A History of English Prose Fiction by Bayard Tuckerman

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The aim of "Roxana, or the Fortunate Mistress," like that of "Moll
Flanders," is to describe the gradual corruption of a woman, who is
influenced by some conscientious scruples and misgivings, but the
heroine is placed in a higher station of life. We have a curious
commentary on the times in comparing the body of the work with the
preface. "Roxana" is among the coarsest records of vice in English
fiction. But yet it is to impart moral instruction. "In the manner she
has told the story it is evident she does not insist upon her
justification in any part of it; much less does she recommend her
conduct, or, indeed, any part of it, except her repentance, to our
imitation. On the contrary, she makes frequent excursions, in a just
censuring and condemning her own practice. How often does she reproach
herself in the most passionate manner, and guide us to make just
reflections in the like cases?" The modern reader is astonished to find
"that all imaginable care has been taken to keep clear of indecencies
and immodest expressions; and, it is hoped, you will find nothing to
prompt a vicious mind, but everywhere much to discourage and expose
it."

Defoe is much more successful in teaching a moral lesson in "Colonel
Jack." The aim of this novel is to describe the course of a street-boy
who takes to thieving before he knows that it is not a legitimate
business, and who being possessed naturally of a good character is
brought to repentance and reform when subjected to better influences.
Defoe's preface has great significance when we consider the deplorable
condition of the lower classes and no better idea can be gained of the
usual fate of the children of the poor than is afforded by this novel.

Here is room for just and copious observations on the blessings and
advantages of a sober and well-governed education, and the ruin of
so many thousands of all ranks in this Nation for want of it; here
also we may see how much public schools and charities might be
improved, to prevent the destruction of so many unhappy children,
as, in this town, are every year bred up for the executioner.

The miserable condition of multitudes of youth, many of whose
natural tempers are docible, and would lead them to learn the best
things, rather than the worst, is truly deplorable, and is
abundantly seen in the history of this man's childhood; where,
though circumstances formed him by necessity to be a thief,
surprising rectitude of principles remained with him, and made him
early abhor the worst part of his trade, and at length to forsake
the whole of it. Had he come into the world with the advantage of a
virtuous education, and been instructed how to improve the generous
principles he had in him, what a figure might he not have made,
either as a man or a Christian.

The promise of the preface is fulfilled. The whole work is a protest
against the neglect of the education and training of the youth of the
lower classes; and the life of Colonel Jack would be apt to have a good
effect on youthful readers of the time. In Chapter X, when Jack has
risen by his industry and humanity from being a slave on a Virginia
plantation to the rank of an overseer, and finally to that of an
independent planter, he makes a long digression to rejoice in his
change of condition and character:

It was an inexpressible joy to me, that I was now like to be not
only a man, but an honest man; and it yielded me a greater
pleasure, that I was ransomed from being a vagabond, a thief, and a
criminal, as I had been from a child, than that I was delivered
from slavery, and the wretched state of a Virginia sold servant; I
had notion enough in my mind of the hardship of the servant or
slave, because I had felt it, and worked through it; I remembered
it as a state of labour and servitude, hardship and suffering. But
the other shocked my very nature, chilled my blood, and turned the
very soul within me; the thought of it was like reflections upon
hell and the damned spirits; it struck me with horror, it was
odious and frightful to look back on, and it gave me a kind of fit,
a convulsion or nervous disorder, that was very uneasy to me.

These reflections remind us of the self-communings of Bunyan in "Grace
Abounding in the Chief of Sinners." They express the feelings of
remorse and the longings for a better state arising in the mind of a
rough but conscientious man. They are the promptings of a strong moral
nature, and illustrate those national qualities which brought about the
reforms which distinguish the latter half of the eighteenth century.
Colonel Jack took advantage of every opportunity for improvement. When
a vagabond in Scotland, he learned with infinite pains to read and
write. When a planter in Virginia, he took for his schoolmaster a
transported felon, who knew Latin. This spirit of self-advancement by
patient labor, by invincible resolution, is the spirit of Defoe's
writings; it is the English characteristic which has raised the nation
to all its prosperity and greatness.

