Chapter LVIII

.--Which tells how Adventures came crowding on Don Quixote in Such Numbers that they gave him No Breathing Time."

Much prose fiction was written during the Elizabethan Age. We have seen that Lyly's _Euphues_ and Sidney's _Arcadia_ contain the germs of romance. Two of the novelists of the sixteenth century, Robert Greene (1560?-1592) and Thomas Lodge (1558?-1625), helped to give to Shakespeare the plots of two of his plays. Greene's novel _Pandosto_ suggested the plot of _The Winter's Tale_, and Lodge's _Rosalind_ was the immediate source of the plot of _As You Like It_.

Although Greene died in want at the age of thirty-two, he was the most prolific of the Elizabethan novelists. His most popular stories deal with the passion of love as well as with adventure. He was also the pioneer of those realistic novelists who go among the slums to study life at first hand. Greene made a careful study of the sharpers and rascals of London and published his observations in a series of realistic pamphlets.

[Illustration: A BLIND BEGGAR ROBBED OF HIS DRINK. _From a British Museum MS._]

Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) was the one who introduced into England the picaresque novel in _The Unfortunate Traveller, or the Life of Jacke Wilton_ (1594). The picaresque novel (Spanish, _picaro_, a rogue) is a story of adventure in which rascally tricks play a prominent part. This type of fiction came from Spain and attained great popularity in England. Jacke Wilton is page to a noble house. Many of his sharp tricks were doubtless drawn from real life. Nashe is a worthy predecessor of Defoe in narrating adventures that seem to be founded on actual life.

In spite of an increasing tendency to picture the life of the time, Elizabethan prose fiction did not entirely discard the matter and style of the medieval romances. All types of prose fiction were then too prone to deal with exceptional characters or unusual events. Even realists like Greene did not present typical Elizabethan life. The greatest realist in the prose fiction of the Elizabethan Age was Thomas Deloney (1543?-1600), who chose his materials from the everyday life of common people. He had been a traveling artisan, and he knew how to paint "the life and love of the Elizabethan workshop." He wrote _The Gentle Craft_, a collection of tales about shoemakers, and _Jack of Newberry_, a story of a weaver.

The seventeenth century produced _The Pilgrim's Progress_, a powerful allegorical story of the journey of a soul toward the New Jerusalem. Mrs. Aphra Behn (1640-1689), dramatist and novelist, shows the faults of the Restoration drama in her short tales, which helped to prepare the way for the novelists of the next century. Her best story is _Oroonoko_ (1658), a tale of an African slave, which has been called "the first humanitarian novel in English," and a predecessor of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_.

Fiction in the First Part of the Eighteenth Century.--Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ shows a great advance over preceding fiction. In the hands of Defoe, fiction became as natural as fact. Leslie Stephen rightly calls his stories "simple history minus the facts." Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_ (1726) is artfully planned to make its impossibilities seem like facts. _Robinson Crusoe_ took another forward step in showing how circumstances and environment react on character and develop the power to grapple with difficulties and overcome them. Unlike the majority of modern novels, Defoe's masterpiece does not contain a love story.

The essay of life and manners at the beginning of the eighteenth century presents us at once with various pigments necessary for the palette of the novelist. Students on turning to the second number of _The Spectator_ will find sketches of six different types of character, which are worthy to be framed and hung in a permanent gallery of English fiction. The portrait of Sir Roger de Coverley may even claim one of the places of honor on the walls.

Distinction between the Romance and the Modern Novel.--The romances and tales of adventure which had been so long in vogue differ widely from the modern novel. Many of them pay but little attention to probability; but those which do not offend in this respect generally rely on a succession of stirring incidents to secure attention. Novels showing the analytic skill of Thackeray's _Vanity Fair_, or the development of character in George Eliot's _Silas Marner_ would have been little read in competition with stirring tales of adventure, if such novels had appeared before a taste for them had been developed by habits of trained observation and thought.

We may broadly differentiate the romance from the modern novel by saying that the romance deals primarily with incident and adventure for their own sake, while the novel concerns itself with these only in so far as they are necessary for a faithful picture of life or for showing the development of character.

Again, the novel gave a much more prominent position to that important class of human beings who do the most of the world's work,--a type that the romance had been inclined to neglect.

[Illustration: SAMUEL RICHARDSON. _From an original drawing_.]

Samuel Richardson, the First Modern English Novelist.--Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) was born in Derbyshire. When he was only thirteen years old some of the young women of the neighborhood unconsciously began to train him for a novelist by employing him to conduct their love correspondence. This training partly accounts for the fact that every one of his novels is merely a collection of letters, written by the chief characters to each other and to their friends, to narrate the progress of events.

At the age of fifteen Richardson went to London and learned the printer's trade, which he followed for the rest of his life. When he was about fifty years old, some publishers asked him to prepare a letter writer which would be useful to country people and to others who could not express themselves with a pen. The idea occurred to him of making these letters tell a connected story. The result was the first modern novel, _Pamela_, published in four volumes in 1740. This was followed by _Clarissa Harlowe_, in seven volumes, in 1747-48, and this by _Sir Charles Grandison_, in seven volumes, in 1753.

