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iOHhh.lS U.i
HARVARD COLLF.OK
J^d
THE DEVELOPMENT
or
THE ENGLISH NOVEL
BY
WILBUR L. CROSS
rBOFBSflOR OF ENGLISH IN THE SHEFFIELD 8CISNTIFI0
SCHOOL OF TALE UNIVBRSITT
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
UfSDOS: MACBOLLAN & CO., Lid.
1913
AU riffhti ree^rved
^o^u^c., ^is:c\i \
HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY
BEQUEST OF
WINWARO PRE8C0TT
JANUARY 27, 1933
COPTWGHT, 18W,
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY.
' "^ ' j«*"u«y, 1900 ; January, 1907 ; Jj
rWh/ '°"*^' ^ x7' '^ ' '^""^'y' November, 191,.
October. 191a; November, 1913 '^ '
. v\
PCRRI8 PRINTING COMPANY
NIW YOIIK, N. Y., U. 8. A.
:. " N >'
r/
TO
11 FERDINAND BRUNETliSBB
IS INSCBIBED
BY THE AUTBOM
1
*(
NOTE TO THE SEVENTH IMPRESSION
It is now five years and more since this little book
on the novel was first printed. Some minor errors
—-inevitable where there are so many details — were
corrected for the second impression in December, 1899.
In the interim have come to my notice other mis-
takes, some of which are rather amusing. Mr. B.,
for example, of Richardson's Pamela^ was twice mis-
styled Lord B.; and the ^'lone cottage'' of SmoUetfs
Count Fathom was converted into a robbers' cave.
For permitting these and similar slips to stand so
long, I now offer frank apology. They are corrected
in this edition. In rereading the prophecy at the end
of the book for the immediate future of the novel,
I am surprised that it has come so near the truth.
The estimate of Elipling has proved, doubtless, too
enthusiastic ; but the dominant note in recent fiction
has been, as was anticipated, ^'a love of adventure
and an exaltation of the strong man.''
W.L.&
YaxiB UmvnuEDTTt
y
CONTENTS
IinmoDuoTiON a
CHAPTER I
FbOK AKTHUSIAK ROHAI7CB TO BlOHABDSON
tKCT.
1. The MeditBval Romancers and Story-telleis ... 1
2. The Spanish Influence . 6
3. The Elizabethans 10
4. The Historical Allegory and the French Influence . 13
6. The Restoration 18
^. Literary Forms that contributed to the Novel • . 22
7. The Passing of the Old Romance . • • . 25
8. Daniel Defoe 27
CHAPTER n
Thb Eightbbnth-gbntubt Rbalists
1. Samuel Richardson 81
2. Henry Fielding 42
8. The NoTel versus the Drama 67
4. Tobias Smollett 03
ftt Laurence Sterne 09
6. The Minor Novelists : Sarah Fielding, Samuel John*
•ooi OUver GfoldBXQitb ....,, 76
Viil COKTfiNTd
CHAPTER in
Fbok ^Humphht Clinkbr* to 'Watbrlbt'
■■or. PAOB
1. The Imitators 82
2. The NoTel of Fuipose 84
3. The Light Transcript of Contemporary Manners . 93
4. The GotMc Romance 98
6. The Historical Romance 110
6. Jane Austen — the Critic of Romance and of Manners 114
CHAPTER IV
NnnSTBENTH-CBNTTIBT ROXANOB
1. Sir Walter ScoU and the Historical Novel • . .125
2. Scott's Legacy 136
3. The Romance of War 149
4. James Fenimore Cooper and the Romance of the
Forest and the Sea 160
6. The Renovation of Gothic Romance . . • .168
CHAPTER V
Thb Rbalistig Rbactiov
1. The Minor Humorists and the Author of < Pickwick* 168
2. Charles Dickens and the Humanitarian Novel • . 180
CHAPTER VI
Thb Rbtubk to Rbalisx
L William Ifakepeace Thackeray 197
8. Bulwer-Lytton in the R61e of Realist^ George Borrow,
Charles Read* 208
CONTENTS ix
PAAS
3. Anthony Trollope 215
4. .Charlotte Bronte 224
CHAPTER Vn
Tbs Fsyoholooioal Noybl
1. Elizabeth Gaskell— the Ethical Formula of the Psy-
chologists 234
2. George Eliot 237
8. George Meredith 262
CHAPTER Vra
ThB CONTBHPOIIABT NOTBL
1. Henry James and Impressionism . . . . 203
2. Philosophical Realism: Mrs. Humphry Ward and
Thomas Hardy .268
8. Robert Louis Stevenson and the Revival of Romance 280
4. Rudyard Kipling 290
Conclusion 203
APPENDIX
1. A List of Twenty-five Prose Fictions • • • • 207
2. Bibliographical and Other Notes 800
Ibi»z • • • • 815
■ ** '
INTRODUCTION
This book aims to trace in outline the course of
English fiction from Arthurian romance to Steven-
son, and to indicate, especially in the earlier chapters.
Continental sources and tributaries. I hope that the
volume may be of service to the student as a prelimi-
nary to detailed investigation in special epochs ; and
of interest to the general reader, who may wish to
follow some of the more important steps whereby a
fascinating literary form has become what it is through
modifications in structure and content.
The apparent law that has governed these chan;^es
is the same as is operative in all literary development:
the principle of action and reaction in the ordinary
acceptation of the terms. This law has a psychologi-
cal basis. We are by nature both realists and ideal-
ists, delighting in the long run about equally in the
representation of life somewhat as it is and as it is
dreamed to be. There is accordingly no time in
which art does not to some extent minister to both
Instincts of human nature. But in one period the
ideal is in ascendency; in another the real. Why
this is so we have not far to seek. Idealism in course
of time falls into unendurable exorbitancies ; realism
likewise offends by its brutality and cynicism. And
in either case there is a recoil, often accompanied, as
zi
nrrRODncnoN
will be netedy by unreasonable criticism, even by
parody and burlesque. The reaction of the public is
taken advantage of by a man of letters ; it is enforced
by him and may be led by him. Fielding was such a
man, and so was Thackeray. And if , as was true in
these two cases, the leader is a man of genius, he can
for a period do what he pleases with his public. Now
what is the procedure of the man of letters who has
assented to a reactionary creed ? He reverts to some
earlier form or method, and modifies and develops it ;
in the language of science, he varies the type. Not
to go for illustration beyond the two novelists just
cited, Fielding set the Spanish rogue story over against
Bichardson; and Thackeray professedly took Fielding
as his model in his reaction against Dickens. Both
were, according to their light, realists; but their
works are different No one would confound the au-
thorship of *Tom Jones' with that of ^Vanity Fair.'
Why ? Besides the strictly personal element, there
are differences in literary antecedents and divergences
in public taste. For realism. Fielding had behind
him, for the most part, only picaresque fiction and
the comedy of manners. Thackeray had behind him
not only Fielding, but a line of succeeding novel-
ists — romancers and realists. For example, between
Fielding and Thackeray is Scott; and with what
result? There is no history in 'Tom Jones'; if
< Vanity Fair' does not have a background in actual
historical incident, it has at least the show of his-
tdry. There is thus never a full return to the past ;
romance learns from realism; and realism learns from
romance. In this way literature is always moving on,
and to something that can never be predicted. In the
•<.
DfTBODUCTION xiij
details of my work, in determining the antecedents
of a writer and what he added that is new and origi-
nal in form and content to the art of fiction^ I have
found that there are modes or processes of change
and development best expressed in the terms that
natural science has made familiar^ — modification,
variation, deviation, persistence, and transformation.
These are perhaps only analogies. That the material
of literary history can be treated with the exactness
of science I have, after some experimenting, no dispo-
sition to maintain.
The terms ^romance' and ^ novel,' which in them-
selves are a summary of the two conflicting aims in
fiction, require at the outset brief historical and de-
scriptive definition. The former is in English the
older word, being in common use as early as the
fourteenth century. Our writers then meant first of
all by the romance a highly idealized verse-narrative
of adventure or love translated from the French, that
is, from a romance language; they also extended the
term to similar stories derived from classic and other
sources, or of their own invention. For a verse-
narrative approaching closer to the manners of real
life — its intrigues and jealousies, — the Provencal
poets had employed the word novas (always plural) ;
for a like narrative in prose, always short, Boccaccio
and his contemporaries were using the cognate word
noveUa. Of stories of this realistic content, many
were written in English in the fourteenth century,
but they were called tales, — a word of elastic con-
notation, which Chaucer made to comprehend nearly
all the different kinds of verse-storiea current in his
time.
.^V INTRODUCTION
During the two centuries following Boceacci6 the
Italians continued to compose books of noveUe, and in
very great numbers. In the age of Elizabeth they
came into English in shoals, and with them the word
'novel/ as applicable to either the translation or an
imitation. It was a particularly felicitous make-believe
designation, for it conveyed the notion that the inci-
dents and the treatment were new. It however had
a hard struggle to maintain itself, for the Elizabethans
preferred to it the word 'history/ which they applied
to all manner of fictions in verse and prose, as may
be seen from such titles as ' The Tragical History of
Bomeus and Juliet' and 'The History of Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark.' This, too, was a happy desig-
nation, for it implied a pretended faithfulness to
fact. Bichardson and Fielding, after some vacillar
tion, settled upon the word 'history ' for their fictions,
though they both refer to them as novels. From the
invention of printilig down to this time the word
'romance,' by which our mediaeval writers denoted ad-
ventures in verse or in prose, had not been common
in the titles and the prefaces of English fictions,
though many romances had been written. But when
in the last half of the eighteenth century wild and
supernatural stories came into fashion, the word was
often placed upon title-pages. At this time Clara
Beeve, in an exceedingly pleasant group of dialogues,
drew the line of distinction between the romance and
the novel She says in ' The Progress of Bomance '
(1785) : —
The Novel is a picture of real life and manners, and of
the times in which it is written. The Bomance, in lofty
INTBODUCnON
and elevated langoai^, describes what never happened nor
is likely to happen. The Novel gives a familiar relation of
such things as pass every day before our eyes, such as may
happen to our friend or to ourselves ; and the perfection of
it is to represent every scene in so easy and natural a man-
ner and to make them appear so probable as to deceive us
into a persuasion (at least while we are reading) that all is
real, until we ajre affected by the joys or distresses of the
persons in the story as if they were our -own.
Scott was a disturbing element to the critic's classi-
fication, {or he combined the novel and the romance
as defined by Clara Beeve. What name shall the
amalgamation bear? It was at this time that the
word ^ novel/ became the generic term for English
prose fiction. But while this is mainly true, our nb-
'menclature continues somewhat uncertain. In a not
very precise way the novel and the romance are still
brought into an antithesis similar to Clara Beeve's.
That prose-fiction which deals realistically with actual
life is called, in criticism and conversation, preemi-
nently the novel. That prose-fiction which deals with
life in a false or a' fantastic manner, or represents it
in the setting of strange, improbable, or impossible
adventures, or idealizes the virtues and the vices of
human nature, is called romance.
The expression 'the English novel,' in common
speech, means the novel written in Great Britain.
For reasons that will appear very obvious, I shall
regard the novel written in the United States as a
constituent part of English fiction.
All dates placed in parentheses after novels are of
publication. Where a novel has appeared as a serial
and afterward as a whole the date of the latter pub-
Xvi INTRODUCTION
lication is given, unless an express statement is made
to the contrary. Such a date as 1871-72 for ^Mid-
dlemarch' means that the novel was published in
parts during those years. Title-pages in most in-
stances are of necessity much abridged. Immediately
after the main text I have placed a list of twenty-
five novels which will show the general progress of
English fiction. This in turn is followed by biblio-
graphical and other notes for the use of more advanced
students. In both instances I have indicated recent
editions available to those who do not have easy access
to large libraries.
It would be impracticable to enumerate here the
sources drawn upon for this volume. J. C. Dun-
lop's * History of Prose Fiction ' and Professor Walter
Raleigh's ' English Novel ' should be expressly men-
tioned, for, in guiding my reading down to Scott, they
were of great aid. Though I cannot hope to have
detached myself from opinions and estimates now
prevailing, I have striven to gain a new standpoint ;
consulting to this end, from Scott onward, current
reviews of novels as they were appearing. As so little
has been attempted thus far in the history of the
English novel, I have been able to present in outline
considerable new material : the far-reaching influence
of Spanish fiction from Fielding to Thackeray; the
historical romance as an offshoot of the historical
allegory; the relation of Richardson and Fielding to
the drama; the beginnings of the Gothic romance in
Smollett ; and fche immediate source of GecHrge Eliof s
ethical formula. Access to the library of the British
Museum has also enabled me to put the origin of the
novel of letters in a new light. What has most im-
INTRODUCTION xvii
pressed me is the intimate connection between English
and French fiction. This might be expected in the
centuries immediately following the Norman Con-
quest. The relationship, however, is very close from
Richardson to Hardy. So far as I have been able I
have given organic treatment to my subject. The
book is not a series of independent essays, but one
essay, divided here and there for convenience.
While the volume has been passing through the
press, I have received much aid from two students
in the graduate department of the University, — Mr.
A. H. Bartlett and Mr. J. M. Berdan. To Professor
Charles Sears Baldwin, who has read all the proof-
sheets, I am greatly indebted for unsparing criticism.
I have also to thank Professor Henry A. Beers for the
encouragement he has given me from the beginning
of the work to its publication.
•1 . , «
• . ■ • • •
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THES
ENGLISH NOVEL
CHAFTEB I
1
FbOX AbTKUBIAN BoifAKOS TO SlOHARDSOir
1. The MedtoBvcU Romancers and Stary-teUera
NoBMAN England came into possession of an im«
mense body of fictitious narrative. Learned societies
have edited and published some of it, but there still
remain unedited hundreds of manuscripts, for a
knowledge of which we are compelled to have recourse
to imperfect bibliographies. The heroes of these tales
were taken from Teutonic, Celtic, French, Classic,
and Eastern tradition. It was especially around
Charlemagne, Arthur, Alexander the Great, and thct
siege of Troy, that epic and mythological incident j
gathered, assuming the form of histories and biogra-
phies, now called cycles of romance. On their appear-
ance first in French and then in English, these adven-
tures were usually in verse, composed by minstrels
and trouv&res for recitation and reading at court and
in the castles of the nobility ; later they were turned
into prose. First in popularity and first in interest
to him who is seeking the antecedents of the modem
novel are the legends of King Arthur and the Bound
2 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Table ; the scope of which is represented^ though not in
its fulness, by Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King.' As
early as 1139, there was circulating a curious hero-
saga, written in Latin by Geoffrey of Monmoutli and
professing to be a translation from the Welsh. This
famous* ^History of the British Kings/ reflecting
vaguely the struggles of Boman, Celt, and Saxon for
supremacy in Britain, becomes in its later parts a
splendid romance of Arthur's ancestry, marriage, corona-
tion, conquests, and passage to Ayallon to be healed of
his wounds. This so-called ' Celtic matter ' proved most
attractive to the French andTAnglo^Norman poets, who
reared upon it a vast superstructure. Thus, as might
be illustrated by many similar examples,^ fiction freed
itself from the restraint of fact, and the romance came
into being. Long after this event had taken place, a
certain Sir Thomas Malory made a graceful redaction
of the stories about Arthur and his knights in a book
entitled ^Morte Darthur' (1485), which is for the gen-
eral reader the first easily accessible prose romance in
English.
The Arthurian romances do not consist merely of
improbable adventures. It is true that they sought
to interest, and did interest, by a free employment of
the marvellous, fierce encounters of knights, fights
with giants and dragons, swords that would not out
of their scabbards, and the enchantments of Merlin.
But these romances were also analytical. In those
brilliant assemblages of lords and ladies at the Nor-
man and French courts of the twelfth century, con-
versation turned for subject to the nature of love,
and the proper conduct of the lover toward his mis-
I 'Epic and Bomance,^' W. P. Ker, Lond. and N.Y., 1807.
I
I
I
IB'BOM ABTHURIAN ROMANCE TO RICHARDSON 8
tress; and, as a result, the courtly philosophers, work-
ing oil Ovid's ^Art of Love' as a basis, formulated a
code of passion which rivalled, in minute detail, the
metaphysical distinctions of the Schoolmen. There
were major precepts and minor precepts, showing the
processes by which a knight might win the heart of
the lady of the castle; the symptoms of love were
noted and recorded, and nice questions of conduct
— for example, the circumstances under which the
lady might become ^the fair dear friend' of a knight
not her husband — were put into syllogistic form.
This casuistry is the basis of the stories of Tristram
and Iseult, and of Lancelot and Guenevere.^ Other
conceptions of passion also found their way into
Arthurian romance: in Gameliard, Arthur had the
first sight of Guenevere, and ever after he loved her ;
the fair maid of Astolat swooned and died when
Abandoned by Lancelot of the Lake; and in course
of time, the ethics of the court clashing with the
ethics of the cloister, there was conceived Sir Gala-
had's quest of the Holy Grail. This formal analy-
sis of love winds its way through Spanish, French,
and English romance down to the eighteenth century ;
and becoifies in Bichardson a starting-point for a less
scholastic dissection of the heart. The main situations
in the great stories of Arthurian romance in which
one is asked to sympathize with guilty passion have
appeared again and again in the modem novel. Lance-
lot and Guenevere, Tristram and Iseult, have proved
to be permanent types.
Side by side with the Arthurian cycle, though
the period of their popularity was somewhat later,
1 ' Romania/ zii. 516^34.
.<<*, uk.
4 DSYELOFMfiNT OF THB ENGLISH NOVEL
were the verse-tales called by the French, who first
composed them, romances of adventure. Some of
them, as the English alliterative poem ^ Gawain and
the Green Knight/ are Celtic in incident. Others are
episodes of the Charlemagne cycle. Still others, in-
distinct echoes of Greek and far Eastern fable, are
throughout professedly fictitious, and thus have an
important significance. Fiction is expanding and tak-
ing a step toward the freedom of the modem novel.
Its ethics are also undergoing change; for the exalta-
tion of illegitimate passion or of asceticism is not so
frequent as in Arthurian romance. The prevailing
theme is now the constancy of young lovers, sepa-
rated by accident or design, and united after ship-
wreck, capture by pirates, and servitude. Beautiful
renderings of this situation are ^ Florice and Blanche-
flour,' and the story of Aucassin, who for his
love of Nicolette would sacrifice his kingdom, his
knighthodd, and Paradise.^ As verse-tales the ro-
mances of adventure disappeared toward the close
of the fourteenth century, when Chaucer in *The
Bime of Sir Thopas ' ridiculed them as undeservedly
as delightfully. But their incidents in many cases
survived the wreck of their form. There were Tudor
prose versions of the two favorites, ' Guy of Warwick '
and ^Bobert the Devil'; and the Elizabethan love
stories are romances of adventure with pastoral
decorations.
The delicate poetry and analysis of courtly romance
could hardly have been appreciated by the rude
mediaeval barons and the common folk. They natu-
rally had their own stories, in verse and prose, which
1 EngUih tramUtion : * The Lovers of Prorenoe,' N.Y., 1890.
FBOM ARTHURIAN ROMANCE TO RICHARDSON 5
were more in accord with their own lives, feelings,
and ways of looking at things. These stories, of which
the finished types are the French fabliau in octosyl-
labic rhyming couplets and the Italian novella in prose,
have for subject striking and humorous incidents of
ordinary life. They are not, in content, all indigenous.
Many of them are the common property of mankind,
and have been traced in their germinal form to India.
But what originally came from the East was almost
invariably so modified and enriched that it seemed
to spring from mediaeval soil. Widely diffused were
developments of iSsopian fable, such as the story of
^Beynard the Fox,^ in which animals are made to
talk and reason, and comment in a gay satirical vein
on human life and its affairs. The clergy catered
to the popular taste for this kind of story, making,
as Wyclif accused them, the basis of the sermon
an Eastern tale, from which was drawn a new and
fantastic moral. Eor the vulgar, the minstrels de-
graded what had once been a noble art, singing their
songs of humorous incident at street corners and at
the wassails of the barons. They held up to cynical
ridicule the intrigues and frailties of the clergy ; and
gave a coarse realistic touch to Arthurian fable, tear-
ing the mask from the courteous knights and the glit-
tering ladies at Caerleon on IJsk, and exposing amid
peals of laughter from their hearers the cowardice
and unfaithfulness beneath. In these popular songs
and stories, frequently composed with an eye upon the
characteristic weaknesses of human nature, are the
beginnings of the realistic novel.
Daring the reign of Bichard the Second, John
Gower collected and moralized, somewhat after the
/^
6 DEVELOFICEIIT OF THE ENGLISH HOVEL r'
way of the clergy, manj of the tales that had long
been cnrrent His great contemporary Chaucer — at
will a romancer or a realist — clothed in artistic form
the low intrigncy the fable, the adventore, and the
romance of chiYaby, prefacing them with a group of
contemporaiy portraits. Delightful as are these tales
of the Canterbury pilgrims, yet the poem in which.
Chaucer moyed most directly toward the novel is
'Trdlus and Cressida.' Its heroine is the subtlest
piece of psychological analysis in medisval fiction;
and the shrewd and practical Pandarus is a character
whose presence of itself brings the story down from
the heights of romance to the plains of real life.
Moreoyer, though written when the dramatic imagina>
tion had hardly appeared elsewhere in romance, this
tale of illicit passion possesses in a marked degree
the structure of Elizabethan tragedy. Less than a
century after the death of Chaucer, mediffival and
modem England met at the printing-press of William
Caxton.
2. Th^ Spanish Influence
The first half of the sixteenth century is a dreary
waste in the history of English fiction. Its only oasis
is Sir Thomas Here's ^ Utopia,' which, written and pub-
lished in Latin, may be characterized as the ^ Coming
Bace ' or the 'Looking Backward' of our learned ances-
tors. It is true that amid the fierce contest of Boman-
ism and Protestantism for supremacy in English politics,
men foimd time to read stories and romances, but
they did not write them. They were content with
those that Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, and
FROM ARTHURIAN ROMANCE TO RICHARDSON 7
Copland edited and printed for them from Englisli
medisBval manuscripts, or translated for them from
French and German. The direct line in the develop-
ment of English fiction, though not broken, is at this
point worn to a slender thread, which we may neglect.
When midway in the reign of Elizabeth creative work »^
began anew, tiie main impetus came rather from south-
em Europe, especially from Spain.
The romantic incidents early current in France
and England were likewise well known in the Spanish
peninsula, where they were moulded into fictions simi-
lar to those we have described. From a Portuguese
romance of adventure there grew up through the accre-
tions of a long period the famous ^ Amadis de Gaula,'
which has been preserved in a Spanish prose redac-
tion made by Ordoflez de Mohtalvo toward the end
of the fifteenth century. It is the norm of the ro-
mances of chivalry. For its machinery of wonders,
hand-to-hand fights with giants, monsters, and devils,
the romance dips into medievalism. Its code of con-
duct for the knight is likewise essentially the same as
in the Ajthurian cycle. When Amadis stands before
Oriana, he is abated and silent like Lancelot in the
presence of Guenevere ^ and for her he traverses Europe
in search of adventure to prove his worth. But the
reader of 'Amadis de Gaula' is at once aware that
he is getting away from medievalism. Its author
had some artistic sense of what a novel should be.
Its plot for a time has a degree of definiteness, for it
drifts toward the marriage of Amadis and Oriana.
Magic, which had hitherto been an adornment to
please the superstitious, is made to bear an ethical
import; and manners are invested with a new and
8 DEVELOPMENT QI* THE ENGLISH NOVEL
striking dignity. There are appearing also new ideals
of character, such as in the course of time Bichardson
is to fix permanently in the novel : for example, Galaor
is the first of the Lovelaces; and Amadis, a figure
without taint or speck, is a remote ancestor of Sir
Charles Grandison. And lastly, fiction is beginning
to have a more serious motive ; it would defend the
purity of the home, and it would proclaim that right
will finally triumph over wrong.
The Spanish romance of chivalry quickly degener-
ated into grotesque adventure. The reaction against
it first took the form of the pastoral. For a long time
the poets of southern Europe had been writing series
of pastoral poems connected by explanatory prose
links; and just as Vergil had in a measure done in
his 'Eclogues,' they were accustomed to disguise
themselves and their friends under fictitious names.
A good example of this kind of work is the 'Arcadia'
(1504), written by the Italian Jacopo Sannazaro. But
substance was first given to the pastoral in the ' Diana '
(1668?) of George of Montemayor, a Portuguese by
birth and a Spaniard by adoption, who localized his
scene, and wrote mostly in prose. Men and women,
who in the romances of chivalry were turned into
knights and ladies, now assume the dress and life of
shepherds and shepherdesses, wandering along gently
fiowing streams, sleeping beneath sycamores,' and
lamenting in madrigals over unrequited loves. To
the 'Diana' of Montemayor, which was translated
into French and English, even attracting the attention
of Shakespeare, is bound most closely all the succeed-
ing pastoral romances of northern Europe.
To Spain, too, the novel owes the development of
FROM ARTHURIAN ROMANCE TO RICHARDSON 9
another form of fiction. The incident in a popular
mediflBvaJ story was frequently a trick or a practical
joke of a witty fellow. The romance of 'Reynard
the Fox ' is a collection of such tricks, which Master
Eeynard plays upon his brother animals. This kind
of fiction was first turned to good account in prose in
a little Spanish story entitled, ' Lazarillo de Tormes '
(1554), which is the first of the picaresque novels,
or the rogue stories. It differs from its medisevaJ
prototype in that the tricks are made secondary. A
conspicuous aim of its unknown author was to put a
young scamp behind the scenes of Spanish society,
and let him report and comment upon what was
taking place there. The story was translated into
all the literary languages of Europe, and was fol-
lowed by a host of imitations down to Fielding and
Smollett. This rogue literature is one of the broadest
avenues through which that license in speech which
characterized the Eenaissance in its first stages
entered the modem noveL
Somewhat akin to the Spanish picaresque novel is
*Don Quixote' (1605, 1615). In both, the point of
view is unromantic. The picaresque novel is an
indirect attack upon the romance of chivalry, a shell
or two from the distance; 'Don Quixote' is a bom-
bardment with the intent to demolish utterly 'the
entire mischievous pile of romantic absurdity.' Cer-
vantes accomplished his purpose by placing the
world of romance in the real world, and lettiing the
characters and sentiments of each mutually play
upon one another. The knight is treated as a madman
and his squire is tossed in a blanket. Along with this
baater Cervantes carried such a careful reproduction
10 DBVEL0PME19T OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
of the language of the aristocracy and the rabble^ and
such impressive work in the delineation of character,
that his romance becomes an epoch in the history of
realism. It also marks the appearance in fiction of
a new quality of humor. Europe, ancient and medisd-
val, had its great humorists long before Cervantes:
they are Aristophanes, Lucian, and Chaucer. But Cer-
vantes' humor goes deeper than theirs. Like theirs,
it is rippling and sparkling on the surface as a
summer sea; as in Chaucer's, there is beneath a warm
stream of kindly feeling; but still deeper there is
a current of the intensest tragedy. Under the
irresistible sway of this humor, approaching and
receding &om pathos, came Fielding, Goldsmith,
Sterne, and Thackeray, and, in a less degree, Smollett,
Scott, Dickens, and Bulwer; with the result that
they created for the continual delight of their au-
dience characters reminding one of Don Quixote.
Among them are Parson Adams, Uncle Toby,
Jonathan Oldbuck, and Colonel Newcome.
3. The EliaaJbeifumB
Elizabethan England inherited much that was best
in English mediseval fiction : the Arthurian romances,
the moralized stories of Gower, and the highly fin-
ished tales of Chaucer. From Italy came the pastoral
romance in its most dreamy and attenuated form, the
gorgeous poetic romances of Tasso and Ariosto, and
many collections of novdle. Some of these noveUe
had as subject the interesting events of everyday life ;
others were of fierce incident and color, and fornisheld
Elizabethan tragedy with tremendous scenes. From
FROM ABTHUBIAN BOMANCB TO B1CHABD80N 11
Germany came jest-books and tales of necromancy;
from France, the Greek story of adventore with its
shipwrecks and pirates; from Spain came ^Amadis/
the ' Diana ^ of Montemayor, and the picaresque novel.
And what the noble printers of the Benaissance gave
her, England worked over into fictions of her own.
The most characteristic of her adaptations, the one
that most folly expressed her restless spirit of adveni-
ture and sesthetic restoration of the age of chivalry,
was a romance midway between the knightly quest
and the pastoral. Of this species, a conspicuous ex-
ample is Sir Philip Sidney's 'Arcadia' (1690). This
romance has in places as background to its pretty
wooing adventures the loveliness of the summer scenery
about Wilton House, where it was planned, — violets
and roses, meadows and wide-sweeping downs 'gar-
nished with stately trees,' — and into it was in-
fused the noble courtesy, the high sense of honor,
and the delicate feeling of the first gentleman of the
age. Though touching at points the real in its re-
flection of English scenes and the princely virtues of
Sidney and his friends, the ^Arcadia' is mainly an
ideal creation. The country it describes is the land
of dream and enchantment, of brave exploit, unblem-
ished chastity, constant love, and undying friendship.
Villany and profane passion darken these imaginary
realms, but they, too, like the virtues, are all ideal.
In structure the 'Arcadia' is epic, having attached to
the main narrative numerous episodes, one of which —
the story of ArgaJus and Parthenia, faithful unto
death — is among the most lovely situations romance
has ever conceived and elaborated.
In direct antithesis to its Arcadias^ Elizabethan Eng-
12 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL 1
land made hasty studies of robbers and highwaymen;
but of which^ under the artistic impulse of ' Jjazarillo
de Tonnes' (translated into English in 1576)^ were
developed several rogue stories of considerable pre-
tension, such as 'Jack Wilton/ by Thomas Nash,
and 'Piers Plain,' by Henry Chettle. To the same
class of writings belong Greene's autobiographies,
his ' Repentance,' and * Groat's Worth of Wit,' in
which the point of view is shifted from the comie
to the tragic. Occasionally the Elizabethan romancers
drew their subjects from the bourgeoisie. An amus-
ing instance of this is 'Thomas of Beading,' by
Thomas Deloney, which contains from the picaresque
point of view a graphic picture of the family life of
the clothiers of the West, and of their mad pranks in
London. Its scene is laid in the time of Henry the
First, and it thus becomes historically interesting as
one of the earliest attempts of the modem story-teller
to invade the province of history.
The most immediately popular Elizabethan fic-
tion, whether romantic or realistic, was John Lyly's
'Euphues' (1679-80). In this romance of high life
there are no enchantments and exciting incidents such
as had furnished the stock in trade of Montalvo and
his followers. Lyly sought to interest by his style :
alliteration, play upon words, antithesis, and a revival
of the pseudo-natural history of mediaBval fable books.
His characters are Elizabethan fops and fine ladies,
who sit all night at Lady Flavia's supper-table, dis-
cussing in pretty phrases such questions as, why
women love men, whether constancy or secrecy is
most commendable in a mistress, whether love in the
first instance proceeds from the man or from the
FROM ARTHUBIAN ROMANCE TO RICHARDSON IS
woman — a dainty warfare in which are gained no
victories. Lyly moralizes like a Oower on the pro-
fane passion; he steps into the pulpit and preaches,
telling mothers to suckle their children, and husbands
to treat their wives mildly, for 'instruments sound
sweetest when they be touched softest ; ' and for young
men he constructs a moral code in minute detail, such as
Shakespeare parodies in Polonius' advice to Laertes.
Weak, puerile, and affected as he was, Lyly wrote with
the best intentions ; he was a Puritan educated in the
casuistry of Bome.
Lyly was the founder of a school of romancers, who, •
from their following the affectations of ' Euphues,' are
known as Euphuists. With them all, language was
first and matter secondary: 'A golden sentence is
worth a world of treasure ' was one of their sayings.
Of these Euphuists, Eobert Greene and Thomas Lodge
excelled their master in the poetic qualities of their
work; witness 'Menaphon' (1589) by the former, and
' Rosalind * (1690) by the latter. In fact ' RosaUnd,' a
pastoral composed in the ornate language of ' Euphues,'
is the flower of Elizabethan romance. It satisfies
some of the usual terms in the modern definition of
the novel. For it is of reasonable length; it pos-
sesses a kind of structure, and closes with an elaborate
moraL
4. The Historical Allegory and the French Influence
From Elizabeth to the Restoration, romancing and •
story-telling gradually became a lost art in England.
An imitation of Sidney's ^Arcadia' now and then
appeared, a sketch of a highwayman, and a few strag-
1^
14 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
gling imitations of contemporary French romance.
That was about all. There was for a time a steady
demand for Elizabethan favorites : ' Euphues/ ' Rosa-
lind/ and especially the * Groat's Worth of ViTit/ and
the 'Arcadia.' With the excitement that sounded
the note of the on-coming civil war — the trial of
Hampden and the uprising of the Soots — the Eng-
lish suddenly stopped reading fiction as well as writ-
ing it. The one remarkable romance of the period
that may be claimed for England is the 'Argenis'
1621), by John Barclay. Bom in France of Scotch
father and French mother, Barclay lived in France^
and in England, and finally migrated to Italy, where
he wrote the ' Argenis ' in Latin. He is thus a real ex-
ample of the man without a country. His romance
was at once diffused through Europe in five Latin edi-
tions, and translations into English, French, Spanish,
Italian, and Dutch. It is a medley. It resembles
the 'Arcadia' in its shipwrecks, pirates, and dis-
guises. In its weighty parts, which recommended
it to the learned, it discusses the problems of state-
craft, and is thus affiliated to the ' Utopia.' But what
gives it a date in the development of fiction is that it
is ' a stately fable in manniBr of a history.' In it Bar-
clay extends to prose romance the allegorical method
of Spenser's 'Faery Queen.' First, he reconstructs the
political geography of Europe, moving France' south
to Sicily, Spain to Sardinia, and England to Maureta-
nia. He then rechristens the chief personages of
Europe of his own time : Henry the Third of France
becomes Meleander; Catherine de Medici, Selenissa;
Philip the Second of Spain, Badirobanes ; and Queen
Elizabeth, Hyfuiisbe. Under these disguises, he pr»-
V
FROM ARTHURIAN ROMANCE TO RICHARDSON 16
eeeds to relate the history of Europe during the last
half of the sixteenth century ; describing particularly
Henry's troubles with the Guises and the Huguenots,
and Philip's attempted invasion of England and the
defeat of the Armada. The characters are drawn in
rough outline: Philip, proud and arrogant and in-
triguing with the Guises; Elizabeth, calm and digni-
fied, and almost timid lest she offend her subjects.
The romance closes with the marriage of Poliarchus
(Henry of Navarre) to Argenis, a daughter of Henry
the Third. No attempt is made at exact chronology
or accuracy of historical detail. Catherine de Medici
is a nurse to Argenis; and Elizabeth is represented
sm having a husband who died just after she ascended
the throne, and a sister Anne who was privately mar-
ried to Henry the Third. As if to perplex further
the imagination of the reader, not only are the scenes
of the romance placed in classic countries, but to some
extent the story is related in the terms of Eoman life
and custom. Poliarchus and Argenis are married in
a temple dedicated to Juno and Lucina ; high priests
perform the marriage ceremony, and the bridal party
sing hymns to Hymen and pseans to Apollo. This is
what the romanticists of later date were to call ^ local
color.'
Barclay opened the way for a long line of French
romances, which, beginning about 1625, extended
through the following fifty years. The most popular
of these romances were written by Gomberville, La
CalprenMe, Madeleine de Scud^ri, and Madame de
la Fayette. And the most famous in its time was
Scud^ri's 'Grand Cyrus,' which when completed ex-
tended over 6679 pages in ten octavo volumes*
16 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Translated into English in ponderons folios and
incorporated into Restoration tragedy, these romances
left their marks on English fiction down to the pub-
lication of ' Sir Chaxles Grandison.' Gomberville was
wild and extravagant. His ^Polexandre' (162^-37)
is a working over of the knightly prowess and the
enchantments of 'Amadis de Gaula,' with a slight
historical background. La Galprenede emphasized
history, which, however, he romanced excessively.
His subjects were Cleopatra, Darius, Cyrus, and Pharar
mond, the legendary founder of the French monarchy.
Scud^ri's subjects were Solyman the Magnificent,
Cyrus, legendary Eoman history, and the broils in
Granada between the Zegris and the Abencerrages.
In dealing with this material, Scud^ri forced his-
tory to do double duty. The career of Cyrus the
Great she brought into harmony with the military
exploits of the great Conde; and her heroines bear-
ing Persian or Koman names were adjusted to por-
traits of her friends, "^he purpose of Scud^ri and
her contemporaries was to decorate history with fic-
tion for readers who found history in and of itself dry
and uninteresting. However displeasing the means
by which they did this may be, the fact remains
that they are the founders of historical romance.
Beneath the history is a formal psychology. To
the French romancers descended, to be handed over
to Richardson, that art of love which underlies me-
diasvaJ fiction. Again appeared those precepts whereby
the lover renounced his individuality and became the
slave of his mistress, no longer the lady of the castle
but a shepherdess of dishevelled hair and ivory bow.
Refinement followed refinement, until Scud^ri out*
FBOM ARTHUBIAN ROMANCE TO RICHARDSON IT
did all her predecessors. For her ' Gl^e ' she drew a
curious allegorical map, known as the carte de Tendre,
on which is shown the water ways (sighs and tears)
by which the traveller, setting out from the town of
New Friendship, may reach — if he shun the dead
lake of indifference and the wild and angry sea of
enmity — one of the cities of Love. To turn the ex-
travagances of Scud^ri to finer issues, there were
needed a sense for style and proportion and a knowl-
edge of one's self. These essentials were possessed
by Madame de la Fayette, who discovered, to translate
a phrase from Sainte-Beuve, the border land of ro-
mance and reality. With the covering of a brief his-
tory, she concealed, without any effort at the hysterical
climax, the story of her own heart, which had felt
strongly but always sanely. * La Princesse de Clfeves '
(1678), true and delicate in its psychology, is one of
the classics of European fiction.
Nothing could be easier than to ridicule the French
romancers. The realists, as realism was understood
in those days, saw their opportunity. Charles Sorel
wrote a new *Don Quixote,' entitled 'Le Berger Ex-
travagant' (1628), in which he burlesqued the pasto-
ral and the ideal treatment of love. What Moli^re
did with Scud^ri's love-making in 'Les Pr^cieuses
Kidicules' is familiar to all. Boileau sounded the
death knell of the old romances, when, in a Lucia^
dialogue, he marched, in long line, their heroes down
to Hades, and consigned them to Pluto to be flogged
and cast into Lethe ('Les Heros de Boman,' 1664).
But with ridicule there was usually combined, much as
in the Spanish picaresque story, scandalous intrigues
in low or bourgeois life. Of stories of this kind, the
o
18 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
most worthy of notice axe 'Fraucion' (1622), by
Chaxles Sorel, *Le Roman Comique' (1661-67), by
Paul Scarron, and 'Le Eoman Bourgeois' (1666),
by Antoine Eureti^re. These stories were all trans-
lated, sometimes curiously mutilated, into English.
Scarron's facetious manner of beginning and ending
his chapters, Fielding has made us familiar with in
'Joseph Andrews' and 'Tom Jones.' The 'Roman
Bourgeois' is the most graphic account of the ways
and doings of the bourgeoisie that had appeared in
fiction. There are scenes in it that might have been
written by Zola. It seems to have given rise to
those numberless sketches, written by Tom Brown
and others, that were soon appearing in London, of
adventures and sce^es at Bartholomew Fair, on the
streets, and in the playhouses.
5. The RestoraJtion
After the battle of Worcester, the English began
once more to read fiction. Lyly, Greene, and Sidney
all survived the literary wreckage of the civil wars.
From now on the French romances were translated as
fast as they were published in France. And for reading
them and discussing love, friendship, and statecraft,
little coteries were formed, the members of which ad-
dressed one another as ' the matchless Orinda,' ' the
adored Valeria,' and ' the noble Antenor.' Best known
in their own time were the groups of platonic lovers,
professing an immaculate chastity, who hovered about
Katherine Philips and Margaret Duchess of itiTewcastle.
The literary efforts of these romantic ladies and gentle-
men were directed to poetry and letter-writing rathei
FROM ARTHURIAN ROMANCE TO RICHARDSON 19 .
«
•
than to fiction. There proceeded from them only one
romance^ ^ Parthenissa ' (1664^ 1665, 1677), by Boger
Boyle, an admirer of Katherine Philips. The most
noticeable thing about this inexpressibly dull imita-
tion of Scud^ri, is its mixing up in much confusion
several great Boman wars. For this, particularly
for bringing on the scene together Hannibal and
Spartacus, Boyle defended himself in his preface by
an appeal to Vergil, who neglected two centuries in
his story of uEneas and Dido. For making the same
character stand now for one person and now for an-
other in his historical allegory, he gracefully apolo-
gized, but he might have cited Barclay as his precedent.
Other similar romances were : ' Bentivolio and Urania *
(1660), by Nathaniel Ingelo ; 'Aretina ' (1661), by George
Mackenzie ; and ^Pandion and Amphigenia' (1666), by
John Growne. The first is a religious fiction; the
second, made up of adventures, moral essays, and dis-
quisitions on English and Scotch politics, was an at-
tempt to revive the conceits of Lyly ; the third is an
appropriation of Sidney's 'Arcadia.' Like Crowne,
the Restoration romancers were generally satisfied to
remodel and dress up old material. And what is true
of them, is also true of the realists. An odd and
wretchedly written production of this period is ' The
English Rogue ' (1666-71), by Richard Head, and in '"
part by Francis Kirkman. For tricks and intrigues
they pillaged Spanish and French rogue stories^
Elizabethan sketches of vagabonds, and German
and English jest-books; and seasoned their medley
with what probably then passed for humor. On the
other hand, they wrote much from observation. In
their graphic pictures of the haunts of apprentices.
20 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
pickpockets, and highwaymen, they discovered the
London slums. Eiirthermore, unlike their brother
picaresque writers, they sent their hero on a voys^
to the East, and thus began the transformation of the
rogue story into the story of adventure as it was soon
to appear in Defoe.
More original work than this was done by Mrs.
Aphra Behn, who wrote besides many comedies several
\ short tales, the most noteworthy of which is ' Oroonoko'
(1688). In this story, which is a realistic account of a
royal slave kidnapped in Africa and barbarously put
to death at Surinam, she contrasts the state of nature
with that of civilization, severely reprimanding the
latter. 'Oroonoko' is the first humanitarian novel
in English. Though its spirit cannot for a moment
be compared, in moral earnestness, with < Uncle Tom^s
Cabin,' yet its purpose was to awaken Christendom
to the horrors of slavery. The time being not yet ripe
for it, the romance was for the public merely an
interesting story to be dramatized. The novels of Mrs.
Behn that bore fruit were her short tales of intrigue —
versions in part of her own tender experiences. One
of her successors was Mrs. Mary Manley, who wrote
^The Secret History of Queen Zarah and the Zara-
zians ' (1705), ' The New Atlantis ' (1709), and ' The
Power of Love, in Seven Novels ' (1720). Mrs. Man-
ley was in turn followed by Mrs. Eliza Haywood, the
author of ^ Memoirs of a Certain Island Adjacent to
Utopia ' (1725), and * The Secret Intrigues of the Count
of Caramania' (1727). These productions taken to-
gether purport to relate the inside history of the court
from the restoration of Charles the Second to the death
of George the First. To their contemporaries, they
FROM ARTHURIAN ROMANCE TO RICHARDSON 21
were piquantly immoral ; to later times, they are not
so amusing. Nevertheless, in the development of
the novel, they have a place. They represent a con-
scious effort to attain to the real, in reaction from
Prench romance. They are specimens, too, of pre-H
cisely what was meant in England by the novel in dis-
tinction from the romance, just before Bichardson : a
short story of from one hundred to two hundred pages,
assumed to be founded on fact, and published in a
duodecimo volume.
To John Bunyan the English novel owes a very
great debt. What fiction needed, if it was ever to
come near a portrayal of real life, was first of all to
rid itself of the extravagances of the romancer and
the cynicism of the picaresque story-teller. Though
Bunyan was despised by his contemporary men of
letters, it surely could be but a little time before
the precision of his imagination and the force
and charm of his simple and idiomatic English would
be felt and then imitated. As no writer preceding
him, Bunyan knew the artistic effect of minute de-
tail in giving reasonableness to an impossible story.
In the ' Pilgrim's Progress ' (1678-84) he so mingled
with those imaginative scenes of his own the familiar
Scripture imagery and the still more familiar inci-
dents of English village life, that the illusion of re-
ality must have been to the readers for whom he
wrote well-nigh perfect. The allegories of Barclay
and Scud^ri could not be understood without keys;
Bunyan's ^ Palace Beautiful ' needed none.
N
22 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
6. Literary Forms that contributed to the Novel
Outside the sphere proper of fiction, there wai
slowly collecting in the seventeenth century material
for the future novelist. It was quite the fashion for
public and literary men — witness Pepys and Evelyn
— to keep diaries and journals of family occurrences
and of interesting social and political events. These
diaries and journals suggested the novel of family
life, and indicated a form of narrative that would
lend to fiction the appearance of fact. In ^ Eobinson
Crusoe' and 'Pamela' and hundreds of other novels
* down to the present, the journal has played a not
inconsiderable part. At this time, too, men were
becoming sufficiently interested in their friends and
some of the great men of the past to write their biog-
raphies. In 1640 Izaak Walton published the first
of his charming 'Lives.' A quick offshoot of the
biography was the autobiography, which, as a man in
giving a sympathetic account of himself is likely to
run into poetry, came very close to being a novel.
Margaret Duchess of Newcastle's 'Autobiography,'
published in 1656 in a volume of tales, is a famous
account of a family in which 'all the brothers were
brave, and all the sisters virtuous.' Bunyan's ' Grace
Abounding ' is a story of the fierce struggles between
the spirit and the fiesh, and of the final triumph of
the spirit. This autobiographic method of dealing
with events, partly or wholly fictitious, has been a
favorite with all our novelists, except with the very
greatest; and it is employed more to-day than ever
before.
It also occurred to several writers after the Bestorar
TROU ABTHURIAN ROMANCE TO. RICHARDSON 23
tion that London life might be depicted by a series of
imaginary letters to a friend. A most amusing bundle
of two hundred and eleven such letters was published
in 1664 by Margaret Duchess of Newcastle. Her
object was to transfer to letters, scenes and incidents
that had hitherto been the material of the comedy of
humor. In 1678 a new direction to this letter-writing
was given by a translation from the French of the
'Portuguese Letters.' These letters of a Portuguese
nun to a French cavalier revealed to our writers how
a correspondence might be managed for unfolding a
simple story, and for studying the heart of a betrayed
and deserted woman. Edition after edition of the
'Portuguese Letters' followed, and fictitious replies
and counter-replies. In the wake of these continu-
ations, were translated into English the letters of
Eloisa and Abelard, containing a similar but . more
pathetic tale of man's selfishness and woman's devo-
tion. They, too, went through many editions and were
imitated, mutilated, and trivialized. As a result of
this fashion for letter-writing, there existed early in
the eighteenth century a considerable body of short
stories in letter foim. Hardly any of them are read-
able ; but one of them is of considerable historical in-
terest, * The Letters of Lindamira, a Lady of Quality,
written to her Friend in the Country ' (second edition,
1713). The author, who may have been Tom Brown
'of facetious memory,' states that, unlike his prede-
cessors, his aim is 'to expose vice, disappoint vanity,
to reward virtue, and crown constancy with success.'
He accomplishes this ' by carrying Lindamira through
a sea of misfortunes, and at last marrying her up to
her wishes.' It was in this weak school of fiction.
24 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
raiming at something it hardly knew what, that Bich>
j ardson must in some degree have learned how to man-
age a correspondence,
r i Moreover^ the character-sketch, which was the most
prolific literary form in England and France daring the
seventeenth century, has a direct bearing on the novel.
As conceived by Ben Jonson and Thomas Overbury,
who had before them a contemporary translation of
Theophrastus, it was the sketch of some person, real
or imaginary, who embodied a virtue or a vice, or some
idiosyncrasy obnoxious to ridicule. One character
was set over against another; and the sentences
descriptive of each were placed in the antithesis
which the style of Lyly had made fashionable. Surely
from this species of literature, the novelist took a les-
son in the fine art of contrast. The type of sketch
set by Jonson and Overbury was a good deal modified
by the fifty and more character-writers who succeeded
them.. Kot infrequently as a frame to the portrait was
added a little piece of biography or adventure ; and
there are a few examples of massing sketches in a
loose fiction, as in the continuations of ^ The English
Kogue,' and in the second part of the ^ Eoman Bour-
geois.' The treatment of the character-sketch by
Steele and Addison in the * Spectator ' (1711-12)
was highly original. They drew portraits of repre-
sentative Englishmen, and brought them together in
conversation in a London club. They conducted Sir
Boger de Coverley through Westminster Abbey, to the
playhouse, to Vauxhall, into the country to Coverley
church and the assizes ; they incidentally took a retro-
spective view of his life, and finally told the story of
his death. When they had done this, they had not
FROM ARTHURIAN ROBIANCE TO RICHARDSON 25
only created one of the best defined characters in our
prose literature, but they had almost transformed the
character-sketch into a novel of London and proyin-
cial life. From the ' Spectator ' the character-sketch,
with its types and minute observation and urbane ridi-
cule, passed into the novel, and became a part of it
7. The Passing of the Old Romance
At the dawn of the Eenaissance, verse was usually
an embellishment of fiction, and the perfect workman
was Chaucer, whose 'Troilus and Cressida' and 'Can-
terbury Tales' are differentiated from the modem
novel mainly by the accident of rhyme. Of the later
romances in prose, the two that have gained among all
classes a world-wide fame are ' Don Quixote ' and the
'Pilgrim's Progress'; and second to them is the
' Princess of Clfeves.' Nearly everything else that has
been mentioned is to the modern as if it had never
been written. That such a fate should have overcome
the old romances must be lamented by every one ac-
quainted with their lovely imagery and inspiring
ideals of conduct. But it was inevitable, for they al-
most invariably failed in their art. The great novel-
ists since Fielding have taught the public that a novel
must have a beginning and an end. A reader of con-
temporary fiction, after turning a few pages of Sidney's
'Arcadia,' becomes aware that he is not at the be-
ginning of the story at all, but is having described to
him an event midway in the plot. From this point
on, the narrative, instead of moving forward untram-
melled, except for the pause of an easy retrospect,
becomes more and more perplexed by episodes, which
26 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
are introduced^ suspended^ resumed^ and twisted within
one another, according to a plan not easily understood
The picaresque writers, the first of them, adopted the
straightforward manner of autobiography ; but under
the influence of romance, they, too, soon began to indulge
%h. in episodes. If at their best the picaresque stories had
a beginning, they had no end. They were published
in parts'; each part was brought to a close with the
recurring paragraph that a continuation will be writ-
ten if the reader desires; and so adyenture follows
adventure, to be terminated only by the death of the
author. It is thus obvious that the romancers and
story-tellers had no clearly defined conception of what
a novel should be as an independent literary species.
They took as their model the epic, not the well-
ordered epic of Homer or Vergil, but the prose epic
as perverted by the rhetoricians in the decadent period
of Greek art.*
Moreover, it has come to be demanded not only that
a novel must possess an orderly structure, but that it
shall be a careful study of some phase of real life, or
of conduct in a situation which, however impossible
in itself, the imagination is willing tQ accept for the
time being as possible. Accordingly, those who wish
to shun the word ' romance ' are accustomed to speak of
'^^ the novel of character and the novel of incident. In
the novel of character the interest is directed to the
portrayal of men and women, and the fable is a sub-
ordinate consideration; in the novel of incident the
interest is directed to what happens, and the characters
come more by the way. To the former class no one
1 See the Greek romftnce, ' Theagenee and Charidea/ translatedi
T. Underdown, 1577.
PROM ARTHURIAN ROMANCE TO RICHARDSON 27
would hesitate to assign ' The Mill on the Floss.' To
the same class might very properly be assigned 'The
House of the Seven Gables/ which, though Hawthorne
called it a romance, is, as he intended it, ' true to the
human heart.' To the latter class belong the Waverley
novels, and to mention an extreme example, 'The
Prisoner of Zenda.' Before Defoe, writers of fiction
did in some degree fulfil the conditions necessary to
a novel in the modem view ; but to concoct fantastic
adventures in high or low life, in accord neither with
the truth of fact, nor with the laws of a sane imagina-
tion, nor with the permanent motives that sway our
acts — that was the main business of the romancer
and the story-teller. From them to Defoe and Rich-
ardson the transition is analogous to that from the
first Elizabethan plays to Shakespeare and his con-
temporaries ; it is the passing from ,a struggling and
misdirected literary form to a well-defined species.
Nevertheless, a study of European fiction before
Defoe has intellectual, if not aesthetic, compensa-
tions, and to the student it is imperative. It gives
one a large historical perspective. From Arthurian
romance and the fabliau downward, in the eternal
swing between idealism and realism, there is a con-
tinuous growth — an accumulation of incidents, situa-
tions, characters, and experiments in structure, much
of which was a legacy to the eighteenth century.
8. Danid Defoe
'Bobinson Crusoe' (1719) is the earliest English
novel of incident. It was at once recognized in
England and throughout literary Europe as some<
^
28 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
thing different from the picaresque story to which it
is akin. In what does this difference consist ? The
situations and jests of Head and Chettle were in some
cases as old as Latin comedy; ^Eobinson Crusoe'
was an elaboration of a contemporary incident^ that
made a fascinating appeal to the imagination. The
writer of the rogue story did not expect to be
believed. The aim of Defoe was to invest his
narrative with a sense of reality; to this end he
made use of every device at his command to deceive
the reader. He took as a model for his narra-
tive the form that best produces the illusion of
truth — that of current memoirs with the accompani-
ment of a diary. He adroitly remarks in his preface
that he is only the editor of a private man's adventures,
and adds confidentially that he believes ' the thing to
be a just history of fact,' at least, that ^ there is no
appearance of fiction in it.' He begins his story very
modestly by briefly sketching the boyhood of a rogue
who runs away to sea — one of thousands — and thus
gradually prepares the reader for those experiences
which are to culminate in the shipwreck on the
Island of Despair. When he gets his Crusoe there,
he does not send him on a quest for exciting adven-
tures, but surprises us by a matter-of-fact account of
Crusoe's expedients for feeding and clothing himself
and making himself comfortable. He brings the
story home to the Englishmen of the middle-class,
for whom he principally writes, by telling them that
their condition in life is most conducive to happiness,
1 See Stealers account of Alexander Selkirk in the ' Englisb'
nan,* No. 20.
FROM ARTHURIAN ROMANCE TO RICHARDSON 29
and by giving expression to their peculiar tenets:
their trust in dreams^ their recognition of Providence in
the fortuitous concurrence of events^ and their dogmas
of conviction of sin, of repentance, and of conversion.
And finally, ^Eobinson Ci*usoe' has its message.
Undoubtedly its message is too apparent for the
highest art, but it is a worthy one: Be patient, be
industrious, be honest, and you will at last be re-
warded for your labor. ^Eobinson Crusoe' must
have seemed to the thousands of hard-laboring Eng-
lishmen a symbol of their own lives, their struggles,
their failures, and their final rest in a faith that there
will sometime be a settling of things justly in the
presence of Him *who will allow no shuffling.' To
put it briefly, Defoe humanized adventure.
* Robinson Crusoe' was the most immediately
popular fiction that had yet been written. At once
it became a part of the world's literature, and it
remains such to this day. Defoe took advantage of
its vogue to write many other adventures on land
and sea. Captain Singleton's tour across Africa is as
good reading as Stanley; and to the uninitiated, it
seems quite as true to fact. In ^Moll Flanders' is
gathered together a mass of material concerning the
dregs of Jjondon — thieves and courtesans — that
remains unequalled even among the modem natural-
ists. The ' Memoirs of a Cavalier,' once regarded as
an actual autobiography, so realistic is the treatment,
is the relation of the adventures of a cavalier in the
army of Gustavus Adolphus, and later at Marston
Moor and Kaseby. It is a masterly piece of historical
semblance, and it is thus significant. The ^Journal
of the Plague Year ' is so documentary in appearance
80 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
that public libraries still class it as a history, though
it is fictitious throughout. This^verisimilitude which
was attained through detail and the unadorned lan>
guage of everyday life is Defoe's great distinction.
Bunyan was in a measure his forerunner, and his
immediate successor was Swift, who, under the
guise of his delightful voyages among the Lillipu-
tians and Brobdingnagians (1726), ridiculed in sav-
age irony his king, ' his own dear country,' and * the
animal called man.' These three writers who usher
in a new era for the novel are the source to which
romance has returned again and again for instruction^
from Scott to Stevenson.
CHAPTER n
Thb Eighteenth-gentubt BEALiaxs
1. Samuel Richardson
In 1740 Samuel Bichardson, then a well-to-do Lon-
don printer, fifty years old, published anonymously the
first part of * Pamela ; or, Virtue Rewarded.' It is a
story of a waiting-maid, who, by her prudent conduct,
gains a wild young gentleman for a husband, and re-
forms him. Richardson was hardly satisfied with his
hurriedly written ' Pamela.' It was structurally weak ;
and its morality was questionable. He now read Addi-
son, and thus indirectly Aristotle, on the principles of
dramatic art, and produced the 'History of Clarissa
Harlowe' (1747-48). Clarissa, when in imminent
danger of being forced by her father and brother to
marry a man whom she hates, places herself under the
protection of Mr. Robert Lovelace, by whom she is
hurried away from Harlowe Place, taken to London,
and lodged in the house of a Mrs. Sinclair. She flees
from her seducer, is found, brought back, and drugged.
Again fleeing, she is maliciously arrested for debt, and
imprisoned. At length she dies broken-hearted in a re-
spectable London lodging. Lovelace expiates his crime
on the field of honor. This second novel of Richard-
son's, which is one of the masterpieces of English
fiction, was not wholly satisfactory to his friends.
Lovelace had been made too attractive, and women
81
32 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
fell in loye with him. It was not quite clear why he
should not have been reclaimed, as was the libertine
Mr. B in ' Pamela.' Richardson saw no way out of
these criticisms, although he believed them to be un-
just, except by writing another novel in which he should
embody his ideal of a perfect gentleman. In special
preparation for this undertaking, he probably read the
'Cyropaedia' of Xenophon. * Sir Charles Grandison'
was published in 1753. Harriet Byron — an orphan
of rank, very tender and sensitive — is living with her
uncle and aunt in Northamptonshire. Her provincial
lovers are of course numerous; and of course she
politely but firmly rejects them all. She is taken to
London by her cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Reeves, on a two
months' visit. From a masquerade in the Haymarket,
she is carried off by Sir Hargrave Pollexfen. On
Hounslow heath, Sir Hargrave's chariot and six runs
counter to the chariot and six of Sir Charles Grandi-
son ; and Miss Byron throws herself into the arms of
her deliverer. There are obstacles in the way to the
immediate union of Sir Charles and Miss Byron. For
should the marriage take place at once, it is certain
half a score of women would break their hearts ; and
a very perplexing problem is, what shall be done with
Clementina, a beautiful and passionate Italian to
whom Sir Charles is provisionally engaged. But the
gentle 'condescending reasonings' of the perfect hero
persuade Clementina to marry some one else and not
ruin the happiness of Miss Byron.
These three novels are mostly in letter form and
of ample extent. As originally published, 'Pamela'
filled four duodecimo volumes ; ' Clarissa,' seven; and
* Orandison,' seven. In the first of them — wMch a
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS S3
»
contemporary French translator spoke of as a petit
ouvrage^ — there are, according to the author's own
lists, forty-two characters ; in the second, thirty-eight •,
and in the third, counting the Italians,' whom Eich-
ardson by an exquisite blunder placed outside the
human pale, there are fifty. Richardson felt, as others'
have since his time, that his novels were too long,
and he often apologized to his audience, telling them
how much he had pruned away, and reminding them
that the charm of the letter consists in the full utter-
ance of the heart while it is ^ agitated by hopes and
fears/ By thus letting his characters speak without
restraint, he brought the reader into their immediate
presence as friend and associate in their daily lifeA
His contemporaries talked and wrote about Pamela,
Clarissa, and Lovelace, as if they existed in flesh and
blood as really as Samuel Richardson himself. Lit-
erary pilgrims crossed the Channel, not only to pay
their respects to the humble printer at Korth End and
Parson's Green, but also to search out Harlowe Place
and the Grandison mansion. The first great imagi-
native success of the novelist was Defoe's, who made
fictitious adventure seem real; the second was Rich-
ardson's, who made equally real his men and women,
and the scenes in which he placed them. The one
thereby discovered the art of the novel of incident;
the other, the art of the novel of character.
^ Preface to French translation of ' Pamela/ by Prevost, 1741.
' ^ Richardson divided his characters into three classes : men,
women, and Italians. ^
'On the other hand, Tennyson is reported to have said of
' Clarissa Harlowe ' : ' I like those great still books,' and * I wish
there were a great novel in hundreds of volumes that I might go
on and on.^ — Affred Lord Tennyson, by his son, vol. ii. 372.
D
84 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
The content of Richardson's novels is quite differ*
ent from that of high romance. They contain no gor-
geous deeicriptions of palaces, no adyentures on sea or
land, no swimming of broad and angry streams, no
earthquakes, no enchanted castles. Their most sensa-
tional incident is an abduction. Richardson thus
brushed aside the paraphernalia of romance. His plot
is always slight, serving merely as a framework for a
minute study of the heart. For this work he had forty
) years of preparation. When a boy he wrote love letters
. for the country girls in an obscure village somewhere
in Derbyshire. When as a successful man of business
he took up his residence at Korth End, Hammer-
smith, he received into his house for protracted visits
ot. weeks and months, highly moral but rather senti-
mental young women, whom he called his ^adopted
children,' and who in turn addressed him as ^dear
papa.' When they go home or are visiting their
friends, he sends long letters to them, and they re-
spond in equally wire-drawn replies, scolding him and
threatening him with pretty curses because he will
not save Lovelace or marry Sir Charles Grandison
to Clementina. These self-conscious young women, to
whom he acts as a kind of father confessor, he sub-
jects to close scrutiny. He watches their every act
and guesses at its motive. Every movement of theirs,
every attitude, every trembling of the hand or scrap-
ing of the foot, every accent of a word spoken in lan-
guor or in fretfulness, every flush of the cheek, every
rising tear, every faint gurgling in the throat, has a
meaning to him ; and in heightened form he registers
: and interprets what he observes, in imaginary letters.
tn fiction, movements in thought and feeling — mere
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 36
flutterings of the heart — have taken the place of
adventure. A contemporary poetaster compressed the
obvious incidents of ' Grandison ' into a poem of a
hundred lines. Thus, as is at once evident, the novel
of character which Richardson wrote is psychological ;
it is a revealing of states of feeling in acts.
As a psychologist, Eichardson is loosely bound by
several threads with romance. Scud^ri had her formal
analysis of passion, which she received from medise-
val metaphysic through the romances of chivalry, and
which she in turn handed over to her successors.
What Eichardson did was to give this old love casu-
istry a real basis in real life. In this he was in part
anticipated by the French novelist and dramatist,
Pierre Garlet de Marivaux, whose 'Marianne' (1731-
41) is in plot and purpose much like * Pamela.' ^Por
both have a virtuous young woman in distress as the
central character, and both are an evolution of the
beUe dme, an imf olding and triumph of the stainless
spirit. There are of course many points of difference
between the two novels. Marivaux makes a much
larger use than Eichardson of the current incidents
of contemporary comedy; and love, as he conceived
it, is more like the gallantry of the earlier romancers.
Though there is very little evidence for the common
assertion that Eichardson modelled his first novel on
'Marianne,' Marivaux is nevertheless logically the link
between him and Scud^rL
There is also in Eichardson a lingering on of one
form of allegory — the concrete representation of the
virtues and the vices. Pamela in the first part of the,
story is Chastity, and afterward she degenerates into
Prudence. Her struggles against the assaults of a
DBVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
debauchee are a surviyal of purity in thg meshes of
lust; such, for example, as the disagreeable episode
of Una and San^oy, in *The Faery Queen.' Sir
Charles Grandisoir is an embodiment of what Spenser
meant by Magnificence — a virtue which is the per-
fection of all the rest and contains them all. He is
compassionate, humane, benevolent, kind to his fam-
ily and friends, truth-loving, steady in his^ principles,
modest, courageous, unreserved, prudent, expeditious
in business, manly, nobly sincere, amiable, artless,
and handsome. Of him. Miss Byron writes to Lady
G : * Do you think, my dear, that had he been the
first man, he would have been so complaisant to his
Eve as MUton makes Adam 9 . . , Ko ; it is my opin-
ion that your brother would have had gallantry enough
to his fallen spouse to have made him extremely re-
gret her lapse ; but that he would have done his oton
duty were it but for the sake of posterity, and left
it to the Almighty, if such had been his pleasure, to
have annihilated his first Eve, and given him a second.'
