ii.
samuel johnson.
we could scarcely understand how dr. johnson gained his immense influence and acknowledged chiefship in literature if we had only his works of various kinds before us. but he had a friend and biographer, james boswell, esq. (younger of auchinleck in ayrshire), and "bozzy," by showing johnson as he was and talked, explains his supremacy. in an age when classical learning counted for something, johnson was, especially in roman literature, vastly learned. in a time when people who could tear themselves from cards, took little exercise, but sat and talked, over wine or over tea, or as they slowly sauntered, johnson was probably the best and certainly the best reported of the talkers. while politicians like burke, and painters like sir joshua reynolds, and musicians like burney (fanny burney's father), were men of letters, critics, talkers, a scholar and author who could talk like johnson was certain of his reward, was sure to be at the front. though he confessed himself not specially partial to clean linen; though he did not eat in a neat and cleanly fashion; though he had the strange tricks which we know so well; though if his pistol missed fire in argument he knocked you down with the butt; though he had curious prejudices, was at heart a jacobite, and could be extremely rude, yet the excellence of his heart, his large sagacity, his immense knowledge and readiness, his humour, all of him that is immortally delightful to read about in boswell's life, won his forgiveness and his welcome from the most refined of men and women.[pg 472] he thought himself a lady's man, he said, and a man of the world, and he was thoroughly a man's man, with heart, and tongue, and hands, if that were necessary.
as a playwriter, he had not great success, and his friend goldsmith's comedies keep the stage, unlike johnson's tragedy. johnson's tale "rasselas, prince of abyssinia," has wisdom and humour enough, "wit enough to keep it sweet," but it never did nor ever can share the popularity of goldsmith's "vicar of wakefield".
johnson's essays, in "the rambler" and "the idler," may still be but are seldom read: they are far less alive than the essays of addison and steele, and are weighed down by the ponderous harmonies of the latinised style.
of his books, "the lives of the poets," written in his old age, are, to some, we may hope to many, readers, entrancing. here we find the johnson of conversation. he is not, indeed, a scientific biographer, a searcher among old letters and old records. but his memory was rich in anecdotes of the half century before his own; his style contains many a humorous comment, and his criticism is often acute, and always honest, and unaffectedly tinged, especially when he writes of the republican and puritan milton, or of the dainty, yet, in poetry, revolutionary gray, with all the literary and political prejudices that gave salt to his conversation. there may have been more enlightened critics, but none was ever more entertaining.
if his literary biographies are not of the most exact, they are occasionally minute enough. "pope's weakness was so great, that he constantly wore stays, as i have been assured by a waterman (of twickenham) who, in lifting him into his boat, had often felt them." again, "pope once slumbered at his own table while the prince of wales was talking of poetry". in his "life of swift" johnson is by no means friendly, and publishes an anecdote which was indignantly denied. his life of his friend, richard savage, a most detestable person, is an example of johnson's loyalty and tolerance. supposing that savage was the son of the countess of macclesfield, and was persecuted by her with incredible cruelty, yet his conduct in most ways was detestable, though johnson, who candidly narrates the facts, good-humouredly condones[pg 473] them. the conversation of savage must, apparently, have won the heart of "the great lexicographer". even the dictionary of the doctor contains several of his good sayings, and perhaps the learning and persevering industry which johnson displayed as a "drudge" increased his reputation, and won for him friends and admirers, as much as his more literary works.
the outlines of his life are too well known to need more than a brief summary. his family was matter of interest to the highlanders when he visited them, was he a macian of glencoe or a johnston of the border? he was born at lichfield (18 september, 1709), his father was a bookseller. his oxford career, at pembroke college, was embittered by poverty, but he retained a great affection for his college and university, which delighted to honour him. he kept a school without much profit, and, coming to london with garrick in 1737, lived the life of grub street, doing translations, writing for cave's "gentleman's magazine," compiling parliamentary debates in which he "took care not to let the whig dogs have the best of it". of his doings in 1745 boswell could learn nothing, and there was a fancy that he was inclined to take part in what he called "a gallant enterprise," that of prince charles.
his "london," an imitation of juvenal, was well thought of by pope, and scott took more pleasure in no modern poem than in johnson's manly, resolute, and mournful "vanity of human wishes," also based on juvenal's satire (1749). the "rambler" and "idler," were his next works (with the dictionary), and in 1759 he rapidly wrote "rasselas," to pay the expenses of his mother's funeral. in 1762 he accepted, from a king who "gloried in the name of briton," a pension of ￡300 yearly. he lived much, after this date, at the house of mrs. thrale and her husband, "my master" as she called him, the rich brewer. here he was happy in the society of many wits, of the beautiful sophy streatfield, "with nose and notions à la grecque," and of fanny burney, blessed in the success of "evelina". mrs. thrale and miss burney have left many reminiscences of him which complete the account by his young scottish adorer and butt, boswell.
johnson founded the club, and such was his influence that[pg 474] the club did not blackball bozzy. with him johnson made his difficult journey to the western islands of scotland; so happily described both by boswell and himself; stayed at dunvegan castle, was entertained by flora macdonald, met a learned minister in skye who was a sceptic about homer, inquired into the second sight; stayed at inveraray castle with the duke of argyll; and at st. andrews was told that at oxford they had nothing like the st. andrews university library. on hearing this dr. johnson, for once, made no reply.
his "lives of the poets" was written in 1779-1781, when he was 70 years of age and more. his cruel last illness was nobly borne; he died on 13 december, 1784, one of the best, greatest, wisest, and most humorous of englishmen.