The affairs in the lives of the leading characters are so minutely dissected, the plot is evolved so slowly and in a way so unlike the astonishing bounds of the old romance, that one is tempted to say that Richardson's novels progress mere slowly than events in life. One secret of his success depends on the fact that we feel that he is deeply interested in all his characters. He is as much interested in the heroine of his masterpiece, _Clarissa Harlowe_, as if she were his own daughter. He has the remarkable power of so thoroughly identifying himself with his characters that, after we are introduced to them, we can name them when we hear selections read from their letters.

The length and slow development of his novels repel modern readers, but there was so little genuinely interesting matter in the middle of the eighteenth century that many were sorry his novels were no longer. The novelty of productions of this type also added to their interest. His many faults are largely those of his age. He wearies his readers with his didactic aims. He is narrow and prosy. He poses as a great moralist, but he teaches the morality of direct utility.

The drama and the romance had helped to prepare the way for the novel of everyday domestic life. While this way seemed simple, natural, and inevitable, Richardson was the first to travel in it. Defoe had invested fictitious adventure with reality. Richardson transferred the real human life around him to the pages of fiction. The ascendancy of French influence was noteworthy for a considerable period after the Restoration. England could now repay some of her debt. Richardson exerted powerful influence on the literature of France as well as on that of other continental nations.

[Illustration: HENRY FIELDING. _From the original sketch by Hogarth_.]

Henry Fielding, 1707-1754.--The greatest novelist of the eighteenth century, and one of the greatest that England ever produced, was Henry Fielding, who was born in Sharpham Park, Somersetshire. After graduating at the University of Leyden, he became a playwright, a lawyer, a judge of a police court, and, most important of all, a novelist, or a historian of society, as he preferred to style himself.

When Richardson's _Pamela_ appeared, Fielding determined to write a story caricaturing its morality and sentiment, which he considered hypocritical. Before he had gone very far he discovered where his abilities lay, and, abandoning his narrow, satiric aims, he wrote _Joseph Andrews_ (1742), a novel far more interesting than _Pamela_. _Jonathan Wild the Great_ (1743) tells the story of a rogue who was finally hanged. In 1749 appeared Fielding's masterpiece, _Tom Jones_, and in 1751 his last novel, _Amelia_.

Richardson lacks humor, but Fielding is one of the greatest humorists of the eighteenth century. Fielding is also a master of plot. From all literature, Coleridge selected, for perfection of plot, _The Alchemist, Oedipus Tyrannus_, and _Tom Jones_.

Fielding's novels often lack refinement, but they palpitate with life. His pages present a wonderful variety of characters, chosen from almost all walks of life. He could draw admirable portraits of women. Thackeray says of Amelia, the heroine of the novel that bears her name:--

"To have invented that character, is not only a triumph of art, but it is a good action. They say it was in his own home that Fielding knew her and loved her, and from his own wife that he drew the most charming character in English fiction... I admire the author of _Amelia_, and thank the kind master who introduced me to that sweet and delightful companion and friend. _Amelia_, perhaps, is not a better story than _Tom Jones_, but it has the better ethics; the prodigal repents at least before forgiveness,--whereas that odious broad-backed Mr. Jones carries off his beauty with scarce an interval of remorse for his manifold errors and shortcomings... I am angry with Jones. Too much of the plum cake and rewards of life fall to that boisterous, swaggering young scapegrace."[1]

The "prodigal" to whom Thackeray refers is Captain Booth, the husband of Amelia, and "Mr. Jones" is the hero of _Tom Jones_. Fielding's wife, under the name of Sophia Western, is also the heroine of _Tom Jones_. It is probable that in the characters of Captain Booth and Tom Jones, Fielding drew a partial portrait of himself. He seems, however, to have changed in middle life, for his biographer, Austin Dobson, says of him: "He was a loving father and a kind husband; he exerted his last energies in philanthropy and benevolence; he expended his last ink in defence of Christianity."

Fielding shows the eighteenth-century love of satire. He hates that hypocrisy which tries to conceal itself under a mask of morality. In the evolution of the plots of his novels, he invariably puts such characters in positions that tear away their mask. He displays almost savage pleasure in making them ridiculous. Perhaps the lack of spirituality of the age finds the most ample expression in his pages; but Chaucer's Parish Priest and Fielding's Parson Adams are typical of those persisting moral forces that have bequeathed a heritage of power to England.

[Illustration: LAURENCE STERNE.]

[Illustration: UNCLE TOBY AND CORPORAL TRIM. _From a drawing by B. Westmacott_.]

[Illustration: TOBIAS SMOLLETT.]

Sterne and Smollett.--With Richardson and Fielding it is customary to associate two other mid-eighteenth century novelists, Lawrence Sterne (1713-1768) and Tobias Smollett (1721-1771). Between 1759 and 1767 Sterne wrote his first novel, _The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman_, which presents the delightfully comic and eccentric members of the Shandy family, among whom Uncle Toby is the masterpiece. In 1768 Sterne gave to the world that compound of fiction, essays, and sketches of travel known as _A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy_. The adjective "sentimental" in the title should be specially noted, for it defines Sterne's attitude toward everything in life. He is habitually sentimental in treating not only those things fitted to awaken deep emotion, but also those trivial incidents which ordinarily cause scarcely a ripple of feeling. Although he is sometimes a master of pathos, he frequently gives an exhibition of weak and forced sentimentalism. He more uniformly excels in subtle humor, which is his next most conspicuous characteristic.

