LIFE AND MANNERS.] NOVEL-READING. 325 Sterne. Smollett- his Roderick Random came forth in 1748, and his Peregrine Pickle in 1751,- and Sternehis Tristram Shandy dates from 1759 — must be acknowledged to have, the former many passages of free description, and the last a long train of covert hints. But at the same period as Tom Jones there appeared another work of fiction that aimed at a much higher strain. In that very year, 1749, came forth the first volumes of Clarissa Harlowe. The author, Richardson, was already known by his Pamela a few years before, and was further distinguished by his Sir Charles Grandison a few years afterwards. Whatever his theme the delineator of Clarissa seldom wrote without some moral lesson in his view. And while Fielding, with admirable skill, portrayed the especial features of the English character, Richardson no less successfully applied himself to the inmost feelings and failings of the human heart as in all countries they exist. For that very reason, while we find Fielding but seldom relished out of England, Richardson has perhaps obtained even more of value and esteem in translations, or upon the Continent, than at home. It is striking, by the way, to read of the contempt which these two great masters of fiction, each so eminent in his own sphere, entertained at heart for each other. Richardson would speak of Fielding, even to Fielding's sister, as utterly low and vulgar, while Fielding thought Richardson both pedantic and prolix. From the latter charge, indeed, it is no easy matter to defend him. A lady of the Edinburgh circle, who loved, in her old age, to have novels read to her as she sat in her elbow-chair, used to prefer, for that purpose, Sir Charles Grandison beyond any other work of fiction, "because," said she, "should I drop asleep in the course of the reading, I am sure when I "awake I shall have lost none of the story, but shall find "the party where I left them, conversing in the cedar"parlour!" 66 The wavering taste of the public in the matter of such liberties as Fielding's, was finally turned against them by other eminent examples. Three most remarkable works of fiction were composed in 1759, in 1763, and in 1765; the one a philosophical essay in the garb of an Eastern tale; the second, a delightful picture of rural life in England; the third, the parent of a numerous brood, the earliest of what we may term romances, as distinguished from novels. To this description it is needless to add the names of Rasselas, the Vicar of Wakefield, and the Castle of Otranto. Differing as do these tales from each other-differing as did their authors, Johnson, Goldsmith, and Horace Walpole-they yet agree in this one point, that there is nothing in them by which the most shrinking delicacy could be wounded. The contrast of Miss Burney's style with that of Fielding, though more recent, was stronger still, because the subjects on which she dwelt were more nearly the same as Fielding's. Miss Burney, whose Evelina appeared in 1778, and was followed by Cecilia in 1782, was the first to show that scenes both of low life and of high might be delineated with lively skill, and in a vein of broad comic humour, without even a single line unfit to meet a young lady's eye, or unworthy to proceed from a young lady's hand.* Although in the last century the common level of female education was undoubtedly less high than now, there seems some ground to conjecture that then a greater number of ladies studied the dead languages. We may picture to ourselves, as an instance, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in her girlhood, seated in the "little parlour which she has described at Thoresby, and with the old oaks of the forest full in view, but relinquishing a summer stroll beneath them to con over the Latin version of Epictetus, and to render it in English, while Bishop Burnet by her side, smiled on her young endeavours, and directed them. Yet her learning never caused Lady Mary to contemn the pursuits more especially allotted to her sex; on the contrary, we find her say, in one of her later letters, while treating of her granddaughter's education, "I think it as scandalous for a woman not to know "how to use a needle, as for a man not to know how to use a sword." † * See the excellent concluding remarks of Mr. Macaulay, in his Essay upon Madame d'Arblay. (Edinburgh Review, No. cliv. p. 569.) A Spanish pro † To the Countess of Bute, January 28. 1753. LIFE AND MANNERS.] FASHIONS OF DRESS. 327 It may be worthy of note, that in the earlier part of the last century, a young lady whose education was completed, was addressed in the same form as if already married. As she was a "spinster" by law, so was she a "mistress" by courtesy. Thus, for example, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu directs her letters for the maiden sister of her husband, to Mrs. instead of Miss Wortley. This peculiarity is the more remarkable, since, at a shortly previous period, the very opposite, at least among certain classes, prevailed in France. As an instance, we may observe in the "Impromptu de Versailles," that the wife of the greatest genius for comedy of modern times, bore the title, not of Madame, but of Mademoiselle, Molière. A greater contrast can scarcely be conceived than between the dresses of the present day and those in vogue a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago. Even with the aid of Kneller's pictures we can scarcely bring to our mind's eye our grandmothers in their hoops and hair-powder, or our grandfathers with their huge periwigs and their clumsy shoes, with buckles at their feet