To the drama, the indebtedness of Richardson is also
considerable ; somewhat in the way of character, much
more in the way of plot and structure. After the
famous attack of Jeremy Collier on the immorality of
the English stage (1698), playwrights very generally
gave a new turn to comedy. The libertine, who in
Restoration comedy had quitted the stage in a blaze of
glory, was now reclaimed in the fifth act, and his
penitence was rewarded by the possession of the fair
Victoria. This is the denouement of ^ Pamela.' Com-
edy underwent further modifications, until it was turned
into melodrama; the repentance of the villain in the
fifth act was no longer accepted — he was hanged. This
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 37
is the denouement — only less violent — of ^Clarissa
Harlowe/ In other words, 'Pamela* is bourgeois
comedy; 'Clarissa Harlowe' is bourgeois tragedy.
Bevil, of Steele's ' Conscious Lovers/ in his Christian '
feeling against duels and his success in disarming his
adversary by his magnanimous conduct, is a rudimen-
tary Sir Charles Grandison. Indiana, in the same
comedy, is a slight sketch of a Clementina. Eichard-
son seems also to have derived from the drama a time
limit. His ideal is that the occurrences of any one
day shall be related on that day. Moreover, although
'Clarissa Harlowe' consists of seven volumes, he is
careful to compress the narrative of all the events
within the term of one year. This is without doubt
a conscious extension of the dramatist's one day to
a fixed period more suitable to the novel. Kichardson
often arranges and conducts his dialogue precisely as
if he were writing a play for the closet. 'Clarissa
Harlowe' is largely made up of dramatic dialogue
within the letters. Indeed, when speaking critically
of this novel, Eichardson calls it a Dramatic Narra-
tive. One should, however, be on his guard against
overestimating this indebtedness. Eichardson wrote
with little plan ; letter grew out of letter naturally ;
the drama in many ways gave mere direction to his
narrative. To. his genius alone he owed it that out of
the wrecks of a decaying literary form he could con-
struct a 'Clarissa Harlowe,' in which event after event,
moves forward to the catastrophe with the inevita-
bleness of an ' CBdipus ' or of a ' Hamlet.'
Eichardson declared over and over again, in his
novels, his prefaces, and his postscripts, that the
underly ing motive of all his work was moral and re-
88 DBVBLOPMBNT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
ligious instruction. In an age (to paraphrase Eichard-
son's own words) when scepticism and infidelity were
openly avowed and propagated from the press^ when
public and domestic morality was blotted from the
catalogue of Christian virtues, and even the clergy ,
had become a body of interested men, he thought it
his duty to teach the Christian tenets as he under-
stood them. His sinners who put off repentance to
the last moment, die ^in dreadful agonies.' Pamela
is protected and rewarded by that Providence which
g^uards innocence. The rake who becomes her husband
is reformed by the daily sight of the Christian virtues.
Clarissa escaping the pollution of her earthly environ-
ment becomes as one ^ensky'd and sainted'; and the
novel of which she is the heroine is intended as a
drama of spiritual triumph, to be contrasted with the
fatalism of heathendom.
It was customary in Richardson's time to read his
novels aloud in the family circle. When some pa-
thetic passage was reached, the members of the family
would retire to separate apartments to weep ; and after
composing themselves, they would return to the fire-
side to hear the reading proceed. It was reported to
Bichardson that, on one of these occasions, ' an ami-
able little boy' sobbed as if his little sides would
burst, and resolved to mind his books that he might
be able to read ^Pamela' through without stopping.
That there might be something in the family novel
expressly for the children, Eichardson sometimes
stepped aside from his main narrative to tell them a
moral tale. Here are two companion pieces, clipped
of their decorations. There were once two little boys
and two little girls, who never told fibs, who were
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 89
never rude, noisy, miscliievous, nor quarrelsome ; who
always said their prayers before going to bed and as
soon as they arose. They grew up. The masters be-
came fine gentlemen ; and the misses became fine ladies
and housewives. There were once three naughty boys
who had a naughty sister. They were always quarrel-
ling and scratching, and would not say their prayers.
They, too, grew up. One of the boys was drowned
at sea, the second turned thief, and the third was
forced to beg his bread in a far country. And the
naughty girl fell from a tree and broke her arm, and
died of fever.
Not only did Bichardson aim to teach men and
women, boys and girls, that righteousness will bel
rewarded and sin punished either here or hereafter
(with an emphasis everywhere except in the character
of Clarissa Harlowe on the here rather than on the
hereafter), but he sought to arouse discussion on
special cases of conduct. In this he was making a
new and skilful use of the disquisitions of the moral
romancers, of which Lyly was the Elizabethan type.
The questions his characters are made to propose to
themselves and answer are such as these: Is first
love first folly ? What is the distinction between
love and liking? Can a man be in love with two
women at the same time ? At what age ought one to
marry ? How should a young woman conduct herself
when asked in marriage ? How should a perfect gen-
tleman behave when she has accepted him ? Should
he kiss her hand once or twice ? Is fear on the parti
of a woman necessary to true love ? Should mothers
suckle their children ? How far should a wife's wor-
ship of her husband interfere with the worship of
40 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
God? How often, to be in good form, should we
attend cliurcli ? Should we go to masquerades ? How
early in life ought we to make our wills ? When is a
duel justifiable? Should we dock the tails of our
horses ? etc. Questions of this kind in the form of
' beautiful and edifying ' maxims, collected from his
novels and alphabetically arranged, Eichardson pub- **
lished in a duodecimo volume of four hundred pages —
'the pith and marrow' of his teaching. Trivial and
overf ormal and undignified as the moral code of Eich-
ardson may now appear, it excited popular interest
throughout Europe; and that its influence was in
general for good, we have the authority of many,
among whom are Dr. Johnson and Goethe. His friends
and admirers poured letters in upon him, concurring
and disagreeing with him. They called him a ' divine
man,' and felt that he was teaching his generation
'how to live and how to die' more effectively and
more eloquently than Wesley and Whitefield.
Among English writers, only Dickens has received
from his contemporaries the praise Eichardson re>
ceived from his. In his grotto at North End, friends
came to hear him read from his novels as they were
making, or to kiss his inkhom. A Mr. Edwards,
author of ' Canons of Criticism,' wrote to Eichardson,
' I have read, and as long as I have eyes will read, all
your three most excellent pieces at least once a year.'
Two years later the critic died. Young, author of
'Night Thoughts,' wrote, 'As I look upon you as
an instrument of Providence, I likewise look upon
you as a sure heir of a double immortality ; when our
language fails, one, indeed, may cease ; but the failure
of the Heavens and the Earth will put no period to the
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 41
other.' This popularity was not confined to England.
Diderot may be regarded as handing down the decision
of Provost, d'Alembert, Eousseau, and literary France,
when he placed Eichardson's novels on the shelf with
Moses, Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles. From Ger-
many, Mrs. Klopstock, wife of the author of the
'Messiah,' sent a letter in this strain after the
publication of 'Grandison': * Having finished your
"Clarissa" (oh! the heavenly book!), I would have
pray'd you to write the history of a manly Clarissa,
but I had not courage enough at that time. . . . You
have since written the manly Clarissa without my
prayer; oh, you have done it, to the great joy and
thanks of all your happy readers! Now you can
write no more, you must write the history of an
Angel.' When his friends ventured to criticise him,
this sentence from the Dutch translator of * Clarissa '
indicates the tone : ' I read [your works] with a search-
ing eye, yet not finding any blemishes, but meeting
one or two little bright clouds, which, more accurately
viewed perhaps, are a collection of shining stars.'
This extravagant praise was not insincere, nor was
it misplaced. Only the intellect had been addresse^
by Dry den. Pope, and Swift. Richardson discovered \
anew the heart. The rise of the humble printer hady
been sudden and unexpected. Unlearned, he dis-
covered what for a quarter of a century Europe had
been looking for, not knowing precisely what it
wanted, a form of literature that should adequately \ }
present its life as it was, united with an ideal of life
as it ought to be.
Richardson added to fiction four full-length por-
traits: the libertine of hard intellectual polish, the
\
42 DBVBLOPMENT OF THE BNGLISH NOVEL
immaculate gentleman, the chaste woman, and the
Protestant martyr. To him, above all others, the world
is indebted for the novel of letters. He founded a
school which did not become extinct in England till
the publication of 'Jane Eyre.' His influence was at
once felt on the literature of the Continent ; his novels
as a whole or in part were translated into French,
Italian, German, and Dutch ; and 'Pamela' was drama-
tized by Voltaire and by Goldoni. His imitators in
Erance and Germany may be counted by scores, and the
tremendous latent force which lay hidden in his emo-
tionalism, when cut loose from moral and religious
restraint, was made manifest in Kousseau.
2. Henry Fielding
We are not likely to overestimate the historical
position of Eichardson ; we are more likely to under-
estimate it. Moreover, in the logical sequence of
minor incident, ' Clarissa Harlowe ' has been excelled
only by the maturest work of George Eliot. And yet
the weaknesses and shortcomings of Eichardson are
apparent, and were apparent in his own time. His
ethical system was based upon no wide observation or
. sound philosophy; it was the code of a Protestant
/ casuist. He was a sentimentalist, creating pathetic
scenes for their own sake and degrading tears and
' hysterics into a manner. His language was not free
from the affectations of the romancers ; even his
friends dared tell him with caution and circumlocu-
tion that he was fond of the nursery phrase. He was
unacquainted, as he said himself, with the high life
he pretended to describe. Never was there a better
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 48
opportunity for the ridicule of a Geryantes. And
England had a Cervantes fully equipped. Though he
could not hope to carry with him the great body of
Puritan England, he was sure of finding readers and
applauders among the educated and among those in
whom lived on the spirit of the Cavaliers. When
Bichardson published 'Pamela/ Henry Fielding was
in the strong prime of manhood. He had been edu-
cated at Eton and had studied law at Leyden. He
was gaining a familiarity with the Greek and Latin
poets, historians, and critics that is very disheartening
to the modem student. He had absorbed the spirit of
the great European humorists 'who laughed satire
into the world/ — Aristophanes, Lucian, Cervantes,
Eabelais, Shakespeare, Moli^re, Swift, and Lesage.
In the long line, only Chaucer is missing. His comedies
are evidence that he had observed life closely, in
Somersetshire and more especially in the town, in the
region of the Haymarket and Covent Garden. His
experience, probably owing to his own improvidence,
had been hard; and to him the talk about the reward
of the innocent in this life must have appeared amus-
ing. As a playwright he had attacked the rant and
the sentimentalism of the contemporary drama, and
had extended his satire, with the direct thrust of
an Aristophanes, against the political methods and
wholesale bribery of Walpole and his agents. To
ridicule Eichardson was simply to turn in another
direction shafts that he had already learned to handle. .
'Joseph Andrews' was published in 1742. Field- ,,
ing began the novel with the intention of writing a l
parody on 'Pamela.' The ridicule, boisterous and I
recklessly outspokeni made Biohardson wince. His
44 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
taming Richardson's Mr. B into Squire Booby, and
his patting into the month of Parson Adams a public
rebuke of Pamela and her husband for laughing in
church, were happy strokes. As Fielding went on
with his writing, the occasion of his story slipped
from his memory, and he revealed his inner self, his
high breeding, his fidelity, and his kindness of heart.
He no sooner created Parson Adams than he fell in
love with him, as all the world has done since.
In form ' Joseph Andrews ' is a series of adventures
in high and low life, divided into books having mock-
heroic introductions, and diversified by episodes. It
has its prototype in the burlesque adventures by Cer-
vantes and Scarron and in the picaresque novel as re-
fined by Lesage in * GU Bias ' (1716-35). In bring-
ing his adventures to a close, Fielding burlesqued a
favorite type of the ancient drama — that of recogni-
tion and revolution. He marshals his leading char-
acters at Booby Hall, where in the presence of the
Boobys Joseph unbuttons his coat and displays on
his left breast * as fine a strawberry as ever grew in a
garden.' The mystery of his hero's parentage, which
Fielding has long been juggling with, as if he were
writing another * (Edipus the King,' is out ; and there
is no longer an impediment to the marriage of Joseph
and Fanny. As the final title for his production
Fielding hit upon the term ^ comic epic, ' He had in
mind the lost * Margites ' of Homer, which bore, Aris-
totle says, the same relation to Attic comedy as the
' Iliad ' bore to Attic tragedy.^ The ' Margites ' was a
dramatic epic, from which, according to Aristotle,
» Aristotle's * Poetics,' iv. 9.
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 45
comedy was to detach itself, rielding reversed the \
process, inyesting comedy with epic proportions, and \
as more suitable to modem society, writing in prose .'
instead of verse.
* Joseph Andrews ' was followed by * Jonathan Wild '
(1743), in which Fielding maintains the thesis that
force, fraud, and heartlessness — qualities which are
commonly regarded as the peculiar endowments of the
successful housebreaker and highwayman — are like-
wise characteristics of Alexander and Caesar and of
great men in all ages, and particularly of eighteenth-
century England. It is more ideal in its motive than
was usual with Fielding. Its logical consequence was
Smollett's ' Count Fathom.'
< Tom Jones ' was published in 1749. It stands for
the fulness of Fielding's art and manhood. Into it
Fielding compressed his richest observations on life
and his ripest thought; and expended in its compo-
sition * some thousands of hours.' ' Tom Jones ' is the
consummation of his earlier plan of transforming
comedy into the comic epic. Fielding still writes with
his eye upon Aristotle and the Greek drama. He
keeps from the reader the secret of Jones's parentt^e,
which he manages with greater artistic effect than
the similar secret in 'Joseph Andrews.' It becomes a
directing force on the course of events, and an element
of interest to the reader. The discovery, when it
comes, is not a fantastic surprise operated by the
machinery of gypsies and the exchange of children in
the cradle ; the reader has been looking forward to it,
for he has been prepared for it The scenes are still
constructed as in comedy. As we read on, it is as if
we were assisting at the representation of a score of
46 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
oomedies^ parallel and successive ; sbme pathetic, some
burlesque, others possessing the gay wit of Vanbrugh
and Congreve — all of which, after a skilfully manipu-
lated revolution of circumstances, are united in a
brilliant conclusion. Instead of being burdened, as
were the earlier epic romancers, with a number of
narratives to be gathered up in the last chapters,
Fielding in the main becomes his own story-teller
throughout. Character is unfolded, and momentum is
given to his plot by direct, not reported, conversations.
All devices to account for his subject-matter, such as
bundles of letters, fragmentary or rat-eaten manu-
scripts, found by chance, or given to the writer in
keeping, are brushed aside as cheap and silly. Fielding
throws off the mask of anonymity, steps out boldly,
and asks us to accept his omniscience and omni-
presence.
Before Fielding the localization of scene did not
greatly trouble the story-teller or his reader. Arcadia
would do. There were, however, some early attempts
at a real background. Aphra Behn gave a smattering
of local color to her 'Oroonoko.' The scenes of
Pamela's struggles and marriage bliss are on her lord's
estates in Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire. Vague as
are these outlines, their comparative definiteness was
one of the delights of Eichardson's first novel, and
literary pilgrims wandered about in search of the pond
where Pamela meditated suicide. The adventures of
Master Joseph Andrews and Mr. Abraham Adams took
place in England, somewhere in the west, at inns un-
named. In 'Tom Jones,' Fielding more carefully
considers the problem of geography, and in part works
it out He describes the country seat of Squire Alt
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTUKY REALISTS 47
worthy as viewed from the terrace in early morning ;
the Gk)thic mansion and the 'ruined abbey grown oyer
with ivy ' ; the lake at the foot of the hill from which
issues the river, winding itself through woods and
meadows until it empties into the sea. Over this wide
prospect, unfolding it in detail after detail, rises the
sun. One may easily follow Jones in his journey
thence through Gloucester, Upton, Stratford, Dunstable,
and St. Albans to Highgate, and thence by Oray's Inn
Boad to the Bull and Gate Inn in Holborn, and on
to his lodgings in Bond Street. Fielding did rather
more than give events a local habitation. Though he
never professed any love for nature beyond a passion
for the sea, never quite understanding Thomson, yet it
is evident that he had been impressed and moved to
rapture by the loveliness of the western downs. ' At
Esher, at Stowe, at Wilton, at Estbury, and at Prior's
Park,' he makes one of his characters say, ' days are
too short for the ravished imagination.' It is, of
course, too early for a minute observation of nature :
that has come in its completeness only with the ad-
vance of science; but in his moon-lit hilk, his parks
and avenues of elms and beeches, and his clouds
rolling up in * variegated mansions,' Fielding, in a
tentative way, indicated the place that nature might
occupy in the novel of the future.
A characteristic of ' Joseph Andrews,' Fielding de-
velops more carefully in ^Tom Jones,' and at more
regular intervals, — those initial chapters, in which ho
chats of his art, his purpose, and his fame. These
essays were passed over by the eighteenth-century
French translators of Fielding (so far as I am
acquainted with them), who could not appreciate the
48 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
axt of Fielding any more than that of Shakespeare.
Some recent English novelists^ too^ who have learned
the technique of their art from the French, find it
against their literary conscience to indulge in the ex-
cursus; and, as Mr. Howells and Mr. James, they
publish in little books by themselves treatises on the
art of fiction, keeping silent on the pleasing question
of fame. But in Fielding^s large conception of a
novel, these introductory chapters form a distinctive
part; they are the chorus of the drama interpreting
the meaning of the passing incidents, or they are
monologues and asides of the author turned player
when he wishes to take the audience into his con-
fidence.
It was in these introductory chapters and other
digressions that Fielding found a place for that poetry
which the Euphuists tried to incorporate into fiction.
I have in mind that invocation prefixed to the thir-
teenth book of ' Tom Jones,' where Fielding runs so
delightfully from the serious to the gay and back
again from the gay to the serious; and the passage
in the second chapter of the third book — the high-
water mark of restrained eloquence — where he
alludes to his wife, then dead some years : —
Reader, perhaps thou hast seen the statue of the Ventts de
Medicis. Perhaps, too, thou hast seen the gallery of beauties
at Hampton Court. Thou mayest remember each bright
Churchill of the galaxy, and all the toasts of the Kit-cat. Or,
if their reign was before thy times, at least thou hast seen their
daughters, the no less dazzling beauties of the present age;
whose names, should we here insert, we apprehend they would
fill the whole volume. Now, if thou hast seen all these, be not
afraid of the rude answer which Lord Kochester once gave to
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 49
A man who had seen many things. No. If thou hast seen all
these without knowing what beauty is, thou hast no eyes ; if
without feeling its power, thou hast no heart. Yet is it possible,
my friend, that thou mayest have seen all these without being
able to form an exact idea of Sopliia ; for she did not exactly
resemble any of them. She was most like the picture of Lady
Ranelagh, and I hare heard more still to the famous Duchess
of Mazarine ; but most of all she resembled one whose image
never can depart from my breast. . . .
In deference to those who believe in the ' armoral '
in art, it would be a^eeable to omit any special dis-
quisition on the ethics of the novelist. This course is
impossible. Dealing as it must with real men and
women in the real relations of life, the novel of
character could at no period have appeared as a new
form of literature without its ethics ; but coming into
life as it did in the middle of the eighteenth century,
it was inevitable that it should come laden with an
obvious moral. The essay and the drama from which
it drew so much had been moralized. On the other
hand, the clergy had become derelict in their duty;
hence the schism in the Church of England led by
Wesley. Eichardson stepped forward to give the
people examples of right conduct and to add a moral
code. Fielding followed him, first to ridicule him,
with the license of Harlequin, and then to criticise
him in sincerity, with 'all the wit and humor of
which he was master.' In the moral teaching of
Addison and Bichardson the emphasis was placed
upon mere conduct, and motives so far as they were
appealed to were prudential. Do right, that you may^
prosper in this world and hope for felicity in the
next. That is the general impression gained from
their writings. As worked out in Bichardson's first
50 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
novel, in which Pamela triumphant sits by the sidt
of her would-be betrayer, now her adored and adoring
husband, in a coach behind <the dappled Flanders
mares/ the doctrine of moral expediency was pushed
to the ludicrous. Fielding appealed to higher motives
for right conduct, and in doing so never quite forgot
Bichardson. In the dedication to ^Tom Jones/
written after the novel was completed, he says, 'I
have shown that no acquisitions of guilt can com-
pensate 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 introduces
'^ / into our bosoms.' Virtue, then, is its own reward in
j the peace that ensues, and vice carries, with the con-
^ sequential disturbed conscience, its own punishment
This is a complete repudiation of Itichardson, if
; not of Addison ; the point of view has shifted from
I the objective to the subjective, from doing to being,
and the shifting means war against formalism. In
withering irony Fielding illustrates his point in the
^ characters of Mr. Square and Mr. Thwackum ; the one
tests every act by a vague formula of the Deists, 'the
unalterable rule of right and the eternal fitness of
things'; the other by the statutory mandates of re-
ligion, — and 'by religion he means the Christian
religion ; and not only the Christian religion, but the
Protestant religion; and not only the Protestant re-
ligion, but the Church of England.' Both philoso-
pher and theologian in their easy assurance have left
out of their reckoning 'the natural goodness of the
I heart.' And to confound and to dismay them and all
Mother casuists, Fielding leads into their presence Mr.
THB EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 61
Tom JoneS; generous, chiyalrous, and sof t-heaxted, but
lamentably weak in some phases of his conduct, and
asks, what will you do with him ? This eighteenth-
century gentleman, as Fielding himself well knew, can .
hardly be defended. Emotions and impulses cannot
be relied upon as infallible guides in conduct; at
times it is necessary to listen to a sterner and less
pleasing voice, and to that voice Tom Jones was deaf.
But we may surely mark Fielding's protest against
the letter of the law, and point to the fact that with
<Tom Jones' the novel not only definitely assumes
a new form, but a new ethics much more respectable
than that founded upon utilitarianism and formulated
in ' beautiful and edifying maxims.'
In 'Tom Jones' character and incident are brought}
into equilibrium. In 'Joseph Andrews' the main/
thing with Fielding was burlesque adventure ; for its
sake characters were sketched, and with the result
that incident and character were often incongruous.
In 1749 Fielding would not have thrown a Parson
Adams among the swine or dipped him in a tub of
water. ' Tom Jones ' has its burlesque, — some of the
finest examples in our language, — but as in that
famous battle in the village churchyard it in no way
militates against the conservation of character. To
many scenes of the novel the imagination undoubt-
edly does not give its assent; such, for example, is
the scene where Mr. Allworthy, suffering from a severe
cold, imagines that he is going to die, and takes leave
of his friends and servants in eloquent phrases remem-
bered from the Stoics. The novelist has of course to
adapt character to incident and incident to character,
and though he be « Fielding, his success will not b«
52 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
filiform. In ' Tom Jones ' Fielding for the most part
concealed his art, and approached the highest ideal
of a noyel, in which the plot takes its coloring from
the characters themselves, as if both plot and char-
acters were of simultaneous birth in the imagina-
tion.
As a novel of character, ^Tom Jones' belongs to
that class of novels which Walter Bagehot called
ubiquitous, the aim of which is to present by a
multitude of characters a complete picture of human
life. Fielding begins his character building in Somer-
setshire with Squire Allworthy, Squire Western, Tom
Jones, young Blifil, Sophia, a philosopher, a clergy-
man, a doctor, a housekeeper, and a gamekeeper. He
starts Jones on a journey to London, introducing
chance acquaintances by the way. In more hurried
journeys Jones is followed by Sophia and Allworthy
and Western. When Fieldii^ gets them to London,
he brings them into cotxtrast with the more highly
seasoned men and women of the town, as represented
by Lord Fellamar and Lady Bellaston. The immense
canvas, when filled, contains forty figures.
Now, in what respects are Fielding's characters
nearer life than those in the fiction before him?
And how far are they still unreal? Cervantes and
Lesage had aimed at types ..rather than i ndividuals ;
so, too, had Moli^re ; so, too, to some extent had the
Eestoration dramatists, their immediate successors,
and Steele and Addison. The characters of the Eng-
lish dramatists and essayists wear such placards as
Vainlove, Fondlewife, Maskwell, Lady Touchwood,
Lord Foppington, Ned Softly, Will Honeycomb.
These figures are not all types ; they are frequently
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BEALISTS 68
jmaginary beings, who affect some humor or passioo
to which they are supposed to be naturally inclined.
Here is Fielding's starting-point in character building.
All his characters are constructed on a further de-
velopment of the art of the comic dramatist. QSe
would illustrate by means of a large number of men
and women taken from various spheres in life, the
manifestations of affectation as darkened by avarice,
self-interest, deceit, or heartlessness, and as softened
by justice, mercy, courtesy, or generosity?] The danger
in working upon such a theory is that the outcome
will not be, as was intended, individuals, but after
all, types, or worse still, abstractions. Fielding's wide
and careful observation of real life was his great
corrective; and yet that Fielding quite succeeded in
his purpose is probably not true. Allworthy is gener-
osity hardly moulded into a type; young Blifil is
black deceit hardly moulded into a type ; and in the
character of Tom Jones himself. Fielding is laboring
a little too hard to maintain a psychological impos-
sibility; for goodness of heart and failure in execution
do not for long go hand in hand. There is also a
good deal in Fielding that was already conventional.
His Mrs. Towwouse, Lady Booby, and Mrs. Slipslop
belong to the comic drama rather than to the novel.
Trusting implicitly in Cervantes, Fielding seemed to
think there is some causal connection between nobility
and grotesque manners. No doubt every country has
its Don Quixotes ; England had them in the eighteenth
century, in the elder Lyttelton and in Ralph Allen,
the postmaster at Bath. Still, in making exceptional
and Quixotic characters like these representative of
the better side of human nature, Fielding lent to his
i
54 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
portrait of eighteenth-century manners a want of sym-
metry and harmony. His best character is Squire
Western. Addison had sketched the Tory fox-hunter,
clothing him in the characteristics of the class,
'that he might give his readers an image of these
rural statesmen.' Squire Western has all the dis-
tinguishing marks of Addison's type, and beyond
this, he is individualized. He is a Somerset squire,
such as Fielding must have known, speaking a
Southern dialect ; he is humanized by a love for his
daughter, 'whom next to his hounds and his horses
he esteems above all the world.' Of course, all his
traits are heightened for comic effect. One cannot
quite reach the actual by the path of ridicule. At
least, after * Tom Jones ' there remained for the novel-
ist other points of view.
* Agaeliji,' Fielding's last novel, appeared in 1761,
and differs greatly in many ways from all the rest.
It was a movement toward the specific in art and
eonsequently toward realism. Fielding specializes
his satire, selecting as his point of attack the glorioua
constitution of England. Many of the laws, made to
prevent crime, have their loopholes through which
the criminal ei^capes ; others of them are unjust, and
entail suffering on the innocent. Furthermore, the
agents of the law are incompetent. The court pre-
sided over by Mr. Thrasher, who cannot read the
laws he must interpret and administer, is a scene of
open bribery and outrageous injustice. The house
of Mr. Bondman the bailiff is a place for fleecing the
wretched. Kewgate, through the laxity of its disci-
pline, instead of being a prison for the punishment
of crime or the reformation of the criminal^ has been
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 55
tamed into a place of diversion, riot, and sensuality.
Every administrator of the law lias his price, whicli
is gauged according to the pocket of the malefactor.
Kow Fielding feels the absurdity of all this, and
lights up these scenes with his most brilliant mock-
ery; but his satire has a new intensity. It is not
precisely the Fielding who wrote *Tom Jones' that
is speaking ; it is Fielding the Bow street justice who
had delivered an impressive charge to the Westmin-
ster grand jury. The younger Fielding had seen one
side of vice, its gayety and its flaunts ; he now sees
the other side, its loathsomeness and its enervation.
As in ^Tom Jones,' he brings before the imagination
the masquerade, with its glaring lights and its rich and
fantastic costumes, but for a new purpose — to place
his finger on the libertinage beneath. In Yauxhall
gardens, poor Amelia, enraptured 'by the delicious
sweetness of the place and the enchanting charms of
the music, fancies herself in those delicious mansions
we hope to enjoy hereafter,' only in a moment to be
disillusioned by the profanity and jests of a pair of
sparks who rudely address her. In the severe realism
of scenes of this kind, in his denunciation of duels
and gaming, and in his dealing with all moral ques-
tions, Fielding has turned Puritan. /
As a natural result of this new standpoint, the
characters are brought nearer to real life than in
*Tom Jones.' Sophia had been ushered upon the
stage in a cloud of eloquence and in a shower of
poetic fragments from Suckling and Dr. Donne.
Amelia is the plain, patient, forgiving housewife with
a visible scar on her nose. To his harlots and liber-
tines; Fielding now adds those revolting touches which
66 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
aiccompany the latter end of vice — obesity and dis-
ease and the disfigured face.
Indeed, the main situation in 'Amelia' is the favor-
ite one of the modem realist. * Joseph Andrews' and
'Tom Jones' had been brought to a close, after the
analogy of romantic comedy, by a marriage. The last
novel of Fielding's begins where they end, and only
by way of retrospect are we told of the courtship and
elopement of Booth and Amelia. It is the story of
the hard lot of a woman of high breeding who has
married for love a poor lieutenant. Owing to the
husband's passion for gambling, and the wrongs of
others, they are thrown upon London with a lieu-
tenant's half-pay as their only income. Its scenes,
described in stem and hard reality, are those of the
miserable lodging-house, the sponging-house, the pawn-
shop, Newgate, and the homes of the disreputable
L()ndon aristocracy. The most memorable are : ' Booth
lying along on the floor, and his little things crawling
and playing about him,' to be interrupted by the
bailiffs ; and Amelia in the kitchen and the children
playing about her, as she is preparing the favorite
dishes of a husband who will soon return to tell her
that he cannot sup with her to-night. The wretched
family sink lower and lower into poverty and squalor ;
the last guinea and the jewels and dresses of Amelia
have gone to pay gambling debts, and Booth is con-
fined to the bailiff's house, when they are rescued by
the good Dr. Harrison, the deus ex machindj of the
drama, and restored to their rightful fortune; and
all who have wronged them are duly punished. Had
Fielding worked out his situation to its logical con-
clusion; had he transported Booth to the West Indies ; '
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 57
had lie turned Amelia with her children into the street,
or given her over as mistress to Colonel James — all
of which he suggests in the course of his story, — he
would have anticipated the relentless d&xicle of natu-
ralism. The infinite tenderness of Fielding, soon to
bid a most pathetic farewell to his children and then
to life, was mightier than the logic of art.
3. The Novd versus the Drama
With the publication of ^Clarissa Harlowe' and
^Tom Jones,' the novel has found its art and fit
subject-matter. They are, broadly speaking, realistic
novels, for their aim is to represent the outer and the
inner life somewhat as they are. The novel as Rich-
ardson left it was a sober dissection of the heart.
With Fielding, it was perhaps a no less serious effort,
though its purpose was clouded by extravagant wit
and humor. Richardson was reaching the inner life
through sentimentalism ; Fielding through our vices
and follies. . Because of their aim at the truth to
outer fact and appearance, ^Tom Jones' and ^Clarissa*
Hariewn' are novels of manners. They are likewise
our first dramatic novels, for they show that the
novel, as well as the drama, can deal with the great
passions ; and in their direct presentation of conversa-
tion and in the management of plot, they are dramatic.
As dramatic novels, they are novels of character;
and as such they have in part, though not wholly,
distinct antecedents. Richardson is in the line of the
romances, the Arthurian cycle, 'Amadis de Gaula,'
^ClAie,' and ^Marianne'; Fielding is in the line of
the fabliau, the picaresque novel, and the burlesque
58 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
adyentore. Both gathered into their conception of a
novel elements from other sources. The character-
sketch came to them fully developed from Addison
and Steele. Fielding adopted the essayist's stand-
point of general in distinction from personal satire.
From the essayists, both Bichardson and Fielding had
to some extent ready constructed for them the scenes
most suitable for their actions, the playhouse, the
masquerade, and the squire's country seat. Both
turned to the drama and its ancient critic for sugges-
tions for plan, development, and denouement of their
plots. For comedy, Bichardson turned to Steele's
'Conscious Lovers' — a moral disquisition arranged
in dialogue ; and for tragedy, apparently to Otway's
'Orphan.' Fielding turned to the light, gay, and
burlesque comedy of Moli^re and Congreve. Ele-
ments so varied each in the heat of his imagination
welded into something quite new.
For doing this work in England, conditions were
most favorable. We have never drawn between liter-
ary forms the fixed lines of the ancients or of France
since Bacine. The drama of Shakespeare had some-
thing of the ubiquity of the novel ; it was founded
upon prose-fiction and chronicle history. Its scenes
were shifted from place to place; the period of its
action might extend over the time necessary for
infants to grow into youth ; and its dramatis peraanoB
might crowd the stage to its full physical capacity :
there councils were held, courts convened, mobs ad-
dressed, and battles fought. Its plot might consist
of two dramatic fables, each complete in itself, having
points of contact here and there and finally blended
in the fifth act; and full play was given to both sides
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 69
of life, the tragic and the comic. As the democratic
ideas of the Eeformation more and more prevailed in
English life in the 'seventeenth and eighteenth centu-
ries, the drama came under their influence ; and before
Bichardson wrote, it had become thoroughly bourgeois.
What interested an age which drove a king into exile
and whose fathers had beheaded another, was not the
crash of a royal house, nor the passions of kings
and princes, but the pathos of everyday life; and it
demanded of the playwright the familiar domestica
facta. Terror was banished from tragedy, and wit
and humor from comedy, and their places were taken
by long-drawn-out scenes of distress. As a conse-
quence, the drama lost its rapid movement, and soon
ceased to be at all. Dramatic representations con-- ,
tinued, but where they were not melodramas or imita-
tions of Eestoration comedy, they were, in their slow,
development of plot, their analysis, and their moraliz-
ing, either essays in dramatic form, or already sen-
timental novels, rather than tragedies or comedies.
The novelist was thus from one point of view but
continuing a process that had already begun.
Though the English drama and npvel have many
characteristics in common, there are differences which
mark the species. To the length of a play there are
fixed limits. The audience expects that a dramatic
action shall extend over not less than two and not
more than three hours. To the novel there is prac-
tically no time limit ; it may consist of one page or
of a thousand pages. Unless the dramatist takes
himself as a character, he can give his own views
of the world and of life only by his choice of sub-
ject and the tone of his treatment; he cannot speak
60 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
directly except in burlesque comedy. The novelist
may stop and talk about his characters. Have not
the excursions of Fielding their psychologic founda-
tion in the glee he felt at his enfranchisement from
the conventions of comedy? The environment of a
dramatic action is restricted ; the stage of one of the
largest Elizabethan theatres was only forty-three
feet wide and fifty-five feet deep. The novelist builds
his own stage ; it may be for only a small group of
characters, as in a tale of Hawthorne's ; it may be for
above three hundred characters, as in ^Pickwick.'
The dramatist can only suggest scenery ; the novelist
may hang his interior with the landscapes of Salvator
Bosa, as did Scott. A detailed study in moral decay
is well-nigh impossible in the drama ; for we have an
imaginative difficulty in circumscribing by the events
of a short evening the utter break-up of character,
which in real life is the work of a long period ; and
asides and monologues, however dexterously managed,
can be only a partial substitute for the novelist's full
disclosure of what is passing in head and heart.
These differences, however, are not fundamental, as
they are often asserted to be. The limitations of the
dnuna, genius, aided by great actors, has in a measure
overcome. By creating an illusion in the imagination
of the spectator, Shakespeare expands his stage to
hold an action of epic mi^itude ; by his clear pres-
entation of the significant moments in his hero's
career, he makes it possible for his audience to supply
details he himself is forced to suppress, and in a few
lines ha conjures up for them the splendor of an
Italian night. Does there exist a fundamental dis-
tinotion between the drama and the novel ? On thia
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 61 '
qaestion, Goethe and Bruneti&re have speculated to
essentially the same conclusion, which is only in gen-
eral true. Goethe says: 'In the novel it is chiefly
sentiments and events that are exhibited; in the
drama, it is characters and deeds.' ^ Note the antithe-
sis of events and deeds (Begeberiheiten und Thaten).
The hero of the serious drama, both among the Greeks
and the modems, is, with few exceptions, a character
of tremendous energy of will. He has some purpose
to accomplish: he would avenge the death of a kins-
man, or he would usurp a throne, and we watch him
to see in what manner he will proceed. However
much he may delay (and there is probably method in
his delay), the time comes when he squarely meets
events, placing the issue upon the prowess of his arm.
The drama is thus a duel between the individual and
opposing forces, a challenge to the utterance, and the
freedom of the individual we must not question down
to and including the moment he succeeds or falls.
The novel came into existence when Europe, chastened
by its hard experience and its experimental philoso-
phy, by Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke, was losing faith
in the ideal man who fashions his career as he wills,
when an audience (said Miss Sarah Fielding) sat un-
moved as Cato fell upon his sword, but wept to see
I>ryden's Dorax and Sebastian embrace after their
quarrel. And what does this mean? That the stand-
point from which life is viewed is no longer exactly
the same as it was in the glad Elizabethan age ; man
is no longer the master of his destiny; what he is
and what he becomes is determined by his environ-
1 * Wilhehn Meisten Lehrjahre,* Carlyle's translation, bk. v.
chtViL
82 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEl*
ment quite as much as by himself; pathos is in life
itself; and; if in death; certainly not in the voluntary
death of a Cato. The novel is an expression of the
philosophic and less inspiring view. In the novel
our attention is drawn to the force of events that
constrain our activity. The hero of the novel (though
we hardly have the right to call any character in the
novel a hero) is not so active as the dramatic one.
Hard circumstances hedge him in^ and press about
him as do the serpents about Laocodn. Upon his
dependencies our attention is concentrated. He may
be crushed as is Clarissa^ or through a turn of events
he may stand untrammelled once more as does Tom
Jones ; but in either case^ he himself is not the main
force that has had to do with his making or his un-
making; there are events which lie beyond his arm^
and which have a law or mode of their own. There
iS; it is true, a similar network closing in upon the
dramatic hero, but if he is freed; he frees himself; if
he is overwhelmed, it is the result of a course of
action he has deliberately chosen. This difference
between the novel and the drama is not precisely
fundamental ; like all others, it is rather one of degree
or of preponderating motive. The tragedies of Shake-
speare; notably 'Hamlet,' vacillate between the idea
of liberty and the idea of restraint. And George
Eliot built her novels on crises very like dramatic
moments. And yet our drama certainly fell into utter
decay in the eighteenth century because no writer
then living was able, or at least disposed, to recon-
struct it in accord with the prevailing view of life ; in
which there was an element, largely unconscious, of
vague determinism that only incidentally showed it*
THE EIGHTBBNTH-CBNTURY REALISTS 63
self in the noble spiritual freedom of the Elizabethan
age. And the novel then supplanted the drama be*
cause, in its large scope and style, it could easily
analyze minutely the interplay of event and character.
4. Tobias SmolleU
The first novels of Tobias Smollett appeared when
Kichardson and Fielding were doing their maturest
work. *Eoderick Random' (1748) immediately fol-
lows * Clarissa Harlowe,' and immediately precedes
^ Tom Jones.' * Peregrine Pickle ' (1751) falls between
' Tom Jones ' and * Amelia.' * The Adventures of Ferdi-
nand, Count Fathom ' was published in 1753. Smol-
lett's other novels belong to a later period. ^ The
Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves ' — a too patent
imitation of ' Don Quixote ' — was published in 1762,
and ^ Humphry Clinker ' in 1771.
Smollett and Fielding professed the same source of
inspiration — Spain. The Spanish picaresque stories
of AJeman, Cervantes, Quevedo, and others, and the
French offshoots of them by Sorel, Scarron, and Fure-
ti&re had all found their way into English. Begin-
ning with * The Fraternity of Vagabonds ' (1561) by
John Awdeley, there was a long line of English pica-
resque sketches and stories extending down to Defoe.
Fielding evidently read considerably in this fiction,
and Smollett evidently read all at his command,
whether Spanish, French, or English. More particu-
larly, both Smollett and Fielding informed the reader
that their models were Cervantes and Lesage. As aV^
result, Fielding and Smollett have much in common; \
a novel, as they conceiyed of it, is a union of intrigue /
64 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
and adventure. But in the disposition of their mat^
rial they were far apart. Fielding when at his best
grouped and arranged incidents for dramatic effect,
with his final chapter in view. Smollett^ too, brought
j his stories to a close in the manner of ^ Tom Jones/
I with a marriage and a description of the charms of
'the bride; yet there was no logic in this; it was
[merely a mechanical device for stopping somewhere.
i (^ Smollett's novels are strings of adventure and per-
, sonal histories, and it is not quite clear to the reader
} why they might not be shufi3.ed into any other succes-
'sion than the one they have assumed. A literary
{'form cannot exist without its art. If a fable may
; drift along at the pleasure of an author, with the
episode thrust in at will, then anybody can write a
novel. This inference was drawn by the contempo-
; raries of Smollett. Between 1750 and 1770 the press
* was burdened with slipshod adventures, the writers
i of which did not possess Smollett's picturesqueness
, and immense strength of style. The novel thus put
', into the hands of the mob ceased to be a serious lit-
jerary product; and, in consequence, its decline was
I rapid from what it was as left by Richardson and
^Fielding.
/^Fielding based his art as humorist and realist on
the commonplace observation that we are not what
we seem. His province as novelist was to remove
the mask of affectation, that we may be seen as we
really are. Except where his motive is purely lit-
'1 erary, as in * Jonathan Wild,' his principal characters*
^ are never ^ sordid and vicious ' ; his Trulliber and Blifil
1 come only by the way. Smollett, in his first novels,
^puts first ^the selfishness, envy, malice, 'and base in«
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 63
difference of mankind ' ; he does not strip hijf rogues
for they are stripped when introduced ; he at once ex-
poses to view ^ those parts of life where the humors
and passions are undisguised by affectation, ceremony,
or education.' The least varnished scenes in our fio-
tion are in ' Roderick Bandom ' : the flogging of Dr.
Syntax, the impressment of Eoderick, Dr. Macshane's
review of the sick on the quarter-deck of the Thwnr
deVy and the duel between Roderick and Midshipman
Grampley. It was the boast of Smollett that in draw-'
ingthem 'nature is appealed to in every particular.'
In 'Peregrine Pickle' and * Count Fathom,' he is
equally outspoken, but there his realism is somewhat
artificial ; he is writing to order for a public who find i
humor in the practical joke, or who would like to
see refurbished those scenes in Richardson between
Mr. B and Pamela. In his rufi&anism, and
his savage analysis of motive, Smollett intensifies,
enforces, and completes the reaction against Rich-
ardson.
Yet Smollett's realism is marked by the spot of
decay. All his first novels have one characteristic
of the fictions of Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Haywood, Tom
Brown, and numerous other early eighteenth-century
writers: he crowds his pages with well-known char
acters of his own time, usually for the purpose o
fierce satire. He is a Swift without Swift's clea
and wide vision. He ridicules Fielding for marrying
his 'cook-maid'; Akenside — a respectable poet and
scholar — is a mere ' index-hunter who holds the eel
of science by the tail'; Garrick is 'a parasite and
buffoon, whose hypocrisy is only equalled by his ava-
rice ' ; Ljrttelton is ' a dunce ' ; he insults Newcastle,
66 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Bute, and Pitt, and sneers at his king, and the ^ sweet
princes of the royal blood.' In making his characters
at will the mouthpiece of his venom, he takes no pains
to preserve their consistency; and frequently, under
the excitement of his ferocious hate, he forgets they
are there, and speaks out in his own name. This
kind of work, though done brilliantly and under the
inspiration of robust indignation, does not form a
I novel. The logical outcome was his own * History of
an Atom' and Charles Johnstone's 'Adventures of a
Guinea' — pamphlets and libels in extenso.
In the dibri8 of the novel thus wrecked by Smollett,
there are new scenes and characters. ^ Eoderick San-
dom' is our first novel of the sea. Defoe and the
romancers and the picaresque writers before him
transferred imaginary adventure to an imaginary
sea. It remained for Smollett to bring into the
novel the real sea, a real ship, a real voyage, and
the real English tars. As an example of Smollett's
realism, Lieutenant Bowling may be contrasted with
Crusoe: < He was a strong built man, somewhat bandy-
legged, with a neck like that of a bull, and a face
which (you might easily perceive) had withstood the
most obstinate assaults of the weather.' He has
forgotten the language of landsmen and speaks only
the ' seamen's phrase ' ; had the occasion occurred, he
would have fought and died at his post with the cheer-
fulness of a Grenville. The English sailor lingers
on in 'Peregrine Pickle' and 'Humphry Clinker.'
In the former appears Commodore Trunnion, Smol-
lett's most amusing seaman, who, retiring into the
country with Li^eutenant Hatchway and Tom Pipes,
toxns his house into a garrison; and, after nursing
THE EIGHTEENTH-CEKTUBT BEALISTS 67
his whims and superstitions for a period of yearg.
dies in a hiccough and a groan. Smolletfs land\
characters are as novel as his seamen ; his Scotchmen,
his Irishmen, Ms Welshmen, and his Jews, — drawn
at full length, as Lieutenant Lishmahago, or charac-
terized by a happy phrase, as the Scotch schoolmaster
who advertises to teach Englishmen the correct
pronunciation of the English language. They are.
caricature types, at once professional and national. I
As national types they are the first in English fiction.}
The author of * Humphry Clinker' is also th^
exponent of a new kind of humor. Written while
Smollett was dying at Leghorn, the novel is milder
in tone than the rest ; fierce satire has disappeare4k>
Though thrown together like his other novels, it is
most brilliant in conception. Matthew Bramble, a
bachelor well on in years, the master of Brambleton
Hall in Monmouthshire, is a sufferer from the gout
and many imaginary diseases. At the advice of his
physician. Dr. Lewis, he takes a circular tour through
England and Scotland for his health, visiting Bath,
London, Scarborough, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the
Western Highlands. He is accompanied by his
shrewish sister Tabitha Bramble, her dog Chowder,
her maid Winifred Jenkins, and his niece and nephew.
Miss Lydia Melford and Mr. Jeremiah MelforiL
Smollett's object is to excite continuous laughter by\
farcical situations. The novel thus announces th§J
broad comedy of Dickens, so different from the pure
comedy of Fielding, and best characterized by funny y
a word then just coming into use.
Smollett, however, is never merely funny. In this '
one instance he tells his story by means of letters
«%
68 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
from the various characters to their various friends,
in which the same scenes are described as viewed by
a%h7pochondriaC; a man of the world, a sentimental
v'^ung woman, an aged spinster seeking a husband,
f and a waiting-maid who has never before crossed the
Oi>^ Severn. Lydia thus writes of Eanelagh to her friend
^^ Laetitia : —
Banelagh looks like the enchanted palace of a genie, adorned
with the most exquisite performances of painting, carving, and
gilding, enlightened with a thousand golden lamps that emulate
the noonday sun ; crowded with the great, the rich, the gay, the
happy,. and the fair; glittering with cloth of gold and sUver,
lace, embroidery, and precious stones. While these exalting
sons and daughters of felicity tread this round of pleasure, or
regale in different parties and separate lodges, with fine imperial
tea and other delicious refreshments, their ears are entertained
with the most rayishing delights of music, both instrumental
and vocal.
Then Matthew Bramble gives his impression of
Eanelagh in a letter to Dr. Lewis: —
What are the amusements at Banelagh ? One half of the
company are following one another in an eternal circle ; like so
many blind asses in an olive-mill, where they can neither
discourse, distinguish, nor ^be distinguished ; while the other
half are drinking hot water, under the denomination of tea,
tUl nine or ten o'clock at night, to keep them awake for the
rest of the evening. As for the orchestra, the vocal music
especially, it is well for the performers that they cannot be
heard distinctly.
[This is comedy become philosophic; it is comedy
jwhich arises (to use a popular current phrase) from
jprof ound insight into the relativity of knowledge.
-"Anally, Smollett's novels look toward the new
romance which was soon to displace the novel of
THE EIGHTEENTH-CSKTUBT REALISTS 69
sentiment and ridicule. Smolletfs imagination de-f^
lighted in terror. A tragic gloom colors many a scene
on board the Thuiider^ especially that one where
Koderick, chained to the deck on a dark night, lies
exposed to the furious broadside of a French man-of-
war. It pervades ^ Count Fathom/ his most romantic
novel; and perhaps above all his scenes of horror,
rises the midnight the count passes in the robbers'
hut. Here are the shadows, the poniard, the bleeding
corpse, the cold sweat, and the trance machinery which
usher in Gothic romance.
5. Laurence Sterne
The claims of the Kev. Laurence Sterne to be classed
among the novelists rest upon ^The Life and Opin-
ions of Tristram Shandy, Gent.,' in nine duodec-
imo volumes (1759-67), and * A Sentimental Journey
through France and Italy,' in two duodecimo volumes
(1768). Both productions are incomplete.
This York prebendary, when in full middle life,
pulled off his wig, and assumed the cap and bells
once worn by that 'fellow of infinite jest' who pre-
sided over the revels at the court of Hamlet, king of
Denmark.. Of the practical jokes of which he is the
father, one of the most exquisite is, that thirty years
after the publication of 'Tristram Shandy,' it was
gravely announced by Dr. John Ferriar, in his learned
'Illustrations of Sterne' that 'poor Yorick' had stolen
his most eloquent passages, his droll turns of expres-
sion, his whims and his fancies, from the Schoolmen,
from Babelais and French jest-books, and especially
from Bishop Hall and 'Anatomy of Melancholy'
- /
70 DEVELOPMENT OF THfi ENGLISH NOVEL
Burton. By far too much has been made of thes«
'thefts' by Scott and succeeding biographers of Sterne.
They were in part known to Voltaire and Lessing^
who had too fine a sense of the ridiculous to insist
upon them. When we give ourselves into the keeping
of the king's jester, we do well to be on the alert.
Sterne, like all writers, had his antecedents; and
some of them were very remote from his time. He
has furnished the reader of * Tristram Shandy' with
a very full list of them, in which are his ' dear Babe-
lais and dearer Cervantes.' He found in old English
and French humorists a body of stories, jests, and
witticisms, — learned, heavy, quaint, and salacious, — •
and he helped himself. He might, like honest Burton,
'have given every man his own,' but it was his whim
not to do so. The contribution of the 'Anatomy' to
' Shandy,' in respect to suggestion and actual material,
is immense. The influence of Cervantes on Sterne
was all pervading; when a friend criticised him for
describing too minutely Slop's fall in * Shandy,' Sterne
appealed, not to nature, not to the laws of the imagi-
nation, but to Qe^zantes. Eabel^ led him to seek
wit in questionable sources. He also drew freely
upon a group of Queen Anne wits, of which Swift
was the centre. For the general plan of 'Tristram
Shandy,' he was surely indebted to the ' Memoirs of
Martinus Scriblerus,' written mostly by Dr. John
Arbuthnot, and, first published with Pope's prose
works, in 1741. ' Martinus Scriblerus ' is a satire in
the Cervantic manner on ' the abuses of human learn-
ing.' Its out-of-the-way medical knowledge, its ac-
count of the birth of Scriblerus, its disquisitions on
playthings and education — all have their more Quiz*
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 71
otic counterpart in the first volumes of ' Shandy.' The
purpose of Sterne, however, is not satire, except per-
haps in. the delineation of Dr. Slop; he is trying to
see how much sport he can get out of good-natured*
men who have lost their wits by their learning.
The formlessness of Smollett becomes with Sterne
an affectation. The title, ^ The Life and Opinions of
Tristram Shandy, Grent.,' is a misnomer. Tristram is
not bom until near the end of the third volume, and
he is not put into breeches until the sixth. Sterne
deserts his characters in the most ridiculous situations,
— Mrs. Shandy with ear placed against the keyhole,
Walter and Toby conversing on the stairway, — and
runs off into digression after digression, which are
called ^the sunshine, the life, and the soul of read-
ing.' He' tampers with his pagination, and abounds
in dashes, asterisks, index-hands, and ' and-so^'f orths ' ;
he leaves entire chapters for the imagination of the
reader to .construct, and then unexpectedly returns
to these blanks, filling them in himself; he writes
a sentence and calls it a chapter ; or begins a chapter,
breaks off suddenly, and starts in anew ; and of one
of his volumes he plots the curve, showing twistings,
retrogressions, and plungings. Nothing was left for
Sterne's imitators but to write their words upside
down. Undoubtedly there is method in this mad-
ness. Sterne was not a careless or hasty writer;
he selected and presented his material with infinite
pains. 'I have burnt,' he writes ambiguously in one
of his letters, ' more wit than I have published.' But
it was a sad day for English fiction when a writer of
genius came to look upon the novel as the repojsitory
for the crotchets of a lifetime. This is the more to
72 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
be lamented when we reflect that Sterne^ unlike Smol
lett, could tell a story in a straightforward manner
when he chose to do so. Had the time he wasted in
dazzling his friends with literary fireworks been de-
Yoted to a logical presentation of the wealth of his ex-
periences, fancies, and feelings, he might have written
one of the most perfect pieces of compositions in the
English language. As it is, the novel in his hands,
considered from the standpoint of structure, reverted
to what it was when left by the wits of the Renais-
sance.
There is, however, in Sterne a great though not a
full compensation for his eccentricities of form. In
passages now immortal, as that one in which the re-
cording angel drops a tear upon an oath of Uncle
Toby's, he strove to write prose that should possess
the precision, the melody, and the sensuousness of the
highest poetic expression. The proverb, * God tempers
tine wind to the shorn lamb,' belongs in its present
form to Sterne; clergymen have taken it for a text
to their sermons, and then searched the Scriptures
for it in vain. In indicating delicate shades of feel-
ing, he refined upon Marivaux and Fielding. And in
the course of his work he created great and extraor-
dinary characters.
Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne, all had the reputa-
tion in their time of taking their leading characters
from actual experience. Fielding selected, and, ex-
cept in ^ Amelia,' made men and women conform to
a theory of the ludicrous. Smollett drenched his
rogues and seamen in a bath of indignation, brutal-
ity, and revenge. Sterne was more an idealist than
either. Characters which had a real basis in his boy-
THE EIGHTEENTH-^ENTUBY REALISTS 73
hood observations in English and Irish barraoksi in his^
association with droll and not over-fastidioos York-
shire wits, and in his French travels, he lifted into * the
clear climate of fantasy.' Hypocrisy, vanity, affecta-
tion, and ruling passions — the material which Fielding
and Smollett worked — he subtilized into the strangest
whims; as, for example, the hobby that our whole
success in life depends upon the name with which
we happen to be christened. These faint shadows
of real life, though they do speak, converse with us
quite as much through attitude, gesture, and move-
ment. Trim is discoursing upon life and death. ^ Are
we not here now, continued the Corporal (striking the
end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as
to give an idea of health and stability) — and are
we not — (dropping his hat upon the ground) gone!
in a moment ! — Twas infinitely striking I Susannah
burst into a flood of tears.' Passages might be se-
lected to show that Sterne was capable of descend-
ing to the antics of a jester or to the pantomime of
a Parisian music hall; but at his best, he displayed
in the study of gesture a fine and high art. He en-
larged for the novelist the sphere of character-build-
ing, by bringing over into fiction the pose and the
attitude of the sculptor and the painter, combined
with a graceful and harmonious movement, which he
justly likened to the transitions of music.
Sterne's characters belong to that Shakespearean
brotherhood of fools which Macaulay must have had
in mind when he sketched Boswell. Mrs. Shandy on
the famous .^bed of justice,' echoing her husband's
observations on Tristram's need of breeches, is that
delightfully stupid Justice Shallow who, standing by
74 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Westminster Abbey^ gave his assent to the absurd
remarks of Ealstaff and Pistol^ with 'It doth' and
"Tis so indeed.' Dr. Slop is of the dull and blun-
dering class. Trim is the pragmatic fool^ haunted at
times by a deep philosophy. Walter Shandy is the
learned f ool^ whose poor brain^ involved in a labyrinth
of a priori reasoning^ is now and then visited by
gleams of intelligence. Listen to him on his favorite
hypothesis : ' How many C^ssabs and Pompeys^ he
would say, by mere inspiration of the names, have
been rendered worthy of them? And how many, he
would add, are there, who might have done exceeding
well in the world had not their characters and spirits
been totally depressed and Nioodemused into nothing ! '
Uncle Toby is the innocent gentleman who knows
nothing of the real world ; who sits in his sentry-box,
pipe in hand, looking into Widow Wadman's left eye
for ' moat or chaff or speck,' wholly unaware that it
is ' one lambent, delicious fire,' shooting into his own.
And in their kindness of heart, all Sterne's charac-
ters are cousins to that Yorick whose lips Hamlet
' kissed how oft.' Walter Shandy, though sometimes
assuming a subacid humor, never does so without a
prick of conscience. Uncle Toby's heart goes out in
sympathy for all in misfortune and distress. Aged
and infirm as he is, he would walk through darkness
and storm to console a dying soldier. Sterne writes :
My Uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly. —
6k> — says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which
had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all din-
ner-time, — and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught
at last, as it flew by him. I'll not hurt thee, says my Undo
Tobgr* rising from his chaiTp and going across the room with the
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 75
fly in liiB hand, — ril not hurt a hair of thy head : — Go, — sayi
he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke to let
it escape ; — go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt
thee ? — This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee
and me.
Before Sterne, there was in our literature no incident
like this. To characterize the soft state of the feel-
ings and the imagination that could originate it,
Sterne himself was apparently the first to use the
epithet sentimental^; and by a curious coincidence he
so employed it in the very year Eichardson published
'Pamela.' Viewed largely, Eichardson is a senti-
mentalist by virtue of the fact that he dwells upon
the sin and shame of a world given over to the
debauchee. Eousseau, when he sits down by Lake
Geneva, and watches his tears as they drip into the
-water, is asking the spectator to sympathize with the
wrongs -real or imaginary- which he has endured.
Steme never takes a lyrical view of life. He listens
to the tale of human misery only because it gives him
'sweet and pleasurable nerve vibrations.' In his
sentiment is always involved the ludicrous. He
moves into ripple our feelings by the starling which
ought to be set free, by the fly, the hair of whose
head ought not to be injured, and by the donkey
which ought to be chewing a macaroon instead of an
artichoke. When he seeks to awaken pleasure in a
real distress, then he seems ignoble, imtil we reflect
that author and work are an immense hoax. The
absurdity lurking in special scenes of the 'Sentimental
Journey' is elusive; but it is there. It is a kind of
humor that evokes only the gentlest emotions of
1 Dictionary of National Biography, liy., 201,
76 DBVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
pitjr, to be followed by the smile. It enfranchises
the hearty purging it of melancholy, and giving zest
to the mere bagatelles of existence. When Sterne's
influence began to be felt throughout Europe, in
translations and imitations — zigzag journeys here
and there — it did more than all else to free literature
from the depression of the serious sentimentalism of
Bichardson, Bousseau, and their school.^
6. 7%e Minor Novelists : Sarah Fielding, Samuel Johnr
son, Oliver Ooldsmith
The first great period in the development of the
English novel, which begins with * Pamela' (1740),
'closes with the death of Sterne, or more precisely, with
the publication of * Humphry Clinker ' (1771). The
novels of this^period which have become a recognized
part of our literature, whether they deal in minute
incident as in Kichardson and Sterne, or in farce,
intrigue, and adventure as in Smollett and Fielding,
/have one characteristic in common: their subject is
jthe heart. Moreover, underlying them, as their raison
\cP^re, is an ethical motive. Kichardson makes the
novel a medium for Biblical teaching as it is under-
stood by a Protestant precisian; Fielding pins his
faith on human nature ; Smollett cries for justice to
the oppressed; Sterne spiritualizes sensation, address-
ing ^Dear Sensibility ' as the Divinity whom he adores.
Surrounding this group of novelists are several writers
of similar aims, who, for the excellence of their work,
or for other reasons, deserve special mention.
1 Qoethe: * Spriiohe in Proaa,' No. 480 ; and Letter to Zelter
6 Oetober, 1890.
THE BIGHTEBNTH-CENTURY REALISTS 77
•V.
* David Simple ' (1744), by Sarah Fielding, was occa-
sioned by the success of < Pamela.' It was approved
by Bichardson — Miss Melding was one of his adopted
daughters, — and it was justly commended and pre-
pared for the press, with some ironical thrusts of his
own, by her brother, Henry Fielding. In form it is a
modification of the picaresque type. David, a self-
conscious and vapid young man, takes lodgings in
different parts of London, ostensibly in search of a
true friend, whom he eventuaUy finds in the fair and
sweet Camilla. The story abounds in shrewd observa-
tions on different phases of London life, in imperfectly
welded character sketches, and in episodes, which,
though often unconnected with the main plot, are
allied to it in spirit. Bichardson sang of chastity;
Fielding sang of patience; 'David Simple' is an ex-
altation of friendship. The episode of Dumont and
Stainville is as noble and tender as the mediaeval
story of Palamon and Arcite. Its place in English
fiction is as a little companion piece to 'Pamela' and
* Amelia.'
'Basselas, Prince of Abyssinia' (1769), by Dr.
Samuel Johnson, is a logical outcome of the novel of
Bichardson. If a story may be written for the pur-
pose of reducing Christian ethics to special maxims of
conduct, it may likewise be written as a warning to
those 'who listen with credulity to the whispers of
fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of
hope.' The 'Prince of Abyssinia' contains in little
space Johnson's reflections at a moment when, sad-
dened by the death of his mother and the poor returns
from his literary work, he found life hardly worth
living. In it Johnson compressed his 'Bamblers'
78 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
and the ' Vanity of Human Wishes/ and in language
which, though sometimes artificially antithetical, for
the greater part runs on in sweet and plaintive mel-
ody. The various conditions and ideals of life pass
by him in review, and he pronounces an adverse judg-
ment on them all. The prince and princess who
escaped from the happy Abyssinian valley, hoping
to find in the wide world some occupation worthy of
hand or brain, return to the ennui of their youthful
Eden, there to prepare for eternity. The novel of
Richardson has thus been turned to the purpose of
an eloquent funeral sermon.
' The Vicar of V7akefield ' (1766) is, of all eigh-
teenth-century novels, the one that many readers
would the least willingly lose. Some years before
Oliver Goldsmith wrote his charming narrative, the
subject-matter available to the story-teller had become
pretty well understood. There was the sentimental
young lady, the villain, and the abduction ; that was,
in the professional and commercial view^, Eichardson's
contribution to the noveL There ,was the intrigue,
the adventure, the singular character, and the kind-
hearted gentleman; that was Fielding's contribution.
There were English seamen and scenes at sea ; that
was Smollett's contribution. There must be some
sermonizing, some ridicule of prevailing vices and
affectations, or an attack upon those who make or
administer the laws of the realm. The novelist
might put his story into a series of letters, as did
Frances Sheridan, mother of Bichard Brinsley ; or he
might adopt the loose epic. The publisher had set-
tled upon the size of the volume. That it should be
a duodecimo was an item in the definition of the
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTUBT REALISTS 79
novel; one volume would do, two volumes were
better, three or four volumes would be accepted.
Goldsmith took his material from the common
storehouse and transfused it with his own spirit He
works into his story a weighty essay on the penal
code and prison discipline, anticipating public opinion
by a full half -century ; he delivers an oration on
liberty and patriotism, declaring that he would die
for his king ; he preaches a sermon on hope for the
wretched, pervaded with the spirit of the Sermon oit
the Mount. He has his sweet young women with
romantic names, his graceful villain, his magnanimous
country gentleman, and his eccentric country parson.
He beautifies, softens, and tones down; the villain
has some good in him and must finally be forgiven ;
the abduction is a summer storm which passes, leav-
ing no incurable suffering in its course. Less self-
conscious than Pamela, less brilliant than Fielding's
Sophia, Goldsmith's Olivia and Sophia — butterflies
though they be, bedecking themselves with ' rufflings,
and pinkings, and patchings' — are the nearest ap-
proach to real country girls that had yet appeared in
the novel. Less learned and less extraordinary than
Parson Adams, Dr. Primrose, too, comes nearer to the
real country vicar. He is subjected to little farce;
his Quixotism is less artificial than that of Parson
Adams ; he is touched by madness only on the ques-
tion of second marriage among the clergy ; his notions
of his duty are always clear, and he has the ability
and the courage to act as he thinks. In thus taking
off the harsh edges of eccentricity, instead of further
roughening them. Goldsmith's method is the reverse
of Sterne's. Sterne was lifting the novel into thg
80 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
hazy atmosphere of sentimental humor; Goldsmith
was bringing it down to the village fireside.