_Roderick Random_ (1748), _Peregrine Pickle_ (1751), and _The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_ (1771) are Smollett's best novels. They are composed mainly of a succession of stirring or humorous incidents. In relying for interest more on adventure than on the drawing of character, he reverts to the picaresque type of story.

The Relation of Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and Smollett to Subsequent Fiction.--Although the modern reader frequently complains that these older novelists often seem heavy, slow in movement, unrefined, and too ready to draw a moral or preach a sermon, yet these four men hold an important place in the history of fiction. With varying degrees of excellence, Richardson, Fielding, and Sterne all have the rare power of portraying character from within, of interpreting real life. Some novelists resort to the far easier task of painting merely external characteristics and mannerisms. Smollett belongs to the latter class. His effective focusing of external peculiarities and caricaturing of exceptional individuals has had a far-reaching influence, which may be traced even in the work of so great a novelist as Charles Dickens. Fielding, on the other hand, had great influence of Thackeray, who has recorded in _The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_ his admiration for his earlier fellow-craftsman.

Although subsequent English fiction has invaded many new fields, although it has entered the domain of history and of sociology, it is not too much to say that later novelists have advanced on the general lines marked out by these four mid-eighteenth century pioneers. We may even affirm with Gosse that "the type of novel invented in England about 1740-50 continued for sixty or seventy years to be the only model for Continental fiction; and criticism has traced in every French novelist, in particular, the stamp of Richardson, if not of Sterne, and of Fielding."

PHILOSOPHICAL, HISTORICAL, AND POLITICAL PROSE

Philosophy.--Although the majority of eighteenth-century writers disliked speculative thought and resolutely turned away from it, yet the age produced some remarkable philosophical works, which are still discussed, and which have powerfully affected later thought. David Hume (1711-1776) is the greatest metaphysician of the century. He took for his starting point the conclusions of a contemporary philosopher, George Berkeley (1685-1753).

Berkeley had said that ideas are the only real existing entities, that matter is merely another term for the ideas in the Mind of the Infinite and has no existence outside of mind. He maintained that if every quality should be taken away from matter, no matter would remain; _e.g._, if color, sweetness, sourness, form, and all other qualities should be taken away from an apple, there would be no apple. Now, a quality is a mental representation based on a sensation, and this quality varies as the sensation varies; in other words, the object is not a stable immutable thing. It is only a thing as I perceive it. Berkeley's idealistic position was taken to crush atheistic materialism.

Hume attempted to rear on Berkeley's position an impregnable citadel of skepticism. He accepted Berkeley's conclusion that we know nothing of matter, and then attempted to show that inferences based on ideas might be equally illusory. Hume attacked the validity of the reasoning process itself. He endeavored to show that there is no such thing as cause and effect in either the mental or the material world.

Hume's _Treatise of Human Nature_ (1739-1740), in which these views are stated, is one of the world's epoch-making works in philosophy. Its conclusion startled the great German metaphysician Kant and roused him to action. The questions thus raised by Hume have never been answered to the satisfaction of all philosophers.

Hume's skepticism is the most thoroughgoing that the world has ever seen; for he attacks the certainty of our knowledge of both mind and matter. But he dryly remarks that his own doubts disappear when he leaves his study. He avoids a runaway horse and inquires of a friend the way to a certain house in Edinburgh, relying as much on the evidence of his eyes and on the directions of his friend as if these philosophic doubts had never been raised.

Historical Prose.--In carefully elaborated and highly finished works of history, the eighteenth century surpasses its predecessors. _The History of England_ by David Hume, the philosopher, is the first work of the kind to add to the history of politics and the affairs of state an account of the people and their manners. This _History_ is distinguished for its polished ease and clearness. Unfortunately, the work is written from a partisan point of view. Hume was a Tory, and took the side of the Stuarts against the Puritans. He sometimes misrepresented facts if they did not uphold his views. His _History_ is consequently read more to-day as a literary classic than as an authority.

[Illustration: EDWARD GIBBON. _From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds_.]

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) is the greatest historian of the century. His monumental work, _The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, in six volumes, begins with the reign of Trajan, A.D. 98, and closes with the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople in 1453. Gibbon constructed a "Roman road" through nearly fourteen centuries of history; and he built it so well that another on the same plan has not yet been found necessary. E.A. Freeman says: "He remains the one historian of the eighteenth century whom modern research has neither set aside nor threatened to set aside." In preparing his _History_, Gibbon spent fifteen years. Every chapter was the subject of long-continued study and careful original research. From the chaotic materials which he found, he constructed a history remarkable as well for its scholarly precision as for the vastness of the field covered.

His sentences follow one another in magnificent procession. One feels that they are the work of an artist. They are thickly sprinkled with fine-sounding words derived from the Latin. The 1611 version of the first four chapters of the _Gospel_ of John averages 96 per cent of Anglo-Saxon words, and Shakespeare 89 per cent, while Gibbon's average of 70 per cent is the lowest of any great writer. He has all the coldness of the classical school, and he shows but little sympathy with the great human struggles that are described in his pages. He has been well styled "a skillful anatomical demonstrator of the dead framework of society." With all its excellences, his work has, therefore, those faults which are typical of the eighteenth century.