and at their knees, with rich velvet for their morning attire, and always with a sword at their side. A gold snuff-box took the present place of a cigar-case, and a gold-headed cane the present place of a switch. So high were the heels then commonly worn, that Governor Pitt was enabled, in travelling, to conceal in a cavity which he had formed in one of them the great diamond which he had brought home from the East Indies. Towards the time of the American War the ladies adopted a new and strange head-dress, building up their hair into a most lofty tower or pinnacle, until the head, with its adjuncts, came to be almost a fourth of the whole figure. Several varieties of this extravagant fashion may be traced in the engravings of that day. "I have just had my hair "dressed," writes Miss Burney's Evelina. "You cannot verb (preserved in the collection of Cæsar Oudin, 1624), is by no means favourable to those ladies who study the language of Cicero and Virgil: "Mula que haze hin hin "Y muguer que habla Latin * "think how oddly my head feels; full of powder and "black pins, and a great cushion on the top of it!" Towards the time, however, of the Peace of 1783, there began to spread among both sexes a taste for greater plainness and simplicity of attire. This taste, like most others on this subject, appears to have come from France, and to have proceeded, in some degree, from the precept and example of Rousseau. But America also, it is said, gave an impulse in the same direction. Wraxall - for his authority, though slight, may suffice for such matters as these complains, towards the year 1781, that Mr. Fox, who in early youth paid great attention to his dress, had grown wholly to neglect it. "He constantly, or at "least usually, wore in the House of Commons, a blue "frock coat and a buff waistcoat, neither of which seemed, "in general, new, and both sometimes appeared to be "thread-bare. Nor ought it to be forgotten that these "colours then constituted the distinguishing badge or "uniform of Washington and the American insurgents."† Yet here I cannot but suspect some misrepresentation of the motive. It is hard to believe, even of the most vehement days of party-spirit, that any Englishman could avowedly assume, in the House of Commons, the colours of those who, even though on most righteous grounds, bore arms against England; and I should be willing to take in preference any other explanation that can be plausibly alleged. By the influence, then, in some measure perhaps of both America and France, velvet coats and embroidered stomachers were, by degrees, relinquished. Swords were no longer invariably worn by every one who claimed to be of gentle birth or breeding. They were first reserved for evening suits, and finally consigned, as at present, to * Besides sundry passages in the Emile see the Nouvelle Héloïse, part ii. lett. xxi. As against a dress too costly, and for that very reason the longer worn, how effective is the single line: "Je n'aime "ni galons ni taches!" "Memoirs of my own Time," vol. ii. p. 2. ed. 1815. See also Mackenzie's Essay in the Lounger, dated April 9. 1785. Buff waistcoats were then, it seems, the usual badge of all Whig gentlemen at Edinburgh. And as for the Whig ladies, "I found that most of "them wore a fox's tail by way of decoration on their head-dress." LIFE AND MANNERS.] 66 Court dresses. Nevertheless, several years were needed ere this change was fully wrought. In Guy Mannering, where the author refers to the end of the American War, he observes of morning suits, that, "though the custom "of wearing swords by persons out of uniform had been "gradually becoming obsolete, it was not yet so totally forgotten as to occasion any particular remark towards "those who chose to adhere to it." Thus it may be difficult to fix the precise period of this change. But no one, on reflection, will deny its real importance. To wear a sword had been, until then, the distinguishing mark of a gentleman or officer. It formed a line of demarcation between these classes and the rest of the community; it implied something of deference in the last, and something of "knightliness," as Spenser terms it, in the former. Immediately after the cessation of this ancient usage, we find Burke lamenting that the age of chivalry was gone. Yet, although there was, or in theory at least there might be, some advantage in this outward sign of the feelings and the duties comprehended in the name of Gentleman, we must own that it was balanced by other evils, and especially by the greater frequency of duels it produced. Where both parties wore their swords, there was a constant temptation to draw and use them in any sudden quarrel. I may allege as a fair example the case, in 1765, of Mr. Chaworth and his country neighbour, Lord Byron, the grand-uncle and predecessor of the poet. These gentlemen had been dining together at the Nottinghamshire Club, which was held once a month at a tavern in Pall Mall. A discussion arose as to the comparative merits of their manors in point of game, and Mr. Chaworth was at length provoked into declaring that if it were not for Sir Charles Sedley's care and his own, Lord Byron would not have a hare on his estate. Upon this they withdrew to another room lighted by a single tallow-candle, where they drew their swords and fought, and where Mr. Chaworth was killed. Lord Byron was brought to trial before his Peers, and found guilty of Manslaughter only.* *Howell's State Trials, vol. xix. p. 1178-1235. But a different view of Mr. Chaworth's language is given in Walpole's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 51. |