. Jane Austen's instinct for human nature is unerring within its own range, but, special pleading apart, it must be confessed that that range is somewhat disconcertingly limited. We need not accept wholly the valuation by which she refers to the little bit of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush as produces little effect after much labour'; but it is one of her own champions who says of her that she has little idealism, little romance, tenderness, poetry, or religion'. The indictment is a formidable one, though there would not be lacking advocates to dispute every count in it. Certainly she has not passion; she does not stir our nature to its depth as Charlotte Brontë sometimes stirs it. Her clear cool sense of life seems coldness to some, and leaves them cold in turn; but those who, like Hippolytus, are enthralled by the chaste perfection of Artemis, will find their account in Jane Austen, who holds posterity by her sure and testing touch on life, her sensitive irony, demure and inevitable dialogue, and quick, true sense of some of the most sterling things in human nature. It will be convenient to mention here a considerably Mrs. Gaslater successor to Jane Austen-Mrs. Gaskell (1810-1865), kell and who, in Mary Barton (1848), takes for her subject the lower Trollope. life of a great manufacturing town. In Cranford (1853) she adopts not only Jane Austen's manner, but her subject, and presents a subtle and delightful picture of English country life. The same field was laboured, after a very different fashion, by Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), whose Barchester Towers (1857) is the most famous among a numerous series of novels describing with an easy, if never quite first-rate, mastery, English country society of the middle and upper classes. We may turn back again to a group of novelists who came Disraeli. midway between Scott and Thackeray, and of whom the chief are Disraeli, Bulwer Lytton, and Peacock. Disraeli's literary activity, like the activities of Landor and Meredith, extended over more than fifty years, from Vivian Grey (1826) to Endymion (1880). Most typical of his baffling and exotic genius are the first of these novels, and Coningsby (1844), in which he describes, with brilliant wit and colour, the English political and aristocratic life of his day. Much of Disraeli's own political theory and ideal, much, too, of the current Tory interpretation of history, appear in these volumes. They contain, too, such powerfully drawn contemporary portraits as those of Croker (Mr. Rigby), and of the second Earl of Yarmouth (Earl Monmouth), who was later to achieve a sinister immortality as Thackeray's Lord Steyne. Disraeli, like his own Mr. Sidonia, affects a Semitic magnificence of style, and the gloss and glitter of this debar him for the most part from the highest expression. Henrietta Temple, however, is a charming love story, and hardly less remarkable in its different kind is Venetia, with its brilliant portrayal of Byron. Bulwer Lever: Peacock. Bulwer's historical novels have already been noticed. He touches Disraeli both in style and in subject in his early story of English society, Pelham (1828). His remarkable versatility is evident in the variety of themes which he has chosen to handle in Eugene Aram (1832), Zanoni (1842), The Caxtons (1850), My Novel (1853), The Coming Race (1871), Kenelm Chillingly, and several others. His Haunted and the Haunters (1859) was probably the best ghost story in the English language, until Mr. Henry James wrote The Turn of the Screw. Bulwer, in an even greater degree than Disraeli, is liable to the charge of artistic pretence and insincerity, but this defect is to a large extent redeemed by his qualities of power and brilliancy. His exact place in literature is hardly settled even yet, but it is quite definitely below the highest. Charles Lever (1806-1872) is less important for his more mature and deliberate work than for the rollicking novels of his early manhood, the chief of which are Harry Lorrequer (1839) and Charles O'Malley (1841). These gay and superficial sketches of Irish life will always be read with pleasure, though they have few qualities of greatness. Quite different in spirit from the three just mentioned was Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866). Scholar, poet, and satirist, he became often an acrid critic of the Romantic movement, of which he was nevertheless a part. His criticism of this and other developments of his age appear constantly under an ironic form throughout his works, from Headlong Hall (1816) to Gryll Grange (1860). Peacock, in his most representative novels (the pair just mentioned and Nightmare Abbey, Melincourt, and Crotchet Castle), constantly adopts the plan of making his characters assemble in a country house, and give their opinions, often over wine and generally very wittily, upon the subjects and people whom their author