The moral design is an important element in Richardson"s novels, but the extraordinary popularity of these works was owing to other causes.
Richardson had known how to move his reader"s heart, and how to give to his characters a deep personal interest. He had attempted to introduce "a new species of writing," and public enthusiasm testified to his success. Colly Cibber read "Clarissa" before its publication, and was wrought up into a high state of excitement by the story. "What a piteous, d----d, disgraceful pickle you have placed her in!" he wrote to Richardson. "For G.o.d"s sake, send me the sequel, or--I don"t know what to say! * * * My girls are all on fire and fright to know what can possibly have become of her." And when he heard that Clarissa was to have a miserable end, he wrote the author: "G.o.d d----n him, if she should."[165] Mrs. Pilkington was not less distressed: "Spare her virgin purity, dear sir, spare it! Consider if this wounds both Mr.
Cibber and me (_who neither of us set up for immaculate chast.i.ty_), what must it do with those who possess that inestimable treasure?"[166]
Miss Fielding, the sister of the novelist of that name, thus described, in a letter to its author, her feelings on reading "Clarissa": "When I read of her, I am all sensation; my heart glows. I am overwhelmed; my only vent is tears." One Thomas Turner, who kept a village shop in Suss.e.x, thus recorded in his diary the impression produced upon him by the death of Clarissa: "Oh, may the Supreme Being give me grace to lead my life in such a manner as my exit may in some measure be like that divine creature"s."[167] Johnson was an enthusiastic admirer of Richardson. Dr. Young looked upon him as an "instrument of Providence."
Ladies at Ranelagh held up "Pamela," to show that they had the famous book.[168] Nor was this interest confined to the last century. "When I was in India," said Macaulay to Thackeray, "I pa.s.sed one hot season at the hills, and there were the governor-general, and the secretary of government, and the commander-in-chief, and their wives. I had "Clarissa"
with me, and as soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a pa.s.sion of excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her scoundrelly Lovelace. The governor"s wife seized the book, and the secretary waited for it, and the chief justice could not read it for tears!" Macaulay "acted the whole scene," adds Thackeray; "he paced up and down the Athenaeum library; I dare say he could have spoken pages of the book."[169] But admiration of Richardson was still greater among foreigners. The novels were translated into French, Dutch, and German, and the enthusiasm they excited may be imagined from the warmth of Diderot"s eulogy: "I yet remember with delight the first time ("Clarissa") came into my hands. I was in the country. How deliciously was I affected!
At every moment I saw my happiness abridged by a page. I then experienced the same sensations those feel who have long lived with one they love, and are on the point of separation. At the close of the work I seemed to remain deserted. * * * Oh, Richardson! thou singular genius in my eyes!
thou shalt form my reading at all times. If, forced by sharp necessity, my friend falls into indigence; if the mediocrity of my fortune is not sufficient to bestow on my children the necessary cares for their education, I will sell my books,--but thou shalt remain! Yes, thou shalt rest in the _same cla.s.s_ with Moses, Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles, to be read alternately."[170]
What was the secret by which the stout little printer excited such enthusiasm and won such eulogy? How did he appeal to natures so different as the worldly Lord Chesterfield, the country shopkeeper, and the impa.s.sioned Diderot? Richardson was the first novelist to stir the heart and to move the pa.s.sions, and his power was the more striking that it was new. His study of human nature had begun early in life. "I was not more than thirteen," he says, "when three young women, unknown to each other, having an high opinion of my taciturnity, revealed to me their love secrets, in order to induce me to give them copies to write after, or correct, for answers to their lovers" letters. * * * I have been directed to chide, and even repulse, when an offence was either taken or given, at the very time when the heart of the chider or repulser was open before me, overflowing with esteem and affection; and the fair repulser, dreading to be taken at her word, directed _this_ word, or _that_ expression, to be softened or changed. One, highly gratified with her lover"s fervor and vows of everlasting love, has said, when I have asked her direction, _I cannot tell you what to write; but_ (her heart on her lips) _you cannot write too kindly_."