Sometimes it takes on a more marked and individual colour, Why this so sumptuous insult o'er our heads? Why so magnificently lodged Despair? and sometimes it is no longer rhetoric, but becomes pure poetry as in and and this gloom of Night With all her wealth, with all her radiant worlds, I gaze, and as I gaze, my mounting soul Prisoner of earth and pent beneath the moon. Young's sense of form is crude and uncertain, and where he uses rhyme, as in his Odes (Ocean, 1728; Imperium Pelagi, 1729, &c.), he is constantly intolerable. Even in the less risky medium of blank verse he can write lines like What smooth emollients in theology Recumbent virtue's downy doctors preach. But he has probably had less than his due from modern criticism, and in the Night Thoughts he often achieves power, and sometimes beauty. Less praise can be given to his last poem, Resignation (1762). The remaining poets of the period can only receive brief Lesser notice. Lady Winchilsea (1660-1720), who is Pope's 'Ardelia', Poets. and appears meditating song' in Gay's Welcome from Greece, wrote Pindaric Odes, including one on The Spleen (1701); also The Prodigy (1706) and Miscellany Poems (1714). Wordsworth commended her Nocturnal Reverie on account of its feeling for Nature. There is merit both in her light and her serious verse; and she has the distinction of having supplied a famous phrase to Pope and a beautiful idea to Shelley. Samuel Garth (1660-1718), like Arbuthnot, was a physician, and his chief work, The Dispensary (1699), is a burlesque poem in couplets on a contemporary quarrel between physicians and apothecaries. Sir Richard Blackmore (1650-1729) wrote long, sometimes inordinately long, poems-Prince Arthur (1695), King Arthur (1697), Job (1700), Eliza (1705), and Creation (1712). The last was praised by Addison and condoned by Johnson. Modern criticism regards most of Blackmore's work as past possibility or hope of condonation. Blackmore, if he could hardly write poetry, had the gift of evoking sarcasm, and having the misfortune to live a long life in a satirical age he suffered in his earlier years at the hands of Dryden, and in his later at those of Pope and Gay. 'Granville the polite' (Lord Lansdowne) and knowing Walsh', both of whom wrote far from contemptible verse, are familiar through Pope's grateful acknowledgement of encouragement received from them. The Pastorals of Ambrose Philips (1675-1749) have already been discussed in relation to Pope and Gay. Thomas Tickell (16881740), the protégé of Addison and butt of Pope, left much miscellaneous and mediocre work, but will always be remembered by his noble and fervent elegy on Addison. Thomas Parnell (1679-1718) lives chiefly through three pieces-The Hermit, most popular throughout the eighteenth century but now less thought of; and the more distinguished Nightpiece on Death and Hymn to Contentment. John Philips (1676-1709) wrote an amusing Miltonic parody or burlesque called The Splendid Shilling. His poem on Cider is satirically referred to in Gay's poem on Wine, which it probably suggested. The smaller fry of this period are numerous, but they are not for our net. CHAPTER XXII THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL Rise and progress of the Novel — Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Growing WE have already traced the English novel through various Vogue of stages, and have shown how it evolved toward realism through the Novel. the character' writers and the Spectator', and emerged 1 full-fledged in the fiction of Defoe. Since the Revolution, the drama, for reasons to be specified, had steadily decayed, and with that decay the novel had gained considerably in vogue. With such writers as Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Haywood, it became largely a chronicle of scandal, rendered more piquant by thinly-veiled portraiture of contemporary characters; but Addison and Swift had endeavoured, each after his own way, to make literature the guardian of society, and the Addisonian essay, which has often marked affinities with the novel, had been given a direct, if not very profound, moral aim. This ethical purpose appears under a much more sincere and intense form in the religion of the English middle class, who were now gaining greatly in social power and influence. The older Puritanism, of which they had been the stronghold during the Elizabethan period, had regained at the Revolution much that it had lost at the Restoration, and subsequently received a fresh lease in the teaching of Wesley and Young. Both morals and religion were lit with a new fervour, and the old Puritanical austerity was quickened and humanized by a fervent emotionalism. This earnestness of feeling is combined 1 Cf. Professor Sir Walter Raleigh, The English Novel, pp. 138-9, who shows that Mrs. Haywood's later and better novels, The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751) and The History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy (1753), are strongly affected by the new influences of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett. with a new realism of presentation in the novels of Samuel Richardson (1689-1761). As a boy he had been precocious both in sentiment and Richardconduct, and was originally intended for the Church. His sonfirst novel, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, did not appear till Pamela. 