Groldsmith, however, was always a poet. In ' The
Vicar/ he is singing of the same * Dear lovely bowers
of innocence and ease' which he was to sing of in
< The Deserted Village.' He cannot for long keep his
attention on things as they are. He falls into reverie,
and sees all through a regretful longing. In spite
of himself, he breaks out in the midst of his story
into verse. Contrasted with Fielding, he has turned
the novel into a prose poem, as Johnson had turned
the novel of Richardson into a sermon. Moreover,
from another point of view, 'The Vicar' ought to be
read in contrast to Lodge's 'Eosalind.' H6re is the
golden age once more, not however in Arcadia^ but
somewhere in England ; here is the imagination ideal-
izing real, not conventional scenes. *The Vicar of
Wakefield' as a generative force haa been felt
throughout Europe. Eecollections from it furnished a
dramatic setting to the Frederike episode in Goethe's
' Dichtung und Wahrheit.' It is the literary parent
of Auerbach's village tales, George Sand's 'Mare au
Diable,' Bjornson's 'Synnove Solbakken,' a far-off
Icelandic story, 'Lad and Lass' ('Piltur og Stulka'),
by J6n Thdroddsen, and a legion of similar idyls in
which reality shades off into poetry.
As a humorist. Goldsmith set himself squarely
v^ against his contemporaries, and, with what little gall
- ' . there was in him, expressly against Sterne. He
never twitches at our nerves with the sentimental
scene, but relieves his deepest pathos with a kindly
' irony. To him there is no humor in the dash, the
asterisk, the wink, and the riddle; his sentences
THE EIGHTBENTH-CENTURY REALISTS 81
always have tlieir logic and their rhythm. He de-
spises ribaldry, and implies, with a grain of truth,
that Sterne is only a second Tom D'tJrfey, one of
the most profane of Restoration wits. The profes-
sional humorists of his day had a conventional sen-
tence which they put into their prefaces. Though
slightly variable in form, this is its type: * Nothing
is said or implied in the following pages that can
shock the nicest ear, or kindle a blush on the face of
innocence itself.' What others spoke in jest, he did in
earnest
The finest thing about Goldsmith is his sane phi-
losophy of life. Goldsmith had experienced the hard
rubs of fortune as well as Johnson, but with different
feelings. With robust resignation Johnson submitted
to the inevitable, but only after bitterly complaining.
Goldsmith cleared away despair, taking as the text of
his story, Sperate, miseriy cavete, fdices. By a different
route he reached the same effects that Sterne was pro-
ducing by his paganism. In adversity. Dr. Primrose
hopes and works for a better turn of fortune, enduring
in the meantime without fret. This is not the ques-
tionable optimism of a Leibnitz ; it is that reasonable
philosophy 'which,' says Goethe, in recording his debt
to Goldsmith, 4n the end leads us back from all the
mistaken paths of life.'^
1 Letter to Zelter, 25 December, 1820.
^f •«.•• ••'«
CHAPTEB in
Fbom 'Humphby Clikkeb' to 'Wavkblky'
1. The ImiUxtors
EzoEPTiNa Jane Austen's, the novels published
between * Humphry Clinker' (1771) and ^Waverley '
(1814) were written mostly for the amusement or the
instruction of the day, and, having served their pur-
pose, they deservedly lie gathering dust in our large
libraries. Undoubtedly a few of them, for their art,
their humor, or their keen perception, will withstand,
as they have done so far, the winnow of time ; others
may live with the reading public as literary curiosities ;
still others possess very great historical interest, and
consequently have a life assured them among the
students of our literature. In form, though not in
content, all the fiction of this period is in immediate
descent from our first school of novelists. Down to
1790, the novel of letters and that of direct narration
were in nearly equal vogue ; after that date the novel
of letters lost ground. There were curious imitators
of Fielding who divided their novels into books with
introductory chapters, writing, they said, epics on
which, like Fielding, they spent thousands of hours.
Of all these imitations, by far the best is ^ Henry'
(1795), by Kichard Cumberland the dramatist. In
this novel Cumberland adjusted ^ Tom Jones ' to the
82
FBOM * HUMPHRY CLINKER » TO « WAVERLET » 8&
manners of the end of the century^ and in initial
chapters he discoursed^ with the rich observations of
a long literary career, on the present and the past
state of learning, remarking, by the way, that in his
youth he frequented the home of his ^facetious'
master.
The sentiment and gesture of Sterne were diffused
everywhere ; the correspondence of lovers were ' senti-
mental repasts ' ; and letters of business were punctu-
ated with the dash and the star. Most of Sterne's
imitators, as Bichard GrifiBlth, author of 'The Koran'
(1770), are inexpressibly dull. ' The Man of Feeling '
(1771), by Henry Mackenzie, written in a style alter-
nating between the whims of Sterne and a winning
plaintiveness, enjoys the distinction of being the most
sentimental of all English novels. One scene of it,
in which the frail hero dies from the shock he receives
when a Scotch maiden of pensive face and mild hazel
eyes acknowledges that she can return his love for her,
deserves to be rememj^ered : ' He seized her hand —
a languid color reddened his cheek — a smile bright-
ened faintly in his eye. As he gazed on her, it grew
dim, it fixed, it closed — He sighed and fell back on
the seat — Miss Walton screamed at the sight — His
aunt and the servants rushed into the room — They
found them lying motionless together. — His physician
happened to call at that instant. Every art was tried \
to recover them — With Miss Walton they succeeded ['
— But Harley was gone for ever.' ^
Notwithstanding so much imitative work, the latter
half of the eighteenth century was the seedtime of
the nineteenth-century novel. The sentimental novel,
expanding and gathering to itself politics and ethics,
84 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
passed into the purely didactic novel, whose only
reason for being was as a medium for promulgating
theories of government, conduct, and education. The
novel of manners, mostly in the hands of women, was
refined into a detailed and subtle novel of social satire ;
of which the perfect type is * Pride and Prejudice/
As a reaction against the novel of manners, was de*
veloped a new romance, which in its most popular
form had its beginning with Smollett. This move-
ment culminated in the romantic tales of Scott and
Cooper.
2. The Novd of Purpose
Ever since the Reformation, the theories of moral-
ists and philosophers had filtered into popular litera-
ture, and in several notable instances had done service
to fiction. * Utopia,' * Euphues,' * Oroonoko,* and all of
Eichardson's novels have their didactic aspects. In
the years preceding the Prench Revolution, the specu-
lations of Hooker, Hobbes, and Locke, on government,
society, and education — developed, distorted, and
emotionalized — were given over to the masses by
men and women who wrote, not to convince, but to
persuade and to arouse. This work began in France
with the Encyclopaedists, Bousseau, Holbaoh, and
others; it was completed by a group of philosophers
known as perf ectibilians, among whom was Condoroet.
William Godwin and Mary WoUstonecraft were the
English perfectibilians, amateur philosophers, who^
instead of looking backward, as Bousseau had done,
for the earthly paradise, looked forward: the one to
the golden age of anarchy; the other to the 90cial
FROM • HUMPHRY CLINKER • TO ' WA VERLEY » 86
emancipation of women. Minor writers^ many of
whom wrote treatises^ pamphlets, and letters, on con<
duct, education, and government, resorted to the novel
for the purpose of popularizing current ideas. This
didactic view of fiction upon which Eichardson had
set the seal of his authority was encouraged in England
by the success of Rousseau. In his ' Kouvelle H^loXse '
(1761) he represented by a concrete picture the state
of nature, in which the elemental passions ruled
supreme, and then he contrasted this state with the
conventions of contemporary society. His intense
emotionalism and the very great beauty of his descrip-
tions of external nature held in a sort of solution
his discourses on rank vs. merit, masculine vs. fem-
inine perfection, real vs, apparent honor, etc. In
'ifimile' (1762) he tried to conceal an entrancing idyl
in an educational programme. The didactic fictions
which appeared during the half-century following
^!£mile' fall, in a general way, under the two classes,
pedagogic and revolutionary. The inspiration of the
former was a dissatisfaction with the prevailing method
of education ; the inspiration of the latter was dissat-
isfaction with the existing social order. Both classes
had a common source of inspiration in a desire of
reaching what is in accord with nature.
The first of the English pedagogic romances was
written by Henry Brooke, whose *Fool of Quality*
appeared in parts during the years 1766-70. It is
a book that one can hardly speak of unreservedly
without falling into antitheses which would seem
untrue. Its main object was to describe in detail the
education of a Christian gentleman. The hero visits
all in povei-ty and distress, in prisons and in hospitals,
86 DEVELOFMEKT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
relieving them out of exhaustless funds supplied b;
his uncle. One of its distinctive features is the stress
laid upon physical training, the most absurd examples
being cited of the hero's strength and agility. It
would be impossible to imagine a novel more wretch-
edly put together. On the other hand, it contains
passages of magnificent rhetoric, incidents and tales
of deep pathos, and inspiring ideals of Christian man-
hood.
An interesting variation in the pedagogic story is
marked by Thomas Day's ^Sandford and Merton'
(1783-89). Though it contains an elaborate scheme
for parents to follow in the education of their chil-
dren, it was equally a book to be read by the children
themselves. By means of stories and Socratic con-
versations, the young are taught to see the worth of
astronomy, geography, zodlogy, botany, ethnology,
political economy, and the cardinal virtues; and to
appreciate duly the sweet temper of the negro and
the savage grandeur of the American Indian. Some
characteristics of a new woman appeared in ^Sandford
and Merton.' Eousseau's ideal, as depicted in Sophie
educated expressly for J^mile, was thoroughly assimi-
lated to the conditions of English life in the flamboy-
ant * Sermons to Young Women' (1765) by Dr. James
Fordyce, a Presbyterian minister of London ; and she
was made attractive in fiction by Frances Bumey ani
Maria Edge worth. Serious objections, however, were
urged against her by the advanced women of the
century. She was over passive, soft, and delicate;
she dissembled too much; her airs were too enticing,
and her foot made too pretty. The attributing to her
of what were called peculiarly sexual virtues which
FKOM 'HUMPHRY CLINKER » TO * WAVERLEY» 87
differentiated her from man, was especially distasteful.
Why a girl should not receive the same education as
a boy was not quite clear. Thomas Day was among
the first to protest against the delicacy of Rousseau's
heroine. His young woman looks first to her health.
^She rises at candle light in winter, plunges into a
cold bath, rides a dozen miles upon a trotting horse or
walks as many even with the hazard of being splashed
or soiling her clothes.' She becomes acquainted with
the best authors in the English language, and learns
French to read it but not to speak it, that she may
not be corrupted by barbers and dancing-masters.
She is instructed in the established laws of nature,
and to a small degree in geometry ; and finally she is
an expert in the duties of the household. Offshoots
of this type of fiction were the purely juvenile stories
of Maria Edge worth, such as ^ Frank' and ^Eosa-
mond,' which among children took the place of the
fairy tales which Eousseau had so harshly condemned.
Toward the close of the century there was general
criticism among educationists of boarding schools,
which did not adopt the new educational programme.
It was argued that they rendered young women weak,
vain, indolent, and sly ; and in place of them national-
ized day schools were advocated, where boys and girls
should receive the same training. Among novels
written against boarding schools, the only one now
remembered is Elizabeth Inchbald's *A Simple Story'
(1791). Though marred by the author's anxiety to
attribute to the influence of early education the grad-
ual moral decay of her heroine, it contains the
strongest situation that had yet appeared in the
£nglu(h novel — the conflict between religious preju-
88 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
dice and love^ such as we have on a grander scale in
Charles Keade's ^ Cloister and the Hearth.'
The revolutionists were a group of London novelista
whose work fell mostly in the last decade of the
eighteenth century. The group consisted of Thomas
Holcrofty William Godwin, Elizabeth Inchbald, and
Amelia Opie (who afterward broke away from the
coterie and joined the Society of Friends). Charlotte
Smith was of them in part ; and Eobert Bage, a Tam-
worth paper manufacturer, who had posed in literature
as a second Sterne, taught in his later novels the
same doctrines as the London set. Charlotte Smith
may be regarded as speaking for her associates as
well as for herself, when she says, ^ There is a chance
that those who will read nothing if they do not read
novels, may collect from them some few ideas, that
are not either fallacious or absurd, to add to the very
scanty stock which their insipidity of life has afforded
them.' The ideas that were neither fallacious nor
absurd were the ideas of the ^Social Contract,' the
'System of Nature,' and the * Eights of Man,' — Rous-
seau, Holbach, and Paine.
The most radical opinions of current philosophy
were most boldly expressed, within the limits of the
novel, by Holcroft in * Anna St. Ives ' (1792) : < Every-
thing in which governments interfere is spoiled.'
'You and your footman are equal.' 'You maintain
that what you possess is your own. I affirm that it
is the property of him who wants it most.' ' Marriage
is the concern of the individuals who consent to this
mutual association, and they ought not to be prevented
from beginning, suspending, or terminating it as they
please.' 'Promises are nonentities; they mean noth'
FROM «HUBiPHBT CLINEEB' TO » WAVBBLBY' 89
ingy stand ior nothing, and nothing can claim.' After
these and similar perspicuous compliments to ciyiliza-
tion, golcrof t drew, in the fifth of the six duodecimo
volumes of which his novel is composed, an enthusi-
astic picture of the perfect state toward which man-
kind had been set moving. The people of the earth
will form one great family living in brotherly love.
All the absurd distinctions of rank will be abolished.
Selfishness is to be no more as a motive to conduct,
and universal benevolence will take its place. There
will be no more personal property; hence the detesta-
ble word ^bargain' will become utterly unintelligible.
It is true there may be some sort of agreement be-
tween the sexes, but it will be nothing like the mod-
em marriage compact! Priests, princes, legislators,
justices, and jailers will find their occupation gone.
Man will win back the patriarch's length of life, and
may gain the secret of immortality. Manual labor,
in which all will engage, will be reduced to a mini-
mum, and thus men will be able to 'expend their
whole powers in tracing moral and physical cause
and effect ; which, being infinite in their series, will
afford employment of the most rational and delightful
kind.'
Not all the novelists of his school agreed with
Holcroft on all points; and none of the rest pre-
sented in the pages of one novel the whole revolu-
tionary programme. Marriage and the relation of the
sexes was the popular subject. Godwin in his ' Politi-
cal Justice ' asserted that ' the institution of marriage
is a system of fraud,' but in his novels he was more
conservative. For example, much pains is taken in
his ' St Leon ' (1799) to show that a man may possess
90 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
special affection for wife and children without inter-
fering with a benevolent and passionately just atti-
tude toward his neighbors. In 'Barham Downs'
(1788) Bage argues for the purity of a woman who
has been betrayed by a young lord. Charlotte Smith's
' Desmond ' (1792) has as its interesting situation the
generous and well-regulated passion of a young man for
a married woman. The husband becomes dissipated,
meddles with cold iron, and the widow, after twelve
months' mourning, marries her platonic Werther. In
Mrs. Opie's * Adeline Mowbray ' (1804) — the incidents
of which are a rendering of certain passages in the
career of Mary WoUstonecraft — the heroine, who very
early in life comes to the conclusion that the only
marriage worthy of the name is one < founded on ra-
tional grounds and cemented by rational ties,' falls
a victim to her theory. Mrs. Opie apologizes for her
opinion that so long as men are inconstant and neglect
their children, ' marriage is a wise and ought to be a
sacred institution.'
Neither did Holcrof t's contemporaries see their way
clear to bringing into the novel his prophetic vision of
the philosopher's paradise in which men were to find
the supreme pleasure in following up the thread of
causal relations. They were content to point to some
place and people on the earth that might poetically
$,nd approximately stand for their ideal of the per-
fect state. In Bage's ^ Barham Downs ' the ideal was
the pays de Vavd, and the rocks of MeiUeriey where
lived and died Julie Wolmar, ^ the most virtuous af
her sex.' In Godwin's < Fleetwood ' (1805) the life of
simplicity and quiet voluptuousness was found in the
valley of Urseren at the foot of St, Gotthard, which,
FROM 'HUMPHRY CLINKER' TO « WAVERLEY» 91'
as Scott observed, he covered with ^ a wood of tall
and venerable trees.' In Bage's 'Hermsprong' (1796)
and Charlotte Smith's * Old Manor House ' (1793), the.
earthly paradise was placed in the forests of North
America among the aborigines, who, ^ possessing none
of the toBdium vitoe of the Europeans, dance* play, and
weary of this, bask in the sun and sing.' Of all ex-
isting governments, it was agreed that the Federal
Constitution of the United States was the best ; for,
whatever might be its shortcomings, it was without
question a social contract.
The scheme on which the revolutionary novel was
constructed was that which the propagandist with
difficulty avoids — strong and exaggerated contrast,
and development on parallel lines. A tyrant or vil-
lain was selected from the upper class, who, hedged
about by law and custom, wreaks a motiveless hatred
on the sensitive and cultured hero, who, though bom
free, is not born to wealth and a title. The gentle-
man after a career of crime may or may not come to
a disgraceful end. That was optional. The hero,
after years of drudgery and abject labor, after per-
haps being compelled to play the violin or to write
poetry to keep from starving, either is crushed, or by
a revolution of fortune gains comparative ease. The
best examples of this distinctively * victim-of-society '
story are Godwin's * Caleb Williams ' (1794) and Eliza-
beth Inchbald's < Nature and Art' (1796). Another
procedure of the novelist was to place in the plot
a young negro, or an English boy born and bred in
the West Indies, and to let him comment on English
customs in the light of nature. The child of nature
can never be brought to comprehend the content of
92 DEVEliOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVKI.
such words as poverty and property; aad, Howerer
much scolded, insists upon calling compliments lies,
and battles massacres.
The leading characters necessary to work the ma-
chinery of this kind of novel have been suggested by
the course of our narrative. The African whose ideali-
zation began with Mrs. Aphra Behn became a 'tawny
boy/ gentle and faithful. The romanced Indiao, the
pattern of honor and courage, employed as a foil to
the duplicity and the cowardice of the English aris-
tocracy, was a new creation. There was always pres-
ent the philosopher, who, disregarding the conventions
of society, took as his guide, even in selecting a wife,
the principles of justice and universal benevolence.
He was an evolution, under the influence of the new
philosophy, of Fielding's Mr. Square, who conducted
himself according to 'the unalterable rule of right
and the eternal fitness of things.' How far removed
the ethics of the revolutionist was from Fielding is
seen by their attitude toward essentially the same
gentleman. In 'Tom Jones' he was a villain; in
Bage's ' Hermsprong ' he was the hero.
The revolutionists left behind them no great novel.
The best they produced were 'Caleb Williams' and
' St. Leon,' which Hazlitt, led astray by his sympathy
with some of Godwin's opinions, pronounced ' two of
the most splendid and impressive works of the imagi-
nation' that had appeared in his time. As romances,
Grodwin's stories, with their secret trunks and in-
human monsters, possess the same imaginative quali-
ties as the contemporary Gothic romance, which we
are presently to describe. ' St. Leon ' has long been
forgotten; 'Caleb Williams' alone has survived.
FROM « HUMPHRY CLINKER * TO ' WA VERLEY. 93
NeTertheless the work of Godwin and his friends is
historically important. They took the novel as it
came to them — the sentimental romance, the story
of adventure, the Gothic romance — and incorporated
into it the social treatise. When they had done this
in fictions that were for a period readable, they had
created the didactic novel. What they were unable
to do was to embody their ideas in high and enduring
art. That was done for them by Shelley in the
'Eevolt of Islam' and 'Prometheus Unbound.'
3. The Light Transcript of Contemporary Manners
It would be difficult to lay one's finger on any novel
current near the close of the eighteenth century in
which the author does not somewhere enlighten the
reader as to what the story is intended to teach. In-
struction, however, was not commonly put upper-
most in the novels we are about to place in a group
by themselves; they were not written to overturn the
English Constitution or to bring about a general ref-
ormation of society, but * to mark the manners of the
time.' There is ample evidence in the prefaces and
critical digressions of these novels that Bichardson
and Fielding were regarded as antiquated. It was
not questioned that a Tom Jones existed in 1750, but
he was not to be found in 1790. The English gentle-
man of the higher type now resisted rather than
yielded to temptation. Likewise the Lovelaces had
become selfish and listless ' danglers ' about places of
amusement, too indolent to take in hand an abduction.
Women, treated with cynical indifference, lost their
passiveness, became 'rattles,' sometimes took the
94 DEVELOPMENT OP THE ENGLISH NOVEL
initiative in love-making, and expressed their surprise
in exclamations no longer in good form. Farcical
eccentricities were wearing down into lighter humors.
Manners were not so coarse as in the previous genera-
tion or two. 'Pamela' and * Clarissa/ which had
once been eulogized from the pulpit, the novelists
themselves now denounced as immoral.
'Evelina' (1778) is the novel in which we move
from the old to the new manners. Miss Frances
Burney leads us into the assembly or London places
of amusement, the oper:., the playhouse, Yauxhall,
Eanelagh, and the Pantheon, among the beings she
no doubt had observed there : the Miss Branghtons,
who give themselves out as being two years younger
than they are ; their brother, who insists on establish-
ing their true age ; Mr. Smith with his ' smart airs '
and ' quality looks,' who mistakes a figure of Keptune
for a general ; the dissipated Lord Merton, who has
announced that he is going to reform; Mr. Lovel,
who stands half an hour before the glass on a morn-
ing, meditating what he shall put on; and Lady
Louisa, who, entering the drawing-room at Mrs. Beau-
mont's assembly, ' flings herself upon a sofa, protest-
ing, in a most affected voice, and speaking so softly
she can hardly be heard, that she is fatigued to
death.'
The shadows of smart people who flit by us in
'Evelina' assume fixed postures and more definite
outiines in 'Cecilia' (1782). We are taken into the
same haunts of fashion, and all is described in minute
detail. Characters which in 'Evelina' were repre-
sentative of mere humors are now moulded into types :
the 'insensible' Mr. Meadows, who lounges and yawns
FROM * HUMPHRY CLINKER ' TO • WA VERLB Y » 95
about the drawing-room, assuming a look of absence
and a weariness of the music, the dance, the conversa-
tion, and the faces he has seen a hundred times; the
* supercilious ' Miss Leeson, who, when addressed by
any one that does not belong to her peculiar coterie,
stares, and replies, ^Indeed I know nothing of the
matter ' ; the * voluble ' Miss LaroUes, who dances five
hours in a ' monstrous crowd,* is 'monstrously fatigued,'
and goes home ^vith feet rJl blisters, 'excessively
delighted.'
'Cecilia' is the best caricature we have of English
society just before the French Revolution. Before
the appearance of Miss Burney, the novel of manners
had been cultivated almost exclusively by men. The
absurdities of society had been viewed from the
standpoint of the man >f the vorld, the preacher, the
recluse, and the rogue. Eichardson alone had gained
the reputation of interpreting the feminine mind with
any degree of success. The outlook is now completely
reversed. The world is presented in fiction as it
appears to a woman. Man falls from the pedestal he
has erected for himself. Young ladies are the centres
around which young men gyrate. The question ever
kept before us concerning the character of a man is,
Does he promise well as a husband ? Feminine dress
is described in painstaking minutiae, and sensations
are recorded which were never dreamed of by men.
Moreover, the novel had been written not only by
men, but for men. Frances Burney created for it a
wholesome moral atmosphere.
Miss Burney was an inspiring example to many
other women, among whom was Maria Edgeworth.
This agreeable writer gave the society novel its vogue
96 DEVELOPMENT OP THE ENGLISH NOVEL
in 'Belinda' (1801) and 'Fashionable Tales' (1809-12X
comprising 'Ennni/ 'The Dun/ 'Manoeuvring,' 'Al-
meria,' 'The Absentee/ 'Vivian/ 'Madame de Fleury/
and 'Emilie de Goulanges.' Barring 'Ennui' and
' The Absentee/ which have to do mostiiy with Ireland|
these novels are an exposure of the extravagance,
nonsense, and frivolity of fashionable London societji
which, though not positively immoral, is thoroughly
' rantipole.' Harum-scarum manners is the theme; the
frolics of women who despise their dissipated and
gambling husbands, flirt with their cousins and
chance acquaintances, flght duels, and go about in
masque or disguised as men. These fine ladies are
reclaimed in the last chapters, or with the display
of corded trunks piled up in the great hall they
take a farewell of their husbands forever. Into
this fashionable life Miss Edgeworth puts a young
heiress, who, if she has been properly educated at
home, receives no harm from her season in town,
reconciles a husband and wife, and marries a man
who knows his place. But if that early education
has been faulty, she soon degenerates into a 'dasher'
or * title-hunter.' The Edgeworth morality was al-
ways sane and healthy ; false sentiment and sophistry
were always detected and exposed to the dry light of
truth. Here is a mansion where there is no love Bor
esteem ; there is a cottage where all the pains of life
are forgotten in its innocent pleasures. Look upon
this picture and upon that, and then choosu for your*
self. Such was the Edgeworth plea for the simple
affections against artificial manners.
'Ennui' and 'The Absentee/ whose scenes are
partly in England and partly in Lreland, are con-
FROM ' HUMPHRY CLINKER ' TO • WAVERLEY • 9*1
structed on the plan of the since popular international
novel. For writing this kind of fiction Miss Edge-
worth was admirably equipped. She had passed Jier
girlhood in England, and when at the age of sixteen
she went to Ireland to live, she looked upon Irish
manners with the wonder of a London boarding-school
girl. After settling in Edgeworthtown, in the heart
of Ireland, she attained in her view of Eagland jho
Irish standpoint. In 'Ennui/ along with dissertations
on 'the causes, curses, and cures' of a prevailing
malady, and on the best method of ameliorating the
condition of the Irish peasantry, there were neces-
sarily sketches of Irish life as it was. In 'The
Absentee ' all special pleading is forgotten by author
and reader in two brilliant groups of contemporary
portraits. There are the London scenes in which Lady
Clonbrony tries to purchase a foothold in society ?:y
the Oriental splendor of her ' gala,' and by the present
of dried Irish salmon to Lady St. James, and struggles
pathetically to rid herself of her Hibernian accent
by adopting pure cockney. Then there are the mov-
ing scenes on the abandoned Irish estate, where the
tenants are living in rags and mud, racked by the
heartless agent. In this effective contrast of manners.
Miss Edgeworth is historically midway between Smol-
lett and Henry James.
The popularizer of the society novel, the creator of
the international novel. Miss Edgeworth, as the author
of 'Castle Eackrent' (1800), has other and ^.^ater
claims to attention. The Irishman as he appeared
in London had been for a long time an incidental
character in fiction. ' Castle Backrent ' is a story of
the Irishman in his castle. It was written by one
98 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
who saw all the absurdities of the Irishman's char-
acter, relished the picturesque exaggeration of his
speech, and felt pity for his distress. From it flowed
all those Irish stories which for the next fifty years
flooded England. Moreover, it was the most special-
ized portrait of manners that fiction had produced.
The English novel at this time, though in individual
instances it had shown a disposition to do so, had not
freed itself from traditional characters. Sir Charles
Grandisons, for example, were as thick as the mock
kings in medisBval battles. ^Castle Eackrent' was a
revelation of what could be done by direct and care-
ful observation. Its characters were all new. Nobody
had ever heard of Sir Patrick, the inventor of rasp-
berry whiskey, who * had his house, from one year's
end to another, as full of company as ever it could
hold and fuller'; of the litigious Sir Murtagh, who,
* out of forty-nine suits which he had, never lost one
but seventeen'; of Sir Kit, who, though *he hit the
toothpick out of his adversary's finger and thumb,'
was himself mortally wounded; of Sir Condy, the last
of the Eackrents, who, with a breathless gulp, quaffed
off the huge ancestral horn filled to the brim, and,
turning black in the face, * dropped like one shot.'
No philosophy of humor was expounded, but there
was humor ranging from farce to subtle suggestion,
and it came without apparent premeditation.
4. The Gothic Romance
Just as the novM of sentiment and humor, when
social and educational theories were brought to bear
upon it, passed through a series of changes, resulting
FROM 'HUMPHRY CLINKER* TO *WAVERLBY' 99
in the delineation of national characteristics^ so the
same novel, under other influences, was turned into
romance. The two movements were exactly con-
temporaneous. It was shown that the novel of
Eichardson and Fielding has writ upon it certain
characteristics of mediaeval and early modem fiction.
A common incident of the old romancers, both English
and Continental, was a young woman rescued from a
miscreant or a satyr by a brave and courteous knight.
Richardson relieved the incident of its feudal or pas-
toral setting, of its enchantment and witchcraft, and
made it the backbone of all his novels. The miscreant
or the satyr became a Lovelace ; the knight, a Grandi-
son; and the princess, a Miss Byron. Likewise
Fielding shore the picaresque novel of its farcical vil-
lany; and at length the Spanish rogue was trans-
formed into Tom Jones, a typical English gentleman.
To be real, to be sane, to restrain the imagination, was
equally the aim of Richardson and Fielding, who were
in perfect accord with Augustan canons of criticism.
But in the second quarter of the eighteenth century,
there were signs of dissatisfaction with the poetry
and criticism of Pope; and this marks the faint
beginnings of the so-called romantic movement,
which eventually revolutionized literature. For the
form of the novel, this literary revolution meant that
the epistolary and dramatic analogies employed by
Richardson and Fielding were to be displaced by the
epic narrative ; for the content of the novel, it meant
the abandonment of analysis and ridicule, and a return
to magic, mystery, and chivalry.
These changes were initiated by Smollett. With
the exception of ^Humphry Clinker,' his novels are
100 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
all loose epics. Bealism he carried to that point
where by its enormities it becomes romance. And
certain passages in 'Count Fathom' show a reyived
interest in superstition as unmistakably as does
the poetry of Collins and Gray. Eenaldo, who
has been informed that his Monimia is dead and
buried, visits her reputed tomb in a church lying
in a sequestered field. It is a night of 'uncommon
darkness.' As he enters and walks up 'the dreary
aisle/ the clock strikes twelve and the owl screecl^es
from the ruined battlements. He turns his 'blood-
shot eyes' to his attendants, beckons them to with-
draw, and falls prostrate on the cold grave, where he
remains in the gloom till morning. He repeats his
midnight pilgrimage, and becomes entranced. He is
startled by solemn notes from the organ touched by
' an invisible hand,' and the sudden and simultaneous
illumination of nave, transept, and choir. Looking
into vacancy, he sees the 'figure of a woman arrayed
in white,' who, approaching with easy step, cries Re-
naldo ! in a voice very like Monimia's. He is speech-
less with terror ; ' his hair stands upright,' and ' a cold
vapor thrills through every nerve.' That phantom is
really Monimia, who has feigned death to get clear of
the villain of the story and to contrive an interview
with her lover. Here is a note that our literature
lost with the last of the Elizabethans. Superstition,
it is true, was not absent from the Queen Anne writ-
ers. But there is a marked contrast between their
treatment of it and Smollett's. Defoe, Addison, and
Pope described coldly and minutely the devil, the
ghost, and the sylph, as if they were tangible reali-
ties^ Smollett awakened wonder at a mystery, which.
FROM 'HUMPHRY CLINKER' TO •WAVERLBY' 101
however, he finally accounted for. The trick of first
exciting fear and then letting it suddenly tumble flat
became the usual procedure of Gothic romance for the
next half-century.
The publication of * Longsword^ Earl of Salisbury,
an Historical Eomance ' (1762), attributed to the Eev.
Thomas Leland of Dublin, must have delighted the
romanticists. Kot since the death of Defoe had there
appeared in English (so far as I know) an original
historical novel. There is, furthermore, no similarity
between the * Memoirs of a Cavalier ' and * Longsword.'
The former is a story of adventure with the Civil
Wars as a background, related with the detail of an
authentic historical document. The latter is a repro-
duction of feudal scenes such as we have in Shake-
speare's historical plays ; and the object of its author
was not to impose upon the credulity of the reader,
but to entertain him with a ^lendida fdbula. Nearly
all the elements of Scott's historical romances lie
in 'Longsword': the tournament, the bravery and
courtesy of knighthood, baronial crimes and jealousies,
and the romantic thread of virtuous and constant
love. Unfortunately the romance lacks historical
X>erspective; consequently its great scenes — as the
Earl denouncing Hubert de Burgh in the presence of
Eling Henry the Third — lose the force due to their
conception.
A new impetus was given to romance by Horace
Walpole, who built near Twickenham a whimsical
Gothic structure, known as Strawberry Hill. His
* Castle of Otranto' was published in 1764. The
events of the romance, though they are assigned
to Italy and to the twelfth or the thirteenth century^
102 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
have no definite historical background ; all is built up
in the imagination. A castle with a black tower, long
dark stairways, airy chambers where doors slam and
screech on rusty hinges, trap doors, subterranean
caverns leading to a great church — this is the scene
of the mediaeval tragedy. Within the castle Walpole
places the tyrant Manfred, a patient and long-suifer-
ing wife, domestics, two romantic girls of exceeding
beauty, and 'a lovely young prince, with large black
eyes, a smooth white forehead, and manly curling
locks like jet.' A great, gloomy, upper chamber is
haunted by a giant in armor, who in shaking himself
stupefies the domestics with terror. The troubled
portrait of Manfred's grandfather ' utters a deep sigh,
heaves its breast, quits its pannel, descends on the
floor with a grave and melancholy air,' and beckons
his wretched grandson to follow. The romance is the
embodiment of a dilettant's nightmare, as he sleeps
and writes by chimney pieces modelled from the tombs
of Westminster and Canterbury. Smollett, it was
said, gave to the romance its method of dealing with
the superstitious. Walpole gave it its machinery,
its characters, its castle, and its Gothic name.
\ Kitic* >tH Walpole implied in his preface to the second edition
of the ' Castle of Otranto ' that he had aimed to find
a middle way between the extravagance of mediasval
romance and the matter-of-fact novel. Miss Clara
Keeve thought he had not accomplished his purpose ;
and she accordingly set out to correct him by writing
the ^Champion of Virtue' (1777), afterward called
the 'Old English Baron.' The result was a clever
story, in which contemporary life and manners were
placed in a mediaeval setting. Two things are per-
FROM ♦ HUMPHRY CLINKER ' TO ' WA VERLEY » 103
baps to be principally noted in tbis romance. It con-f
tains botb Gotbic and bistorical incidents, as if Miss;
Reeve were blending ^Longsword' and tbe 'Castlel
of Otranto' into one romance; and tbe scene of tbe;
supernatural visitations becomes wbat it was almost
invariably to be in succeeding Gk)tbic writers, not tbe
entire castle, but a wing of it.
Still anotber direction was given to romantic fiction
by William Beckford, wbo, baving grander wbims
tban Walpole and tbe wberewitbal to gratify tbem,
built an immense mansion in Wiltsbire, called Font-
bill Abbey, in wbose mysterious balls, galleries, and
tower, be endeavored to realize bis dreams of
Oriental luxury and magnificence. ' Yatbek, an Ara-
bian Tale,' written in Frencb, and publisbed at
Lausanne and Paris in 1787, was translated from tbe
Frencb manuscript by Samuel Henly, an Englisb
scbolar and schoolmaster, and ' publisbed, witbout
Beckford's consent, in London in 1786. A fresb
interest bad been awakened in tbe marvels and super-
stitions of tbe East by Antoine Galland's Frencb
translation of tbe ' Arabian Nigbts ' (1704-17). An-
tbony Hamilton and Voltaire bad adapted tbese
fictions to a light and facetious satire on contempo-
rary Frencb society. In bis sarcasm, Beckford car-
ried on tbis humorous treatment of Eastern fable.
The kicking of * tbe stranger ' through tbe apartments,
down the steps, through the courts of the Caliph'el
palace, and then through the streets of Samarah, is a
piece of extravagance as delightful as anything in tbe
romances of Voltaire. In his love of grotesque horror,
Beckford is brought into line with Walpole. His
Caliph, in league with the Intelligences of Darknessi
104 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
commits to admiration every form of crime simply be*
cause he has nothing else to do. His bloated OiaouTi
'with ebony forehead and huge red eyes/ drinks
the aristocratic blood of fifty beautiful youths, and
still his thirst is not slaked. The tale closes with a
cleyerly devised punishment for the damned. In the
magnificent Hall of Eblis, strewn with gold dust and
saffron, amid censers burning ambergris and aloes,
they walk a weary round for eternity; their faces
corrugated with agony, and their hands pressing
upon hearts enveloped in flames.
Thus we see the new romance was of three varieties
shading into one another : the historical, the Gk)thic,
and the Oriental. If in 1786 it was uncertain which
of them would become the most sought-for novel of
the circulating library, the question was soon settled
by the success of Mrs. Ann Badcliffe, who, in t he
, ^<^ redundancy of her style, her passion for music an d
i(^ wild scenery, and her ability to awaken wonder and
^ awe, is the most complete expression of romanticism
y in English fiction before Scott . During the years
1789-97 she published five romances, in the following
order: 'The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne,' *A
Sicilian Eomance,' * The Eomance of the Forest,' ' The
Mysteries of Udolpho,' 'The Italian.' Though they
all possess considerable literary merit, the last two are
by far the best.
These romances always have their castle, usually in
ruins, which is located in the Highlands of Scotland,
in southern France, in Italy, or in Sicily. In the
haunted wing of the castle, Mrs: Badcliffe shuts up
o'nights her heroine, who passes her time in various
occupations. If the night is clear, Emily throws open
FROM * HUMPHRY CLINKER ♦ TO * WAVERLEY » 105
the casement, and lets the moonlight stream into her
room ; and as she sits and thinks of her distant lover
from whom she is cruelly separated, she hears from
a distance the soft tones of a lute ; she goes to bed,
sleeping soundly and dreaming of the quiet scenes of
her early home. If there is outside thunder, light-
ning, and rain, she reconnoitres her room, and finds
in an old chest a dusty manuscript. She sits down
by a table and begins reading ; as the ink is paled by
age, she has much difficulty in making out the words ;
but she learns enough to be aware or to suspect that
a horrible crime was once committed in this very
chamber. At this moment her candle burns blue and
goes out; she is left in darkness, and she screams.
On another night, if it is very dark, if winds rock the
battlements, and, blowing through casement and crev-
ice, shake the tapestries, she discovers a door leading
to her room, before strangely unnoticed ; in fright and
dishevelled hair she tugs at it, but it will not open, for
it is bolted on the outside. Exhausted, she goes to
bed, and a little after midnight she hears the bolt
gently pushed back and the door gently opened. The
moon is now out, and the shadow of a man moves
along the wall, who, with uplifted dagger, approaches
the bed of his victim, feigning to be asleep. As he
looks upon the sweet and beautiful face before him,
his corrugated features relax, and he retires in haste.
In ' The Italian,' Mrs. Radcliffe drew . upon less
artificial sources of fear ; the crimes of banditti and
monks and the rack of the Inquisition — a word
which she was able to invest with the dread of the
mediaeval Demogorgon. In scenes descriptive of the
pomp and devotion of the Roman Church, such as
106 DEVELOPMENT OP THE ENGLISH NOVEL
the novice taking the veil, and the nun dying before
the high altar, her only equal is Chateaubriand.
Mtb. BadcHEfe wrote for the story, and not for tho
characters, which aie all types, and soon became con-
ventional. There is always the young lover, a gentle-
man of high birth, usually in some sort of disguise,
vho, without seeing the face of the heroine, may fall
in love with her 'distinguished air of delicacy and
grace' or 'the sweetness and fine expression of her
voice.' The only variation in the heroine is that ahe
may be either dark or fair. The beautiful creature
is confined in a castle or a convent because she refuses
to marry some one whom she hates. She finally ha^i
her own way and marries her lover. The tyrant is
always the same man under different names ; add to
him a little softness, and he becomes the Byronic hero.
Mrs. Badcliffe was praised in her own time for her
ability to describe places she had never visited. She
had seen mountains, castles, and abbeys, but not those
of southern Europe. Her descriptive epithets were
accordingly general, suitable to the type, and not to
the individual. ' Terrific ' or dreamy scenes assumed
clear outlines in her imagination, and she was able to
transfer the image of them to the reader. She saw
into the art of description far enough to maintain
without incongruity a point of view. Perhaps she
was at her best in noting the changing aspects of
forest, castle, and sea, at the approach of evening -
twilight.
There followed Jlrs. Radcliffe a large number of
^Hothic writers, must of whom were young men and
women. Miitthew Gregory Lewis, a talented
>au of tlie ^Vcrther-Jerusalem type, published
FROM « HUMPHRY CLINKER* TO ' WAVERLBY* 107
* The Monk ' in 1795, and was ever afterward known as
' Monk ' Lewis. He employed magic and necromancy
as the machinery of meretricious scenes, which were
intended to be humorous ; he descended into the vaults
of the dead, where nuns were buried alive, and he
described in detail all that he saw there. William
Godwin's < Caleb Williams' (1794) and *St. Leon'
(1799) are Gothic tales, as well as didactic novels.
The former is the first detective story, and the latter
is a revelation of Itosicrucian mysteries. Charles
Brockden Brown, the father of American fiction, was
also of the EadclifEe school. The hero of his first
romance, 'Wieland, or the Transformed' (1798),
haunted by voices he does not understand (which are
finally explained as coming from a ventriloquist),
runs mad, and murders his wife and children. ^ Edgar
Huntley ' (1799-1801) is a detective story, and a much
better one than * Caleb Williams.' A man having no
enemies is shot dead under an elm, on a 'dark and
tempestuous night.' How shall the murder be ac-
counted for ? A clew is discovered which leads to a
laborer, who committed the deed while walking in his
sleep. . The freshest parts of this romance are those
descriptive of life on the frontier, the caverns of the
Alleghanies, Indian massacres, and a contest with a
panther. 'Arthur Mervyn' (1799-1800) is likewise
a romance of crime, having for its Gothic incident
a case of suspended animation, and as a realistic back-
ground the ravages of yellow fever in Philadelphia in
1793. The poet Shelley wrote two romances, *Zas-
trozzi' (1810) and *St. Irvyne, or the Eosicrucian'
(1811), which are a sort of union of BadclifEe and
Godwin. His heroine plunges the dagger into her
108 DBVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
hearty and falls 'weltering in purple gore'; his hero^
enveloped in a flash of lightning, expires 'blackened
in terrible convulsions.' Mrs. Mary Shelley's 'Frank-
enstein' (1818) is at once the best written and the
most ghastly production of Gothic art The sixteenth-
century romancers, for example Spensery created the
semblance of human beings by necromancy; Mrs.
Shelley created a monster on pseudo-scientific prin-
ciples.
The Gothic romance was a reversion to material
which the realists had cast aside. But it is to mis-
conceive the course of literary evolution to suppose
that the restoration of an old fashion or an old
form is ever complete. Just as Bichardson and
Fielding show unmistakably whence they came, so
the Gothic romance continued to the end to bear
marks of the realistic novel whence it immediately
proceeded. Mrs. Eadcliffe conveyed the tyrant, the
disobedient child, and the detested lover from Har-
lowe Place to a castle, and in lingering over monastic
crimes, she was on a morbid search for new sensations
as much as was Sterne in the ' Sentimental Journey.'
Eichardson strove to awaken pity for innocence in
distress. The romancer was his complement; with
pity he would unite terror. Though he could make
the hair stand on end for several hundred pages, the
result was not true tragedy ; for there were no psycho-
logical reasons for his ghosts and sleep-walkings ; and
his takings-off were so motiveless and bloody as to
be humorous. The Gothic romance was not, as its
authors supposed, a reproduction of 'Hamlet' and
'Macbeth,' but rather of the melodrama from which
Shakespearean tragedy arose, and into which it de-
PROM * HUMPHRY CLINKER ♦ TO « WAVERLE Y ♦ 109
generated. Moreover, it never attained, in its trans-
formations and revelations, to the beauty of Spenser's
magic, which it endeavored to imitate.
And yet the Gothic romancer helped to make
the English novel what it is to-day. He rightly in-
sisted that literature is not merely utilitarian^ that
there is outside the real world, to use a phrase of
Bishop Hurd's, ^a world of fine fabling.' In his
attention to his plot he lost sight of his characters,
which reverted to types and abstractions ; but he was
making possible a ^ Jane Eyre ' in which high romance
should lend its aid to the sternest realism. Though
he never went very far into medisevalism, he pointed
out the path to Scott; Strawberry Hill, Fonthill
Abbey, and Abbotsford are successive manifesta-
tions of the same spirit. The lineal descendants of
the Gothic romance are the tales of terror and wonder
by Irving, Poe, and Hawthorne. The romance of
crime such as was written by Bulwer and Dickens
is a realistic treatment of Gothic melodrama. Godwin
and Charles Brockden Brown were the first to explore
the mazes of the detective story; and the latter
began the transformation of the Eadcliffe romance
into the Indian tales of Cooper. Mrs. Eadcliffe,
possessing a real passion for deep woods, mountains,
storm, and sea, — those aspects of nature which
impressed Byron, — was able to add a new interest
to fiction. Her influence, either directly or through
Scott, has been felt on every variety of the nine-
teenth-century novel, whether romantic, psychological,
or naturalistic. She made the landscape one of the
conventions of fiction.
110 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
5. The Historical Romance
As lias been indicated already^ the Gothic reviyal
was a revival of interest not only in ghosts but also in
history. The historical romance of the kind written
by Barclay and GalprenMe became nearly extinct
in the eighteenth century. Occasionally something
like it appeared in England ; such, for example, are
the secret histories of Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Haywood.
Between them and * Longsword ' (1762), a faint inter-
est in history was probably kept up in England by
the Abb^ Provost's historical tales. They would natu-
rally appeal to an Englishman, for their scenes were
familiar to him. His * Doyen de Killerine,' published
in 1735 and translated into English in 1752, has as
an historical background Ireland in the time of James
the Second; and the hero of his ^ Histoire de M. Cleve-
land ' (1732-39) is a natural son of Oliver CromwelL
Our romancers must have known of Provost's work,
and as late as 1789 there is an allusion by a reviewer
to Calprenfede's 'Cl^opS-tre ' and * Cassandre,' which we
may infer from another allusion by Scott were in well-
appointed circulating libraries. The line of connec-
tion is from internal evidence undeniable ; along it
were passed * dignity of sentiment,' ^elegance of dic-
tion,' the hero of uncertain parentage, and the critical
position that romance may recombine historical facts,
add to them, and make whom it please contempora-
ries. Still, though there is this line of descent,
too much may be easily made of it, for the old his-
tory lost itself in the libel. Our romancers, coming
in the wake of a new enthusiasm for Shakespeare,
had in mind his historical plays^ from which they
FROM * HUMPHRY CLINKER » TO * WA VERLEY » 111
derived fresh material and suggestion. They modified
significantly the seventeenth-century historical for-
mula, for they rarely employed the historical allegory.
'Longsword' with its spirited chivalry stands in
isolation. Nothing very like it appeared during the
following twenty years. But its influence was at
once apparent in Gothic romance, where it led to his-
torical details as a background to the castle and the
ghost in armor. The year when the new historical
novel began to have the air of a distinct species is
1783, when Miss Sophia Lee published the first vol-
ume of the ' Eecess,' to be followed in 1786 by two
more volumes. It is a tale of the time of Queen
Elizabeth, into which are brought most of the court
worthies. Its heroine, who is a daughter of Mary
Queen of Scots and the Duke of Norfolk, is of course
as preposterous a creation as Provost's son to Crom-
well. The part of most sustained interest is that
which unfolds the character of the Earl of Leicester,
who is banished and recalled by his queen, intrigues
with Lady Essex, and removes his wife by contriving
that she eat by mistake a dish of poisoned carp, which
she has expressly prepared for him.
From the ^Recess' there is a steady flow, of his-
torical romances down to Scott. Most of them, deriv-
ing their facts from the Elizabethan historical drama,
have to do with the contentions between the houses
of York and Lancaster. But they are not confined
to this period ; they spread out over English history
back to William of Normandy and forward to the
execution of Charles the First. Their authors had
no very fixed method of procedure. The ' Eecess ' is
essentially a sentimental novel, in which historical
112 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
chaitacters weep, sigh, and swoon; and it is one of
many similar pathetic tales. Other romances are
Smollett adventures, in which the actors are well-
known gentlemen in history. A good example of
this type is 'The Adventures of John of Gaunt ' (1790),
by James White. John of Gaunt, the Duke of
Gloucester, and the Black Prince visit Chaucer at
Woodstock. On the way there, they meet Owen
Glendower, who joins them. Chaucer entertains them
at breakfast, reads to them from his unpublished
'House of Fame,' and receives calmly the Black
Prince's observation that ' in some parts of the divert-
ing and instructive poem, the lines are incorrect as
to metre.' They all together set out for 'a gorgeous
tournament to be solemnized at the royal castle of
Carnarvon,' and on the way are allured to a den of
robbers by wine, confections, and songs of beautiful
damsels. They escape and reach Wales. Of the same
kind are two more fictions by White : ' Earl Strong-
bow ' (1789), and ' The Adventures of Eichard CoBur
de Lion ' (1791). Other romancers paid more atten-
tion to the facts of history. Clara Reeve in her
'Roger de Clarendon' (1793) gave at the end of her
preface a list of the authors she had consulted, among
whom are Froissart, Holinshed, and Smollett She
sketched the characters of the great men of the sec-
ond Richard's reign, taking as her model Plutarch ;
and her purpose was to show the young that the men
who had helped to make England what it is, were not
as represented by the revolutionary novelists.
The romances of Jane Porter were a great improve-
ment over any imaginative treatment of history that
had yet appeared. The first of the four volumes of
FROM 'HUMPHRY CLINKER' TO »WAVERLEY» 113
' Thaddeus of Warsaw ' (1803) is almost wholly historic
cal, having as subject those heartrending events that
gather around the partition of Poland in 1793, and
as hero Kosciusko under another name. The Polish
battle scenes are introductory to a picture of the
Polish refugees roaming about in London, in poverty
and distress. The romance is spoiled in its last vol-
umes by Wertherized domestic scenes ; and its plot is
amateurish and impossible. For writing *The Scot-
tish Chiefs' (1809) Jane Porter was better equipped.
She had lived in Edinburgh, was familiar with the
Wallace and Bruce traditions, supplemented her
knowledge by reading the fine old Scotch poem, the
' Bruce/ by John Barbour ; and — what no other ro-
mancer had ever thought of doing — she visited the
places she had planned to describe. She had assimi-
lated, too, the spirit of chivalry in the * Arcadia'
and the 'Faery Queen.' There is no melodrama
in romantic fiction that holds the attention more
closely than the capture of Dumbarton Castle, or the
scene in the council hall at Stirling, when Wallace
pushes his way" trough the angry and treacherous
chiefs.
A very curious experiment in historical fiction was
made by the antiquarian Joseph Strutt in 'Queenhoo-
Hall.' Left incomplete by its author, it was hastily
completed by Sir Walter Scott, and published in 1808.
Of it, Strutt wrote in his preface : * The chief purpose
of the work is to make it the medium of conveying
much useful instruction, imperceptibly, to the minds
of such readers as are disgusted at the dryness usually
concomitant with the labours of the antiquary, and
present to them a lively and pleasing representation
114 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
of the manners and amusements of our forefathers^
under the form most likely to attract their notice.
The scene of the piece is laid in England^ and the
time (in which the events are supposed to take place)
is in the reign of Henry the Sixth.' In describing
May games, tavern scenes, and medisBval ^ spectacles/
Strutt brought to bear on his work what was then
regarded as profound antiquarian and linguistic knowl-
edge — with never a gleam of imagination. The im-
portance of such a publication in 1808, is that it
stated a definite programme for the historical novelist
— an exact reproduction of the past. Jane Porter
sent to school to Joseph Strutt would have been a
rival to Sir Walter Scott.
6. Jane Austen — the Critic of Romance and of
Manners
The last half of the eighteenth century was an era
of immense expansion. Men found their hearts and
sobbed like children ; they formed for themselves new
ideals of conduct, and vast and visionary schemes for
their social amelioration. Their sympathies were
enlarged; they described the impressions that the
sights and sounds of nature made upon them in words
trembling with enthusiasm and passion ; their imagi-
nations enfranchised, they were carried away from
the world around them into a romantic past or into a
romantic future. The novel, which from Richardson
downward had been a faithful record of this dilation
of heart and imagination, became in the closing years
of the eighteenth century the literature of crime,
insanity, and the nightmare. Romanticism had drank
FROM * HUMPHRY CLINKER ' TO • WAVERLBY • 115
immoderately of new emotions, and needed sharp cas«
tigation from good sense.
Jane Austen was the daughter of a humble clergy-
man living at Steventon, a little village among the
chalk hills of South England. There and in neighbor-
ing places she passed her life. Her novels were pub-
lished during the years 1811-18, in the following
order : ' Sense and Sensibility/ * Pride and Prejudice/
* Mansfield Park/ ^Emiiia/ *Northanger Abbey/ and
^Persuasion.' The last two appeared together and
X>osthumously. Dates of publication are misleading
as to the composition of three of them. 'Pride and
Prejudice ' was written in 1796-97 ; * Sense and Sensi-
bUity' in 1797-98; and 'Northanger Abbey' in 1798.
Furthermore, there is a discrepancy between the dates
of actual composition and conception. 'Sense and
Sensibility ' is the completion of an early sketch ante-
dating 'Pride and Prejudice'; 'Northanger Abbey'
is a return to the spirit of burlesque tales written and
destroyed before ' Sense and Sensibility ' was begun.
While the philosophers were teaching that a man
should enlighten his generation without pay, and in
the meantime were publishing expensive editions
of their novels, Jane Austen quietly went on with
her work, making no great effort to get a publisher,
and, when a publisher was got, contenting herself
with meagre remuneration and never permitting her
name to appear on a title-page. She is one of the
sincerest examples in our literature of art for art's
sake.
'Northanger Abbey' is primarily a comic version
of the Gothic romance, and is thus to be classed with
the great burlesques, 'Don Quixote' and 'Joseph
116 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Andrews.' The heroine, Catherine Morland, has noth
ing heroic about her. At ten, she 'had a thin, awk-
ward figure, a sallow skin without color, dark, lank
hair, and strong features.' ' She never could learn or
understand anything before she was taught, and some-
times not even then.' At fifteen, as is nature's way,
appearances mended, and she grew quite a good
looking girl. When her imagination had become
sufficiently excited by the 'dreadful situations and
horrid scenes ' of romance, she received an invitation
to pass some time at Korthanger Abbey in Gloucester-
shire. The Abbey was very disappointing, for it was
a luxurious and thoroughly modernized gentleman's
house, containing no gloomy chambers and no sub-
terranean passage leading to a chapel two miles away.
The first night at the Abbey, however, was stormy;
there were high winds and pelting rain, and distant
doors slammed. Left alone in a cheerful and com-
fortable room, Catherine went through all the pleasing
frights of the ' Mysteries of Udolpho.'
In 'Sense and Sensibility,' Jane Austen, in more
subdued irony, ridiculed the sentimentalists. She
took as the leading characters in her story two sisters
who stand respectively for sense and sensibility:
Elinor suppresses her feelings and acts sanely ; Mari-
anne rejoices in misery, seeks it, renews it, and
creates it. Marianne's favorite maxim is that a
second attachment is a crime. After being jilted by
a villain, who carries off with him, instead of her
dear self, a lock of her hair, and after some dangerous
experiments in hysterics, which end in fever, she is
cured of her sentimentalism, and marries a man
twenty years her senior, who has likewise suffered
FBOM • HUMPHRY CLINKER ' TO ' WAVERLEY ' 117
from a former passion, and wears a flannel waistcoat
as a protection against the English climate.
In * Northanger Abbey ' and * Sense and Sensibility/
Jane Austen gave her view of what a novel should
not be. She sheared away epic digressions, common-
place moralizing, hysterical sentiment, the lovely
weather of romance, and the prattle of young ladies
to their confidantes about their beaux and sprigged
muslin robes. In these very novels, but more directly
in those conceived later, she took the same critical
attitude toward the manners of her times.
For her material Jane Austen never went outside
her experience; and accordingly nearly all her scenes
are in South England. Her characters are taken
mostly from the aristocracy and upper middle class
of the English village and its vicinity. Incidentally
there are accounts of the season at Bath with its fast
set, and of the humble sailor life at Portsmouth and
Lyme. She always has her young gentlemen with
good incomes, who are seeking or ought to be seeking
wives; and young women not very well provided for,
whom matchmaking mothers and aunts are trying to
marry off; and they themselves are glad to go. There
are country clergymen, who in the course of the story
get wives, unless, like Dr. Grant, they have them
already ; and he gets, instead, a stall in Westminster,
and dies of apoplexy ^brought on by three great
institutionary dinners in one week.' There are gen-
tlemanly villains, who induce beautiful girls to elope
with them ; and their friends for family reasons pas9
by the incident, and provide for them liberally. The
men seem to have no occupation, not even the clergy;
they attend balls, dine out, take part in private
118 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
theatricals, talk about their horses, go up to London,
and move about from estate to estate. The young
women read romances, collect and transcribe riddles,
thumb the harp or pianoforte, play whist five evenings
in the week, drink tea, and eat buttered bread and
baked apples; make garments for the poor, cut out
stomachers for aunts, knit garters for grandmothers,
take a little horseback riding for exercise, pick straw-
berries, visit the estates of their future husbands, and
work transparencies for their windows, 'where Tin-
tern Abbey holds its station between a cave in Italy
and a moonlight lake in Cumberland.' All is pure
comedy. ' Let other pens,' Jane Austen wrote, ' dwell
on guilt and misery' — a rule to which she almost
invariably held. The most prominent exception is a
portrait of the slovenly Price family, done in the
stem manner of the poet Crabbe.
Beneath the whims and nonsense that bubble to the
surface of her novels, there is an undercurrent of com-
mon sense and respectable thinking. So consummate
an artist as Jane Austen certainly did not make her
characters a mere mouthpiece for herself, and yet in
the selection and in the treatment of her material she
spoke plainly her opinions and ideals. Young women
had better marry husbands who can support them.
Gentlemen suffering from ennui may find a very use-
ful occupation in looking after their tenants. Her
ideal of manhood was the heroism of the sea. In her
most careful character-building, she considered, and
gave due weight to, the bearing of early education,
environment, wealth, and poverty ; and on the subject
of heredity, she went somewhat beyond current humors
and ruling passions. A guiding principle of hers was
FROM •HUMPHRY CLINKER' TO *WAVERLEY» 119
that the lighter conduct of men and women results
from their being dupes of misconception. ' One takes
up a notion and lets it run away with him,' as when
the Rev. William Collins imagines that his fair cousin
Elizabeth will jump at an opportunity of becoming his
wife. *One believes herself in the secret of every-
body's feelings, and with unpardonable arrogance
proposes to arrange everybody's destiny;' such are
the irrepressible matchmakers, and the inexperienced
Emma, who at length sees the almost tragic conse-
quences of ^the blunders of head and heart.' Herein,
in the detailed application to life of Bacon's Idols of
the Cave and the Market Place, lies in a large measure
the humor of Jane Austen. The reader, being in the
secret, looks on at the mistaken and mistaking actors,
seeing men and women, variously obtuse, moving in
shadows and half-lights. This is a delicate psycho-
logical humor akin to the higher comedy of Shake-
speare.
No novelist since Fielding had been a master of
structure. Fielding constructed the novel after the
analogy of the ancient drama. * Pride and Fre j udice ,^
has not only the humor of Shakespearean comedy, but
also its technique. Elizabeth first meets Darcy at a
village ball. She at once becomes prejudiced against
him on account of the general havteur of his bearing
toward the village girls, and especially on account of
a remark of his to his friend Bingley, which she over-
hears — a remark to the effect that, though she is
tolerable, she is not handsome enough to tempt him
to dance with her. Jane Austen now displays very
great skill in handling events to the deepening of
Elizabeth's prejudice^ and to the awakening of Darcy's
120 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
love, in spite of his pride. When prejudice and proud
love have reached the proper degree of intensity, she
brings Elizabeth and Darcy together at the Hunsford
Parsonage; there is an arrogant and insulting pro-
posal of marriage and an indignant refusal. From
this scene on to the end of her story, Jane Austen
is at her very best. By easy gradations, through a
process of disillusioning, Elizabeth's prejudice van-
ishes, and with its gradual vanishing goes on the
almost pitiable humiliation of Darcy. The marriage
of Elizabeth and Darcy is not mei^ely a possible solu-
tion of the plot ; it is as inevitable as the conclusion
of a properly constructed syllogism or geometrical
demonstration. For a paraUel to workmanship of
this high order, one can look only to Shakespeare, to
such a comedy as ^ Much Ado about Nothing.*
Of 'Pride and Prejudice' the author left behind
her a playful criticism, which in part runs thus : * The
work is rather too light and bright and sparkling ; it
wants shade, it wants to be stretched out here and
there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had,
if not, of solemn specious nonsense, about something
unconnected with the story, an essay on writing, a
critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buona-
parte.' These questionable faults she undertook to
correct in her last three novels. She went deeper.
The transition from 'Pride and Prejudice' to 'Mans-
field Park' and 'Emma' is somewhat more pronounced
than the transition from 'Much Ado about Nothing'
to ' Twelfth Night.' In ' Persuasion ' she took as her
central idea ' the uncertainty of aU human events and
calculations.' Her characters were now inclined to
come perilously near moralizing; but this was never
FROM * HUMPHRY CLINKEH' TO * WAVERLEY' 121
excessive nor commonplace. Her sincere delight in
the loveliness of the world about her^ which she had
kept to herself, because the language of the pictu*
resque was * worn and hackneyed/ she noilr gave some
freedom of expression to, — especially to her love of
the unclouded night and the sea. She placed in
shadow many subordinate incidents and characters;
some event of past years, briefly narrated, and some
one living in London or in the North, briefly described,
make themselves felt on the village comedy as it is
acting. In this way, she made the story of Fanny
Price appear but as a part of the wider life of her
time.
Jane Austen's novels have their momentum mostly
in conversation, with which is combined narration in
little patches. Description, too, does not stand by
itself for more than a few sentences, but is knit
into the narrative. Letters are frequently employed,
usually serving the same purpose as the monologue
or the soliloquy of the stage. This dilated drama
moves forward slowly, but it always moves, for the
reason that so little is introduced for its own sake.
After a breakfast-table conversation, a visit, a walk,
or an excursion, and by means of them, the characters
^are shifted about, new light is thrown upon them, and
a step has been taken toward the final issue.
The style of Jane Austen cannot be separated from
herself or her method. It is the natural easy flowing
garment of her mind, delighting in inconsistencies
and infinite detail. It is so peculiarly her own that
one cannot trace in it with any degree of certainty
the course of her reading. There is in it no Dr.
Johnson nor much Madame d'Avblay, both of whom
122 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
she read and admired greatlj. The only presences
that can be detected there are Cowper the letter-
writer, and Crabbe the village poet, of whom she once
said she could fancy herself the wife, were she ever
to marry. Her close scrutiny of a word before she
used it, or at least let it stand, is illustrated by
several little remarks in the course of her stories, as,
for example, the observations on ^nice' in 'North-
anger Abbey': the day is nice, the walk is nice,
young ladies are very nice, ^ Udolpho ' is the nicest
book in the world, and the word itself is so nice that
it does for everything. In the arrangement of words
in the sentence for the unexpected turn, she attained
to great skill; and she had an ear for the aesthetic
values of a pleasing rhythm and cadence. When in
'Persuasion' (apparently the only instance of the
kind) she became perplexed over the proper denoue-
ment of her story, her ' felicity in the flow of words '
nevertheless remained with her. There, in the tenth
chapter, among the last sentences she ever wrote,
occurs this one: 'The sweet scenes of autumn were
for a while put by, unless some tender sonnet, fraught
with the apt analogy of the declining year, with de-
clining happiness, and the images of youth, and hope,
and spring, all gone together, blessed her memory.'
Now when we come to bring together in a few
sentences Jane Austen's contribution to fiction, it is
quite clear what must be said. She was a realist.
She gave anew to the novel an art and a style, which
it once had had, particularly in Fielding, but which it
had since lost. Fielding was master of two styles,
/ the burlesque and the rich eloquence of the great
orators and moralists ; he was at will Cervantic and
FROM * HUMPHRY CLINKER ' TO * WAVERLEY ' 123
Demosthenic. Jane Austen's style is the language of
everyday life — even with a tinge of its slang — to
which she has added an element of beauty. In the
manipulation of characters and events, she left much
less to chance than did Fielding. The series of events
by which Fielding gets Partridge from Somerset to
the London playhouse, to frighten him with the ghost
in ' Hamlet/ and to pay a compliment to Garrick, is
very extraordinary, and it was so intended. Jane I
Austen brings together her village folk and their
visitors, at the dinner-party and the ball, as naturally
as they would meet in real life. There is never any
question needing explanation why a certain young
lady or a certain young gentleman happens to be
present It is not to be supposed that there ever
occurred a ball just like that one in ^ Mansfield Park,'
or a strawberry party just like that one described in
'Emma.' Jane Austen, like all country girls, was
fond of dancing, and she not unlikely picked straw-
berries; but it would be to misinterpret her art to
infer that in these scenes she is merely transcribing
actual experience. What she is doing is building up
scenes in her imagination, taking details from various
occasions. Furthermore, we are not to suppose that
there ever existed a woman quite so silly as Mrs.
Bennet, or a country clergyman obtuse in precisely
the same way as Mr. Collins ; or a rattle exactly like
Jack Thorpe, who hurries Catherine into his gig ' that
the tumble may soon be over,' and refuses to take his
sister out riding ' because she has such thick ankles.'