his "lives," and the life of him are among the works which time cannot stale; read ten times over they please the more, and more excellencies are discovered. no man of times past is known so well, and none was so well worth knowing. his critical tastes and rules are not ours, and perhaps even in his own day were falling out of fashion; but they are none the less historically valuable.
oliver goldsmith.
dr. johnson carried all his set with him into renown, and though oliver goldsmith was a writer of versatile and charming genius, but for his friendship with johnson he would have been much less successful in life, and less well loved and remembered after his death.
like several great writers born in ireland, goldsmith was of an english family, but they had been so long settled in ireland that they had become "more irish than the irish". goldsmith's father had the care of protestant souls at pallasmore, county longford, where (10 november, 1728) the poet was born. the father obtained a cure worth more than the "forty pounds a year" at lissoy in west meath, and lissoy contributes some features to the auburn of the "deserted village," an ideal village, in an ideal state of desertion. his father, according to goldsmith's poetry and prose, was a most excellent man; more capable of teaching[pg 475] his family how to spend large fortunes in benevolence than how to earn a maintenance,
more skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.
he was the generous host of "all the vagrant train," of "the long-remembered beggar," an irish edie ochiltree, of "the ruined spendthrift," who "claimed kindred," and came to "scorn," and of "the broken soldier".
careless their merits or their faults to scan
his pity gave ere charity began.
this pity was goldsmith's own characteristic. when an exceedingly poor scholar at trinity college, dublin, his feats of charity matched those of st. francis or st. martin of tours. he is said to have given away his blanket, and slept in the ticking of his bed.
a love of fine clothes was no less part of his nature than love of his neighbours, while he liked "the cards," and the bowl and tavern talk. he took his bachelor's degree in february, 1749: idled away a year or two at home, learned to play the flute, failed to take holy orders, and, as a medical student, went to edinburgh university (1752-1754) lived on the benevolence of an uncle, contarine, and, on his way to leyden, was taken in the company of five or six scottish gentlemen in french service, who had been recruiting for king louis in the highlands. alan breck may have been in this adventure. throughout 1755-1756, goldsmith roamed about the continent, supporting himself by his flute, and entertained by the hospitality of the universities.
"sir," said johnson, "he disputed his way through europe," as the admirable crichton had done, a hundred and seventy years earlier. at padua, it is thought, if anywhere, he obtained his doctor's degree: his adventures later gave him materials for essays, for the wandering scholar in "the vicar of wakefield," and for his poem, "the traveller". "he was making himself all the time."
returning to england in 1756, he lived as an usher in a small school; as a corrector for the press; as a kind of indentured reviewer and general hack to griffiths the publisher; failed to pass as a naval surgeon; wrote with smollett's literary gang, conducted[pg 476] a weekly booklet or magazine, "the bee," for a few numbers (1759); and published "an enquiry into the present state of polite learning in europe". he was much more successful (1760) with letters in "the public ledger," in the assumed character of a chinese visitor to london.
in the former work goldsmith complains that young genius effervesces at college and is unrewarded, while dull plodders fatten. "the link" between "the great" and the literary "now seems entirely broken". "an author" is a thing only to be laughed at. "his person, not his jest, becomes the mirth of the company." indeed goldsmith's person was quaint, his attire, when in funds, was that of the bird of paradise; while his wit flowed from his pen, not from his tongue; his repartee was not ready; eager he was but apparently absent-minded in company. as for the publisher, "it is his interest to allow as little as possible for writing, and of the author to write as much as possible". writers for the stage suffer from the competition of the dead. like two or three men of genius of our day, goldsmith asks "who will deliver us from shakespeare?" from "these pieces of forced humour, far-fetched conceit, and unnatural hyperbole which have been ascribed to shakespeare." here is scepticism! managers make new authors wait some years before giving their plays a chance: a malady most incident to managers; and garrick believed that he was attacked.
the not unnatural acrimony of a neglected man appears in some of the chinese letters (published in book form as "the citizen of the world"), notably in the visit to westminster abbey. goldsmith had a spite against the patronage, given to the art of painting, and made his chinaman share it. the same critic looks on sterne's "tristram shandy" as a lewd compound of pertness, vanity, and obscene buffoonery.
the chinaman also attacked the brutality of the criminal law (that of his own country being so mild), and generally inveighed against the state of society. the letters are an unflattering picture of the times. by 1761 johnson had made the acquaintance of goldsmith, and henceforth goldsmith had not to complain of neglect from wits and authors. in 1764 he published his moral[pg 477] and contemplative poem "the traveller"; with his "deserted village" it is perhaps the last good thing of the old school of poems in rhymed heroic couplets. the dedicatory preface to the author's brother, the rev. henry goldsmith, tells us that, as society becomes refined, painting and music "offer the feeble mind a less laborious entertainment" than poetry, which they supplant, while "what criticisms have we not heard of late in favour of blank verse, and pindaric odes, anapests (sic) and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! every absurdity has now a champion to defend it!"
goldsmith, in social matters rather a socialist, is, in poetry, opposing the slowly dawning freedom, and upholding the school of pope. but there is, in both of his longer poems, a kind of softness in the versification, and of sincerity in the sentiments and descriptions of nature, which we miss in pope, while each piece, as the man said of "hamlet," "is made up of quotations," of lines which live in many memories like household words. the pictures of the parish clergyman, of the schoolmaster, of the harmless old rustic ale-house, in the "deserted village," may be called imperishable; and goldsmith cries "back to the land" and denounces "landlordism," and forced migration to north america,
where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey.
goldsmith, in fact, never revisited "the decent church," "the hawthorn bush," the harmless pot-house, and other scenes of his infancy: in his poem he blends an ideal irish with an ideal english village, and ascribes the result to a tyrannical, landlord with admirable pathetic success.
of his other poems "the haunch of venison," imitated from horace, and the witty and kind raillery of "retaliation," in which his pen supplies the wit that often failed his tongue in the wit-combats of "the club," are both in "anapests" and are the most important. the "lament for madame blaise" is a lively adaptation from the french, and the "elegy on the death of a mad dog" is a most vivacious piece. as a ballad "edwin and angelina," though popular, is too unballad-like.
the works on which goldsmith's fame depends are not his[pg 478] essays, histories, or view of "animated nature," genially unscientific, but his "vicar of wakefield" (written earlier, but sold by johnson for while goldsmith was in a sponging house in 1764), and his two plays "the good natured man," and "she stoops to conquer" (1768, 1773).