When "Robinson Crusoe" had attained celebrity, Defoe claimed that it
was an allegory of his own life. A parallel might easily be drawn
between the isolation of the solitary sailor on his island, and that
of the persecuted author in the heart of a great city. All the world,
and particularly his literary brethren, had been against Defoe. Pope
had put him into the "Dunciad," Swift had spoken of him as "the fellow
who was pilloried, I forget his name," He had known oppression and
poverty, the pillory and the prison. He has left us his own view of the
aim of "Robinson Crusoe."[160] "Here is invincible patience recommended
under the worst of misery; indefatigable application and undaunted
resolution under the greatest and most discouraging circumstances." And
such is the moral of Defoe's own life.

Mrs. Heywood had written a number of stories[161] resembling, in the
licentiousness of their character and the flimsiness of their
construction, the novels of Mrs. Behn. Toward the end of her life she
wrote "Miss Betsey Thoughtless," which is believed to have suggested to
Miss Burney some of the incidents in "Evelina." This novel was
exceedingly popular, and had some merit, considering the period of its
composition. It is among the earliest specimens of a domestic novel;
the plot has interest, and the characters are life-like. It
illustrates, if any illustration were needed, the prevailing absence of
any elevated view, either of love, or of the relations between men and
women. The book is made up of easy seductions and licentious talk, and
represents its youthful characters as very familiar with dissolute
scenes and thoughts.

[Footnote 151: "Julius Caesar," Act. I, sc. 2. Quoted in Scott's "Life
of Swift." For Swift, see also "Life" by Sheridan, by Roscoe, and by
Forster.]

[Footnote 152: "Life of Swift."]

[Footnote 153: Sir W. Scott. "Life of Swift."]

[Footnote 154: See "Life of Swift," by Scott.]

[Footnote 155: Wilson "Life of Defoe." Lee, "Life of Defoe."]

[Footnote 156: See "Daniel Defoe," by William Minto, p. 135. American
edition.]

[Footnote 157: William Minto, "Life of Defoe," p. 134:--"From writing
biographies with real names attached to them, it was but a short step
to writing biographies with fictitious names."]

[Footnote 158: "Memoir of Defoe," William Hazlitt, p. 30.]

[Footnote 159: See the preface to "Moll Flanders."]

[Footnote 160: Preface to the "Serious Reflections of Robinson
Crusoe."]

[Footnote 161: "Love in Excess," "The British Recluse," "The Injured
Husband," "Jenny and Jemmy Bessamy," "The Fortunate Foundling."]

III.

Samuel Richardson might have stood for Hogarth's "Industrious
Apprentice." When a printer's boy, young Samuel stole from his hours
of rest and relaxation the time to improve his mind. He was careful not
to tire himself by sitting up too late at night over his books, and
purchased his own candles, so that his master, who called him the
"pillar of his house," might suffer no injury from his servant's
improvement.[162] Thus Richardson persevered in the path of virtue,
until, like the "Industrious Apprentice," himself, he married his
master's daughter, succeeded to his business, and lived happy and
respected, surrounded by all the blessings which should fall to the lot
of the truly good.

"I was not fond of play, as other boys," says the author of "Pamela";
"my school-fellows used to call me _Serious_ and _Gravity_; and five of
them particularly, delighted to single me out, either for a walk, or at
their fathers' houses, or at mine, to tell them stories, as they
phrased it. Some I told them from my reading, as true; others from my
head, as mere invention; of which they would be most fond. * * * _All
my stories carried with them, I am bold to say, an useful moral._"[163]
In such a manner, and with such an intention, Richardson began his
career as a novelist.

The life of the stout, vain little printer was already well advanced,
his fortune was assured, and he was surrounded by a group of
affectionate relatives and admiring female friends, when he was asked
by a publisher to write "a little book of familiar letters on the
useful concerns in common life." While thinking over this proposal, be
recollected a story once told him of a young servant-girl, whose honor
was long attempted by a dissolute master, and who, by her resolute
chastity, finally conquered his vicious intentions, and was rewarded
by honorable marriage with her thwarted seducer. And then it occurred
to Richardson, that this story, "if written in an easy and natural
manner, suitable to the simplicity of it, might possibly introduce a
new species of writing, that might possibly turn young people into a
course of reading different from the pomp and parade of romance
writing, and, dismissing the improbable and marvellous, with which
novels generally abound, might tend to promote the cause of religion
and virtue." Such was the origin of a novel destined to make a new era
in English fiction. It is evident that Richardson placed before himself
two aims: to promote the cause of religion and virtue, and to introduce
a new species of writing, and in both he succeeded.