Fanny Price is no specialized portrait, a friend of the
author's put into ' Mansfield Park ' as a compliment,
but a country girl whose conduct is in perfect accord
124 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
with her antecedents and sunoandings. The matter
of observation, in passing through Jane Ansten's
imagination, was never violently disturbed ; the par-
ticular bias it received was from a delicate and de-
lightful irony ; there was precisely that selection and
recombination and heightening of incident and char-
acter that distinguish the comedy of manners from
real life.
CHAPTER IV
NiNETEENTH-GENTUBY BoMANGB
1. Sir Walter Scott and the Historical Novel
The realistic tendencies in fiction which were cul-
sninating in the refined comedy of Jane Austen, were
in part arrested by Sir Walter Scott. The novel he
wrote is of composite character. In it is the story of
adventure, the realistic sketch of manners, and the
saner elements of the Gothic romance; and these vari-
eties of the novel, blended, are placed in an historical
background.
The first of Scott's novels was published in 1814;
the last, in 1831. The series, when brought to a close
by failing health and then death, consisted of more
than thirty novels and stories. To his contempora-
ries he appeared ^to toss them off in careless profu-
sion'; and they looked in vain, as they well might
in recent literary history, for a phenomenon equally
marvellous. The popularity of the 'Scotch novels'
was so great, that the contemporary critic apologized
for reviewing at all works that were everywhere
bought, borrowed, and stolen. For reasons that cannot
be well appreciated now, Scott did not publicly ac-
knowledge himself as their author until 1827, and
then it was done dramatically; but from the very
beginning it was generally understood that they pro*
1S6
126 DEVEL0P14ENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
ceeded from Abbotsford. In November, 1814, Jeffrey
wrote of 'Waverley' in the Edivburgh Review: *If
it be the work of an author hitherto unknown, Mr.
Scott would do well to look to his laurels.'
Jane Austen, it was said, wrote comedies analogous
to Shakespeare's. Scott endeavored to mould the loose
romantic epic to the form of the historical drama.
Whether, as in ' Waverley,' he merely gave the story
of adventure a dramatic ending, or, as in ^ The Bride
of Lammermoor,' he was dramatic throughout, his
romances have in every instance double plots. There
are the deeds of the aristocracy; and there is the
commonalty, among whom, as in Shakespeare's his-
tories, appear comic characters. In catenating the
events of these plots and in uniting them into one,
Scott was not so eminently successful as Jane Austen;
for his work was extempore. Of her ^cropping and
lopping ' he never thought, but sent off to the Ballan-
tynes his pages as fast as he wrote them, while he
imagined he heard the press Hhumping, clattering,
and banging.' In consequence his style has not that
subtle adjustment of words and phrases found in the
great masters of English prose.
But the mechanism of his plots and his sentence
structure he almost concealed in the picturesque de-
scriptions of romantic poetry. With the publication
' of ^Waverley,' ^ local color,' at which the romancers
I had made wild attempts, — Ann Radcliffe and Jane
! Porter with most success, — definitely becomes a part
of romantic fiction. ^Waverley' is really an un-
rhymed ^Lady of the Lake.' Its scenes are in the
open air, in the Highlands or on their verge. Edward
Waverley first meets Rose Bradwardine of * paley gold'
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROMANCE 127
hair in the garden of Tully-Veolan, amid fruit trees,
flowers, and evergreens. Into the solitudes of a High"
land glen, Flora Mao-Ivor of wild dark eyes lures
Waverley, and there sings to him of the sleeping sons
of the Gael, tuning her harp to the murmur of a
distant waterfall, the sighing of the evening J3reeze,
and the rustle of leaves. In the same glen she
tells him why she cannot marry him. The High-
landers march to the battle-field of Preston, iii the
fading starlight of morning, 'plimging into a heavy
ocean of fog which rolls its white waves over the
whole plain and the sea by which it is bounded.' The
sun appears above the horizon; 'the vapors rise like
a curtain and show two armies in the act of closing.'
Then comes the fierce yell and the butchery. In his
prefaces and in his notes, Scott warns the tourist
against supposing that he copies landscapes, old
manor-houses, and castles, directly from nature; but
he is equally careful to say that real scenes with
which he is familiar have aiPorded him leading out-
lines. His descriptions, interpreted in the language
of criticism, are a wavering between the real and the
ideal. The ideal mood prevails disagreeably when,
as has been observed by Professor George Saintsbury,
he lets, in the seventh chapter of 'The Antiquary,'
' the huge disk ' of a setting sun sink into the ocean
off the east coast of Scotland ; it prevails beautifully
in his Eenaissance gardens and in his Ossianic glens
and battle-fields. Eealism is in the ascendant when
he describes a scene from Salisbury Crags, a Scotch
village, or a peasant's cottage.
Upon the drama of adventure with its bright back-
ground Scott threw the shadows of superstition^ f anati-
128 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
cismy and crime. The romancers just before him seem
to have known nothing of gypsies, bandits, and ruffians,
and so they went in search of them into Spain, Italy, and
Switzerland. Their demon was an imaginary being
of gigantic staturiB, imported from the East; their
ghost was a skeleton wrapped in decaying cerecloth,
who had broken from his coffin. Scott knew of manor-
houses where the ghost of the founder regularly made
his appearance in chambers appropriated to his use,
and in presentable dress. In youth and in manhood
he associated with a peasantry who believed that
supernatural beings were around them, on the heath
and among the hills, sent to warn, counsel, and aid
them; and their conduct was guided by that belief.
Scott so represents them, and thus reaches the very
heart of superstition. He takes you into a Highland
cave and shows you what a real bandit is: ^not a
stem, gigantic, ferocious figure,' but a man ^ thin in
person and low in stature, with light sandy-colored
hair and small pale features.' He takes you down
into Galloway, and shows you the real freebooter,
the real ruffian, superstitious, cruel, impudent, and
careless in manner. In more ideal characters, such
as literature had not seen since Shakespeare's witches,
he epitomizes the wildest superstitions of the North
— in Meg Merrilies, Madge Wildfire, and Koma of
the Fitful Head. And in ' Old Mortality,' where his
imagination assumes a terrible gloom, he combines
the hatred, malignancy, and superstitious insanity of
fanaticism in Habakkuk Mucklewrath, the Camero-
nian preacher of extenuated feature, and eyes, ^ gray,
wild and wandering.'
Superstition is not always employed by Scott for
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROMANCE 129
darkening effects. It is employed humorously in
' Woodstock/ and with fine psychology in ' The Bride
of Lammermoor.' Frequently it is a tenuous liter-
ary covering; as the spectre that appears to Fergus
Mac-Ivor on a slip of moonshine, through his prison
window, on the night before his execution, and smiles,
and fades away ; and particularly the vision of Lovel
as he sleeps in the Green Chamber hung with tapestry
representing a sixteenth-century hunting scene. The
huntsmen with their greyhounds, stags, and boars
move about in the arras, and one leaves his station
and stands by the bedside of the slumberer. In
scenes like these is the very spirit of mediaeval
dream poetry, of ^Blanche the Duchess' and the
'Bomance of the Bose.'
As to how far Scott's men and women are true to
life, critics were at variance in his own time and have
been so ever since. In graceful eulogy, Scott often re-
peated that the success of Miss Edgeworth's Irish
stories was the main incentive to the publication of
^Waverley.' What Miss Edgeworth had done for
Ireland, he would do for Scotland; he would bring
before the public Scotch men and women speaking
the Scotch dialect amid Scotch scenes. Because of
this realistic aspect of his work, ' Waverley ' on its
first appearance was discussed by Jeffrey not so much
as a romance, as 'a Scotch Castle Backrent.' * Waver-
ley ' and its immediate successors were filled with
Scotch scenes, in the Edgeworth manner of light
transcription, — drinking bouts of Scotch lairds and
barristers, hunting and fishing excursions, shooting
matches, the stagnant village and its vulgar rabble,
the inn, the blacksmith's shop, the schoolhouse, and
130 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
the peasant's cottage. And as a part of these seenes
are some of Scott's best characters : Paulns Pleydell,
Edie Ochiltree, Dandle Dinmont, David Deans and his
daughter Jeanie.
Scott's lairdSy as the Baron of Bradwardine and
Jonathan Oldbuck, with their musty learning and an-
tiquarian knowledge, are largely traditional ; they are
eighteenth-century humorists who have settled in Scot-
land. Scott's artistic treatment of eccentricity, how-
ever, is more realistic than Fielding's or Sterne's, for
he shows how naturally the whimsical Scotch gentle-
man grows out of his surroundings. The same skill,
too, he displays in his insane women of heightened
stature ; he is very careful to make dear how Scotch
life produces a Koma, a Meg Merrilies, and a Madge
Wildfire. So real are they to a Scotchman that he
will insist he has seen and known these very un-
canny creatures. It is noticeable that Scotf s heroes
and heroines — the characters that are married off
or die in concluding chapters — are wholly literary.
Edward Waverley and Bose Bradwardine are types
rarely absent from Scott's novels. Like the hero
and heroine of Teutonic mythology, they fall in love
and marry, because the man is manly in form or
deed, and the woman is fair. Fergus Mac-Ivor and
his sister Flora are likewise poetic creations, Scotf s
ideal of the Gelt, and probably the true ideal. Fergus
is ambitious, passionate, and superstitious, and with
gay heart dies for the cause that he has fought for.
Flora, independent and beautiful, will choose her own
husband. Waverley may go down into England, re-
turn with, an army, fall at her feet; then she may
think him worthy of her affection. She is of the
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROMANCE 181
race of the fairy mistresses of Celtic legend who
compel their lovers to come to them in long voyages
over lake and sea. Two of Scott's finely poetical
heroines dwell apart from the rest, for they excite
the deeper emotions as well as the aesthetic sense.
They are Lucy Ashton, who spills the blood of her
detested husband over the bridal chamber, and Jeanie
Deans, the peasant girl of St. Leonard's Crags, who
goes on foot to London through perils and dangers
that she may plead with the queen for a sister's life.
Thus Scott was a realist when dealing with lowly
life; but his prevailing mood was romantic with the
historical bias, as became his descent, education, and
early surroundings. He was descended from a Bor-
der chieftain who made raids into Cumberland; he
passed his youth in view of Edinburgh Castle and
the Eildon Hills, and for a period of years made
excursions along the Borders and into the Highlands,
conversing with old men and old women who could
tell him what happened fifty years before. He began
in his childhood to lay away in his memory the wild
legends of his country, and when older he 'devoured'
the mass of romantic literature that had been collect-
ing for a half -century, — new editions of the old
romances and ballads, and imitations of them written
by the moderns. Toward him all the lines of the
romantic revival converge. None of his novels were
written to represent the state of manners contempo-
raneous with publication; they all dipped into the
past. Nearest to contemporary portraits were 'St.
Eonan's Well' and 'The Antiquary,' which have as
subject Scotch and English society around the year
1800. From that date Scott traversed, with some
]
132 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
lacuiuB, English and Scotch history back to the time
of William Kufus. The largest number of his ro-
mances have to do with the reigns of the first three
Georges ; his most distinctively historical novels have
to do with the reigns of Elizabeth, the first James of
England, and the Protectorate of Cromwell ; his his-
tories in which there is the most romance have to do
with the Crusades, the age of chivalry, and the struggles
of the Stuart Pretenders to recover the throne of Eng-
land. Taken all together, they form the most splendid
series of historical scenes that fiction has yet produced.
Of course no rigid historical test should be applied
to the Waverley novels, though in individual instances,
as 'The Fortunes of Nigel,' they would stand the
ordeal. They are primarily not history, but literature.
As Shakespeare was the first to write an historical
play that continued to attract theatre-goers, it was
quite natural that Scott should take him as his
master. Shakespeare read in Holinshed that Prince
Henry * slue lord Persie called Sir Henry Hotspurre,'
and letting his imagination play on this bald state-
ment, he worked up that impressive single combat
scene between Hotspur and Prince Hal, with all its
high poetry and rich detail from the age of chivalry.
That is the literary and romantic treatment of history.
Scott stands on an old battle-field, knowing some
details of the battle that once took place there, and
he constructs in his imagination the whole scene ; he
places the armies, dresses up the combatants in appro-
priate dialect and costume, arranges his moon, stars,
and fog, and then lets the fight begin. He visits an
old kirkyard where the Covenanters have long slept
neglected; he raises them to life, and tells one just
NINETEENTH-CENTUBY ROMANCE 138
how they looked, what fantastic clothes they wore^
and what strange and insane things they did, — how,
that they might not murder their victim on the Sab-
bath, they would set the clock forwardy because 'the
sun went hack on the dial ten degrees for intimating
the recovery of holy Hezekiah.' He sees an old Nor-
man castle in ruins, and knows just how it appeared
when Bobin Hood and his merry men stormed it, and
who were in it. He reads an old ballad on Cumnor
Hall, a few pages in an antiquarian, a contemporary
account of the revels at Kenilworth, and Shakespeare's
^Antony and Cleopatra,' and he has the facts and
machinery of a great historical tragedy.
Shakespeare believed himself justified in tampering
with history for dramatic ends. He compressed events,
changed their order, and introduced into his histories
events which never occurred at all, and for which there
was no authority in the chroniclers. Scott did the
same thing ; and when criticised by Dr. Jonas Dryas-
dust for doing so, he referred him to Shakespeare,
and sent Miss Dryasdust a brand-new pair of spec-
tacles. Scott, however, was not so skilled in manipu-
lating history as was Shakespeare. Shakespeare —
to give the substance of Coleridge's masterly defence
of him -grouped and arranged his ' stars in the sky '
to the issue of a higher unity than that of chronological
sequence. Scott was undoubtedly justified in making
the murder of Amy Bobsart contemporary with Leices-
ter's princely reception of Elizabeth at Kenilworth in
1575, though it occurred fifteen years before. It was
really necessary to do this, in order to combine in one
picture the gayety, the display, and the crimes of the
Elizabethan age. But when, in this same romance, he
134 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
makes the schoolboy Shakespeare, then only eleven
years old, the author of ' Yenus and Adonis/ and a few
years later, in * Woodstock,' implies that the dramatist
died somewhere around 1590, before he had written
one great play, our sense of historical propriety re-
ceives a shock. Probably every one of Scott's novels
contains similar deviations from history, some of
which were made purposely, and others no doubt from
carelessness or ignorance. These slips, though so
glaring as mistakes in heraldry, armor, and geography,
he never corrected for his critics, but coolly called
their attention to others which they had not observed.
The main interest in Scott's historical novels is
often not historical, and the historical interest is at
least always divided with a purely fictitious interest.
In ' Waverley ' the hero and heroine are not historical ;
and the same is true of *01d Mortality,' *Ivanhoe,'
' The Fortunes of Nigel,' and ' The Abbot.' * Kenil-
worth' is different only in appearance. Amy Bobsart
bears an historical name, but she is really the typical
tragic heroine, and Leicester is the conventional villain
with some facts taken from the Earl of Leicester's
life for an historical semblance. The attention is thus
distracted from Elizabeth, Mary, James, Cromwell,
and the yoimg Stuart Pretenders. In adopting this
method of dealing with history — which was in part
Shakespeare's also — Scott was able to give within
the vaguely defined boundaries of fact and legend a
very free play to his imagination.
From Scott nearly all the successful historical nov-
elists since his time have learned their craft. This is
not tantamount to saying that his management of
history is definitive. It is only one of the successful
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROMANCE 185
ways in the evolution of a form. The modem histori-
cal romance, as has been seen, was the creation of John
Barclay. As he wrote it, it was allegorical, and yet
fully satisfactory to the seventeenth century, when
one of the conventions of literature was to hold
before life a thin veil. Defoe manufactured history ;
that, too, was for a time pleasing. The romanticists,
later in the eighteenth century, put well-known his-
torical characters through the adventures of the Smol-
lett novel. Scott and a small company of novelists
before him constructed an historical background
sprinkled with a few historical characters, and placed
in the foreground imaginary figures. This union of
fact and fiction has prevailed, with some exceptions to
be noted, throughout the nineteenth century. It may
not be the fixed type of the historical novel. There
yet remains to be written a novel in which historical
characters shall be brought to the front and kept
there.
And finally, the real power of Scott's novels, that
which makes them of perennial interest, is not merely
their romance, their accumulation of historical facts,
their Scotch dialect, and smattering of obsolete words
— their local coloring. All these are accessories,
which as time goes on will be pleasing to one age and'
displeasing to another. Beneath all is human nature^
which is practically the same in all times. Men lovej
and men hate, they are faithful to their promises and
they are treacherous, they are sometimes wise and
sometimes foolish ; they always have been and always
will be thus, and Scott in a comprehensive outlook
over long stretches of Scotch and English history
has so represented them. The novel he wrote is
136 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
essentially, as Fielding's, a human epic, but placed
back, as he chose, a few years or many centuries.
Yet in the matter of formal ethics, Scott com-
pletely broke away from Fielding. Even the Gothic
romancer had his moral. ' I am, I own,' wrote Scott,
'no great believer in the moral utility to be derived
from fictitious compositions.'^ He never preached.
Possessing a healthy, buoyant spirit, he let it per-
meate his work, and with that he was satisfied.
2. Scott^a Legacy
Sir Walter Scott is the greatest force that has yet
appeared in English fiction. He had the pleasure of
seeing, some years before he ceased writing, rivals
enter the field against him from Scotland, England,
and the United States, and some of them with the
professed intention of vanquishing him on his own
groimd. Even an appreciable fraction of what they
wrote can be learned only by looking over lists of
publications in contemporary periodicals. A count of
the romances mainly or partially historical announced
in Blacktoood's McLgazine for 1825, as just published
or about to be published, runs above twenty-five.
Among them are : ' Eameses, an Egyptian Tale, with
Historical Notes of the Era of the Pharaohs'; 'New
Landlord's Tales; or Jedediah in the South'; *An-
selmo; a Tale of Italy, illustrative of Roman and
Neapolitan Life from 1789 to 1809 ' ; ' Thomas Fitz-
gerald, the Lord of Offaley, and Lord Deputy of
Ireland, a Romance of the Sixteenth Century ' ; < Lione!
Lincoln'; 'London in the Olden Time; or Tales in-
1 Introduotion to * Fortunes of Nigel.'
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROMANCE 187
tended to illustrate some of the Localities, and Man-
ners and Superstitions of its Inhabitants from, the
Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century' ; 'A Peen at The
Pilgrims, 1636 ' ; * The Abduction ; or The A^entures
of Major Samey; a Story of the Time of Charles
XL'; ^Ned Clinton; or, the Commissary; comprising
Adventures and Events during the Peninsular War,
with Curious and Original Anecdotes of Military and
other Remarkable Characters ' ; * The Adventurers ; or
Scenes in Ireland in the Days of Elizabeth ' ; ' Loch-
andhu, a Tale of the Eighteenth Century ' ; ' The Last
of the Lairds ' ; * The Refugee ; a Romance, by Cap-
tain Murgatroyd ' ; ' William Douglas, or the Scotch
Exiles ' ; ' Eustace Pitz-Richard ; a Tale of the Barons'
Wars, by the author of " The Bandit Chief " ' ; ^ The
Twenty-ninth of May ; or Joyous Doings at the Res-
toration, by Ephraim Hardcastle'; 'Sephora, a He-
brew Tale,' which promises to contain *a minute
description of Palestine, and of the manners and
customs of the ancient Israelites.' Of these seven-
teen romances, only two have escaped oblivion — one
by Cooper and one by Gait. A list for any other of
the last six years of Scott's life (1824-32) would
not greatly vary in number from this; its novelty
would consist in the indications of different scenes
and different historical periods.
Scott also — to use his own phrase— * set the
chimes a-ringing' in Prance, Germany, and Italy.
Under the title of *Walladmor,' a Waverley novel
was forged for the Leipzig Fair in 1824. The author
of this mystification was Wilhelm Haring, who lived
to write many similar histories, and to be honored as
the German Sir Walter Scott. About 1830, a Silesian
188 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
boy, by name Gustav Freytag, was reading Scott's
novels, one after the other, 'with ever increasing
delight.' Forty years later he began ' The Ancestors *
('Die Ahnen'), a collection of historical and military
tales connected by the thread of heredity. The work
of Georg Ebers is everywhere known. To these three
writers might be easily added a score more, who, like
Scott, constructed a national and patriotic epic. In
1824, Alessandro Manzoni published the first instal-
ments of 'The Betrothed' ('I Promessi Sposi*), a
masterly introspective novel with an historical set-
ting. This was the beginning of Scott in Italy. As
far back as Calpren^de, France had the historical
jiovel, which lingered on through the eighteenth cen-
tury. In 1826 it was revived in the poetic and anti-
quarian manner of Scott, by Alfred de Vigny in
'Cinq-Mars.' De Vigny was followed by Prosper
M^rim^e with 'La Chronique du r^gne de Charles
IX.' (1829). Then came Victor Hugo's 'Notre-Dame
de Paris ' (1830-31) ; and then the enormous output of
the elder Dumas and his collaborators.
The immense vogue of Scott is undoubtedly to be
explained in part by the mood of Europe in the first
quarter of the century. Scott and the romancers
accompanying him are a reflection of the militarism
of the period and of an aristocratic revolt from the
levelism of the French Eevolution. Still the success
of Scott is not mainly to be thus accounted for. He
hit upon a kind of novel elastic enough to contain
about everything in fiction which pleases; and he
thereby appealed to various orders of mind. For the
romantic he had his gorgeous scenes; for lovers of
mystery he had secrets to be disclosed in the third
NINETEENTH-CBNTURY ROMANCE l39
volume^ and sliding panels and trap-doors for the
entrances and exits of ghosts; for lovers of wild
adventure he had caves, prisons, crypts, bandits, and
hairbreadth escapes ; for those who turn to the novel
for a description of manners he furnished probably
as accurate transcripts of real life as are to be found
in the professed realists.
It was with this species of novel, so easy to imitate,
that the second romantic revival of English fiction
opened, as the first had opened with the Gothic tale
of terror. In spite of a very strong reaction against
romance in Scott's own time, which led to the reha-
bilitation of other forms of fiction, romance and a fan-
tastic treatment of real life continued their sway down
to about 1860, when Thackeray and others took a
stand for realism. The story of this legacy of Scott to
English fiction we will now proceed to tell in outline.
Mere blundering imitators we shall pass by or touch
upon lightly, and dwell upon those writers who modi-
fied and, in some respects, improved upon Scott's own
model, or turned romantic fiction into new directions.
Among the successors to Scott first in the field was
Mrs. Anna Eliza Bray. Beginning her romancing in
1825, she gained a public three years later by * The
Protestant,' the subject of which is the persecution of
the Protestants imder Queen Mary Tudor. Though
purely historical in intent, the romance had the
appearance of a flaming brand, thrown by the high
church party into the angry debate over Catholic
emancipation. After various experiments, Mrs. Bray,
in 1830, * struck out a new path in the field of ro-
mance,' and for a time was kept from wandering out
of that path by the excellent advice of Eobert Southey,
140 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
* her friend and idol.' Her subject now became the
scenes, the antiquities, the traditions, and the family
histories of Devon and Cornwall. This series of ^ The
Romances of the West' comprises 'Fitz of Fitzford,'
'Warleigh,' *Courtenay of Walreddon/ 'Trelawny
of Trelawne,' ' Henry de Pomeroy,' * Hartland Forest,'
and ^ Eoseteague.' These romances, popular for a
quarter of a century and still worth reading, are
representative of a tendency thus early toward special-
ization. If Devon may have its historian, so may
Lancashire.
Horace Smith also practised the historical novel.
His 'Brambletye House' (1826) is a good example
of the working of the time-spirit; for the first of
its three volumes covers the same period as Scott's
^Woodstock,' and was published in the same year.
It was followed by ' The Tor Hill,' * Reuben Apsley,'
' Oliver Cromwell,' ' Arthur Arundel, or a tale of the
English Revolution of 1688,' and some others. Ko
one would ever dream that they emanated from the
brain that helped produce the 'Rejected Addresses,'
which are among the cleverest burlesques in our
language. Smith's lightness, wit, and humor seem
to have evaporated as soon as he touched the novel,
and to have left as a residuum only the dullest prose.
But in ' Brambletye House,' once regarded as his most
successful effort, he made passably vivid the vagabond
condition of the c£^valiers during the supremacy of
Cromwell. He drew good sketches of Milton and
Marvel, of Charles the Second, Rochester, Nell Gwyn
and Lady Castlemain. The most generous judgment
that can be passed upon his work as a whole is, that
he endeavored to arrive at the truth of history.
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROMANCE 141
From the productivity of Scott it was inferred that
a writer's talent should be measured by the literary
output. His imitators let it be known how many
pages they wrote daily, in how many weeks they put
together their volumes, and how many novels they
could keep going simultaneously. Between 1825 and
1850, G. P. R. James wrote fully a hundred novels
and tales ; some long, some short, most of them his-
torical, and the first of them — * Eichelieu,' written in
1825, published in 1829 — famous for Thackeray's
burlesque of it. Whether he chose as his scene
England, France, Italy, or Grermany, all his historical
romances were constructed according to one formula.
They commonly opened with two horsemen riding in
the midst of grand or beautiful scenery, or with an
invocation to them before they were introduced. On
rare occasions the horsemen were omitted^ and for
them were substituted two mysterious travellers at
an inn, conversing in subdued tones over their cups.
There were always lovely heroines whose figures
harmonized with the landscape, and soft and sweet
moralizings. All this was but preliminary to being
brought face to face with great historical characters
— a Philip, a Louis, Henry the Eighth, or Cardinal
Wolsey — described minutely and conscientiously.
Contemporary with James was William Harrison
Ainsworth, whose popularity began with * Eookwood ^
(1834), and lasted for full twenty years. Throughout
this period he sought the aid of the most gifted illus-
trators, among whom was Cruikshank. The main
effort of Ainsworth was directed to the rehearsal of
historical cruelties and crimes, which he treated, not
for the purpose of tragedy, but for picturesque ox
142 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
comic effect. Executions, which Scott threw the veil
over, he thrust into the full light of day, analyzing
the sensations of the condemned as he lays his head
on the block and the executioner raises the gleaming
axe. His style was purposely flippant: for example,
his highwayman looks forward with resignation to
the time when he shall ^ be put to bed with a mattock,
and tucked up with a spade.' ' Bookwood ' is a cross
between the Gothic romance and the Kewgate Calen-
dar. Details in the taste of ^ Frankenstein ' are made
endurable, by being brought into juxtaposition with
the old English squirarchy and the brilliant feats of
Dick Turpin and his associates on the road. Dick's
ride on 'Black Bess' from London to York, with
bridle reins in his teeth and a pistol in each hand,
is a spirited piece of descriptive narration, which has
become a classic in rogue literature. The romance
is placarded with the date 1737, and is throughout
English in its setting. A less Gothic and less imagi-
native reproduction of criminal life is 'Jack Shep-
pard' (1839).
In his more regularly constructed histories, Ains-
worth is a link between French and English romance.
Hugo's 'Kotre-Dame de Paris' is a romance of an
order very different from any of Scott's ; it is further
from reality, it is more highly charged with poetry,
fantasy, and passion. Its action centres about Notre-
Dame, to which — its bells, its arches, and its towers
— Hugo lends a personality, so that the magnificent
cathedral pulsates with a sort of galvanized life. A
romance like this invites imitation ; for it is so elastic
that the introduction is made easy of many chapters
and even whole sections on the history of the struo-
NINETEENTH-CENTUBY BOMANCB 148
ture, on the dark deeds committed within its wallsy
and on the comparative merits of Greek and Gothic
art. Ainsworth's best-known histories are English
reflections of * Notre-Dame de Paris/ Such are * The
Tower of London ' (1840), ' Old Saint Pauls ' (1841),
and * Windsor Castle ' (1843) ; the main plots of which
have to do with the career of Lady Jane Grey, the
great plague and the great fire of London, and Henry
the Eighth's bloody experiences with his wives. When
Ainsworth left his house-breakers, prison-breakers, and
gentlemen of the road for the illustration of Gothic
buildings, it was but for the portrayal of crime on a
grander scale and in more picturesque surroundings.
In their final analysis, all his historical romances are
melodramas. Ainsworth had a wide following among
contributors to popular periodicals, such as Bentletfa
Miscellany, Ainsworth^ s Magazine, The London Journal,
Tlie New Monthly Magazine, and Reynolds's MisceUany.
Bulwer-Lytton produced five historical romances:
' Devereux ' (1829), ' The Last Days of Pompeii ' (1834),
' Rienzi ' (1835), ' The Last of the Barons ' (1843), and
* Harold' (1848). To these is to be added the incom-
plete 'Pausanias,' published posthumously in 1876.
With the exception of ' Devereux ' and ' The Last of
the Barons,' their subjects are evident from the
titles; of these two, the former is a philosophical
romance of the eighteenth century, and in the latter,
the last baron is the mighty Earl of Warwick, the
kingmaker, who put Edward the Fourth on the throne
only to depose him, and who was at length defeated
by Edward and slain in the battle of Bamet (1471).
Scott's model was Shakespeare; Bulwer's, iBschylus
and Sophocles. Bulwer was inclined to take as the
144 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
diioaz of his story some great turning-point in historyi
as the clash of new and old ideas ; and he approached
his objective point by the road of a long epic narra-
tion, compiled from huge commonplace books^ into
which he had transcribed from the Mstorians what he
thought might be of use to him. Countless details
which Scott would have cast aside, Bulwer put bodily
into his narrative. The result was more history, less
imagination, and a slower movement.
It will be remembered that the usual method of the
historical romancers anterior to Scott was to 'select a
group of historical characters, and to invent for them
a series of adventures. What they really did was
to write a Smollett novel, manipulated by characters
bearing historical names. Scott brought together his-
torical characters and events, and characters and
events wholly fictitious. ' The Last Days of Pompeii '
was a successful novelty. Bulwer climbed Mt. Vesu-
vius, studied Italian antiquities, observed Italian man-
ners, and had behind all a wide reading in Latin
literature and Greek philosophy. He realized in his
imagination Pompeii and its decadent life just before
the eruption of Vesuvius, and then, not having any
historical characters with contemporary biographies
as a guide, he created imaginary characters such as
he thought were in harmony with the period. Others
— and one of them was Lockhart — had attempted the
classic novel and had failed. Probably no historical
romance has had more readers than ' The Last Days
of Pompeii.'
Though it was not in perfectly good taste for Bulwer
to speak, as he did, of the art of his predecessors
(meaning Scott) as 'Picturesque' and of his own, in
NINETEBNTH-CEKTURY ROMANCE 1^&
contrast to theirs, as ' Intellectual,' yet there is truth
in the remark ; and this brings us to a second original
element in Bulwer. In ' The Last of the Barons/ he
looked at history from the standpoint of the philoso-
pher and the psychologist. The broils of Edward's
reign it was his business not only to portray but to
interpret. He thoroughly discussed the social forces
that rendered inevitable the rise of the middle classes
and the fall of Warwick ; he probed for the motives
that actuated the intrigues at court and Warwick in
the final stand he took against his king. This, Bui-
wer's masterpiece in historical fiction, is a KuUur-
geackkhte.
Charles Kingsley also had very great tact in select-
ing dramatic crises for the climax of his romances.
' Hypatia ' (1863) still remains the sublimest subject
that historical fiction has appropriated to its use —
the death struggle between Greek and Christian civili-
zation in the fifth century. Well might Kingsley say
when at work on 'Hypatia,' ' If I fail in it, I may as
well give up writing.' Before Kingsley, historical fic-
tion had been written either to please, or to instruct
in historical fact. Kingsley had other aims to which
he did not scruple to sacrifice. He was out of patience
with a tendency in the thought of his time to exalt
Greek letters and philosophy, at the expense of Chris-
tianity and the art and. literature that have come in
its train. This "paganism, which had been expressed
with deep lyrical longing in Schiller's 'Die Gutter
Griechenlands,' he set out to counteract. A second
purpose is unmistakably conveyed in his sub-title to
' Hypatia ' : ' New Foes with an Old Face.' Kingsley
was bitterly anti-Boman, and wished to arrest the move-
146 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
ment toward Borne that Newman had given the Church
of England. These ulterior aims lent to ' Hypatia ' a
modern tone, making out of it a novel of aggressive
purpose. But they stood in the way of real history.
What purports to be historical fact in ' Hypatia ' Leslie
Stephen ^ has pronounced a bubble that bursts on the
most delicate touch ; the Church of Borne as therein
represented is not the church of the fifth century^
and the Goths are mythical. Certainly no one should
quarrel with a romancer for misrepresenting history,
provided his purpose is not ethical, and that he states
frankly that he is not writing history. Scott, for ex-
ample, was quick to acknowledge that 'Ivanhoe' was
Froissart modernized. But Kingsley asserted that,
even where he was not writing authentic history, he
was true to the life, the manners, and the spirit of
the fifth century. Whatever may have been their
immediate effect, Kingsley's hysterics against Boman-
ism are now gay comedy, giving a pleasing relish to
'Hypatia.' When Kingsley denounced the ancient
church, he also weakened faith in the church he
adored. Such is the irony of purpose. 'Hypatia,'
like Schiller's poem, is a beautiful lament over the
passing of the gods.
Thackeray, as a boy, read his ' dear Walter Scott ' ;
in mature life, he burlesqued him, and then wrote
'Henry Esmond' (1862) and 'The Virginians ' (1867-
69). Thackeray stripped the muse of history of her
mask and cothurnus, and requested her to lay aside
the voice and manners of the stage. She may^ if she
likes, rehearse the doings of royalty and generals, but
she must also tell of 'burning farms, wasted fieldSi
^ * Hoim in a library,' third Mriet, London, 18T9.
NINETSEin'H-CSNTURT ROMANCE 147
slirieking women, slaughtered sons and fathers, and
drunken soldiery.' Thackeray denied her, too, all
her usual adornments. There are in ^Esmond' no
wanderings by the way into architecture, antiquities,
sunrises, sunsets, fair prospects, and ' dearly beloved
readers.' The men and women of the eighteenth cen-
tury appear in his pages ia their habit as they lived,
whether the characters be historical, as Steele, Addi-
son, Marlborough, and Wolfe; or whether they be
purely fictitious, as Esmond, Beatrix, and the Castle-
woods. It had been the aim of all the historical
romancers to suggest the past by sprinkling their
pages with obsolete words — troio, weet, shoon, yclept j
emprise, etc. The attempts at a more accurate repro-
duction of old style than by taking these words from
Spenser had not met with public favor, owing chiefly
to the fact that the periods selected were in the Mid-
dle Ages, when the English language was in appear-
ance quite different from what it is today. Since the
age of Queen Anne our speech has undergone no
important changes in grammar or in spelling. But
the style of that period has a peculiar classic
flavor, easily felt, with difficulty expressed, and with
greater difficulty imitated, as every one knows who
has been so bold as to try his hand at a Spectator
paper. Thackeray caught precisely its spirit; he did
not write like Addison or Steele or Bolingbroke, but
as one of their friends and companions.
Just as in Ainsworth appeared Scott indirectly
through Hugo, so in ' Esmond ' may be observed Scott
through Dumas. Dumas wrote history much as Defoe
would have done, had Defoe followed the romantic
revival instead of coming before it. Dumas made
148 BSVELOFMEFT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Iiistoxy a background for imaginaiy adyentnre and
sword-play, originatmg a species of noTel which tho
French aptly call le rotnan de cape et d^^pSe. 'Esmond '
differs from the D^Arti^^nan romances in that it is
more faithful to the spirit of &ct; otherwise it is
analogous. Two incidents of this noveli somewhat
in the manner of Dnmas, criticism has long reckoned
among the very greatest in romance, for they are
strokes of genius. The one takes place at the dinner-
table of Prince Engene in Lille, where, besides the
English ofELcers, are present the 'Prince of Savoy,
the Electoral Prince of Hanoyer, and the enyoys of
Prussia and Denmark.' General Webb, who has just
read the London Gfazettef in which the Duke of Marl-
borough has not given him the deserved credit for the
victory of Wynendael, rises, draws his sword, thrusts
it through the Gazette^ and, bending forward to his
superior ofELcer, says with the utmost courtesy : ' Per-
mit me to hand it to your Grace.' The other incident
occurs in an upper chamber at Gastlewood, when
Colonel Esmond and Frank Gastlewood break their
swords in the presence of the Stuart Pretender, thus
denying him, and the colonel gives him the satis&c-
tion of a gentleman : —
* Eh bien, Vicomte,' says the young Prince, who was a boy,
and a French boy, * il ne nous reste qu'one chose ^ faire ; ' he
placed his sword upon the table, and the fingers of his two
bands upon his breast : — * We have one more thing to do,* says
he ; *yoa do not divine it?' He stretched out his anns: —
* JBTm&roM^n^ now I '
NINBTEENTH-CENTUBY ROMANCE 149
3. The Bomance of War
The romaxice of war as a deviation from the ordinary
historical novel made its appearance in the second
quarter of the nineteenth century, when the imagina-
tion began to clothe the events which led up to
Waterloo in the high colors of a romance, of which
the heroes were Napoleon and Wellington. It is the
historical novel as the soldier writes it, or one who
has come into contact with some phase of military
life; its characters are privates and minor officers,
with now and then a glimpse at a general; and its
scenes are in the barrack and the camp, and on the
battle-field. The flow of military autobiographies and
fictions is very noticeable in 1825, when appeared
the anonymous *Ned Clinton,' and G. R. Gleig's
'Subaltern^ (Blackwood^ 8 Magazine), both of which
deal with Wellington in Spain. The stream was fed
by W. H. Maxwell, Charles Lever, and James Grant ;
the first was an Irishman ; the second, born in Dublin,
was Irish on the maternal side; and the last was a
Scotchman. Not aspiring to a regularly constructed
novel. Maxwell wrote tales more or less connected
and usually autobiographic in appearance. It was
his way to begin with pictures of the wild life in the
extreme west of Ireland, where he passed many years,
enjoying a church living without the burden of a con-
gregation; to bring on the scene an English regi-
ment stationed at Connemara for the purpose of
dislodging illicit distillers of ' dew ' among the moun-
tains, and then to go over to the Continent with his
Englishmen and Irishmen, to Spain and to Waterloo.
Representative of his work are ^ Stories of Waterloo '
150 DEVSLOPMSNT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
(1884) and ' Tlie Biyouac, or Stories of the PenizLBulu
War' (1837). Lever was a friend of Maxwell, and
from him lie took Us cue of writing sketches rather
than novels. The points of departure were greater
length and greater stress on the humorous anecdote.
There was no limit to the funny stories and hoaxes
Lever was able* to reel off at will in * Harry Lorrequer/
* Charles O'Malley/ and < Tom Burke of Ours.'
Grant wrote with more attention to structure. The
first of his novels, 'The Romance of War, or the
Highlanders in Spain' (1845), opens with scenes of
love-making in Perthshire ; the hero serves as ensign
in the ninety-second regiment, or Gordon Highlanders,
during the Peninsular campaign and later at Waterloo ;
and, after a career of bravery, duelling, and flirtation,
he returns to Scotland, marries Alice, and is ' the hap-
piest of men.' By the way are detailed accounts of
Spanish manners, and some good sketches of typical
Spanish character. The battle scenes are attempts to
narrate what really happened; the fiction is in the
love-romance and the personal affairs and experiences
of the hero when off duty. * The Eomance of War '
was the best work of its kind that had yet been writ-
ten; in it the military novel got a distinct form, and
on its scaffolding Grant constructed fifty other popular
histories.
4. Jarwes Fenimore Cooper^ and the Romance of the
Forest and the Sea
When the romantic wave reached the United States,
the possibility of an American historical novel was
discussed to the conclusion that America had no his-
tory before the Bevolution, and that the events of that
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROMANCE 161
struggle were too recent for treatment. Stilly there
were some essays at history. In 1792^ the Bey.
Jeremy Belknap published an American tale entitled
' The Foresters,' in which is given an allegorical ac-
count of the colonial settlements. Mr. Bull is repre-
sented as dividing a vast forest among his fourteen
servants, John Cod-line, Peter Bull-frog, etc., who are
always quarrelling with their neighbors on the north
and on the south — Mr. Lewis and Mr. Strut. Equally
curious is 'The Asylum; or Alonzo and Melissa'
(1811), by Isaac Mitchell. It belongs to the class
of half-Gothic and half-historical tales that were then
appearing in England, and its title would indicate a
specific connection with Sophia Lee*s ^Recess.' It
has a castle, situated in western Connecticut, in which
the heroine is locked up to be frightened by dark
shadows, strange footsteps and whisperings, and balls
of fire rolling through the halls. It describes in flam-
boyant language colonial manners just before the
Revolution, and a sea fight between the British and
the Americans, in which, after ' the decks were piled
with carnage and the scuppers spouted blood,' the
British struck their colors and their frigate was glori-
ously sunk. The historical character we see most of
is Dr. Franklin, giving the good advice of *Poor
Richard ' to the hero, who is a graduate of Yale col-
lege. Washington Irving, who in 'Knickerbocker's
History of New York ' (1809) worked the vein opened
by Belknap, left two thoroughly American pieces,
< Rip Van Winkle ' and ' The Legend of Sleepy Hol-
low.' Cooper's ' Spy ' (1821), which at once attained
a world-wide fame, and has kept it, is written on the
plan of Defoe's ' Memoirs of a Cavalier.' It is a fomantie
162 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
of the Bevolution, with meagre historical faonim'
tion. At genuinely historical work^ requiring the
examination of historical documents, Cooper was,
so far as posterity is concerned, an utter failure.
'Lionel Lincoln/ with its graphic and accurate de-
scription of the battle of Bunker Hill, is no longer read.
Hawthorne did some perfect work in the historical
sketch, as in 'The Gray Champion' and 'Endicott and
the Bed Cross.' More than this he did not attempt.
Though the writers in the United States thus ac-
complished very little in history, in pure romance
they, however, not only did respectable work, but in
some ways excelled their British cousins. Some years
before the Bevolution, settlers in Virginia and the
Carolinas broke through the passes of the Blue Bidge
into Kentucky and Tennessee. This westward move-
ment, impeded by the outbreak of the Bevolution,
reappeared after the peace of 1783, in emigration from
New England to western New York and Ohio. Another
check came with the war of 1812. At its close the
children of the first wave of emigration pushed farther
on, spreading along the river valleys of the limitless
West. This frontier life early found its way into
American literature, as in Charles Brockden Brown.
Its romance was immortalized by James Fenimore
Cooper, in * The Leather-Stocking Tales,' comprising
* The Pioneers ' (1823), ' The Last of the Mohicans '
(1826), ' The Prairie ' (1827), ' The Pathfinder ' (1840),
and 'The Deerslayer' (1841). Cooper passed his
youth in the border village of Cooperstown, on Ot-
sego Lake, by the source of the Susquehanna. ' The
Pioneers ' is a reminiscence of his boyhood, and must
be taken as a realistic picture of what he had seen.
NINETEENTH-CENTUBT ROMANCE 168
In the other Leather-Stocking stories, the scene changes
to Glens Falls, the great prairies of the middle West,
Lake Ontario, and back to Otsego Lake. They all
bear some date, but in reality they have no very
precise historical background. It is sufficient to place
them somewhere in the eighteenth century. Except
* The Pioneers,' they are all, in Cooper's phrase, pure
legends.
Cooper was a poet. How tame is Mrs. Badcliffe's
or Charlotte Smith's romancing of the forests, when
compared with that of the man who had lived in them.
The aspects of the North American forests that most
impressed Cooper were their boundlessness and their
mystery. He noted their changes, their ever varying
tints in light and shade, the rich and glorious coloring
of an ocean of leaves in an autumn sunset, their
sinister darkness as the storm-cloud hovers over them,
the moaning of mighty branches, the crash of some
falling giant and the reverberation through the wilder-
ness, and the mountain in flames. What he hated
was the woodman's axe. Of these boundless, mys-
terious, living forests. Cooper created two captivating
inhabitants, Chingachgook and Nathaniel Bumppo,
otherwise known, from his long deerskin leggings, as
Leather-Stocking. They are constructed on a plan
which, though the romancer had often tried it, had
never been very successful, that of uniting in one per-
son the characteristics of two races. Chingachgook is
an Indian who in his intercourse with the English set-
tlers acquires some of the best qualities of his new asso-
ciates, and preserves at the same time the endurance,
fortitude, and scalp-loving instincts of the savage
state. Leather-Stocking Cooper followed in detail after
154 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
detail from youth to old age. In 'The Deerslayer*
he appears as a mere boy. Here he shoots his first
Indian^ and with Chingachgook enters upon his first
war-path ; he is first tempted by a scarlet woman, and
triumphs,, telling her that his only sweetheart is in
the soft rain, the blue heavens, and the sweet springs
where he slakes his thirst. In 'The Last of the
Mohicans ' he is in the prime of youth, and, because
of his sure shot, is known as Hawkeye. He is subtle
in dealing with his enemies, skilful in discovering
and following up the trail, and alert for all the
sounds of the woods. In 'The Pathfinder,' still a
young man, he is in love with Mabel Dunham, the
most lovable of Cooper's heroines, who is given to
Jasper as a more fitting match. In 'The Pioneers'
he appears as an old man above seventy ; shouldering
his gun and calling his dog, he bids farewell to his
friends and turns his face toward the Great Lakes.
In ' The Prairie ' he is invested with great dignity
and tenderness. Here he is introduced as a trapper
in the region of the upper Missouri, driven thither
by the advance of civilization. Though he is over
eighty years old, his limbs stiff and his strength
failing, he is still a good shot. Finally death comes.
Standing erect with his face toward the setting sun,
he responds in clear voice to the summons from cloud
and sky. Leather-Stocking, possessing all the virtues
and none of the vices of two races, is thus the counter-
part of Chingachgook. He is brave, truthful, honor-
able, clean in his life, of a noble piety, and a lover of
the forest and the chase. In his highest idealization
he never passes the bounds of what the imagination
grants as possible. Moreover, he i? th^ most complete
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROBiANCS 155
portrait in fiction. Since Cooper's time the norel at
frontier life ha49 kept pace with the progress of civiliza-
tion westward. Sketches more realistic than his hare
been wriji^n by Bret Harte and Owen Wister; the
Indian likewise has been poetized by others. But no
writer, though there have been many experimentSi of
which may be cited John Gait's 'Lawrie Todd' and
Gustave Aimard's ' Last of the Incas/ has ever thrown
Cooper's magic veil over the American forests and
lakes.
Between Smollett's ' Roderick Bandom ' (1748) and
Scott's ' Pirate ' (1822), there appeared no tale of the
sea. It is true there were in this interval many
stories of adventure that were represented as taking
place in part on the ocean, but they made no pretence
to portraying the life of the sea in those respects
wherein it differs from life on land. The rude and
uncouth seaman and his impoverished family in an
English port town, Jane Austen described in the per«
f ection of her art, but she knew better than to ven-
ture on an unknown ocean. Moreover, a man who
picks up * The Pirate ' expecting a sea story will be
disappointed. It is a romanced account of the man-
ners and superstitions of the Scotch and the Norse
inhabitants of the Shetlands. The sea runs up into
moonlit bays ; it lashes the cliffs in storm ; a vessel
is wrecked, and one man rescued ; a whale is left by
the tide within the bar, and gets away from the land-
men who try to captui'e him; a brig is boarded by
pirates, and a sea fight is viewed through a spy-glass.
These scenes are all in the story that relate to the
sea.
As a direct challenge to the seamanship of Soott|
156 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Cooper wrote ' The Pilot ' (1824). For this work lie
was excellently prepared, for he had served as mid-
shipmaa in the American navy. His aim was to show
just how a ship is managed in combat, and in storm
off a dangerous coast ; and that he did in scenes as
thrilling as those in his Indian romances. The one
great character of the story is the coxswain Long
Tom Coffin, who was born on the sea, and cared for
no land except a little mud-flat on which to grow
vegetables. All the brutality and coarseness of sea-
men Cooper kept well in the background. In dis-
tinction from ' Roderick Random,' ' The Pilot ' is the
romance of the ocean.
Of the numerous imitations of Cooper the best
were *Tom Cringle's Log' and 'The Cruise of
the Midge,' by Michael Scott. Eugfene Sue, who had
served as surgeon in the French navy, began his lit-
erary career with five sea tales produced in rapid
succession, and several of his countrymen followed
him. Germany also soon had Coopers as well as Sir
Walter Scotts. The older form of sea adventure,
as written by Smollett, was revived by Frederick
Marryat, who had been a naval officer during the
Napoleonic wars. * Peter Simple' (1834), which
has been the most popular of his stories, though
hard pushed by *Mr. Midshipman Easy' (1836),
is a fair specimen of his work. It is pervaded with
the spirit of fun for which there was no place in
Cooper's romances, and is interspersed with yams
of the Baron Munchausen order. Marryat's freshest
scenes are his pictures of life in the West Indies, as
the negro ball to which only the ^ite are invited.
His most amusing characters are Captain Kearney
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROMANCE 157
and the boatswain Chucks. The former^ who can
never tell the truth, dies with a lie on his lips, and
leaves directions for his epitaph, which is to begin
thus: 'Here lies Captain Kearney.* The latter, half
gentleman and half blackguard, betrays his double
character in his speech when giving his orders to his
subordinates, a rhetorical device partaking almost of
inspiration.
Charles Kingsley placed the sea tale in an his-
torical setting. * Westward Ho!' (1855) is in some
respects similar to Thackeray's work in 'Esmond.'
Kingsley sought to clothe his narrative in Eliza-
bethan prose. He affected long parenthetical sen-
tences; used the second person singular of the verb
in direct address, and sometimes dared to clip off the
d'« of the past participles of weak verbs. The great-
ness of the romance is because of its reproduction
of the buccaneer spirit of the Elizabethan age. Most
graphic is Kingsley's account of the stir and bustle
when a captain is getting ready to embark for the
west. Sir Humphrey Gilbert is about to set sail from
Plymouth ; he has two hundred and sixty men, ship-
wrights, masons, carpenters, and mineral men who
know gold when they see it, and can refine it too.
There is a goodly store, too, of musical instruments
and morris-dancers and hobby-horses, to allure and
charm the savages. Queen Elizabeth sends down
her greeting to Sir Humphrey just before he weighs
anchor, bidding him ' great good hap and safety,' and
requesting that he send up to London his portrait just
painted by a Plymouth artist. Sir Walter Raleigh
bears the message from her Majesty, accompanies
the fleet on the first day's sail, and would like
168 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
to go farther, but does not dare, for he has the per-
emptory command of his queen to return with the
portrait at once. Of the Elizabethan worthies Kings-
ley makes live once more, Sir Richard Grenville is
the most carefully studied; he is the high-minded
and heroic captain of Raleigh's ' Revenge ' : —
Men said that he was proud, but he could not look around
him without having something to be proud of ; that he was stem
and harsh to his sailors, but it was only when he saw in them
any taint of cowardice or falsehood ; that he was subject, at
moments, to such fearful fits of rage, that he had been seen to
snatch the glasses from the table, grind them to pieces in his
teeth, and swallow them, but that was only when his indigna-
tion had been aroused by some tale of cruelty or oppression.
6. The Renovation of Gfothic Romance
The Gothic romance, the superstitious elements of
which had been incorporated for minor effects into
' Waverley/ continued to exist, taking the form of the
tale of terror, the detective story, and the fantasy,
just as it had done before Scott. From Mrs. Radcliffe
down to 1850, the novelists were exceedingly few who
did not on occasion excite their readers by the strange
and the marvellous, or frighten them by some sort
of supernatural or bloody performance. Leigh Hunt
wrote in 1819 : * A man who does not contribute his
quota of grim story nowadays, seems hardly free of
the republic of letters. ' Shelley produced two * terri-
fic ' pieces, and then gave over the occupation to his
wife. The inability to rival Mrs. Mary Shelley was
one of 'the woes of Lord Byron. No better evidence
is there of the hold Gothic machinery had on the
imagination than the fact that it was resorted to as
NINBTEBNTH-CENTUBY ROMANCE 159
an embellishment of the political treatise. The ma-
jestic ghost of Sir Thomas More called upon Eobert
Southey at Keswick^ and through the watches of the
night held long conversations with him on the present
state of society.^ What the tale of horror needed
before it could be fully effective was a thorough over-
hauling and a redecoration. It was too long, and it
had not found its art.
^ The work of renovation began with Charles Robert
Maturin, in his time a well-known Irish clergyman
and litt^ateur. The tale in which he displayed
his finer imaginative power is 'Melmoth the Wan-
derer' (1820). He eliminated from the Eadcliffe ro-
mance the 'sentimental miss who luxuriates in the
rich and weeping softness of a watery landscape/ and
depended on fear as his sole motive. In many scenes,
resembling the punishments in the lower circles of
Dante's * Inferno,' he reached, if not terror, the border-
land where horror becomes terror. Such is the incar-
ceration of a young monk among serpents, whose ' cold
and bloating' forms crawl over him, and the starvation
and madness of lovers in a subterranean prison. But
the incoherency and extreme length of the romance
have long since overwhelmed it ; one of the last refer-
ences to it being Thackeray's, who compared Goethe's
eye to Melmoth's.
Four years after the publication of ' Melmoth,' the
presence of German romance is distinctly visible in
English romantic fiction. It had indeed made its
appearance previously. 'Monk' Lewis and Charles
Brockden Brown had appropriated German material,
and the German romanticists had exerted an influence
1 ' CoUoquies on Society/ 1829.
160 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
on Scott The Germans were the first to see how
futile are three or four volumes of horror piled apon
horror, strangulations, and shrieking statues. Lud-
wig Tieck and Ernst Hoffmann cut their fantasies
down to the brief tale, of from fifty to a hundred
pages ; and Washington Irving imported the German
tale, with a further cutting, into England and America.
But except in this novelty of form, Irving's ' Tales of
a Traveller' (1824) are in no way remarkable. Irving
was too much of a common-sense realist to deal with
superstition. His moving portraits, phantom faces,
and dancing furniture were in intention comic, and
always carried an obvious explanation. On the other
hand, his Addisonian taste shielded him from sJl
grossness.
Bulwer-Lytton humanized Gothic art and evoked
its poetry. In the * Pilgrims of the Rhine' (1834),
he brought on the scene the swarms of English fairies
that had been sleeping in the flowers and under the
leaves ever since Shakespeare and Drayton had dreamed
of them. They go on a visit to the fairies of Khine-
land, and there in <cool caverns,' talk, banter, woo, and
marry. In * Zanoni ' (1842) Bulwer went deep into the
mysteries of the Rosicrucians. According to their
theory earth and air are filled with supernatural beings
which preside over the destinies of man and nature.
Those initiated into the Rosicrucian brotherhood are
able to penetrate the veil that separates crude phenom-
ena from this spiritual world, and to win from the
insight the secret of eternal youth. But to preserve
the clear vision and the freshness of youth, the in*
itiated must keep his heart free from mortal passions.
The process of initiation is somewhat obscure, but the
NINBTEENTH-CENTURY ROMANCE 161
candidate must come into the presence of an exacting
demon and swear a ^horrible oath/ the exact purport
of which is kept secret from the reader. The older
romancers — Godwin^ Shelley^ and then Maturin —
made free use of Eosicrucian doctrines, laying par-
ticular stress upon the demon. Bulwer has very little
to say about this malignant gentleman^ being more
interested in the Eosicrucian himself, who, in this
instance something like five thousand years old, be-
comes acquainted with a beautiful opera singer, marries
her, loses his phenomena-piercing vision, and falls a
victim to the Keign of Terror. ^Zanoni' has been
much read by theosophists, who see in it a foreshadow-
ing of their doctrine of reincarnation.
Bulwer-Lytton was in aspiration a philosopher
fashioning Gothic material to modem purposes;
Edgar Allan Foe has been called a bom G^th.
Whatever he touched was at once imbued with Gothic
beauty, Gothic blood, and Gothic fear. Eastern and
Eenaissance luxuriousness he painted with the start-
ling brilliancy of Beckf ord, and concealed within it
the sting of poison and death. He writes a sea-tale,
to depict not so much the manners of the sea, as the
horrors of mutiny, starvation, and cannibalism. He
writes a tale of adventure in the realistic style of
Defoe, and the adventure is a descent into the Mael-
8tr5m. He describes a search for hidden treasure,
and the guide is a madman. He constructs a finer
detective story than was in the power of Godwin,
Brown, or Hoffmann, but is satisfied only when he
has made graphic those details of the crime which
they passed over. He does not stop with the burial
of the dead; he places you at midnight in a room
X
162 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
where you hear the first faint movements of the
cataleptic in the copper vault beneath, then the
rending asunder of the coffin, the grating of massive
doors; and then the emaciated figure of Lady Mad-
eline stands before you in her shroud spotted with
the blood of her struggles. The real power of the
physically horrible, hints of which there were in
Maturin, was never revealed until Poe revealed it.
Three of his tales are the perfection of Gothic art
All romances of the terror of death are dull grays
before the coloring of * The Masque of the Red Death'
(Ghraham's Magazine^ 1842) ; the mood of utter desola-
tion has been nowhere else so completely expressed
as in ' The Fall of the House of Usher ' (1840), nor of
f orlomness as in ' Ligeia ' (1840).
Within the circumscribed limits of the short story,
Poe was a consummate artist when he chose to be. It
was a dictum of his, in accord with a very common
practice of Hoffmann and Irving, that no story should
be too long to be read at one sitting. Moreover, he
conveyed the impression that it was his custom to
begin with the denouement, and to work backward
just as the Chinese write their books. Whether or
not he proceeded in just this way, there can be no
doubt that, before writing a sentence of his finest tales,
he knew when and how he was to end. None of the
nineteenth-century novelists after Jane Austen, and
none of Poe's contemporaries except Hawthorne,
wrought with so great care. His masterpiece in
structure is *The Fall of the House of Usher.' It
contains not the slightest distracting detail; the
house, its ill-fated occupants, the dreary landscape,
the chill autumn days, are all in unison, and the nar*
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROMANCE 163
ratiye, in perfect harmony with the theme, moves on
in a solemn and magnificent march to the close, when
the cracked walls burst asunder, and in a moment lie
buried beneath the stagnant tarn.
Nothing is more remarkable about Poe than his
ability to interest permanently without an appeal to
the moral nature. Of all his tales, npt more than five
lay any pretence whatever to this appeal, and even in
these instances the attention is won by his melodrama
or superb imagination. Surely no one looks to Poe for a
probing of the conscience or for moral guidance. The
very greatest writers have never thus laid hold of the
smpematural or the supermortal in and for itself, but
as a forcible means of representing excited or diseased
states of the imagination, and their narrative, without
being openly didactic, carries with it a moral inference.
Corroborative of this statement, at once come to mind
the royal ghost that haunted the palace of Elsinore,
the blood-sprinkled hand of Lady Macbeth, and ' The
Eime of the Ancient Mariner.' To this fact Leigh
Hunt called the attention of Gothic romancers, and
in these words: 'A ghost story, to be a good one,
should unite as much as possible objects such as they
are in life with a preternatural spirit. And to be a
perfect one, — at least, to add to the other utility of
excitement a moral utility.'
To illustrate his criticism, he wrote, * A Tale for a
Chimney Corner,' which possesses the ethical and
realistic qualities he insisted upon, but none of the
excitement. It has, however, an importance in the
history of Gothic romance, in that it quietly ushers
in the ideal of Hawthorne. Nearly all the Gothic
machinery of Walpole, Mrs. Badcliffe, and Godwin
164 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
is to be found in this Puritan : high winds^ slamming
doors, moonlight and starlight, magic and witch-
craft, mysterious portraits, transformations, malignant
beings, the elixir of life, the skeleton, the funeral,
and the corpse in its shroud. To these sources
of excitement were added, as time went on, mesmer-
ism and clairvoyance. The novelty of Hawthorne's
work is in his treatment. Like Shakespeare, he offers
only a partial explanation of his unusual phenomena
or none at all. Most unconventional is his use of
witchcraft, as was pointed out by Poe, in * The Hol-
low of Three Hills,' where to the imagination of the
woman of sin, as she lays her head upon the witch's
knees beneath the magic cloak, distant scenes of sor-
row for which she is responsible are conveyed, not by
viewing them in a magic mirror, but by the subtle
sense of sound. And almost equally novel is the use
made of the fountain of youth in ^Dr. Heidegger's
Experiment.' The persecuting demon of romance^
when he appears in Hawthorne's pages under the
name of Roger Chillingworth, or the Spectre of the
Catacomb, is a personification of the mistakes, mis-
fortunes, and sins of our past life, which will not
out of our imagination. The transformations — Pearl
from a capricious, elfish being into a sober woman,
and Donatello from a thoughtless, voluptuous animal
into a man who feels the sad weight of humanity —
have their analogies in real life. The supernatural
world was with Hawthorne but the inner world of
the conscience.
The ethical import of his narrative is always con-
veyed by means of a fanciful symbolism. The em-
broidered % that is hung about Hester Prynne's neck.
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ROMANCE 166
the red stigma over Arthur Dimmesdale's heart, and
Pearl in scarlet dress, are obviously symbolical. The
black veil with which a Puritan minister conceals his
face is the shadow of a dark deed. Donatello's hair-
tipped ears are suggestions of his animalism. More-
over, Hawthorne was inclined to interpret figuratively
events, nature, and art Little Pearl runs from her
mother and cannot be coaxed to return ; that is typical
of a moral gulf separating them. The sunless wood
in which Hester stands alone images a moral solitude.
Light streaming through the painted windows of a
Gothic church is a foretaste of the ' glories of the
better world.' As Hawthorne views a half-finished
bust, and sees the human face struggling to get out
of the marble, he remarks : ^ As this bust in the block
of marble, so does our individual fate exist in the
limestone of time.' It has been said that Poe was a
myth maker; Hawthorne likewise built up his own
myths, and then he allegorized them like Bacon, turn-
ing them into apologues. Even the allegorical inter-
pretation sometimes given to ^The Marble Faun' is
not to be ridiculed, for the allegory is there. What-
ever may have been the origin of language, it has now
become, in its common use, a direct representation
of things, ideas, and feelings. Hawthorne did not
always so treat it, but raider conceived of it as a
system of hieroglyphics ; a secret he does not call a
secret, < it is a wild, venomous thing ' imprisoned in
the heart. This is the way of Spenser.
The story of Hawthorne is only half told when we
say he refined Gothic art and fashioned it to high
ethical purposes. As in the case of Poe, one of his
great charms is his workmanship in structure and
166 DBVBLOPMBNT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
style. In the technique of the short tale^ Poe was
at least his equal ; in the longer tale^ where Poe left
many loose ends, Hawthorne succeeded twice — in
' The Scarlet Letter * (1860) and ' The House of the
Seven Gables' (1851). Poe modelled his style on
Defoe and De Quinceyi now suggesting the one and
now the other. Hawthorne by laborious practice
acquired a more individual style; the good taste of
Addison and Irving are visible in it, and the brooding
and dreamy fancy of Tieck, disguised however in the
fusion.
In literary history the precise time order of events
is not always the precise logical order. The long
vista of the purely Gothic romance, at whose entrance
stands the blood-stained castle of Otranto, is closed
by a storm and passion beaten house on the Yorkshire
moors. The motive of Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering
Heights ' (1847) is vengeance. Relieved of all imper-
tinences of time and place, the situation is this: A
man sits down and reflects: I was bom in shame;
men have denied me education ; and they have taken
from me the woman I loved^ on the ground that I am
unworthy of her. I am not responsible for being what
I am; I did not preside over my birth; the demon
within me that I tried to suppress, others loosed from
his bands. The vengeance that the Almighty has
allowed to sleep I myself will wake and wreak upon
those who have wronged me, and upon their children.
After years of appalling success in meting out the,
punishment of a Jehovah, one obstacle stands in the
way to the consummation of the entire scheme of
revenge. Face to face with defeat, the will loses
none of its tension ; the defler of gods and men starves
NINETEENTH-CENTURY BOMAI^CB 167
himself into delirium and death ; his eyes that will
not close still glare in exultation, and his lip is curled
in a sneer, displaying sharp white teeth beneath. He
is placed in the ground near the woman the side of
whose coffin he had long ago in his mad grief torn
away, that he might lie the closer to her. Beyond
the madness and terror of ^Wuthering Heights,'
romantic fiction has never gone. Its spiritual coun-
terpart in real life is Emily Bronte, who preserved
her inexorable will far into the day on which she
died.
CHAPTER V
The Eealistic Eeaotion
1. 2%€ Minor Humorists and the Author of^Pkkunck.*
Though Scott dominated the world of fiction so long
as he lived and was a directing influence for nearly two
decades after his death, yet even during the greatest
popularity of Waverley, there were novelists o5 other
aims. Their subject was not primarily history and
superstition, but contemporary manners, or the man-
ners of their youth. They were not, according to pres-
ent canons, realists, for they commonly recombined
the matter of real life for instruction, f arce^ or satire ;
and yet their efforts made for realism. To begin
with, their product was not of the first grade, but in
course of time Dickens came, who built his great
romances on their tacitly assumed artistic principles.
