The Age of Tennyson

by Hugh Walker

William Maginn
(1793-1842).

In the year 1830 literature in general, but especially fiction and the more fugitive forms both of verse and prose, received a notable stimulus from the establishment of Fraser’s Magazine. The idea of the magazine originated with William Maginn and a Bohemian acquaintance of his, Hugh Fraser, from whom, and not from the publisher James Fraser, it received its name. Maginn had been a contributor to Blackwood, and partly through his connexions with its staff he soon drew around him a band as brilliant as that of Blackwood itself. Coleridge, Carlyle, Lockhart, Thackeray and Southey were among the early contributors. Theodore Hook, famous for his somewhat coarse but copious and ready wit, also wrote for it. He was at that time one of the most popular of the novelists; but though he could tell a story well he could not draw a character, and it is for impromptu jests and for the clever fun of his articles that he is now remembered. Maginn himself was no mean contributor. He was never the editor of the magazine, but he was one of the most energetic and effective of its staff. Thackeray has immortalised him in Captain Shandon; but if he had the weaknesses of that well-known character he had certainly all his cleverness and more than all his accomplishments. For Maginn’s more serious articles show no inconsiderable learning; while his best humorous articles are simply excellent. Bob Burke’s Duel with Ensign Brady is a model of what the Irish story ought to be. Maginn was helped by others in giving an Irish flavour to the early Fraser. Crofton Croker, author of the Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, was one of his colleagues; and the witty Francis Mahony was another. The famous Reliques of Father Prout first appeared in Fraser.

Men like Theodore Hook and Mahony were however merely the free lances of fiction, and it was Scott who moulded the legitimate novel. It is strange that his great success did not more speedily produce a crop of imitations. A few appeared during the twenties, but Scott’s life was near its close before any writers came forward of calibre sufficient to be called his successors. Of those who had begun to write before 1830, the chief were Bulwer Lytton, Disraeli and Marryat. Two others, worthy of mention though inferior to these, were the prolific but commonplace G. P. R. James and Harrison Ainsworth. All of these men were stimulated by Scott, but the greater ones were more than mere imitators.

Lord Lytton
(1803-1873).

The first Lord Lytton was by baptism Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer. On succeeding to his mother’s estate of Knebworth he became Bulwer Lytton; and in 1866 he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Lytton. The union of politics with fiction is one of the points of contact between him and Disraeli; but while in the case of Disraeli the politician is first and the man of letters second, the order of importance is reversed in the case of Lytton. In politics, Lytton was at the start a Whig, but afterwards attached himself to the Conservative party, and became, under Lord Derby, Colonial Secretary.

Lytton’s literary career began in boyhood with Ismail and other Poems (1820), and it ended only with his death. Perhaps fluency and versatility were his most remarkable characteristics. He distinguished himself as a novelist and as a dramatist, achieved a certain success as a lyric poet, believed that his greatest work was an epic, and attempted criticism and history. He had however the good sense and good taste to leave his historical work, Athens, its Rise and Fall, unfinished on the appearance of the histories of Thirlwall and Grote. It is only as a novelist and dramatist that he demands serious consideration; and in these departments he is the more worthy of attention because he is perhaps the best literary weather-gauge of his time.

Lytton’s first novel was Falkland (1827), which he afterwards called his Sorrows of Werther. It proves his literary affiliation to Byron, and the proof is strengthened by subsequent works. Lytton, who was not proud of the relationship, both thought and said that he had done much to put Byron out of fashion. Possibly he was right, but the kinship is none the less real. The posing and foppery of Pelham are both like and unlike the attitudinising of Byron; and the similarity of the sentimental and romantic criminals, Eugene Aram and Paul Clifford, to the heroes of Byron’s tales is obvious. Moreover, as Lytton once at least, in Pelham, sat for his own portrait, and Byron did so many times, the likeness was recognised as a personal one, so that one of Lytton’s early lady correspondents nicknamed him Childe Harold. Lytton was too sensitive to influences to escape the Byronic fever. But his Byronism is Byronism a little damaged. ‘The Hero as Criminal,’ as presented by him, is a being more sentimental and sickly, less violent and less forcible, but not a whit less dangerous to society, than his Byronic prototype.