"the vicar of wakefield" drew the highest possible praise from goethe, and the most furious of attacks from the critical pen of mark twain. nobody says that it shines in construction, but its humour and sweetness, the goodness, the simplicity, the true wisdom, and the learned foibles of the vicar, with the humours of his wife, daughters, and wandering scholar son, an usher, a dweller in grub street, make "the vicar of wakefield" a book to be read once a year. "finding that the best things had not been said on the wrong side, i resolved to write a book that should be wholly new... the learned world said nothing to my paradoxes, nothing at all, sir." in the son's narrative goldsmith has his usual flout at art and amateurs of art, and pietro perugino.
the plays are too well known for comment, with croaker and lofty, the bailiffs, tony lumpkin, mrs. hardcastle, the revellers at the three pigeons, and young marlow, they are at least as familiar on the amateur as on the professional boards. they brought to goldsmith fame, some money and more credit, but he was still a drudge, still working for booksellers, and deep in debt, when his death on 4 april, 1774, made reynolds for once lay down his brush, saddened the club, and filled the stairs of his chambers in brick court with poor weeping women to whom he had been kind,—their only friend. "nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit, nullum quod tetigit non ornavit," wrote johnson in his epitaph, adding a new phrase to latin proverbial philosophy.[1]
edmund burke.
"it seems probable," says burke's biographer, lord morley, "that burke will be more frequently and more seriously referred to within the next twenty years" (from 1899) "than he has been within the whole of the last eighty." yet we do not find many[pg 479] references to burke, who, living, speaking, and writing through some thirty years of discontents and revolutions (the american and the french) and bringing to problems like our own a masculine judgment, and a lucid and energetic style, might seem worthy of general study.
in a sketch of the history of literature space for the works of burke, saturated with politics as they are, and only to be understood in the light of ample historical knowledge, cannot be provided. the speeches of most successful orators are brilliant, and persuasive for the hour, with crowds who wish to be persuaded. the speeches of burke are sometimes, when his pity and indignation are stirred (as by the fate of marie antoinette, or the alleged infamies of warren hastings), rich in floral components, in impassioned rhetoric. but, as a rule, his best orations required to be read if they were to be appreciated; they are too full of thought and knowledge and too logically built to be generally effective at the moment.
whatever our political opinions may be, we cannot but find burke's "speech on moving his resolutions for conciliation with the colonies" (22 march, 1775) a very great and noble literary work. for its purpose it was futile; fierce peoples are not to be guided by all the eloquence and all the wisdom of the wise. "we are called upon, as it were by a superior warning voice, again to attend to america; to attend to the whole of it together; and to review the subject with an unusual degree of care and calmness. surely it is an awful subject; or there is none so on this side of the grave."
it was an awful subject; but it was also a party question. knowledge, care, and calmness were, therefore, put out of action. on an infamous proposal to "reduce the high aristocratic spirit of virginia and the southern colonies" by proclaiming the freedom of the black slaves and raising a servile war, burke said: "slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them to their present masters? from that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic?"—the[pg 480] slave trade. the idea of sending, in the same ship, samples of fresh "black ivory" and a proclamation of freedom for all blacks, not unreasonably seemed absurd, to burke.
this speech, so moving to the reader, is said to have driven members out of the house; the gestures of the orator being clumsy, his tones harsh, and his delivery hasty. johnson said that his wit was "blunt"; goldsmith, on the other hand, that he "cut blocks with a razor". he "to party gave up what was meant for mankind," but, save through party, mankind is not to be helped by the politicians.
to glance at the main facts of burke's life, he appears to have been, as far as his name shows, of norman but long hibernicised stock on his father's side; of native irish blood on that of his mother, a miss nagle, a catholic. he was born in dublin, apparently on 12 january, 1729. his father was a solicitor. after two years at a small school kept by a learned quaker, burke went to trinity college, dublin, where he showed eager intellectual appetites, without paying much heed to the academic round of studies. in 1750 he went to london, to the middle temple, and studied law, but did not practise. in 1755 his father cut off his allowance, in 1756 he married. he cannot have made money by his "vindication of natural society" (1756), written in the rhetorical manner of bolingbroke. the book is an ironical reply to bolingbroke's argument for "natural" against "revealed" religion. transfer the view to society: our religion may have its anomalies, yet our society has far more and worse. do you propose, therefore, to return to "natural society"? "natural" society was then supposed by the wise and learned to be a happy go-as-you-please innocent communism. in fact, if savage society be "natural" society it is emmeshed in the strangest and most artificial, cruel, and filthy set of laws and customs: the marriage laws, when carried (as they sometimes are) to their logical conclusion, make marriage impossible! all this was not understood, but burke, while arguing against a sudden and violent break-up of society, did perceive and state brilliantly, the glaring injustices of our society, as goldsmith did in "the deserted village".