All along his career Scott was accompanied by
Scotch novelists who depicted the humorous side
of Scotch life without the historical setting or
with only patches of it. Among them were Suisan
Ferrier, John Gait, and Dr. David Macbeth Moir.
Miss Ferrier was a friend of Scott's, and one whom
in his latter days he liked to entertain at Abbotsf ord,
as she was 'full of humor and exceedingly ready at
repartee.' Her three novels, 'Marriage' (1818), 'The
Inheritance ' (1824), and ' Destiny ' (1831), conceived
168
THE REALISTIC REACTION 169
in the spirit of broad comedy, have now the appear-
ance of complementing, in the way of humor, Scott's
romances of Scotland. Historical rarely and only in
episodes, Miss Ferrier held herself closely to contem-
porary society. Her ideal of a novel seems to have
been Miss Edgeworth's 'Absentee,' for her scenes
alternate between London and the Western Highlands.
The heroine of her first novel (and the main situa-
tions in her other two are similar) is a spoilt, lan-
guishing English girl of fashionable society, who is
transported with a trio of pet dogs, 'the sweetest
cherubs,' to a Highland castle, and compelled to live
there for a time with a Scotch husband and his
strange sisters and aunts. One exquisite piece of
caricature Miss Ferrier added to fiction ; that of the
woman who is always quoting the opinions of an
absent friend; in 'The Inheritance' she appears, —
the cool, staring, and talkative Miss Pratt, who tells
you what her nephew Anthony Whyte says, what
Anthony Whyte does, and what Anthony Whyte
likes. That Anthony Whyte is one of the redun-
dancies of Miss Pratt's imagination.
John Gait was a more prolific writer. The first
novel he published, ' The Ayrshire Legatees ' {Black-
wood's, 1820), put together on the plan of ' Humphry
Clinker,' consists of a bundle of letters from an Ayr*
shire clergyman and his family to friends at home.
Its humor arises from a Scotchman's comments on
London sights and amusements. ' The Annals of the
Parish' (1821) is the novel of Gait's most written
about by his contemporaries ; and it is surely one of
his most characteristic and original productions. It
is a chronicle history of an Ayrshire village minister,
170 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Mr. Micah Balwhidder, a kind-hearted and Quixotic
Scotch Dr. Primrose. Charming is the quiet humor
of Balwhidder^ as he records the events of his long
reign^ sketching the characters of his three wives^ and
telling of his perplexities, and the disturbances that
came to his parish with smuggling and its consequent
tea-drinkingy with the American war, and with the
invasion of utilitarianism, rationalism, the meeting-
house, and the spinning-jenny. The thread of gold
running through ^The Annals' is the story of the
industry and the heroism of Mrs. Malcolm, ' the widow
of a Clyde shipmaster, that was lost at sea with his
vessel.' Her daughters she lived tc see well married,
and her sons well placed. Only one grief came to
her in her resigned old age, — the loss of a son
who died gallantly fighting the French on the sea.
^Her morning was raw, and a sore blight fell upon
her fortunes, but the sun looked out on her midday,
and her evening closed loun and warm, and the stars of
the firmament, that are the eyes of Heaven, beamed,
as it were, with gladness when she lay down to sleep
the sleep of rest.' Equally delightful is 'The Pro-
vost' (Blackwood^s Magazine, 1822), a companion-
piece to 'The Annals.' These chronicles their author
regarded as ' treatises on the history of society in the
West of Scotland during the reign of George the Third.'
More conventional in form is ' The Entail ' (1823), a
history of three generations of Scotch lairds. Here
Gait went into more minute and picturesque detail on
Scotch customs, and more deeply than elsewhere into
the harder side of Scotch character. Though Gait is
not of the great masters of fiction, he laid bare the
heart of Scotland as only Burns had done. Dr. Moir
THE KEALISTIC REACTION 171
was a friend and collaborator of Gait's. The outcome
of the literary friendship was ^ The Autobiography of
Mansie Wauch' (1828) ; which is an account of the life
and adyentures of an industrious and simple-minded
tailor of Dalkeith. The humor of the piece is of that
convivial kind to which the contemporary *Noctes
Ambrosianae' owed their very great popularity. Its
truest and simplest pathos is in a sketch of Mansie's
apprentice, who comes out of ^ the howes of the Lam-
mermoor hills/ and, yearning for the blithe scenes and
'kent faces ' he has left behind, pines away in the village
shop, and at length dies broken-hearted on the way to
his ' ain hame.' Gait and Moir were the pioneers in
what since the advent of Mr. J. M. Barrie and Mr.
John Watson has been called kailyard fiction, though
the happy epithet conveys a measure of depreciation
to which every sane critic must demur.
Older types of the novel of humor still persisted.
The subdued comedy of Jane Austen was for a long
time the least influential. Scott himself imitated her
in * St Bonan's Well ' ; Mary Mitf ord had in mind her
* delicious novels ' when she composed the sympathetic
sketches entitled * Our Village ' (1824-32), and traces
of Jane Austen are in Harriet Martineau's ' Five Years
of Youth, or Sense and Sentiment ' (1831). ' North-
anger Abbey ' was one of a group of anti-romances, of
which another clever specimen was E. S. Barrett's
' Adventures of Cherubina' (1813). Thomas Love Pea-
cock, in ^Nightmare Abbey' (1818), and ^Crotchet
Castle' (1831), extended burlesque to all forms of
contemporary romance, whether in verse or prose^
taking as a text, 'The Devil has come among us.'
The Oriental tale became again one of the fashions }
172 DBVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
but reverted to what it was before Beckford. In
it as now written, a Gil Bias was put throi^h a series
of laughable adventures in the East; or, somewhat
after the manner of Goldsmith's < Citizen of the
World/ the Persian ambassador with his retinue
invaded England. The funniest of the Oriental
tales were James Morier's ^Hajji Baba of Ispa-
han' (1823) and ^Hajji Baba in England' (1828).
Maria Edgeworth lived till 1849, and continued to
publish ; her ^ Ormond ' (1817) being nearly as good
an Irish tale as ^The Absentee.' The humor and
pathos of the Irishman at home she made an inex-
haustible source of delight. Miss Sydney Owenson
(Lady Morgan), who was much under the influence
of Madame de Sta^l, wrote in hysterics of the O'Don-
nels, the O'Briens, and the O'Flaherties ; while the
Irish novel preserved its steadier tone in the sketches
of the Banim brothers (John and Michael), and Will-
iam Garleton. Indeed, the severest realism of the
period is to be found in Carleton's ^ Hedge School'
and ' Poor Scholar,' of the collection known as ^ Traits
and Stories of the Irish Peasantry.' Samuel Lover
in 'Handy Andy' (1842) wrote the broad comedy
of Irish life ; and Charles Lever caricatured the Irish
dragoon.
Outside the Irish story, Maria Edgeworth was a
force of considerable magnitude. Her ' Belinda ' and
Frances Bumey's 'Cecilia' were the earlier types
of two extraordinary pieces of literary abandon by
Benjamin Disraeli and Bulwer-Lytton. The former's
' Vivian Grey ' (first part, 1826) was written to startle
by its brilliant and unrestrained cynicism. Vivian is
a smart stripling of no real attainmentSi who tries
THE REALISTIC REACTION 1T8
the experiment of rising in the world by playing the
part of an intellectual Don Juan. If a young lord
has just published a poem, he will tell him that
Goethe has reviewed it in the last number of The
Weimar lAterary Oazette, and add, ^ It is really de-
lightful to see the oldest poet of Europe dilating on
the brilliancy of a new star on the poetic horizon.'
If a sentimental miss is collecting autographs, he will
give her ofEhand Washington Irving's, and then ask :
' Shall I write any more ? One of Sir Walter's, or
Mr. Southey's, or Mr. Milman's or Mr. Disraeli's ? or
shall I sprawl a Byron?' If she encourages his
addresses, he will fascinate and frighten her by prov-
ing what an admirable plan it would be for all younger
brothers (he is a younger brother) to sell themselves
to the devil ; and in a jugglery with words for which
she is unprepared, he will bring her to the point of
proposing to him, just as she is called from the
veranda. By his coolness, impudence, and flattery,
Vivian pushes his way into society, invited or unin-
vited, and becomes the agent of a political coalition
which seems about to oust the ministry, when his in-
tellectual legerdemain is exposed, and the impostor
makes his exit to the Continent. Bulwer's pyro-
technic display in ^ Pelham ' (1828) is no less dazzling.
The hero is in his externals a new ideal of a gentle-
man. At a time when the fop let his hair fall in
ringlets to his shoulders, covered his shirt-front with
a ^axy of studs, and threw a heavy chain around
his neck; and browns, greens, and blues were the
fashion in coats, — Pelham casts aside his jewellery,
brushes out his curls, puts on black waistcoat and
black trousers, and steps into a Cheltenham drawing-
174 DEVELOPMEKT OF THE ENGLISH NOYXL
room, to be stared at^ to mystify, and astound by his
reckless talk, and to commit, without the least danger
of discovery, the delightful blunder of speaking of
Hesiod as an imitator of Shenstone. Entering poli-
tics, Pelham has a hand in driving out the Tories and
in bringing in the Whigs, but through the ingratitude
of the new Premier, whom he has brilliantly served,
he misses what he was aiming at — a seat in Parliament.^
The novel of high life that thus skimmed the sur-
face of things fell into the hands of women, and
degenerated into trash and rhapsody. The number
of these fashionable fictions that poured from the
press during the thirties and immediately thereafter,
I do not dare estimate. To Garlyle they appeared as
' shiploads.' The best of the class are the one hundred
or more novels and tales written by Mrs. Catherine
Gore between 1824 and 1862. About many of them
that have come in my way is an air of profound
learning. Not infrequently three languages are rep-
resented in a motto standing at the head of a chapter ;
while the language within is a mixture of aristocratic
English and stock French phrases. Mrs. Gore's sub-
ject was commonly club life, ennui, fribbledom, and
the political questions of the hour. The writer who-
had rejuvenated this kind of fiction, and given it a
political bias, transformed it. Disraeli's ^ Coningsby '
(1844) is a remarkable piece of plausible reasoning.
In it, the relations of Church and State, parliamentary
1 "There is ** Pelham,** it is true, which the writer of these
lines has seen a Jewess reading in the Steppe of Debreczin, and
which a young Prussian baron, a great traveller, vrhom he met
at Constantinople in '44, told him he always carried in his
valise.* — Geo. Borrow, Appendix to * Romany Bye.*
THE REALISTIC REACTION 175
abosesi the failure of utilitarianism, the part a popular
press should play as an educating force, and ways of
invigorating a weakened royalty and a weakened aris-
tocracy, were all shrewdly canvassed by a wise and
magnanimous Hebrew; and a new programme was
announced as a guide to the Young English party,
of which Disraeli was the head. With this publica-
tion, the political novel which had grown out of the
older fashionable tale was established and came
into vogue.
Between 1820 and 1840, society had its jester
in Theodore Hook. He is the Mr. Gay of Dis-
raeli's 'Coningsby,' who is invited to dinner parties
for his stories that make the guests hold their sides
and roll under the table, and the Mr. Wagg of
^ Pendennis,' who goes about among ' the fashionables
and eccentrics,' and then cuts them up in his effusions.
These personalities, which run all through * Sayings
and Doings ' (1824-30), and gave them a high flavor
to his contemporaries, are now fast growing indis-
tinct ; and Hook appears as a trafficker in hoaxes and
word-plays. Of * Sayings and Doings,' 'Gervase
Skinner' may be read as an example of Hook's
manner. Skinner is * a skinflint on principle,' who by
mistake is imprisoned in a lunatic asylum, 'clipped,
washed, and waistcoated,' and at length mulcted of
£2000, and an annuity of £150, by Mrs. Fuggleston
— an adventuress of the stage — and her jealous
husband. A scene especially noteworthy for what
Dickens afterward made out of it is the one where
Mrs. Fuggleston, * uttering a piercing shriek,' falls
senseless into Skinner's arms, and is discovered lying
there. And a wholly new character is the loquacious
176 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
gentleman whose thought jumps the ruts of the con-
ventional sentence. He first appeared in 'Gervase
Skinner' as the stage-manager Kekewich, and after-
ward in ^ Gilbert Gumey ' and ' Jack Brag.' Kekewich
is becoming enthusiastic over Mrs. Fuggleston^ the
actress : —
* Wonderful woman, sir ! ' said Kekewich ; * full of talent as
an egg^s full of meat — husband a stick — must have him —
part of her articles — pity she married — fine creature, depend
upon it — plays Ophelia in high style — finds her own dresses,
silk stockings, and all — symmetrical figure, sweet temper, and
coal-black hair, down to the small of her back — great hit for
me — short life and a merry one —snapped up for the London
houses — manager sent down a doctor of divinity and two physi-
cians to see her at Leek — nabbed her — snapped her up like a
lamb from my flock,' etc.
There was a time when everybody, from King
George the Fourth down to the boys on the streets of
London and New York, knew by heart the phrases
of Pierce Egan. The production that gave him this
popularity, extending from the highest to the lowest,
was ' Life in London ; or. The Day and Night Scenes
of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq. And His Elegant Friend,
Corinthian Tom, Accompanied by Bob Logic, The
Oxonian, In Their Rambles and Sprees through the
Metropolis.' The work appeared in monthly shilling
numbers, beginning with July, 1821, and was illus-
trated by Gruikshank when at his very best. Three
observations should be made on this novel. It is one
of the very earliest examples of a series of sketches
published in monthly parts; which was afterward
the usual method of Dickens and Thac^kerav. Second,
it introduces into fiction the cockneys, their haunts
THE REALISTIC REACTION 177
and their speech. The cockney called his watch
tickery tattHer, or thimble; his spectacles^ /our-ej^e^, bar-
nodes, or green specs; his brain, upper-story; his hat,
tihy castor y or uppercrust; his umbrella^ spread^ summer-
cabbage, or waJter-plant ; and in his pronunciation in-
terchanged the sounds of v and w. The humorous
chronicler of his slang italicized or capitalized it, that
it might not escape the most rapid of readers. There
were also word-plays, palpable and obscure, from
which a Shakespeare might have learned something ;
and that they might be grasped by the weakest of
intellect, they, too, were made to stand out boldly in
italics and capitals. Third, ^Tom and Jerry' is a
picture-novel, a joint production of author and artist.
The reader of it is uncertain whether the drawings
are there to illustrate the text, or the text is there to
explain the drawings. The novel was at once drama-
tized for London and Kew York ; and many imitations
followed, in which the scenes were sometimes in
London and sometimes transferred to Paris. It was
concluded by Egan himself in 1828, under the title,
^Finish to The Adventures of Tom, Jerry, and Logic
in their Pursuits through Life in and out of London.'
The gay adventuress of the first part commits suicide ;
Bob Logic dies in wretchedness; Corinthian Tom
breaks his neck in a steeplechase ; Jerry, now reform-
ing, retires to the country for good, where he marries
Miss Rosebud, and becomes a highly respected justice
of the peace.
It was at this juncture, while the humorists were
experimenting here and there, with burlesque, carica-
ture, and cockneyi that the young Charles Dickens
published the first instalment of 'The Pickwick
y
i78 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Papers,' a little pamphlet of twenty-six pages of tezt^
in pale green wrappers. The first number was issued
in April, 1836 ; the twentieth and last in November,
1837. At first, Dickens wrote his text as the
letterpress to Robert Seymour's ^cockney si>orting
plates,' evidently having in mind something like ' Tom
and Jerry.' Seymour dying after the publication of
the first number, Dickens changed his plan greatly,
subordinating for the future the illustrations to the
letterpress. Such in brief was the origin of * Pick-
wick.' It soon became the topic of conversation
among all classes, who laughed over its unexpected
situations, and word-plays such as, ^Mr. Pickwick
proceeded to put himself into his clothes, and his
clothes into his portmanteau'; its phrases entered
popular speech, where some of them, as 'in a Pick-
wickian sense,' still remain ; in the course of time it
found its way into nearly every European language ;
and historically considered, its publication was a turn-
ing-point in the course of English fiction.
'Pickwick' was not so well received by the critics,
who saw in it imitations of contemporary humorists.
There were indeed some echoes. Mr. Samuel Pick-
wick was in a way anticipated by ' the fat knight ' in
' Tom and Jerry,' and at least hints for Wardle and the
Dingley Dell adventures were naturally found in the
country scenes at Squire Hawthorn's. Oddly enough,
too, in view of the usual explanation for the name of
Dickens's hero, the word Pickwick as the name of a
place occurs in Egan. Hook certainly furnished
Dickens with several minor incidents, situations, and
one character. The misadventures of Pickwick have
their analogues in the career of Skinflint. Particularly
THE REALISTIC REACTION 179
close is the resemblance between Skinflint's being
found with Mrs. Fuggleston in his arms, and Mrs.
Bardell flinging herself into Pickwick's, ^ with a cata-
ract of tears and a chorus of sobs.' Kekewich is the
first edition of Mr. Alfred Jingle. This process of
pointing out the sources of Dickens might be carried
much farther, were anything to be gained by it, back to
Smollett and Addison. But all that is worth insist-
ing upon is that in Hook, Egan, and their brother
humorists is the literary background to 'Pickwick.'
Just as Scott had taken the Gothic and historical
romance, impossible and insane, and made of it ' Wa-
▼erley ' ; so Dickens, working in the novel of farcical
situation, transformed it, making of it a distinct
species. The minor humorists were weak in what the
rhetoricians call invention. They worked again and
again the same situations ; of characters in any full
sense of the term, they had few; and when they
touched low life, their imagination deserting them,
chey presented it in its crass vulgarity. Dickens pos-
sessed immense creative power. * Pickwick,' contain-
ing some sixty distinct situations and more than three
hundred and fifty characters, is of all English novels
the one of largest scope. Though these characters are
mostly the humors of comedy, they are not merely
such. Sam Weller is the embodiment of all that is
delightful in the London cockney. Dickens wrote
with the mind's eye upon the customs and manners,
. the men and women of his time, which his imagina-
tion, seizing hold of, lifted into the world of the gro-
tesque. This has been the home of the very greatest
humorists — the creators of Don Quixote, FalstafE,
and TJnclc Toby. In full sympathy with his material,
180 DEVELOPMENT OP THE ENGLISH NOVEL
88 one who knew London and the hardships of its
slums and prisons^ he invested his narrativei be it
farce or comedy, with a tragic cast and a noble
humanity.
2. Charles Dickens aind the Humanitarian Novel
The humanitarian novel, with which the name of
Dickens is preeminently associated after the publica-
tion of ' Pickwick/ is the popular section of an ex-
tensive humanitarian literature, and as such it is the
most available record of a deep and far-reaching phil-
anthropic movement, which had its beginnings in the
eighteenth century, and rose to its sentimental culmi-
nation some fifty years ago. When the nineteenth
century opened, the English penal code, to speak most
respectfully of it, was a brutal anomaly. Statutes of
the Plantagenets and the Tudors, ludicrous for their
tragic severity, were still nominally in full force.
During the reigns of the Georges, the number of capi-
tal offences increased in steady march from sixty-six
to above two hundred. The readiness of the minis-
try to create at any time a felony without benefit of
clergy, was one of the grim jests of Burke. Among
the acts punishable by death were pocket-picking and
shoplifting, in each case to the amount of five shil-
lings. The moral and sanitary condition of British
prisons was, to use the lone adjective of a Parliamen-
tary report, ' dreadful.' While the Gothic romancers
were horrifying the public by detailed accounts of re-
fractory nuns incarcerated in vaults for the dead, the
real tombs, where real men and women were being
buried alive, were the Marshalsea and Newgate; of
THE REALISTIC REACTION 181
which and other jails and prisons one may read in
the Dahtesque descriptions of John Howard. With
the invention of the power-loom arose new social
problems. Workmen in factories were paid barely
enough to afford mere subsistence in bams or in
cellars; and in the train of evils came the employ-
ment of women and children through long days, in
some cases from five in the morning until seven in
the evening. Workmen united^ and Parliament sup-
pressed the trade unions. They rose in jriot in conse=^
quence of famine and the high price of food products^
resulting as they thought from a new com law ; the
response of the government was a suspension of the
habeas corpus act, and the passage of laws practically
prohibiting public meetings for considering grievances.
Philanthropists in and out of Parliament had for a
long time been doing what they could for the ameliora-
tion of the lower and criminal classes ; and in the sec-
ond quarter of the nineteenth century their endeavors
were in large measure successful. Poundling hospi-
tals had long been established, and societies for taking
distressed boys out of the street and educating them.
Laws were passed restricting the labor of women and
children. The slave-trade, and afterward slavery, was
abolished. Prisons were becoming penitentiaries, and
the penal code was reformed. The elective franchise
was enlarged. Corn laws were repealed. Parliament
appropriated money for public education, and standard
literature was published in cheap form. The list of
philanthropists and reformers is long and glorious,
Wilberforce, Komilly, Mackintosh, Brougham, Peel,
Lord Ashley, Cobden, and Bright.
The humanitarian movement gave us the humanita-
182 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
rian novel, and in torn the novel probably accelerated
the movement Philanthropic motive was not absent
from our earliest eighteenth-century fiction. It ap-
peared in Defoe, Fielding, and Goldsmith, combined
with the picaresque escapade ; and in Mackenzie, com-
bined with a plaintive sentimentalism. It was a more
conscious aim of the pedagogic and the revolutionary
Inovelists, the popularizers of social theories. There
/are pages in Grodwin's 'Fleetwood' which a reader
/cannot fail to remember; for example, the account
of the dreary and despairing life of yoimg children in
the silk factories of Lyons. But the Godwin novel of
theory, with its humanitarian tendencies, received a
check from Scott. Scott brushed aside in jest all
social and philanthropic schemes, having no. faith in
them ; and consequently his romances are free of
them. He represents the conservative recoil from
the French Eevolution and its philosophies, and he
carried with him the world of fiction. It was not
until he was dying at Abbotsford that the philan-
thropists showed any marked disposition to take pos-
session of the novel. An approximate date of this
appropriation is the publication of 'Paul Clifford'
(1830), in which Bulwer-Lytton elaborated the thesis,
that 'a vicious prison discipline and a sanguinary
criminal code ' do not prevent crime at all, but really
help to turn out criminals. The truth of his conten-
tion was fully corroborated by the investigation of
Parliament five years later.
In BenUey's Magazine for January, 1837, Dickens
began the publication of ' Oliver Twist,' which, though
differing in details and somewhat in aim from ' Paul
Clifford,' is built on similar lii^es. It is a picaresqi^*^
THE REALISTIC REACTION 18S
story humanized, and given a realistic setting in the
London slums. After the publication of the two im-
mediately succeeding novels of adventure — ^Nicholas
Nickleby ' and ' Old Curiosity Shop ' — Dickens became
a sort of professor of humanitarianism ; and he held
his position for nearly thirty years, disturbed now
and then by a critic or reviewer who questioned his
knowledge. The light of that knowledge, which was
indeed somewhat false and misleading, and the light
of an imagination of strange and alluring splendor,
he turned upon a great variety of English scene and
character, but especially upon workhouses, debtors'
prisons, pawnbrokers' shops, hovels of the poor, law
offices, dark streets and dark alleys, all the London
haunts and lurking-places of vice, crime, and pain.
Hisjhfime^ w ao alw ays the downtrodden and the op-
pj^SjBd. He was their advocate; for them each of
his novels after 'Pickwick' is a lawyer's brief. He
did not believe it possible for the lower and criminal
classes to raise themselves by the elective franchise
to a higher moral and intellectual plane. To him
Parliament was the dreariest place in the world, and
he kept out of it. He sought to arouse the conscience
of the British public, and he left the issue with them-
selves. He accordingly attended, often acting as chair-
man, meetings of philanthropic societies, where gov-
ernmental abuses and the condition of criminals and
the poor were to be canvassed, visited jails and pris-
ons, holding long conversations with the keepers, and
went on addressing the ever increasing audience of
his novels. Through him spoke the heart and con-
science of Britain, which had found no responsirt
voice in Scott
184 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
. Though the novels of Dickens have their raison
\d?^re in this quickening of the social sympathies,
Jit will not do to insist upon faithfulness to truth in
' details ; we must grant him greater freedom in dealing
"{with facts than we are called upon to grant to any
>^other modern humorist of the first order ; greater free-
dom, it is often maintained, than art can reasonably
expect. Satire — and the Dickens novel is always sa-
tirical, running the entire scale from light burlesque
to fierce invective — satire is likely to be misplaced
so soon as it becomes a profession. The attacks of
Dickens on science and political economy are hysteri-
cal curiosities. Of all the abuses lashed or burlesqued
in his novels, none later than those in * Oliver Twist '
were in the strictest sense real. The rest of his novels
that purport to deal wholly or in part with contempo-
rary vices, are really historical, representing, so far as
they are true to fact, England of the Fourth Greorge
rather than England of Victoria. They are com-
pletely oblivious of what was done in the first twenty
years of Victoria, in educating the mass of the Eng-
lish people, in reforming prison discipline, in lessen-
ing the law's delay, and in regulating the hoars of
labor. As V^alter Bagehot pointed out to Dickens in
1858, there must be a government routine ; there must
be formal proceedings for courts of law ; there must
be disagreeable and irritating confinement for crimi-
nals. Hardship and injustice in individual cases have
always accompanied the most careful and merciful
administration of law. In spite of all precautions, a
cruel schoolmaster will get himself enthroned some-
where; and there is no way of preventing a hard-
hearted gentleman who has the necessary capital, from
THE REALISTIC REACTION 18&
building a cotton mill and operating it^ or of prevent-
ing a sleek villain from reading law and opening an
office. But when Dickens had thus discovered some
persisting imperfection of the social state, it became
for him the germ of a structure as delightfully fantastic
as a tale from the ' Arabian Nights.' For example, he
has made up his mind to satirize the delays in the
Court of Chancery. To this end he describes London
in the grasp of November fog and rain, and then passes
in easy transition to Lincoln's Inn Hall, where sits the
Lord High Chancellor, with a foggy glory around his
head, listening to lawyers who, like the men and
women in the muddy streets, are tripping one another
up — on slippery precedents. The object of govern-
ment should be to despatch business. Dickens imag-
ines a ^ red-tape ' establishment whose maxim is ^ how
not to do it,' and proceeds to construct his Circumlocu-
tion Office. The workhouses are notoriously misman-
aged ; and, for the purpose of ridiculing them, Dickens
represents the overseers of the poor as seriously con-
tracting ' with the waterworks to lay on an unlimited
supply of water, and with a corn factor to supply
periodically small quantities of oatmeal.' And when
he has once hit upon his fancy, he logically completes
it down to the shrinking bodies of the paupers and the
coffins ever becoming narrower and shallower. Accept
the premises of Dickens, and every detail follows.
The immense audience of Dickens in England and
America certainly did not stop to question him, though
in course of time they had some misgivings. At first
they were spellbound by the humor of ' Pickwick ' ;
then, with the publication of 'Old Curiosity Shop,'
their hearts were touched by the illness and death of
186 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
littile children. The outcasts in Bret Harte's roaring
camps dropped their cards to listen to the tale of Nell;
Landor thought that 'upon her, Juliet might for a
moment have turned her eyes from Eomeo ' ; and Poe
wrote of 'Old Curiosity Shop': 'These concluding
scenes are so drawn that human language, urged by
human thought, could go no farther in the excitement
of human feelings.' The effect of Dickens's pathos has,
during the lapse of a half-century, undergone change ;
it seems to be of a fanciful world far removed from
the actual. It no longer moves to tears, but awakens
rather a pleasing aesthetic emotion, because of its
poetic qualities, most completely manifest in the
marvellous description of Paul Dombey's death. Of
this pathos, so far as it has a literary source, Sterne
is the father. The wanderings of Nell, holding the
hand of her aged grandfather, along the lanes, through
graveyards and villages, is the story of poor Maria
with fresh details. There would seem to be a priori
no reason why we should not accept in literature
fanciful pathos as well as fanciful humor, but in the
long run we do not ; possibly because there is sufficient
pathos in life as it is. The time comes when both
the public and the critic express their want of sym-
ipathy with all premeditated emotion by calling it
' sentimentalism.
Against the current offhand condemnation of Dick-
ens's sentimentalism history, however, will surely
protest. It belongs to his time, having appeared, for
example, in Bulwer's ' Eugene Aram ' (1832), several
years before Dickens had thought even of ' Pickwick.'
When literature, under the influence of a changing
public sentiment, begins its swing from romance or a
THE REALISTIC REACTION 187
coldly picturesque treatment of life to depicting the
heart and the affections, it does not stop till it reaches
sentimentalism. From reason as the guide, to die
heart as the guide, the rebound is sudden. It was so
in the eighteenth century ; it was so in the nineteenth
century. Dickens and Eichardson are exact parallels.
Moreover, as in the case of Eichardson, the elemental
feelings underlie the pathos of Dickens. There is
nothing in life more fundamentally pathetic than the
death of children. One generation demands that the
scene be related briefly; another that the novelist
linger over it in sentences cadenced and alliterative.
That is the main difference.
On its personal side the sentimentalism of Dickens
is a phase of his idealism. The terms romanticism
and idealism have come to be, to an extent, synony-
mous, for the reason that a romancer is likely to be an
idealist, and conversely, an idealist is likely to be a
romancer. The English romantic movement began, so
far as the novel is implicated in it, in a renaissance of
feeling ; it passed through a phase of adventure, and
in Dickens it reverted to a literature of feeling. Scott
is our type of romanticist in highest feather. His/
prime characteristic is a spirit of adventure, historical
and imaginary. But in the mind of the idealist thei^
may be no bias toward adventure. The inner life, &^t
of all, he seeks to embody in his art, and with a direct
or an implied moral purpose. His theme is the woijth
of oiir thoughts, imaginings, affections, and religions
instincts; the need of a trust in our fellow-men, W
faith in the final outcome of human endeavor, and* k
belief in immortality. He is a conservative defending\
the ways of Providence. Certain aspects of this ideat '
188 DEVELOPMENT OP THE ENGLISH NOVEL
ism were not absent from Scott — ^honor, fidelity, cout'
age, magnanimity. These virtues^ however, are in
Scott's romances not so much in and for themselves,
as for majestic effect. The distinction between
romance and idealism may be best comprehended
by bringing into mental juxtaposition any one
of Scott's historical novels and 'The Tale of Two
Cities/ Both will be found to be grandly picturesque ;
the parallel extends no farther. The inner life de-
picted in Scott is cold, conventional, and illogical;
Dickens preaches a sermon on the sublime text,
' Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends.'
Dickens thus restored to the novel the idealism
which departed with Eichardson and Fielding.
For all the squalor, sin, and pain in the novels
of Dickens, the impression left on reading any one
of them is, that he believed as implicitly as Leibnitz
that this is the best of all possible worlds. This is
a proposition which metaphysicians have found rather
difficult of proof, and it may be as far from the
truth of the matter as arrant pessimism. But that
Dickens should have held to such a faith, after pass-
ing through the degradation and the disappointments
of his early life, and that he should have expressed it
in literature, is most inspiring. His faith in the bet-
ter element of human nature, in its possible triumph,
in its readiness to grasp the helping hand outstretched
to it, was boundless. His novels are a tribute to the
human species, to the vast army of beings who live
and struggle for a period, and then fall unremembered
to give place to others. Bead 'Paul Clifford' and
* Oliver Twist/ and note the difference between these
THE REALISTIC REACTION 189
two picaresque fictions. Paul becomes a highway*
man; Oliver emerges from the den of Fagin im-
contaminated. Bead, too, 'Candide' and ^Martin
Chuzzlewit,' and likewise note the difference be-
tween these two novels, each of which deals in its
own way with the famous hypothesis of Leibnitz.
The cynicism of Voltaire is brilliant and telling ; but
it is Mark Tapley that we like to follow, as he
wanders over the earth seeking to relieve distress,
that he may have some occasion to be ^ jolly.' In
Mark Tapley is Dickens's philosophy of life reduced
to its lowest terms.
A most delightful manifestation of the idealism of
Dickens is his humor. None of the novels after
* Pickwick ' was conceived so completely in the spirit
of farce as was that ; and Sam Weller one can hardly
think of as being surpassed. But on the whole the
humor of Dickens broadened and deepened in the im-
mediately succeeding novels, especially in certain
sections of *01d Curiosity Shop ' and * Martin Chuzzle-
wit,' where humor was united with pathos in a sort of
tragi-comedy. Mr. Bichard Swiveller, who, after be-
ing ' staggered ' for years, fell in with the small ser-
vant, dubbed her the Marchioness, and taught her to
play cribbage and drink hot purl, is the Don Quixote
of blackguards. The disreputable workhouse nurse,
Sairey Gamp, moving about the stage haunted by the
imaginary Mrs. Harris, is Dickens's supreme achieve-
ment in humor. In ^ David Copperfield,' where in the
Peggotty and Barkis episodes farce is held in some
restraint, Dickens wrote pure comedy.
Wherever there is humor and satire, there is, if not
reality itselfy a sense of reality ; there must be events
190 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
and characters that touch the real at some points.
The men in whom no humor is found are the out-
and-out romancers and the out-and-out naturalists.
The region where humor dwells is somewhere between
the real and the ideal ; in an imaginative treatment of
real life. The realistic reaction against Scott was
initiated by the minor humorists, and the culmination
of that purely humorous literature was ^Pickwick.*
In the way of burlesque of romance, Dickens carried
the reaction farther. In the opening chapter of
* Martin Chuzzlewit/ he ridicules ^* leather-jerkined
soldiers ' and * the enormous amount of bravery, wis-
dom, eloquence, virtue, gentle birth, and true nobility,
that appears to have come into England with the Nor-
man Invasion.^ * Oliver Twist' is a protest, in the
name of 'stern and plain truth,' against the unreal
housebreakers and highwaymen of Harrison Ains-
worth : —
Here — in * Oliver Twist * — are no canterings upon moonlit
heaths, no merry-makings in the snuggest of all possible cav-
erns, none of the attractions of dress, no embroidery, no lace,
no jack-boots, no crimson coats and ruffles, none of the dash
and freedom with which * the road ' has been, time out of mind,
invested. The cold, wet, shelterless midnight streets of Lon-
don; the foul and frowsy dens, where vice is closely packed
and lacks the room to torn ; the haunts of hunger and disease,
the shabby rags that scarcely hold together : where are the at-
tractions of these things ?
In these and other novels of Dickens, the door to
realism is opening. Dickens, however, was not greatly
inclined to remonstrate with his contemporaries, and his
realism in the main came about naturally, as he fol-
lowed the bent given his talent by his early life and
THE REALISTIC BEACTION 191
reading. He began his literary career as a reporter.
His short ^Sketches by Boz' have the air of the
eighteenth-century quiet observer and newswriter.
He talks to apprentices, loiters about hackney-coach
stands, visits the circus and pleasure gardens, explores
Newgate, where he converses with the murderer to be
hanged in the morning, and is a spectator at the exe-
cution ; he elbows his way along crowded thorough-
fares, gets a glimpse at a shabby wretch, whom he
follows through alleys to a cheap boarding-house or a
gin-shop, and then he writes up what he has seen.
The same reportorial air is about his long novels,
which are groups of incidents. The main difference
is that, while in his sketches he writes down his ob-
servations fresh from experience, in his novels he
draws upon his memory. The former came nearer the
literal impress of real life, without, however, quite
reaching it ; the latter have a greater infusion of im-
agination. No one who has not examined the
matter can have the faintest conception of the very
large body of personal experiences underlying the
novels of Dickens, not only * David Copperfield,' but
even ^Hard Times,' where you would least expect to
find them. In this richness of descriptive detail,
based upon what Dickens had actually seen, is one
aspect of his realism.
As in the treatment of fact, so in character-building,
the essence of Dickens's art is grotesque exaggeration.
Like Smollett, he was on the lookout for some oddity
which for his purpose he made more odd than it was.
But he had a way of observing the very oddity that
marks some quality of mind, often a peculiarity of an
occupation or a profession. To Sam Weller all men
192 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
are boots ; every movement and word of Seth Peck-
sniff betrays his hypocrisy ; Micawber is the incarna-
tion of impecuniosity ; and Mrs. Gamp of the lie so
often repeated that it passes for truth. What he
meant by his characters it was a habit of Dickens to
indicate by the names he gave them ; as Lord Mutanhed,
the Artful Dodger, the Barnacles, and Mr. Hamilton
Veneering. They are, all of them, humors highly
idealized, and yet retaining so much of the real that
we recognize in them some disposition of ourselves
and of the men and women we meet. The number of
these humorous types that Dickens added to fiction
runs into the thousands ; it is by far the largest single
contribution that has ever been made.
* Dickens was from the very first a check to mediae-
\ valism. After he began writing, knights and ladies
. and tournaments became rarer. He awakened the
interest of the public in the social condition of Eng-
land after the Napoleonic wars. The Scott novel had
dome swollen with prefaces, notes, and appendixes^ to
Bhow that it was true to the spirit of history; the
Dickens novel came considerably enlarged with per-
sonal experiences, anecdotes, stories from friends, and
statistics, to show that it was founded upon facts.
Instead of the pageant of the Middle Age, we now
have, in the novels of those who have learned their
art from Dickens, strikes and riots, factories and
granaries and barns In blaze, employee shooting
employer, underground tenements, sewing-garrets,
sweating-establishments, workhouses, truck-stores,
the ravages of typhus, enthusiastic descriptions of
model factories, model prisons, model cottages, dis-
cussions of the new poor law, of trade unions, of
THE REALISTIC REACTION 193
Chartism^ and of the relations of the rich and the poor.
The new characters are operatives in factories^ agri-
cultural laborers, miners, tailors, seamstresses, and
paupers. Patience, longsuffering, gentleness, in stal-
wart or angelic form, is oppressed by viragoes, tall
and bearded and of flashing eyes, or by gentlemen of
bloated red faces. Dickens never advocated in his
novels any specific means of reform. The novel is
now stated as a problem, which the finithor solves, or
indicates the way to the solution. Disraeli set the
example of this broader social treatise in his * Sybil '
(1845), the subject of which is the condition of labor
in the years immediately following the first Chartist
riots. One sentence of his, in which he condensed his
appreciation of the Liberal party, is memorable : ' The
great measures of Sir Kobert Peel, which produced
three good harvests, have entirely revived trade.'
The year 1848 was for England, as for the rest of
Europe, a time of alarm. In that year workmen from
all parts of England congregated in London in very
great numbers, and presented to Parliament a mam«
moth petition, in which they made known their de*
mands. In every nook and comer of the metropolis
Wellington had his soldiers in hiding. The workmen
for the time were cowed ; but whether they were re-
maining quiet, waiting for an opportune moment for
attack, or had given over their projects in despair,
was uncertain. Some saw in the immediate future
only anarchy,' others an approaching millennium of
peace, fraternity, and good-will. Charles Kingsley,
from his country parsonage at Eversley, was looking
toward London with a heart palpitating with interest,
wonder, and alternating hopes and fears. He was
194 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Up in the morning at fire o'clock, writing first ^ Yeast '
and then ^ Alton Locke ' before the heavy parish duties
of the day. These two social sermons are red-hot in-
gots, hissing with passion and indignation. Kingsley
believed that labor had great grievances, and he laid
them bare. He also pointed out the moral mistakes of
workmen, dwelling particularly on their atheism and
unbelief; he stated what seemed to him to be the real
attitude of the upper classes toward the downtrod-
den, and finally announced his programme for bring-
ing about harmony and contentment. The Church of
England was, in his view, the only mediator between
employer and employee. And by the Church of Eng-
land he was careful to make plain that he did not
mean the existing aristocratic church looking Bome-
wards, but a reformed church, liberal enough to ad-
minister to the spiritual needs of rich and poor. The
comment of deepest insight that has yet been made
upon Kingsley's Chartist fictions is in a letter which
Carlyle sent the author after reading ^ Alton Locke.'
Carlyle praises ^ the exuberance of generous zeal ' and
' a certain wild intensity,' and adds : ' Of the grand
social and moral questions we will say nothing at
present; any time within the next two centuries, it
is like there will be enough to say about them ! '
While Kingsley was preaching his impassioned ser-
mons to the Chartists, Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell was
depicting scenes in the manufacturing towns of the
North. *Mary Barton' was published in 1848;
and ^ North and South' in 1855. Mrs. Gaskell
wrote from personal observation; she consulted no
reports for statistics, and made no special tours in
search of uncommon occurrences. As the wife of a
THE BEALISTIC REACTION 196
dissentiiig minister at Manchester, her visits of charity
gave her easy access to the homes of workmen, to neat
suburban cottages, and to the cellars of the city, where
women and children in darkness and fetid air were
dying of typhus and consumption. Strikes, the mys-
teries of trade unions, and cheap groceries were famil-
iar facts to her. And the heart of that mill-owner
living in the mansion on the hill was an open book,
for she had followed his career from boyhood. She
was wise enough to offer no final solution of the
problem of labor and capital, beyond trying to inspire
employer and employee with the spirit of her own rea-
sonableness.
To the cause of humanity, the United States con-
tributed Harriet Beecher Stowe's * Uncle Tom's Cabin.'
The negro, as has been observed, was an important
figure in fiction around the year 1800, when he was
regarded as the most available specimen of man in
the state of nature. In the adventures of the sea, for^
example in Marryat's, he again appeared, now amid
the scenes of his real life in the West Indies. It is
noteworthy, however, that the abolition of slavery in
Great Britain and her colonies was accompanied by
no great emancipation novel. The nearest approach
to it was Henry Senior's belated * Charles Vernon'
(1848), which gave a plain account of the ill-treat-
ment and neglect of the slaves in the West Indies
some forty years previous, and of which, as in Mrs.
Stowe's novel, the heroine was a quadroon. ' Uncle
Tom's Cabin,' depicting slavery as it actually existed, in
its mildest and its most inhuman forms, in the border
states and on the southern plantations, electrified the
United States, Great Britain, and ^11 Europe almost
196 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
simultaneously. Specifically an appeal to the humax^
ity of the southern slaveholder, it was in reality an
address to the religious instincts of Christendom;
and it touched those instincts as no other novel has
ever done.
The humanitarian mood continued to color a large
section of popular fiction down ^^J}h^ ({Mi^\\ ^f pi^^^rpng
in 1870. By that time there was no conceivable abuse
or shortcoming of organized society that had not had
its satirist. But meanwhile Thackeray, TroUope,
George Eliot, and others were in open dissent from
the school of Dickens.
CHAPTER VI
The Eetubn to Realism
1. WUliam Makepeace ITuickeray
When the humorists and humanitarians abandoned
cathedrals and ruined castles for London slums and
the factory towns of north England, they let the
novel down from the picturesque heroic to the mat-
ter of contemporary life. And while there can be no
doubt that in individual instances they performed a
noble work in uncovering social wrongs inherited
from the past, they had nevertheless created in fic-
tion and society an atmosphere of false sentiment
about criminals and blackguards and the attitude of
the upper to the lower classes. Garlyle visited a
model London prison in 1850, and found it as stately
and cleanly as a ducal palace. He tasted the bread,
the cocoa, soup, and meat, and pronounced them ' of
excellence superlative.' Thackeray also knew of work-
houses and prisons that in all appointments of health
and comfort surpassed the most ancient foundations
of learning. And yet the reformers in no wise abated
their efforts. Thackeray protested in the name of
truth against them all, and against the history of fic-
tion since Fielding. By his ridicule and his creative
work he brought the novel once more into the stream
197
198 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
of realistic tendency, where since ^ Pickwick ' it had
not kept a steady course.
Thackeray was a critic of rare insight^ detect-
ing latent absurdities in literature and conduct, and
bringing them to light. This critical attitude, though
remaining with him to the very last, was most buoy-
ant in his sketches for Fraser^s Magazine and Punch,
and in that brief afterpiece 'Eebecca and Bowena.'
Thackeray rewrote ^Ivanhoe' for Scott, marrying Wil-
fred to Bebecca, and making them the ancestors of an
amazingly rich Hebrew family, with this marriage as
the only blot in the scutcheon. Bulwer's first novels
he reviewed seriatim, exposing their artificiality, sen-
iimentalism, and jugglery with virtue and vice; and
in what was said of * the agreeably low ' and * the de-
lightfully disgusting' of 'Paul Clifford,' were impli-
cated Ainsworth and Dickens. On various occasions
he ridiculed * the milk and water ' virtues of G. P. R.
James, his conventional good morals, his poetic
justice, and his 'perfectly stilted and unnatural'
style. Of the Disraeli political and fashionable novel,
he drew a slight sketch, in which, after the very
manner of Disraeli, were exalted the Hebrew money-
lender, the beauty of 'burning auburn' hair, and
the comforts of the Ghetto. There was no escape
even for his friend Lever, whose dragoon had been
very familiar with the Emperor !N'apoleon and too
prone to shrieks of delight over stale anecdotes.
In the course of these extravaganzas appeared ' Barry
Lyndon,' a superb mock heroic in defence of gam-
bling, which stands in the same relation to Thackeray's
other work as does 'Jonathan Wild' to Fielding's.
'The Book of Snobs/ belonging to this period, is
THE RETURN TO REALISM 199
la the same rein as the burlesques^ the subject of
ridicule being not so much literature as the affecta-
tions of society.
In January, 1847, was issued the first number of
* Vanity Fair.' With much good humor, Thackeray ^
was now presenting his contemporary novelists with
his ideal of a novel so well as he could express it. To
them was conceded somewhat, particularly the historical
background. The events of ^ Vanity Fair ' are assumed
to have taken place at the Waterloo period. And all the
novels Thackeray wrote thereafter, if not distinctively
historical, as ' Esmond ' and ^ The Virginians,' have the
historical semblance, going back, as do 'Pendennis,'
*The Newcomes,' and 'Philip,' to Thackeray's early
life. * Vanity Fair' and the rest also show the influ- ,
ence of Lever's na ilitary novels. Thackeray's heroes /
are men who^ad fought at Blenheim, Quebec, Waterloo, /
or in India. He rarely described in detail historical
and military events, but commented upon them
shrewdly. What the public wanted to know, who had
had a superfluity of Waterloo stories, was what hap-
pened at Brussels in the weeks preceding the battle ;
what was going on at the period in London, in the
mansions of bankers and merchants in the vicinity of
Bloomsbury and Bussell Square; and how a dull
young colonel and his smart wife could live on noth-
ing a year at No. 201 Curzon Street, May Fair.
Thackeray told them, treating his subject with great
tact and with full deference to decorum. He brought
to his work no conscious philosophy of the good,
the beautiful, and the true. An arbitrary recon-
struction of life in accord with sentimentalism, phi-
lanthropism; or the Leibnitz formula had for him nc
200 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
allurements. His principle was that lie must accept
the world as he found it. ^It does not follow that
all men are honest because they are poor; and I
have known some who were friendly and generous,
although they had plenty of money. There are some
great landlords who do not grind down their tenants ;
there are actually bishops who are not hypocrites;
there are liberal men even among the Whigs, and the
Tladicals themselves are not all aristocrats at heart.'
The imaginative reader of * Vanity Fair' and the
group of fictions around it has no difficulty in
hearing the voice of Thackeray addressing his brother
novelists, as among many things he says to them:
'EOur plots and characters do not conform to the
reaL Mr. Bulwer, you are a sheer sophist. You
take as a hero Eugene Aram, and by concealing his
real character in fine language, italicized and capi-
talized, you would make me believe he is a much-
abused scholar and schoolmaster. My dear brother
Dickens, though you once thought me incompetent to
iUustrate your ^ Pickwick,' I like it beyond measure ;
but your knowledge of yoimg women and Uttle boys
has its limits. The British damsel is not commonly
gentle, demure, and ingenuous ; she is more likely to
be a flirt, to be very deceitful, and may be delight-
fully wicked. Little boys are, as you represent them,
very wise, but not quite in your spiritual sense ; at
least they were not so when I was a youngster at
Swishtail Seminary. I will now paint you a pic-
ture of life as it is. To please you and your audi-
ence, I will give you two good and amiable characters :
they shall be called Amelia and Dobbin ; and I will
take them, not from Belgravia or Newgate, but out of
THE RETURN TO REALISM 201
Bustsell Square, from the moral middle class, where we
find more commonly than elsewhere the patient and
devoted daughter, wife, and mother, and the constant
lover and husband. In contrast, I will show you that
women may be rogues, — and he laughs in his sleeve at
Miss Bebecca Sharp, already thinking perhaps of that
scene (one of the three or four greatest he ever wrote)
in which Becky's husband suddenly appears and
strips her of her jewellery. I will present you, too,
with some men as I have observed them in Bohemia,
and at Lord Steyne's, with not much of the heroic in
them, or none at all ; for example. Sir Pitt Crawley,
and his son Bawdon, who will at length sell himself
for the governorship of an island, like dear old Sancho
Panza, and death from yellow fever. Perhaps one of
these gentlemen in motley had better be a coward also,
— and Jos Sedley fleeing from Brussels flits through
Thackeray's imagination. And finally, in contrast to
your Lovel, Sir Walter, let us have George Osborne,
who shall be kept from deserting his wife for an ad-
venturess by the rumble of Napoleon's cannon, calling
him to the battle-field to be shot dead.
And folded with Thackeray's monologue over his
literary brethren, is an address to the public, in which
he tells them that they are frittering away their lives
in buying tinsel and gewgaws at the tawdry booths of
vanity fair. Thackeray illustrates his allegory by
creating characters of many types, all of whom obtain
for their schemes and frettings and heartburnings
nothing worth the having. The elder Sedley amasses
a fortune, only to die, a childish old man, in poverty
and sorrow. The elder Osborne attains to a ^ proud
position' in the tallow trade, only to lose his son
202 DBVBLOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
George, and to be found on a morning lying bj his
dressing-table in utter helplessness. Amelia, x>oking
her pretty head out of a Bloomsbury window, waits
and watches there for her George, who will come to
laugh at her perplexities. Sir Pitt Ci-awley, while the
corpse of his wife still lies unburied in a darkened
chamber, proposes to Becky; but she is already mar>
ried to Eawdon. Poor Jos Sedley attained to his
desire, and then passed from the earth, very soon after
taking out an insurance policy in favor of Becky.
Honest Dobbin served for Amelia more than double
the time of Jacob for Eachel. And how small the
reward ! for it was onlv Amelia.^
* Vanity Fair ' is the expression of a mood. In in-
stinctive recoil against the representation of life in
false lights, especially the inner life of feeLng and
motive, Thackeray purposely overdrew for hnmorous
effects. Becky Sharp, Jos Sedley, and Lord Steyne
are exceptional characters ; in short, they are carica-
tures, and were intended to be so. With the thor-
oughly good and respectable Amelia and Dobbin, the
reader is in no sort of sympathy, and the suspicion
is inevitable that Thackeray did not wisL to make
them attractive. He left it to his readers, saturated
with the literature of the angels, to balance the
account of life in their own minds. Moreover, in
those passages of ^Vanity Fair' where Thackeray
1 Of • Vanity Fair,' Thackeray wrote to his mother : • What
I want is to make a set of people living without God in the world
(only that ia a cant phrase), greedy, pompous men, perfectly
self-satiBfied for the most part, and at ease ahout their aaperiox
virtue. '— Introduction to the biographical edition of 'Vanity
Fair.»
THE KETURN TO REALISM 20^
recurs to his text and thus explains his meaning
of vanitoi vanitatum, the drift of his social satire
seems to lie within well-established and almost con-
ventional bounds. His attitude toward social vice
is much like that of the eighteenth-century essayist.
Like Addison and Fielding, he does not ridicule
life in and of itself. He conceives of the ends
and aims of the life of his contemporaries — particu-
larly and almost exclusively the middle class, to which
he himself belonged — as nothing better than the false
gayety and glare of vanity fair. They fall prostrate
before rank and title, and do not know a real gentle-
man when they see him. They marry for wealth or
social position; and when married and disillusioned
they give great dinners beyond their means to keep
up the farce. Income and name gone, they attempt
a solution of the problem of living without labor.
They run into debt, never intending to pay their bills,
and flit about from place to place, hanging upon the
skirts of society. The curtain is rung down on an
ostentatious fimeral, a popular preacher, and a humbug
eulogy. Of course, * Vanity Fair' is not an ethically
harmonious transcript of the ways of the middle class.
We must grant to Thackeray the reactionary mood
and the satirical license. Beyond this, we must allow
something to form and tradition. * Vanity Fair' is
of the picaresque novels, the prime characteristic of
which has always been the holding up to view the
seamy side of life^ — rents, rags, and uncleanness.
Viewed in its large historical relations, the novelty
of 'Vanity Fair' consists in its being a magnificent
adaptation of picaresque fiction to modem society;
and in its rogue being a woman, — a peculiarity of
/
204 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
- only two notable picaresque novels before Thackeraji
* La Picara Justina ' * (1605), by Andres P^rez of Leon,
and * Moll Flanders ' (1722), by Defoe.
In 'Pendennis/ begun almost immediately after
finishing * Vanity Fair,' Thackeray took his stand by
Fielding, defending ^the Katural in Art,' and an-
nouncing that he was going to present the public with
a new 'Tom Jones.' His specific intent was an exact
account of the doings of a young man, at school, at
college, in the inns of court, and at the clubs, as he had
observed them. But if 'Pendennis ' be compared with
its prototype, certain points of difference are clear.
Tom Jones yields to temptation. Arthur Pendennis
and George Warrington, bundles of high manly quali-
ties and very great weaknesses, are for a time led
astray by passions which they afterward overcome.
Thackeray admits frankly that there are some pas-
sages in tiie careers of his gentlemen that will not bear
telling. Fielding concealed nothing; 'Tom Jones'
is a study in the nude. Thackeray reluctantly draped
his figures, out of respect to conventions he was in-
clined from time to time to ridicule.
After 'Pendennis' Thackeray turned to an extent
against himself; and the novels he then wrote, though
historically of less significance, are the ones that win
our love. There is, it is true, an ummistakable unity
of tone pervading every scrap of his work. He never
lost delight in unmasking affectation, sham sentiment,
and hypocrisy of every sort. On the other hand, he
was always reverent, even given to hero-worship
when there was at hand an object worthy of wor-
1 Translated from the Spanish, under title of ' The Goontry Jilt,'
1707, by J. Stevens.
THE RETURN TO REALISM 205
ship — Shakespeare^ Wolfe^ or Washington. He was
kindly^ charitable, tender, smd withal slightly eon-
descending. To think of fierce moral indignation
behind the ' Burlesques ' and ' Snobs ' or even
^Vanity 'Fair/ as did Charlotte Bronte, is not to un-
derstand them rightly. As a breaker of images his
weapon was banter. But — and this is the drift of his
development — in the later novels, the kindly, ten-
der, and religious side of Thackeray came more and
more to the front He grew less objective, weaving
his stories out of his heart and his dreams. The
change is first of all visible in the subjects he chooses.
Two of his novels, 'Esmond' and 'The Virginians,'
are now out-and-out historical; he leaves his own time
and the life of which he had been a part for the life
he had been living in his library with Addison and
Steele, Dr. Johnson, Bichardson, and Fielding; and
he reconstructs that life. He abounds in recondite
literary allusions, and writes laments over the classic
fictions of his youth, which his later contemporaries
have forgotten. Marked as are the differences be-
tween 'The Virginians' and 'Henry Esmond' and a
novel by Scott, they are nevertheless histories, and
have all the ideality of romance except wild ad-
venture.
'The Newcomes' and 'The Virginians' are novels
of sentiment or feeling, possessing the finer spirit of
Sterne. In them are Thackeray's famous deathbed
scenes: Colonel Newcome, in the dress of the poor
gray friars^ summoned into the presence of his Mas-
ter, and answering with adavm, the word he had
need at school; the remorse and madness and broken
French of the dying Baroness of Bernstein in 'The
<v*
206 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Virginians/ once the smart and beautiful Beatrix
of 'Henry Esmond.' In these scenes Thackeray is
surely playing upon our emotions in the manner of
Sterne. Perhaps his most tragic situation is Olive
Newcome growing away in his intellectual and moral
sympathies from his father, a gentleman of another age.
^The old man lay awake and devised kindnesses, and
gave his all for the love of his son; and the young
man took, and spent, and slept, and made merry.'
The pathetic climax to the situation is when the Colo-
nel with broken heart one day goes into Olive's study
and stammers : ' I — I am sorry you have any secrets
from me, Olive.' In Thackeray's first novel, as we
'have seen, rogues and gentlemen in motley were the
real characters; in his second novel attention was
fixed upon two characters, lamentably weak but hav*
ing a dash of sterling manhood in them. They were
both novels without heroes. Thackeray's later aim
was to portray great and commanding goodness of
the heart in characters like Ethel, and Oolonel Kew-
come, Oolonel Esmond, and Harry Warrington; and
by means of them to draw attention away from worldly
meanness. He dwells upon pardon, renunciation, for-
giveness, reconciliation, disinterested friendship, and
the separation of parents and children by sea and
death; and bows his head in awe before the inex-
plicable course of events and the mysteries of life
and death.
Of the style with which Thackeray invested his
thought, it came, so far as there is any historical expla-
nation of it, along with much in his way of thinking,
from the eighteenth-century humorists — Addison,
StetlOi Fielding, and Sterne — and from those burlesque
THE RETURN TO REALISM 207
writers contemporary with his youth, among whom
were Theodore Hook and Pierce Egan. Historical
eonsiderations, however; do not count for much in i
considering that sinuous style of his, adapting itself
to plain narrative, and rising at will into eloquence,
or meandering into the delightfully colloquial, or
shunting off into the unexpected humorous turn. Not
BO careful in his syntax as Fielding, he is yet in his
easy mastery of language and of grand and simple
rhythm with the greatest of the Elizabethans.
In construction his success was variable. He wrote
and published in parts, and of this method there are
inevitable consequences. He proceeded in a leisurely
go-as-you-please manner, strewing the way with char-
acters he wished to rid himself of, by running them
through, giving them a fever, or letting them drop in
an apoplectic fit. To one or two notions he held
fast. No ghastly death would he allow, no drownings
nor strangulations; the corpse must look comely.
And that the novel might have a pleasant ending,
there must be at least one hpppy marriage in the last
chapters and the restoration of a lost or sequestered
fortune. From the standpoint of structure, * The Vir-
ginians ' and * Philip^ '. are the weakest of Thackeray's
work. * Vanity Fair' and 'The Newcomes,' epic in
their immense scope, are more rigidly dramatic than
they are usually said to be; beneath their apparent
carelessness of manner is ' an art that nature makes.'
Once Thackeray wrote his entire novel before the
publication of any part of it, and the perfect form
of * Henry Esmond' has been the despair of his fellow-
craftsmen. Dickens's novels we called groups of in-
d^eiits; Thackeray's are confidential conversations^
208 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Thackeray assumes the r6Ie of showman. He exhibits
his characters, banters and scolds them, and talks
through them as if they were Punch and Judy and
he the ventriloquist; and, suddenly stopping, he turns
to his audience, telling them all about the figures on
the wires, and all about themselves. Characters, au-
thor, and reader are ever coalescing and separating
like moving shadows. This procedure is denounced
by the more modem buMers as militating against
the conservation of character; and probably therein
lies the danger. Let the actors play their parts and
the author keep silent; that is the maxim. But in
any specific case the method must be judged by its
success. Bawdon Crawley and Becky Sharp are among
that small company of characters in fiction that
really grow from page to page. Certainly nothing is
more tiresome than commonplace moralizings. But
Thackeray's thinking was so cosmopolitan and his feel-
ings of so exquisite a quality that, when we think of
him, his asides and comments are what return of tenest
upon the memory. By means of them he awakened
into ripple all those pleasing emotions of wit and humor
and satire and loveliness and gentleness and reverence,
common to the enlightened humanity for whom he,
distinctively a man of letters, wrote. In his most
ideal moods he was always a realist of the spirit,
because of his sanity.
3. BuboeT'I^fUon %n the Bdls ofBedlitt, George Borrow,
Charles Reade
The return to realism in the nineteenth century was
essentially a return to the manner of the great novel-
THE RETURN TO REALISM 209
ists of the eighteenth century. The minor kumoristt
and Dickens went back in the main to the caricature
of Smollett Thackeray was to fiction a seeond
Fielding. The product of the new realism, how-
ever, was quite different from the old. Dickens and
Thackeray had their own rich experiences and obser-
vations, and both were captivated by the historical
setting of Scott. If we were to have Smollett and
Fielding once more, why not Sterne also? Sterne
did appear again in the equivocations of Pierce Egan,
in the gestures and grimaces of Dickens, and in the
pretty sentimental scenes that Thackeray built up
and pushed over. But the fully premeditated resto-
ration of Sterne is a debt we owe to Bulwer-Lytton.
Immediately after the rise of Thackeray, this talented
novelist, who always kept his finger on the public
pulse, writing of philosophies, criminals, fairies,
ghosts, and Norman barons, as the heart-beat of his
patient seemed to point the way, turned his atten-
tion to Quixotic characters of country life. 'The
Caxtons' appeared in 1849, and its double continua-
tion under the title 'My Novel; or. Varieties in
English Life,' in 1863.
The scenes of these novels are English villages in
the old days before railways, when the crotchets and
the kindly absurdities of country manners had not
yet been toned down by intercourse with London.
The characters are a broken-down military captain,
a gentleman with brain bewildered by useless knowl-
edge multiplied beyond measure by syllogistic reason-
ing from whimsical hypotheses, old-fashioned squires
and parsons, quack doctors, refugees, beautiful young
women created for young members of Parliament, and
T
210 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
a cabinet minister and leader of the House of Com-
mons. The action is carried on in sentences and
chapters short and abrupt, and frequently by dia-
logues arranged in dramatic form. Humorous pity is
awakened by a lame and dyspeptic duck which the
elder Gaxton allows to walk about with him and which
in kindness he tickles under the left ear ; in a donkey
that has been thrashed for munching a thistle and is
consoled by the parson with a ' rose cheeked apple ' ;
and in a poor moth, which, in seeking warmth by the
Caxton fireside on a cold October evening, barely
escapes a tragic end.
While there is undoubtedly in these two novels
considerable autobiography and personal observation,
especially \n election scenes and the accounts of
the actual working of government, Bulwer did not
appreciably raise the quality of the realism of current
fiction. He was too plainly imitative; and he took
as his model not a realist, but a writer who had played
fantastically with real life. Dickens and Thackeray
were not primarily imitative. In certain peculiarities
of manner, but not in matter, they were of the eigh-
teenth century. In Bulwer were both the manner
and the matter of Sterne. Perhaps the main historical
interest in these sixteen hundred and odd pages of
Bulwer^s is that they show how the literary weather-
cock had veered round toward realism. Similar evi-
dence we have in Dickens. 'The Personal History
of David Copperfield,' which closely followed *The
Caxtons,' was a substitute for an autobiography ; and
as its early title indicates, it was in aim, whatever
may be our opinion of the outcome, a transcript of
actual experiences.
THE RETURN TO REALISM 211
Among the strangest and most fascinating semi-
autobiographies of the period were George Borrow's
'Lavengro' (1861) and 'The Eomanj Eye' (1857),
one continuous novel of gypsy life and philological
eccentricity. Borrow was the fierce critic of romance.
Putting together the scattered shreds of his remarks,
we have from him a history of the later romantic
movement running in this wise: Sir Walter Scott,
who boasted of a descent 'from the old cow-steaJers
of Buccleuch,' and who wrote 'in the sorriest of jar^
gons,' befuddled the heads of his readers with many
volumes of 'Charlie o'er the water nonsense.' And
what has been the social influence of Scott's ro-
mancing? A certain mere external gentility of de-
corum and manner, a worship of rank, a pride of birth,
an immense amount of cant of various sorts, and a
conspiracy at Oxford to Bomanize the Church of
England. Capricious as was Borrow's social satire,
there was in it salutary truth. The public needed to
be addressed with a frankness that Thackeray was
unwilling to venture upon, before it could free itself
from the slough of sentiment and sham. And Bor-
row saw what literary criticism has since maintained,^
that the Oxford movement was a working of the
romantic spirit ; that long before Newman went over
to Bome, the mediaeval priest had already, in the
ihiagination and sympathy of Scott's readers, taken
possession of Canterbury and York.
Borrow carried his readers back over the romantic
revival to the adventures of Defoe. But hanging over
his books is a dreamy, poetic glamour wanting in the
^ See the essay on Newman by L. £. Gates, in * Three Studies
in Literatuze,' NT., 1899.
212 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
old picaresque novel. Sorrow's gentleman, unconvenr
tional, courteous, generous, brave, and true as steel, is
a young man who abandons the city for the trade of
a strolling tinker and blacksmith, wandering along
the hedges and lanes of England, and pitching his
tent at night in lovely dingles. What Borrow admired
was health, strength, and virility ; a robust man who
could enjoy to the full 'the good things which it
pleases tiie Almighty to put within the reach of his
children during their sojourn upon earth.' Intensely
human and passionate, his heroine Isopel Bemers,
'with her long beautiful hair streaming over her
magnificent shoulders' as she sits with Lavengro in
the gypsies' dingle, brewing tea or trying to decline
an Armenian noun, possesses the ideality of the
mighty Scandinavian queens. To the gypsy camp,
the blacksmith's forge by the roadside, and the mak-
ing of a horseshoe. Borrow lent the magic and the
mystery of Celtic poetry.
