A History of English Prose Fiction

by Bayard Tuckerman

The resemblance between Johnson's "Rasselas" and Voltaire's "Candide" is so marked, that had either author seen the other's work, he must have been suspected of imitation. But while both these great minds were writing at nearly the same time on the same theme of human misery, the lessons they taught differed in a manner which is strongly illustrative of the differences between the two men and their respective surroundings. French scepticism and distrust of divine power led Voltaire to impute human griefs to the incapacity of the Creator. But Johnson, writing "Rasselas" in an hour of sorrow, to obtain means to pay for his mother's funeral, taught that that happiness, which this world can not afford, should be sought in the prospect of another and a better.[192]

All readers of Boswell know how the "Vicar of Wakefield" found a publisher. How Goldsmith's landlady arrested him for his rent, and how he wrote to Johnson in his distress. How the kind lexicographer sent a guinea at once, and followed to find the guinea already changed, and a bottle of Madeira before the persecuted but philosophical author. How Johnson put the cork in the bottle, and after a hasty glance at the MS. of the "Vicar of Wakefield," went out and sold it for sixty pounds. And how triumphantly Goldsmith rated his landlady.

In the hands of that bookseller, who purchased the novel as much out of charity as in hope of profit, the "Vicar of Wakefield" remained neglected, until the publication of "The Traveler" had made the author famous. This interval would have afforded Goldsmith ample time to correct the obvious inconsistencies and faults which his work contained. But in the spirit of a man who depended on his pen for his bread, he made no effort to improve what had already brought him all this remuneration for which he could hope. This is the more to be regretted, that very little revision would have been sufficient, to make the "Vicar of Wakefield" as perfect in its construction as in its style and spirit. "There are a hundred faults in this thing," says the preface, "and a hundred things might be said to prove them beauties. But it is needless. A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity. The hero of this piece unites in himself the three greatest characters upon earth;—he is a priest, a husbandman, and the father of a family. He is drawn as ready to teach, and ready to obey—as simple in affluence, and majestic in adversity."

These few words are not an inaccurate statement of the merits and demerits of the "Vicar of Wakefield." Faults there are, certainly. The improbability of Sir William Thornhill's being able to go about among his own tenantry incognito, without other disguise than a change of dress; the inconsistency of the philanthropist's allowing his villainous nephew to retain possession of the wealth which he used only to assist him in his crimes; and, finally, the impossibility of that nephew's being so nearly of an age with Sir William himself, when he must have been the son of a younger brother, are all blemishes which Goldsmith might easily have removed, had he not relied on the opinion which he expressed in Chapter xv, "the reputation of books is raised, not by their freedom from defect, but by the greatness of their beauties."

Such a rule would be an obviously dangerous one for an author to follow. But Goldsmith's confidence in the beauties of his novel was fully justified by the verdict of the world. No novelist has more deeply imbued his work with his own genius and spirit, and none have had a more beneficent genius, nor a more beautiful spirit to impart than the author of "The Deserted Village." The exquisite style, the delicate choice of words, the amiability of sentiment, so peculiarly his own, and so well suited to express the simple beauty of his thoughts, give a charm to the work which familiarity can only endear. Dr. Primrose, preserving his simplicity, his modesty, and his nobility of character alike when surrounded by the pleasures of his early and prosperous home, when struggling with the hardships of his ruined fortune, and when rewarded at last by the surfeit of good-fortune which follows his trial, stands high among the most noble conceptions of English fiction. "We read the 'Vicar of Wakefield,'" said the great Sir Walter, "in youth and in age. We return to it again and again, and bless the memory of an author who contrives so well to reconcile us to human nature."

Goethe, when in his eighty-first year, declared that Goldsmith's novel "was his delight at the age of twenty, that it had in a manner formed a part of his education, influencing his tastes and feelings throughout life, and that he had recently read it again from beginning to end, with renewed delight, and with a grateful sense of the early benefit derived from it." "Rogers, the Nestor of British literature, whose refined purity of taste and exquisite mental organization rendered him eminently calculated to appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of all the books, which, through the fitful changes of three generations he had seen rise and fall, the charm of the 'Vicar of Wakefield' had alone continued as at first; and could he revisit the world after an interval of many more generations, he should as surely look to find it undiminished." So wrote Washington Irving; and if the reader is inclined to look for the causes of the extraordinary endurance of Goldsmith's work, he can find them nowhere better stated than in the words of John Forster: "Not in those graces of style, nor even in that home-cherished gallery of familiar faces can the secret of its extraordinary fascination be said to consist. It lies nearer the heart. A something which has found its way there; which, while it amused, has made us happier; which, gently interweaving itself with our habits of thought, has increased our good-humour and charity; which, insensibly it may be, has corrected wilful impatiences of temper, and made the world's daily accidents easier and kinder to us all; somewhat thus should be expressed, I think, the charm of the 'Vicar of Wakefield.'"