Lytton’s excursions into the domains of dandyism and criminality drew down upon him the satire of Carlyle and Thackeray, both sworn foes of affectation, from which Lytton was never free. But in spite of hostile criticism the new novelist had caught the popular taste; and he retained it, perhaps because his own never remained long constant. Shortly after the publication of Eugene Aram (1832) he underwent a marked change, due immediately to a journey to Italy, the influence of which is seen both in the subject and the treatment of The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), and of Rienzi (1835). These, with The Last of the Barons (1843), form a group of historical romances, glittering and clever, but destitute of charm. The strength and the weakness of Lytton is nowhere more easily detected than in these novels. They show abundance of talent, supported by a quality not usually associated with such powers as those of Lord Lytton—indefatigable industry. Yet they fall short of excellence. To say that Lytton’s treatment of history will not bear comparison with Shakespeare’s, or with Scott’s, or with Thackeray’s, is only to say that he is not equal to the greatest masters. But there are other men, markedly inferior to these, who yet overtop Lytton. Such, for instance, is Charles Reade, in his Cloister and the Hearth. What Reade has in common with his greater brethren, and Lytton has not, is the light and shade of life. In Lytton all is polished glittering brilliance. The light is neither the sunlight of common day nor ‘the moonlight of romance,’ but the glare of innumerable gas lamps,—the rays from the footlights to which he was about to betake himself. All the softer shades disappear, and quiet effects are impossible. There is nowhere in these novels, and there is rarely in Lytton’s later works, that atmosphere of a home which we always breathe in the novels of the greater writers.

After the Italian novels Lytton for a time turned his energies to dramatic writing. The fantastic romance of Zanoni (1842) and The Last of the Barons, which followed it, are exceptions. With The Caxtons (1849) we find him entering upon a new period of prose fiction. My Novel (1853) was a sequel to it; and these two are generally ranked with What will He do with It? (1859) as a group devoted to contemporary life. Perhaps Kenelm Chillingly (1873) ought to be added. These novels are altogether mellower than the historical romances, and wholesomer than what may be called the criminal group. To a great extent the theatrical glare has disappeared. It is clear that in writing these novels Lytton was catering for the taste which had been partly indicated and partly created by Dickens and Thackeray. The difference is that, whereas Dickens and Thackeray are habitually in touch with nature, Lytton is so only in moments of inspiration. His true field was not the natural, but rather the fanciful and fantastic. Two of his most successful works are Zanoni, which flings probability to the winds, and The Coming Race (1871), in which the faculty exercised is that of prophecy. In the latter Lytton showed again his extraordinary sensitiveness. Forecasts like The Coming Race have been characteristic of recent literature, and he seems to have divined their approach.

Lytton’s dramas are remarkably like in tone to his novels, and the popularity they have enjoyed has been due to much the same causes. But whereas the novels are overshadowed, in critical opinion at least, and largely even in popularity, the dramas remain what they were when they were written, among the best plays of a non-dramatic age. Not that they can compare in literary merit with even such semi-failures as Browning’s plays, still less with Tennyson’s one great success, Becket. They are melodramatic, and the striving for stage effect is evident; but yet they are interesting and well adapted for representation, and the melodrama is good of its kind. Lytton’s first play, The Duchess de la Vallière, was a failure; but The Lady of Lyons (1838) speedily became, and still remains, a favourite on the stage. It is the best specimen of Lytton’s dramatic work. Attempts have been made to put the prose comedy, Money (1840) above it; but, though effective, Money is very flimsy in construction and characterisation. Lytton’s third drama, Cardinal Richelieu (1838), is like one of the historical novels adapted to the stage; though, curiously enough, it is less meretricious than they are.