A History of English Prose Fiction Part 12

[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 pa.s.sages in "Tom Jones," with "Glimpses of our Ancestors," by Charles Fleet, pp. 38, 39, _et pa.s.sim_.]

[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 t.i.tle 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 coa.r.s.eness 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 circ.u.mstances."

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 leaders.h.i.+p of the n.o.ble 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 fas.h.i.+onable authority was recognized. In the fiction of the latter half of the eighteenth century is ill.u.s.trated a gradual transition of morals and taste from the unbridled coa.r.s.eness of the century's earlier years to the comparative refinement of our own times.

There lived in Suss.e.x 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 p.r.o.nounced and varied that in the s.p.a.ce of six weeks he had read Gray's "Poems," Stewart "On the Supreme Being," the "Whole Duty of Man," "Paradise Lost and Regained,"

"Oth.e.l.lo," 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 amus.e.m.e.nts with a frankness which deserves the thanks of posterity. Some pa.s.sages of his diary, in their ill.u.s.tration of the combination of licence, coa.r.s.eness, and moral earnestness characteristic of the writer's time may greatly a.s.sist 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 b.u.mboo; 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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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 foolis.h.!.+" 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 mult.i.tude. 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 gla.s.s. 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 a.s.sistance, 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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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, c.o.c.k-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 impa.s.sioned 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 st.u.r.dy 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 G.o.d 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, c.o.c.k 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 cla.s.ses 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." G.o.dwin 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 a.s.saults 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 n.o.bleman and a fas.h.i.+onable 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 ladys.h.i.+p 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 ladys.h.i.+p 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 cla.s.sed with Fielding and Smollett, but as a novelist, his position in the history of fiction is separate and unique.