[171] With such an apprenticeship, Richardson had come to possess a very delicate perception of character, and especially of female character. There was a certain effeminacy in his own nature which made him understand women better than men. His best creations are Pamela and Clarissa. Lovelace and Grandison are drawn from the outside; they are less real and natural. But Richardson leads his reader into the inmost recesses of his heroines" hearts. He is at home in describing the fears, the trials, and the final childlike rejoicings of Pamela. He attains to a high tragic effect in the death of Clarissa, a scene which Sir James Mackintosh ranked with Hume"s description of the death of Mary Stuart. In this power to touch the heart and to move the pa.s.sions of his reader lay the charm of Richardson"s writing. But to paint perfection, rather than to study nature, was his object in "Sir Charles Grandison," and therefore that novel was less powerful in the author"s day, and is less interesting in ours than "Pamela" and "Clarissa." We no longer need the example of the pompous Sir Charles to dissuade us from indecent language and drunkenness in a lady"s drawing-room, and we can only laugh at the studied propriety of his faultless intercourse with Miss Byron:
He kissed my hand with fervor, dropped down on one knee; again kissed it--You have laid me, madam, under everlasting obligation; and will you permit me before I rise--loveliest of women, will you permit me to beg an early day?--
He clasped me in his; arms with an ardor--that displeased me not on reflection. But at the time startled me. He then thanked me again on one knee. I held out the hand he had not in his, with intent to raise him; for I could not speak. He received it as a token of favor; kissed it with ardor; arose; _again_ pressed my cheeks with his lips. I was too much surprised to repulse him with anger; but was he not too free? Am I a prude, my dear?
Restrain, check me, madam, whenever I seem to trespa.s.s on your goodness. Yet how shall I forbear to wish you to hasten the day that shall make you wholly mine? You will the rather allow me to wish it, as you will then be more than ever your own mistress; though you have always been generously left to a discretion that never was more deservedly trusted to. Your will, madam, will ever comprehend mine.
The verisimilitude of Richardson"s novels, which is made so striking by his feminine attention to detail, may seem destroyed to modern readers by the apparent improbability of the narrative itself. It appears strange that young girls like Pamela or Clarissa should be so entirely in the power of their seducers, that incidents should be repeated with impunity which the existence of a police force would seem to make impossible. But the reader whose sense of probability is shocked by the unpunished and uninterrupted villanies of Mr. B. and of Lovelace, can find evidence of the security with which such crimes could be committed by the rich and influential in the Newgate calendar. The forcible detention in his own house, by Lord Baltimore, of a young girl, his atrocious treatment of her, and his escape from punishment, are incidents in real life not more remarkable than the fictions of the novelist.
Sir Walter Scott lamented, early in the present century, the neglect into which the works of Richardson had fallen. That neglect has not since been diminished, for obvious reasons. "Surely, sir," said Erskine to Johnson, "Richardson is very tedious." "Why, sir," was the lexicographer"s reply, "if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself, but you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment." But the reader of today will agree with Erskine in thinking that Richardson is tedious. We have so many good novels which do not require the attention and labor exacted by him. We live so fast that we cannot spare the time for so much sentiment. These novels, like the elaborate embroideries of the last century, belong to a period when life was less full, and books less abundant. Samuel Richardson will take his place among the great authors who are much admired and little read, whose works every educated person should have heard of, but upon which very few would like to be examined.
With Richardson"s novels English fiction took a long step forward; but it made a still greater advance in the hands of Henry Fielding. The latter was peculiarly well fitted by his talents and experience to carry the novel to a high position of importance and artistic merit. He united a considerable dramatic, and a great narrative power with an exuberant wit and an extensive knowledge of men. Allied to a n.o.ble family, but oppressed by poverty, Fielding mingled during his life with all cla.s.ses of society. The Hon. George Lyttleton was his friend and protector, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was his cousin. On the other hand, his poverty and improvidence constantly kept him, as Lady Mary put it, "raking in the lowest rinks of vice and misery." Richardson, who always denounced Fielding"s works as "wretchedly low and dirty," said sneeringly: "his brawls, his jars, his jails, his spunging-houses are all drawn from what he has seen and known." But in this ungenerous sneer lay a substantial compliment. Fielding did describe what he had seen and known, and the variety of his experience gave him a breadth and power in describing human nature which the confined life of Richardson could not afford. The two novelists cannot be fairly compared, nor should they be considered as rivals. They pursued different methods, and aimed at opposite effects. Each has a high place in English literature, which the greatness of the other cannot depress.
