SOME WRITERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

THE eighteenth century, tempestuous, turbulent, splendid, cruel, that began with the glory of a Marlborough, that gave us a Burke, a Chatham, and a William Pitt, and ended amidst the exploits of Wellington and Nelson, a century that witnessed the loss of our American Colonies, and saw us proceed on our career of greatness undisturbed, as though nothing had happened, possessed some indescribable virility which inspired thought and stimulated action. In literature a mere recital of its great names would cover pages of this Review. Pope, Addison, Defoe, Congreve, Fielding, Richardson, Sheridan, Swift, Johnson, and Gibbon, these were just a few of the intellectual giants that adorned it, while its closing years gave birth to Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Scott, whose greatest achievements were given to its successor. In this abounding versatility, this marvellous exhibition of genius, we feel lost and confused. A lifetime would hardly suffice to digest the feast of reason and the flow of soul that is offered to us. With so vast a mass of material the student can only explore a few of its endless ramifications. He can enjoy the perusal of some of the books from the title-page to the end; in the case of others he may taste of the Pierian spring as the limitations of time and opportunity permit. In truth we who live in the rush and whirl of the present day have not the leisure for either reading or writing that our ancestors enjoyed. Historians of the twentieth century dare not indulge in such space as Gibbon allowed himself in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Richardson's Clarissa was issued in eight bulky volumes, with an interval of some months between the publication of the first and the second half. But the book was received with a burst of acclamation; and every word was perused with an intensity of interest in the most fashionable centres of town, and in the most distant and inaccessible country houses. The only complaint was that the romance came to an end. Men and women, young and old, would have gone on reading about the woes of Clarissa and the misdeeds of Lovelace for the term of their natural life. Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.

If the eighteenth century may claim the proud distinction of originating the English novel, it must also accept the responsibility for the introduction of newspapers. Defoe incidentally remarks in his Diary of the Plague in 1665 that in those days the people had no newspapers. We are almost tempted to say

O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona nôrint!

No boys to shout all the winners and the latest betting!

Who was the originator of the English novel? That honour is generally accorded to the brilliant contemporaries Richardson and Fielding. But I do not see why Defoe, their predecessor by some twenty years, should not receive the credit. True it was Richardson and Fielding who almost simultaneously discovered that the ordinary affairs of everyday life afforded rich material for absorbing narratives. On a foundation apparently so slender they built up their stories, delineated human nature in its good and bad aspects, designed plots and created characters. If Defoe did not proceed so far as these two arch-magicians in their great conception, if his books were lacking in plot, problem, or passion, yet his vivid imagination, and the simplicity and purity of his style, carry us with him wherever he chooses to take us. He portrays scenes and adventures, and throws over them all a wonderful appearance of reality. A voluminous writer from his youth upwards on historical, political, and social questions, it was not until he attained the age of fifty-eight that his prolific pen turned to fiction, and one volume after another appeared in rapid succession. His first venture, Robinson Crusoe, is immortal. One of the most dramatic incidents in romance is Crusoe's discovery of the footprint on the sand when he believed that he was the sole inhabitant of his island. Hardly less vivid is the dismay of the boy-thief known as Colonel Jacque when he finds that the money which he has stolen and hidden in the hollow trunk of a tree has been appropriated by someone else. Defoe, as he tells us himself, wrote many of his romances for the lower classes.

Most graphic and convincing is Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year,' written by a Citizen who continued all the while in London.' We should most certainly gather that Defoe was giving us his own experiences; but he was only an infant in the terrible year 1665, and the book did not appear till 1722! But the air of verisimilitude is convincing. This is our author's gift. He can make lying appear like truth.' He talked of 'forging' his stories, and the phrase is apt. Dreadful though the subject be, the book is of enthralling interest.

In my walks [he tells us] I had many dismal scenes before my eyes, as particularly of persons falling dead in the streets, terrible shrieks and screechings of women, who in their agonies would throw open their chamber

windows and cry out in a dismal surprising manner. It is impossible to describe the variety of postures in which the passions of the poor people would express themselves. Passing through Tokenhouse Yard, in Lothbury, of a sudden a casement violently opened just over my head, and a woman gave three frightful screeches, and then cried, 'Oh, death, death, death!' in a most inimitable tone, which struck me with horror and a chillness in my very blood. There was nobody to be seen in the whole street, neither did any of the windows open, for people had no curiosity now in any case, nor could anybody help one another, so I went on to pass into Ball Alley.

He tells us of all the remedies and preventatives that were employed, the fires that were kept burning in the streets, the destruction of a prodigious multitude of mice and rats by poison; he records the prescriptions of the physicians, and gives us many religious and philosophic reflections. Just two more extracts, while I am tempted to reproduce a hundred passages:

The aspect of the city was frightful. The infection raged, and the people were now frighted and terrified to the last degree, so that, as I may say, they gave themselves up, and abandoned themselves to their despair.

This is to be said of people in London, that during the whole time of the pestilence the churches were never wholly shut up. Indeed nothing was more strange than to see with what courage the people went to the public service of God even at that time, when they were afraid to stir out of their own houses upon any other occasion; this, I mean, before the time of desperation which I have mentioned already.

So entirely authentic did this narrative appear that it was subsequently quoted by a leading physician as an authoritative document on the plague, while even the great Earl of Chatham was taken in by the Memoirs of a Cavalier, and recommended it as the best account of the Civil Wars!