[Illustration: EDMUND BURKE. _From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, National Portrait Gallery_.]

Political Prose.--Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was a distinguished statesman and member of the House of Commons in an important era of English history,--a time when the question of the independence of the American colonies was paramount, and when the spirit of revolt against established forms was in the air. He is the greatest political writer of the eighteenth century.

Burke's best productions are _Speech on American Taxation_ (1774) and _Speech on Conciliation with America_ (1775). His _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ is also noteworthy. His prose is distinguished for the following qualities: (1) He is one of the greatest masters of metaphor and imagery in English prose. Only Carlyle surpasses him in the use of metaphorical language. (2) Burke's breadth of thought and wealth of expression enable him to present an idea from many different points of view, so that if his readers do not comprehend his exposition from one side, they may from another. He endeavors to attach what he says to something in the experience of his hearers or readers; and he remembers that the experience of all is not the same. (3) It follows that his imagery and figures lay all kinds of knowledge under contribution. At one time he draws an illustration from manufacturing; at another, from history; at another, from the butcher shop. (4) His work displays intense earnestness, love of truth, strength of logical reasoning, vividness of imagination, and breadth of view, all of which are necessary qualities in prose that is to mold the opinions of men.

It is well to note that Burke's careful study of English literature contributed largely to his success as a writer. His use of Bible phraseology and his familiarity with poetry led a critic to say that any one "neglects the most valuable repository of rhetoric in the English language, who has not well studied the English Bible... The cadence of Burke's sentences always reminds us that prose writing is only to be perfected by a thorough study of the poetry of the language."

OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1728-1774

[Illustration: OLIVER GOLDSMITH. _From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, National Portrait Gallery_.]

Life and Minor Works.--Oliver Goldsmith was born of English parents in the little village of Pallas in the center of Ireland. His father, a poor clergyman, soon moved a short distance to Lissoy, which furnished some of the suggestions for _The Deserted Village_.

Goldsmith went as a charity student to Dublin University, where, like Swift, he graduated at the bottom of his class. Goldsmith tried in turn to become a clergyman, a teacher, a lawyer, and a doctor, but failed in all these fields. Then he wandered over the continent of Europe for a year and accumulated some experiences that he used in writing _The Traveler_. He returned to London in 1757, and, after an ineffectual attempt to live by practicing medicine, turned to literature. In this profession he at first managed to make only a precarious living, for the most part as a hackwriter, working for periodicals and filling contracts to compile popular histories of England, Greece, Rome, and _Animated Nature_. He had so much skill in knowing what to retain, emphasize, or subordinate, and so much genius in presenting in an attractive style what he wrote, that his work of this kind met with a readier sale than his masterpieces. Of the _History of Animated Nature_, Johnson said: "Goldsmith, sir, will give us a very fine book on the subject, but if he can tell a horse from a cow, that I believe may be the extent of his knowledge of natural history."

His first literary reputation was gained by a series of letters, supposed to be written by a Chinaman as a record of his impressions of England. These letters or essays, like so much of the work of Addison and Steele, appeared first in a periodical; but they were afterwards collected under the title, _Citizen of the World_ (1761). The interesting creation of these essays is Beau Tibbs, a poverty-stricken man, who derives pleasure from boasting of his frequent association with the nobility.

[Illustration: GOLDSMITH GIVES DR. JOHNSON THE MS. OF THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. _From a drawing by B. Westmacott_.]

It was not until the last ten years of his life that Goldsmith became famous. He certainly earned enough then to be free from care, had he but known how to use his money. His improvidence in giving to beggars and in squandering his earnings on expensive rooms, garments, and dinners, however, kept him always in debt.

One evening he gave away his blankets to a woman who told him a pitiful tale. The cold was so bitter during the night that he had to open the ticking of his bed and crawl inside. Although this happened when he was a young man, it was typical of his usual response to appeals for help. When his landlady had him arrested for failing to pay his rent, he sent for Johnson to come and extricate him. Johnson asked him if he had nothing that would discharge the debt, and Goldsmith handed him the manuscript of _The Vicar of Wakefield_. Johnson reported his action to Boswell, as follows:--

"I looked into it and saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon return; and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds."

[Illustration: CANONBURY TOWER, LONDON, WHERE GOLDSMITH WROTE SOME OF HIS FAMOUS WORK.]

During his last years, Goldsmith sometimes received as much as £800 in twelve months; but the more he earned, the deeper he plunged into debt. When he died, in 1774, at the age of forty-five, he owed £2000. He was loved because--

"...e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side."

His grave by the Temple Church on Fleet Street, London, is each year visited by thousands who feel genuine affection for him in spite of his shortcomings.

Masterpieces.--His best work consists of two poems, _The Traveler_ and _The Deserted Village_; a story, _The Vicar of Wakefield_; and a play,_She Stoops to Conquer_.

The object of _The Traveler_ (1765), a highly polished moral and didactic poem, was to show that happiness is independent of climate, and hence to justify the conclusion:--

"Vain, very vain, my weary search to find That bliss which only centers in the mind."