1740, when he was over fifty. His friends, the publishers Messrs. Rivington and Osborne, had desired him to write a book of familiar letters on the useful concerns in common life', and this he did with an aim at once moral and antiromantic. He wished to turn young people away from the pomp and parade of romance writing' into courses which might promote the cause of religion and virtue'. In this mood he bethought him of a story he had heard many years before of virtue tempted and persecuted, yet resisting and, in the end, winning the decent triumph of marriage. From these beginnings sprang Pamela, the tale of a girl left dependent on the libertine son of her dead mistress. She continues to stay beneath his roof while he makes repeated but unsuccessful attempts upon her virtue, treating her with every circumstance of insolence and perfidy. Yet in the end the reader is expected to be greatly edified by finding that the heart of Mr. B.' has been softened by her resistance, and that he offers her marriage, which she accepts with trembling gratitude. It is not too much to say with Sir Walter Raleigh, that in Pamela 'the prudential doctrine appears in its earliest and most disgusting form'. Yet the novel had an astonishing vogue throughout the country, for reasons by no means difficult to appreciate. The extraordinary subtlety and care which went to the description of Pamela and her sufferings, have still their hold on Richardson's readers; and for all the novel's length and ethical fustiness, it is impossible not to feel interested in its heroine and villain, in good Mrs. Jervis and odious Mrs. Jewkes, and in the well-meaning 'college novice', Mr. Williams. Far less interesting are the two volumes subsequently added by Richardson, which show Pamela married and still triumphant over temptation. A far greater novel is Clarissa, or the History of a Young Clarissa Lady (1747-48). Richardson's moral earnestness, instead of Harlowe. being cheapened into prudentialism, is here heightened into tragedy. The book's prime purpose is still ethical, and it aims at showing the distresses that may attend the misconduct both of parents and children in relation to marriage'. Lovelace entices Clarissa from her home, and pursues her with his love through the book's first six lengthy volumes. In the end he has his will and overcomes her, though not her virtue. She languishes and dies, and he falls in a duel by the hand of her kinsman, Colonel Morden. Such is the plot of this great novel, which was not only read by all England in its day, but had subsequently a profound effect upon European thought and feeling. Throughout its eight volumes the action is scanty, and apart from the central catastrophe, trivial. The same Sir Charles minuteness is shown in describing Lovelace's tactics and Clarissa's emotions of despair, religious faith and hope, and stifled love for her tormentor. Yet, despite its length, Clarissa remains as readable to-day as when it moved Macaulay to tears. Its appeal is due first and foremost to Richardson's masterly touch on the feminine heart and soul, and to his poignant sense of the tragedy implicit in such a seduction as Clarissa's. Lovelace, too, with his refinement, his great gifts, and his artistic reservations in villainy, remains, when criticism has done its worst upon him, a vastly interesting figure. The novel's obvious defects are more than redeemed by the presence of a great idea, on the whole greatly carried out. Still longer than Clarissa, but far less great, is Sir Charles Grandison (1753-54). Here the drawbacks of Richardson's Grandison. method, which is ultimately the sentimental, become very apparent. Sir Charles is the perfect man, and he knows it, and several women know it too, and worship him adoringly. In Meredith's hands he would have been matter for comedy, and might have been profitably put to the test which wrought such havoc on Sir Willoughby Patterne. Or he might have figured in tragedy, in which case his perfections, like Clarissa's, would have become interesting. Attended as they