burke's "philosophical inquiry into the origin of our ideas[pg 481] of the sublime and beautiful" (1756) is a study in the science of "?sthetics," a science which, if it has reached no very conspicuous results, is now pursued with instruments and by a method not extant in burke's day. he only sought for "the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful". he went into the psychology of pain and pleasure, and found beauty to be "some quality in bodies acting mechanically upon the human mind by the intervention of the senses". but what is the quality and why does it automatically produce the effect? the qualities which automatically excite in the mind the apperception of the beautiful are comparatively small, smooth, varied without angularity, delicate, and in colour clear and bright, but not strong or glaring. but a mountain, or fire, is beautiful yet—does not present the six qualities. consequently we must not call a huge rough mountain beautiful but sublime.
burke does not pretend to know "the ultimate cause" of the emotions produced in the mind, and he censures the daring of sir isaac newton in accounting for things by ether. but ether seems to prosper in modern scientific thought.
we cannot follow burke into metaphysics, but the ordinary reader may test, by experience, his description of a lover in the presence of the beloved. "as far as i could observe," says burke, "the head reclines something on one side; the eyelids are more closed than usual, and the eyes roll gently with an inclination to the object; the mouth is a little opened, and the breath drawn slowly, with now and then a low sigh; the whole body is composed, and the hands fall idly by the side." thus it seems probable "that beauty acts by relaxing the solids of the whole system". on the other hand, the sublime ought to string up the solids, and we do hear of sublime objects which "petrify" the percipient. burke sought, at all events, for the answer to his problem in the nature of man, in psychology.
the nature of burke's financial resources, beyond what he made by writing in the new "annual register" (1759,—a hundred a year from dodsley the publisher) is as mysterious as the address of his fellow-countryman, the mulligan, in thackeray's book. in 1759 the so-called "single speech hamilton" employed him; in[pg 482] 1761 he went to ireland with hamilton, who was secretary to lord halifax. hamilton treated him badly, and in 1765 he became secretary to the marquis of rockingham, entered parliament as member for wendover, a pocket borough, made his mark at once; wrote "observations on the present state of the nation" (1769), and the admirable "thoughts on the present discontents," a book always in season. how burke, in 1768, contrived to buy beaconsfield in bucks (￡22,000) and to live at a rate of ￡2500 a year, the rental being ￡500, is a mystery deeper than that of "the man in the iron mask". apparently there was a suffering marquis in the background: at least burke owed large sums to lord rockingham, who forgave the debt. no discreditable source of burke's fairy gold can be conjectured or conceived, as goldsmith said he was
too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit,
"too nice" meaning "too scrupulous".
burke did not hold office, save for one year (1782-1783). though a whig and a "pro-american," burke never liked, never approved of the french revolution. early in 1790, he spoke in parliament, breaking away from those enthusiasts for liberty in her wildest mood, fox and sheridan.
his "reflections on the french revolution" (1790) had a large sale and wide influence. people will judge burke's influence, conduct and eloquence, at this time, in accordance with their politics and prejudices; his "letters on a regicide peace," and other work of his last years cannot be discussed without partisanship. he died on 9 july, 1797. "the age of chivalry is gone," is one of burke's best-remembered phrases. when was there an age of chivalry? if no swords leaped from their sheaths for marie antoinette, in 1793, not one was drawn for jeanne d'arc in 1431, not one for mary stuart in 1587.
the revival of the ballad.
throughout the eighteenth century, despite the dominance of pope and his followers, and the poetry of the town; despite the sturdy resistance of johnson; despite goldsmith's complaints against odes and "anapests" and "blank verse" and "happy[pg 483] negligence," there were streams of tendency making for literary freedom. addison had lovingly praised both the blank verse of milton, and the purely popular art of the ancient ballads. men were beginning to look back with personal interest at antiquity; not only at spenser, chaucer, and shakespeare, but at all the art and poetry of times past. as early as 1706-1711 watson's "choice collection" of old scottish poems was published: and allan ramsay gave old things mixed with new in his "evergreen," and "tea table miscellany" between 1724 and 1727; others appeared in d'urfey's "pills to purge melancholy" (1719), others in "old ballads" (1723).
we have seen the antiquarianism of gray, in his translations from the norse, and his interest in macpherson's so-called "ossian" (1760-1763). though there was no written highland epic in existence, there were, and are, "ossianic ballads" in gaelic, late popular survivals of irish poetry. working in his own way on these, and on prose legends, apparently, macpherson led men's fancies back to the racing "sounds" of the north; back to the highland beliefs that had already fascinated collins; and emancipated poetry from the chatter of the coffee-house and the tavern. the charlatanism of macpherson disgusted johnson; any one could write ossianisms, he said, who abandoned his mind to it, but macpherson, at least, pleased thousands, including so enthusiastic a student of homer as napoleon bonaparte, and stimulated gaelic researches.
in 1765 the publication of an old and famous manuscript folio by bishop percy ("the reliques") not only gave a new and popular source of pleasure in ballads and old relics, but caused a noisy controversy, which, again, led to close research. percy "restored," altered, added to, and omitted from his materials as taste and fancy prompted; arousing the wrath of the crabbed antiquary, joseph ritson, who denied that the manuscript folio existed. had percy published it as it stood (which furnivall and hales at last succeeded in doing) the book would have been unread except by a few antiquaries. arranged by percy, the ballads became truly popular. they were followed, from 1774, by thomas warton's "history of english poetry," the work of an oxford[pg 484] professor of poetry (1757-1767) who, in a lazy university, was a serious student.