_The Deserted Village_ (1770) also has a didactic aim, for which we care little. Its finest parts, those which impress us most, were suggested to Goldsmith by his youthful experiences. We naturally remember the sympathetic portrait of the poet's father, "the village preacher":--

"A man he was to all the country dear And passing rich with forty pounds a year. * * * * * His house was known to all the vagrant train; He chid their wanderings but relieved their pain."

The lines relating to the village schoolmaster are almost as well known as Scripture. Previous to this time, the eighteenth century had not produced a poem as natural, sincere, and sympathetic in its descriptions and portraits as _The Deserted Village_.

_The Vicar of Wakefield_ is a delightful romantic novel, which Andrew Lang classes among books "to be read once a year." Goldsmith's own criticism of the story in the _Advertisement_ announcing it has not yet been surpassed:--

"There are an hundred faults in this Thing, and an hundred things might be said to prove them beauties. But it is needless. A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it may he very dull without a single absurdity. The hero of this piece unites in himself the three greatest characters upon earth: he is a priest, an husbandman, and the father of a family. He is drawn as ready to teach and ready to obey; as simple in affluence, and majestic in adversity."

[Illustration: DR. PRIMROSE AND HIS FAMILY. _From a drawing by G. Patrick Nelson._]

_The Vicar of Wakefield_ has faults of improbability and of plot construction; in fact, the plot is so poorly constructed that the novel would have been almost a failure, had other qualities not insured success. The story lives because Dr. Primrose and his family show with such genuineness the abiding lovable traits of human nature,--kindliness, unselfishness, good humor, hope, charity,--the very spirit of the _Sermon of the Mount_. Goethe rejoiced that he felt the influence of this story at the critical moment of his mental development. Goldsmith has added to the world's stock of kindliness, and he has taught many to avoid what he calls "the fictitious demands of happiness."

Goldsmith wrote two plays, both hearty comedies. The less successful, _The Good-Natured Man_ (acted 1768), brought him in £500. His next play, _She Stoops to Conquer_, a comedy of manners, is a landmark in the history of the drama. The taste of the age demanded regular, vapid, sentimental plays. Here was a comedy that disregarded the conventions and presented in quick succession a series of hearty humorous scenes. Even the manager of the theater predicted the failure of the play; but from the time of its first appearance in 1773, this comedy of manners has had an unbroken record of triumphs. A century later it ran one hundred nights in London. Authorities say that it has never been performed without success, not even by amateurs. Like all of Goldsmith's best productions, it was based on actual experience. In his young days a wag directed him to a private house for an inn. Goldsmith went there and with much flourish gave his orders for entertainment. The subtitle of the comedy is _The Mistakes of a Night_; and the play shows the situations which developed when its hero, Tony Lumpkin, sent two lovers to a pretended inn, which was really the home of the young ladies to be wooed.

It is interesting to note that his contemporary, Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), produced, shortly after the great success of _She Stoops to Conquer_, the only other eighteenth-century comedies that retain their popularity, _The Rivals_ (1775) and _The School for Scandal_ (1777), which contributed still further to the overthrow of the sentimental comedy of the age.

General Characteristics.--Goldsmith is a romanticist at heart; but he felt the strong classical influences of Johnson and of the earlier school. In his poetry, Goldsmith used classical couplets and sometimes classical subject matter, but the didactic parts of his poems are the poorest. His greatest successes, such as the pictures of the village preacher and the schoolmaster in _The Deserted Village_ and of Dr. Primrose and his family in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, show the warm human sympathy of the romantic school.

The qualities for which he is most noted are (1) a sane and saving altruistic philosophy of life, pervaded with rare humor, and (2) a style of remarkable ease, grace, and clearness, expressed in copious and apt language.

_She Stoops to Conquer_ marks a change in the drama of the time, because, in Dobson's phrase, it bade "good-bye to sham Sentiment."

"...this play it appears Dealt largely in laughter and nothing in tears."

SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1709-1784

[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON. _From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds_.]

[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON'S BIRTHPLACE. _From an old print_.]

Early Struggles.--Michael Johnson, an intelligent bookseller in Lichfield, Staffordshire, was in 1709 blessed with a son who was to occupy a unique position in literature, a position gained not so much by his writings as by his spoken words and great personality.

Samuel was prepared for Oxford at various schools and in the paternal bookstore, where he read widely and voraciously, but without much system. He said that at the age of eighteen, the year before he entered Oxford, he knew almost as much as at fifty-three. Poverty kept him from remaining at Oxford long enough to take a degree. He left the university, and, for more than a quarter of a century, struggled doggedly against poverty. When he was twenty-five, he married a widow of forty-eight. With the money which she brought him, he opened a private school, but failed. He never had more than eight pupils, one of whom was the actor, David Garrick.

In 1737 Johnson went to London and sought employment as a hack writer. Sometimes he had no money with which to hire a lodging, and was compelled to walk the streets all night to keep warm. Johnson reached London in the very darkest days for struggling authors, who were often subjected to the greatest hardships. They were the objects of general contempt, to which Pope's _Dunciad_ had largely contributed.

During this period Johnson did much hack work for the _Gentleman's Magazine_. He was also the author of two satirical poems, _London_ (1738) and _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749), which won much praise.