Richardson is best able to make his reader weep, and Fielding to make him laugh.
Fielding was a tall, handsome fellow, so full of life and spirits that "his happy disposition," to quote Lady Mary, "made him forget every evil when he was before a venison-pastry, or over a flask of champagne." This rollicking, careless joyousness is the tone of his books. Whether taken to a prison, an inn, or a lady"s boudoir, whether watching the breaking of heads, the blackening of eyes, or the making of love, the reader is always kept smiling.
Fielding is often censured by moralists for the coa.r.s.eness of his novels. But had he not been coa.r.s.e he would not have been true. He described life as it was in the eighteenth century, as he had seen it in the ups and downs of a checkered career. His characters were taken from the higher ranks and the lower. He placed the house, the amus.e.m.e.nts, the habits of a country gentleman before the reader with the faithfulness of a man who had hunted, feasted, and got drunk with country-gentlemen. He described the miserable prisons of his time as he only could who had mingled with their degraded inmates, and had exerted his power as a police magistrate to break up the gangs of ruffians who infested the streets. Thus Fielding"s novels have a high historical, as well as a literary value. Mr. Lecky has testified to their importance in a reconstruction of the past by placing "Amelia" among his authorities. Squire Allworthy, Squire Western, Tom Jones, Parson Adams, are characters to be studied by whoever would understand social life in the eighteenth century. The lovely Sophia, the modest f.a.n.n.y, and above all Amelia, whom Thackeray considered "the most charming character in English fiction," are portraits in the gallery of history.[172]
As Fielding set out to describe truth and nature as he saw them, the reader must put away his notions of refinement and delicacy. He must be prepared to be entertained by blows, licentious a.s.saults, a tub of hog"s blood thrown by a clergyman, coa.r.s.e practical jokes, foul talk, all put before him without disguise or circ.u.mlocution. As he follows Parson Adams, Joseph, and f.a.n.n.y in their journey, he must always be ready for a fight. Here is a specimen:
"The captain * * * drew forth his hanger as Adams approached him, and was levelling a blow at his head which would probably have silenced the preacher forever, had not Joseph in that instant lifted up a certain huge stone pot of the chamber with one hand, which six beaux could not have lifted with both, and discharged it, together with the contents, full in the captain"s face. The uplifted hanger dropped from his hand, and he fell prostrate on the floor with a lumpish noise, and his half-pence rattled in his pocket: the red liquor which his veins contained, and the white liquor which the pot contained, ran in one stream down his face and his clothes. Nor had Adams quite escaped, some of the water having in its pa.s.sage shed its honors on his head, and begun to trickle down the wrinkles, or rather furrows, of his cheeks; when one of the servants s.n.a.t.c.hing a mop out of a pail of water, which had already done its duty in washing the house, pushed it in the parson"s face; yet could he not bear him down; for the parson wresting the mop from the fellow with one hand, with the other brought his enemy as low as the earth."[173]
To obtain any adequate idea of the range of Fielding"s pictures of human nature, the reader must consult the novels themselves. Propriety forbids the insertion here of quotations which could convey an impression of the happy dissoluteness of Tom Jones, the brutal coa.r.s.eness of Squire Western, or the scenes of unblushing license which pervade the novels of Henry Fielding. But a sample of the witty, jovial tone which has made these novels so popular may be of interest to readers who are not inclined to open "Tom Jones" itself. The following scene was occasioned by the appearance of Molly Seagrim in church, in unaccustomed and ostentatious finery, and is described in the Homeric style, which Fielding sometimes adopted with such humorous effect.