most wished to satirize. This device, since practised with great effect by Mr. W. H. Mallock in The New Republic, gave Peacock the chance of introducing many contemporary portraits, generally coloured by a strong dash of caricature: thus, to take only a few instances, Byron appears as Mr. Cypress and Shelley as Glowry Scythrop in Nightmare Abbey; Coleridge, whose love of German metaphysics aroused great contempt in Peacock, is Mr. Flosky in the same novel. These novels of Peacock's, like some of Mr. Shaw's plays, subordinate action to dialogue, and often become a mere series of conversations. Somewhat different in form are Maid Marian (1822) and The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829), each of which contains an acceptable blend of irony and romance. The peculiarly detached quality of Peacock's humour makes his place in English fiction unique and assured. Minors who can merely be mentioned here are J. J. Morier (Hajji Baba, 1824), Michael Scott (Tom Cringle's Log and The Cruise of the Midge), Captain F. Marryat (Peter Simple, 1834, and Mr. Midshipman Easy, 1836), and Samuel Warren (Ten Thousand a Year, 1839). 319 CHAPTER XXIX GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF NINETEENTHCENTURY LITERATURE The French Revolution and English Literature - Waning German and increasing French influence The appeal of French poetry- Science and literature - Changed outlook of the English poets - Diversity of style and spirit in Victorian literature Degradation of Victorian drama- Criticism and Novel-writing-The appeal of the Russian novel. IN some ways the Victorian period of literature represents a development of the Romantic spirit, in others a definite reaction against it. By far the most important social and political influence upon the age of Wordsworth had been the new spirit of France incarnate in the Revolution. When she seemed to have betrayed the principles for which she had fought and suffered and sinned, when aggression and tyranny appeared to have succeeded equality and fraternity, the hopes entertained by many English writers for the regeneration of herself and the world vanished in disillusion and despair. Partly to this cause, partly to another immediately to be specified, is due the note of pessimism and scepticism which is already heard in Coleridge's Ode to Dejection and Shelley's Lines written in Dejection near Naples, and sounds throughout much of the English poetry which follows. But the disillusionment with France does not remain merely political it profoundly affects the attitude of many English thinkers toward the whole French mind. Thus Coleridge, who in his youth had looked to France for salvation, can at a later period describe certain criticisms of Shakespeare as being the growth of our own country but of France the judgment of monkeys by some wonderful phenomenon put into the mouths of people shaped like men'. Even Hazlitt, who, unlike Southey and Coleridge, remained faithful to the principles of the Revolution, allows the current tendency to affect his attitude toward the French spirit, of which he writes thus: The French attach no importance to anything, except for the moment; they are only thinking how they shall get rid of one sensation for another: all their ideas are in transitu.... They never arrive at the classical-or the romantic. They blow the bubbles of vanity, fashion, and pleasure ; but they do not expand their perceptions into refinement, or strengthen them into solidity.... They are light, airy, fanciful (to give them their due), but when they attempt to be serious (beyond mere good sense) they are either dull or extravagant.' With this reaction against the French mind comes a corresponding enthusiasm for the German. This had already taken shape in the long visit paid by Coleridge and Wordsworth not to Germany in 1798, in Coleridge's preoccupation with German metaphysics, and in the great vogue enjoyed by the German novel of mystery. It receives a fresh lease in the writings of Carlyle, who interprets Goethe, Schiller, Richter, and Novalis to England, takes Frederick the Great for his hero, and with his admiration for the German. spirit, combines a certain injustice to many French writers, including Voltaire. The German influence remains paramount in England till the day of Matthew Arnold, who, as will be seen, helps to promote it, but also holds up certain French writers to the admiration of Englishmen. From this time onwards, the influence of Germany wanes, and although the writers of her greatest period were, and still are, read with delight, her more recent literature has had comparatively little influence on English thought and art. Simultaneously with this decline, the French influence increases. With Swinburne, who is almost unaffected by the German mind, it is paramount, and otherwise than with Arnold, results in a thorough understanding of the spirit of French poetry, and the keenest