Later Years.--By the time he had been for ten years in London, his abilities were sufficiently well known to the leading booksellers for them to hire him to compile a _Dictionary of the English Language_ for £1575. He was seven years at this work, finishing it in 1755. Between 1750 and 1760 he wrote the matter for two periodicals, _The Rambler_ (1750-1752) and _The Idler_ (1758-1760), which contain papers on manners and morals. He intended to model these papers on the lines of _The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_, but his essays are for the most part ponderously dull and uninteresting.

In 1762, for the first time, he was really an independent man, for then George III. gave him a life pension of £300 a year. Even as late as 1759, in order to pay his mother's funeral expenses, Johnson had been obliged to dash off the romance of _Rasselas_ in a week; but from the time he received his pension, he had leisure "to cross his legs and have his talk out" in some of the most distinguished gatherings of the eighteenth century. During the rest of his life he produced little besides _Lives of the English Poets_, which is his most important contribution to literature. In 1784 he died, and was buried in Westminster Abbey among the poets whose lives he had written.

A Man of Character.--Any one who will read Macaulay's _Life of Johnson_[2] may become acquainted with some of Johnson's most striking peculiarities; but these do not constitute his claims to greatness. He had qualities that made him great in spite of his peculiarities. He knocked down a publisher who insulted him, and he would never take insolence from a superior; but there is no case on record of his having been unkind to an inferior. Goldsmith said: "Johnson has nothing of a bear but the skin." When some one manifested surprise that Johnson should have assisted a worthless character, Goldsmith promptly replied: "He has now become miserable, and that insures the protection of Johnson."

Johnson, coming home late at night, would frequently slip a coin into the hand of a sleeping street Arab, who, on awakening, was rejoiced to find provision thus made for his breakfast. He spent the greater part of his pension on the helpless, several of whom he received into his own house.

There have been many broader and more scholarly Englishmen, but there never walked the streets of London a man who battled more courageously for what he thought was right. The more we know of him, the more certain are we to agree with this closing sentence from Macaulay's _Life of Johnson_: "And it is but just to say that our intimate acquaintance with what he would himself have called the anfractuosities of his intellect and of his temper serves only to strengthen our conviction that he was both a great and a good man."

A Great Converser and Literary Lawgiver.--By nature Johnson was fitted to be a talker. He was happiest when he had intelligent listeners. Accordingly, he and Sir Joshua Reynolds, the artist, founded the famous Literary Club in 1764. During Johnson's lifetime this had for members such men as Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, Charles James Fox, James Boswell, Edward Gibbon, and David Garrick. Macaulay says: "The verdicts pronounced by this conclave on new books were speedily known over all London, and were sufficient to sell off a whole edition in a day, or to condemn the sheets to the service of the trunk maker and the pastry cook... To predominate over such a society was not easy; yet even over such a society Johnson predominated."

He was consulted as an oracle on all kinds of subjects, and his replies were generally the pith of common sense. So famous had Johnson become for his conversations that George III. met him on purpose to hear him talk. A committee from forty of the leading London booksellers waited on Johnson to ask him to write the _Lives of the English Poets_. There was then in England no other man with so much influence in the world of literature.

Boswell's Life of Johnson.--In 1763 James Boswell (1740-1795), a Scotchman, met Johnson and devoted much time to copying the words that fell from the great Doctor's lips and to noting his individual traits. We must go to Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, the greatest of all biographies, to read of Johnson as he lived and talked; in short, to learn those facts which render him far more famous than his written works.

[Illustration: JAMES BOSWELL.]

Leslie Stephen saw: "I would still hope that to many readers Boswell has been what he has certainly been to some, the first writer who gave them a love of English literature, and the most charming of all companions long after the bloom of novelty has departed. I subscribe most cheerfully to Mr. Lewes's statement that he estimates his acquaintances according to their estimate of Boswell."

A Champion of the Classical School.--Johnson was a powerful adherent of classicism, and he did much to defer the coming of romanticism. His poetry is formal, and it shows the classical fondness for satire and aversion to sentiment. The first two lines of his greatest poem, _The Vanity of Human Wishes_--

"Let observation with extensive view Survey mankind from China to Peru,"

show the classical couplet, which he employs, and they afford an example of poetry produced by a sonorous combination of words. "Observation," "view," and "survey" are nearly synonymous terms. Such conscious effort centered on word building subtracts something from poetic feeling.

His critical opinions of literature manifest his preference for classical themes and formal modes of treatment. He says of Shakespeare: "It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with an unwieldy sentiment, which he cannot well express ... the equality of words to things is very often neglected."

Although there is much sensible, stimulating criticism in Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_, yet he shows positive repugnance to the pastoral references--the flocks and shepherds, the oaten flute, the woods and desert caves--of Milton's _Lycidas_. "Its form," says Johnson, "is that of a pastoral, easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting."

General Characteristics.--While he is best known in literary history as the great converser whose full length portrait is drawn by Boswell, Johnson left the marks of his influence on much of the prose written within nearly a hundred years after his death. On the whole, this influence has, for the following reasons, been bad.

[Illustration: CHESHIRE CHEESE INN, FLEET STREET, LONDON.]