As a vast herd of cows in a rich farmer"s yard, if, while they are milked, they hear their calves at a distance, lamenting the robbery which is then committing, roar and bellow: so roared forth the Somersetshire mob an halloloo, made up of almost as many squalls, screams, and other different sounds, as there were persons, or indeed pa.s.sions, among them. Some were inspired by rage, others alarmed by fear, and others had nothing in theirs heads but the love of fun; but chiefly Envy, the sister of Satan and his constant companion, rushed among the crowd and blew up the fury of the women; who no sooner came up to Molly than they pelted her with dirt and rubbish.
Molly, having endeavored in vain to make a handsome retreat, faced about; and laying hold of ragged Bess, who advanced in the front of the enemy, she at one blow felled her to the ground. The whole army of the enemy (though near a hundred in number), seeing the fate of their general, gave back many paces, and retired beyond a new dug grave; for the church-yard was the field of battle, where there was to be a funeral that very evening. Molly pursued her victory, and catching up a skull which lay on the side of the grave, discharged it with such fury, that having hit a tailor on the head, the two skulls sent equally forth a hollow sound at their meeting, and the tailor took presently measure of his length on the ground, where the skulls lay side by side, and it was doubtful which was the more valuable of the two. Molly, then taking a thigh bone in her hand, fell in among the flying ranks, and dealing her blows with great liberality on either side, overthrew the carca.s.s of many a mighty hero and heroine. Recount, O muse, the names of those who fell on this fatal day. First Jemmy Tweedle felt on his hinder head the direful bone. Him the pleasant banks of sweetly winding Stour had nourished, where he first learnt the vocal art, with which, wandering up and down at wakes and fairs, he cheered the rural nymphs and swains, when upon the green they interweaved the sprightly dance; while he himself stood fiddling and jumping to his own music. How little now avails his fiddle! He thumps the verdant floor with his carca.s.s. Next old Echepole, the sow-gelder, received a blow in his forehead from our Amazonian heroine, and immediately fell to the ground. He was a swinging fat fellow, and fell with almost as much noise as a house. His tobacco-box dropt at the same time from his pocket, which Molly took up as lawful spoils. Then Kate of the Mill tumbled unfortunately over a tombstone, which catching hold of her ungartered stocking, inverted the order of nature, and gave her heels the superiority to her head. Betty Pippin, with young Roger her lover, fell both to the ground; where, O Perverse Fate! she salutes the earth, and he the sky.[174]
Fielding had shown more than any predecessor the possibilities of fiction in the study of character and the ill.u.s.tration of manners, and to the art of the narrator, he had added that of the dramatist. The falling of the rug in Molly Seagrim"s bedroom[175] is one of the happiest incidents ever devised, and no doubt suggested to Sheridan the falling of the screen in the "School for Scandal." But the chief distinction of Fielding lies in his having carried the novel to a high point as a work of art. It was the opinion of Coleridge that the "Oedipus Tyrannus," "The Alchemist," and "Tom Jones," were the three most perfect plots ever planned.[176] It is to this excellence of plot--the subordination of each minor circ.u.mstance to the general aim, the skill with which all events are made to lead up to the final denouement--that Fielding, if any one, deserves the t.i.tle of the founder of the English novel. But to give this t.i.tle to any individual is a manifest injustice. The novel was developed, not created; and in that development many minds took part. Short love stories had been made familiar in England by the Italian writers. Such, also, had been produced by Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley, and Mrs. Heywood. Defoe had written novels of adventure, in one of which, at least, is found the combination of a character well drawn and a plot well executed. In the number of his characters and the complication of his plot, Richardson had surpa.s.sed Defoe. It is the merit of Fielding to have combined in a far greater degree than those who had gone before the characteristic qualities of the novel. In others we see the promise, in him the fulfilment.
