A History of English Prose Fiction by Bayard Tuckerman

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A HISTORY

OF

ENGLISH PROSE FICTION

BY

BAYARD TUCKERMAN

NEW YORK & LONDON
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
The Knickerbocker Press
1894

COPYRIGHT BY
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
1882

TO
MY FATHER,
THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

PREFACE.

It is attempted in this volume to trace the gradual progress of English
Prose Fiction from the early romance to the novel of the present day,
in such connection with the social characteristics of the epochs to
which these works respectively belong, as may conduce to a better
comprehension of their nature and significance.

As many of the earlier specimens of English fiction are of a character
or a rarity which makes any acquaintance with them difficult to the
general public, I have endeavored so to describe their style and
contents that the reader may obtain, to some degree, a personal
knowledge of them.

The novels of the nineteenth century are so numerous and so generally
familiar, that, in the chapter devoted to this period, I have sought
rather to point out the great importance which fiction has assumed, and
the variety of forms which it has taken, than to attempt any exhaustive
criticism of individual authors--a task already sufficiently performed
by writers far more able to do it justice.

THE AUTHOR.

B.T.

"_The Benedick._"
NEW YORK, Aug. 22, 1882.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

THE ROMANCE OF CHIVALRY ........................................ 1

CHAPTER II

CHAUCER, TALES OF THE YEOMANRY, SIR T. MORE'S "UTOPIA".......... 42

CHAPTER III

THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. LYLY, GREENE, LODGE, SIDNEY ............. 60

CHAPTER IV.

THE PURITANS, "THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS" ......................... 102

CHAPTER V.

THE RESTORATION. ROGER BOYLE, MRS. MANLEY, MRS. BEHN ........... 112

CHAPTER VI.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. SWIFT, ADDISON, DEFOE, RICHARDSON,
FIELDING, SMOLLETT ............................................. 134

CHAPTER VII.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CONTINUED. STERNE, JOHNSON, GOLDSMITH,
AND OTHERS. MISS BURNEY AND THE FEMALE NOVELISTS.
THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL ........................................... 220

CHAPTER VIII.

THE NOVEL IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE NOVEL OF
LIFE AND MANNERS. OF SCOTCH LIFE. OF IRISH LIFE.
OF ENGLISH LIFE. OF AMERICAN LIFE. THE HISTORICAL
NOVEL. THE NOVEL OF PURPOSE. THE NOVEL OF FANCY.
USE AND ABUSE OF FICTION ...................................... 274

CHAPTER I.

THE ROMANCE OF CHIVALRY.

I

In the midst of an age of gloom and anarchy, when Feudalism was slowly
building up a new social organization on the ruins of the Roman Empire,
arose that spirit of chivalry, which, in its connection with the
Christian religion, forms so sharp a division between the sentiments of
ancient and modern times. Following closely on the growth of chivalry
as an institution, there came into being a remarkable species of
fiction, which reflected with great faithfulness the character of the
age, and having formed for three centuries the principal literary
entertainment of the knighthood of Europe, left on the new
civilization, and the new literature which had outgrown and discarded
it, lasting traces of its natural beauty. Into the general fund of
chivalric romance were absorbed the learning and legend of every land.
From the gloomy forests and bleak mountains of the North came dark and
terrible fancies, malignant enchanters, and death-dealing spirits,
supposed to haunt the earth and sea; from Arabia and the East came
gorgeous pictures of palaces built of gold and precious stones, magic
rings which transport the bearer from place to place, love-inspiring
draughts, dragons and fairies; from ancient Greece and Rome came
memories of the heroes and mysteries of mythology, like old coins worn
and disfigured by passing, through ages, from hand to hand, but still
bearing a faint outline of their original character. All this mass of
fiction was floating idly in the imaginations of men, or worked as an
embellishment into the rude numbers of the minstrels, when the mediaeval
romancers gathered it up, and interweaving it with the traditions of
Arthur and Charlemagne, produced those strange compositions which are
so entirely the product and repository of the habits, superstitions,
and sympathies of the Middle Ages that they serve to

"Hold the mirror up to Nature,
To show Vice its own image, Virtue its own likeness,
And the very age and body of the times,
His form and pressure."