Much akin to Borrow in eccentricity, robust com-
bativeness, and a love of adventure, was Gharlea
Beade. Eeade affected, particularly at first, the man-
ner of Sterne, emphasizing his sentences by giving
each one a paragraph, and dropping capriciously the
threads of his narrative and taking them up at will,
sometimes a hundred or two pages on. He recognized
no barriers between the drama and the novel; writing
sometimes a play, and then turning it into a novel, and
then again reversing the process. He was very fond
of bringing into the novel certain conventional scenes
of melodrama, such as the virtuous heroine listening
unseen in the background, who rushes in and assumes
a statuesque pose between an enraged mother and a
THE RETUBN TO BEALISM 213
disobedient son. In short, when he wrote he had in
his mind's eye the actors on the stage, and the gal-
leries applauding. Aware of this, he gave as sub-title
to one of his novels 'A Dramatic Tale,' ^md spoke of
another as a 'Dramatic Story by courtesy Novel.'
For these dramatic effects, Beade made use of cur-
rent types of fiction. ' Peg Wofl&ngton ' (1853) is a
delightful episode in the history of the stage, and from
the artistic point of view solely, it is the most
perfect novel as a whole Eeade wrote. 'Christie
Johnstone ' (1853) has many resemblances to the work
of Maria Edgeworth, and specifically, in its treat-
ment of the listlessness and staleness of high life,
it is indebted to Miss Edgeworth's 'Ennui.' 'It is
Never too Late to Mend' (1856) and 'Hard Cash ' (1863)
are didactic novels, of which the former was directly
inspired by 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and was almost
equally popular. ' The Cloister and the Hearth ' (1860)
is a belated historical romance. ' Griffith Gaunt ' (1866)
is an adaptation of the sentimental criminal novel, of
which the type is Bulwer's ' Eugene Aram.' Moreover,
like others who felt the humaDitarian impulse, Beade
did not believe that fiction should be written simply
to please, but that it should contain matter for in-
struction and edification. Accordingly all his novels,
even the historical ones, deal with social questions,
and usually in the controversial manner. 'Christie
Johnstone,' for example, is an attack on hero-worship,
a fashionable cult of sham and humbug gods estab-
lished by the most arrant of shams and humbugs.
Over against lords and ladies lisping Carlyle, Beade
sets the picturesque life of Edinburgh fishwives. In
the portrayal of these plain folk, he aimed at the
214 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
specific representation ; maintaining that the artist has
no business with abstractions^ with streaks d blaok
paint and streaks of white paint bearing the names of
men and women, and that the salt of life is preferable
to the spice of fiction.
Eeade's novels are documentary. In preparation
for them he went through a laborious process, gather-
ing and arranging facts and incidents from his read-
ing into huge commonplace books; and with these
books before him, he compiled his novels with the
same anxiety for truth that he would have displayed
had he been preparing a thesis for a doctorate at the
University of GOttingen. Even in his descriptions of
romantic scenes which he had never viewed with the
physical eye, he strove for accurate local color. He
never speaks like Kingsley of 'the fragrant snow of
blossoms * in the tropics ; he rather takes pains to in-
form his audience that in Australia, ' the flowers make
a point of not smelling, and the bushes that nobody
expects to smell or wants to smell, they smell lovely.'
For *The Cloister and the Hearth,' he read, say his
biographers, ' not only volumes, but book-shelves and
libraries.' The novel is a scholar's endeavor to restore
to the imagination of the nineteenth century, the form
and the spirit of the fifteenth ; to portray the dawn
of the Eenaissance, when mediaevalism with its asceti-
cism and narrow outlook on life was just beginning
to give way to the human feelings : mighty passions of
friendship, devotion, love, and jealousy, such as we
have in the most splendid of Italian novelle, Thei
unsuccessful attempt to adjust the mediaeval ideal to
the Greek ideal, and the strife and the conflict in
which the mediaeval wins outwardly but not inwardly
THE RETURN TO REALISM 215
in the hearty are depicted in the career of Gerard,
anc? incidentally in the life of a venerable pope, who
has written novels in imitation of Boccaccio, and is
now abandoning theological controversies and the
Bible for an illuminated Plutarch ; Eenaissance friend-
ship in the adventures of Gerard and Denys ; death-
less devotion. in Margaret; and mad love and jealousy
most grandly in the Princess Glselia. The romance
was not written only for these high colors. On the
humble characters Eeade bestowed equal care; on
innkeepers, burgomasters, peasants, adventurers, ^the
obscure heroes, philosophers, and martyrs'; on the
hardships, struggles, and weaknesses of a Dutch
family with its nine children, from which sprang a
Clement and then Erasmus.
3. Anthony TroUope
These leaders in the return to realism — Thackeray,
the Bulwer of 1850, Borrow, Beade, and Dickens be-
fore them — had many characteristics in common.
They were all satirists in the way of banter or invec-
tive ; they all possessed strongly marked personalities
which they projected into their work ; and this is their
charm, for they were all manly men. But they were not
dramatic in the high sense in which Jane Austen was.
They were humorous, in the old Elizabethan meaning of
the word; their emotions led the way, and their pens
followed. If they were in a lyrical mood, they wrote
poetic prose ; if their sense of justice was ruffled, they
wrote in grand indignation; whenever they saw an
opportunity to ridicule, then, with the exception of
Beade, they always took it. The way to stricter real- v
216 DEVELOPMENT OP THE ENGLISH NOVEL
I ism lay in the novelist's separating himself from his
\ characters ; in his withdrawal, so to speak, behind the
; scenes, so that the drama might play itself out unmo-
lested. This was the contention and the practice of
Anthony TroUope.
TroUope's notion of a novel was in many respects
the same as that of his contemporaries. In his view,
the novel was a salutary and agreeable sermon,
preached to recommend the virtues and to discounte-
nance the vices. But he objected to the manner in
which this kind of sermon was put together by the
social reformers. He accused Beade of not compre-
hending his subject; and in the most savage piece
of satire he was capable of, he rebuked Dickens for
creating vices in the middle and upper classes, merely
for the sake of attacking them. He even maintained
that the literary dishonesty of the reformers had
been bad for art; that droll beings with no blood
in their veins were made to pass for men and women,
that pathos had become ^stagey and melodramatic,'
that the comic style created by Dickens 'in defiance
of all rules' and affected by his school was 'jerky'
and ' ungrammatical.' Are there not, TroUope in-
quired, real men and women here in England, and
himior and pathos in life as it is?
TroUope was more in accord with Thackeray, with
whom he was associated for several years in the most
pleasing social and literary comradery. Indeed, he
was, as it were, a son of Thackeray, from whom he in-
herited much of his art and his outlook on life, with-
out, however, the father's genius. He unmasked his
rogues like Thackeray, but with less abandon. Ideal
characters of goodness, nobility, and absent-minded-
THE RETURN TO REALISM 217
ness had some attractions for him ; and in this kind
of character-building he occasionally fell little short
of his master. Witness Josiah Crawley, who cannot
explain how a certain check came into his hands, and
Septimus Harding, who when excited hugs to his heart
an imaginary yioloncello. The old romantic device
which Thackeray revived, of letting the same charac-
ters appear again and again in successive novels, Trol-
lope managed with fine effects, for he took into account
the modifications wrought by increasing age and chang-
ing surroundings. In sentence structure he regarded
Thackeray as a model. Though he is not so delightful
in his style as Thackeray, his sentences are simpler and
more easily read, as if he also had in mind Macaulay.
For all this, he brought, but with less vehemence, the
same charge against Thackeray as against Dickens. At
any period, it was his opinion, there can be to the hon-
est man of letters only a small place for satire ; with
Thackeray satire had become a manner and all men
snobs. Of the romantic spirit there was, of course,
hardly a trace in TroUope. To him as a boy ' I vanhoe '
was one of the best of novels, but that enthusiasm for
Scott was forever quenched by the utter failure of his
one experiment in historical fiction. Raphael's ma-
donnas, he wrote in substance when in middle life,
were justified for Church purposes, but the real
matrons that once walked the earth are Bembrandt's.
It was Trollope's boast that he far surpassed all his
English conteinporaries in the literary output He cer-
tainly published enough — thirty-odd novels besides
as many tales ; and most of the novels occupied three
volumes. He accomplished so much by a method that
he recommended to all who wish to pursue snooessfuUy^
218 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
the literary career. Wherever he might be, in the
drawing-room of the Athenaeum Club, in a railway car«
riage, or on the ocean, he seated himself for three hours
as a limit, with his watch before him ; and regularly
as it marked the quarter hour he turned off two
hundred and fifty words, undisturbed by the stares of
those about him. He kept two or three novels going
at the same time; when one was finished, he began
another on the next morning, without plan or think-
ing of it previously at all ; sometimes he had several
novels in his desk awaiting a publisher. It would
be superfluous to add that the result was a vast
amount of tameness and commonplace. His Irish
stories were out of date; his political romances had
been forestalled by Disraeli; and many of his tales
of English life crept very close to the ground.
Better workmanship, however, is to be found in ' The
Warden ' (1865), ' Barchester Towers ' (1857), * Doctor
Ttome' (1858), 'Framley Parsonage^ (1861), *The
Small House at Allington' (1864), and *The Last
Chronicle of Barset" (1867), consisting, all told, of
only thirteen volumes, and known as *The Cathe-
dral Stories' or as 'The Chronicles of Barsetshire.'
However rapidly these novels may have been written,
they are not mere desk work. ' The Warden ' came to
Trollope as an inspiration, while he was one day stand-
ing 'on the little bridge in Salisbury.' After sketch-
ing the opening chapter, he left the development of
the story to a year's meditation. Its successors would
naturally fall together in his imagination more easily
and rapidly. The scenes of the entire series are laid
in the cathedral town of Barchester and the surround-
ing villages; the characters are the clergy and theix
THE RETURN TO REALISM 219
families, country doctors, and the gentry. Before this,
cathedral life had only incidentally made its appear-
^ce in English fiction, as in Kingsley's ' Alton Locke.'
Trollope added to England a new shire and discovered
a new theme.
Of these Chronicles, the first two are the most closely
threaded together, forming, in fact, one continuous
novel. Very few new characters are introduced into
the second, and most of the scenes lie close and com-
pact in or near the cathedral close. The first point
of interest is Hiram Hospital, very similar, it would
seem, to Leicester Hospital, well known to visitors at
Warwick. Early in the fifteenth century, one John
Hiram, a wealthy wool-stapler, left in trust a house
and certain meadows and closes near the town for the
support of twelve superannuated wool-carders. The
property through the centuries increased greatly in
value, and the wool industry died out in Barchester.
So, instead of wool-carders, the bishop, who had con-
trol of the estate, usually gave these twelve places to
the aged poor, whatever may have been their occupar
tion. According to the terms of the will, each inmate
received his breakfast and dinner and sizppnce a day;
and the residue of the income, now amounting to
eight hundred pounds a year, was to be given to a
warden. The position, at the time of the story, was
regarded as a sinecure by those seeking reform in
Church and State, especially by Dr. Anticant, Mr.
Sentiment, and the London Jupiter, under which
names Trollope thinly veils Carlyle, Dickens, and the
London Times. The present incumbent, the Rev.
Septimus Harding, has for years ministered to the
physical and spiritual wants of the brotherhood; nevei
220 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
dreaming that he has been doing wrong in receiving
pay for his services. But when the reformers discover
him^ and he sees himself pictured out as a winebibber
and hypocrite, he resigns his office, in spite of the
pleading and protests of his friends ; and in course of
time the hospital is given over to the plunder of the
Kev. Mr. Quiverful, a type of the poor parson who
truckles to authority for the sake of bread for his
starving wife and fourteen children. The Episcopal
palace is occupied by a bishop of whose character,
though it is not strongly drawn, we see enough
to know that he is worthy of his place. The good
bishop lives in the most intimate relations with
Mr. Harding, who, besides being warden of the hos-
pital, is precentor to the cathedral. Nine miles away
is Plumstead Episcopi, the residence of Archdeacon
Grantley, the bishop's son and Mr. Harding's son-in-
law, with whom the fathers have much to do in molli-
fying his aggressiveness. This Dr. Orantley, now in
the very prime of life, and waiting patiently for the
death of the dear old bishop, on which event he ex-
pects to remove to the palace, is a fine creation. He
is in no sense a bad man, but he is worldly and am-
bitious, and insists, while the bishop is still living, on
ruling the diocese. He is dignified in bearing, elegant
in dress, and when in the pulpit he is 'a noble
ecclesiastic'
The bishop dies, and, owing to a change in ministry
at the very time, he is not succeeded by his son-in-
law, but by Dr. Proudie, who becomes, however,
bishop in name only, for Mrs. Proudie rules the
palace. The new bishop brings with him down from
London as his assistant Mr. Obadiah Slope, an Evan
THE RETURN TO REALISM 221
gelioal refonner, who is allowed to preach the installa*
tion sermon. He takes the occasion to attack the
cathedral Pdrrice, which has been brought to the
perfections of art and beauty by the patient labor
of the precentor, Mr. Harding. All the clergy of
the diocese hear that sermon and leave the cathe-
dral in hubbub and indignation. Now war — open,
determined war — is waged against Mr. Slope, under
the leadership of Dr. Orantley. Mr. Slope is pro-
hibited from preaching again in the cathedral, and
after a time is forced to leave Barchester. The arch-
deacon has won, he thinks, a brilliant victory. But
the reader of ^Barchester Towers' knows that Mrs.
Proudie in the stillness of night won that victory.
Mr. Slope had been Mrs. Proudie's favorite ; but when
she saw that he was conspiring with her husband to
weaken her authority, she rose to the fury of a Medea^
and Mr. Slope received his passports. What occurred on
that memorable night, when the bishop was punished
for intriguing against his wife's authority, TroUope
leaves us to imagine from the crushed, trembling,
doglike, and aged face of the bishop on the next morn-
ing. Shakespeare had his shrew, but at length Pe-
truchio tamed her ; Mrs. Proudie remains glorious in
her triumph through volume after volume. With
author and reader she was for years a fascination.
Finally she met her match in the Eev. Josiah Crawley,
who in her own palace and in the presence of her hus-
band turned 'his great forehead and great eyebrows '
full upon her and silenced her meddlesome tongue with
the simple utterance, 'Peace, woman!'' 'The bishop
jumped out of his chair at hearing the wife of his bosom
called a woman. But he jumped rather in admiratiou
222 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
than in anger.' This scene in ' The Last Chronicle of
Barset' was the beginning of the end. When one
morning the news was brought to Plumstead that Mrs..
Proudie died last night standing erect by her bedpost,
Mrs. Grantley ' dropped from her hand the teaspoonful
of tea that was just going into the pot/ and the arch-
deacon remarked, 'What a relief!' thinking of the
poor bishop as well as of himself.
The novelty of TroUope's clergy is in the common-
sense standpoint from which they are viewed. Hav-
ing never associated with bishops, deans, and arch-
deacons, he built them up (to use his own expression)
out of his 'moral consciousness.' A bishop is as
likely to enjoy the luxury of being henpecked as the
man on 'Change. If an archdeacon has grown up in
affluence he will likely be given to display and high
living. Just as in the wide world there are all sorts
and conditions of men, so there are the same mot-
ley personages within the rustling gown and cas-
sock. Sermons may not be masterpieces of eloquence
and reason; they may abound in 'platitudes, truisms,
and untruisms.' Such was the sound position, now
extremely commonplace, that Trollope took for the-
purpose of his realistic art, and such was the position
that long before him had been taken by Chaucer, but
forgotten by the reading public.
As to TroUope's characters outside of his clergy,
many of them are merely figures of pasteboard.
Some of them, however, are a part of his best
work. Madame Keroni, for example, who heart-
lessly unmasks Obadiah Slope in his love-making;,
and Bertie Stanhope, the smart young gentleman
who sports with the passions of Mrs. Proudie,
THE RETUEN TO REALISM 223
and gets from the enraged Juno the melodramatio
* Unhand it, Sir ! ' Best of all, perhaps, are his young
women : Eleanor Bold, the widowed daughter of Mr.
Harding, and Grace Crawley, who is married to a son
of Archdeacon Grantley. These young women and
many others are what we conceive the English girl
to be : not too fine for everyday wear, solid, substan-
tial, and withal good-looking enough. They are the
very type of Wordsworth's ideal, and are the fore-
runners of Mary Garth and Diana Merion.
TroUope's plots, so far as he may have any, are
conventional. Finding from experience that a novel
would not sell without a dash of love-making, and
believing that one plot was as good as another, he hit
upon two situations he thought true to real life ; and
he employed them over and over.: a young woman
vacillating in her choice between two or more pro-
fessed lovers, or a young man deciding after much
concluding which of two girls he shall marry. Upon
the novel of mystery and difficulty in which Wilkie
Collins was an adept, he looked in wonder, and once
dabbled with it, only to mar the beauty of his most
tragic last chronicle of Barset. Dispensing for the
most part with the ' wearing work ' and the ' agoniz-
ing doubt' of the skilful plot manipulator, he sits
down comfortably and writes about his cathedral
folk; men and women come and go; he relates
what they said and did, and draws full-length por-
traits of them. His main 'regret is * that no mental
method of daguerreotype or photography has yet been
discovered by which the characters of men can be
rednced to writing and put into grammatical language
with an unerring precision of truthful description.'
224 DEVELOPMENT OF THE EN0LI8H NOVEL
With his mind concentrated upon his characters, ha
looks them full in the face, perplexed by no ethical
or philosophical medium. Bj virtue of this direcir
ness; he is the great chronicler of English fiction.
4. OharloUe Broni»
We have followed the steps by which, from Scott
and the romantic school, the novel returned to a point
very near where it was when left by Jane Austen. In
the last stage of this reaction, the direct influence of
Jane Austen was potent. Signs of an awakened inter-
est in her appeared in 1833 — the year after Scott's
death — when her six novels found a place in Bent-
ley's ' Standard Novels,' The assertion of Macaulay in
1843, that she ranks with Shakespeare in the dramatic
delineation of character, put the seal on a Jane Austen
cult. Five years later George Henry Lewes wrote:
'Astonishing as Scott's powers of attraction are, we
would rather have written "Pride and Prejudice,"
or "Tom Jones" than any of the Waverley novels.'
TroUope, speaking in his Autobiography of his early
literary opinions, says : ' I had already made up my
mind that " Pride and Prejudice " was the best novel
in the English language, — a palm which I only partially
withdrew after a second reading of " Ivanhoe," and did
not completely bestow elsewhere till "Esmond" was
written.' And the art of his novels speaks more em-
phatically than his Autobiography.
Charlotte Bronte excited amazement when she told
her correspondents and literary acquaintances that she
knew nothing of Jane Austen. After reading 'Emma,'
she sent a criticism of it to the ' reader ' of her pub-
r
THE RETURN TO REALISM 226
lithen, in which she said : ' She [Jane Austen] ruffles
her reader by nothing vehement^ disturbs him by noth-
ing profound. The passions are perfectly unknown
to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with
that stormy sisterhood.' Thackeray expressed with
sanity the moods of the spirit. Charlotte 6ront3 awoke
the ' stormy sisterhood' of passions^ and turned fiction
into the channel of tragedy. In her procedure, she
made some use of the heroics and the melodrama of
Grothic romance. Bain pours, hurricanes blow, and
moons rise throughout her novels ; and in two of them
there are mysteries — the maniac in the upper story
of Thomfield Hall, and the nun that walks by night
in the garden of a Brussels school — which are duly
explained as Ann Badcliffe would have explained
them. To these romantic incidents, Charlotte Brontd
was driven by the pressure of publishers, who refused
the novel she first wrote, on the ground that it was
commonplace. Her descriptions of scenery, however
wild, were nevertheless from observation; as the
Yorkshire moors * washed from the world' in 'whiten-
ing sheets ' of rain, and the cold autumn evening in
Brussisls when from her lattice she 'saw coming
night-clouds trailing low like banners drooping.' But
whatever decorations she may have employed to gain
a hearing, she described herself and the aim of her
work when she said: 'I always, through my whole
life, liked to penetrate to the real truth ; I like seek-
ing the goddess in her temple, and handling the veil,
and daring the dread glance.'
Charlotte Bront6 passed most of her briAf life of
thirty-nine years on the moorland wastes of Yorkshire,
in the little village of Haworth, where her father was
226 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
curate. She was sent away a few miles to two board-
ing-schools, in one of which she was for a short time
a teacher, and then she went out twice as governess.
She declined two proposals of marriage; and what
was more out of the common order of events to one
of her humble lot, she was for two years a pupil and
teacher in the Pensionnat H^ger in Brussels. Thus
circumscribed were her experiences down to her first
appearance in literature. VThen she became famous,
she went up to London, where she first saw her pub-
lishers, the critics, and Thackeray. Through similar
excursions from home and a correspondence with men
of letters, she came into contact with varied opinions
and beliefs, — but too late. To the end, the horizon of
her vision never extended far beyond 'the solitary
hills.' The life and the literature of the south she
could not appreciate. To her, Shakespeare, except in
a few of his histories and tragedies, was indelicate,
and she was afraid of him. She expected to find in
Thackeray a stem Hebrew prophet of dauntless and
daring mien ; she returned to Haworth still believing
in him, but bewildered by his want of seriousness and
his admiration of Fielding. Of all that is French in
the character and the manners of Englishmen she had
no comprehension whatever.
The men and women with whom she had grown up
in the north were of a different race; being the de-
scendants of the Scandinavian freebooters. Their
characteristics in distinction from the men of the
south are well known. Back in the fourteenth cen-
tury, John of Treviss^ contrasted the soft speech of
Wessex with the sharp, piercing, and grating utterr
ance of Korthumbria. In the Elizabethan romance of
THE RETURN TO REALISM 227
* George a Green' were described the village games
of the West Riding, in which ' crowns pass current.'
The men of the north are still hard of feature,
and abrupt and brusque in manner. For the graces
of society they care little. But beneath their rough
exterior beats the warm heart of the primeval
barbarian. Manners different from theirs Charlotte
Bront@ regarded as affectations. What she saw of
the outside world in Brussels and in London served
merely to remind her that fate had dealt with
her cruelly, in consigning her to a life apart. Her
spirit rebelled, flashing up in bitter sarcasm and
irony.
The scenes and the characters of ' Jane Eyre ' (1847)
and ' Shirley ' (1849) are of Yorkshire ; the scene of
' Villette ' (1853) and its first sketch, * The Professor,'
is laid in Brussels. Into these novels Charlotte Bronte
put the portraits of her friends and her imagined
enemies, and her own travails of the spirit. That
this is true, every piece of fresh information concern-
ing her more and more confirms. And yet her novels
do not lie outside the trend of English fiction, detached
and isolated. In them she is remonstrating against
the novel of the circulating library. When she began
writing, the heroes and heroines of novels prepared
for young ladies and gentlemen were made ideally
perfect. The approach of the heroine was announced
by the rustling of voluminous muslin, whose quality
was described as the whitest and finest. When she
(iame tripping in in sandals, long ringlets were seen
falling over a drooping head and a swan neck, and
she wsbs declared tender, soft, languishing, and inno-
cent. The hero was the pink of kindness and gra-
228 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENOUSH NOVEL
ciousness; and when, after three volumes of ooortsliip^
he won a reluctant bride, he was told to be never
cross or wayward with her. The best novels of this
species — a lingering on of the 'Sir Charles Grandi-
son' tradition — were those written bj Mrs. Anne
Marsh-Galdwell. Even Anne and Emily Bronte were
careful to keep their heroines beautiful in ^ Wildf ell
Hall' and 'Wuthering Heights/ though to no such
extreme. The Brontd sisters, after the sewing, knit-
ting, bread-making, and general housekeeping of the
day, when all was quiet in the Haworth parsonage,
used to sit down and talk over their stories as they
were progressing. On one of these occasions, Char-
lotte told Anne and Emily that they were 'morally
wrong ' in adopting the conventional heroine, and said
to them, 'I will show you a heroine as plain and
as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any
of yours.'
Jane Eyre was the new heroine. It is her character
alone that fascinates, — her fiery spirit, her hatred of
self-righteousness, and her love of truth. An orphan,
cruelly treated in childhood by her aunt on whom she
is dependent, Jane is sent away to school, becomes a
teacher and governess, and finally marries Edward
liochester, the father of one of her pupils. This
situation — a young woman entering life under social
disadvantages, and after many struggles winning
the place she deserves — is clearly the one intro-
duced into fiction by Marivaux and established by
Richardson. It was, in 1847, more than hackneyed.
The novelty was in the management of the situation,
and in the hard details taken from the life of
a real governess. Pious moralizingS; scenes of idyllio
THE REtURN TO REALISM 229
friendship and love-making^ there were none. Their
places were taken by malice, hate, and a love of
infinite tenderness, uncouth in its earlier manifesta-
tions. The aim was to represent a young woman who
should speak and act the truth under all circum-
stances, with no thought of the consequences to her-
self or others. A little girl, Jane Eyre looks her aunt
full in the face and tells her she hates her for
her cruelty ; and when asked by a Pharisee what she
must do to escape punishment after death, she replies,
^ I must keep in good health and not die.' At a charity
school, where the famished girls are fed on burnt
porridge and rusty meat, and go to bed too tired to
dream, and rise ill the morning to wash themselves in
frozen water, she squares her conduct likewise by
truth, enduring reprimand and infamy, while hoping
for anew and easier servitude. A governess at Thorn-
field, she is still her own keeper in her relations with
Rochester, who is equally no conventional hero. He
is over forty years old, his nose is big, his nostrils are
full and open; his mouth and jaws are grim and
sinister, his chest is too massive for his legs. He is
haughty, domineering, and tyrannical. He is never-
theless Jane's ideal of a gentleman. She can sit by him
and hear him tell in detail the story of his escapades
in Paris and elsewhere, and then declare that she loves
him and is ready to marry him. What this man,
who would have been the villain in the old novel, has
done under misguidance and temptation does not
greatly distress her, for she sees in him a better self.
She goes to the altar with him ; and when the mar-
riage rite is there interrupted, she still clings to him,
and leaves him only when her conscience tells her it
230 DEVBLOPBiENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
is right to do so. When that moment of decision comes,
she does not hesitate to choose vagabondage to deg-
radation. When Rochester loses a hand and an eye
in trying to rescue from fire his maniac of a wife,
Jane returns to him, after her wanderings ; watches
over him, marries him, and loves him the more for
his mutilated arm and 'cicatrized visage.' It is no
marriage of the world or of the flesh; it is of the
spirit.
'Jane Eyre,' published under the name of Currer
Bell, was understood neither by the critics nor by the
public. Who is this Currer Bell? — man or woman ?
The audacity of the novel points to a man ; its little
details of dress to a woman ; but then a man may get
these minutise from his sister or wife. If a woman,
she is unsexed. Perhaps she may be Becky Sharp,
who is taking revenge for her treatment in 'Vanity
Fair,' — then appearing in monthly numbers. Doesn't
Rochester strike you as a caricature of Thackeray?
So rumor ran. In the interim 'Jane Eyre' was
being widely read on both sides of the Atlantic.
Here in the New England states it produced for some
months what a reputable critic of the time called a
Jane Eyre fever. Young women played the part of
Jane Eyre, denouncing hypocrites and moralists in
sentimental paradoxes ; and young men swaggered in
the presence of ladies. In England the novel was
denounced as immoral and irreligious. The boorish
manners therein depicted and its strange love-making
were unknown outside of the north; and there they
occasioned no criticism, for they belonged to the com-
mon order of things. No book was ever written with
aincerer motives, or sprang more directly from an
THE RETURN TO REALISM 231
aching heart. It was a criticism of the vast structure
of modem manners built up on Norman convention-
alities, in the light of the truth of a simpler civiliza-
tion. 'Jane Eyre' was of its time. The Zeitgeist
had reached the great northern moors. While in
the south laboring men were organizing, massing,
and demanding their rights, and clergymen and
politicians in easy circumstances were preaching
to them Chartism and social millenniums, the same
democratic voice was coming from the north out of
the very heart of its people : ' Millions are condemned
to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent
revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many
rebellions beside political rebellions ferment in the
masses of life which people earth.'
* Shirley? (1849) is milder in tone; in it Charlotte
Bronte is not quite herself. Much disturbed by criti-
cism of 'Jane Eyre,' she undertook to profit by it,
particularly by the advice of George Henry Lewes,
who told her to avoid poetry, sentiment, and melo-
drama, and to read Jane Austen. She now sought to
daguerreotype Yorkshire life and scenes ; and this is
the way she did it. For an enveloping plot of excit-
ing incident, she went back some forty years to the
commercial troubles with the United States, and to
the contest between mill-owners and operatives over
the introduction of labor-saving machinery. She thus
made for herself an opportunity to describe the bat-
tering of a woollen mill by starlight, and the shooting
of the manager. In this setting she placed Yorkshire
men and women with whom she was acquainted, — her
sister Emily, her father, her school friends, one of hei
lovers, and the neighboring curates. Incident; toa
282 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
she reproduced from life, with yarying degrees of
modification. The novel is thus an historical allegory.
It is hardly necessary to observe that it is constructed
on false notions of art and on a complete misunder-
standing of Jane Austen. It is^ however^ as a descrip-
tion of externals the most careful and most sympathetic
of all Charlotte Bronte's work, and is still tiie novel of
hers most liked by Yorkshiremen, who see themselves
there. The portrait which has the most unusual interest
is the minute study of Emily Bronte under the name
of Shirley Keeldar. In all her moods and loves and
changes of feature under excitement, Charlotte repre-
sents her, — her indolence, her passion for fierce dogs
and the moors ; the quivering lip, the trembling voice,
the eye flashing dark, the dilating nostrils, the sarcas-
tic laugh, the expansion of the frail body in indigna-
tion, and her wild picturesque beauty when visited by
one of her rare dreams, such, for example, as the vision
of Nature, the Titanic mother.
' Shirley ' failed to please Lewes, who was expecting
another 'Pride and Prejudice.' To his flippant criti-
cism Charlotte BrontS replied cavalierly, and became
herself once more. 'Yillette ' has never been quite so
popular as 'Jane Eyre,' for its scenes are not English,
and to the critic its mechanism is crude and amateur-
ish. Its main situation is a reproduction of that in
'Jane Eyre,' with a new setting and new incidents.
The obstacle that kept Jane Eyre and Rochester apart
was difference in social position ; that between Lucy
Snowe and Paul Emanuel is religion. In ' Jane Eyre/
society was viewed from the standpoint of a govern-
ess; in 'Yillette,' as it appears to a school-teacher
who has some difficulty in managing her pupils. In
THE RETURN TO REALISM 233
her first novel Charlotte Bronte's style was wildly,
glowingly Celtic; in ^Shirley' it was rhetorical; in
^Yillette' it is more subdued in tone, and rendered
more intense and compact by brief and forcible meta-
phor. This change in style has its correlative in
deeper and more intense feeling. The defiance of
'Jane Eyre' has exhausted itself and settled into
despair. States of mind are now subtly analyzed
that verge upon madness. The debits and the credits
in the account of life are reckoned up, and the books
will not balance, for there is so little to be set over
against pain and grief.
We have in Charlotte Bronte a realist of the feel-
ings, trailing, however, the bright colors of romanti-
cism. Her descriptions of the outside of things, of
men and manners, we have not much dwelt upon, for
the reason that they proceeded so often from preju-
dice and incomplete knowledge. Eoman Catholics
and Methodists, the patrons of boarding-schools, and
English and French girls, we cannot believe were as
she saw them. At any rate, her significance in the
course of fiction is that she delineated the intense
moods of her own heart and imagination, which have
their rapport in the moods of the race. In ^Jane
Eyre' and 'Villette,' photography of manners has
passed into that inner photography which TroUope
lamented as an art beyond his power of vision. The
next epoch-making step in internal realism was taken
by George Eliot, when she dealt with states of con-
science and feeling psychologically, arranging and
defining them with an attempt at scientific precision.
CHAPTER VII
The Psychological Novel
1. Elizabeth Gaskell — The Ethical Formula of the
Psychologista
•
Bbtweeit Charlotte Brontd and George Eliot is,
however, Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell, whose factory novels
we have briefly described. To her work there is
another and a less polemic side. Hardly aspiring to
the title of novelist, she frequently reminded her pub-
lic that she was writing only tales. These tales were
told in the first person, and for the moral edification
of her own sex. In form and aim they are accordingly
of the Edgeworth type. Indeed Mrs. Gaskell may be
said, in a general way, to have performed in them the
same noble service to her contemporaries that Maria
Edgeworth did to hers. She entered into the thoughts
and wayward moods of children with true insight ; she
gave us the first English nurses and housekeepers of
hard common sense and racy wit, the Nancys and the
Sallys. Her style, too, at times is most felicitous, as
when she says : ^ Edith came down upon her feet a
little bit sadder ; with a romance blown to pieces ' — a
sentence which in the natural course of events should
have been written by George Meredith. One province
she discovered and made her own — feminine society in
out-of-the-way towns and villages before the encroach-
ment of railroads and penny postage. Of this life
•Cranford' (1853) is the classic. Here is described
234
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 235
the old-style etiquette, the genteel poverty, the formal
calls, and evening parties, of a village wholly in the
possession of the Amazons — widows and spinsters —
where no men are tolerated, except the country doctor,
who is allowed to stay there occasionally over-night
when on his long circuit. Old maids spend their time in
tea-drinking and stale gossip, and in chasing sunbeams
from their carpets. Before going to bed they peep
beneath the white dimity valance or roll a ball under
it, to be sure no lachimo with ^ great fierce face ^ lies
concealed there. So ends the day of trivialities and
Gothic fears. ' The Moorland Cottage ' (1850) will al-
ways have a special interest, for George Eliot in ^ The
Mill on the Floss ' revivified some of its incidents and
characters : the water, Maggie, the stubborn ^ little
brown mouse,' her tyrannical brother Edward, and her
fault-finding mother.
'Euth' (1853), which probably long ago departed
from the imagination of novel readers, occupies a very
important position in the history of English fiction,
for it follows certain ethical lines more ostensibly than
any previous novel — what may be called the doctrine
of the act and its train of good or evil. ' All deeds,'
says Mrs. Gaskell, ' however hidden and long passed by
have their eternal consequences.' The doctrine was
not new to literature, for it was not new to observation.
Macbeth hesitated to assassinate Duncan, for he feared
there might issue from the deed a series of extremely
disagreeable events over which he could have no control.
This ethical theory,^ which Carlyle and likewise
^ Por a fall exposition of this ethical theoiy, see the study on
Geozge EUot, by M. Ferdinand Bruneti^re, in *LeBoman Nata«
raUste,' Paris, 1892.
236 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Comte were popularizing^ Mrs. Gaskell employed for
unifying her plot. Euth is an attractive sewing-girl,
who at the age of sixteen is betrayed by a young
gentleman and abandoned. At the point of suicide,
she is rescued by a Dissenting minister^ who takes
her and the child into his home^ where at the
suggestion of his spinster sister, she passes for a
widow. In the course of time Kuth's offence and the
parson's deceit are suddenly and unexpectedly re-
vealed, and then follows the retribution. The respect-
able part of the parson's congregation deserts him;
and Euth, shunned by the village folk, becomes nurse
to patients in typhus fever, from one of whom (who
turns out to be her former lover) she is infected, and
dies. Mrs. Gaskell works her scenes up to crises,
where some one must make a decision as to his course
of action, to what she once called 'the pivot on which
the fate of years moved'; and then she studies the
influence of the act on a small group of characters.
The motives and the constraining circumstances
that lead to the decision are analyzed in detail. We
know precisely why Euth makes her early mistake
and why the parson conceals it; and two pages are
devoted to cataloguing the reasons why a country
gentleman takes his candidate for Parliament to a
luxurious house by the sea to pass Sunday.
When we speak broadly, we call all novels of the
inner life psychological. The old romances were psy-
chological, because of their craft of love ; so too was
Eichardson, because of his minute record day by day
of the fluctuations of a woman's heart ; so too Thack-
eray, and brilliantly, in his Beatrix and Eebecca; and
TroUope in his delicate analysis of the aged warden's
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 287
conscience. Charlotte Bronte was preeminently psy-
chological in the portraits of Lucy Snowe and Paul
Emanuel. But ' Buth ' announces the approach of the
psychological novel in a restrictive sense. The out-
ward sequence of its incidents is the correlative of an
inner sequence of thought and feeling^ which is
brought into harmony with an ethical formula and
accounted for in an analysis of motive. Mrs. Gaskell
did not possess the clearness of vision^ the equip-
ment of knowledge^ and the breadth of horizon requi-
site for completely satisfying this definition of the
psychological novel. What she did in part was
fully accomplished by George Eliot
2. George Eliot
Like Shakespeare, with whom she has often been
compared, George Eliot (Marian Evans) was bom in
the English midlands. Her early life was passed in
and near Nuneaton and in Coventry. Brought up
in the strictest Evangelicism, she came into contact
in Coventry with the positivism and the destructive
Biblical criticism which were filtrating into English
thought; and, after a severe spiritual struggle, she
broke away completely from the faith of her child-
hood. The first intimation she gave that she might
turn to novel-writing as a profession was in October,
1856, when she wrote for The Westminster Re-
view a delightfully audacious analysis of the current
fashionable and religious novels by lady novelists. In
Blackwood's Magazine for January, 1857, appeared the
first part of *The Sad Fortunes of the Eev. Amos
Barton.' The career of George Eliot the novelist, thus
238 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
began, covers twenty years. So violent a change in
her manner is marked by ' Komola/ that it is an aid
to criticism to divide her novels into two groups. To
the first group belong ^Amos Barton/ 'Mr. Gilfil's
Love-Story,' * Janet's Eepentance ' — which were pub-
lished together in 1858, under the title ' Scenes of
Clerical Life,' — 'Adam Bede' (1859), 'The MiU on
the Floss' (1860), and 'Silas Marner' (1861). The
second group comprises ' Eomola ' (1863), 'Felix Holt'
(1866), 'Middlemarch' (1871-72), and 'Daniel De-
ronda' (1876).
At first George Eliot took Elizabeth Gaskell as her
model in the externals of her art and in the choice of
her subject. These external resemblances are mani-
fest in tiie names of characters : Mary Barton becomes
Milly Barton; and Maggie Brown, Maggie Tulliver.
The ' Scenes from Clerical Life ' are tales like Elizar
beth Gaskell's; 'Adam Bede' and 'Euth' are both
studies in the consequences following the erring of
a passionate moment. ' The Mill on the Floss ' and
' The Moorland Cottage ' are both novels of childhood
and early youth. For an historical setting both novel-
ists went back to the manners of an ' elder England,'
to the time when Coleridge and Wordsworth were
boys, and people laughed at the 'Lyrical Ballads.'
Note well, however, the point of dissidence. After
reading 'Kuth' in 1853, this is George Eliot's criti-
cism: 'Mrs. Gaskell seems to me to be constantly
misled by a love of sharp contrasts, — of " dramatic "
effects. She is not contented with the subdued color-
ing, the half tints, of real life.' In this passage
(George Eliot laid her finger upon the very defect of
Mrs« Gaskell as a realist so soon as she attempted to
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 289
depict life with which she was not thoroughly ac-
quainted. Euth is the soul of goodness, and her
betrayer is the soul of villany. George Eliot had
seen too much of life, and observed character too
closely, to fall into the error of dividing men and
women into angels and demons. The criminal novel
as written by Bulwer-Lytton and many others, she re-
garded as romance. She had nothing in common
with Thackeray. Between her and Dickens the
bond was closer than criticism has yet taken note
of. Dickens taught her, as he has taught every Eng-
lish novelist since his time, the art of minute observa-
tion. Moreover, when describing the death of Milly
Barton, she cadenced her sentences in the very Little
Nell manner. But though always a friend of Dickens
and profoundly impressed by his sad and worn face,
she nevertheless criticised his portrayal of the inner
life as transcendental and unreal. What her own
aims were in distinction from those of her contempo-
raries, she told her first publishers, and often repeated
to her audience : she would give a sympathetic render-
ing of common life as we have it in Dutch painting,
and in a style held in firm intellectual restraint.
In the first group of her novels, she confined herself
mostly to her experiences and observations as a War-
wickshire girl. By the church at Chilvers Coton,
near Nuneaton, is the tomb of Milly Barton, bearing
another name. With her sad fate George Eliot was
perfectly familiar. At a short distance, in the Wed-
dington churchyard, lies the body of the inebriate
Dempster who ruled at the Eed Lion. His dark
career, the riot he instigated against the Evangelical
Tryan, and the patient suffering of his wife, are all
240 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEIi
well-known traditions about Nuneaton. The charao>
ters and the incidents in ' Adam Bede ' have to some
extent their prototypes in family history. The first
two volumes of ^The Mill on the Floss' are somewhat
autobiographic, Tom Tulliver being Isaac Evans, and
Maggie George Eliot herself. Likewise George Eliot's
scenery is either that of Warwickshire, or of Derby
and Stafford, where she visited when a child.
The charm of this early work is her perfect aesthetic
sympathy with midland life. She was able, without
any air of benevolent condescension, to place herself on
the level of her characters, to see things just as men
and women of the class she depicts would see them,
and to talk just as they would talk. The workshop
of Jonathan Surge and the kitchen at the Hall Farm
are apparently as interesting to her as to Adam Bede
and Mrs. Poyser. With Maggie Tulliver, she becomes
a child, who quarrels with her brother, and runs
away to the gypsy camp. As Maggie grows up, George
Eliot's mind grows with her; she is tempted with
her, and goes with her to the Ked Deeps, where she
sits listening to the ^hum of insects' and watching
Hhe heavenly blue of the wild hyacinths.' She is
with Silas Marner as he counts his gold at midnight ;
and thence she passes to a Christmas ball at the Bed
House, and to the racy gossip of the Kainbow Inn.
It is curious that it should have been left to George
Eliot to do justice to Dissent, and to those members
of the Established clergy who were not in orthodox
standing on account of their Evangelical tendencies.
Ever since Smollett, the irregular clergy of fiction had
been hypocrites or grotesque figures. So faithful
were George Eliot's portraits of tbem, that the Dis-
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 241
senters believed the ' Scenes from Clerical Life ' were
written by one of their number; and in fact a Dis-
senter was found who acknowledged himself as their
author, and thus enjoyed for a short time a brilliant
literary reputation for which unaided he had strug-
gled in vain. It is true George Eliot's irregular
clergymen are narrow; they do not include in their
scheme of salvation Eoman Catholics, and they have
some doubts about the future happiness of Protestants
who cling tenaciously to the Establishment. But they
are sincere; and from them comes the only inspira-
tion that quickens the moral sense of the country-
folk. One of the characters made most attractive
in ^Adam Bede/ is Dinah Morris, the Methodist
exhorter, who, as she stands on a summer evening
in 'an amphitheatre of green hills' pleading with
the villagers of Loamshire, sees in vision bending
from above Christ in heightened form, weeping, and
stretching out his arms to the rough and weary faces
before her. Instead of making light of the hallucina-
tion of the scene, George Eliot remarks that such a
faith was to them 'a rudimentary culture.'
Another restdt of the flexibility of George Eliot's
imagination is the dramatic quality of her pathos and
humor. Of course, humor and pathos in any novel
are in their last analysis personal. There are, how-
ever, different ways of expressing humor and pathos.
Our master humorists of the old school. Fielding and
Thackeray, made no attempt to conceal the origin of
their emotions. To do so was not in accord with their
purpose. When they think that it is not suficiently
clear that they are speaking their sentiments through
iheir characters, they pause and throw in a paragraph
242 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
or a chapter in propria persoTia. George EHot, too, is
always present as an interested spectator, but she
keeps herself distinct from her characters and her
drama. She was profoundly convinced of 'the diffi-
culty of the human lot/ and that conviction is what
makes her novels so pathetic in their conclusions.
But her pathos does not appear to come from herself ;
it rises from the situations she chooses, and is thus
apparently of life itself. She saw the humorous side
of the doings of vicars and parsons, housewives, and
loiterers at the Red Lions and at the Rainbows. But
we are not to suppose. that the racy and proverbial
sayings of these people are from shreds of conversa-
tion remembered from childhood. Kot at all; they
are of George Eliot's own mintage, receiving only
their stamp from the tone of the midlands. They are
so intimately associated with her characters, that when
they are excerpted, their piquancy is gone. George
Eliot completed the work of Wordsworth: in the
spirit of a measureless humanity, he dealt with the
pathos of the pastoral life; she mingled its pathos
and its humor.
Of 'Romola,' George Eliot, who was a nice critip of
her own work, said: 'I began it a young woman — I
finished it an old woman.' This remark is indicative
of the differences between the two groups of her novels.
The first novels were written between the ages of
thirty-seven and forty-one, and in rapid succession;
the later novels, between the ages of forty-two and
fifty-seven, and in slow succession. George Eliot
exhausted her Warwickshire material quickly. For
the last volume of * The Mill on the Floss,' she made
an excursion to Gainsborough. For 'Eomola,' she
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 243
visited Florence, and read all that came in her way on
Florentine art and manners and history in the fif-
teenth century, ploughing her way through thick
quartos. In 'Felix Holt' and * Middlemarch,' she
returned to the midlands, but the freshness and glory
of Warwickshire scenery was departing. 'Daniel
Deronda ' opens in a brilliant Continental gambling
scdorij and, after passing through the woods and parks
of Surrey, loses itself in the London Jewry and the
cabala. Its scenes and incidents come largely of
special study and preparation. Moreover, in common-
place men and manners George Eliot is losing her in-
terest ; the eye that has looked outward quite as much
as inward is now concentrated on mental and moral
facts, and out of herself she creates her characters to
illustrate her psychological discernments.
This change was brought about in the main by
two influences — Walter Scott and Auguste Comte.
When hardly eight years old, George Eliot came
under the enchantment of 'Waverley,' as she has
told of it in the motto to the fifty-seventh chapter
of ' Middlemarch.' This early delight in Scott, which
afterward gave way to the moralists, began to assert
itself anew in middle life. There is more romance in
^ Komola ' than in ' The Fortunes of Nigel.' Concerning
the second influence, she wrote in 1867, ' My gratitude
increases continually for the illumination Comte has
contributed to my life.' The following sentences from
the ' Systfeme de Politique Positive ' (1851-54) would
suggest that the illumination she received was not
wholly ethical : ' The principal function of Art is to
construct types on the basis furnished by Science.'
• , . 'Art controls the Ideal, indeed, by systematic
244 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
study of the Real ; but only in order to furnish it with
an objective basis, and so to secure its coherence and its
moral value/ This is the aesthetic code that inspired
'Komola/ ' Middlemarch/ and 'Deronda'; it is the
code of philosophical idealism, which has very little
in common with the Dutch realism elaborated and
defended in ' Amos Barton ' and ^ Adam Bede.'
Notwithstanding all these differences between her
earlier and her later work, George Eliot was from first
to last a philosopher and moralist All her novels and
tales are constructed on the ethical formula of Mi*s.
GaskelPs ' Ruth.' For the way in which she thought
out and applied this doctrine of the act and its train of
good and ill, the only appropriate epithet is magnifi-
cent. She explained chance and circumstance, giving
to these words a new content. All happenings, she
showed, are but the meeting and the intermingling of
courses of events that have their source in the inner
history of mankind. This invisible medium in which
we move is outside of time. The past is here in what
was done yesterday; the future is here in what is
done to-day ; and ^our finest hope is finest memory.'
Whatever may be her method of telling a story, —
whether she begins at the beginning or breaks into
the midst of her plot and in due time gathers up its
threads, — George Eliot always comes quickly to an
incident which discovers somewhat the moral quality
of her characters ; and then she proceeds slowly with
their self-revelation. Arthur Donnithome, stepping
one day into Mrs. Peyser's dairy as if by chance,
speaks to ^ a distractingly pretty girl ' in the charming
attitudes of making butter; and she blushes in reply.
These are incidents which in most novels we should
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 245
pass by as of no moment. But in this case there is
meaning in the word simply spoken and the respon-
sive blush. Clandestine meetings follow; and the
bitter soon begins to mingle with the sweet. The
generous young gentleman thinks that he can turn the
ill consequences of his conduct from the dairymaid
upon himself ; he is soon illumined on this point, and
lives to see in the wreck of himself and of others for
which he is responsible that ' there's a sort of wrong
that can never be made up for.' When a little girl
Gwendolen Harleth 'strangled her sister's canary-bird
in a final fit of exasperation at its shrill singiug which
had again and again jarringly interrupted her own ' ;
and atoned for her cruelty, as she imagined, by buy-
ing for her sister a white mouse. That incident, which
in its startling self-revelation haunted her memory
like a bad dream, was but typical of her career as a
young woman. She went on imagining that she could
make life conform to the pressure of her own desires.
A short experience as the wife of Mr. Mallinger
Grandcourt humbled her to the dust, where she lay
'with closed eyes, like a lost, weary, storm-beaten
white doe, unable to rise and pursue its unguided
way.' And when she did rise, she found it necessary
to discard her cruel egoism and to adjust her conduct
to the presence of others.
Again, on a fair spring morning in 1492 a ship-
wrecked stranger awoke in Florence. He was a
beautiful Greek of sunny face, who was on his way
to Venice, where he hoped to sell some jewels in-
trusted to him, and with the proceeds to ransom from
the Turks his foster-father, to whom he owed all his
culture and attainments. He disposed of some of his
246 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
jewels at once in Florence^ and then asked himself;
Why should I trouble myself about my f ather^ who
likely died long ago ? why should I run the risk of
a possible capture of myself? why not remain here^
where I am assured of pleasure and an easy career ?
He yielded to the temptation, and from that moment
began his descent to treachery and broken vows. He
betrayed all who placed their trust in him, Komola,
Tessa, and Savonarola. Eegardless of others, he at-
tempted to steer his course so that there might be
no grating rubs against the shingle. For a time he
succeeded. But one day Tito awoke on the banks of
the Arno to feel the great fingers of Baldassarre press-
ing upon his throat.
As a study in moral decay, ^Eomola' is undoubt-
edly George Eliot's sternest effort. The novel does
not, however, take so complete possession of one as
' Middlemarch ' with its English scenes and char-
acters. ^ Eomola ' is a tragedy of crime, the successor
to ^Adam Bede,' which is a tragedy of youthful
passion. ^ Middlemarch ' is a tragedy of lost ideals.
Dorothea Brooke is a beautiful, plainly dressed Quaker-
ess. She has read the lives of Hooker and Milton,
learning how the former was henpecked, and the latter
was deserted by his wife Mary, and abused by his
daughters. She would have liked, she often repeated,
to have been the helpmate of the sweet and loving
Hooker ; and she would have gladly sat and read to
the blind Milton. She meets Mr. Casaubon, and to
her he is a Milton or a Hooker living in the present.
He proposes and she accepts him at once. A few
weeks later she is with him at Lowick Grange ; and
find3 the copying and sifting for a genius not quite
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 247
what she thought it to be when she used to pity
the poor Hookers and the blind Miltons. She fails
miserably in her rdle as martyr. Edward Gasaubon,
of sallow face and blinking eyes^ has labored a lifetime,
weary days and wearier nights, over a *Key to All
Mythologies.' There was nothing ignoble in the im-
possible ideal he set for himself when a young student
many years ago. But in his pursuit of Egyptian
divinities, he loses his grasp upon the delights of the
present moment. He will correct the error of over-
studiousness, by marrying a young and beautiful wife.
He will burst the barriers of his virgin affection that
has long been pent up like the waters of a mountain
lake, and let it overflow in wild torrents. The day of
astonishment comes, when he sees that that impetuous
and refreshing stream of his love is a tiny, insignifi-
cant rill losing itself in the arid sands of a withered
and desolate nature. He becomes jealous of Will
Ladislaw, and then uneasy and irritable. At length
his heart loses the rhythm of its beat, and finally
ceases to beat at all. Edward Casaubon sought to
remove what to his vision was a mistake far back in
his career, and the hoped-for cure was his death.
Dr. Lydgate, a young man twenty-seven years old,
comes to Middlemarch with the intention of carrying
forward the researches of Bichat, a distinguished
French anatomist, who, after opening new vistas in
biological science, suddenly died in the midst of his
labors. It is not long before Dr. Lydgate is very
unexpectedly called upon to cast the deciding ballot
as to who shall be chaplain to an infirmary. That
ballot also decides what his own career is to be. In
his arrogant egoism^ he suppresses forever his intet
248 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
lectual selfhood ; lie turns his back upon a kind-hearted
friend, and unwittingly places himself under the thumb
of Mr. Bulstrode, the banker and hypocrite. The want
of balance between his intellect and his passions leads
also to certain other acts on which he had not counted.
He is soon married to Rosamond Vincy. His practice
gradually decreasing owing to his connection with
Bulstrode, he has not the wherewithal to satisfy
creditors pressing payment for furniture, plate, and
jewels. And the paradise of ' sweet laughs ' and ' blue
eyes,' over which he had been dreaming ever since
he first saw Miss Vincy, proves to be a disastrous
illusion. At the age of forty. Dr. Lydgate, of magnifi-
cent possibilities, is thoroughly disenchanted. Instead
of completing the unfinished work of Bichat, he has
become a fashionable physician at bathing-places, and
distinguished himself by writing a treatise on the
gout. In the prime of life, his hair still brown, now
and then conscious of visitations from his earlier self,
he comes to the close of his career.
Is there not another picture to be set over against
these scenes of frustrated plans ? Undoubtedly there
is; but the imagery of light is not so effective as
the imagery of darkness. George Eliot has her
paradise as well as Dante. Of a fine act she says,
^ It produces a sort of regenerating shudder through
the frame, and makes one feel ready to begin a new
life.' And as a large motive to it she says, 'That
things are not so ill with you and me as they might
have been, is half owing to the number who lived
faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.'
That was a fine act of Mary Garth's when she stoutly
refused to ' soil the beginning ' of her life by burning
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 249
the will of Mr. Featherstone. And she became one
of those strong, honest mothers of our race^ such as,
says George Eliot, Eembrandt once loved to paint.
Silas Mamer, when his greed for gold and his com-
passion for a starving and freezing child came into
conflict, took in Eppie and nursed her as a mother.
Over that scene George Eliot wrote: *In old days
there were angels who came and took men by the
hand and led them away from the city of destruction.
We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men
are led away from threatening destruction ; a hand is
put into theirs, which leads them forth gently toward
a calm and bright land, so that they look no more
backward; and the hand may be a little child's.'
Felix Holt, the champion of radicalism, of great
Gothic head and barbaric shoulders, swerved neither
to the right nor to the left, unregardf ul of the solici-
tations of expediency. Esther Lyon, without much
knowledge of the world, had to choose between wealth
and ease on the one hand, and poverty and duty.
Sorely perplexed by the conditions of her choice, she
chose rightly when she came to see them clearly.
Felix and Esther had their reward, if in no other way.
in that peace of memory which is the basis of hope.
It was not by mere accident that ^ Adam Bede ' and
* The Origin of Species ' appeared in the same year.
George Eliot, as well as Darwin, is of the great scien-
^ tific movement of the nineteenth century. Comte
built up a system of social and practical ethics, and
attempted a science of history, taking his analogies
from the facts of biological science. Taine went a
step further, and applied the results of Comte's inves-
tigations to historical criticism. George Eliot took
250 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
the ethical system of Gomte^ modified it mudi by a
study of the great moralists of the past and present,
and incorporated her conclusions in the novel. Like
the scientist, she meant to deal only with phenomena
and their laws. She takes into her study the Donni-
thomes, the Titos, and the Lydgates, and applies
to them the intellectual scalpel and the intellectual
microscope. With that keen scalpel of hers she lays
bare the brain and heart; with that microscope
she examines every nerve vibration; and with a
trained ear she counts the heart-beats. As Dr. Lyd-
gate once hoped to do, she ^ pierces the obscurity of
those minute processes which prepare human misery
and joy, those invisible thoroughfares which are the
first lurking-places of anguish, mania, and crime,
that delicate poise and transition which determine
the growth of happy or unhappy consciousness.' Her
great law of conduct is the act and its consequences.
Character, in her view, is not fixed ; it is an evolution.
We have, as it were, two selves. From the one comes
the voice of duty proclaiming that our salvation lies
in * daring rectitude,' in meeting bravely every circum-
stance of life; from the other comes the insinuating
voice of passion and egoism, which if heeded leads the
deluded spirit on to the city of destruction. Which
self shall be triumphant rests with ourselves. By omr
deeds we are saved or lost ; by them we create in our
own hearts an inferno or a paradise.
George Eliot gave prose-fiction a substance which it
had never had before among any people. That her
ethioal system has logical inconsistencies we may
^hile intending to keep close to empiricism,
^its transcendentalism in what she says
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 261
about the inner and better self, and the command of
duty, which she at least once calls a divine voice.
Undoubtedly, too, the very greatest of English moral-
ists was free from conscious systems ; by deep intuition
he displayed the emotions that sway men to action.
But there has been only one Shakespeare. When
systems become antiquated, the work that was reared
upon them falls. Positivism was antiquated some
years ago, and evolution has taken its place. George
Eliot is, however, connected with the theories of her
time more in appearance than in reality. In her ways
of thinking, there is less of Comte than of Words-
worth and Thomas k Kempis, both of whom taught
renunciation as a command. Between Dante and
George Eliot there is a suggestive analogy. Dante ex-
pressed himself in the terms of the grotesque philoso-
phy of the Middle Age. Thomas Aquinas is no longer
read, while the fame of Dante increases more and
more every day. Why? because the scholasticism
of St. Thomas is only the vesture of Dante's own
profound meditations, which each generation for itself
may translate into its own language. So of George
Eliot. Her moral discernments, often clothed in the
language of positivism, are nevertheless imbedded
everlastingly in the inherited thought of the ages.
With a precision and a minuteness never possible be-
fore her time, she worked out the Hebrew formula,
that they who sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind ;
which was likewise the Greek idea, that when a wrong
is done, the Eumenides, daughters of earth and dark-
ness, will awake from their sleep and avenge it. And
with the terrible earnestness of iBschylus, she re-
iterated the tragic corollary: 'We can conceive no
252 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in
pulsations of unmerited pain.'
3. George Meredith
George Meredith is not a disciple of George Eliot.
In facty his first essay in fiction slightly antedates
hers. * The Shaving of Shagpat/ a pleasant Oriental
entertainment, she appreciated for The Westminster
Review for April, 1856. ^The Ordeal of Richard
Feverel,' George Meredith's first regular novel, ap-
peared in the same year as ^Adam Bede.' Twelve
novels, not counting tales, have thus far followed:
' Evan Harrington ' (1861) ; ' Emilia in England ' (1864),
afterward changed to ' Sandra Belloni ' ; 'Rhoda Flem-
ing' (1865); 'Vittoria' (1867); 'Harry Richmond'
(1871); 'Beauchamp's Career' (1876); 'The Egoist'
(1879); 'The Tragic Comedians' (1880); 'Diana of
the Crossways' (1885); 'One of our Conquerors'
(1890) ; 'Lord Ormont and his Aminta' (1894) ; ' The
Amazing Marriage ' (1895).
From the first, George Meredith has been a psy-
chologist. Thus he writes when well on in ' Richard
Feverel ' : ' At present, I am aware, an audience im-
patient for blood and glory scorns the stress I am put-
ting on incidents so minute, a picture so little imposing.
An audience will come to whom it will be given to
see the elementary machinery at work; who, as it
were, from some slight hint of the straws, will feel the
winds of March when they do not blow.' From this
passage will be seen how like to George Eliot's con-
dition of the novel is Meredith's ; only his is subtler
' ''Ts, for she never asks us to feel the winds of
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 253
March when they do 4iot blow. Both deal primarily
with the invisible life, the events of which they would
* render as consequent to jrour understanding as a
piece of logic, through an exposure of character/
Both have their * memorable crises ' — the expression
is Meredith's as well as George Eliot's ; in both is the
energizing of the scientific spirit in literature.
The audience Meredith felt assured of in 1859 has
hardly come to him, and he seems to allude to the fact
in the closing paragraph of 'The Amazing Marriage.'
Why has there been no rush pell-mell toward him ?
Probably not because of the reason he implies — his
subject-matter — so much as because of his obscurity.
There are in his earlier novels passages of unsurpassa-
ble poetic beauty : Bichard and Lucy in the woods by
the lake; the purification of Eichard as nature and
the storm speak to him ; Wilfrid and Emilia by Wil-
ming Weir; and most marvellous of all in its rich,
Oriental luxuriousness, the London scene between
Richard and Mrs. Mount, the enchantress. A master
of color and melody when he wills, Meredith has
mostly cast his lot with those who have whimsically
misused the English language ; he is of the company
of Sterne, Carlyle, and Browning. He does not speak
directly, his aim being 'a fantastic delivery of the
verities ' ; and to be at pleasure utterly unintelligible
is one of the graces of his style. He began by speak-
ing through maxims and aphorisms, and he still
speaks through them. They are not witty sayings
like Mrs. Poyser's, which give truths in half-lights;
they come from the meditation of a phrase-builder;
and in them is concentrated his criticism of contem-
porary life. He says, for example, ^Men may have
264 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
rounded Seraglio Point; they have not yet doubled
Gape Turk,' and leaves it to you to think out what
he means. He is fond of quaint and finely drawn
allegory, going so far as to describe a 'Philosophical
Geography,' with its Rubicon and Acheron, which
stands in the same relation to morals as Scud^ri's
chart to the analysis of love. Even to his fit
audience, though few, Meredith was for a long time
perplexing. His purpose was not apparent, and per-
haps because he himself had not clearly defined to
himself what he wished to do. The illumination
came when in 1877 he published a lecture in plain
English, entitled ' On the Idea of Comedy and of the
Uses of the Comic Spirit.' After-light came from the
prelude to 'The Egoist' and the initial chapter of
' Diana.' Since these prolegomena, there has been no
sufficient reason for not following Meredith in the main
drift. 'The Egoist,' which soon followed the essay
on comedy, is the type of the Meredith novel, con-
taining all that may be found in the rest, except that
the poetry, romance, wit, and pathos of some of the
earlier novels are here held in greater restraint.
Meredith has given the novel a new heroine. Before
him three types of woman had prevailed in our fiction.
The heroine was usually the lady of chivalry. While
she was in reality the slave of her husband or lover,
he was ostensibly her worshipper. This lady of the
castle still exists in our social ideal ; and as a conse-
quence she has stood in the foreground of our fiction.
In contrast to her, Thackeray placed the rogue of the
Spanish novel. In the lighter forms of fiction the
woman of farce was omnipresent, to be pommelled by
satire^ jest| and innuendo. From these three ideals^
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 266
there had been some notable breakings-away, in Jane
Austen^ Charlotte Bronte^ Trollope^ and George Eliot.
In Meredith we have their utter repudiation. His
women are never rogues^ nor are they flawless ; they
are obnoxious to ridicule^ and he ridicules them.
They are always beautiful, because they are healthy.
They can dance, but they like the open air best ; they
are lithe of limb; they run and jump, and fall of
exhaustion; they have fresh faces and they eat well.
Their heads are furnished with brains and with a
dislike of losing their identity; they fight for their
independence and win. If they find it necessary, they
clip the locks of their lovers and husbands, and aban-
don them to the Philistines. Then, arm-in-arm with
the men they love, they proceed to a jolly dance down
what the world calls ' the halls of madness.' Such is
the composite portrait of* Emilia, Clara, Diana, and
Aminta.
Meredith is at war with sentimentalism. This word
of vague content he defines enigmatically in the first
chapter of * Diana': 'The sentimental people ,;!€^6
luirmonics on the strings of sensualism, to the delight
of a world gaping for marvels of musical execution
rather than for music' Benevolence, kindness, char-
ity, — all the altruistic virtues, — are sentimentalities,
unless the heart goes with the act. So too are equally
self-pity and the 'sham decent.' The present social
code determining the conduct of sex to sex has its
foundation in sentimentalism. It has come to us from
the bepraised age of chivalry, which was the age of
barbarism. All our nice sexual etiquette is only 'a
fine flower or a pinnacle flame-spire,' starting up from
sensuality. The best that can be said of it is that the
256 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
beast yelled is better than the beast imcoTered.
Very severe is Meredith on the folly of those boys
and girls who meet in the pale moonlight to part
forever or to swear eternal love. Wilfrid and
Emilia are sitting by Wilming Weir at evening, and
this is a piece of their conversation with Meredith's
comment: —
' You are my own, are you not, Emilia ? *
* Yes ; I am,' she answered simply.
' That water seems to say " for ever,** ' he mormured ; and
Emilia's fingers pressed upon his.