And this was in no respect the result of an accident. Fielding looked upon his first work as a new attempt in English literature. "Joseph Andrews" was first intended to be merely a satire on "Pamela." But study and reflection on the nature of his work determined Fielding to produce a "prose epic." "The epic as well as the drama," he said in the preface, "is divided into tragedy and comedy." Now, he continued, "when any kind of writing contains all the other parts (of the epic), such as fable, action, characters, sentiments, and diction, and is deficient in metre only; it seems, I think, reasonable to refer it to the epic." Such, too, was the opinion of the Chevalier Bunsen. "The romance of modern times,"
he says in his preface to "Soll und Haben" * * * "represents the latest _stadium_ of the epic. Every romance is intended, or ought to be, a new Iliad or Odyssey; in other words, a poetic representation of a course of events consistent with the highest laws of moral government, whether it delineate the general history of a people, or narrate the fortunes of a chosen hero. * * * The excellence of a romance, like that of an epic or a drama, lies in the apprehension and truthful exhibition of the course of human things."[177] Lord Byron expressed his opinion that Fielding had realized this view of the nature of the novel by calling him the prose Homer of human nature.
Fielding"s novels are now considered unfit for general perusal. In considering the coa.r.s.eness and immorality of a writer, the intention and the result must be separated. That Fielding"s works are coa.r.s.e, and that they contain scenes and characters of a dissolute nature, is neither to be denied nor to be regretted. If they were more pure, they would be less valuable from a historical point of view; less true to nature, and therefore less artistic. That the author"s intention was far from the production of works with an evil tendency, is evident. He was careful to say in the preface to "Joseph Andrews": "It may be objected to me that I have against my own rules introduced vices, and of a very black kind, in this work. To which I shall answer first, that it is very difficult to pursue a series of human actions, and keep clear from them.
Secondly, that the vices to be found here are rather the accidental consequences of some human frailty or foible, than causes habitually existing in the mind. Thirdly, that they are never set forth as the objects of ridicule, but detestation. Fourthly, that they are never the princ.i.p.al figure at that time on the scene; and lastly, they never produce the intended evil." And again, still more strongly, Fielding claims the merit of purity and moral effect for "Tom Jones," "I hope my reader will be convinced, at his very entrance on this work, that he will find, in the whole course of it, nothing prejudicial to the cause of religion and virtue; nothing inconsistent with the strictest rules of decency, nor which can offend the chastest eye in the perusal.
On the contrary, I declare, that to recommend goodness and innocence hath been my sincere endeavor in this history. * * * Besides displaying that beauty of virtue which may attract the admiration of mankind, I have attempted to engage a stronger motive to human action in her favor, by convincing men that their true interest directs them to a pursuit of her.
For this purpose I have shown, that no acquisitions of guilt can compensate the loss of that solid inward comfort of mind, which is the sure companion of innocence and virtue; nor can in the least balance the evil of that horror and anxiety which, in their room, guilt introduced into our bosoms."
Thus, it is evident, that Fielding had no desire to write what might be harmful. The contrast between his promise and his fulfilment is simply an ill.u.s.tration of the standard of his time. His novels are coa.r.s.e to a degree which may nullify their merits in the eyes of some readers of the present day, and may unfit them for the perusal of very young people. But this is simply because the standard in such matters has changed, and not because the novels were purposely made dissolute.
Their coa.r.s.eness was adapted to the lack of refinement in thought and speech characteristic of that time. Fielding wished to "laugh mankind out of their follies and vices." In his coa.r.s.eness there is always an open, frank laughter. There is none of that veiled pruriency which lurks underneath the more conventionally expressed, but really vicious sentiments that are to be found in too many novels of our own day.
The novel was well defined in character and well established in popularity when Smollett entered the field so well occupied by Richardson and Fielding. On this account his works have a less important place in the history of fiction than those of his predecessors. While he added greatly to the store of fict.i.tious writing, he developed no new ideas concerning it. Fielding had announced at the outset of his career as a novelist that he had taken Cervantes as a prototype, and the influence of the great Spanish writer is plainly visible in "Joseph Andrews." But in the literary workmanship of his two later novels, Fielding"s entire originality is undeniable.