First, he loved a ponderous style in which there was an excess of the Latin element. He liked to have his statements sound well. He once said in forcible Saxon: "_The Rehearsal_! has not wit enough to keep it sweet," but a moment later he translated this into: "It has not sufficient vitality to preserve it from putrefaction." In his _Dictionary_ he defined "network" as "anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances with interstices between the intersections." Some wits of the day said that he used long words to make his _Dictionary_ necessary.

In the second place, Johnson loved formal balance so much that he used too many antitheses. Many of his balancing clauses are out of place or add nothing to the sense. The following shows excess of antithesis:--

"If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight."

As a rule, Johnson's prose is too abstract and general, and it awakens too few images. This is a characteristic failing of his essays in _The Rambler_ and _The Idler_. Even in _Rasselas_, his great work of fiction, he speaks of passing through the fields and seeing the animals around him; but he does not mention definite trees, flowers, or animals. Shakespeare's wounded stag or "winking Mary-buds" would have given a touch of life to the whole scene.

Johnson's latest and greatest work, _Lives of the English Poets_, is comparatively free from most of these faults. The sentences are energetic and full of meaning. Although we may not agree with some of the criticism, shall find it stimulating and suggestive. Before Johnson gave these critical essays to the world, he had been doing little for years except talking in a straightforward manner. His constant practice in speaking English reacted on his later written work. Unfortunately this work has been the least imitated.

SUMMARY

The second part of the eighteenth century was a time of changing standards in church, state, and literature. The downfall of Walpole, the religious revivals of Wesley, the victories of Clive in India and of Wolfe in Canada, show the progress that England was making at home and abroad. Even her loss of the American colonies left her the greatest maritime and colonial power.

There began to be a revolt against the narrow classical standards in literature. A longing gradually manifested itself for more freedom of imagination, such as we find in _Ossian, The Castle of Otranto_, Percy's _Reliques_, and translations of the Norse mythology. There was a departure from the hackneyed forms and subjects of the preceding age and an introduction of more of the individual and ideal element, such as can be found in Gray's _Elegy_ and Collins's _Ode to Evening_. Dr. Johnson, however, threw his powerful influence against this romantic movement, and curbed somewhat such tendencies in Goldsmith, who, nevertheless, gave fine romantic touches to _The Deserted Village_ and to much of his other work. This period was one of preparation for the glorious romantic outburst at the end of the century.

In prose, the most important achievement of the age was the creation of the modern novel in works like Richardson's _Pamela_ and _Clarissa Harlowe_, Fielding's _Tom Jones_, Sterne's _Tristram Shandy_, Smollett's _Humphrey Clinker_, and Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_. There were also noted prose works in philosophy and history by Hume and Gibbon, in politics by Burke, in criticism by Johnson, and in biography by Boswell. Goldsmith's comedy of manners, _She Stoops to Conquer_, won a decided victory over the insipid sentimental drama.

REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY

HISTORICAL

For contemporary English history, consult Gardiner,[3] Green, Walker, or Cheney. For the social side, see Traill, V. Lecky's _History of the Eighteenth Century_ is specially full.

LITERARY

_The Cambridge History of English Literature_.

Courthope's _History of English Poetry_, Vol. V.

Seccombe's _The Age of Johnson_.

Gosse's _History of English Literature in the Eighteenth Century_.

Stephen's _English Literature in the Eighteenth Century_.

Minto's _Manual of English Prose Literature_.

Symons's _The Romantic Movement in English Poetry_.

Beers's _English Romanticism_.

Phelps's _Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement_.

Nutt's _Ossian and Ossianic Literature_.

Jusserand's _The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare_.

Cross's _The Development of the English Novel_.

Minto's _Defoe_ (E.M.L.)

Dobson's _Samuel Richardson_. (E.M.L.)

Dobson's _Henry Fielding_. (E.M.L.)

Godden's _Henry Fielding, a Memoir_.

Stephen's _Hours in a Library_ (Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding).

Thackeray's _English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_ (Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Goldsmith).

Gosse's _Life of Gray_. (E.M.L.)

Huxley's _Life of Hume_. (E.M.L.)

Morrison's _Life of Gibbon_. (E.M.L.)

Woodrow Wilson's _Mere Literature_ (Burke).

Boswell's _Life of Johnson_.

Stephen's _Life of Johnson_. (E.M.L.)

Macaulay's _Essay on Croker's Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson_.

Irving's, Forster's, Dobson's, Black's (E.M.L.), or B. Frankfort Moore's _Life of Goldsmith_.

SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

The Romantic Movement.--In order to note the difference in feeling, imagery, and ideals, between the romantic and the classic schools, it will be advisable for the student to make a special comparison of Dryden's and Pope's satiric and didactic verse with Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, Milton's _Il Penseroso_, and with some of the work of the romantic poets in the next period. What is the difference in the general atmosphere of these poems? See if the influence of _Il Penseroso_ is noticeable in Collins's _Ode to Evening_ (Ward[4], III., 287; Bronson, III., 220; _Oxford_, 531; Manly, I., 273; _Century_, 386) and in Gray's _Elegy_ (Ward, III., 331; Bronson, III., 238; _Oxford_, 516; Manly, I., 267; _Century_, 398).

What element foreign to Dryden and Pope appears in Thomson's _Seasons_ (Ward, III., 173; Bronson. III., 179; Manly, I., 255; _Century_, 369-372).