are by his own self-complacency and the admiration of all and sundry, they are little less than odious; and when he confers himself magnanimously on the grateful Harriet Byron, we wish to be shown him suing to Clara Middleton, or even to Laetitia Dale. Yet, repulsive as the hero is, he is drawn with much psychological power, as are also Clementina, Sir Hargrave Pollexfen, and the minors of the tale. Fielding There is much of the woman in Richardson's character and -Dramas. method, but Henry Fielding (1707-1754), who planned his first novel as a burlesque of Pamela, was one of the most masculine intelligences in the history of our literature. He began his literary career with two plays written in imitation of Congreve-Love in Several Masques (1728) and The Temple Beau (1730). Miss Oldfield's acting helped the first to success, but neither possesses much merit. The Author's Farce and The Pleasures of the Town (1730) are no longer imitative, but develop that satirical vein in which Fielding was to excel, and draw a racy picture of London literary life. Other plays followed, including Fielding's best work in drama, The Tragedy of Tragedies, or The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great (1731). This has been justly described as one of the best burlesques ever written'. In 1736 Fielding produced Pasquin and The Historical Register at the Little Theatre (Haymarket), of which he had become the lessee. In 1739 he edited The Champion, a paper largely modelled on The Spectator, but substituting for Sir Roger, Will Honeycomb and their club, the much less successful Vinegar family. Joseph Andrews. A far more important piece of work came from his hand in 1742. Pamela had seemed namby-pamby work to Fielding's robust mind; and he resolved to write a novel which should be its reductio ad absurdum. He therefore invented a brother for Pamela, the footman Joseph, whose virtue was attacked by his mistress, Lady Booby, even as Pamela's had been attacked by 'Mr. B.'. Thus were conceived the amusing opening scenes of Joseph Andrews (1742) which introduce the rascally and inimitable confidante, Mrs. Slipslop. But beneath Fielding's hand the novel soon grew beyond its original scope, and ceasing to be a burlesque, became a rollicking romance in its own right. As soon as that muscular Christian, scholar, and fantastic, Parson Adams, appears upon the scene, he takes precedence of Joseph and his sweetheart Fanny, and for all readers becomes the lovable and admirable, if ludicrous, hero of the book. A more odious fantastic is the hog-fancying Parson Trulliber. He was Fielding's three volumes of Miscellanies (1743) contain, Jonathan besides much other work, the admirable Lucianic dialogue, Wild, &c. A Journey from this World to the Next, and The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great. Mr. Austin Dobson has justly styled this book a model of sustained and sleepless irony'. The irony is directed toward showing that worldly greatness, as commonly understood, and as embodied in the career of the famous thief-taker, is a thing infinitely superior to virtue. Jonathan Wild', says Fielding, had every qualification necessary to form a great man. entirely free from those low vices of modesty and good nature, which, as he said, implied a total negation of human greatness, and were the only qualities which absolutely rendered a man incapable of making a considerable figure in the world.' Such a passage as this, both in form and spirit, suggests the writings of M. Anatole France, who also resembles Fielding in his admiration for the moral goodness that is founded in humility; but Fielding's irony is a far fiercer thing than that of the great Frenchman, which disarms anger' and helps to sweeten life. In 1749 Fielding published his masterpiece, The History of Tom Tom Jones, a Foundling. Here there was no longer, as in Jones. Joseph Andrews, a divided purpose of construction: Fielding puts confidently forth into that new province of writing which he claimed to have discovered. He avoids the highest life' as affording very little Humour or Entertainment', and aspires to fill 'his pages with Humour till mankind learn the Goodnature to laugh at the follies of others and the Humility to grieve at their own'. The love story between Tom and the charming Sophia Western is told realistically, and without any of that false sentiment which Fielding attributed to Richardson. We find here treated in Comedy the theme presented tragically in Richard Feverel-that of a woman whose lover is unfaithful to her, yet still loves her. Lady Bellenden, Tom's fair and unscrupulous seducer, is drawn with masterly and merciless power. Less masterly, perhaps, is the portrait of the villain, |