nothing is more ruinous to literature than ignorance, excitedly absorbed in the momentary present. in the manner briefly described, men's minds became awake to the merits of the english literature of many remote ages, and even to the interest of chivalry and chivalrous romance, to the beauty of all art that had been discredited as "gothic" and "barbarous".
horace walpole.
a man who, if in an amateur and dandified way, assisted the advance in literature, was the son of the famous and far from literary whig minister of george i. and george ii., sir robert walpole. born at the end of september, 1717, horace walpole went to eton in 1727, where he won the friendship of gray and prided himself on avoiding cricket and fights with bargees. for conway (marshal conway) and george selwyn, famous later as an eccentric wit, he had a life-long affection. from eton, walpole went to king's college, cambridge, where he studied french, italian, and painting, being congenitally incapable of the mathematics, like tennyson and macaulay. his letters were already witty and amusing. he began his tour with gray in 1739, and, at rome, was "far gone in medals, lamps, idols, prints, etc. ... i would buy the coliseum if i could". though he wrote fleeringly of his own tastes, he was, in fact, far in advance of his age in appreciation of the best old art, whether of classical greece and rome or of the early italians. to collect, to study society, to write his famous correspondence with horace mann and many others—an informal social, political, and literary history of his time,—was the business of walpole's long life. he gave himself dandified airs; he knew that he was not in the strict sense a scholar, but he had an eagerly inquiring mind, and we owe more to him than to mr. pepys. he practically began neo-gothic architecture—with all its faults he meant well,—by the building of his villa, strawberry hill, and "in a concatenation accordingly" wrote the earliest pseudo-historic novel of supernatural terror, "the castle of otranto" (1764). like stories of r. l. stevenson, and coleridge's "kubla khan," the tale is based on a dream.[pg 485] the author found himself in a gothic castle, and "on the uppermost bannister of a great staircase i saw a gigantic hand in armour". the rest, with its odd horrors and comic interludes of the servants, walpole wrote without plan: making his characters natural, not "heroic," his events as much "supernatural" as he could.
from this fantasy came the novels of mrs. radcliffe (whose habit of explaining the supernatural away walpole derided), and, from mrs. radcliffe, in part, came the impulse of scott, and the moody heroes of byron. from the mustard seed of "otranto" grew "a tree with birds in all its boughs".
walpole's play "the mysterious mother," was even morbidly romantic in conception (1768). his "historic doubts" on richard iii. show a new spirit of historic scepticism, and a desire to trace accepted historical ideas to their ultimate sources of evidence. such minute inquiry was not common, when hume and smollett were our historians. walpole, who had succeeded to the earldom of orford, died on 2 march, 1797.
his "anecdotes of painting" and "royal and noble authors" are all they aimed at being; his letters, in extent, observation, inner knowledge of society, and wit, have no rivals in english, but his real position in literature and taste is that of a pioneer. the true, the essential horace was very unlike macaulay's splenetic portrait of him, and did not deserve thackeray's nickname "horace waddlepoodle".
under his many affectations he was a true friend and a good patriot, a delightful wit and an agency in the advance of literature and taste. between him and dr. johnson, of course, there was a gulf that neither man dreamed of trying to cross.
laurence sterne.
laurence sterne can scarcely be ranged in any species of writers. he was not a novelist, though his most humorous and exquisitely finished characters, mr. shandy, uncle toby, corporal trim, obadiah, dr. slop, yorick, and mrs. shandy appear in what professed to be a kind of novel, "the life and opinions of tristram shandy," gent (1760-1767). these characters are really studies like those of addison, but they appeared in a long[pg 486] succession of volumes which obtained their great vogue first of all, perhaps, by wild eccentricity—with blank pages, asterisks, erasions, and even pages of marbled paper; next, now by an undercurrent, now by an overflow, of indecent or indecorous story or suggestion; thirdly, by the fact that these were the recreations of a country parson. these allurements, were the first and transient causes of sterne's popularity, these and a quantity of odd anecdotes, often borrowed wholesale from burton's then forgotten "anatomy of melancholy," as the lewd anecdotes were taken from french collections of the sixteenth century. but while these baits, this "merriment of a parson," allured the town, every reader of taste had the noblest excuse for reading the book. it contained the grave and logical humours and exquisite intellectual caprices of shandy the father; the patient, kind, dull tolerance of mrs. shandy (whose unexpected associations of ideas resemble those of mrs. nickleby), the gallantry, simplicity, and noble goodness of uncle toby (a person not wholly unlike a colonel newcome of the eighteenth century), the similar qualities of his more chivalrous sancho, corporal trim; the wiles of the widow wadman; and, what is pleasing to reflective minds, the curse of ernulphus, bestowed "on him, obadiah". "our men swore terribly in flanders," said uncle toby, but the ancient formul? of catholic curses went far beyond our men. for the sentimental there was the death of lefevre, which, in school reading books, but ineffectually appealed for tears to men now old.
thus much of "tristram shandy" is as good as good can be, and might be collected, with explanatory passages, and exhibited without harm or offence to any reader. but, so presented, it would lose the attraction on which sterne deliberately counted; the intermixture of insinuation and buffoonery with character and sentiment. great parts of "tristram shandy," once, it seems, essential to its success, are now detrimental to its general diffusion: all the more because the high and low tumbling is that of a clergyman.
the author (born 1713) was english by family and descent, grandson of a cavalier english clergyman of the great rebellion,[pg 487] and archbishop of the restoration. we meet his father, roger sterne, an ensign in a regiment of foot, in thackeray's "esmond," where, in his wild way, he makes a very sensible remark, when the exiled king, fighting for france, rides up to the english lines. for several years, laurence sterne followed the drums of his father's regiment, till, at 10 years old, a kinsman sent him to school at halifax (1723), and the life of a camp where men swore terribly inspires his pictures of soldiers, but was not the most chaste school for a little boy.