Of marriage there was no further word. Her heart was
evidently quite at ease ; and that it should be so without chain-
ing him to a date, was Wilfrid's peculiar desire. He could
pledge himself to eternity, but shrank from being bound to
eleven o'clock on the morrow morning.
The egoism of Willoughby, in * The Egoist,' is one of
the various manifestations of sentimentalism. It is
not because of genuine passion that he proposes to
Constantia Durham and Clara Middleton ; his feeling
toward them is only a kind of agreeable nerve irritation
from the presence of fine form and bearing. All his
talk to Clara about their being all in all to each other
and their keeping themselves unspotted from the world,
is the sickly animal speaking in him. So too his de-
manding of her that she shall be his not only in life
but in death ; so too his straightening himself up erect
as the letter I, when it is rumored that he is engaged to
a widow. Why should not a man marry a widow ?
Meredith would ask. It is a morbid sentiment that
makes widows unmarketable. The main thing in
marriage is suitability as common sense points it out :
in the ideal union husband and wife are 'capital
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 257
comrades/ like Weyburn and Aminta. What is dis-
agreeable to Meredith is an unhealthy animalism,
which, however much it may stalk behind form, is
nothing more than bestiality. Are not Meredith's dis-
cernments true to fact ? Is not sentimentalism born
of the beast and unreason ? No one can much doubt
it, who has read the * Confessions ' of Rousseau. On
the other hand, says Meredith in substance, the senses
have their right uses, and reality is of infinite sweet-
ness. And what are the right uses of the senses ? and
what is the sweetness of reality? — these questions
he has answered in his strong athletic heroines,
in whom the animal has received the stamp of the
spirit
Though shunning all unsound feeling and self-
imposed misery, Meredith maintains that there is
pathos in his novels. He and George Eliot have best
expressed the new view of tragedy which presided at
the birth of the modem novel. According to the old
view, as we have it in our national drama, there can
be technically no tragedy without at least one violent
death. To-day we distinguish less mechanically.
Death in and of itself is no longer tragic. It is tragic
only in certain circumstances, as when a man falls in
the midst of worthy labors, or leaves behind him
children unprotected and unprovided for. On the
other hand, we see the intensest pathos in life itself ;
and science has enforced common observation. The
tragedy is not in the cries of Prometheus bound,
but in Prometheus not yet bound, says George
Eliot; in 'a solitude of despised ideas,' in *the fatal
pressure of poverty and disease.' Thus the tragedy
of Dr. Lydgate is not in his death so much as in his
•
268 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
failuie as a man. The tragedy of Meredith is less
obvious and less pronounced than George Eliot's. He
has no inferno through which his characters slip from
circle to circle^ but rather a purgatory through whose
fires he marches them for their purification. It may be
that a great social wrong has been committed ; then
Richard Feverel must pass through a severe ordeal.
It may be that a young woman in her ignorance and
thoughtlessness has promised to marry or has in fact
married a man for whom she can have no affection ;
the act must be atoned f or^ as in the case of Clara and
Aminta. The tragedy of Meredith is almost always
held in firm barriers, and its darkness is pierced
by the approach of morning; as in that scene in
the park when Clara pleads with Willoughby for
freedom.
' Tou are cold, my love ? Tou shivered.'
* I am not cold,* said Clara. * Some one, I suppose, was
walking over my grave.*
The gulf of a caress hove in view like an enormous billow
hollowing under the curled ridge.
She stooped to a buttercup ; the monster swept by.
As in this conversation, the tragedy of situation
and character with Meredith frequently passes into
grave comedy. He has written tragi-comedies. The
sub-title of 'The Egoist' is 'A Comedy in Narrative.'
By comedy Meredith does not mean farce and
gayety, but serious social ridicule on the border-land
of the tragic and comic states. He makes a very nice
distinction between humor and comedy. We usually
roughly class Cervantes, Fielding, Sterne, and Thack-
eray together as humorists. But are not Cervantes
and Fielding comic writers^ and does not professional
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 259
humor date from Sterne? Cervantes and Fielding
ridicule folly: the former^ among many follies, the
reading of romances of chivalry; the latter, among
many follies, clean-cut ethical maxims, the conduct of
contemporary men and women and their education,
and the presumption of taking as the subject of a
novel a class of men and women concerning whom
you are in .the densest ignorance. It is a correction
of manners they aim at in the light of comic con-
sciousness. Sterne fiddled the harmonics for amuse- " ;
ment. The cast of Thackeray's mind was that of the '^
comic writer. His setting out to correct Dickens, to
teach him how to write a novel, by making its heroine
Becky Sharp instead of Little Nell, Meredith wotdd
call a comic situation. But there is another element
in Thackeray, which came from Sterne, — a literaiy
sentimentalism. This mingling of sentiment and
comedy is humor ; it lacks, according to Meredith, the
high seriousness of Fielding ; and its force as a social
corrective is lost. Comedy he conceives of as a Muse
watching the actions of men and women, detecting
and pointing out their inconsistencies with a view to
their moral improvement. She never laughs aloud, she
only smiles at most ; and the smile is of the intellect,
for she is the handmaid of philosophy. For the
frailties of human nature she has no ridicule, for she
is no pessimist ; for individual men she has no lash-
ings, for satire is not comedy. She * is impersonal and
of unrivalled politeness,' occupying herself with the
unnatural and conventional codes we have built up for
ourselves, and she leads the way to a higher civiliza-
tion. She may be called the humor of the mind, in
distiuctiou from the humor of Sterne »»d Thackeray,
260 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
which is the humor of the heart; and the heart is
sensation and material.^
Do you not experience ' a tremble of the laughing
muscles/ Meredith would ask, when you contrast the
conduct of Willoughby with what it would be, were
he not in love with himself? He insists on a woman's
marrying him after she has fled from him ; and will
release her from the engagement only on condition
that she shall consent to marry his cousin, with whom
in his blindness he is not aware she is desperately in
love. He boasts of the bravery of the Pattemes, cit-
ing as an example of it an act of heroism performed
by a Lieutenant Fatteme in the navy, and sends him
a check. When the ^thick-set, stumpy marine'
makes his appearance at the Hall in a pouring Tsin,
without gloves and umbrella, Sir Willoughby is * not
at home.' He would not marry into the aristocracy,
because ^he doubted the quality of their blood.' The
woman he marries must swear to be his eternally, for
he fears that he may die first, and his spirit be har-
assed by the scandals that pursue widows. He tells
Clara that he is no poet, and she replies that she has
not accused him. Should you tell Meredith that his
comedy is elusive and over finely wrought, he might
reply, using one of his favorite words, that you are
obtuse.
Himself a product of science, Meredith has spoken
very disrespectfully of her. We went to her, he says,
for light, and she told us that we are animals. And
1 While there is much truth in Meredith's contentions, they are
nevertheless hased upon a questionable psychology. It is a fanci-
ful procedure to detach the intellect from the feelings, and then
to place it above them.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL 261
is there not an element of truth in what he avers?
The first great scientific discoveries the contempo-
raries of Gomte and Mill welcomed with hopes and
enthusiasms no longer intelligible ; society in its inner
life, they thought, was to be revolutionized. Men who
like Meredith are the connecting links between those
days and the present have become disillusioned. The
path taken by science has not been what they supposed
it would be. Its ends have been mainly practical ; it
has ministered unto physical comforts ; it has led to
agnosticism. Not one whit has the spirit within been
purified and made nobler by it. Egoism, for example,
in its thousand phases is as rampant now as it was
fifty years ago.
'Art,' says Meredith, 'is the specific' He does not
believe in that form of realism which lays claim to an
actual transcription of manners. Life is too short for
that, and nothing is to be gained by it What, let it
be asked, is the value of the numerous stories of
New England and the Tennessee mountains, and of
all provincial fiction? So far as they are true to
fact in dialect and local color, they are documents
for the linguist and the historian. Their value
as art, beyond a transient amusement, which in
a decade becomes ennui, depends wholly upon the
extent they rise from the particular to the general
and everlasting truths of human consciousness and
conduct; upon the extent their characters are broad-
ened by imperceptible gradations from the individual
to the type, never being quite the one nor quite the
other. Such types the characters of Meredith have
been mostly since < Sandra Belloni.' Not life in its
wearisome vastness nor a patch of it is his aim, but
262 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVBI.
^a summary' of it He works as a philosopher; ie
mingles with society^ and believes that he detects cer-
tain maladies, and he aims at the artistic presentation
of them. The malady of men is a primeval egoism in
their attitude toward women. Consequently many of
Meredith's men are egoists. His great feminine char-
acters are also types, and in a measure homologues.
They are women as they would be if emancipated,
verging into women as they are, faultily educated and
hemmed in by historic conventions. Meredith would
be another Menander or Moli^re : he would probe life
with a clear perception, and, by pointing out our ab-
surdities, show us what we are.
CHAPTER VIII
Thb Gontbmpobaby Novel
1. Henry James and Impressionism
By the contemporary novel is meant the novel of
the younger generation of writers. George Meredith,
of the present and the past, has carried on the literary
tradition of George Eliot. But he belongs essentially
to a time when science amused itself with broad gen-
eralizations, when its methods were synthetic rather
than analytical. Hence his impatience with the course
of speculation since the advent of Darwin. Science
has become more and more exact ; in withering irony
and sarcasm, it has excluded the so-called spiritual
from its consideration or has reduced the spiritual to
the material ; beyond perception it refuses to go ; it has
found its working hypothesis in the theory of evolution ;
and as to minor formulas, it proceeds warily. Litera^
ture has watched science eager for instruction ; it has
aimed at scientific exactness of perception. Where it
has not done this, it has, by theory or practice or both,
insisted that imagination should be subordinated to
observation.
The romancer of fifty years ago seated himself in a
retired nook of England, behind ivied walls and shut-
tered windows, and described the life and scenery of
the Spanish main. When raised to competency and
263
264 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
leisure by the sale of his books^ he visited the places
he had described^ and found them wonderfully like
what he had seen in his imagination. His descendant
of to-day does not so. He visits the country he intends
to illustrate ; he jots down outward characteristics
and minutiae of manners, customs, dress, and scenery,
and sets them into some kind of frame, labelling the
result a novel. In individual instances he has accom-
panied pilgrims to famous shrines or followed the
soldier to the battle-field, writing in full detail of all
he saw. His counterpart is the tourist with a pocket
camera. Other novelists have made prolonged studies
of character and manners in some well-defined dis-
trict. We have novels, and hosts of them, of village
and town life in England, Scotland, Ireland, New
England, the South, the West, Australia, India, and
Africa, written not by men and women who have left
their homes in search of material. These novelists,
themselves a part of what they depict, have aimed at
living cross-sections of life. They have, as it were,
their specialties, like the scientist, the professional
man, and the merchant. We read them for informa-
tion or amusement, pleased to learn how our cousins
are living in distant places. Though interest in this
kind of fiction must eventually become local and
provincial, undoubtedly there are pieces written by
these specialists that will become classics, just as
' Cranf ord ' has already become a classic.
From this universal realism has issued — under the
influence of Ivan Turg^nev and Alphonse Daudet —
an artistic presentation of the matter of real life often
called impressionism, of which one of the exponents
in criticism and fiction is Henry James. 'A novel,'
THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL 265
he has said, ' is in its broadest definition a personal, a
direct impression of life : that, to begin with, consti-
tutes its value, which is greater or less according to
the intensity of the impression.' ^ He describes only
what he sees, but not all that he sees. The following
from the ^ Tragic Muse ' (1890) is what is seen at a
glance: 'What Biddy discerned was that this young
man was fair and fat and of the middle stature ; he
had a round face and a short beard, and on his crown
a mere reminiscence of hair, as the fact that he car-
ried his hat in his hand permitted it to be observed.'
And speaking of the women with this man, Biddy
says: 'One of them was an old lady with a shawl;
that was the most salient way in which she pre-
sented herself.' This is not photography, which,
making no distinction between one detail and another,
gives a crude impression of them all ; it is art. Out
of a possible multitude of details, James selects the
striking or significant pose and incident. Moreover,
he ' strains the visual sense ' that he may observe
nuances the camera refuses to reproduce, laying claim
to a superior faculty of perception. When we read
Howells we wonder that we have not seen in the com-
monplace what he sees. In the case of James, we
wonder that there is so much to be seen ; and ques-
tion whether what he sees is really there. For ex-
ample, the Tragic Muse has wretchedly failed in her
first performance. One of the spectators nevertheless
still believes in her : —
He remained conscious that something surmounted and
Buryived her failure, something that would perhaps be worth
1 < The Art of Fiction,' in ' Partial Portraits/ London and New
York, 1888.
266 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
taking hold of. It was the element of outline and attitude, th«
way she stood, the way she turned her eyes, her head, and
moyed her limbs. These things held the attention ; they had a
natural felicity and, in spite of their suggesting too much the
school-girl in the tahleatt^vantf a sort of grandeur. Her face^
moreover, grew as he watched it ; sometiiing delicate dawned
in it, a dim promise of variety and a touching plea for patience,
as if it were conscious of being able to show in time more
expressions than the simple and striking gloom, which, as yet,
had mainly graced it. In short, the plastic quality of her per-
son was the only definite sign of a vocation.
From this passage it will be observed that James
looks at the externals of life through the eyes of the
connoisseur of the fine arts, particularly of painting.
As here his language is that of the studio; his most
repeated words being, outline, color, style, form, and
plastic fact. The impressionist is also a psychologist.
Greorge Eliot begins with inner states and inner events
and works her way outward ; sometimes never reach-
ing the surface at all, as in the eleventh chapter of ' De-
ronda,' where she records parenthetically the thoughts
of Gwendolen and Grandcourt, in the pauses of their
first conversation. James begins on the outside and
passes a little way beneath appearance, reading char-
acter through feature and movement of eyes, head,
and limb. * It is the manner of Eichardson, to which
is added the trained perception that has come with
science.
James is inclined to play with the stem analysis of
Greorge Eliot. He evidently thinks that the * crisis *
has been overdone ; and he would call attention to the
fact that our conduct in the so-called ^sacramental
moments' often leaves no visible trace. It is not
customary with him to roimd off his plots; whether
THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL 267
the novel is long or short, it is an episode. Men and
women meet, have their tender experiences, and then
go their way. Nothing happens in his novels, the
critics used to say. The marriage expected in the
last chapter does not take place; if the young man
and young woman marry at all, it is to some one else.
This apparent incompleteness originated among the
modem realists in an attempt to correlate literature
more closely with life as it is. But in the view of the
impressionist there is no incompleteness; rather a
higher morality than in the old hovel, where virtue
was rewarded and villany punished. 'The moral
sense and the artistic sense,' James has written, 'lie
very close together.' * In ' The Tragic Muse,' a por-
trait painter would marry an ambitious woman-politi-
cian; and a diplomat would marry an actress. James
does not allow these events to happen. He marries
the actress to a third-rate actor, and leaves the rest of
his characters unmarried. For him to do otherwise
would be insincere art, just as in real life a marriage
between a man and woman having no common fund of
ideas would be an immoral act. We should stick to
the career nature seems to have marked out for us,
accept the conditions, and struggle on to the end.
Though the impressionists have written novels of
all lengths, they have chiefly cultivated the short-
story. Short stories have been frequent in our litera-
ture ever since the Eenaissance. Under the name of
tracts they were given a wide circulation by Hannah
More, a hundred years ago. A large number were
written by Maria Edgeworth, and several by Irving.
They received great encouragement in the middle of
1 * The Art of Fiction.*
268 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
this century from the editors of magazines. They
were beautifully wrought by Poe and Hawthorne,
who first gave them a style and an art of their own.
As written by Poe and Hawthorne^ they were usually
brief narratives^ best designated as short tales. More
recent writers have considerably enlarged the means
of procedure; sometimes they make use of narrative,
but more frequently of dialogue, and there are ex-
amples of the ingenious management of letters. On
the subject Professor Brander Matthews has written
a philosophical essay,^ in which he claims for the re-
cent short-story the right of being a distinct species of
the novel. It is to the regular novel, according to him,
what the lyric is to the epic ; it is, in his words, ^ a
high and difiicult department of fiction,' because of
the extreme concision required and the inelastic laws
that govern it. Like the sonnet, it must be a unit,
giving expression to one emotion or a series of emo-
tions possessing a unity of tone ; its characters must
be few; its action must be simple; it tells some-
thing, but it suggests more. It satisfies a large body
of readers who do not have time to look at things
long or steadfastly. What is wanted is a momentary
impression of them, artistically delivered.
2. Philosophical Realism: Mrs. Humphry Ward and
Thoraas Hardy
While Henry James has been weaving a delicate psy-
chological tissue, Mrs. Humphry Ward has held to
the firmer texture of the old-time novel. Like George
1 ' The Philosophy of the Short-Story,' in < Pen and Ink,' Ne^
York and London, 1888.
THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL 269
Eliot, she has assimilated something of Wordsworth
and Dante. She feels the weight of chance desires,
and seeks refuge in the voice of duty. In the intense
phrases of the ' Divine Comedy ' she finds a natural
vent to her spiritual moods. But between 'Middle-
march ' and ' Eobert Elsmere ' (1888) is sixteen years.
During this period the world of thought and specula-
tion moved rapidly and far ; and social theories took
new and strange forms. Mrs. Ward has reflected
these changes. Greorge Eliot, though an agnostic,
had, in common with others of her time, scruples
against propagandism, as if she did not fully trust
the conclusions of her intellect. Kot so Mrs. Ward.
She refashions the church on Christ as a human ideal,
placing the Church of England by the side of Hhe
Brotherhood of Jesus,' in the spirit of criticism and
proselytism. She delves in Christian origins, scruti-
nizing and weighing testimony with the confidence of
her uncle Matthew Arnold, who re-wrote the Bible on
his own lines. George Eliot's altruistic ethical for-
mula was general in application, having a bearing
upon conduct in all circumstances. Mrs. Ward, in a
like altruistic manner, expounds what she calls indus-
trial ethics. She takes up, as in ' Marcella,' contem-
porary social theories, criticises them, shows whither
they lead, and comes forward with a solution of her
own, which is a via media. The compass of her work
has increased with each successive novel, until in
' Helbeck of Bannisdale ' she has depicted the spiritual
struggle of a devout Catholic in contact with modern
unbelief. Everything she does is wrought at a high
emotional pitch, where there is no temptation to laugh
or even smile at absurdities.
270 DEVELOPMENT OP THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Mrs. Ward is the inspirer of a popular group of
novelists who have turned to current speculations for
the purposes of open didacticism. They have dis-
cussed class distinctions, agrarian reforms, the intri-
cate problems of labor and capital, the theory and
practice of municipal government, etc.; and most
sensationally, the social enfranchisement of woman,
the failure of marriage, and the grounds for divorce.
Like the revolutionary novelists at the close of the
eighteenth century, they have embellished the politi-
cal treatise for people who would not read it without
the story of passion. Into their work has crept
once more the humanitarian motive, and, as a few
years will make clear, a sentimental note very like
Bousseau's.
As science proceeds by experiment, which has been
defined as 'provoked observation,' the novelist has
asked. Why cannot literature do likewise? It is in
France that the experimental novel first received its
apotheosis. In 1869, !^mile Zola wrote the ' Fortune
des Rougon' (published in book form in 1871), the
first of a long series of novels bearing the general
title, ' Les Eougon-Macquart, histoire naturelle et so-
ciale d'une Famille sous le second Empire ' ; the series
closed in 1893, with ' Docteur Pascal.' In his critical
writings ^ during the decade 1880-90, Zola formulated
the body of principles which should govern the 'natu-
ralist' or the 'experimental novelist.' The story as
groundwork of the novel must never be invented out
of one's head ; it must be taken from direct observa-
tion, the newspaper, or some well-authenticated report ;
1 ' Le Roman Experimental * (1880) : English tranalation, B. M
Shermim, London and New York, 18(18.
THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL 271
it must be a piece of life itself. For example, it may
be supposed that Zola reads of a young woman who,
when about to leap into the Seine, is rescued by the
police. He has an interview with her, finds out all
he can about her, the surroundings under which she
has grown up, and the character and occupation of her
parents. He studies similar cases, let us say ten or
twelve ; then he makes his generalization, maintaining
that for a given set of environing and hereditary con-
ditions, there is ODly one issue. To him there is no
uncertain quantity in the problem; he takes no ac-
count of a mysterious element in human nature, which
may rise and assert itself, for to do so would not be
scientific. He is now ready to write his d4bdde. In
any single novel of Zola's, it is the visible environ-
ment that appears most to determine the outcome;
but read three or four of his novels as they fall
chronologically in the series, and it will be seen
that he has also sought to treat the other determining
force, character passing from generation to generation.
Certain corollaries follow from his method. There
is no artificial shufiELing in the last chapter, no revo-
lution of fortune, no happy marriages, no unexpected
inheritances, the climax is inevitable, for it is marked
out by nature. The author should never let his feel-
ings interfere to turn events into a fantastic channel ;
he should not assume the rdle of wit or humorist, —
life is too serious for that ; he should speak as a sci-
entist, telling precisely what he observes.
The difference between this so-called naturalism and
the older realism may be illustrated by a criticism
of some of our realists from the naturalistic point
of view. Fielding; as has been remarked, had
272 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
the naturalist's situation in 'Amelia^' a woman of
some rank married to a gambling lieutenant who is
unable to support her and her children. The issue
nature has fixed ; but Fielding, taking things into his
own hand, disturbs the logic of events that the story
may end pleasantly. The material Dickens worked
is of superlative naturalistic quality. For example, the
episode of Stephen Blackpool in ^Hard Times' pos-
sesses the inherent possibilities of Zola's ^L'Assom-
moir' or Hardy's ' Jude the Obscure.' The dissipated
wife, the ruined home, and the hard-laboring husband
are all there. Dickens, however, lights up his dark
picture with sublime suffering, which the naturalists
regard as a sham. Thackeray, when he should speak
out plainly about Becky Sharp, hedges and becomes
silent. Of the fiction of the last generation, <Mid-
dlemarch' comes nearest to the experimental noveL
George Eliot describes briefly the career of Dr. Lyd-
gate as student, places him in a midland town, and
then tells how he behaves. The determining forces
of his conduct are, accordingly, his antecedents and
his environment, plus an unexplainable personality.
This is not satisfactory to the naturalists. They
would eliminate every vestige of freedom whereby an
individual becomes responsible for his acts. Natural-
ism is thus determinism.
Of philosophical realism of the kind just described,
Thomas Hardy is the best English representative.
Bom in Dorsetshire, he has studied closely the peas-
ant life of his native shire and those neighboring
counties which together comprised the ancient king-
dom'of Wessex. Why he has left the madding crowd
for the country folk, he explained in an essay pub-
THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL 273
lished in The Forum for March, 1888. Writing the
common language of his brotherhood, — equally well
understood in England, France, Germany, and Scan-
dinayia, — he says that the conduct of the upper
classes is screened by conventions, and thus the real
character is not easily seen ; and if it is seen, it must
be portrayed subjectively: whereas in the lower
walks, conduct is a direct expression of the inner life ;
and thus character can be directly portrayed through
the act. ' In the one case the author's word has to be
taken as to the nerves and muscles of his figures ; in
the other they can be seen as in an ^rMJ From
their views on the question of style, the naturalists
fall into two general classes. There are the extrem-
ists who — like Aristotle, the practical realist of an-
tiquity — let style look out for itself, on the ground
that any attention to it would result in a rhetorical
misrepresentation of fact. And there are the poets
who clothe the disagreeable narrative in the most
pleasing language at command. To the latter class
Hardy has the most affinity. The choice of words
and the arrangement of them in and for themselves,
he does not believe in. His aim is at an exact and
felicitous expression of his ideas and emotions; and
the first principle that he lays down to this end is the
* lucid order ' of Horace. Style in this high sense he
would do his little toward bringing to ultimate per-
fection. When completed the novel should give, on
account of the harmony of the subject-matter and its
treatment, an aesthetic pleasure similar to that derived
from a fine painting.
Hardy struck the note of the newer realism in ^ A
Pair of Blue Eyes' (1^73), which is a lament, not
T
274 DEVELOPMENT OP THE ENOUSH NOVEL
without much cynicism, over the clash of circum«
stance and individual effort. In ^The Betum of the
Native ' (1878) is magnificently expressed his love of
the dark and sinister in nature, and his feeling of the
nothingness of human life in the presence of the ever-
lasting heath. Here he began to speak of physical
beauty — the face without its lines of care — as an
anachronism, of life as * a thing to be put up with,' of
'the defects of natural laws,' and 'the quandary that
man is in by their operation.' In ' Tess of the D'TJr-
bervilles ' (1891), he gave freer utterance to the same
mood, which had now become more intense. In ' Jude
the Obscure ' (1896), he threw off every semblance of
restraint, writing a novel that his earlier admirers
were unable to read.
'Tess of the D'Urbervilles,' his mightiest produc-
tion, is a tragedy that at no period in our history
other than these Jin de si^de days could have been
written ; or, if written, could have been understood.
And what is its novelty ? Surely it is not the sub-
ject-matter, for recall ' Clarissa Harlowe ' and ' Adam
Bede.' It has been a tacit assumption in English
tragedy that the dramatic hero must commit some
deed from which he suffers. The deed may be a
crime, as in 'Macbeth'; it may issue from a fault in
l^k judgment, as in the case of Brutus, or from a stubborn
vanity, as in the case of Lear. That there are likely
to be innocent victims of the deed may be admitted,
and therein lies the deeper pathos of Shakespear-
ean tragedy. The way Greorge Eliot, somewhat like
Shakespeare, traced the events of her sombre novels
to free individual acts of will we have elaborated.
The tragedy of 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' begins
THE CONTEMPORART NOVEL 275
in a crime and ends in a crime; Alec pays the
penalty for his misdeeds. But Alec is only a subor-
dinate character. Tess is the main and central char-
acter^ who^ from first to last^ Hardy insists^ is free
from any wrong-doing. In this reversal of the tradi-
tions of tragedy both in our drama and our novels
Hardy is an innovator.
Tess stands in isolated weakness. She has a con-
science and a will that may possibly be called her
own, but against her are her father and mother. Alec,
Angel, a conventional society, nature, hereditary ten-
dencies, and a malicious course of events. With what
happens to her she has nothing to do. In forced
obedience to her parents she goes to Trantridge, the
home of the spurious D'Urbervilles. The smutching
of her innocence there is an act of treachery, for which
she is in no wise responsible. Her love for Angel
Glare, which results in the ill-starred marriage, is the
working in her of a cruel law of nature, against which
she struggles in vain. She returns to Alec to save
her mother, brothers, and sisters from starvation. If
it be said that at this point in her career there is a
relaxation of will. Hardy has anticipated the remark
by suggesting that her weakness is in part inherited,
and in part the product of the enervating climate in
which she has grown up. She puts a knife into the heart
of Alec. Even this act is outside her normal character,
for when hefself she could not hurt a fly or a worm,
and she wept at the sight of a bird in its cage ; to it
she was led by an ^ obscure strain in the D'Urberville
blood.* By her death she atones not for her own
crimes, but for those of her race; for wrongs, '
paraphrase Hardy, that her mailed ancestors, '
276 DEVELOPMENT OP THE ENGLISH NOVEL
ing home from frays, Lad dealt upon peasacrt girla^
say, back in the reign of King Stephen. Likewise
the conduct of Angel Clare finds its explanation
mostly in heredity. From the Evangelicism of his
parents he had broken away, and taken refuge in
Greek paganism ; but when the crisis came, the 'creed
of mysticism ' rose to the surface and became master.
That inherited subconsciousness he succeeded in still-
ing only by his sojourn in Brazil.
In harmony with Hardy's view of character as the
resultant of heredity .and environment, is his notion of
events that lie outside and beyond us ; of happenings,
chance, fortune. The Immortals would appear to have
become enraged at Tess, and to have predestined her
hard career. At the very threshold of life she meets
the wrong man. A few days before she marries Angel
Clare, she pushes under the door of his bedroom a
written confession, which slips out of sight under the
carpet, where it remains concealed until found by
Tess on the wedding morning. On a Sunday, Tess
tramps fifteen miles to the parsonage of the elder
Clare to seek protection; there is no answer to her
ring at the door, for the family is at church. At just
the wrong time she now stumbles upon Alec once
more. A letter she despatches to Angel in Brazil
is delayed, and he reaches home a few days too late.
This ironical arrangement of events, Hardy declares
to be ' a true sequence of things,' and %sks, with a
thrust at Wordsworth: Wherein can be seen ' Nature's
holy plan'? Wherein a beneficent Providence ? And
coming to the prime events, he inquires: Why was
Tess bom? where are Hhe clouds of glory'? *To her
and her like, birth itself was an ordeal of degrading
THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL 277
personal compulsion, whose gratuitousness nothing in
the result seemed to justify, and at best could only
palliate.' This is the pessimism associated with the
names of Leopardi and Schopenhauer. It is not
within the province of literary criticism to argue either
for or against it as a philosophical tenet. In the fer-
ment of ideas in these closing days of the century, in
our hasty adjustment of the new conceptions of science
and experimental philosophy to life, pessimism has
been accepted by millions either openly or tacitly.
With an immense audience, Germanic, Latin, and
Slav, Hardy is in perfect agreement.
On the other hand, he is out of joint with the codes
of conduct sanctioned by a Christian civilization. His
cynical thrusts at Sunday-school teachers and well-
intentioned gentlemen in black we must pass by. By
prolonged observation of the country folk, where the
heart is less concealed than among the great, he has
come to the conclusion that they are still pagan, as in
the days when their ancestors worshipped Thor and
Odin. On one occasion Tess hums the Benedicite, and
finds in it rest and consolation. Hardy tells why : it
is ' a Pantheistic utterance in a Monotheistic falsetto.'
He watches the sun break through the August mists ;
and says: 'The sun, on account of the mist, had a
curious sentient, personal look, demanding the mascu-
line pronoun for its adequate expression. His present
aspect, coupled with the lack of all human forms in
the scene, explained the old-time heliolatries in a mo-
ment. One could feel that a saner religion had never
prevailed under the sun.' Agnosticism he apparently
welcomes, for if it is not a return to sun-worship, it iR
a blow struck at 'theolatry.' The novel is throughoi
278 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
pagan in tone ; and its paganism climbs to its height
in the impressive scenes of the closing chapters, where
Tess rises at daybreak from a fallen altar of a Druidic
temple, to be conducted to a cathedral city for trial
and death.
Quite as important to Hardy's drama as the actors,
are nature and all external objects. That intimate
relationship with things as personalities, which older
civilizations felt and which is possessed by children,
Hardy has preserved. His scenes he does not de-
scribe ; he makes one acquainted with ' them, as
if he were introducing his friends. Seasons — he
says, to paraphrase him slightly — have their moods;
morning and evening, night and noon, have their tem-
peraments ; winds, trees, waters, clouds, silences, and
constellations have their dispositions; and all speak
in voices audible to the spirit. To Tess of Marlott, a
sudden gust of wind through the roadside trees and
hedges on a starlit night is ' the sigh of some immense
sad soul, conterminous with the universe in space,
and with history in time.' Upon Tess of the Var Val-
ley, the trees look down with * inquisitive eyes,' and
the river reproaches her for living. As she moves
through the meadows in the morning light, her head
emerging from the low-lying mists, she is to Angel
Clare the Magdalen, or Artemis, or Demeter. A rough
table-land at evening is ' Cybele the Many-breasted *
reclining with outstretched limbs. Salisbury plain at
the approach of morning is a mighty being waking
from sleep. In one great scene clothing is made sensi-
ble to the steadfast gaze, and in one still greater, even
furniture is endowed with life. Thus marvellously
Hardy interprets the external world through the mooda
THE CX)NTEMPORARY WOVEL 279
of hiB charajcters. This manner has been condemned
by Euskin as fallacious, because of the conceits to
which it leads. But it has the authority of Coleridge
and Milton. And as managed by Hardy, things about
his characters become a substitute for the Greek chorus
of ancient counsellors and warriors sharing in the
tragedy and commenting upon it, as it moves on,
under the guidance of the Fates, to the certain dis-
aster.
Any criticism of Hardy must be based on first prin-
ciples, for it is impossible to question his fine work-
manship. To him literary art owes a debt which at
some time will be nK)re highly appreciated than it is
now. But he and the other philosophic realists since
Oeorge Eliot have all failed to see the important dis-
tinction between science and literature. It may be
granted that, so far as science can throw any light on
the subject, our conduct is determined for us. And yet
there is a voice from the depths of consciousness which
says this is not the whole truth. Human nature is not
comprehended by formulas and theorems. Whatever
may be our speculative beliefs, we all behave as if we
were in a measure free, and responsible for our acts.
And so has literature thus far usually represented us.
True, our novelists since Eichardson have been dis-
posed to call attention to restraining forces from the
outside; and for that very reason the novel has ex-
pressed the modem view of conduct better than the
drama has yet been able to do. Nevertheless, Eichard-
son, Fieldhig^ and George Eliot left indefinite the
boundary line between freedom and restraint. Like
Shakespeare and Milton before them, they did not at-
tempt to give a fixed denotation to the words /o^e, doorn^
280 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
fortune^ and Providencey any more than any one does in
the language of common speech. Probably literature
will have to let the matter rest where the greatest of
the past were contented to let it rest. Toward the
close of the last century a group of novelists experi-
mented with determinism ; the reading public revolted,
and turned to the Gothic romance and then to Scott
and Cooper. Something very like this, in ^ smaller
way perhaps, is happening to-day.
3. Robert Louis Stevenson and the Revival of Romance
During the long period of realism from * Pickwick '
to 'Tess,' the spirit of romance, as is evident from
our narrative, was not dead. Some of her old lovers,
Harrison Ainsworth and James Grant, lived on and
kept writing down to 1880. Charles Keade was un-
certain whether he was a realist or a romancer, and so
he called *The Cloister and the Hearth' *a matter-
of-fact romance.' George Eliot's Gwendolen Harleth
'in sea-green robes and silver ornaments, with a pale
sea-green feather fastened in silver, falling backwards
over her green hat and light brown hair,' is a serpent
wrought in the full details of Keats and the mediaeval
allegorists. But these are survivals. Forty-odd years
ago, modem spiritualism gave rise to a literature
dealing with the night side of nature. A chair steal-
ing to Ihe side of the story-teller as he sits by the
fireplace smoking his evening pipe; the patter of
invisible feet on the stairway as he mounts to his
chamber ; and a materialized spirit or two standing at
the foot of the four-poster as he lies awake listening
to the faint ticking of his watch, which in a moment
THE CONTEMPORAEY NOVEL 281
18 Bilent and in another drops from its lestdug-place •
irith a thud to the floor — such were some of the cur*
rent incidents. And in these latter days, romance
has fed on the reports of the Society for Psychical
Besearch. Of this pseudo-spiritualism, the classic is
Bulwer-Lytton's 'Haunted and the Haunters' (Black-
woo^s Magazine, 1860),
The novel of crime has also found out new
sources of hotror, and its popular writer for above
thirty years was WUkie Collins. The quality of
his work is well represented in miniature by 'A
Terribly Strange Bed,' whose heavy teeter slowly
sinks down to smother the sleeper. He won his
great popularity by ' The Woman in White' (1860);
and thereafter novel after novel of the same kind
followed, one of the beat being ' The Moonstone '
(1868). He always had a good story, which was
a mystification so adroitly put together that the
secret lay beyond guess to the end. It was he who
handed over the detective story from Foe to the
author of ' Sherlock Holmes.' Some thirty years ago
began to be common the romance of science ; the pur-
pose of which was to decorate the moat showy sci-
entific discoveries. Examples of this kind of roman-
cii^ are ' Elsie Venuer ' (1861), ' a medicated novel ' by
Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Bulwer-Lytton's 'Coming
Bace ' (1871), in which was set forth the Utopia of an
age of electricity. Bulwer's romance was also mildly
socialistic; and as the facts of science became more
and more trite, it was this socialistic phase that iu
a few years appeared the most striking. Witness
•Looking Backward' (1888), by Edward Bellamy,
which was taken seriously by the reformers and at
282 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
length by the author himself. In 1869 B. D. Black-
more published ' Loma Doone/ the first of his many
similar picturesque fictions in rhythmic prose. More
gorgeous still are the romances of William Black, of
which * A Princess of Thule ' (1873) tells a pathetic
love idyl of the Hebrides. In the eighties, H. Eider
Haggard revived the marvels of the East. Though of
singularly slight literary value, his fictions served as
an antidote to the surfeit of realism. The real initia-
tor of what is most beautiful and lovely in contempo-
rary romance was William Morris. He wrote tales
in verse, in prose, and in verse and prose commingled,
and all in a simple and entrancing manner. Away
from the stressful burdens of modern civilization, he
directed the imagination back to the time when
* Geoffrey Chaucer's pen moved over bills of lading,'
and thence to the Icelandic sagas. In these epochs,
he discovered an earthly paradise beside ^ a nameless
city in a distant sea.'
The romancer who has won the affections of the
present generation, both old and young, is Bobert
Louis Stevenson. Blackmore has appealed to youth
at the sentimental stage. Morris has addressed the
aesthetic sensibilities of the scholar who delights in
hearing deliciously retold the old stories of Ogier the
Dane and Sigurd the Yolsung. Stevenson with a
middle flight has reached both the scholar and the
general reader. Women only has he failed to please ;
and there is good reason for this; for with love as a
motive he dealt charily. It is true that love romance is
present in many of his novels, in ' Prince Otto,' ' The
Master of Ballantrae,' * David Balfour,' and * St. Ives ' ;
and he finally came to the conclusion that it is ^ the
THE COSTEMPORARY NOVEL 283
ererlastiiig fountaiii of interest' But lore was not
witb Stevenson of prime consideration ; adventure does
not flow from it as the sole source, as in the case of
< Loma Doone.' In the two romantic tales by which
he brought his name before the public, 'Treasure
Island' (1883) and 'Dr. JekjU and Mr. Hyde' (1886),
there is no love-making at alL What he did at first —
and this is one of his innovations — was to awaken
delight in adventure for its own sake, just as Cefoe
did. Chance and Circumstance which to the philoso-
phers are at best unlovely, he writes with initial
capitals, and says they are the divinities whom he
adores. Events, which Hardy marshals so that they
seem endowed with spite and cruelty, Stevenson made
sing together as the morning stars. His gentlemen
are always lucky, escaping from duels and wrecks with
flesh wounds and a little wetting and hunger. As
occasion demands, many subordinate characters are
shot, or walk the plank, or sink into quicksands ; but
they are cowards or pirates whom no one is troubled
to see disappear.
In fact, the incidents which Stevenson created, fol-
lowing in the footsteps of Scott, Dumas, Foe, and
Borrow, are to an extent outside the realm of the
moral law. He wrote an essay defending the ' ar-moral '
in art^ that is, art which is neither moral nor immoral,
but neutral — art which aims at the imaginative pres-
entation of crime and adventure, and then looks upon
its task as done. He makes a voyage along the
Sambre and the Oise in a canoe as graceful as a
violin; he crosses the C^vennes prodding a whimsical
donkey which bears his luggage, and sleeping in a -
on the cold uplands under the light of the stars.
284 DEVELOPMENT OP THE ENGLISH NOVEL
is captured by pirates, whose captain with black, curly
whiskers he sends below, and raises the Jolly Boger
on his own account. He is wrecked off the coast of
Mull, and traverses the Highlands with an outlaw,
dodging the king^s troops. He enters out-of-the-way
places in London and Paris which the police leave
undisturbed, and from his explorations there he fash-
ions new Arabian Nights. Most of all he goes in
quest of hidden treasure, digging in an old monastery,
diving into the deep sea, or sailing the Spanish main
with a mutinous crew. What civilization most cares
for is discarded, — ease, luxuries, and soft beds. And
though his characters are so often after gold, yet their
love of it is only a pretence to adventure ; when they
get it, they squander it or force it upon a chance
acquaintance to whom they are indebted for a night's
lodging or some trivial kindness. Stevenson was thus
in all he wrote a boy, delighting in wild incident in
and for itself ; and he sought to set us back into our
boyhood, when the moral sense was ill trained and
we viewed nature naively. Stevenson (if it be per-
mitted to read between the lines), when he stood in
a broad highway swept white in the distance by the
sunlight, thought of Dick Turpin and the exciting
ride from London to York; when he went down to
the sea, he saw to the westward the phantom ship
of Kidd, and heard the ruffian crew calling to him
over the water ; when he felt his isolation, he could
fancy himself going out on a star-lit night and shout-
ing through his hands to the heavens peopled with
his silent friends.
Stevenson was not of those who argue that if a man
has something to say, he will necessarily say it welL
THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL 286
There are awkward ways of telling a story^ and there
are right ways. Stevenson always hit upon one of
the right ways. A common convention of fiction
since Fielding has been that the reader shall admit
without question the ubiquity of the novelist. But
Stevenson^ with some exceptions, held to a point
of view. He puts his narrative into the mouth of a
character, sometimes a minor one, and permits him
to speak of only what he himself has seen and expe-
rienced. It was furthermore his custom when the
story possessed considerable length to let it be told
by two or more persons, each relating a part. This
is the method adopted in 'Treasure Island,' 'Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,' and with most cleverness in
the ' Master of Ballantrae.' In this last case the story
is in the hands of the faithful old steward Mackellar,
who is a sort of editor and glosser. He tells what he
knows personally of the Ballantrae tragedy; and to
complete it, he breaks his narrative with long quo-
tations from the memoirs of Chevalier Burke. Wher-
ever he wished to do so, Stevenson did not hesitate to
employ the special relation; that is, when a new char-
acter is introduced he may give, if he likes, an account
of himself. Stevenson thus passed by the structural
art of our greatest novelists and went back to Smollett
and Defoe. He showed that the old episode, which
was once so abused, is susceptible of a treatment that
will please ; that the critics since Aristotle who have
condemned it were mistaken. By the use of it he was
able to keep his main characters directly before the
reader with no more effort than is apparent among
those who have discarded it as loose art. For example,
in ' Treasure Island ' Jim Hawkins is always the hero,
286 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
whether he or the Doctor relates what happened on
that memorable voyage of the Hiapaniola}
Admirable as the structure of Stevenson's stories is
his style. His syntax is of studied simplicity. His
sentences are short clauses in coordinate relation,
separated by semicolons and connected by and or buty
expressed or implied, as he wishes quick or slow
movement. Involved complex sentences he never
wrote ; his subordinate clauses are short, and are fre-
quently dropped into the sentence within parentheses.
In this way he gained compactness, an even flow, and
a delightful rhythm. Quaint and smooth-sounding
words were to him beautiful for themselves. He
seems to have culled them from his reading of our
classic literature, and to have stored them away in
his memory, an exhaustless repository from which he
could draw at pleasure for the formation of new and
felicitous phrases. His prototype in our prose litera-
ture is Sir Thomas Browne.
The supremacy of Stevenson as a stylist in recent
fiction his harshest critics have not denied him. But
then, it is said, there is not much substance behind
the dress. Those who speak thus must have in
mind the novel that solves all social and religious
problems. There is as much substance behind his
style as behind that of any other English romancer.
He was certainly not consistent with the dictum
that romance should be 'a-moral.' In ^A Chapter
on Dreams,' he gave with special reference to ^Dr.
1 For the way former noyelists frequently managed the point of
▼lew in narration, see the opening chapter of ' David Gopperfield,'
in which the hero relates verhatim conversations that took pUuae
before he was bom.
THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL 287
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' the genesis of mucli of his writ-
ing. Certain incidents and situations came to him in
dreams, which he playfully ascribed to the wayward
brownies. From elf-land hints of this kind he built
up his stories when awake, himself laying claim only
to the characters and the morality. Almost every-
where in Stevenson's work there is this duality.
There are the incidents of pure romance, and there
are the ethics. As a man Stevenson was a Puritan; as
an artist he was a Bohemian. He wrote an essay on
Francois Villon, in which he did scant justice to the
author of *A Ballad of Dead Ladies.' He wrote a
story with Villon as hero, and was in full aesthetic
sympathy with the instinct for housebreaking and
stealing gold flagons.
Just as he possessed two selves, so he was pleased,
as both artist and man, with the two selves of the
psychologists. This notion of a double selfhood is
at the basis of * Markheim,' ' The Treasure of Fran-
chard,' * Prince Otto,' and 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.'
Sometimes the evil self wins and sometimes the better.
The problem of ' Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ' is exactly
that of Greorge Eliot's novels. A man plays with his
lower self whimsically, and finally falls under its com-
plete thraldom. At first to do ill is voluntary ; in the
course of time it becomes involuntary. The point of
difference is this: George Eliot treats the subject
directly and analytically ; Stevenson treats it romanti-
cally and picturesquely, making use of an effervescing
liquor, under the influence of which the good doctor
shrivels up so that his clothes are too big for him.
The method of Geor|;e Eliot may be more convincing
than Stevenson's 3 but the uncompromising ethics are
288 DEVELOPMENT OP THE ENGLISH NOVEL
in Stevenson for all that Even such stories as 'Tht
Dynamiter' and 'The Suidde Club' have their appli-
cation to society; for they are fantastic satires on the
Irish hero and the sentimental pessimist. Stevenson's
art is thus always human. With rare exceptions there
is audible in it a lyrical note. At times it is a soft
fluting; then again it rises to a reflective longing
for what might have been, as in 'Will o' the Mill';
and sometimes it breaks out in an appeal to the stars
for ' tolerance and counsel.'
To Stevenson more than to any one else we owe
the recrudescence of the historical romance. BLis
treatment of history was mostly in the spirit of
adventure after the way of Dumas rather than
after the way of Scott. His history may be only
the web of a dream as in 'Prince Otto,' the hero of
which| a descendant of Shakespeare's Prince Florizel^
plays at being ruler over a petty German princi-
pality somewhere on the confines of Bohemia, and
through incapacity for rule loses his crown, add the
princess is Cinderella. ' St. Ives ' is an account of
the adventures of a French prisoner in Scotland and
England during the later years of the Kapoleonic wars.
The historic period which most occupied Stevenson's
imagination was that of the years following the second
Pretender's struggle for the English throne in 1745.
Historic battle scenes he did not describe, for that
would have placed too great restraint upon his fancy ;
well-known historical characters he rarely more than
mentioned, and for the same reason. What he depicted
is Scotch social life; the tragedy of a house divided
against itself in its loyalty both to King George and
Charles Edward; and the poverty and desperation of
THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL 289
the Highlanders after they were stripped of their
arms and plaids. Escapes^ broils, fights, and sword-
play, there are in abundance. For stirring adventure
like this, Stevenson maintained that only roughly
outlined characters are necessary, for the reader
himself at once becomes the hero. And yet in
two of his romances, * Kidnapped ' and ' The Master
of Ballantrae,' there is a more detailed study of char-
acter than in Scott or Dumas. The two masters
of Ballantrae and David Balfour are Meredithian,
closely and surely analytical. They are, of course,
out of the pale of realistic creation, for they are ex-
traordinary and exceptional. Instead of taking the
common run of men and telling us why they behave
as they do, Stevenson began with a dream or with the
Society for Psychical Eesearch, showing whimsical
ways in which heredity is imagined to manifest itself,
or what mad things a man may do who has a clot of
blood, though only a speck, on the brain. Alan
Breck, the agent of Prince Charles in the Highlands,
is Stevenson's master character stroke. After killing
his enemies, as they rush upon him in the round-
house of the Coveriant, and passing his sword through
their dead bodies, Alan sits down to a table, sword in
hand, and breaks forth into a victorious Gaelic song
composed on the moment. Then he takes off his ocat,
brushes it, and cuts off a silver button as a reward to
David for services rendered. That insight into the
make-up of the cavalier, Scott never surpassed.
Just as in the case of Scott, Stevenson has been
accompanied and followed by several historical
romancers, among whom are Gonan Doyle, S. B.
Crockett, Stanley Weyman, Anthony Hope Hawkinsy
290 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
and S. Weir Mitchell ; and by a group of Scotcli emo-
tionalists and humorists, among whom are J. M. Barrie
and John Watson, who have spread the fame of Thrums
and Drumtochty. Literary history is thus repeating
itsell
4. Budyard Eipling
Since the death of Stevenson, the most striking
figure in our fiction has been Budyard Kipling.
When his Anglo-Indian tales first found their way to
the western world, the critics associated them with
the empty adventures of Eider Haggard ; but his suc-
ceeding publications have forced a readjustment of
opinion. Kipling has seen an opportunity^ and he
has seized it. He is to India somewhat more than
Maria Edgeworth was to Ireland, and somewhat less
than Scott was to Scotland. From Burke and Macau-
lay the public had derived a knowledge of the India
of Clive and Hastings, su£5.cient for argument and for
rhetoric. An imaginative sense of India of the same
and a little later period appeared now and then in
Thackeray : in India Colonel Newcome won his lau-
rels; and Jos Sedley is a type of the old civilian.
Of the new India of the Queen-Empress and Lord
Eoberts of Kandahar, Kipling is the first worthy
interpreter. Of this India he has confined himself
mostly to Pimjaub, which he best knows; to its
sweltering heat, and the madness induced thereby,
its drenching rains and fever and cholera, its blinding
sand-storms and the picnics they spoil; the immense
perspective of a star-lit heaven, the filth and supersti-
tion of the natives, the love intrigues of civilians,
the haphazard process of law-making ; a village in-
THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL 291
yaded and blotted out by the beasts of the jungle;
the magnificent ruins of a city, where monkeys ^ sit in
circles on the halls of the king's council-chamber ' ; and
barrack-room stories, in which the private tells of his
experiences, his practical jokes, and death grapples on
the battle-field with giant Afghans.
One of the remarkable things about all these tales
is Sapling's nearness to his subject; he does not write
from the outside of it ; but as one who is a part of it.
In this he has perhaps been helped by a little Hindoo
mysticism. In that beautiful poem, ^To the True
Bomance,' he seems to hold that it is possible to get
beyond the sensuous appearance of things to their
hearty to arrive at
• . • • that utter Truth
The careless angels know.
This penetrating insight is most obvious when he
writes of animals. In the Jungle Books he sustains
this sympathetic attitude for two volumes ; he inter-
prets the conduct of wolves, bears, panthers, monkeys,
serpents, and elephants, and translates their lan-
guage into English. In these fables he has given
fresh life and meaning to the medieval bestiaries, in-
cidents from which had lived on in modem literature
only as allegorical adornments for the poets. It is a
happy coincidence that the beast fable should have
received its new dress from the jungles of India, one
of its earliest homes. The fancy that endowed his
animals with speech, Kipling has now extended to the
cargo-boat and the locomotive engine.
In the selection and recombination of the matter of
real life for his purposes, Kipling is at will a realist
292 DEVELOPMENT OP THE ENGLISH NOVEL
or a romancer. As a realist he is an impressionist,
suggesting his characters by a few epithets and leav-
ing to the reader the completion of the sketch. When
he has done more than this, as in the case of Mulvaneyy
he has revived the method of Chaucer, letting his char-
acters reveal themselves by the tales they tell. He is
not a romancer in the sense in which Stevenson was,
who reared his fabrics on dreams ; for he always has a
realistic setting, and says much about real things. He
is not a romancer in the sense in which Scott was, who
looked backward. He is the romancer of the present;
of the modem social order, on which shines from afar
a light as resplendent as that which shone on mediaeval
society ; for it is the same divine light of the imagina-
tion. Kipling feels the presence of romance in shot
and shell as well as in bow and arrows, and in red
coats as well as in buff jerkins ; in existing supersti-
tions as well as in the old ; in the lightning express
as in the stage-coach; in a Vermont farmer as in
Bobin Hood ; in the fishing schooner as in the viking's
ship ; in the loves of Mulvaney and Dinah as in Ivan-
hoe and Bowena ; in the huge python as in the fire-
breathing dragon. This is his great distinction in an
age that has come to look on its marvels with dull^
passive eyes.
n
CONCLUSION
A TREATISE on fiction ought to close^ like the old
heart-easing novels, with a look into the future. We
may be sure that the novel will conform, as it has done
since Arthurian romance, to the moods of human na-
ture as they vary from epoch to epoch ; that at one
time will prevail realism — the stem endeavor to
keep the imaginative product in harmony with the
actual; and at another time, idealism — the height-
ening of incident and passion for grand effects. What
is to happen in the first quarter of the twentieth
century, it would be most hazardous to prophesy.
Besides tearing down and building anew the internal
structure of the novel, the contemporary novelists
would seem also to have modified permanently its
outer form. Hardy has cut the three volume novel
down to one volume. The short-story has found
its own beautiful art; but it can never hope to
become a universal type, for it gives scant room.
Kipling, who has experimented all the way from
three to three hundred pages, is bringing into
fashion a novel of from twenty-five to fifty pages.
The paganism which characterizes the thought of
the contemporary novel has appeared at intervals in
our fiction from the time the Anglo-Saxon gleemen
sang of Beowulf and Grendel; it is in Sterne, in
the Gothic romancers, and in Scott. Where it is
293
^94 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
not a morbid sentiment, it is manifest in a lore at
adyenture and an exaltation of the strong man. To
the novel of the future, Kipling, who is gathering
to himself present-daj tendencies, may be pointing
the way.
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
A LIST OP TWENTY-FIVE PROSE FICTIONS
These books, arranged in logical order, show in large out-
line the development of the English noveL All of them
may be found in ordinary public libraries or procured of
the bookseller. For convenient reference, I have indicated
good editions.
1. Morte Darthur, by Sir Thos. Malory. Books I., in.,
VI., XVII., XXI. Globe ed. (The Macmillan Co., London
and New York.)
2. Rosalind, by Thos. Lodge. Cassell's National Library.
(Cassell and Co., London and N. Y.)
3. Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan. Temple Classics.
(J. M. Dent and Co., London. Macmillan, N. Y.)
4. Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe. Bohn's Library.
(Geo. Bell and Sons, London. Macmillan, N. Y.)
5. Roderick Random, by Tobias Smollett. Bohn's Library.
6. Clarissa Harlowe, by Samuel Richardson. Abridged
ed. (Henry Holt and Co., N. Y. Geo. Routledge and Sons,
London and N. Y.)
7. Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding. Bohn*** "^ibrary.
8. Tristram Sbandy, by Laurence Sterne. Abridged ed.
Morley's Universal Library. (Routledge.)
9. The Vicar of Wakefield, by Oliver Goldsmith. Temple
Classics. (Dent. Macmillan.)
10. Castle Rackrent, by Maria Edgeworth, ed. with The
Absentee by A. Thackeray Ritchie. (Macmillan.)
207
298 DEYELOFMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
11. Pride and Prejadice, by Jane Ansten, ed. R. B. John-
son. (Dent. Macmillan.)
12. Waverley, by Sir Walter Scott. The Drybtirgh ed.
(A. and C. Black, London. Macmillan, N. T.)
13. Kenilworth, by Sir Walter Scott The Drybtirgh ed.
14. The Pathfinder, by J. F. Cooper. The Mohawk ed.
(G. P. Putnam's Sons, N. Y. and London.)
15. The Scarlet Letter, by N. Hawthorne. (Houghton,
Mifflin and Co., Boston. Cassell and Co., London.)
16. Felham, by Bulwer-Lytton, New Library ed. (Rout-
ledge.)
17. David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens, ed. by Charles
Dickens the younger. (Macmillan.)
18. Vanity Fair, by W. M. Thackeray. Biographical ed.
(Harper and Brothers, N. T. Smith and Elder, London.)
19. Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope, in Chroni-
cles of Barsetshire series. (Dodd, Mead and Co., N. Y.
Chapman and Hall, London.)
20. Js|ne Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, illustrated by H. S.
Greig. (Dent. Macmillan.)
21. Adam Bede, by Greorge Eliot. (Harper, N. Y.
Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh.)
22. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, by Geo. Meredith.
The Author's ed. (A. Constable and Co., London. Chas.
Scribner's Sons, N. Y.)
23. The Return of the Native, by Thos. Hardy. Crown
8yo ed. (Harper.)
24. Treasure Island, by R. L. Stevenson. (Scribner.
Cassell and Co.)
25. The Brushwood Boy, by Rudyard Kipling, in The
Day's Work. (Macmillan, London. Doubleday and
McClure, N. Y.)
The means of enlarging the list will be obvious to the
reader of this book. One should read other novels by Jane
Austen, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Charlotte
Bronte, Greorge Eliot, and Stevenson. Also the outlines
TWENTY-FIVE PROSE FICTIONS 299
may be filled in as thus : Don Quixote after 1 ; Gil Bias
before 7 ; Evelina after 9 ; a Gothic romance before Scott ;
Bolwer's Last of the Barons after 13 ; Kingsley's Westward
Ho / and Foe's tales after 14 ; one of Mrs. Gaskell's novels
after 19 ; a novel by Howells or James after 23. See the
indications for the student which immediately follow.
n
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND OTHER NOTES
The aim of the following^ notes is to furnish means for a
still further study of English fiction. The arrangement
follows the main text, the numerals denoting page. For
critical works on fiction, the reader is referred to the list
prefixed to J. C. Dunlop's History of Prose Fiction, revised
ed., Lond. and N. T., 1888 ; and for biography, excepting
American writers, to the Dictionary of National Biography,
Lond. and N. T., 1885-99. As a foundation for the study
of the modem novel, the student should become acquainted
with what was done in fiction by the Greeks ; for among
them, just as in the Middle Age, the romance detached itself
from the epic. See for a guide Der griechische Roman, by
£. Rohde, Leipzig, 1876, and A History of the Novel previous
to the 17th Century, by F. M. Warren, N. Y., 1895. For
English translations of the Greek novel, Greek Romances,
Bohn's Library. For some suggestions concerning the in-
fluence of Greek romance on mediaeval romance, see A History
of English Poetry, by W. J. Courtibope, voL L, Lond. and
N. Y^ 1895.
Introduction
The early use of the word 'romance' from Fr. roman:
Romania i., 1-22; Chaucer's <Rime of Sir Thopas,' and
* Death of Blanche the Duchess,' line 48 et seq. For < novel'
of same and later period : the Flamenca (thirteenth century),
ed. P. Meyer, Paris, 1865; the Decameron of Boccaccio
(fourteenth century), ed. T. Wright, Lond., 1873; and
the Palace of Pleasure, Wm. Painter, 1566, ed. J. Jacobs,
300
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 301
Lond., 1890. Contemporary use : < The Art of Fiction,' H.
James, in Partial Portraits, Lond., 1888; < A Gossip on Ro-
mance ' and < A Humble Remonstrance,' R. L. Stevenson, in
Memories and Portraits^ N. Y., 1894.
1. The Mediaeval Romanoera and Story-tellers
Catalogue of Romances in the Department of MSS. in the
Brit. Museum, H. L. D. Ward, Lond., vol. L, 1883, vol. iL,
1893. Historia Begum Britannice, GeofErey of Monmouth, ed.
San Marte, Halle, 1854 ; Eng. trans. Bohn's Library. Morte
Darfhur, Sir Thos. Malory, ed. H. O. Sommer, Lond., 1889.
For love-casuistry, see De Amore (about 1200) by Andre le
Chapelain, ed. E. Trojel, Copenhagen, 1892, and Chaucer's
Troilus and Cressida.
For romances of adventure and misceUaneous fictions, see
Ancient Engleish Metrical BomanceSs, J. Ritson, 3 vols.,
Lond., 1802; Specimens of Early English Metrical Bomances,
Greo. Ellis, 3 vols., Lond., 1^05, revised by J. O. Halliwell,
Bohn's Library ; English Metrical Bomances, H. Weber, 3 vols.,
Edinburgh, 1810; Fabliaux or Tales, modernized, G. Way,
Lond., 1815 ; publications of the Early English Text Society ;
Bomances of Chivalry, in facsimile, John Ashton, Lond.,
1887; Gesta Bomanorum, ed. S. J. Herrtage, Lond., 1879.
The Works of Greoffrey Chaucer, Globe ed., Lond. and
N. T., 1898. Confessio Amantis, John Gower, ed. R. Fauli,
Lend., 1857.
6. The Spanish Influence
Amadis de Gatda, Ordonez de Montalvo, Eng. trans, by
A. Munday, completed 1620, abridged by R. Southey, 1803,
latest reprint, Lond., 1872. The Diana of Geo. of Monte-
mayor, Eng. trans. B. Yong, 1598. For bibUog. of picaresque
novel, see History of Spanish Fiction, Greo. Ticknor, revised
ed., Boston, 1866; and jStudes sur L'Espagne, A. Morel-
Fatio, s^r. 1, Paris, 1888. English trans, of Lazarillo de
Tormes and Guzman de Alfarache, N. Y., 1890. Don Quixote,
Miguel de Cervantes, Eng. trans. H. £. Watts, Loud., 1888.
B02 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
It is believed that the picaresqne novel has behind it lost
Spanish farces. The picaresque element is certainly very
noticeable in Celestina, a tragi-comedy by F. de Rojas, 1492,
Englished by J. Mabbe, 1631, reprinted with introduction
by J. F. Kelly, London, 1894. For the picaresque escapade
even in ancient fiction, see The Golden Ass of Apuleius,
(£ng. trans. Bohn's Library.)
10. The BUsabethanfl
For general bibliog., The English Novel in the Time of
Shakespeare^ J. J. Jusserand, Lond. and N. Y., 1890. For
translations from the Italian, see paper by M. A. Scott in*
Publications of the Modem Language Association of Amer-
ica for 1896. The most influential Greek romance was
Theagenes and Chariclea^ trans, by T. Underdown, 1577,
revised 1587, reprint Lond., 1895. For jests, Shakespeare
Jest-Books, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, Lond., 1864. For miscellaneous
fictions, Early English Prose Romances, ed. W. J. Thoms,
2d ed. Lond., 1858; Romances of Chivalry, ed. J. Ashton,
Lond., 1887 ; and Early Prose Romances, ed. H. Morley,
Lond., 1889. For rogue stories. The Fratemitye of Vacor
hondes, etc., by John Awdeley, ed. E. Viles, Lond., 1869.
There is no reprint of H. Chettle's Piers Plain. In fact, the
only extant copy of it (so far as I know) is in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford. For comparison with Lazarillo, it may
be of interest to observe here that the novel is a pastoral
in its setting, and that Piers the rogue is in turn servant to
(1) Thrasilio, a court braggadocio and flatterer, (2) Flavins,
a prodigal, (3) a broker, who ruins young gentlemen, (4) a
miser, and (5) Petrusio, an embodiment of treachery. Sitting
between two shepherds in the classic vale of Tempe, Piers
relates his experiences with these various masters during an
apprenticeship of seven years.
The Arcadia, Sir P. Sidney, ed. H. O. Sommer, Lond.,
1891. Complete Works of Robt. Greene, ed. A. B. Grosart,
Lond., 1881-86. Complete Works of Thos. Nash, ed. Gro-
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 308
sart, Lond., 1883-85. The Euphuesj Jno. Lyly, Arber
reprints, Lond., 1868. Complete Works of Thos. Lodge,
Hunterian Club, 1883.
13. The Historical Allegory and the French Influence
Argenis, Jno. Barclay, Eng. trans. Sir R. LeGrys, 1629;
Mora's Utopia, Eng. trans. Ralph Robinson, 2d and rev. ed.,
1556 ; Arber reprints, 1869. For the French romances of the
seventeenth century, see Dunlop's History of Prose Fiction ;
Geschichte des franzosischen Romans im xvii Jahrhundert, H.
Kbrting, Oppeln and Leipzig, 1885-87; Le Roman au dix-
septieme sihcle, Andr^ Le Breton, Paris, 1890 ; Manuel de la
Liltercdure fran^aiscy F. Bruneti^re, Paris, 1898. (Eng. trans.
Boston, 1898.) For English translations of Fr. romances,
see Jusserand. ^^
For the passage of medisBval love-casuistry into the modlara
novel, see the Astree (1610?) by Honors d'Urf^, .gt. ii.,
bk. V. Here are formulated twelve laws of love. /
18. The Restoration
For literary coteries, see Jusserand, ch. vii., and 'The
Matchless Orinda ' in Seventeenth Century Studies^ E. Gosse,
new ed., Lond., 1895.
Aphra Behn, Works, Lond., 1871. John Bunyan, Grace
Abounding, Cassell's Nat'l Library; Pilgrim's Progress,
Temple Classics.
22. Literary Forms that contributed to the Novel
BiooRAPHT. — Margaret Duchess of Newcastle: Nature* s
Pictures drawn by Fancy* s Pencil, Lond., 1656, containing
amusing sketches of herself and her father ; and Life of
Wm. Cavendish, Lond., 1667.
Letters. — See Le ScUut d*amour dans les litteratures pro-
venfale et fran^aise, P. Meyer, Paris, 1867; Amadis; Euphues;
Scud^ri's Clelie; works of Aphra Behn; CCXI Sociable
Letters by Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, Loud., 1666;
Letters toritten by Mary Mardey, 1696, and novels of E. Hay-
304 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
woody Lond., 1725. Also the Letters of a Portuguese Nun^
ed. with a bibliog. E. Prestage, Lond., 1893, and the Letters
of Eloisa and Abelard, trans, by J. Hughes, 4th ed. Lond.,
1722.
