But when the great novelists of the eighteenth century were writing, the standard of taste was extremely low. The author knew that he was keeping his reader in bad company, and was supplying his mind with coarse ideas, but he believed that he might do this without offense. Defoe thought that "Moll Flanders" would not "offend the chastest reader or the modestest hearer"; Richardson, that the prolonged effort to seduce Pamela could be described "without raising a single idea throughout the whole that shall shock the exactest purity"; Fielding, that there was nothing in "Tom Jones" which "could offend the chastest eye in the perusal." Nor, as concerned their own time, were they mistaken. They clearly understood the distinction between coarseness and immorality. The young women who read "Tom Jones" with enthusiasm were not less moral than the women who now avoid it, they were only less refined. They did not think vice less reprehensible, but were more accustomed to the sight of it, and therefore less easily offended by its description.
While the novels of which we have been speaking were making their first appearance, there lived in Kent a charming young lady who went by the name of "the celebrated Miss Talbot." She had attained this distinction by her great cultivation. She had studied astronomy and geography, was "mistress of French and Italian," and knew a little Latin. When she was only twenty years of age, the Dean of Canterbury spoke of her with high admiration. Her acquaintance was eagerly sought by accomplished young ladies, and by none more successfully than "the learned" Miss Carter. Both of these girls read the novels of the day, and fortunately recorded some of their opinions in the letters which passed between them.[182] "I want much to know," wrote Miss Talbot, "whether you have yet condescended to read 'Joseph Andrews.'" "I must thank you," replied Miss Carter, "for the perfectly agreeable entertainment I have met in reading 'Joseph Andrews.' It contains such a surprising variety of nature, wit, morality, and good sense, as is scarcely to be met with in any one composition, and there is such a spirit of benevolence through the whole, as, I think renders it peculiarly charming," Some years later the Bishop of Gloucester came to visit Miss Talbot's family, and read "Amelia," the young lady wrote, while he was nursing his cold by the fireside. Miss Carter replied that "in favor of the bishop's cold, his reading 'Amelia' in silence may be tolerated, but I am somewhat scandalized that, since he did not read it to you, you did not read it yourself." "The more I read 'Tom Jones,'" wrote Miss Talbot, "the more I detest him, and admire Clarissa Harlowe,—yet there are in it things that must touch and please every good heart, and probe to the quick many a bad one, and humor that it is impossible not to laugh at." "I am sorry," replied Miss Carter, "to find you so outrageous about poor Tom Jones; he is no doubt an imperfect, but not a detestable character, with all that honesty, good-nature, and generosity." Miss Talbot, in a later letter, said that she had once heard a lady piously say to her son that she wished with all her heart he was like Tom Jones.[183] In 1747 "Clarissa" was read aloud at the palace of the Bishop of Oxford, Miss Talbot's uncle. "As for us," she wrote, "we lived quite happy the whole time we were reading it, and we made that time as long as we could, too, for we only read it en famille, at set hours, and all the rest of the day we talked of it. One can scarcely persuade one's self that they are not real characters and living people." Even "Roderick Random" made part of the young ladies' reading. "It is a very strange and a very low book," commented the Bishop's celebrated niece, "though not without some characters in it, and, I believe, some very just, though very wretched descriptions."
[162] Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson," vol. 1, p. 42. Scott's "Life of Richardson."
[163] Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson," vol. 1, p. 37.
[164] Edinburgh Review. Oct., 1804. Scott's "Life of Richardson," note.
[165] Richardson's correspondence, 1748.
[166] Richardson's correspondence. Forsyth's "Novels and Novelists," p. 251.
[167] See the interesting "Glimpses of Our Ancestors," by Charles Fleet, p. 33.
[168] Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson."
[169] W.M. Thackeray, "Nil Nisi Bonum", Cornhill Mag., No. 1.
[170] D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," art. "Richardson."
[171] Mrs. Barbauld's "Life of Richardson," vol. I, p. 40. Scott's "Life of Richardson."
[172] The reader may find some curious examples of the fidelity with which Fielding portrayed contemporary character and manners in comparing passages in "Tom Jones," with "Glimpses of our Ancestors," by Charles Fleet, pp. 38, 39, et passim.
[173] "Joseph Andrews," book III, chap. 9.
[174] "Tom Jones," book iv, ch. 8.
[175] Samuel Rogers, "Table Talk," p. 227.
[176] Coleridge, "Table Talk," p. 339, vol. 2, London, 1835.
[177] Preface to "Debit and Credit" ("Soll und Haben"), by Gustav Freitag.
[178] "Adventures of Count Fathom," letter of dedication.
[179] "Roderick Random," chap. xxiii.
[180] 'The wife of William, second Viscount Vane, "was the too celebrated Lady Vane; first married to Lord William Hamilton, and secondly to Lord Vane; who has given her own extraordinary and disreputable adventures to the world in Smollett's novel of 'Perigrine Pickle,' under the title of 'Memoirs of a Lady of Quality.'"—Walpole to Mann, Nov 23, 1743. "The troops continue going to Flanders, but slowly enough. Lady Vane has taken a trip thither after a cousin of Lord Berkeley, who is as simple about her as her own husband is, and has written to Mr. Knight at Paris to furnish her with what money she wants. He says she is vastly to blame, for he was trying to get her a divorce from Lord Vane, and then would have married her himself. Her adventures are worthy to be bound up with those of my good sister-in-law, the German Princess, and Moll Flanders."—Walpole to Mann, June 14, 1742.