enthusiasm for it. This enthusiasm has been caught and transmitted by a number of lesser men, and during the last two generations, French lyric and French drama have held a strong fascination for young imaginative England. In the case of France, then, the interest has been first and foremost literary, and has been largely concerned with the problems of form which have been faced with such splendid success by her poets. The other great foreign influence upon English poetry during this period, the Italian, has been chiefly political, and the interest has centred in the long and gallant struggle for freedom in which Italy was engaged during the early and middle periods of the nineteenth century. The tradition of responsive English enthusiasm begins as early as Shelley, and is continued in the poetry of the Brownings and Swinburne. Indeed, the Risorgimento gave something of the quickening to Victorian poetry that the Revolution had given to the earlier Romantic. But there were other forces at play in the making of Victorian poetry, and some of these were neither literary nor political. When poetry in the Age of Wordsworth had striven to answer the central problems of life it had constantly spoken to man of a universal spirit comprising himself and nature, yet transcending space and time, a spirit in which the perplexities and tragedies of existence might be explained and reconciled. This transcendental and universalizing tendency was as strong in the atheist' Shelley as it was in the more orthodox Wordsworth; and it has led a great living critic to emphasize the spiritual affinity between the English poetry of this period and the German philosophy of the same, or a slightly earlier, age. But the subsequent progress of science, the establishment of the theory of evolution, and the publication of such volumes as Lyell's Principles of Geology (1830-3) and The Origin of Species (1859), sharply challenged the older philo sophies and faiths; and if these were not routed, they at any rate bore upon them the marks of the onslaught, and in many cases were forced to give ground. This change of attitude is evident throughout the poetry of the period in divers forms, the most obvious of which is a certain pessimism and a certain doubt concerning the spirit of the older faith. This doubt remains unresolved in the poetry of Arnold and Clough; in that of Tennyson, it is resolved in hope rather than in any confident or certain belief. When, as with Browning, the faith remains steady and unshaken, it has been brought down from the mountain-tops and more uniformly related to the experience of men than had been the faith of Wordsworth, and the faith, and unfaith, of Shelley. In the poetry of Francis Thompson an escape has been found through the acceptance of a revealed religion. With Swinburne and Meredith there has been a direct break with such religion, yet the faith is still intensely held and expressed; and it is with both men a faith, whether the poet so meant it or no, which is quite in keeping with the teaching of modern science. In point of form, the chief characteristic of Victorian and Georgian poetry is its remarkable diversity. In sharp contrast to the classic language of Arnold and Tennyson stand the intensely and sometimes perversely individual styles of Browning and Meredith. The elaborate and often exquisite 'conceits' of Francis Thompson are frequently reminiscent of Donne, and the rich sensuousness of his language gives him kinship with Crashaw. Sensuous after a different fashion is Rossetti's poetry, a box where sweets compacted lie'. William Morris, on the other hand, who distrusts the Renaissance, and strives to recapture the spirit of the Middle Age, ensues in his poetry the large and simple speech of his master Chaucer. The main influences on the younger men would appear to be Coleridge and Blake, though one of the chief poets now living has expressly deprecated Blake's influence, and has professed his allegiance to Dryden and Gray. certain periods of English literature notably in the first half of the eighteenth century-it has been possible to point to a given form or style of writing, and to describe it as typical of the age. This would be utterly impossible with the Victorian period, which both in practice and in theory would seem to be the most various age of English literature. At There has been hardly less variety in English criticism; and the tendency here has been accompanied by a growing and wholesome catholicity. Almost every period of England's literary past, almost every great foreign literature, has found its admirers and champions. Ruskin and Morris, after widely different fashions, have helped to bring the spirit of the Middle Ages into touch with modern English thought and art. Swinburne, Symonds, and many lesser writers, through their enthusiasm for Elizabethan drama, have kept alive the national interest in the finest flower of the English M |