The men who wrote, and the men who read these romances, the first
springs of our modern fiction, were influenced by two dominant ideas:
"One religious, which had fashioned the gigantic cathedrals, and swept
the masses from their native soil to hurl them upon the Holy Land; the
other secular, which had built feudal fortresses, and set the man of
courage erect and armed within his own domain."[1] These two ideas were
outwardly expressed in the Roman Church and the Feudal System.

During the anarchy of the Middle Ages, every man was compelled to look
upon war as his natural occupation, if he hoped to preserve life or
property. His land was held as a condition of military service. As long
as there was no effective administration of justice, redress for the
aggrieved lay in the sword alone. A military career had no rival in the
eyes of the ambitious and the noble. There was no learning, no art, to
share with skill in arms, the honors to which a youth aspired. Religion
and love, the most powerful inspirations of his moral life, made force
of arms the merit most worthy of their rewards. The growth of the
people in the mechanical arts took the direction of improving the
instruments of warfare; the increase of refinement and humanity tended
less to diminish war than to make it more civilized, showy, and
glorious. The armies of the Romans seem prosaic when we turn to the
brilliant array of chivalry, to the ranks of steel-clad knights
couching the lance to win fame, the smile of woman, or the reward of
religious devotion;--men to whom war seemed a grand tournament, in
which each combatant, from the king to the poorest knight, was to seek
distinction by his strength and valor. It was through the senses, and
especially through the eye, that the feudal imagination was moved.
Every heart was kindled at the sight of shining armor, horses with
brilliant trappings, gorgeous dress, and martial show. The magnificent
Norman cathedrals struck the mind with devotional awe; the donjons and
towers of the great baronial castles were suggestive of power and
glory. To the impressibility of the senses was added the romantic
spirit of adventure, which kept the knighthood of Europe in a constant
ferment, and for lack of war, burst forth in tournaments, in private
feuds, or in the extravagances of knight-errantry. The feudal system,
growing up to meet the necessities of conquerors living on conquered
territory, and founded on the principle of military service as a
condition of land tenure, made of Europe a vast army. The military
profession was exalted to an importance which crushed all effort of a
more useful or progressive nature; the military class, including all
who possessed land, and did not labor upon it, became an aristocracy
despising peaceful occupations, whose most powerful prejudice was pride
of birth, whose ruling passion was love of war. Under the influence of
this military spirit, intellectual was subordinated to active life; a
condition of ignorance and danger was sustained; an overwhelming
reverence for the supernatural was produced, and there resulted that
predominance of the imagination over the reason of man which forms the
distinctive feature of Romantic Fiction.