Characteb Books. — For bibliog., see appendix to Jno.
Earle's Microcosmography (1628), ed. by F. BUss, Lond.,
1811. The Characters of Theophrastus were translated into
Latin by I. Casaubon, Lond., 1592 ; £ng. trans, by J. Healey
bears the date of 1616. De Coverley Papers from the Spec-
taioTf Globe ed., Loud, and N. Y.
27. Daniel Defoe
The Romances and Narratives of D. Defoe, ed. G. A.
Aitkin, Lond. and N. T., 1895, 16 vols. Reprint of 1st ed. of
Robinson Crusoe, with a bibliog., A. Dobson, Lond. and N. Y.,
1883. For translations and imitations, see Robinson und
Robinsonadenj H. Ullrich, Weimar, 1898.
Gulliver's Travels by J. Swift, Temple Classics. For Swift
on the purpose of the romance, see letter to Pope 29 Sept,
1725, in Works of Swift, ed. W. Scott, Lond., 1814., yol. xvlL,
p. 39.
31. Samuel RlchardBon
Standard ed. by Leslie Stephen, Lond., 1883, 12 vols.
Source of facts of life and popularity. The Correspondence
of Samuel Richardson, A. L. Barbauld, Lond., 1804, 6 vols.
For additional light on Richardson's aims, postscript to
Clarissa an'? preface to Grandison, and the two letters
appended to ^A CoUection of the Moral and Instructive
Sentiments, etc., contained in the Histories of Pamela, Cla-
rissa, and Sir Charles Grandison,' Lond., 1755. For genesis
of Pamela, Correspondence, vol. i., pp. Izix-lzxvi. See simi-
lar story, told in three letters, in Spectator, No. 375.
For Richardson's relation to the drama, should be read
particularly the plays of Thos. Otway, CoUey Cibber, Richard
Steele, and Geo. Lillo.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 805
For the extensive vogue of Richardson, and the imitations
of him on the Continent, see Richardson^ Rousseau und
Goethey Erich Schmidt, Jena, 1875 ; and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
et Us origines du cosmopolitisme litteraire, J. Tezte, Paris, 1895.
(Eng. trans, by J. W. Matthews, N. Y., 1899.) For French
estimate of him, see Diderot's ^loge de Richardson; and
Rousseau's Lettre a d*Alembert sur les spectacles. For the
Grerman view, see Correspondence^ vol. iii., 140-158. For the
Dutch view. Correspondence^ vol. v., 241-270. For Groethe
on morality of, Dichtung und Wahrheity bk. xiiL For Dr.
Johnson on morality of, Correspondence, v., 281-285, and
Boswell's Life of Johnson, ch. iiL
42. Henry Heldlng
Works, ed. Geo. Saintsbury, Lond. and N. Y., 1893, 12
vols. For Fielding on his aims, see especially preface to
Joseph Andrews, and the introductory chapter to book iii.
For external nature in Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. i., ch. iv.,
and bk. xi., ch. ix. Life of H. Fielding, A. Dobson, Lond.
and N. Y., 1883.
57. The Novel vs. the Drama
For the outer and the fundamental differences between the
drama and the novel, see Goethe, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre,
bk. v., ch. vii. ; Bruneti^re, Les ^poques du Theatre FranQais,
Paris, 1892, premiere conference ; Brander Matthews, Studies
of the Stage, N. Y., 1894, ch. L ; Henry James, The Tragic
Muse, N. Y., 1890, ch. iv. ; R. L. Stevenson, 'A Humble Re-
monstrance ' in Memories and Portraits. On revolt of public
and literature from regular tragedy, David Simple, S. Field-
ing, bk. iL, ch. ii. ; and Correspondence of Richardson, vol. iv^
220.
63. Tobias Smollett
Works, ed. Geo. Saintsbury, Lond. and Fhila., 1895, 12
vols. Smollett on his sources, preface to Roderick Random,
X
806 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
69. Lanrence Sterne
Works, ed. Geo. Saintsbury, Lond. and Fhila., 1894, 6
toIb. Standard life, by P. Fitzgerald, new ed., Lond., 1896.
On Sterne's sources, Illustrations of Sterne, Dr. John Ferriar,
Manchester and Lond., 1798. For bibliog. and inflaence,
the article on Sterne in Diet Nat*l Biog,
76. The Minor Novelists
No recent edition of David Simple, Facsimile reprint of
Rasselas, ed. J. Macaulay, Lond., 1884. Facsimile reprint of
the Vicar of Wakefeld, ed. A. Dobson, Lond., 1885. Both
contain bibliographies. For Goldsmith on the humor of
Sterne^ the Citizen of the World, Letter liii.
84. Novel of Purpose
Pedagogic. — J. J. Rousseau's Nouvelle Helotse and Smile,
(Euvres, Paris, 1823-26. The Fool of Quality, by H. Brooke,
Lond., 1859. Sandford and Merton, Thos. Day, St. Nicholas
series, N. Y.
Reyolutionart. — Of most of these fictions, there are no
reprints. Novels of R. Bage, Ballantyne^s Novelist's Library,
Lond., 1824. Works of Amelia Opie, Boston, 1827, 10 vols.
Caleb Williams, W. Godwin, Boston, 1876 ; Nature and Art,
£. Lichbald, Cassell's Nat'l Library. On Godwin, see The
Spirit of the Age, by W. Hazlitt, 1825. For current specula-
tions popularized in these novels, Vindication of the Rights
of Woman, Mary W. Godwin, 1792, reprint, Lond. and N. Y.,
1891 ; and Political Justice, Wm. Godwin, 1793.
93. The Light Transcript of Contemporary Manners
Evelina and Cecilia, Frances Burney, ed. R. B. Johnson,
Lond. and N. Y., 1893 ; works of Maria Edgeworth (New
Longford ed.), 10 vols., Lond., 1893. For the change in
manners in thehalf-century following Richardson, see Char-
lotte Smith's Desmond (1792), vol. ii., letter xii., pp. 172-173,
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 807
where the immorality of Richardson is attacked. See also
R. Cnmberland's Henry (1795), bk. v., ch. i. TUastrative of
the manners depicted by Frances Burney, see 'Diary and
Letters of Madame d'Arblay, as edited [1842-46] by her
niece Charlotte Barrett/ new ed., Lond., 189S.
98. The Gothic Romance
For the romantic revival, of which the Grothic and his-
torical romances are a part, see English Romanticism^
Eighteenth Century, H. A. Beers, N. T., 1898 ; and the Be-
ginnings of the English Romantic Movement, W. L. Fhelps,
Boston, 1893. Longsword, attributed to Rev. Thos. Leland in
European Magazine for Aug., 1799, vol. xxxvi., p. 75 ; no recent
ed. The Old English Baron, Clara Reeve, Cassell's Natl
Lib. The Castle of Otranto, Cassell's Nat'l Lib. Vathek,
Wm. Beckford, ed. R. Garnett, Lond., 1893. Reprint of
Radcliffe's Italian, Romance of The Forest, and Mysteries of
Udolpho, Lond., 1877. The Monk, M. G. Lewis, Phila., 1884.
Latest ed. of C. B. Brown, Phila., 1877. Shelley's romances,
in Works, Lond., 1875. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, Rout-
ledge's Pocket Library, 1888.
110. The Historical Romance
On the survival of the seventeenth-century romance, see
The Female Quixote, Charlotte Lennox, Lond., 1752; The
Phoenix (a trans, of Argenis), by Clara Reeve, Lond., 1772;
and Scott's general preface (1829) to Waverley. None of
the historical romances of the period have been recently
republished, except Jane Porter's, which may be found in
the Oxford series, N. Y.
Some notion of the extensive vogue of the historical
romance during the thirty years immediately preceding
Waverley is afforded by the following incomplete list of
tales more or less historical : —
The Recess, Miss Sophia Lee, 1783-86; Warbeck, 1786;
Alan Fitzosbomt, Miss Anne Fuller, 1787; William of Nor-
808 DEVELOPMEirr OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
nandy, 1787; The Son of Etheltoulf, Anne Fuller, 1780;
Earl StrongboWf James White, 1789; John of Gauniy
J. White, 1700; Historic Tales, 1790; Adventures of King
Richard, Caur de Lion, J. White, 1791; The Duchess
of York, 1791; The Foresters, Jeremy Belknap, 1792;
7^ Minstrel, 1793; Memoirs of Sir Roger de Clarendon,
Clara Beeve, i793; The Haunted Priory, Stephen Cnllen,
1794; An Antiquarian Romance, Thos. Fownall, 1795;
The Duke of Clarence, 1795; Montford Castle, 1796; The
Canterbury Tales, Harriet and Sophia Lee, 1797-1805;
The Knights, 1798; The Abbess, S. W. H. Ireland, 1799;
St. Leon, Wm. Godwin, 1799; A NoHhumbrian Tale, 1799;
Midsummer Eve, 1801; Thaddeus of Warsaw, Miss Jane
Porter, 1803; Astonishment/ ^f Francis Lathom, 1804; The
Forester, Sir S. £. Brydges, 1804; The Swiss Emigrants,
Hugh Murray, 1804 ; St. Clair of the Islesy Elizabeth Helme,
1804; Sherwood Forest, Mrs. V. R. Good, 1804; Oondez the
Monk, S. W. H. Ireland, 1805; The Mysterious Freebooter,
F. Lathom, 1806 ; A Peep at Our Ancestors, Mrs. Henrietta
Mosse, 1807; The Fatal Vow, F. Lathom, 1807; Queenhoo-
Hall, Joseph Strutt, 1808 ; The Husband and the Lover, Miss
A. T. Palmer, 1809; Don Sebastian, A. M. Porter, 1809;
Anne of Brittany, 1810; Scenes in Feudal Times, R. H.
Wilmot, 1809; Ferdinand and Ordella, Mrs. M. A. C.
Bradshaw, 1810; Edgar, Mrs. Elizabeth Appleton, 1810;
The Scottish Chiefs, Jane Porter, 1810; Edwy and Elgiva,
John Agg, 1811 ; The Lady of the Lake (founded on Scott's
poem), 1810; Despotism or the Fall of the Jesuits, Isaac
D'Israeli, 1811; Alonzo and Melissa, Isaac Mitchell, 1811;
The Loyalists, Mrs. Jane West, 1812 ; The Scottish A dventurers,
Hector MacNeil, 1812; The Border Chieftains, Miss Mary
Houghton, 1813; Alicia de Lacy, Jane West, 1814.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 809
114. Jane Austen
NovelSy Lond. and N. Y., 1895, 10 vols. A Memoir of Jane
Austen^ by her nephew, J. E. Austen-Leigh, 2d ed., Lond.,
1871. For early appreciation of, R. Whately, Quarterly
Review^ Jan. 1821 (article entitled Modem Novels) ; Scott's
Journal, 14 Mar. 1826, and 18 April, 1827; Macaulay's
' Essay on Mme. d'Arblay,' Ed. Rev., Jan. 1843. For recent
estimate and full bibliography, Life of Jane Austen, by G.
Smith, Lond., 1890.
125. Sir "Walter Scott
Convenient recent edition, with introduction by F. W.
Farrar, Lond. and N. Y., 1898, 25 vols. Standard life of
Scott, by J. G. Lockhart, 1837, often reprinted. For Scott
on himself, see Lockhart, the Journal of Sir Walter Scott
(1890), and the prefaces, especially to Waverley, For lively
contemporary criticism of, see 'Novels by the Author of
Waverley,' Quarterly Rev., Oct. 1821, vol. xxvi., 109-148. On
Scott's style, see T. Carlyle, in West. Rev., Jan. 1838, vol.
xxviii., 293-345 (article reprinted in Critical and Miscella-
neous Essays) ; W. Bagehot's essay on the Waverley Novels,
Literary Studies, vol. ii., Lond., 1879 ; and R. L. Stevenson's
* A Gossip on Romance,' in Memories and Portraits. For the
literary and romantic treatment of history, see Coleridge on
Shakespeare's historical plays in the Complete Works of
Coleridge, Lond., 1871, vol. iv., 116 seq.
For Scott in Grermany, see Gottschall, cited under Cooper^
for Scott in France, Le Roman Historique, Louis Maigron,
Paris, 1898.
136. Soott^B Legacy
Novels of A. E. Bray, Lond., 1884, 12 vols. Works of H.
Smith, Lond., 1826-44, 26 vols. Novels of G. P. R. James,
republished in part by Routledge. Novels of W. H. Ains-
worth. Library ed., Lond. and N. Y., 16 vols. Works of Bul-
wer-Lytton, New Library ed., Boston, 1892-93, 40 Tolie
810 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Novels of Chas. Kingsley, Pocket ed., Lond. and N. Y., 1895^
11 vols.
For Bulwer on his art, see preface to his historical novels.
For Kingslej on his purpose in Hypatku, see letter to Kev.
F. D. Maurice, 16 Jan. 1851, in < Charles Kingslej, His Let-
ters, and Memories of his Life,' ed. by his wife, Lond., 1802,
ch. ix., 108-109.
149. The Romance of "War
Stories of Waterloo, and The Bivouac, by W. H. Maxwell,
Notable Novels ser., Lond. and N. Y. The Military Novels
of Charles Lever, Lond. and Boston, 1891-02, 9 vols. Novels
of James Grant, Lond. and N. Y., 1882, 34 vols.
150. James Fenimore Cooper and the Romance of
the Forest and the Sea
Works (Mohawk ed.), N. Y., 1806, 32 vols. For life, see
James Fenimore Cooper, T. R. Lounsbury, N. Y., 1883.
Novels of Captain Frederick Marryat, ed. R. B. Johnson,
Lond. and Boston, 1806, 22 vols.
Cooper's influence. Novels of W. 6. Simms ; novels of Cap*
tain Mayne Beid, and of W. Clark Russell, and sketches of
Western life by Bret Harte, Hamlin Garland, and Owen
Wister. See also Michael Scott's Tom Cringle's Log, ed. M.
Morris, Lond. and N. Y., 1805. Cooper was at once imitated
in French and Grerman, and the imitations, translated into
English, were popular both in Eng. and in the U. S. Earl
Fostl (pseudonym, Charles Sealsfield), a German refugee,
travelled in the Southwest, and wrote several Cooper tales,
among which are Das KajiUenhuch (1840) and Suden und
Norden (1842-43)," well known in their Eng. translations.
For him and the influence of Cooper in Germany, see Die
deutsche Nationallitteratur des 19 Jahrhunderts by R. von
Grottschall, vol. iv. Gustave Aimard, when a boy, came to
the U. S., and lived for ten years in Arkansas and the neigh-
boring territories. He wrote, in French, tales of the South-
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 311
west, the Rocky Mts., and California. Among them in
Eng. trans, are : The Prairie Flower^ 1861 ; The Last of the.
Incas, 1862; The Indian Scout, 1862; The Buccaneer Chief,
1864, — all published in London.
158. The Renovation of Gothic Romanoe
Melmoth the Wanderer^ C. R. Maturin, with memoir and
bibliog., Lond., 1892, 3 vols. Tales of a Traveller, W. Irv-
ing, Knickerbocker ed., N. Y., 1897. For Bulwer see p.
309. The Works of E. A. Foe, ed. E. C. Stedman and G.
E. Woodberry, Chicago, 1894-95, 10 vols. A Tale for a
Chimney Corner in Tales of Leigh Hunt, ed. W. Knight,
Lond. and Fhila., 1891. The complete Works of N.
Hawthorne, Boston, 1895, 13 vols.
168. The Minor Humorists and the Author of * Pick-
wick'
Novels of Susan Ferrier, ed. R. B. Johnson, Lond. and
N. Y., 1893. Novels of J. Gait, ed. D. S. Meldrum, £din.
and Boston, 1895-96, 8 vols., Mansie Wauch, D. M. Moir,
new ed., Edin., 1895.
Our Village, M. R. Mitford, ed. A. T. Ritchie, Lond. and
N. Y., 1893.
The Novels of T. L. Peacock, ed. Geo. Saintsbury, Lond.
and N. Y., 1895-97, 5 vols. The Adventures of Hajji Baba
of Ispahan^ J. Morier, ed. G. N. Curzon, Lond. and N. Y.,
1895.
Works of J. and M. Banim, Dublin and N. Y., 1865, 10
vols. Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, W. Carleton,
ed. D. J. O'Donoghue, Lond. and N. Y., 1896, 4 vols. Handy
Andy, Samuel Lover, ed. C. Whibley, Lond. and N. Y., 1896.
Novels of B. Disraeli, Lond. and N. Y., 1878, 10 vols. For
works of Bulwer-Lytton, see page 309. For specimens of
Mrs. Gore's fashionable tales, The Dean's Daughter, Lovell's
Lib., and Self, Harper's Lib. Select Novels. Novels of Theo.
Hook, Lond. and N. Y., 1872-73, 15 vols. Reprint of Pierce
i
812 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Egau'8 Tarn and Jerrys Pt. I., Lond., 1869 ; Pt. 11., 1889. On
the numerous imitations, see The Finishy etc. ch. i., wbere
Egan discusses them ; and Diet Nat'l Biog. For Thackeray
on, see essay on George Cruikshank, West. Rev,, June, 1840,
and Tunbridge Toys and De Juventute in Roundabout Papers.
For word Pickwick^ see the Finish, ch. iL
180. Charles Dickena and the Humanitarian Novel
On state of English society in first half of nineteenth cen-
tury, see John Howard^s State of the Prisons in Eng, and
Wales, 4th ed., Lond., 1792 ; Sir James Mackintosh, * On State
of Criminal Law,' Miscellaneous Works, Lond., 1846, vol. iiL ;
Social England, ed. by H. D. Traill, Lond., and N. Y., vol. v.,
1896, vol. vi., 1897; Popular History of England, by Charles
Knight, Lond., 1856-62, vol. viii.; and Thos. Carlyle on
< Model Prisons' in Latter Day Pamphlets, Carlyle is cor-
roborated by Thackeray in Pendennis, vol. i., ch. xxix.
On the historical connection between the humanitarian
novel and the revolutionary school of Godwin, see preface
to first ed. of Paid Clifford and The Life, etc. of Edward
Bulwer, Lord Lytton, by his son, the Earl of Lytton, Lond.,
1883, bk. vii., ch. xiii. The theme of Paul Clifford was
suggested by Grodwin.
The Novels of Charles Dickens, with introduction by
Charles Dickens the yoimger, Lond. and N. T., 1892-96 ; or
the Gadshill edition, ed. A. Lang, Lond. and N. Y., 1896-99.
Standard Life of Dickens by John Forster, Lond., 1872-74.
The literature on Dickens is immense. See particularly
Charles Dickens, by W. Bagehot, Nafl Review, Oct. 1858,
republished in Literary Studies, vol. ii. ; and Charles Dickens,
a critical study, by G. Gissing, Lond. and N. Y., 1898.
For novels of C. Eingsley, see p. 310. Works of E. Gas-
kell, Lond. and N. Y., 1897, 8 vols. The Writings of H. B.
Stowe, Boston, 1896, 16 vols. For unprecedented popularity
of * Uncle Tom's Cabin,' see Life of H, B. Stowe, by C. E.
Stove, Boston, 1889.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 813
197. 'William Makepeace Thackeray
Works of W. M. Thackeray, with biographical introdno-
tions, A. T. Ritchie, Lond. and N. Y., 189^-99. Thackeray^
by Anthony TroUope, in Eng. Men of Letters series, 1879.
211. George Borrow
Works, new ed., Lond. and N. T., 1888.
212. Charles Reade
The Library ed., Lond. and N. T., 1896.
215. Anthony Trollope
The Chronicles of Barsetshire, Lond. and N. Y., 1892, 18
vols. An Autobiography^ by Anthony Trollope, Lond. and
N. Y., 1883.
224. Charlotte Brontfi
The Works of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte, illus.
by H. S. Greig, Lond. and N. Y., 1893, 12 vols. Contempo-
rary criticism: * Recent Novels' (G. H. Lewes), Fraser^s
Mag,, Dec, 1847; *Jane Eyre' (Lady Eastlake), Quarterly
Rev,, Dec. 1848; and * Novels of the Season' (E. P. Whipple),
North Amer. Rev,, Oct. 1848. The Life of Charlotte Bronte,
by Elizabeth Gaskell, Lond., 1857, often reprinted ; Charlotte
Bronte and her Circle, C. K. Shorter, Lond. and N. Y., 1896.
234. Elisabeth GkiBkell
For Works of E. Gaskell, see p. 312.
237. George Eliot (Marian Evans)
Cabinet ed. of Works, Edin., Lond., and N. Y., 1896. Life
of George Eliot, by J. W. Cross, Lond. and N. Y., 1885.
* George Eliot as Author,' and * George Eliot's Life and Let-
ters,' by R. H. Hutton, in Essays on Some of the Modern
Guides of English Thought in Matters of Faith, Lond. and
N. Y., 1887. Studies in Literature, by E. Dowden, Lond.,
314 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL
1883. Le Naturalisme Anglais (1881), by Ferdinand Bnme>
ti^re, in Le Roman Naturaliste^ revised ed., Paris, 1892.
252. Oeorge Meredith
Novels, revised by the author, Lond. and N. Y., 1898.
'On the Idea of Comedy and of the Uses of the Comic
Spirit ' {New Quarterly Magazine, April, 1877), republished,
Lond. and N. Y., 1897.
♦
INDEX
AbhesSy The,d(»
Abbot, 7%6, 134
AbdttcHon, The, 137
Absentee, The, 9&-97, 169, 172, 297
Adam Bede, 238, 240, 241, 244,
246, 249, 252, 274, 298
Addison, Joseph, 24-26, 31, 49, 60,
62, 54, 68, 100, 147, 166, 179, 203,
206,206
Adeline Mowbray, 90
Adventurers, The, 137
^schylus, 143, 261
iBsopian fables, 6
Agg, John, 308
Ahnen, Die, 138
Aimard, Gnstave, 166, 310
Ainsworth, W. H., 141-143, 147,
190, 198, 280, 309
Akenside, Mark, 66
Alan Fitzosbome, 307
Aleman, Mateo, 63
Alembert, Jean d', 41
Alexander : romances of, 1
Alicia de Lacy, 308
Almeria, 96
Alton Locke, 194, 219
Amadis de Oatda, 7, 11, 16, 07,
301,303
Amazing Marriage, The, 2BQ,
263
Amelia, 64-OT, 63, 72, 77, 272
Amos Barton, 237, 238, 244
Anatomy of Melancholy, 09, 70
Ancestors, The, 138
Ancient Mariner, The, 103
Anna 8t, Ives, 88-89
Annals of the Parish, The, 169-
170
Anne of Brittany, 308
Anselmo, 136
Antiquarian Romance, An, 308
Antiquary, The, 127, 131
Antony arid Cleopatra, 133
Appleton, Elizabeth, 308
Apoleius, Lncius, 302
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 261
Arabian Nights, 103, 186
Arblay, Mme. d', 121. See Bar-
ney, Frances
Arblay, Mme, d*. Diary and Let'
ters of, 307
Arblay, Mme. d', Macanlay's es-
say, 309
Arbnthnot, John, 70
Arcadia (Sannazaro's), 8
Arcadia (Sidney's), 11, 13, 14, 19,
26, 113, 302
Aretina, 19
Argenis, 14-16, 303, 307
Arlosto, 10
Aristophanes, 10, 43
Aristotle, 31,44 and n., 46,273,286
Arnold, Matthew, 269
Art of Fiction, The, 266 n., 967 «.*
301
Arto/Love^ 3
Arthur Arundel, 140
Arthur Mervyn, 107
Arthnrian romaaoea, 1-3, 10^ S9^
293
AshtOB, John, 301, 303
816
INDEX
AMommoir, L\ 272
AitonUhment / SOB
Aitr^e, L', 903
Atylum, The ; or Alonzo and Mb-
lina, 151, a06
Atom, The History and Adven-
tures of an, 66
Aucasnn et Nioolette, 4
Anerbach, Berthold, 80
Austen, Jane, 82, 114-124, 125,
126, 155, 162, 171, 215, 224, 225,
231. 232, 255, 296, 309
AuBten, Jane, Life of, 309
Avsten, Jane, Memoir of, 309
Autobiography, An (Trollope),
313
Awdeley, John, 63, 302
Ayrshire Legatees, The, 169
B
Bacon, FranciB, 61, 119, 165
Bage, Robert, 88, 90, 91, 92, 306
Bagehot, Walter, 52, 184, 309, 312
Ballad of Dead Ladies, A, 287
Banim, John, 172, 311
Banim, Michael, 172, 311
Barbaold, Mrs. A. L., 304
Barbour, John, 113
Barchester Towers, 218, 221, 298
Barclay, John, 14-15, 19, 21, 110,
136,303
Barham Downs, 90
Barrett, £. S., 171
Barrie, J. M., 171, 290
Barry Lyndon, 198
Beauchamp*s Career, 262
Beckford, Wm., 103, 161, 172,
307
Beers, H. A., 307
Behn, Mrs. Aphra, 20, 46, 92,
303
Belinda, 96, 172
Belknap, Jeremy, 151, 308
Bellamy, Edward, 281
Bentivolio and Urania, 19
Berger extravagant, Le, 17
Betrothed, The, 138
Bivouac, The, 150, 310
Bjomson, B., 80
Black, Wm., 282
Blackmore, B. D., 282
Blanche the Duchess, 129, 300
Boccaccio, 300
Boilean-Despr^anx, N., 17
Bolingbroke, Henry St. John,
Viscount, 147
Book of Snobs, The, 198-199, 205
Border Chi^ains, The, 308
Borrow, Geo., 174 n., 211-212,
215, 283, 313
Boswell, James, 73, 305
Boyle, Roger, 19
Bradshaw, Mrs. M. A. C, 308
Brambletye House, 140
Bray, Anna E., 139-140, 309
Bride of Lamm^rmoor, The, 126,
129
Bronte, Anne, 228, 313
Bronte, Charlotte, 205, 224-233,
234, 237, 255, 298, 313
Bronte, Charlotte, and her
Circle, 313
Bronte, Charlotte, Life of, 313
Bronte, Emily, 16&-167, 228, 232,
313
Brooke, Henry, 85, 306
Brown, G. B., 107, 109, 152, 159,
161,307
Brown, Thomas, 18, 23, 65
Browne, Sir Thomas, 286
Browning, Robert, 253
Bruce, The, 113
Bruneti^re, Ferdinand, 61, 235
n., 303, 305, 314
Brushwood Boy, The, 298
Brydges, Sir S. E., 308
Buccaneer Chief, The, 311
Bulwer, Edward, Lord Lytton,
10, 109, 143-145, 160-161, 172-
174, 182, 186, 198, 200, 208, 209-
210, 213, 215, 239, 281, 298, 299,
309, 310, 311
Bulwer, Edward, Lord Lytton
Life qf, 312
INDEX
317
Bunyan, John, 21, 22, 30, 297,
303
Burk«, Edmund, 290
Burlesques (Thaokeray) , 205
Barney, Frances, 86, 94-95, 172,
306, 307. See also Arblay,
Mme. d'
Bnrton, Robert, 69-70
Byron, Lord, 109, 158
Caleb Williams, 91, 92, 107, 306
CalprenMe. See La CalprenMe
Candide, 189
Canons of Criticism, 40
Canterbury Tales, The (Chau-
cer's), 6, 25
Canterbury Tales, The (Harriet
and Sophia Lee's), 308
Garleton, Wm., 172, 311
Garlyle, Thomas, 61 n., 174, 194,
197, 213, 219, 235, 253, 309, 312
Casaubon, Isaac, 304
Cassandre, 110
Castle of Otranto, The, 101-103,
SOT
Castle Rackrent, 97-96, 297
Castles of AtMin and Dunbayne,
The, 10^
Cathedral Stories, The, 218-223
Cavendish, William, Life of, 303
Gaxton, Wm., 6
Caxtons, The, 209-210
CeeUia, 94-95, 172, 906
Celestina, La, 302
Cervantes, 9, 10, 43, 44, 52, 53,
63, 70, 258, 259, 301
Champion of Virtue, The, 102-
103
Cbapelain, Andr€ le, 301
Chapter on Dreams, A, 286-287
Charlemagne : romances of, 1, 4
Charles O'MaUey, 150
Charles Vernon, 196
Chateaubriand, F. A. de, 106
Chanoer, 4, 6, 10, 25, 43, 112, 222,
292,300.301
Cherubina, The Adventures of,
171
Chettle, Henry, 12, 28, 302
Christie Johnstone, 213
Chronicles of Barsetahire, The,
218-223, 313
Chronique du riffne de Charles
IX., La, 138
Gibber, CoUey, 304
Cinq-Mars, 138
Citizen of the World, The, 172,
306
Clarissa Harlowe, 31-32, 33, 57,
62, 63, 94, 274, 297, 304
Cime, 17, 303
CUopdtre, 110
Cloister and the Hearth, The, 88,
213, 214, 280
Coleridge, S. T., 133, 238, 279, 309
Collier, Jeremy, 36
ColUns, Wilkie, 223, 281
Collins, Wm., 100
Colloquies on Society, 159 n.
Colonel Jack, 29
Comedy, an essay by Geo. Ifere-
dith, 254, 314
Coming Race, The, 6, 281
Comte, Auguste, 236, 243, 249,
251,261
Gondorcet, M. J. A., 84
Confessio Amantis, 301
Confessions (Rousseau's), 257
Congreve, Wm., 46, 58
Coningsby, 174-175
Conscious Lovers, The, 37, 58
Cooper, J. F., 84, 109, 137, 150-
156, 280, 296, 309, 310
Cooper, James Fenimore, 310
Copland, Wm., 7
Count Fathom, 45, 63, 65, 69, 100
Country Jilt, Hie, 204 n.
Courtenay of Walreddon, 140
Gourthope, W. J., 800
Gowper, Wm., 122
Crabbe, Geo., 122
Cranford, 234-235, 264
Crockett, S. R., 289
818
INDEX
Gross, J. W., ^8
Crotchet Ccutle, 171
Crowne, John, 19
Graikshank, Geo., 141, 176, 312
Cruise of the Midge, The, 156
Gullen, Stephen, 308
Gomberland, Richard, 82-83, 307
Cyropmdia, 32
Dania Der<mda, 238, 243, 244, 266
Dante, 159, 248, 251, 269
Darwin, Gharles, 249, 263
Daudety Alphonse, 264
David Balfour, 282
Damd Copperfield, 189, 191, 210,
286 n., 298
David Simple, 77, 305, 306
Day, Thomas, 86, 87, 306
Day*s Work, The, 298
De Amore, 301
Dean*s Daughter, The, 311
Decameron, The, 300
De Coverley Papers, The, 304
Deerslayer, The, 152, 154
Defoe, Daniel, 20, 27-30, 63, 66,
100, 101, 135, 147, 151, 161, 166,
182, 204, 211, 283, 285, 297, 304
Deloney, Thomas, 12
De Qiiincey, Thomas, 166
DeserUd Village, The, 80
Desmond, 90, 306
Despotism, 308
Destiny, 168-169
Deutsche Naiionallitteratur des
10 Jahrhunderts, Die, 310
Devereux, 143
Diana, 8, 11, 301
Diana of the Crossways, 252,
254,255
Dichtung und Wdhrheit, 80, 306
Dickens, Charles, 10, 40, 67, 109,
168, 175, 176, 177-193, 196, 198,
200, 209, 210, 215, 216, 217, 219,
239, 272, 298, 312
Dickens, Charles (Walter Bage-
hot),312
Dickens, Charles (Geo. Glsslng),
312
Dictionary of National Biogrot'
phy, 75 n., 300, 306, 312
Diderot, Denis, 41, 305
Disraeli, Benjamin, 172-173, 174-
176, 193, 198, 218, 311
D'Israeli, Isaac, 308
Divine Comedy, The, 269
Dohson, Austin, 304, 305, 306
Doeteur Pascal, 270
Dr. Heidegger's Experiment, 164
Dr, Jehyll and Mr. Hyde, 283^
286,287
Dr. Thome, 218
Don Quixote, 9, 25, 63, 299, 301
Don Sebastian, 308
Donne, John, 56
Dowden, Edward, 313
Doyen de Killerine, Le, 110
Doyle, A. Conan, 289
Drayton, Michael, 160
Dryden, John, 41, 61
Duchess qf York, The, 308
Duke of Clarence, The, 308
Dumas, the Elder, Alexandre,
138, 147-148, 283, 288, 289
Dun, The, 96
Donlop, J. C., 300, 303
D'Urfey, Thomas, 81
Dynamiter, The, 288
Earl St'.'onghow, 112, 306
Earle, John, 304
Early English Text Society:
publications of, 301
Eastlake, Lady (Elizabeth
Rigby), 313
Ebers, Georg, 138
Eclogues, VergU, 8
Edgar, 308
Edgar Huntley, 107
Edgeworth, Maria, 86, 87, 96-96,
129, 169, 172, 213, 234, 267, 290,
297,306
Edwy and Elgiva, 308
Egan, Fierce, 176-177, 178, 179,
207, 209, 312
SgoUt, The, 202, 2M, 266, ZB8
Eliot, George, 42, 62, 106, 233, 234,
23a and n,, 237-252, 2It3, 2Se,
26T, 2D8, 263, 266, 268, 269, 272,
274, 279, 280, 287, 298, Sl^^li
Eliot, Oeorge, oi Avthor, 313
.Eliot, George, Life ami Leltert
qf,313
£Iio(, George, Life of, 313
Ellis, Geo., 301
&ioge de Bidiardion, 305
Eloita and Abelard, Letten of,
304
EltU Tenner, 281
tmiU, 8B, 86
Emilia in England, 2S2
Emilie de Coutangee, 96
Emma, lis, 120, 123, 224
Endicott and 1\e Bed Cms*, 102
EngKth Novel in the Time of
Shdkttpeare, The, 302
Englith Poetry , A Hutory of, 300
English Bogue, The, 19-20, 24
Engliehman, The, 28 n.
Ennni, 96-97, 213
Entail, 'Pie, 170
^le and Biymanee, 2 n.
Spoquee du Tktdtre fran^aii,
Let.aos
Attidee etir L'Eepagne, 301
Eugene Aram, 186, 213
Evphuet, 12-13, 14, S4, 303
Euripides, 41
Xuttaee FUz-Biehard, 137
Evan Hotrington, 2S2
Erana, Marian. See Eliot, George
Erelrn, John, 22
J'nbHau, Hie mBdlmval, S ; the
line of descent Irom, 27l Field-
ing's relation to, G7
Fabliaua or Tatet, 301
Fatry <^ueen, 14, 113
FtUl nf the HovM qf VOoT, TTtt,
162-163
Faihionahle TaUe, 96
Fatal Vow, The, 308
^eHz Holt, 23S, 243, 249
Centals Quixote, 7^, 307
Ferdinand and OrdeUa, 300
Ferrlar, John, 69, 306
Ferrler, Susan, 166-109, 311
Fielding, Henry, 9, 10, 26, 42-67,
68, 80, 63, 64, 66, 67, 72, 73, 76,
77, 78, 80, 82, 92, 93, 99, 106,
119, 122, 130, 136, 182, 188, 197,
198, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 209,
226, 241, 268, 269, 271, 272, 279,
306
Fitz of Fitiford, 140
Fitzgerald, Percy, 306
Five Teari of Youth, 171
Flamenca, Le roman ds, 300
Fleetwood, 90, 182
FlorUx ajid Blanch^flour, 4
Fool of Quality, The, 85-aC
306
Fordyce, Jsuea, 86
Foretler, TTke, 308
ForeUert, The, 161, 308
Forster, John, 312
.Fortune d*» Bougon, La, 270
.Farfunej of Sigel, Hm, 132, 131,
136n., 243
Framley Farsonagf, 318
Fraadon, 18
Frank,«I
Frankenettin. 108, 142, 3»7
FrataSsitclten R'lnaiis iin xvIL
Jahrhanderl. Gescliichle del,
303
Fraternity of Fagabondi, The,
Freytag, Gostav, 1
Frolsaart, Jean, 113, 146
FoUer, Aime, 'A
Foiatlire, Antolne, 18 ,
320
INDEX
O
Galland, Antoine, 103
Oa]t, John, 137, 155, 168, 169-170,
171, 311
Garland, Hamlin, 310
Garrick, David, 65
Gaskell, Mrs. Elizabeth, 194-195,
234-237, 238, 244, 299, 312, 313
Gates, L. E., 211 n.
Gawainand the Green Knight, 4
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 2
George a Green, 227
Gervase Skinner, 175
Gesta Bomar^orum, 301
GU Bias, 44, 299
Gilbert Gumey, 176
Gissing, Geo., 312
Gleig, G. B., 149
Godwin, Mary W. See Woll-
stonecraft
Godwin, Wm., 84, 88, 89, 90, 91,
92-93, 107, 109, 161, 163, 182,
306, 308, 312
Goethe, 40, 61, 76 n., 80, 81, 159
306 ,
Gdtter Cfriechenlands, Die, 145
Golden Aas, The, 302
Goldoni, Carlo, 42
Goldsmith, Oliver, 10, 78-81, 172,
182, 297, 306
Gomberville, Marin le Boy de,
16,16
Gondez the Monk, 308
Good, Mrs. V. B., 308
Gore, Mrs. Catherine, 174, 311
Gosse, Edmund, 303
Gossip on Romance, A, 301, 309
Gottschall, B. von, 309, 310
Gower, John, 5-6, 10, 301
Grace Abounding, 22, 303
Grand Cyrus, Le, 15-16
Grant, James, 149, 150, 280, 810
Gray, Thomas, 100
Gray Champion, The, 162
Cheek Romances, 300
Green, Robert, 12, 13, 18, 302
Griechische Roman, Der, 800
Griffith, Bichard, 83
Griffith Gaunt, 213
GroaVs Worth qf Wit, 12, 14
Grosart, A. B., 302
Guinea, The Adventures of a, 66
Gulliver's Travels, 30, 304
Guy of Warwick, 4
Guzman de Alfarache, 901
H
Haring, Wm., 137
Haggard, H. Rider, 282, 290
Hajji Baba, 172, 311
Hall, Joseph, 69
Hamilton, Anthony, 103
Hamlet, 37, 62, 108, 123
Handy Andy, 172, 311
Hard Cash, 213
Hard Times, 191, 272
Hardy, Thomas, 272-280, 283, 293,
298
Harold, 143 ^
Harry Lorrequer, 150
Harry Richmond, 252
Harte, F. Bret, 155, 186, 310
Hartland Forest, 140
Haunted and the Haunters, The,
281
Haunted Priory, The, 308
Hawkins, Anthony Hope, 289
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 27, 60,
109, 152, 162, 16^166, 268, 298,
311
Haywood, Mrs. Eliza, 20-21, 66,
110, 303-304
Hazlitt, Wm., 92, 306
Head, Bichard, 19-20, 28
Hedge School, The, 172
Helbeck of Bannisddle, 269
Helme, Elizabeth, 308
Henly, Samuel, 103
Hefiry, 82, 307
Henry de Pomjeroy, 140
Henry Esmond, 146-148, 167, 199,
205,206,224
Hermsprong, 91, 92
Biro* 6t romoft, Le*. IT
BxtbAra ds M. CUvetand, L', 110
SUtoric TattM, 308
Hitlory of the British King*
(Wtlorta Segum Brilannite),
2,301
Hobbes, Thomas, 61, SI
Hoffmana, Ernst, 160, 161, 162
Hotbacb, P. B., Baron d', 84, 88
Holcroft, Tboniaa, 8S-89, 90
HoliDBhed, Raphael, 112, 132
HoUoK of Thret HilU, The, 16*
Holmes, O. W., 281
Homer, 26, 41, 44
Hook, Theodore, 1T5-1T6, 1T9,
207,311
Hooker, lUcbard, 84
Horace, 2T3
Hoaghtoa, Mary, 308
Houn fn a Library, 146 n.
Houte of Fame, The, 112
Houte ^f cAe Seven Gables, The,
27,166
EovBid, John, 181, 312
HowellB, W. D., 48, 266, 299
Hogo, Victor, 138, 143, 14T
HumbU Semomlrance, A, 301,
300
Humphry Clinker, 63, 66, 6T-68,
76, 82, 99, 169
Hont, Leigh, 158, 163, 311
Hold, Klchard, 109
SuabaTid and the Lover, The,
IdvUioftheKing,2
Iliad, 14
Inchbald, Elizabeth, 87, S8
30S
Indian Scout, The, 311
Ir\ftmo, Dante'g, 1S9
Iti^o, Nathaaiel, 19
i'nAerilance, The, 168-169
belaud, S. W. H., SOS
iTTlng, WnshlnstoD, 109, ISl,
160, 163, 166, 267, 311
Italian, The. 101, 105-106, 30T
Ivanhoe, 134. 146, 198. 217, 224
Jack Brag, 176
Jack Sheppard, 143
Jack Wilton, 12
James, G. P. R., 141, 198, 309
James, Henry, 48, 97, 263^267,
26S, 299, 301, 30S
Jane Eyre, 43, 109, 327, 338-231,
232, 233, 298, 313
Ja'iet'i Repentance, 238
Jeffrey, Francia, 126, 139
John of Oaunl, The Adventure*
of.U
Johnson, Samuel, BastoeU's Life
qf.aoi
Johnstone, Charles, 66
Jonathan Wild. 4fi, 04, 198
Jonson, Ben, 24
Joii^h Andrews, 18, 43-4S, 47,
SI, 56, 305
Journal of the Plague Tear, 2&-
KojStenbueh, Das, 310
Kempis, Thomas &, 251
KenUviorth, 133, 134, 298
K8r,W. P.,2n.
312
Kingsley, Charles, Letters, and
Memories of his Life, 310
Kipling, Bodyard, 290-292, aSB,
291,298
Klrfcmau, Francis, 1
S22
INDEX
Knight, Charles, 312
Knights, The, 308
Korting, H., 303
Koran, The, 83
La GalprenMe, Chtutier de Gostes
de, 15, 16, 110, 138
Lad and Lcus, 80
Lady of the Lake (a prose ro-
mance), 306
Lady of the Lake (Scott's) , 126
La Fayette, Ifme. de, 15, 17
Lander, W. 8., 186
Last Chronicle qf Barset, The,
218,222
Last Days qf Pompeii, 143, 144
Last of the Barons, The, 143,
145,299
Last of the Incas, 155, 311
Last qf the Lairds, The, 137
Laet of the Mohicans, The, 162,
154
Lathom, Francis, 306
Loiter Day Pamphlets, 312
Lavengro, 211
Lawrie Todd, 155
LazarUlo de Tormes, 9, 12, 301,
302
Leather-Stocking Tales, The, 152
Le Breton, Andr^, 303
Lee, Harriet, 308
Lee, Sophia, 111, 161, 307, 308
Legend of Sleepy BoUow, The,
151
LeOrys, Sir Robert, 303
Leibnitz, 81, 188, 189, 199
Leigh, J. E. Ansten-, 309
Leland, Thomas, 101, 307
Lennox, Charlotte, 307
Leopardi, 277
Lesage, 43, 44, 62, 63
Leasing, 70
Lettre h d*Alemhert sur les speo"
tades, 305
Lever, Charles, 149, 150, 172, 196,
199, 310
Lewes, George Henry, 224, 231,
232,313
Lewis, M. G., 106-107, 159, 307
Ligeia, 162
lillo, Geo., 304
Lindamira, a Lady of Quality,
Letters cf^ 23
Lionel Uncoln, 136, 152
Literary Studies, 309
Littirature frawjaiM, Manuel de
la, SOS
Lochandhu, 137
Locke, John, 61, 84
Lockhart, J. G., 144, 309
Lodge, Thomas, 13, 80, 297, 303
London in the Olden Times,
136-137
Longs/word, Earl of Salisbury,
101, 103, 110, 111, 307
Looking Backward, 6, 281
Lopez de Ubeda, 204
Lord OrmorU and his Aminta,
252
Loma Doone, 282, 283
Lounsbury, T. B., 310
Lover, Samuel, 172, 311
Lovers of Provence, The, 4 n.
Loyalists, The, 306
Lncian, 10, 43
Lyly, John, 12-13, 18, 24, 3^
303
Ijyrioal Ballads, The, 238
Lyttelton, Geo., first Baron, 65
Lytton, Bolwer-. See Bnlwer
M
Macanlay, T. B., 73, 217, 224, 29(^
309
Macbeth, 108, 274
Macken^e, Geo., 19
Mackenzie, Henry, 83, 182
Mackintosh, James, 312
MacNeil, Hector, 308
Madame de Fleury, 96
Maigron, Louis, 309
Malory, Sir Thomas, 2, 297, 301
Man of Feeling, The, 83
1
Utuile7. Wn. Huy, 20, 65, 110,
303
ManleVi Mars, Lttten writtea
by, 303
Mtmaaairing , 9S
Manafitld Park, lis, 120, 123
Mamie Waueh, 171, 311
Manzonl, Alessandra, 138
Marble Faun, The, 16S
MareeOa, 2eg
Mart ail Diable, La, 80
Marffitt* (Homer), 4«
Marianne, SB, 67
HaTlyaiuc,,FierrB Gailat de,
Marbhelm, 287
Marriage, 168-189
Uarryftt, Fnderiok, IS6-1ST, IQB,
310
UaiBltCaldireU, Ura. Amne, 228
Martin Chuizle\Bil, 189, 190
Martlneau, Hatrlet, 171
Martitiui Seriblervt, Memoirt
of, TO-Tl
Mar\ Barton, J9t
Matqtit qf the Bed Death, The,
162
Mailer qf Ballantrae, The, 282,
HazweU, W. H., 14»-IG0, 310
Metvwth the Wandmvr, 169, 311
Memoirt tif a Cavalier, 29, 101,
ISl
Memoirt qf a Certain Itland Ad-
jacent to Utopia, 20-21
MerMrUe and PoHraitt, 301, SOS,
309
Hetiander, 262
Menaphon, 13
Meredlcb, QeD.,234, 202-262,263,
298,314
H^rlm^, PrOBper, 133
Meyer, Paul, 300, 303
MieroeotrMgrofihy, 30^
MidcOemareh, 238, 243, 2«, M»<
248,269,272
Midehipman Eaty, 100
Miie-amToer Eve, 30S
ma, John Stout, 261
MiU on the Flou. !%«, 2T, 230,
238,210,212
Milton, 2T9
Mimtrel, The, 308
Mr. Gilfii'e Love-Story, 338
Mitchell, Isaac, Ul, 308
Mitchell, S. Weir, 390
Mltford, Mary, 171, 311
Modem Guidet of EnglUh
Thought in Mattert of Faith,
313
08, af
Moll Flander; 2B,Wi
Monk, The, ICTT, 307
Hontalva, Ordonei de, 7, 12, 301
MoDtemayor, George ot, 8, 11, 301
Moniford Cattle, 308
Moonttone, The, 281
Moorland Cottage, The, 23fi, 338
More, Hannah, 267
More, Sir Thomas, 6, 1S9, 303
Horel-Fatlo, A., 301
Morier, James, 172, 311
Horley, Henry, 302
Morris, Wm., 282
Mortt Varthur. L.', 21)7, 301
Mosse, Heorlutla, 3ilS
Mttch Ado ab'int Suthing, 120
Monday, Anttioiiy, liOl
Morray, HugJj, 'M&
My Nouel, 2U!i-'2iO
Myilerlei of Cdolpho, The, lOt-
106, 116, 307
Myaterioiu Frtcbauter, The,
N
Nash, Thoinas, i-', 302
lfalureandAn.m,30a
nature'* Pictures draua
Fancf'e Feitdl, 303^^^
324
INDEX
N9A Clinton, 137, 149
JVaotr too LaU to Mend, 213
New Atlantis, The, 20
New Landlord's Tales, 136
Newcastle, Margaret Duchess of,
22,23,303
Newcomes, The, 199, 206, 206,
207
Newman, J. H., 146, 211 and n.
Nicholas Nickleby, 183
Night Thoughts, 40
Nightmare Abbey, 171
Noctes Ambrosianas, 171
North and South, 194
Northanger Abbey, 115-116, 117,
171
Northumbrian Tale, A, 308
Notre-Dame de Paris, 138, 142
NouvelU H4lolse, La, 85, 306
Novel, The: historical and de-
scriptive definition of, ziii~zv ;
the novel of incident and the
novel of character, 26-27; re-
lation to the drama, 57-63
Novel previous to the xviith Cen-
tury, A History of the, 300
(Sdipus, the King, 37, 44
Old Curiosity Shop, The, 183,
185-186, 189
Old English Baron, The, 102-103,
307
Old Manor House, The, 91
Old Mortality, 128, 134
Old Saint Pauls, 143
Oliver Cromwell, 140
Oliver Twist, 182-183, 184, 188-
189, 190
On State of Criminal Law, 312
One of our Conquerors, 262
Opie. Amelia, 88, 90, 306
Ordeal of Richard Feverel, The,
252,298
Origin of Species, The, 249
Ormond, 172
Oroonoko, 20, 46, 84
Orphan, The, 58
Otway, Thomas, 58, 304
Our VUlage, 171, SU
Overbory, Thomas, 24
Ovid, 3
Owenson, Miss Sydney (Lady
Morgan), 172
Paine, Thomas, 88
Pair of Blue Eyes, A, 273-274
Palace of Pleasure (Painter),
300
Palmer, Bfiss A. T., 308
Pamela, 22, 31, 32, 33 and n., 35,
36, 37, 38, 42, 43, 44, 46, 50, 75,
76, 77, 79, 94, 304
Pandion and Amphigema, 19
Porthenissa, 19
Partial Portraits, 266 n., 301
Pathfinder, The, 162, 154, 298
Paul Clifford, 182, 188-189, 198,
312
Pausanias, 143
Peacock, T. L., 171, 311
Peep at Our Ancestors, A, 308
Peep at the Pilgrims, A, 137
Peg Woffington, 213
Pelham, 173-174, 298
Pen and Ink, 268 n.
Pendennis, 175, 199, 204, 312
Pepys, Samuel, 22
Peregrine Pickle, 63, 66, 66-€7
Persuasion, 115, 120, 122
Peter Simple, 156
Phelps, W. L., 307
Philip, The Adventures qf, 199,
207
Philosophy of the Short-^ory,
The, 268 n.
Phoenix, The, 307
Picara Justina, La, 204
Picaresque Novel, The, 9-10, 11,
12, 17-18, 19-20, 28, 44, 57, 63,
66, 77, 99, 182-183, 189, 203, 212,
301,302
Pickwick Papers, 60, 17S-18Qk
18B, les, 186, 1S9, 190, IBB, 280,
311, 8ia
Pier* Plain, 13, 302
FilgHmt of the Shine, 160
FUgrin't Frogreu, 21, 29, 297,
303
FUot, Th», 1B6
Fioneeri, The, 1G3, 1S3, lU
Pirate, The, 1B6
Plutarch, 113
Foe, E. A., 109, lei-ieS, IM, 16S,
ISe, 26S, 281, 283, 299, 311
Foetic*, Aristotle's, H n.
Folexandre, 16
Political Juttitx, 89, 806
Poor Scholar, The, 172
Pope, Alezander, 11, 70, 99, 100,
3«
Fopvlar Hiitory of England,
Portuguese Lettert, The, 23,
301
Postl, Eftcl, 310
Power of Love, in Seven Swell,
The,X
Fowiiall, Thomsa, 308
Prairie, The, 163, IM
Prairie Ftoaer, The, 311
Prteie-ueet ridicvlee. Lea, 17
Pr€vost, AbM, 33 n., 41, 110
PriOe and Prtjudice, 81, IIS, 119-
130, 224, 232, 298
Prince Otto, 282, 287, 288
Pritteeu of Thula, A, 282
i>rinc«we de Clivet, La, 17,
FriKmer qf Zenda, The, 27
Pr<ifei3or, TAs, 227
Prometrt Spoil, 1, 138
Frometheue Unbound, 93
Froie Fiction, iKMory qf,
303
Froteitant, The, 139
Froooil, The, 170
PyoMD, Biduud, 6
BsbeUis, Fran^iB, 43, 69, 70
Bacine, Jean, 6S
Radcllfle, Ann, lM-106, lOT, lOS,
109, 126, 1S8, IBS, 163, 225, 307
lUlelgh, ProfesBor Walter, xvl
TUleigh, Sir Walter, ISB
Bambler, The, 77
JIOTTieiM, 136
Baaielai, Prince qf AVj/uinia,
77-78, 306
Beade. Charles, 88, 212-3W, 216,
280,313
Rebecca and Roteena, 198
Receti, The, 111, 151, 307
Reeve, Claia, ziT-zr, lOS-lCS,
113, 307, 308
il^fttffee. The, 187
Beld, Mayne, 310
Sheeted Addreuei, 140
Sepeniixnoe,'i2
Belvm of the Native, TAt, 274,
298
Reuben Apiley, 140
Revenge, The, 108
Revolt of Iitam, 03
Ret/nard the Fox, S, 9
RJtoda Fleming, 3H3
Richard Caur de Lion, The Ad-
venturtiof,lV2, ;»8
Klchardson, Samuel, 3, 8, 16, 31,
24, 21, 31-42, i3, 4ti, 4H, SO. 67,
B8, H9, 63, 64, a, 7o. 76, 7T, 78;,.
80, 81, 86, S3, <ir>, 09, 108, 111,
187, 188, 206, 2-J8, a3H, 266, 27'>
297, 301-805, 3(16, 3(17
Eichardxon, aatniiel. the Corr
pondence i^, 804, SOS
Richardion, Bouittau, u
Goethe, 306
Riidtelieu, 111
Riemi, U3
826
INDEX
Rights of dfafif Tht^ 88^
BiiM of Sir Thopas, 4, 800
Rip Van Winkle, 151
Biteon, Joseph, 801
Robert EUmere, 269
Robert the Devil, 4
Bobinson, Balph, 803
Robinson Crusoe, 22, 27-29, 297,
304
Robinson und Robinsonaden,
304
Roderick Random, 63, 65, 66, 69,
155, 156, 297, 305
Roger de Clarendon, 112, 308
Rohde, Erwin, 800
Rojas, Fernando de, 302
Roman au diz-'Septihne sUde,
Le,BO&
Roman bourgeois, Le, 18, 24
Roman comique, Le, 18
Romxm experimental, Le, 270 n.
Roman historique, Le, 309
Roman naturcUiste, Le, 235 n.,
314
Romance, The: historical and
descriptive definition of, xiii-
xy; its relation to the epic,
1-2, 25-26, 300
Romance qf the Forest, TTie, 104,
307
Romance of tJie Rose, 129
Romance of War, The, 160
Romancers, Ancient Engleish
Metrical, 301
Rom^inces, Early English Prose,
302
Romances, Early Prose, 302
Romances, English Metrical,
301
Romances in the Department of
MSS. in the British Museum,
Catalogue of, 301
Romances of Chivalry, 301, 302
Romances of t?ie West, The, 140
Romances, Specimens of Early
English Metrical, 301
Romania, 3 n., 300
Romantic Movement, Begin^
nings of the English, 307
Romanticism in the Eighteenth
Century, A History of English,
307
Romany Rye, 174 n., 211
Romola, 238, 242, 243, 244, 245-
246
Rookwood, 141-142
Rosalind, 13, 14, 80, 297
Rosamond, 87
Roseteague, 140
Rougon-Macquart, Les, 270
Rousseau, J. J., 41, 42, 75, 76, 84,
85, 86, 87, 88, 257, 270, 305, 306
Rousseau, JeanrJacques, et les
origines du cosfnopolitisme lit'
tiraire, 306
Rnskin, John, 279
Russell, W. C, 310
Ruth, 235-237, 238, 244
S
St, Clair of the Isles, 308
St. Irvyne, 107
St, Ives, 2S2, 288
St. Leon, 89-90, 92, 107, 306
St. Ronan's Well, 131, 171
Sainte-Beuve, G. A., 17
Saintsbory, «Geo., 127, 305, 306,
311
Salut d^amour dans les litt^ram
tures proven^a^e et frangaise,
Xe, 303
Sand, Qeo., 80
Sandford and Merton, 86, 306
Saiidra Belloni, 252, 261
Sannazaro, Jacopo, 8
Sayings and Doings, 176-176
Scarlet Letter, The, 164-165, 166,
298
Scarron, Paul, 18, 44
Scenes from Clerical Life, 238|
241
Scenes in Feudal Times, 308
Schiller, 146
Schmidt, Erich, 305
INDEX
827
Schopenhaaer, 277
Scott, Mary A., 302
Scott, Michael, 166, 310
Scott, Sir Walter, 10, 30, 60, 70,
84, 91, 101, 104, 109, 110, HI,
113, 114, 120, 126-136, 137, 138,
139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146,
147, 148, 166, 166, 168, 160, 168,
169, 171, 179, 182, 183, 187, 188.
190, 198, 201, 206, 209, 211, 224,
243, 280, 283, 288, 289, 290, 292,
293, 298, 299, 304, 307, 309
Soottf Sir Walter, Journal of, 309
Scott, Sir Walter, Life of, 309
Scottish Adventurers, The, 306
ScottUh Chiefs, The, 113, 308
Sender!, Madeleine de, 15-17, 19,
21, 36, 264, 303
Sealsfield, Charles. See Postl,
Karl
Secret History of Queen Zarah
and the Zarazians, The, 20
Secret Intrigues of the Court of
Caramania, 20-21
Self, 311
Senior, Henry, 196
Sense and Sensihility, 116, 116-
117
Sentimental Journey, A, 69, 75-
76,108
Sephora, 137
Sermons to Young Women, 86
Seventeenth Century Studies, 303
Shakespeare, 8, 13, 43, 48, 68, 60,
62, 108, 110, 119, 120, 126, 132,
133, 134, 143, 160, 164, 206, 221,
224, 226, 237, 261, 274, 279, 288,
309
Shakespeare Jest-Books, 302
Shaving of Shagpat, The, 262
Shelley, Mary, 108, 168, 307
Shelley, P. B., 93, 107-108, 168,
161,307
Sheridan, Frances, 78
Sheridan, R. B., 78
Sherlock Holmes, 281
Sherwood Forest, 306
Shirley, 227, 231-232, 233
Shorter, G. K., 313
Sicilian Romance, A, 104
Sidney, Sir PhUip, 11, 13, 18, 26
Silas Mamer, 238, 240, 249
Simms, W. G., 310
Simple Story, A, 87
Sir Charles Grandison, 16, 32, 33^
34, 36, 36, 37, 41, 228) 304
Sir Launceht Oreaves, The Ad»
ventures of, 63
Sketches by Boz, 191
SmaU House at Allington, The,
218
Smith, Charlotte, 88, 90, 91, 306
Smith, Goldwin, 309
Smith, Horace, 140, 309
Smollett, Tobias, 9, 10, 46, 63-69,
71, 72, 73, 76, 78, 84, 97, 99-101,
102, 112, 136, 144, 166. 166, 179,
191, 209, 240, 286, 297, 306
Sociable Letters, CCXI, 23, 303
Social Contract, The, 88
Social England, 312
Son of Ethelwuif, The, 308
Sophocles, 41, 143
Sorel, Charles, 17, 18, 63
Sonthey, Robert, 139, 159, 301
Spanish Fiction, History of, 301
l^ctator. The, 24-26, 147, 304
Spenser, Edmnnd, 14, 106, 109,
147, 165
Spirit of the Age, 27ie, 306
Spy, 27i6, 161-162
Stael, Mme. de, 172
StcUe of the Prisons in England
and Wales, 312
Steele. Richard, 24-26, 28 n., 37,
52, 68, 147, 206, 206, 304
Stephen, Leslie, 146, 304
Sterne, Laurence, 10, 69-76, 79-
80, 81, 83, 108, 130, 186, 205,
206, 209, 210, 212, 263, 258, 269,
293,297,306
Sterne, Illustrations of, 69, 306
Stevenson, R. L., 30, 282-289, 292,
298, 301, 305, 309
328
INDEX
Stories <^ WaUrho, 149, 310
Stowe, H. B., 105-196, 312
Stotoe, H. B., Life of, 312
Strutt, Joseph, 113-114, 308
Studies in Literature, 313
Studies of the Stage, 305
Subaltern, The, 149
Sackling, Sir John, 65
Sue, Eugene, 106
Suden und Norden, 310
Suiinde Club, The, 288
Swift, Jonathan, 30, 41, 43, 65, 70,
304
Swiss Emigrants, The, 306
SyhU, 193
Synndve Solbakken, 80
Systems de la nature, 88
Systhne de politiqu/s positive,
243-244
Taine, H. A., 249
Tale for a Chimney Comer, A,
163, 311
Tale of Two Cities, The, 188
Tales of a Traveller, 160, 311
Tasso, Torqoato, 10
Tennyson, Alfred, 2, 33 n.
Tess of the D*Urbervilles, 274-
279,280
Texte, Joseph, 306
Thackeray, W. M., 10, 139, 141,
146-148, 157, 159, 176, 196,
197-208, 209, 210, 211, 215, 216,
217, 225, 226, 230, 236, 239, 241,
254, 268, 269, 272, 290, 298, 312,
313
Thackeray, Life of, 313
Thaddeus qf Warsaw, 113, 308
Theagenes and Charidea, 26 n.,
302
Thomas Fitzgerald, 136
Thomas of Beading, 12
Thorns, W. J., 302
Thomson, James, 47
Thdroddsan, J<5n, 80
ThreeStudiesinLiterature,211n.
Ticknor, Geo., 301
Tieck, Ludwig, 160, 166
To the True Bomance, 291
Tom and Jerry, 176-177, 178, 312
Tom Burke of Ours, 160
Tom Cringle's Log, 166, 310
Tom Jones, 18, 45-M, 66, 66, 57,
62, 63, 64, 82, 92, 93, 204, 224,
297,306
Tor Httl, The, 140
Tower nf London, The, 143
Tragic Comedians, The, 262
Tragic Muse, The, 265, 267, 306
Traill, H. D., 312
TraiU and Stories of the Irish
Peasantry, 172, 311
Treasure Island, 283, 286, 298
Treasure of Franchard, The, 287
Trelawny of Trelawne, 140
Trevisa, John of, 226
Tristram Shandy, 69, 70-76, 297
Th^lus and Cressida, 6, 26, 301
Trojel, E., 301
TroUope, Anthony, 196, 215-224,
233, 236, 256, 296, 313
Troy : romances of, 1
Tnrg^ney, Ivan, 264
Twenty-ninth of May, The, 137
U
Unde Tom*s Cabin, 20, 196-196k
213,312
Underdown, Thomas, 26 n., 302
Urf^, Honors d', 303
Utopia, 6, 14, 84, 303
Vanhmgh, Sir John, 46
Vanity Fair, 199-204, 205, 207,
230,298
Vanity of Human Wishes, 78
Vathek, 103-104, 307
Vergil, 8, 26
Vicar of Wah^ld, ITie, 7^-81,
297,306
YigDj, Alfred de, 188
Villette, 227, 232-233
INDEX
329
Villon, Fraii9ois, 287
t^indication of the Rights of
Womauy a06
Virginians^ The, 146, 199, 205,
206,207
VUtoria, 252
Vivian, 96
Vivian Grey, 172-173
Voltaire, 42, 70, 103, 189
W
WaUadmor, 137
Walpole, Horace, 101-103, 163
Walton, Izaak, 2S
Warbeck, 307
Ward, H. L. D., 301
Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 268-270
Warden, The, 218
Warleigh, 140
Warren, F. M., 300
Watson, John, 171, 290
Watts, H. E., 301
Waverley, 82, 126-127, 129, 130,
158, 168, 179, 243, 298, 307, 309
Way, G. L., 301
Weber, H. W., 301
Wesley, John, 49
West, Jane, 308
Westward Ho! 157-158, 299
Weyman, Stanley J., 289
Whately, Richard, Archbishop,
309
Whipple, E. P., 313
White, James, 113, 308
Wieland, 107
Wildfell Hall, 228
Wilhelm Meisters Lehijahre,
61 n., 305
Will 0' the Mill, 288
William Douglas, 137
William qf Normandy, 307-308
Wilmot, R. H., 308
Windsor Castle, 143
Wister, Owen, 155, 310
WoUstonecraft, Mary, 84, 90, 306
Woman in White, The, 281
Woodstock, 129, 140
Worde, Wynkyn de, 6
Wordsworth, Wm., 223, 238, 242,
251, 269, 276
Wuthenng HeighU, 166-167, 228
Wyclif , John, 5
Xenophon, 32
Y
Teast, 194
Tong, Bartholomew, 301
Young, Edward, 40-41
Zanoni, 160-161
Zastrozzi, 107
Zola, ]^le, 18, 270-272
THREE STUDIES IN
LITERATURE.
LEWIS EDWARDS GATES,
Aitittant PraJtisBT ef Etiglitk in Harvard Univtrti^
doth. laino. 91.50.
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HATTHBW ARNOLD. BNQLISH LITERATURK
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These masterly Studies should be in the hands o(
all students of our literature in this century."
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