in 1733, rather old, he went to jesus college, cambridge, and made the friendship of john hall (stevenson) of skelton castle. a humorist, a reckless liver, he had a great and unholy influence on sterne, who took orders and two small livings in yorkshire, and (1741) married a lady of some property, after a sentimental wooing. sentiment did not last; sterne, an accomplished philanderer, became "passing weary of her love," and the pair were only kept together by sterne's affection for his daughter, lydia.
not till 1760 did the first volume of "tristram shandy" appear: born of a casual spite against dr. slop (dr. burton, a jacobite physician of york), "tristram" instantly made sterne a "lion" in london, a friend of the great, and a diner-out. in winter he wrote more "shandy," and published sermons on the strength of his success; in the summer he worked at home, till a consumptive tendency sent him to the least desirable parts of southern france (by way of paris where he met everybody), and, later, to italy. he died in london, alone (1768) save for the lodging-house keeper, and a footman, a macdonald of the keppoch branch, whose father followed prince charlie, and whose own childish adventures, in 1745, as he has described them, were a subject made for the hand of the expiring humorist.
he had kept on publishing, with varying success, new volumes of "tristram shandy" almost to the end, when he had the happy thought of beginning his "sentimental journey," with its bewildering mixture of the old favourite matter with pretty vignettes of southern scenes and manners, pictures with the prettiness and other qualities of the french painter, greuze. here we[pg 488] have both the admired hungry donkey, fed by sterne with macaroons, and the sentimentalized dead donkey, which provoked the scepticism of mr. samuel weller. sterne sketched the french as hogarth did, but with infinitely more sensibility and sympathy, he is a classic in france, no less than in england. sterne's letters and "journal to eliza," a very characteristic piece, are collected in mr. lewis melville's "life and letters of sterne". his biographer (mr. h. d. traill, 1882) says that sterne "undergoes, i suspect, even more than an english classic's ordinary share of reverential neglect". if this be so, sterne himself, with his acrobatic clowning, is to blame, but the loss lies on the readers of mature age who neglect this contemplator of human life, this creator of characters, this painter of manners irrevocably past.[2]
david hume.
david hume, a younger son of the laird of ninewells in berwickshire, was born in april, 1711. he attended lectures in the university of edinburgh at a very early age, and, when about 17, devoted himself entirely to solitary study, classical, poetical, and philosophic. the ruling passion of his life was the desire of literary fame, of which, with all his success, he never obtained more than he wanted. various attempts in other professions ended in his return to his studies; he was only 25 when he wrote his "treatise of human nature," he published it in 1739; was disappointed by its reception; affected to disavow it, but reproduced, in more finished literary form, many of its doctrines in his later essays. the earlier essays, of 1741-1742, were successful: the philosophical essays (1748), were attacked by orthodox divines, whom the "essay on miracles" (of which the central idea occurred to hume while arguing with a jesuit in france) was not apt to conciliate. some essays he left for posthumous publication; he was in evil odour on account of his opinions, and obtained no better post in scotland than the keepership of the advocates' library. but in scotland his geniality, good[pg 489] humour, and practical wisdom, made him dear even to those who thought his opinions dangerous. by great frugality he made himself independent of the great, while his "history of england" begun in 1754, though, like most honest histories it at first offended all parties, proved not unprofitable and greatly increased his reputation. in 1765, he was made secretary of legation in paris; later he obtained the post of under-secretary for home affairs; and finally returned to edinburgh "in opulence," as he said, with ￡1000 a year. he had many friends among the preachers of "the moderate party," and died in 1776, contented, and not without some parade, dr. johnson thought, of his philosophic fearlessness. in paris he was highly popular; but, though england had done much for him, he used to express great dislike of the english. he laboured, none the less, to purge his style of scotticisms, of which he drew up a list—"allenarly" and "alongst" are to be avoided; and he determined to write "a pretty girl enough" in place of "a pretty enough girl". hume's philosophical ideas belong to the history, not of literature, but of philosophy. his position, in a continuation of locke, was sceptical, and had immense influence in causing a reaction and a closer criticism, first in germany, then in england. professor huxley, hume's biographer, has exposed many of the fallacies in his "essay on miracles," and others are glaring. of "the natural history of religion" he wrote unembarrassed by much knowledge of the subject, for early men, as far as we know, often reasoned otherwise than hume thought that they would necessarily reason. philosophy and history are always in a state of flux, through the influence of criticism, of new discoveries, and of historical documents, with which hume had little acquaintance. but a study of modern metaphysics must still begin with the works of hume, though no one can go to his history for full and accurate information. unable, or reluctant, to speak his mind quite freely, he adopted the ironical method, without the sometimes elephantine frivolity of gibbon. like his fellow-countryman, dr. robertson, he was no enthusiastic worshipper of the heroes of the reformation; and, though nothing less than a jacobite, he was tory enough to be tolerant of the stuart kings, or rather to study them in the[pg 490] light of the conditions under which they lived. it is in the same light that hume and his philosophy must be regarded. his letters are among his most interesting works, and his attack on macpherson's "ossian," with his defence of the "epigoniad," the theban epic of his friend professor wilkie, in themselves give a correct and rather amusing view of his tastes and limitations.
robertson.
william robertson (1721-1793) the son of a parish minister in midlothian, was also a minister of the church of scotland, and the leader of the moderate party, as against the enthusiastic spiritual descendants of the covenanters. the moderates aimed at taste, learning, and the acquisition of a style free from scottish idioms. this style robertson displayed (1759) in his history of scotland. a topic could scarcely be more unpopular than his, the publisher said, but his book had a very wide success south of the border, and his later works on the reign of charles v. and on american history were not less popular. his manner is calm, reflective, and studiously destitute of enthusiasm. both he and hume viewed the religious history of their country with a critical tranquillity very unlike the spirit introduced by carlyle. his defect lay, not in the art of clear and definite presentation, but in limited knowledge of original documents.
edward gibbon.
