The epic of King Arthur is scarcely worthy of mention; but Lytton’s lyrics deserve a few words, if only because they are in danger of being forgotten. They are not original; perhaps indeed it is as echoes that they are most interesting. We have already seen how Lytton appears to veer with every breath of popular taste; and it is curious to detect in a man so different by nature the occasional echo of the pensive reflexion of Arnold, and sometimes even a suggestion of the philosophy of Browning. It will appear hereafter that this faculty proved hereditary and descended to Owen Meredith. Two stanzas from Is it all Vanity? deserve to be quoted, because the modern note sounds so clear in them:
‘Rise, then, my soul, take comfort from thy sorrow;
Thou feel’st thy treasure when thou feel’st thy load;
Life without thought, the day without the morrow,
God on the brute bestow’d;
‘Longings obscure as for a native clime,
Flight from what is to live in what may be,
God gave the Soul;—thy discontent with time
Proves thine eternity.’
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield
(1804-1881).
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, was the man of letters most closely related in spirit and methods to Lytton; but even from the beginning his ambition was for eminence in the state. Political interests and a political purpose are features in his earlier works, and they are the essence of the intermediate novels, Coningsby and Sybil. Disraeli began his career with Vivian Grey, the first part of which was published in 1826, and the second in the following year. He next spent three years in the south of Europe; after which, in the interval between his return and his entrance into Parliament in 1837, came the period of his greatest literary activity. Between 1831 and 1837 there appeared, besides some minor works, five novels,—The Young Duke, Contarini Fleming, The Wondrous Tale of Alroy, Venetia and Henrietta Temple. Parliamentary work checked his pen and profoundly influenced what he did write, as we see in Coningsby (1844), Sybil (1845), and Tancred (1847). After Tancred Disraeli wrote no fiction till Lothair appeared in 1870, followed by the disappointing Endymion (1880).
As literature, Disraeli’s novels are not great, because, using the word in an artistic and not in a moral sense, they are not pure. They are pretentious and unreal, and the rhetoric rings false. The impression of insincerity, conveyed to so many by his statesmanship, is conveyed also by his novels. But notwithstanding all defects, Disraeli’s novels have that interest which must belong to the works of a man who has played a great part in history. They throw light upon his character, they mark the development of his ambition, it may even be said that they have helped to make English history. It is worth remembering that Tancred foretells the occupation of Cyprus; and it is quite consistent with the character of Disraeli to believe that, when the opportunity came, the desire to make his own prophecy come to pass influenced him to add to the British crown one of its most worthless possessions, and to burden it with one of its most intolerable responsibilities, the care of Armenia. Indeed, the most remarkable feature in Disraeli’s novels is the way in which they reflect his life and interpret his statesmanship. The magniloquence, the flash and the glitter of the early novels seem of a piece with the tales current regarding the author’s manners and character, his dress designed to attract attention, and his opinions cut after the pattern of his dress. So in the Coningsby group we are struck with the forecast of the writer’s future political action. His later policy seems to be just the realisation of his earlier dreams.
Impartially considered, these novels, notwithstanding their air of unreality, tell in favour of Disraeli’s sincerity. Many even of his own party believed him to be cynically indifferent to the real effect of his measures, and to aim only at party, and, above all, at personal success. But it ought to be remembered that the originator of Tory democracy was also the leader of Young England. Coningsby, and still more Sybil, advocate the claims of the people to a more careful consideration than they had hitherto received at the hands of government; and their advocacy was no mere passing thought. In the case of Sybil, at least, Disraeli’s views were the outcome of personal observation during a tour in the north of England. When he afterwards declared that sanitation and the social improvement of the working classes were the real task of government, he was only repeating what he had written many years before. Men who knew Disraeli well have said that his most wonderful quality was an almost portentous power of forecast. This is certainly confirmed by his literary works. There are no writings of the century which so distinctly foreshadow the actual course of politics and legislation as this group of Disraeli’s novels.
Of the other men selected as representative of this early period, Ainsworth and James, though younger than Marryat, claim treatment first, because their work is more closely connected with the novels of the preceding period. They were direct imitators of Scott, as Scott himself perceived in the case of Ainsworth at least;[2] and criticism of one side of their work could not be better expressed than in his words. The great novelist compares himself to Captain Bobadil, who trained up a hundred gentlemen to fight very nearly, if not quite, as well as himself. He goes on: ‘One advantage, I think, I still have over all of them. They may do their fooling with a better grace; but I, like Sir Andrew Aguecheek, do it more natural. They have to read old books and consult antiquarian collections to get their knowledge; I write because I have long since read such works, and possess, thanks to a strong memory, the information they have to seek for. This leads to a dragging-in of historical details by head and shoulders, so that the interest of the main piece is lost in minute descriptions of events which do not affect its progress.’
William Harrison Ainsworth
(1805-1882).
Little or nothing need be added about the historical novels of William Harrison Ainsworth. What Scott says is strictly true of The Tower of London (1840), reputed to be Ainsworth’s masterpiece, of Old St. Paul’s (1841), and of St. James’s, or the Court of Queen Anne (1844). The censure is indeed too mildly expressed.
Ainsworth had another side. Like Lytton, he showed a kind of perverse regard for interesting criminals. Rookwood (1834), with its famous description of Turpin’s ride to York, and Jack Sheppard (1839), are studies of the highwayman. The latter was severely criticised as demoralising in tendency, and the censure induced Ainsworth to abandon this species of story.