+Letters," chapter ix.]
+
+[Footnote 213: See Macaulay on "The Comic Dramatists."]
+
+[Footnote 214: See "Strathmore," and others, by "Ouida"; "Not Wisely,
+But Too Well," "Red as a Rose Is She," "Joan," by Rhoda Broughton;
+"Cherry Ripe," by Helen Mathers; "The Lovels of Arden," by Miss
+Braddon; "Under which Lord?" by Mrs E.L. Linton; "A Romance of the
+Nineteenth Century," by W.H. Mallock; "Children of Nature," by the Earl
+of Desart. A long list of very nasty books might easily be added, but
+these will be sufficient to illustrate the bad tendencies of fiction,
+and to show how thoroughly female authors have kept pace in immodesty
+and indecency with their rivals of the less pretentious sex.]
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+Addison, 180
+Ainsworth, H., 303
+Alcott, Miss, 312
+Aldrich, T.B., 312
+Alexander, Mrs., 288
+Alice's Adventures in Wonder Land, 319
+Allston, W., 312
+Amadis of Gaul, 46
+"Arcadia," Greene's, 83
+---- Sidney's, 92
+"Argenis", 101, _note_
+Arthur, King, 21, 39
+---- Combat with Accolon, 31
+Atalantis, The New, 123
+Austen, Jane, 287
+
+
+Banim, John, 285
+Barclay, Robert, 101, _note_
+Barham, R.H., 291
+Beckford, W., 247
+Behn, Aphra, 125
+Bird, R., 312
+Black, W., 284
+Blessington, Mrs., 302, _note_
+Boyle, Roger, 121
+Brackenridge, H.H., 307
+Braddon, M.E., 327, 288
+Bray, A.E., 291
+Brooke, H., 243
+Brooks, S., 302, _note_
+Broughton, R., 327
+Brown, C.B., 306
+Brunton, Mrs., 316
+Bunbury, S., 291
+Bunyan, John, 106
+Burnett, Mrs., 312
+Burney, Miss, 251
+Bury, Lady C., 302, _note_
+
+
+Cable, G.W., 311
+Calprenede, 119
+Carleton, W., 285
+Chamier, Capt., 304
+Charlemagne, 21, 24
+Chaucer, 42
+Chetwind, Mrs., 291
+Chivalry, Decline of, 45
+---- Origin of, 17
+---- Rise of, 9
+---- Romances of, chap., 1
+---- Theory and Practice of, 14
+Clarke, M.C., 291
+Cobbold, R., 302, _note_
+Coke, H., 302, _note_
+Collins, M., 302, _note_
+Collins, W., 292, 315
+Cooper, J.F., 307, 315
+Costello, L.S., 291
+Craik, G., 295
+Croker, T.C., 285
+Crowe, C., 291
+Crowe, Mrs., 291
+Crowley, G., 302, _note_
+Cummins, M.S., 312
+Cunningham, A., 281
+
+
+Dacre, Lady, 302, _note_
+Dana, R.H., 307
+D'Arblay, Mme., 281
+Defoe, D., 183
+De Forest, J.W., 312
+Deloney, T., 51
+De Quincey, T., 302, _note_
+Desart, Earl of, 327
+Dickens, C., 295, 314
+D'Israeli, B., 293
+Drury, A.H., 206
+
+
+Edgeworth, M., 285
+"Eliana", 121
+Eliot, George, 288, 315
+Ellis, G., 291
+"Euphues", 76
+Euphuism, 76, 82, _note_
+Excalibur, 26, 39
+
+
+Ferrier, Miss, 284, 287
+Fielding, Henry, 203
+Flint, T., 311
+Ford, E., 47, _note_
+Fraser, J.B., 305
+Fraser-Tytler, C.C., 291
+Friar Bacon, 52
+Friar Rush, 54
+Fullerton, Lady G., 291
+Fullom, S.W., 302, _note_
+
+
+Galahad, Sir, 35, 37