Smollett, however, is plainly an imitator of Le Sage. He did not aim at that artistic construction of plot, which is Fielding"s chief merit.
The novel, in his hands, became rather a series of adventures, linked together by their occurrence to the same individuals. "A novel," he said, "is a large, diffused picture, comprehending the characters of life, disposed in different groups, and exhibited in various att.i.tudes, for the purposes of a uniform plan and general occurrence, to which every individual figure is subservient. But this plan cannot be executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a princ.i.p.al personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene by virtue of his importance."[178] But Smollett presents the "different groups" and "various att.i.tudes" of his "diffused picture" with a luxuriance of imagination, a fidelity to nature, and an exuberance of broad humor which inspire interest even when they occasion disgust. If he added nothing new to the novel from a purely literary point of view, his works have an exceptional historical value.
His life was well adapted to educate him as an observer and student of human nature. Of a good Scotch family, but obliged by poverty to rely on his own efforts for a living, he mixed familiarly with varied cla.s.ses of men. As a surgeon in London, he came in contact with the middle and lower ranks of the city, from which many of his best characters are taken. As surgeon"s mate on board a man-of-war, he obtained that acquaintance with a seafaring life which was afterward turned to such excellent account.
Of Smollett"s works, "Humphrey Clinker" is the most humorous, "Roderick Random" the simplest and most natural, "Perigrine Pickle," the most elaborate and brilliant. The reader is conducted from adventure to adventure with an unfailing interest, sustained by the distinctness of the picture and the brightness of the coloring. The characters met with are natural and well studied. Trunnion, Hatchway, Pipes, Lieutenant Bowling, and Jack Rattlin are all distinctly seamen, and yet each has a marked individuality of his own. Matthew Bramble and Winifred Jenkins are among the best-drawn and most entertaining of fict.i.tious personages. Smollett"s humor is usually of the broadest and most elementary kind. It consists largely of hard blows, _a-propos_ knockdowns, and practical jokes. More than any novelist, he ill.u.s.trates the coa.r.s.eness of his time. His pages are filled with cruelties and blackguardism. Many of his princ.i.p.al characters are dissolute without enjoyment, and brutal without good nature. Modern taste is shocked by the succession of repulsive scenes and degrading representations of vice which are often intended to amuse, and always to entertain. But it is because life in the eighteenth century had so many repulsive features, that the novels of the time often repel the modern reader, There is nothing strained or uncommon in the experiences of Miss Williams while in prison:
There I saw nothing but rage, anguish, and impiety; and heard nothing but groans, curses, and blasphemy. In the midst of this h.e.l.lish crew, I was subjected in the tyranny of a barbarian, who imposed upon me tasks that I could not possibly perform, and then punished my incapacity with the utmost rigor and inhumanity. I was often whipped into a swoon, and lashed out of it, during which miserable intervals I was robbed by my fellow-prisoners of every thing about me, even to my cap, shoes, and stockings; I was not only dest.i.tute of necessaries, but even of food, so that my wretchedness was extreme. Not one of my acquaintance, to whom I imparted my situation, would grant me the least succor or regard, on pretence of my being committed for theft; and my landlord refused to part with some of my own clothes, which I sent for, because I was indebted to him for a week"s lodging. Overwhelmed with calamity, I grew desperate, and resolved to put an end to my grievances and life together; for this purpose I got up in the middle of the night, when I thought everybody around me asleep, and fixing one end of my handkerchief to a large hook in the ceiling that supported the scales on which the hemp is weighed, I stood upon a chair, and making a noose on the other end, put my neck into it with an intention to hang myself; but before I could adjust the knot, I was surprised and prevented by two women who had been awake all the while, and suspected my design. In the morning my attempt was published among the prisoners, and punished with thirty stripes, the pain of which co-operating with my disappointment and disgrace, bereft me of my senses, and threw me into an ecstasy of madness, during which I tore the flesh from my bones with my teeth, and dashed my head against the pavement.[179]
While Smollett mingled such scenes of misery with coa.r.s.e adventures and coa.r.s.e humor, he is yet always true to nature and always picturesque.