"the old reproach, that no british altars had been erected to the muse of history, was recently disproved," says gibbon, "by the first performances of robertson and hume, the histories of scotland and the stuarts.... the perfect composition, the nervous language, the well-turned periods of dr. robertson, inflamed me to the ambitious hope that i might one day tread in his footsteps: the calm philosophy, the careless inimitable beauties of his friend and rival" (hume) "often forced me to close the volume with a mixed sensation of delight and despair." after ten years' work by gibbon at his "decline and fall of the roman empire" "a letter from mr. hume" (1776) "overpaid[pg 491] the labour, but i have never presumed to accept a place in the triumvirate of british historians."
the fondness of caledonian patriotism cannot accept the compliment paid to robertson and hume by the modesty of the author of "the decline and fall". the works of the two scottish historians, though still very readable, and distinguished in style, are superseded by histories much more learned and based on documents not accessible to the scots. but the monumental edifice of gibbon is "a possession for ever".
born at putney, early in may, 1737, edward gibbon came of an ancient though not historically distinguished family, whose wealth was impaired by the connexion of his grandfather with the south sea bubble, and by his father's lack of economy. gibbon's health, in boyhood, was bad, and his education irregular: he was a sufferer in an age when "the schoolboy may have been whipped for misapprehending a passage" (in ph?drus) "which bentley could not restore, and which burman could not explain". thus he writes in his autobiography: in this work he affects to compose with artless effort, but the rounded periods of his great book come unbidden to his pen, or rather, he devoted elaborate care to the six drafts of his memoirs.
in two years passed at westminster school, gibbon did not master greek and latin. his next three years were passed in wide desultory reading, in translation of the classics, and in modern history, which from boyhood was his passion. going to magdalen college, oxford, before he was 15, "with a stock of erudition that might have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of ignorance of which a schoolboy would have been ashamed," he was disgusted by the indolent ignorance of the fellows of his college, "decent easy men," at whose table as a gentleman commoner he dined. in close grammatical study under his tutor he found neither profit nor pleasure; he lived in or out of oxford as he pleased; read catholic books, professed himself a catholic—"the offence," says blackstone, "amounts to high treason". it amounted to petty treason; gibbon's father removed him from magdalen to the tuition of mallet, a free-thinker, and thence he was carried to lausanne and the house of a calvinist minister,[pg 492] who in two years brought him within the presbyterian fold. after such a series of theological adventures it is not strange that gibbon's aversion to christianity declares itself wherever he has a chance of sneering at that religion. he returned to england in 1758, after sighing as a lover and obeying as a son, when his father commanded him to resign his passion for mademoiselle curchod, later madame necker, the mother of madame de sta?l. at lausanne he had studied very widely and with elaborate organization of his work: in england he still read, "never handled a gun, seldom mounted a horse," but devoted himself to his duties as an officer in the hampshire militia. here he acquired some practical knowledge of military affairs which was valuable to him in his remarks on the discipline of the roman army: he meditated several historical topics; returned to the continent, and at rome (15 october, 1764) conceived, as he has told us in imperishable words, the idea of writing "the decline and fall," "as i sat musing amidst the ruins of the capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the temple of jupiter". the distractions of society, and of politics, for he had a seat in parliament, and belonged to white's, boodle's, brooks's and the club of dr. johnson, did not draw gibbon from his great ambition. he had studied style till, in conversation, "his polish was occasionally finical... he moved to flutes and hautboys". george colman the younger has left a portrait of gibbon in verse, which is corroborated, as far as his manner in conversation went, by a letter of his own (1764).
his person looked as funnily obese
as if a pagod, growing large as man,
had rashly waddled off its chimney-piece,
to visit a chinese upon a fan.
such his exterior, curious 'twas to scan!
and oft he rapped his snuff-box, cocked his snout,
and ere his polished periods he began,
bent forwards, stretching his forefinger out,
and talked in phrase as round as he was round about.
roundness, meditated balance, are the characteristics of gibbon's style. "before he wrote a note or a letter he arranged completely[pg 493] in his mind what he wished to express." he says: "it has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it in my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of my pen till i had given the last polish to my work". as one consequence, "my first rough manuscript, without any intermediate copy, has been sent to the press". gibbon's history, in the vast whole, as well as in each sentence, was thus premeditated, under his ruling philosophic idea of what such a history should be. he had completely assimilated his mass of materials, and each topic was reduced to its proper dimensions, without encumbering details, while all marched to the flutes and hautboys of his rounded music. we may think it occasionally monotonous, and marvel that so many periods should conclude with a clause introduced by the preposition "of". but this is a trifling criticism, he had chosen his vehicle; and, though we should not imitate his style, yet a style it is, admirably adapted to its purpose. his reading was enormous in every branch of learning, including the science of coins; he constantly refers "to the medals as well as the historians". it may be curious to note that while he devotes four pages to the criticism of the iron cage of bajazet (1402) he neglects to mention that such cages or huches were commonly used for the safeguarding of important prisoners of war by the contemporary chivalry of france and england.