[181] "Adventures of Count Fathom," letter of dedication.
[182] "The Carter and Talbot Correspondence," Ed. by Rev. Montagu Pennington, 1809.
[183] See "The Carter and Talbot Correspondences."
CHAPTER VII.
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CONTINUED.
I.—THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL.
II.—STERNE, JOHNSON, GOLDSMITH, AND OTHERS.
III.—MISS BURNEY, AND THE FEMALE NOVELISTS.
IV.—THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL.
I.
We have observed in the earlier works of fiction of the eighteenth century, together with great coarseness of thought and manners, the reflection of a strong moral and reforming tendency. As early as the reign of William III, Parliament had requested the king to issue proclamations to justices of the peace, instructing them to put in execution the neglected laws against open licentiousness.[184] In 1698, Collier published his "Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage," a powerful and effective protest against the depravity of the drama. At about the same time had been formed the Societies for the Reformation of Manners, which energetically attacked the more flagrant forms of crime. "England, bad as she is," wrote Defoe in 1706, "is yet a reforming nation; and the work has made more progress from the court even to the street, than, I believe, any nation in the world can parallel in such a time and in such circumstances." Toward the middle of the century, these tendencies took effect in the Methodist Revival, a movement destined to exert a profound influence on society. Accompanying this revival, or resulting from it, were many important reforms. The corruption of political life gradually diminished. A new patriotism and unselfishness began to appear in public men. A spirit of philanthropy arose which corrected some of the worst social abuses. Under the leadership of the noble John Howard, the prisons, so long the abandoned haunts of squalor, oppression, and misery, were considerably redeemed from their shameful condition. Beau Nash marked the progress of peaceful and law-abiding habits by formally forbidding the wearing of swords wherever his fashionable authority was recognized. In the fiction of the latter half of the eighteenth century is illustrated a gradual transition of morals and taste from the unbridled coarseness of the century's earlier years to the comparative refinement of our own times.
There lived in Sussex about the time of the Methodist revival, a thriving shopkeeper named Thomas Turner. He had received a good education, and in early life had been a schoolmaster. On reading "Clarissa" he had exclaimed, what would have gladdened the heart of Richardson: "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!" His literary tastes were so pronounced and varied that in the space of six weeks he had read Gray's "Poems," Stewart "On the Supreme Being," the "Whole Duty of Man," "Paradise Lost and Regained," "Othello," the "Universal Magazine," Thomson's "Seasons," Young's "Night Thoughts," Tournefort's "Voyage to the Levant," and "Perigrine Pickle." This scholarly tradesman kept a diary, in which he recorded his thoughts, his studies, and his amusements with a frankness which deserves the thanks of posterity. Some passages of his diary, in their illustration of the combination of licence, coarseness, and moral earnestness characteristic of the writer's time may greatly assist us in appreciating the power and influence of the religious revival.[185]
"I went to the audit and came home drunk. But I think never to exceed the bounds of moderation more. * * * "Sunday, 28th, went down to Jones', where we drank one bowl of punch and two muggs of bumboo; and I came home again in liquor. Oh, with what horrors does it fill my heart, to think I should be guilty of doing so, and on a Sunday, too! Let me once more endeavour, never, no never, to be guilty of the same again. * * * I read part of the fourth volume of the Tatler; the oftener I read it, the better I like it. I think I never found the vice of drinking so well exploded in my life, as in one of the numbers." In January, 1751, "Mr. Elless (the schoolmaster), Marchant, myself, and wife sat down to whist about seven o'clock, and played all night; very pleasant, and I think I may say innocent mirth, there being no oaths nor imprecations sounding from side to side, as is too often the case at cards." February 2, "we supped at Mr. Fuller's, and spent the evening with a great deal of mirth, till between one and two. Tho, Fuller brought my wife home on his back, I cannot say I came home sober, though I was far from being bad company. I think we spent the evening with a great deal of pleasure." March 7th, a party met at Mr. Joseph Fuller's, "drinking," records our diarist, "like horses, as the vulgar phrase is, and singing, till many of us were very drunk, and then we went to dancing, and pulling of wigs, caps, and hats; and thus we continued in this frantic manner, behaving more like mad people than they that profess the name of Christians." Three days after, the same amusements are enjoyed at the house of Mr. Porter, the clergyman of the parish, except "there was no swearing and ill words, by reason of which Mr. Porter calls it innocent mirth, but I in opinion differ much therefrom." Mr. Turner had no great reason to respect the opinion of clergymen on such matters. Soon after, "Mr. ——, the curate of Laughton, came to the shop in the forenoon, and he having bought some things of me (and I could wish he had paid for them), dined with me, and also staid in the afternoon till he got in liquor, and being so complaisant as to keep him company, I was quite drunk. How do I detest myself for being so foolish!" A little later, Mr, Turner attended a vestry meeting, at which "we had several warm arguments, and several vollies of execrable oaths oftentime redounded from almost all parts of the room.