He keeps the reader"s attention even when he offends his taste. He impaired the literary merit of "Perigrine Pickle," but at the same time added to its dissolute character and its immediate popularity by the forced insertion of the licentious "Memoirs of a Lady of Quality." Now a serious blemish, these memoirs formed at the time an added attraction to the book. They were eagerly read as the authentic account of Lady Vane, a notorious woman of rank, and were furnished to Smollett by herself, in the hope, fully gratified, that her infamous career might be known to future generations.[180]
That the standard of public taste was rising, would appear from the fact that in the second edition of "Perigrine Pickle," Smollett found it advisable to "reform the manners and correct the expression" of the first; but when "he flatters himself that he has expunged every adventure, phrase, and insinuation that could be construed by the most delicate reader into a trespa.s.s upon the rules of decorum," he does not give a high idea of the standard of the "most delicate reader." But Smollett has left an account of his own views regarding the moral effect of the pictures of vice and degradation which his works contain, and that account is a striking statement of contemporary feeling upon the subject:
The same principle by which we rejoice at the remuneration of merit, will teach us to relish the disgrace and discomfiture of vice, which is always an example of extensive use and influence, because it leaves a deep impression of terror upon the minds of those who were not confirmed in the pursuit of morality and virtue, and, while the balance wavers, enables the right scale to preponderate. * * * The impulses of fear, which is the most violent and interesting of all the pa.s.sions, remain longer than any other upon the memory; and for one that is allured to virtue by the contemplation of that peace and happiness which it bestows, an hundred are deterred from the practice of vice, by the infamy and punishment to which it is liable from the laws and regulations of mankind. Let me not, therefore, be condemned for having chosen my princ.i.p.al character from the purlieus of treachery and fraud, when I declare that my purpose is to set him up as a beacon for the benefit of the inexperienced and the unwary, who, from the perusal of these memoirs, may learn to avoid the manifold snares with which they are continually surrounded in the paths of life; while those who hesitate on the brink of iniquity may he terrified from plunging into that irremediable gulph, by surveying the deplorable fate of Ferdinand Count Fathom.[181]
This pa.s.sage ill.u.s.trates with remarkable fidelity the att.i.tude, not only of Smollett, but of the other novelists and the general public of the first half of the eighteenth century, toward vice and crime. The consciousness of evil and the desire for reformation were prominent features of the time. But to deter men from wrong-doing, fear was the only recognized agent. There was absolutely no feeling of philanthropy.
There was no effort to prevent crime through the education or regulation of the lower cla.s.ses; there was no attempt to reform the criminal when convicted. The public fear of the criminal cla.s.ses was expressed in the cruel and ineffective code which punished almost every offense with death. The corruptions which pervaded the administration of justice made it almost impossible to punish the wealthy and influential. When Smollett declared that the miserable fate of Count Fathom would deter his reader from similar courses by a fear of similar punishment, when Defoe urged the moral usefulness of "Moll Flanders"
and "Roxana," the two novelists simply expressed the general feeling that the sight of a malefactor hanging on the gallows was the most effective recommendation to virtue. In the same spirit in which justice exposed the offender in the stocks to public view, the novelist described his careers of vice ending in misery, and Hogarth conducted his Idle Apprentice from stage to stage till Tyburn Hill is reached.
The same moral end is always in view, but the lesson is ill.u.s.trated by the ugliness of vice, and not by the beauty of virtue. In our time we have reason to be thankful for a criminal legislation tempered by mercy and philanthropy. We have attained, too, a standard of taste and of humanity which has banished the degrading exhibitions of public punishments, which has largely done away with coa.r.s.eness and brutality, and has added much to the happiness of life. In fiction, the writer who wishes to serve a moral purpose attains his end by the more agreeable method of holding up examples of merit to be imitated, rather than of vice to be shunned.
But when the great novelists of the eighteenth century were writing, the standard of taste was extremely low. The author knew that he was keeping his reader in bad company, and was supplying his mind with coa.r.s.e ideas, but he believed that he might do this without offense.