it is, of course, impossible, it would not be easy for the most learned of historians, to criticize in a few words a historical work of such vast survey, and concerned with so many and such various topics, with the affairs of so many races and religions, throughout so many centuries. the faults which have been chiefly criticized are gibbon's total inability to be generous towards christianity; and the bad taste of some of his notes; which appear to be the refreshments of a natural fatigue. in his day, he says, "history was the most popular species of composition," and he "is at a loss how to describe the success of the work, without betraying the vanity of the writer". he ended his task, and he has described his emotions when all was done, on 27 june, 1787, at lausanne, the place of his boyish exile and of his solitary affair of the heart. he died in 1794, having been mainly busy with the[pg 494] drafts of his autobiography. these drafts, with his most interesting letters, have been published by the piety of the earl of sheffield, the grandson of his devoted friend, john holroyd, first lord sheffield. in his early letters gibbon is no purist, "i tipped the boy with a crown," he says, an early use of a familiar modern term.
richard brinsley sheridan.
richard brinsley sheridan (1751-1816), like burke and goldsmith, was an irishman by birth; his family provided prince charles, in sir thomas sheridan, with a most inefficient tutor, and an unfortunate comrade in war. sheridan's own family was protestant, his grandfather was a friend of dean swift in ireland, and a humorist. his son, though in dr. johnson's set, was regarded by the great lexicographer as a prodigy of natural dullness, highly cultivated and improved by art. educated at harrow, young richard never gave any cause for the complaint that he was dull. at twenty-one he eloped from bath with the beautiful miss linley, a charming singer, the saint cecilia of reynolds's painting. in 1775, sheridan produced "the rivals" at covent garden; one of the few plays of the eighteenth century which still live on the stage, and perhaps can never cease to amuse, thanks to mrs. malaprop's exquisitely well-chosen derangement of epithets, and the unexpected variety of her parts of speech. malapropisms may be styled a mechanical form of humour, but mrs. malaprop's own are happily expressive of her character. to know lydia languish is to love her; and sir lucius o'trigger scarcely caricatures the ideas of his duelling fellow-countrymen; whilst bob acres is the most sympathetic of all the comic poltroons of the stage, though too sanguine in his belief that "damns have had their day". sir anthony absolute is a delightful variation on the stock character of the angry father; and these diverting figures make the sentimental parts of the serious lovers, falkland and julia, rather ungrateful. "the school for scandal" may be called conventional in the contrast of hypocrisy and reckless goodness of heart in joseph and charles surface; but convention is permitted to the stage, while sir peter and lady teazle, with the happy high spirits of the whole farcical comedy, and the varieties[pg 495] in the candour of the scandal-mongers, make the play at least the rival of "the rivals," as it is far more provocative of mirth than the wit of congreve. "the critic," again, in its delicious nonsense and satire of authors, actors, and critics—sir fretful plagiary is as diverting as realistic—infinitely surpasses its old model, "the rehearsal". we laugh aloud as we read, and are convulsed as we look on when the piece is acted. who forgets the nod of lord burleigh in the drama of the armada, and the exquisite reason for which the characters cannot behold the galleons of spain, and the romantic demeanour of the two tilburinas, and the governor who remains fixed, while the father is moved? of sheridan's other plays "st. patrick's day" is not seen on the stage, while "the duenna" does not "attain unto the first three".
as manager and owner of drury lane theatre, sheridan proved himself to be not more skilled in finance than balzac; in debt always, he somehow kept afloat. you would have said that "he was not the stuff they make whigs of"; any more than charles fox. in parliament, however (1780), he attached himself to that statesman's party; attacked warren hastings, and amused the prince of wales (george iv.) who certainly appreciated literary genius, from sheridan and scott to miss austen.
lady mary wortley montagu.
born a pierrepont, daughter of the earl of kingston (1689-1762) and wife of edward wortley montagu, lady mary, a toast at eight, lived through the great age of anne and pope, her absurd admirer before he was her shameless satirist. she was equally celebrated for her beauty, her wit, and her introduction of inoculation against small-pox, from constantinople, where her husband was english ambassador (1716). her light verses are sparkling and malicious; her fame rests on her letters, from the east, from england among the wits, to her sister (who married the jacobite earl of mar, and lived in france), and, in later life, to lady bute, from avignon, with its jacobite colony, and from italy, where she read and remarked on the great novelists of the day. even walpole's letters are scarcely more entertaining, and more brilliant records of society in the eighteenth century do not exist. lady[pg 496] mary was not sentimental, and laughed at pope's lightning-stricken lovers; or rather at the artificiality of pope's sentiment concerning them.
junius.
stat nominis umbra. because we do not know who wrote the letters of political invective signed "junius," and published by woodfall in "the public advertiser" (1768-1773), much has been written about the mystery of the author's identity. from sir philip francis (who seems to be the favourite, like matthioli for the man in the iron maskship) to the wicked lord lyttelton and edward gibbon, there have been about a score of candidates. matthioli was certainly not the man in the iron mask, and perhaps sir philip francis was not junius, who gives himself—very cleverly if he were sir philip,—the air of being some great one. the letters, except to the professed historian, are repulsive. the worst quality of satire, spite masquerading as virtuous indignation, is their chief characteristic, their style is that of antithetical rhetoric, highly inflated; their subject is party politics and personal invective.
[1] there was scarce a literary form which he did not touch, none which he touched did he fail to adorn.
[2] the writer observes that sterne is unmentioned in mr. pancoast's "introduction to english literature," third edition, enlarged, new york, 1907. "alas, poor yorick!"