The name, "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded," sounds like a tract, and
"Pamela" is, indeed, a very long tract. The contrast is curious between
the moral object of the work and its contents. In the preface we are
told that "Pamela" is to inculcate religion and morality in an easy and
agreeable manner; it is to make vice odious, to make virtue truly
lovely, and to give practical examples, "worthy to be followed, in the
most critical cases, by the modest virgin, the chaste bride, and the
obliging wife." Moreover, all this is to be done, "without raising a
single idea throughout the whole, that shall shock the exactest
purity." Yet, "Pamela" contains not a few scenes likely to inflame the
imagination, and its subject, kept continually before the reader's
mind, is the licentious pursuit of a young girl. This story would not
now do for a tract. But it answered the purpose very well in the
eighteenth century. Richardson had no fear his book would give the
youthful reader any new knowledge of evil, or that the long account of
Pamela's attempted seduction would shock the "exactest purity" of his
time. He simply described the dangers to which every attractive young
woman was more or less subject by the prevailing looseness of morals,
while, by the pathetic and resolute resistance of Pamela's chastity, he
undoubtedly enlisted the sympathies of his reader on the side of
virtue. The perusal of the book was recommended by Dr. Sherlock from
the pulpit. One critic declared that it would do more good than twenty
volumes of sermons; another, that if all other books were to be burnt,
"Pamela" and the Bible should be preserved. A gentleman said that he
would give it to his son as soon as he could read, that he might have
an early impression of virtue.[164]

The moral of "Pamela" was virtue rewarded. That of "Clarissa,"
Richardson's second novel, was virtue triumphant, even in disgrace and
ruin. The heroine, to escape the tyranny of her parents who wished to
force her into a marriage she abhors, throws herself on the protection
of a lover, the famous Lovelace, who, failing to seduce her by any
other means, lures her into a brothel, and there violates her person
while she is rendered insensible by opiates. Lovelace offers to make
reparation for his crime by marriage, but in refusing this offer, and
in dying of a broken heart, Clarissa carries out the moral of the
story.

Richardson was blamed for making the libertine hero, Lovelace, more
attractive than was consistent with moral effect. And to remedy this
mistake, he undertook in "Sir Charles Grandison," his last novel, to
draw the portrait of a man of _true honor_; "acting uniformly well
through a variety of trying scenes, because all his actions are
regulated by one steady principle: a man of religion and virtue; of
liveliness and spirit; accomplished and agreeable; happy in himself,
and a blessing to others." Sir Charles then is not a man, but a model.
"Pamela" and "Clarissa" remained virtuous through temptation and trial.
But Grandison is a good man because he has no inducement to be
otherwise. He can afford to be generous, because he is rich; he can
afford to decline a duel, his reputation for skill in swordsmanship is
so well established that he runs no danger of being called a coward; he
is free from licentiousness, because his passions are under perfect
control. The name of Sir Charles Grandison has passed into a proverb,
and its mention calls up to the mind a man of the most dignified
deportment, of the most delicate consideration for women, and of the
most elaborate manners. But it must be remembered that in Sir Charles,
our author drew the portrait of what a gentleman should be, and not of
what a gentleman was. Even the most punctilious men of the time did
not, like Grandison, hesitate to visit a sick person, because it would
involve travelling on Sunday; nor did they, as he, refuse to have their
horses' tails docked, because nature had humanely given those tails as
a protection against flies. The Grandisonian manners are not to be
taken as a picture of contemporary fashion. Richardson was unacquainted
with aristocratic habits, and his high-flown love scenes were purely
ideal. When he goes into high life, said Chesterfield, "he mistakes the
modes." Not long before Sir Charles was making his formal and courtly
addresses to Miss Byron, Walpole had written to George Montagu: "'Tis
no little inducement to wish myself in France, that I hear gallantry is
not left off there; that you may be polite, and not be thought awkward
for it. You know the pretty men of the age in England use the women
with no more deference than they do their coach horses." Such was the
state of things which the example of Sir Charles Grandison was intended
to remedy.