If Tom Jones had appeared now the book would have been advertised with a sufficient number of stars, crosses, and dashes as 'The Novel of the Century.' This it undoubtedly was. It was Fielding's masterpiece. Byron styled Fielding' the prose Homer of human nature.' Coleridge in his Table Talk classed the plot of Tom Jones with that of Œdipus Tyrannus, adding, 'How charming, how wholesome, Fielding always is!' Sir Walter Scott asserted that Fielding was pre-eminent in grave irony, a Cervantic species of pleasantry; and Thackeray considered that he was one of the manliest and kindest of human beings. Fielding tells us that his purpose was to recommend goodness and innocence.' He delineates ordinary humanity with absolute fidelity. He does not attempt to disguise blemishes. Some of the happenings that he narrates shock us; and the Bellaston episode seriously disturbed Colonel Newcome. Full of humour and subtle sarcasm, Tom Jones is the English novel of manners. Fielding has created Squire Western, Miss Bridget Allworthy, and Partridge the barber

schoolmaster, together with Square and Thwackum, whose lively theological disputations are delightfully refreshing. We may remember how in the Vicar of Wakefield the good vicar's wife asserts that her daughter Olivia is capable of argument with anyone inasmuch as she is thoroughly acquainted with the duologues of Square and Thwackum!

It may require some courage to dive into what Fielding calls his prodigious history' of Tom Jones. Its bulk is sufficient to terrify an explorer. But the author entices us irresistibly along with him. Tom Jones is the hero of the book. We are regaled with a long series of his adventures, some creditable to him, others by no means so. He sows his wild oats with a vengeance, but ultimately turns out an exemplary and worthy member of society. He was a foundling, brought up by Squire Allworthy. What was his parentage? That is the mystery of the book which the etiquette of reviewers does not permit me to reveal. The dénouement is certainly startling. I am, however, at liberty to say that Tom marries Sophia, the daughter of the immortal breezy, boisterous, hard-riding, hard-drinking Squire Western. On an early occasion Tom had saved Sophia's life from a runaway horse, and in doing so had sustained a broken arm. He was laid up in Western's house.

Squire Western was seldom out of the sick-room, unless when he was engaged either in the field or over his bottle. Nor did he ever lay aside that hulloo with which he entered into all companies, when he visited Jones, without any regard to the sick person's being at that time either awake or asleep. 'There, Tom,' he cried one day, 'I have had a battle for thee below stairs with thick Parson Thwackum. He hath been a-telling Allworthy before my face that the broken bone was a judgment upon thee. "D-n it," says I, how can that be? Did he not come by it in defence of a young woman? A judgment, indeed! Zounds, if he never did anything worse, he will go to heaven before all the parsons in the country.'

At the end of the history, when everything is being settled satisfactorily between Tom and Sophia, Western bursts into the room, and with his hunting voice and phrase cries out :

'To her, boy, to her, go to her. That's it, little honeys, that's it! Well, what, is it all over? Hath she appointed the day, boy? What, shall it be to-morrow or next day? It shan't be put off a minute longer than next day, I am resolved.',

Truly a delightful Englishman is Western. Just one instance of Fielding's sarcastic touch. Captain Blifil had married Miss Bridget Allworthy for her money, and was calculating how soon Allworthy would die, and he and his wife would come in for his whole fortune.

But while the captain was one day busied in deep contemplation of this kind, one of the most unlucky as well as unseasonable accidents happened to him. The utmost malice of Fortune could, indeed, have contrived nothing so cruel, so mal-à-propos, so absolutely destructive to all his schemes. In short, not to keep the reader in long suspense, just at the very instant when his heart was exulting in meditations on the happiness which would accrue to him by Mr. Allworthy's death, he himself -died of an apoplexy!

And to this unprincipled man the guileless Allworthy put up an epitaph crediting him with all the virtues! Fielding heads each of his chapters with a racy little heading: A very short chapter, in which, however, is a sun, a moon, a star, and an angel.' 'Worthy a very serious perusal.' 'A whimsical adventure which befel the squire, with the distressed situation of Sophia.' Lengthy this narrative may be, but it is extremely captivating and diverting.

History hitherto had been for the most part a dull chronicle of events, often singularly incorrect. But now a totally new system was to be adopted. David Hume, after writing a number of subtle and original treatises on philosophy and metaphysics, startled the world in the latter part of his literary career by branching out in an entirely new direction. I can imagine Hume saying to himself, Why should works on this splendid history of ours be so heavy and uninteresting? Let me try to make a record that is both trustworthy and readable.' This is what he did. If he does not quite possess the charm of Herodotus, he rivals Thucydides in his lucid description of events and in clarity of judgment. A new spirit was at work, a new atmosphere was created. Men lived in his book as they had lived in the historical plays of Shakespeare. Here is his brilliant summary of the character of Queen Elizabeth:

So dark a cloud overcast the evening of that day, which had shone out with a mighty lustre in the eyes of all Europe! There are few great personages in history who have been more exposed to the calumny of enemies and the adulation of friends than Queen Elizabeth, yet there is scarcely any whose reputation has been more certainly determined by the unanimous consent of posterity. The unusual length of her administration, the strong features of her character, were able to overcome all prejudices, and obliging her detractors to abate much of their invective, and her admirers somewhat of their panegyrics, have at last in spite of political factions, and what is more, of religious animosities, produced a uniform judgment with regard to her conduct. Her vigour, her constancy, her magnanimity, her penetration, vigilance and address are allowed to merit the highest praise and appear not to have been surpassed by any person that ever filled a throne.

Hume makes us feel proud of being English as we read his glowing words.

I have been greatly attracted by a predecessor of David Hume, who for a short time was engaged in ploughing the same furrow.