While the feudal system formed the framework of society, and, as much
by inspiration as by law, governed the outward actions of men, the
human mind was in complete, and almost universally willing, subjection
to theological influence. The state of war, or of readiness for war,
which was the inevitable accompaniment of feudal tenure, did much to
sustain the state of profound ignorance and consequent superstition in
which the people of mediaeval times were plunged, both by preventing the
pursuit of peaceful occupations and the growth of knowledge, and by
increasing the element of danger in life, which always inclines the
human mind to a belief in the supernatural. The same results were
brought about by the character and aims of the Roman Church. The
unswerving purpose of that church was to govern, temporally as well as
spiritually. She sought to supply to men from her own store all the
knowledge which was necessary for their welfare, and that knowledge was
limited to dogmas and beliefs which would strengthen the power of the
priesthood. A strict and absolute acceptance of the truths of
Christianity as she defined them, and a humble obedience to the clergy
were made the sole and necessary conditions of salvation. A questioning
of those truths or a violation of that obedience was a crime before
which murder and license faded into insignificance. The spirit of doubt
and of inquiry which alone leads to knowledge, and through knowledge to
civilization, was repressed by excommunication or in blood. As long as
men continued in a state of helpless ignorance and willing credulity,
the church was a fitting, even a beneficent, mistress and guide. For
centuries she was the sole teacher and the sole external source of
moral elevation. For centuries she alone pointed out the distinction
between right and wrong, the beauty of virtue, and the ugliness of sin.
Whatever there was in life to raise men above their earthly struggles,
their evil passions, and the despair of a hard and dangerous existence,
was supplied by her. The consolations of religion, the ennobling
acquaintance with the character of Christ, and the hope of salvation
through Him were incalculable blessings. Her aid in suppressing
disorder and in establishing a respect for law and government is not to
be overlooked. She presented in her own organization an example of
authority, of system, and of obedience, which, despite many failings
and abuses, was of great value to the world. But there is in human
nature an irrepressible tendency toward growth and progress, and when
this tendency began to show itself in the Middle Ages, it found in the
theological spirit, then personated by the Roman Church, its most
bitter and most powerful enemy. The church, which had hitherto been a
teacher and guide, became the champion of barbarism and the genius of
retrogression. Instead of adapting herself to the growing wants of
mankind, instead of preserving her influence and power by inward
progress proportionate to that which she saw advancing without, she
sought, stationary herself, to keep the world stationary, and to stamp
out in blood the progressive spirit of man. Hence it is that the
blessings of our modern life have been achieved in spite of the Roman
Church, which should have promoted them, and the history of modern
civilization and modern knowledge is in so large a part the history of
emancipation from the tyranny of the theological spirit,--that is, the
clerical opposition to mental and material advancement, both of which
are as necessary to moral advancement as they are to the happiness of
men. This spirit has been the same in every country and in every age,
when the spiritual has exceeded the secular power, and its lamentable
effects may be traced as well in the gloomy Protestant theocracy of
Scotland as in the Catholic Inquisition of Spain. During the period,
however, when the romances of chivalry were principally written and
enjoyed, the convulsions arising from attempts to burst the bonds by
which the minds of men were restrained, had not yet been sensibly felt.
The church was still the controlling intellectual influence. A dark
cloud of ignorance and superstition hung over Europe, to be dispelled
at last by the new growth of learning, and the consequences following
upon it. The best intelligence of the time was confined to the clergy,
who used it skilfully to maintain their authority. By every device they
sought to usurp to themselves the sole power of ministering to popular
wants. Nothing which could strike the mind through the senses was
neglected. They offset tournaments by religious shows and pageantry,
rivalled the attractions of the harp by sacred music, and to wean their
flocks from the half dramatic entertainments of the minstrels, they
invented the Miracle Play and the Mystery. The church forced herself on
the attention of every man without doors or within, by the friars
black or gray who met him at every turn, by the imposing monasteries
which formed a central figure in every landscape, and by the festivals
and processions of priests which made the common occasions for the
assemblage of the people. The constant recurrence of holy days and
fasts called the mind to the consideration of spiritual things, and the
rough superstition of the time was deeply excited when the approach of
death in a household brought the priestly train with lighted tapers,
and the awe-inspiring ceremonies with which the lingering soul was sent
on its way.

The military nature of feudalism explains the predominance of warlike
incidents in romantic fiction, and the character of the Roman Church
gives us an insight into the causes which, in addition to the ignorance
of the time, induced men to refer all remarkable events to supernatural
influence, and prepared their minds for the unquestioning belief in the
fictions which are so important a characteristic of the romances of
chivalry. The low standard of morality also, which is reflected in the
same pages, is due quite as much to the predominance of the dogmatic
over the moral element of Christianity, as to the unrefined and rude
conditions of life.