+Galt, John, 284
+Gaskell, Mrs., 287, 318
+Geoffrey of Monmouth, 24
+"George-a-Green", 50
+Glassock, Capt., 304
+Gleig, G.R., 304
+Godwin, Francis, 101, _note_
+Godwin, W., 248
+Goldsmith, O., 227
+Gomberville, 119
+Gore, Mrs., 303, _note_
+Grant, James, 304
+Grant, M.M., 291
+Grattan, T.C., 286
+Graves, 248
+Greene, Robert, 82
+Griffin, Gerald, 286
+Guenever, 23, 34, 39
+Gulliver's Travels, 173
+
+
+Hale, E.E., 310
+Hall, J., 311
+Hall, S.C., 286
+Hamilton, E., 284
+Hannay, J., 302, _note_
+Hardy, T., 302, _note_
+Harte, Bret, 312
+Hawthorne, N., 309
+"Helyas", 46, _note_
+Heroic Romance, 119
+Heywood, Mrs., 193
+Higginson, T.W., 310
+Hoffman, C.F., 311
+Hogg, 284
+Holcroft, T., 248
+Holland, J.G., 308
+Holmes, M.J., 314
+Holmes, O.W., 310
+Hook, Theodore, 291
+Hope's "Anastasius", 305
+Howard, 304
+Howells, W.D., 310
+Howitt, M., 291
+Howitt, W., 302, _note_
+Hubback, Mrs., 291
+Hughes, Thomas, 292
+Humor in Sidney's "Arcadia", 100
+---- in the "Morte d'Arthur", 40
+
+
+Ideality in Fiction, 111
+Igraine, 25
+Inchbald, Mrs., 255
+Irving, W., 308
+Isould, 34
+
+
+"Jack, the Giant-killer", 24
+James, G.P.R., 311
+James, H., Jr., 312
+Jenkins, E., 317
+Jerrold, Douglas, 302 _note_
+Jewsbury, Geraldine, 291
+Johnson, Dr., 234
+Johnson, R., 46, _note_
+Johnstone, C., 240
+Johnstone, Mrs., 284
+Judd, S., 310
+
+
+Kavanagh, Miss, 219
+Kennedy, J.P., 311
+Kimball, R.B., 312
+Kingsley, C., 291, 315, 318
+
+
+"Lady of the Lake", 26
+Lamb, Lady C., 302, _note_
+Launcelot, 22, 34, 39
+Lauder, Sir T.D., 284, 314
+Lawrence, Geo. A., 303
+"Lear, King", 24
+Lee, Harriet and Sophia, 256
+Lennox, C., 254
+Lever, C.J., 286
+Lewes, G.H., 302, _note_
+Lewis, 269
+Linton, E.L., 327
+Lister, T.H., 302, _note_
+Lockhart, 284, 315
+Lodge, T., 88
+Longfellow, H.W., 312
+Lover, S., 285
+Lyly, J., 75
+Lytton, Bulwer, 293, 314, 319
+
+
+MacCarthy, J., 266
+MacDonald, G., 284
+Mackay, C., 302, _note_
+Mackenzie, H., 241
+Marquoid, Mrs., 291
+Malory, Sir Thomas, 25
+Mallock, W. H., 327, _note_
+"Man in the Moon", 101, _note_
+Manley, Mrs., 123
+Mapes, Walter, 24
+Marryat, Capt., 304
+Marryat, F., 291
+Marsh, Mrs., 291
+Martineau, H., 317
+Mathers, H., 327
+Maturin, 269
+Maxwell, W.H., 304
+Meliadus, 25
+Melville, H., 312
+Merlin, 24
+Miller, H., 284
+Miller, T., 302, _note_
+Mitford, M.R., 288
+Moir, 284
+Moore, Dr., 248
+Moore, Sir T., 56
+Morier, J., 305
+Morgan, Lady, 286
+Morgana, 26
+Morley, Countess of, 302, _note_
+"Morte d'Arthur", 24, 40
+Mulock, Miss, 288
+
+
+Napier, E., 304
+Neal, J., 312
+Newcastle, Duchess of, 122
+Normanby, Marquis of, 302, _note_
+Norton, Hon. Mrs., 291
+Novel, Development of, _see_ Addison, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding
+Novel, in the xixth Century, 274