The moral design is an important element in Richardson's novels, but
the extraordinary popularity of these works was owing to other causes.
Richardson had known how to move his reader's heart, and how to give to
his characters a deep personal interest. He had attempted to introduce
"a new species of writing," and public enthusiasm testified to his
success. Colly Cibber read "Clarissa" before its publication, and was
wrought up into a high state of excitement by the story. "What a
piteous, d----d, disgraceful pickle you have placed her in!" he wrote
to Richardson. "For God's sake, send me the sequel, or--I don't know
what to say! * * * My girls are all on fire and fright to know what can
possibly have become of her." And when he heard that Clarissa was to
have a miserable end, he wrote the author: "God d----n him, if she
should."[165] Mrs. Pilkington was not less distressed: "Spare her
virgin purity, dear sir, spare it! Consider if this wounds both Mr.
Cibber and me (_who neither of us set up for immaculate chastity_),
what must it do with those who possess that inestimable treasure?"[166]
Miss Fielding, the sister of the novelist of that name, thus described,
in a letter to its author, her feelings on reading "Clarissa": "When I
read of her, I am all sensation; my heart glows. I am overwhelmed; my
only vent is tears." One Thomas Turner, who kept a village shop in
Sussex, thus recorded in his diary the impression produced upon him by
the death of Clarissa: "Oh, may the Supreme Being give me grace to
lead my life in such a manner as my exit may in some measure be like
that divine creature's."[167] Johnson was an enthusiastic admirer of
Richardson. Dr. Young looked upon him as an "instrument of Providence."
Ladies at Ranelagh held up "Pamela," to show that they had the famous
book.[168] Nor was this interest confined to the last century. "When I
was in India," said Macaulay to Thackeray, "I passed one hot season at
the hills, and there were the governor-general, and the secretary of
government, and the commander-in-chief, and their wives. I had "Clarissa"
with me, and as soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a
passion of excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her
scoundrelly Lovelace. The governor's wife seized the book, and the
secretary waited for it, and the chief justice could not read it for
tears!" Macaulay "acted the whole scene," adds Thackeray; "he paced up
and down the Athenaeum library; I dare say he could have spoken pages
of the book."[169] But admiration of Richardson was still greater among
foreigners. The novels were translated into French, Dutch, and German,
and the enthusiasm they excited may be imagined from the warmth of
Diderot's eulogy: "I yet remember with delight the first time ('Clarissa')
came into my hands. I was in the country. How deliciously was I affected!
At every moment I saw my happiness abridged by a page. I then experienced
the same sensations those feel who have long lived with one they love,
and are on the point of separation. At the close of the work I seemed to
remain deserted. * * * Oh, Richardson! thou singular genius in my eyes!
thou shalt form my reading at all times. If, forced by sharp necessity,
my friend falls into indigence; if the mediocrity of my fortune is not
sufficient to bestow on my children the necessary cares for their
education, I will sell my books,--but thou shalt remain! Yes, thou shalt
rest in the _same class_ with Moses, Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles, to
be read alternately."[170]

What was the secret by which the stout little printer excited such
enthusiasm and won such eulogy? How did he appeal to natures so
different as the worldly Lord Chesterfield, the country shopkeeper, and
the impassioned Diderot? Richardson was the first novelist to stir the
heart and to move the passions, and his power was the more striking
that it was new. His study of human nature had begun early in life. "I
was not more than thirteen," he says, "when three young women, unknown
to each other, having an high opinion of my taciturnity, revealed to me
their love secrets, in order to induce me to give them copies to write
after, or correct, for answers to their lovers' letters. * * * I have
been directed to chide, and even repulse, when an offence was either
taken or given, at the very time when the heart of the chider or
repulser was open before me, overflowing with esteem and affection; and
the fair repulser, dreading to be taken at her word, directed _this_
word, or _that_ expression, to be softened or changed. One, highly
gratified with her lover's fervor and vows of everlasting love, has
said, when I have asked her direction, _I cannot tell you what to
write; but_ (her heart on her lips) _you cannot write too
kindly_."[171] With such an apprenticeship, Richardson had come to
possess a very delicate perception of character, and especially of
female character. There was a certain effeminacy in his own nature
which made him understand women better than men. His best creations are
Pamela and Clarissa. Lovelace and Grandison are drawn from the outside;
they are less real and natural. But Richardson leads his reader into
the inmost recesses of his heroines' hearts. He is at home in
describing the fears, the trials, and the final childlike rejoicings of
Pamela. He attains to a high tragic effect in the death of Clarissa, a
scene which Sir James Mackintosh ranked with Hume's description of the
death of Mary Stuart. In this power to touch the heart and to move the
passions of his reader lay the charm of Richardson's writing. But to
paint perfection, rather than to study nature, was his object in "Sir
Charles Grandison," and therefore that novel was less powerful in the
author's day, and is less interesting in ours than "Pamela" and
"Clarissa." We no longer need the example of the pompous Sir Charles to
dissuade us from indecent language and drunkenness in a lady's
drawing-room, and we can only laugh at the studied propriety of his
faultless intercourse with Miss Byron:

He kissed my hand with fervor, dropped down on one knee; again
kissed it--You have laid me, madam, under everlasting obligation;
and will you permit me before I rise--loveliest of women, will you
permit me to beg an early day?--

He clasped me in his; arms with an ardor--that displeased me not on
reflection. But at the time startled me. He then thanked me again
on one knee. I held out the hand he had not in his, with intent to
raise him; for I could not speak. He received it as a token of
favor; kissed it with ardor; arose; _again_ pressed my cheeks with
his lips. I was too much surprised to repulse him with anger; but
was he not too free? Am I a prude, my dear?

Restrain, check me, madam, whenever I seem to trespass on your
goodness. Yet how shall I forbear to wish you to hasten the day
that shall make you wholly mine? You will the rather allow me to
wish it, as you will then be more than ever your own mistress;
though you have always been generously left to a discretion that
never was more deservedly trusted to. Your will, madam, will ever
comprehend mine.

The verisimilitude of Richardson's novels, which is made so striking by
his feminine attention to detail, may seem destroyed to modern readers
by the apparent improbability of the narrative itself. It appears
strange that young girls like Pamela or Clarissa should be so entirely
in the power of their seducers, that incidents should be repeated with
impunity which the existence of a police force would seem to make
impossible. But the reader whose sense of probability is shocked by the
unpunished and uninterrupted villanies of Mr. B. and of Lovelace, can
find evidence of the security with which such crimes could be committed
by the rich and influential in the Newgate calendar. The forcible
detention in his own house, by Lord Baltimore, of a young girl, his
atrocious treatment of her, and his escape from punishment, are
incidents in real life not more remarkable than the fictions of the
novelist.

Sir Walter Scott lamented, early in the present century, the neglect
into which the works of Richardson had fallen. That neglect has not
since been diminished, for obvious reasons. "Surely, sir," said Erskine
to Johnson, "Richardson is very tedious." "Why, sir," was the
lexicographer's reply, "if you were to read Richardson for the story,
your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself,
but you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only
giving occasion to the sentiment." But the reader of today will agree
with Erskine in thinking that Richardson is tedious. We have so many
good novels which do not require the attention and labor exacted by
him. We live so fast that we cannot spare the time for so much
sentiment. These novels, like the elaborate embroideries of the last
century, belong to a period when life was less full, and books less
abundant. Samuel Richardson will take his place among the great authors
who are much admired and little read, whose works every educated person
should have heard of, but upon which very few would like to be
examined.

With Richardson's novels English fiction took a long step forward; but
it made a still greater advance in the hands of Henry Fielding. The
latter was peculiarly well fitted by his talents and experience to
carry the novel to a high position of importance and artistic merit. He
united a considerable dramatic, and a great narrative power with an
exuberant wit and an extensive knowledge of men. Allied to a noble
family, but oppressed by poverty, Fielding mingled during his life with
all classes of society. The Hon. George Lyttleton was his friend and
protector, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was his cousin. On the other hand,
his poverty and improvidence constantly kept him, as Lady Mary put it,
"raking in the lowest rinks of vice and misery." Richardson, who always
denounced Fielding's works as "wretchedly low and dirty," said
sneeringly: "his brawls, his jars, his jails, his spunging-houses are
all drawn from what he has seen and known." But in this ungenerous
sneer lay a substantial compliment. Fielding did describe what he had
seen and known, and the variety of his experience gave him a breadth
and power in describing human nature which the confined life of
Richardson could not afford. The two novelists cannot be fairly
compared, nor should they be considered as rivals. They pursued
different methods, and aimed at opposite effects. Each has a high place
in English literature, which the greatness of the other cannot depress.
Richardson is best able to make his reader weep, and Fielding to make
him laugh.

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