There is much that is picturesque and brilliant in the times, but much
more that is terrible. The nobles and knights, who lived sword in hand
behind their battlements and massive walls, were the rulers of the
country. Their ungoverned passions and their love of fighting for its
own sake or for that of revenge, were perpetual dangers to internal
peace. There was no power sufficient to keep them in check. The
lawlessness and anarchy caused by the ceaseless quarrels between baron
and baron, found but a feeble remedy in the laws of King or Church. Of
the darkness of the earlier Middle Ages Von Sybel[2] gives a graphic
picture: "Monarchies sank into impotence; petty lawless tyrants
trampled all social order under foot, and all attempts after scientific
instruction and artistic pleasures were as effectually crushed by this
state of general insecurity as the external well-being and material
life of the people. This was a dark and stormy period for Europe,
merciless, arbitrary, and violent. It was a sign of the prevailing
feeling of misery and hopelessness that, when the first thousand years
of our era were drawing to their close, the people in every country in
Europe looked with certainty for the destruction of the world. Some
squandered their wealth in riotous living, others bestowed it, for the
good of their souls, on churches and convents; weeping multitudes lay
day and night about the altars; some looked forward with dread, but
most with secret hope, toward the burning of the earth and the falling
in of heaven." Gradually some order and security succeeded this chaos.
The church exerted all her strength in subduing violence, and the
character of her remedies are illustrative of the evils they were
intended to abate. The truce of God set apart the days between Thursday
and Monday of each week as a time of peace, when private quarrels
should be suspended. The peace of the king forbade the avenging of an
alleged injury until forty days after its commission. The Council of
Clermont ordered that every noble youth on attaining the age of twelve
years should take an oath to defend the oppressed, the widows, and the
orphans.[3] Much superfluous energy was exhausted in the crusades. In
England the growth of the universities and the study and development of
law aided the establishment of social order, while the spread of
commerce and the improvements in husbandry brought with wealth some
refinement and luxury. The baronage wrested from the crown those
liberties which finally became the common property of all. Trade pushed
the inhabitants of the towns into prominence as an important class
whose influence was thrown entirely into the scale of peace and quiet,
on which its prosperity depended. No element of change was more
essential, and none was greater in its civilizing effects than the
development of the chivalric spirit into an institution of which the
laws and customs were observed from England to Sicily. Its influence
worked directly upon the disturbing classes of society. Only time and
the slow march of civilization could calm the restlessness and the
martial spirit of the powerful, but chivalry introduced into warfare
knightly honor and generosity, and into social life a courtesy and
gallantry which formed a strong ally to religion in bringing out the
better sentiments of humanity. At a time when force was greater than
law, when the weak and defenceless were at the mercy of the powerful,
when women were never safe from the attacks of the brutal, a body of
men who were sworn to redress wrongs, to succor the oppressed, and to
protect women and children, could not fail to be highly beneficial and
to win the reverence of mankind. To be a good knight was to be the salt
of the earth. The church gave easy absolution to the champion of the
weak,--the soldier of God. Women smiled upon the cavalier whose
profession was her service, and whose deeds, as well as the glitter of
his arms and the fascination of his martial appearance, flattered her
pride and gratified her imagination.

Yet, in considering the period of chivalry, we must not yield too much
to the attraction of its brilliant show, its high flown sentiments, and
knightly valor. Beneath religion there ever lurked a bigoted
superstition; beneath valor, cruelty; beneath love, mere brutal
passion. The sympathies of the order were much confined to the higher
classes, and there was little feeling for the sufferings of the common
people. The reign of Edward the Third embraces the most brilliant days
of chivalry. About that period is spread a mist of manly gallantry and
feminine charms which conceals the darkness beneath. The Black Prince,
after winning his spurs at Cressy, carried fire and sword among the
peaceful and defenceless inhabitants of Garonne, gratifying a greed of
gain by blood and rapine. The gallant deeds of Sir Walter de Manny, of
Sir John Chandos, the fame of Edward himself, only make darker by
contrast the desolation and suffering by which their glory was
purchased. The poetic illusion inspired by Froissart's chronicles of
knightly deeds and manners is rudely torn when we read Petrarch's
description of France after the battle of Poitiers; "I could not
believe that this was the same France which I had seen so rich and
flourishing. Nothing presented itself to my eyes but a fearful
solitude, land uncultivated, houses in ruins. Even the neighborhood of
Paris showed everywhere the marks of desolation and conflagration. The
streets are deserted, the roads overgrown with weeds, the whole is a
vast solitude."[4]