+---- of American Life, 305
+---- of English Life, 291
+---- of Irish Life, 285
+---- of Scotch Life, 280
+---- Criminal, 303
+---- Fashionable, 303
+---- Historical, 313
+---- Immoral, 303
+---- Military, 304
+---- Muscular, 303
+---- Naval, 304
+---- Oriental, 305
+---- of fancy, 319
+---- of purpose, 316
+
+
+O'Connell, 311
+Oliphant, Mrs., 284
+Opie, Mrs., 286
+"Ornatus and Artexia", 46, _note_
+"Oroonoko", 126
+Orrery, Earl of, 121
+Ouida, 303, 326
+
+
+Palmerin of England, 46
+Palomides, Sir, 35
+"Pandosto", 85
+Pardoe, Miss, 305
+"Parismus", 47, _note_
+Parthenissa, 121
+Payn, J., 302, _note_
+Peacock, T.L., 302, _note_
+Pendragon, Uther, 25
+Perceval le Gallois, 25
+"Pheander", 17, _note_
+Phelps, E.S., 310
+Philips, S., 302, _note_
+"Philomela", 86
+Picken, 284
+"Pilgrim's Progress", 108
+Poe, E.A., 312
+Porter, Jane, 284
+Porter, Maria, 284
+Power, M.A., 291
+
+
+Radcliffe, Ann, 265
+Reach, A.B., 302, _note_
+Reade, C., 291
+Realism, 279
+Reeve, Clara, 264
+Religious Revival, 220
+Richardson, Samuel, 193
+Ritchie, L., 302, _note_
+Robin Hood, 47
+"Robert the Devil," 47, _note_
+Roberts, H., 47, _note_
+Romantic Revival, 259
+"Rosalynde," 88
+Round Table, 26, 33, 38
+Rowson, S., 306
+
+
+"Saint Greal," 25, 35
+Sala, Geo. Aug., 302, _note_
+Scott, Michael, 304
+Scott, Sir Walter, 280, 313
+Scuderi, 119
+Sedgwick, C.M., 310
+"Seven Champions of Christendom," 46, _note_
+Sewell, E., 291
+Sewell, E.M., 317
+Shelley, Mrs., 319
+Sidney, Sir Phillip, 91
+Simms, G., 311
+Simms, W., 312
+Sinclair, C., 307
+Smedley, F.E., 302, _note_
+Smith, A., 302, _note_
+Smith, C., 257
+Smith, H., 314
+Smollett, T., 211
+Sterne, L., 231
+St. John, J.A., 302, _note_
+Stowe, H.B., 310, 318
+Stretton, H., 291
+Strickland, A., 291
+Swift, J., 170
+
+
+Tautphoeus, Baroness, 287
+Taylor, B., 308
+Terhune, Mrs., 312
+Thackeray, Miss, 287
+Thackeray, W.M., 298, 314
+Thomas, 311
+"Thomas of Reading," 50
+Thornbury, W., 302, _note_
+"Tom-a-Lincoln," 46
+Tourgee, Judge, 311
+Trelawney, 304
+Tristram, 22, 25, 30, 34
+Trollope, A., 294, 295
+Trollope, Mrs., 287
+Trollope, T.A., 302, _note_
+Tupper, M.F., 302, _note_
+Turner, T., Diary of, 221
+Tytler, S., 297
+
+
+Valerio, C.S., 312
+
+
+Walpole, Horace, 259
+Ward, R. Plumer, 291
+Warren, S., 291
+Wetherell, E., 291
+Whitly, F.M., 302, _note_
+Whitney, Mrs., 312
+Whyte-Melville, G.J., 302, _note_
+Wilson, A.E., 312
+Wilson, Prof., 284
+Williams, F., 302, _note_
+Willis, N.P., 308
+Winthrop, T., 312
+Wood, Mrs. H, 287
+Wraxall, C.L., 302, _note_
+
+
+Yates, E., 302, _note_
+Yonge, Miss, 287
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of English Prose Fiction
+by Bayard Tuckerman
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