What signs of a struggle between the romantic and the classic are noticeable in Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_ (Ward, III., 373-379; Bronson, III., 282; Manly, I., 278; _Century_, 463). Pick out the three finest passages in the poem, and give the reasons for the choice.

Read pp. 173-176 of _Ossian (Canterbury Poets_ series, 40 cents; Chambers, II.; Manly, II., 275), and show why it appealed to the spirit of romanticism.

For a short typical selection from Walpole's _Castle of Otranto_, see Chambers. II. Why is this called romantic fiction?

In Percy's _Reliques_, read the first ballad, that of _Chevy Chase_, and explain how the age could turn from Pope to read such rude verse.

In place of Mallet's _Northern Antiquities_, twentieth-century readers will prefer books like Guerber's _Myths of Northern Lands_ and Mabie's _Norse Stories Retold from the Eddas_.

From Chatterton's _Aella_ read nine stanzas from the song beginning: "O sing unto my roundelay." His _The Bristowe Tragedy_ may be compared with Percy's _Reliques_ and with Coleridge's _The Ancient Mariner_. Selections from Chatterton are given in Bronson, III., Ward, III., _Oxford_, Manly, I., and _Century_.

The Novel.--Those who have the time to study the beginnings of the novel will be interested in reading, _Guy, Earl of Warwick_ (Morley's _Early Prose Romances_) or _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Retold in Modern Prose, with Introduction and Notes_, by Jessie L. Weston (London: David Nutt, two shillings).

Two Elizabethan novels: Lodge's _Rosalynde_ (the original of Shakespeare's _As You Like It_) and Greene's _Pandosto_ (the original of _The Winter's Tale_) are published in _The Shakespeare Classics_, edited by Gollancz (Duffield & Company, New York, $1 each). _Pandosto_ may be found at the end of the Cassell _National Library_ edition of _The Winter's Tale_ (15 cents). Selections from Lodge's _Rosalynde_ are given in Craik, I., 544-549. These should be compared with the parallel parts of _As You Like It_. Selections from Nashe's _The Unfortunate Traveller_ are given in Craik, I., 573-576, and selections from Sidney's _Arcadia_ in the same volume, pp. 409-419. Deloney's _The Gentle Craft_ and _Jack of Newberry_ are given in his _Works_, edited by Mann (Clarendon Press).

For the preliminary sketching of characters that might serve as types in fiction, read _The Spectator_, No. 2, by Steele. Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ will be read entire by almost every one.

In Craik, IV., read the following selections from these four great novelists of the middle of the eighteenth century; from Richardson, pp. 59-66; from Fielding, pp. 118-125; from Sterne, pp. 213-219; and from Smollett, pp. 261-264 and 269-272. Manly, II., has brief selections.

Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_ should be read entire by the student (_Eclectic English Classics_, or _Gateway Series_, American Book Company). Selections may be found in Craik, IV., 365-370.

Sketch the general lines of development in fiction, from the early romance to Smollett. What type of fiction did _Don Quixote_ ridicule? Compare Greene's _Pandosto_ with Shakespeare's _Winter's Tale_, and Lodge's _Rosalynde_ with _As You Like It_. In what relation do Steele, Addison, and Defoe stand to the novel? Why is the modern novel said to begin with Richardson?

Philosophy.--Two selections from Berkeley in Craik, IV., 34-39, give some of that philosopher's subtle metaphysics. The same volume, pp. 189-195, gives a selection from Hume's _Treatise of Human Nature_. Try stating in your own words the substance of these selections.

Gibbon.--Read Aurelian's campaign against Zenobia, which constitutes the last third of Chap. XI. of the first volume of _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. Other selections may be found in Craik, IV., 460-472; _Century_, 453-462.

What is the special merit of Gibbon's work? What period does he cover? Compare his style, either in description or in narration, with Bunyan's.

Burke.--Let the student who has not the time to read all the speech on _Conciliation with America (Eclectic English Classics_, or _Gateway Series_, American Book Company, 20 cents) read the selection in Craik, IV., 379-385, and also the selection referring to the decline of chivalry, from _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (Craik, IV., 402).

Point out in Burke's writings the four characteristics mentioned on p. 331. Compare his style with Bacon's, Swift's, Addison's, and Gibbon's.

Goldsmith.--Read his three masterpieces: _The Deserted Village, The Vicar of Wakefield (Eclectic English Classics_, or _Gateway Series_, American Book Company), _She Stoops to Conquer_ (Cassell's _National Library_; _Everyman's Library_).

Select passages that show (a) altruistic philosophy of life, (b) humor, (c) special graces of style. What change did _She Stoops to Conquer_ bring to the stage? What qualities keep the play alive?

Johnson.--Representative selections are given in Craik, IV., 141-185. Those from _Lives of the English Poets_ (Craik, IV., 175-182; _Century_, 405-419) will best repay study. Let the student who has the time read Johnson's _Dryden_ entire. As much as possible of Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ should be read (Craik, IV., 482-495; Manly, II., 277-292).

Compare the style of Johnson with that of Gibbon and Burke. For what reasons does Johnson hold a high position in literature? What special excellences or defects do you note in his _Lives of the English Poets_? Why is Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ a great work?

FOOTNOTES TO