It is among the Northern conquerors that we must look for the origin of
the spirit of chivalry, which consisted first and chiefly in manly
valor exerted to obtain the favor of woman. Of this there is no trace
in any ancient civilization. Among the barbarous tribes of the North,
physical strength and military prowess were the qualities most
essential in a man, and woman naturally looked upon them as the merit
she most loved, especially as they were needed for her own protection.
But this condition is natural to all barbarous and warlike peoples, and
cannot by itself account for that sentiment which we call chivalric. To
the valor of the Goths were joined an extraordinary reverence and
respect for their women, due, as these feelings always must be, to
feminine chastity. The virtue for which the Northern women were
distinguished elevated them to a position to which the females of other
uncivilized nations never approached. It gave them a large influence in
both public and private affairs, and made them something to be won, not
bought. To obtain his wife the Northern warrior must have deserved her,
he must have given proofs that he was worthy of the woman who had
preserved her chastity inviolate, and for whom love must be mingled
with respect.[5] It is curious to observe how exactly these sentiments,
which existed at so early a period among the Gothic nations, were
continued into feudal times. Take, as one instance, the exclamation of
Regner Lodbrog, the famous Scandinavian chieftain, who about the year
860 rescued a princess from a fortress in which she was unjustly
confined, and received her hand as his reward: "I made to struggle in
the twilight that yellow haired chief, who passed his mornings among
the young maidens and loved to converse with widows. He who aspires to
the love of young virgins ought always to be foremost in the din of
arms!"[6] Compare to this a scene at Calais about the middle of the
fourteenth century. Edward III had just accomplished an adventure of
chivalry. Serving under the banner of Sir Walter de Manny as a common
knight, he had overcome in single combat the redoubted Sir Eustace de
Ribeaumont, who had brought the king twice on his knees during the
course of the battle. Edward that evening entertained all his French
prisoners as well as his own knights at supper, and at the conclusion
of the feast he adjudged the prize of valor for that day's fighting to
Sir Eustace de Ribeaumont, and removing a chaplet of pearls from his
own head, he placed it on that of the French knight, with the
significant words[7]: "Sir Eustace, I present you with this chaplet as
being the best combatant this day, either within or without doors; and
I beg of you to wear it this year for love of me. I know that you are
lively and amorous, and love the company of ladies and damsels;
therefore say wherever you go that I gave it to you." But the chivalry
of the Goths was only the seed of the plant which flourished so
luxuriantly under better conditions in later times. The feudal system
fostered the growth of the sentiment into the institution, as a
palliative to anarchy and as an ornament to life, while the Church,
always eager to absorb enthusiasm and power into her own ranks, adopted
the institution as the Holy Order, and adding religious devotion to the
inspiration of love, directed the energies of chivalry into the work of
civilization, and made the knight the champion of the weak, in addition
to his character as a valiant soldier.

It is difficult in considering a period so remote and so peculiar as
that of chivalry, to fix the limit between the actual and the
imaginary, between the character of the ideals which men placed before
themselves, and the extent to which these ideals were realized. That
the writings of the romancers were exaggerations of actual manners
rather than inventions, is shown by the descriptions of the habits and
inmates of mediaeval castles, which form so interesting a portion of
Froissart's chronicles, and give such striking and life like
illustrations of the society which at once inspired and enjoyed the
romances of chivalry. The castle of the Earl of Foix and the Earl
himself would have seemed quite natural in the pages of a romance:
"Ther was none more rejoysed in dedes of armes than the erle dyde: ther
was sene in his hall, chambre, and court, knightes and squyers of
honour going up and downe, and talking of armes and amours; all honour
ther was found, all maner of tidyngs of every realme and countre ther
might be herde, for out of every countree ther was resort, for the
valyantness of this erle." Of "armes and amours" the knights and ladies
loved to talk, and arms and amours formed the burden of the ponderous
tomes which the Earl of Foix caused to be read before him. The
adventures of knights-errant, and their obligation to render aid and
comfort to "all distressed ladies and damsels," have a charming
illustration in the championship of the cause of Isabel, Queen of
Edward the Second of England, by Sir John of Hainault, and the words
used by the latter in undertaking the enterprise were the echo of the
chivalric feeling of the time. As soon as the arrival of Queen Isabel
in Hainault was known, "this Sir John, being at that time very young
and panting for glory, like a knight-errant mounted his horse, and,
accompanied by a few persons, set out from Valenciennes for
Ambreticourt, where he arrived in the evening and paid the Queen every
respect and honour." Notwithstanding the remonstrances and objections
which were raised against his undertaking so perilous an adventure as
the invasion of England, "the gallant knight would not change his
purpose, saying, 'that he could die but once; that the time was in the
will of God; and that all true knights were bound to aid, to the utmost
of their power, all ladies and damsels driven from their kingdoms
comfortless and forlorn.'" To suppose that the romances formed an
accurate reflection of actual life would show an entire ignorance of
their nature; but there can be no doubt that these fictions were the
natural outcome of existing thought and manners; that they were
sufficiently life-like to interest; and that they increased and
intensified the habits and ideas in which they had their origin.

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