In 1760 was published "Chrysal, the Adventures of a Guinea," by Charles Johnstone, the author of several deservedly forgotten novels.[193] The first volume was sent to Dr. Johnson for his opinion, who thought, as Boswell tells us, that it should be published—an estimate justified by the considerable circulation which the book enjoyed.

Chrysal is an elementary spirit, whose abode is in a piece of gold converted into a guinea. In that form the spirit passes from man to man, and takes accurate note of the different scenes of which it becomes a witness. This is a natural and favorable medium for a satire, which Johnstone probably owed, in some measure, both to the "Diable Boiteux" of Gil Blas, and the "Adventures of a Halfpenny" of Dr. Bathurst. The circulation of the guinea enables the author to describe the characteristics of its possessors as seen by a truthful witness, and he has taken advantage of his opportunity to produce one of the most disgusting records of vice in literature. A depraved mind only could find any pleasure in reading "Chrysal," and whoever is obliged to read it from cover to cover for the purpose of describing it to others, must find himself, at the end of his task, in sore vexation of spirit. Human depravity is never an agreeable subject for a work of entertainment, and while Swift's genius holds the reader fascinated with the horror of his Yahoos, the ability of a Manley or a Johnstone is not sufficient to aid the reader in wading through their vicious expositions of corruption. It must be said that Johnstone had some excuse. If he were to satirize society at all, it was better that he should do it thoroughly; that he should expose official greed and dishonesty, the orgies of Medenham Abbey, the infamous extortions of trading justices, in all their native ugliness. It must be said that the time in which he lived presented many features to the painter of manners which could not look otherwise than repulsive on his canvas. But his zeal to expose the vices of his age led him into doing great injustice to some persons, and into grossly libelling others. He imputed crimes to individuals of which he could have had no knowledge; and he shamefully misrepresented the Methodists and the Jews. If Johnstone had wished to see how offensive a book he might write, and how disgusting and indecent a book the public of his day would read and applaud, he might well have brought "Chrysal" into the world. If he had intended, by exposing crime, to check it, he had better have burned his manuscript. He has added one other corruption to those he exposed, and one other evidence of the lack of taste and decency which characterized his time. No man can plead the intention of a reformer as an excuse for placing before the world the scenes and suggestions of unnatural crime which sully the pages of "Chrysal," and if men do, in single instances, fall below the level of brutes, he who gloats over their infamy and publishes their contagious guilt deserves some share of their odium.

The novels of Henry Mackenzie have a charm of their own, which may be largely attributed to the fact that their author was a gentleman. Whoever has read, to any extent, the works of fiction of the eighteenth century, must have observed how perpetually he was kept in low company, how rarely he met with a character who had the instincts as well as the social position of a gentleman. A tone of refined sentiment and dignity pervades "The Man of Feeling," which recalls the "Vicar of Wakefield," and introduces the reader to better company and more elevated thoughts than the novels of the time usually afford. "The Man of Feeling" is hardly a narrative. Harley, the chief character, is a sensitive, retiring man, with feelings too fine for his surroundings. The author places him in various scenes, and traces the effect which each produces upon his character. The effect of the work is agreeable, though melancholy, and the early death of Harley completes the delineation of a man too gentle and too sensitive to battle with life.

In his next novel Mackenzie described the counterpart of Harley, "The Man of the World." Almost any writer of the present day who took a man of the world for his hero, would draw him as a calm, philosophical person, neither very good nor very bad,—one who took the pleasures and troubles of life as they came, without quarrelling with either. But the man of the world as Mackenzie paints him, and as the eighteenth century made him, was quite another individual. Sir Thomas Sindall is a villain of the heroic type. Not one, simply, who does all the injury and commits all the crimes which chance brings in his way. He labors with a ceaseless persistency, and a resolution which years do not diminish, to seduce a single woman. Without any apparent passion, he finally accomplishes his object by force, after having spent several years in ruining her brother to prevent his interference. The long periods of time, the great expenditure of vital energy, and the exhaustless fund of brutality which are consumed by the fictitious villains of the eighteenth century in gratifying what would seem merely a passing inclination, astonish the reader of to-day. The crime of rape, rarely now introduced into fiction, and rarely figuring even in criminal courts, is a common incident in old novels, and as commonly, remains unpunished. In Sir Thomas Sindall, Mackenzie meant to present a contrast to the delicate and benevolent character of Harley. Both are extremes, the one of sensibility, the other of brutality. Harley was a new creation, but Sindall quite a familiar person, with whom all readers of the novels of the last century have often associated.