Defoe thought that "Moll Flanders" would not "offend the chastest reader or the modestest hearer"; Richardson, that the prolonged effort to seduce Pamela could be described "without raising a single idea throughout the whole that shall shock the exactest purity"; Fielding, that there was nothing in "Tom Jones" which "could offend the chastest eye in the perusal." Nor, as concerned their own time, were they mistaken. They clearly understood the distinction between coa.r.s.eness and immorality. The young women who read "Tom Jones" with enthusiasm were not less moral than the women who now avoid it, they were only less refined. They did not think vice less reprehensible, but were more accustomed to the sight of it, and therefore less easily offended by its description.
While the novels of which we have been speaking were making their first appearance, there lived in Kent a charming young lady who went by the name of "the celebrated Miss Talbot." She had attained this distinction by her great cultivation. She had studied astronomy and geography, was "mistress of French and Italian," and knew a little Latin. When she was only twenty years of age, the Dean of Canterbury spoke of her with high admiration. Her acquaintance was eagerly sought by accomplished young ladies, and by none more successfully than "the learned" Miss Carter.
Both of these girls read the novels of the day, and fortunately recorded some of their opinions in the letters which pa.s.sed between them.[182] "I want much to know," wrote Miss Talbot, "whether you have yet condescended to read "Joseph Andrews."" "I must thank you," replied Miss Carter, "for the perfectly agreeable entertainment I have met in reading "Joseph Andrews." It contains such a surprising variety of nature, wit, morality, and good sense, as is scarcely to be met with in any one composition, and there is such a spirit of benevolence through the whole, as, I think renders it peculiarly charming," Some years later the Bishop of Gloucester came to visit Miss Talbot"s family, and read "Amelia," the young lady wrote, while he was nursing his cold by the fireside. Miss Carter replied that "in favor of the bishop"s cold, his reading "Amelia" in silence may be tolerated, but I am somewhat scandalized that, since he did not read it to you, you did not read it yourself." "The more I read "Tom Jones,"" wrote Miss Talbot, "the more I detest him, and admire Clarissa Harlowe,--yet there are in it things that must touch and please every good heart, and probe to the quick many a bad one, and humor that it is impossible not to laugh at." "I am sorry," replied Miss Carter, "to find you so outrageous about poor Tom Jones; he is no doubt an imperfect, but not a detestable character, with all that honesty, good-nature, and generosity." Miss Talbot, in a later letter, said that she had once heard a lady piously say to her son that she wished with all her heart he was like Tom Jones.[183] In 1747 "Clarissa" was read aloud at the palace of the Bishop of Oxford, Miss Talbot"s uncle. "As for us," she wrote, "we lived quite happy the whole time we were reading it, and we made that time as long as we could, too, for we only read it _en famille_, at set hours, and all the rest of the day we talked of it. One can scarcely persuade one"s self that they are not real characters and living people." Even "Roderick Random" made part of the young ladies" reading. "It is a very strange and a very low book," commented the Bishop"s celebrated niece, "though not without some characters in it, and, I believe, some very just, though very wretched descriptions."
[Footnote 162: Mrs. Barbauld"s "Life of Richardson," vol. 1, p. 42.
Scott"s "Life of Richardson."]
[Footnote 163: Mrs. Barbauld"s "Life of Richardson," vol. 1, p. 37.]
[Footnote 164: _Edinburgh Review._ Oct., 1804. Scott"s "Life of Richardson," note.]
[Footnote 165: Richardson"s correspondence, 1748.]
[Footnote 166: Richardson"s correspondence. Forsyth"s "Novels and Novelists," p. 251.]
[Footnote 167: See the interesting "Glimpses of Our Ancestors," by Charles Fleet, p. 33.]
[Footnote 168: Mrs. Barbauld"s "Life of Richardson."]
[Footnote 169: W.M. Thackeray, "Nil Nisi Bonum", _Cornhill Mag._, No. 1.]
[Footnote 170: D"Israeli"s "Curiosities of Literature," art.
"Richardson."]